Gwendoline Christie: Sansa turned Brienne down to keep Brienne safe

One of the highlights of this past Sunday’s episode was seeing two separate plots crash headlong into each other, as Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) and Podrick Payne accidentally stumbled across Sansa Stark after looking for her for the better part of last season. We’ve had characters meet up before at the Inn at the Crossroads, but never quite so explosively.  By the time the encounter is over, Brienne has taken out several of Littlefinger’s entourage in a fight scene that was reportedly a nightmare to film. And although Littlefinger and Sansa ride away, Brienne sees where they’re headed and decides to follow.

But why does she follow? As Pod points out, both Stark girls have refused her protection. Technically, she’s free of the oath she made to Catelyn Stark back in Season 2, and yet she decides she needs to follow Sansa to wherever Littlefigner is taking her. Why?

As Christie explains to EW in an interview, it’s in part due to something we can’t see in this moment:

“Brienne kneels before Sansa in an exact mimic of the oath she made to Catelyn Stark,” Christie says. “And Sansa says, ‘No.’ But in the script, it says there’s the tiniest look in Sansa’s eyes. The script says the look is telling Brienne: ‘Get the f–k out of Dodge.’”

Has Sansa learned enough from Littlefinger that’s she’s started to plot her own course? After all, as Littlefinger notes, she has become “an observant young lady.” Christie certainly thinks so, and suggests that Sansa’s rejection of Brienne’s offer of help was intended to keep Brienne safe from Littlefinger.

“We can be romantic about it and say that, in that moment, maybe there’s a connection, some part Catelyn that’s within Sansa, that’s trying to help me, to urge me on,” Christie says.

This certainly jives with what episode director Michael Slovis said to The Hollywood Reporter when asked about that scene. “Everybody had an agenda in that. You had to make it clear what each person’s cause celebre was. Nobody is really saying what they mean in that scene.”

Littlefinger’s goons did try to run Brienne down pretty shortly after this scene, although you could argue that Brienne brought that on herself by making such a hasty, violent exit. In any case, it seems unlikely that Brienne would have lasted long in Littlefinger’s company. He clearly didn’t want her there, so a warning from Sansa to beat it was probably well-founded.

Is Brienne reading Sansa right? Has Sansa learned enough to know that trusting Littlefinger will put her head at risk, just like it once did her father? Was Brienne right to follow Sansa, even after the verbal rejection?

• Published on 04/21/2015 at 9:30 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT