Now that Game of Thrones has (sniffle) come to an end, we’re all honestly a bit emotional about seeing it all draw to a close.
So is Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) herself, who saw her time in the show end this past Sunday (May 19) as well. Following the finale, Turner took to Instagram with a heartwarming thank you to the character she’s portrayed for nearly a decade. Be forewarned: you’re going to need to ready some tissues.
Warning: This post contains major spoilers for the series finale of Game of Thrones.
Taking to Instagram, Turner posted a photo that gathered the entirety of the Game of Thrones cast posing as one big happy family. She thanked Stark, the newly-crowned Queen of the North, for all that the character gave her over the course of filming the show.
“Sansa, thank you for teaching me resilience, bravery, and what true strength really is. Thank you teaching me to be kind and patient and to lead with love,” wrote Turner. “I grew up with you. I fell in love with you at 13 and now 10 years on…at 23 I leave you behind, but I will never leave behind what you’ve taught me. To the show and the incredible people who make it, thank you for giving me the best life and drama lessons I could have ever asked for. Without you, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. Thank you for giving me this chance all those years ago. And finally to the fans. Thank you for falling in love with these characters and supporting this show right through till the end. I’ll miss this more than anything.”
We know how important playing Sansa has been for Sophie for some time, especially with the tattoo she got to commemorate the show. Sophie chose a direwolf with the words “The pack survives.” written directly below it on her arm.
As it turns out…yeah, actually, the pack (the Starks) did survive, at the very end of it all. All of the remaining Stark children were left alive at the end of the show, and while Turner denied it being anything to do with the show’s story, saying it was a “motto she lived by.”
“Yeah, actually, while I was getting it done, people advised me not to because it looked like I was giving everything away, but I wasn’t,” Turner explained at the time. “It’s just a quote from last season. But everyone figures the pack really does survive, but it’s just a moral that I like to live by.”
But as it turned out, she was kind of giving things away even if we didn’t realize it at the time. Honestly, we’re just glad to see Queen Sansa living her best life at the end of it all. If there’s one character who got the ending she deserved it was our sweet little Stark who ended up outliving her tormentors. Now that’s a good way to go out.
