Game of Thrones begins....

[Admiral Yi]

She has two assets she could have tried to leverage if she had stayed in the Vale: the Stark name and knowledge that Littlefinger offed Queen Breast Feed.

[LaCroix]

She has two assets she could have tried to leverage if she had stayed in the Vale: the Stark name and knowledge that Littlefinger offed Queen Breast Feed.

okay, but then she'd be in the vale. right now, the vale isn't useful. there's plenty of time for show sansa to return to the vale, fresh with revenge and hating littlefinger for selling her down the river. that would be more interesting than seeing littlefinger molest sansa for eight episodes as he jerks off over his schemes. we've already had quite a lot of that without needing more.

[Eddie Teach]

They wouldn't need to show her more than once or twice to establish that she's ensconced in the Vale. We just went through an entire season without Bran, and hardly anyone complained.

[LaCroix]

They wouldn't need to show her more than once or twice to establish that she's ensconced in the Vale. We just went through an entire season without Bran, and hardly anyone complained.

bran's morphing into a tree. he's allowed time to disappear. sansa doesn't really have that luxury. after all, she's still a stark kid, and they've always been given unique priority. plus, sansa served a purpose by forging an alliance between littlefinger and the boltons, which could have a pretty big effect later down the road. and dorne was kinda a mess this season; we didn't need another dorne.

[The Minsky Moment]

Has he ever actually read the Iliad?

It's been a while but I recall lots and lots of graphic descriptions of people getting various body parts impaled by spears.  And a core plot point being a spat over a stolen captive slave girl.

IIRC the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter to get good weather isn't in there exactly but it does appear in various other literature.

[Eddie Teach]

bran's morphing into a tree. he's allowed time to disappear. sansa doesn't really have that luxury. after all, she's still a stark kid, and they've always been given unique priority. plus, sansa served a purpose by forging an alliance between littlefinger and the boltons, which could have a pretty big effect later down the road. and dorne was kinda a mess this season; we didn't need another dorne.

Rickon's a Stark kid too. 

[LaCroix]

Rickon's a Stark kid too. 

i figured he'd come up, except he's not even really a character in either the books or the show. you've seen mad men's bobby. you know how these things work.

[Martinus]

They wouldn't need to show her more than once or twice to establish that she's ensconced in the Vale. We just went through an entire season without Bran, and hardly anyone complained.

I suspect the deal with either of the actors is different.

[Eddie Teach]

I suspect the deal with either of the actors is different.

I don't think either actor has all that much bargaining power.

[Martinus]

Well, I'm glad they made Sansa stand in for Jayne Poole, rather than introducing yet another character. This season has been all about convergence of different characters (Jon + Stannis/Melissandre/Davos; Sansa + Theon/Ramsay; Danny/Jorah + Tyrion/Varys etc.) and it did a great job of it - in fact where it relatively floundered (Dorne) was where it also kept introducing new characters.

[Eddie Teach]

Jeyne Poole didn't need to be there either. This season has also been about cutting stuff out(Quentyn Martell, Aegon, dwarf jousting, etc). We already know Ramsay's a shitheel, so the episode's only real purpose is to begin a redemptive arc for Theon.

[Martinus]

You need a Jayne Poole to begin the redemptive arc for Theon - so it is much better to have it be Sansa and this way also give her screen time (and simultaneously give Brienne, Littlefinger, Pod and a few other characters something to do) than to spend time on Theon's redemptive arc while giving Sansa two scenes in a season to show her doing nothing.

The point is that by giving Theon and Sansa shared screen time, their time becomes greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak, if they were given the same time separately.

Frankly, your view on this is mind boggling to me.

[Eddie Teach]

If a character is important enough to need screen time, she's important enough to act in character and not be thrown somewhere just to serve another character's needs.

[LaCroix]

show sansa has done exactly the same as book sansa. wait, show sansa actually has done more because at least she can pick a lock. 

[Martinus]

show sansa has done exactly the same as book sansa. wait, show sansa actually has done more because at least she can pick a lock. 

Yeah, my point exactly. People want the story to give Sansa agency but they are mad she escapes from an oppressive situation (admittedly with another person's help) instead of sitting on her ass in a golden cage kind of situation.