Did Game of Thrones just establish a new heir to the throne?

OK, so if you’re a fan of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ you’re no doubt still exhausted from Monday’s Battle of the Bastard (s6, ep9), but has the show just given us our newest ruler of the Seven Kingdoms?

***Warning: Season six spoiler discussion to follow***

Over the course of its six season, ‘Game of Thrones’ has explored this very notion in a variety of ambiguous and historically detailed ways. In truth, we’re still very much debating - as are a number of characters within R.R. Martin’s fantasy world - who the rightful King is. Others are retracing the rich history that precedes the show and forging some sort of conclusion based on that.

Yet within the show we’ve learnt that while Joffrey and current King Tommen aren’t rightful rulers because they’re no relation to Robert Baratheon, even he wasn’t the true heir to the throne because he essentially stole it from The Mad King (Daenerys’ father) who in turn became King after his Targaryen family name had ruled for three centuries.

But back to the point in hand. We’ve seen plenty of contenders over the seasons: Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon, and a continued pursuit from Daenerys herself, but after last week’s Battle of the Bastards it dawned on me that I’d overlooked one key player who has come a helluva long way since season one: Sansa Stark.

Establishing the true heir to the throne is a contentious thing - hell, even Littlefinger’s got desires on the crown - but in Sansa we’ve seen her morph into the most hardened, merciless, compassionate, and smart woman and possible ruler. And why not? When King Robert died (or more specifically murdered by Cersi) and his children exposed as products of incest, it was Ned Stark’s duty to assume power, but that was cruelly swiped away by the Lannisters. With Robb and Rickon dead, Bran AWOL (and his fate undetermined), Jon Snow’s in no real position to assume the crown (unless we learn he is, as speculation goes, the offspring of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen).

Sansa’s now the eldest living Stark (assuming we can discount her Uncle Benjen who is Ned’s younger, also AWOL brother and is simply part of the Stark family tree) and we are beginning to see the impact she’s having on the fate of the Seven Kingdoms; notably her winning efforts to call in the Knights of the Vale to save Jon and the Wildling army from annihilation at the hands of Ramsay Bolton.

As we see her strategical wits when advising Jon on battle tactics (which he foolishly ignores) and as she talks down to Ramsay in pre-battle discussion, the moment of realisation that Sansa would make a fine Queen is when she calmly walks away from Ramsay’s brutal death at the hands of his own hounds, and gives us the faintest of smirks. That’s the strength of a Queen, that’s who Westeros will bow to by the end of it all. We have, after all, just witnessed Daenerys Targaryen and Yara Greyjoy unite to strengthen the formidable, emerging female force in contention for the throne, so why not get Sansa involved too?

Do you agree that Sansa could rule the Seven Kingdoms? Who else seems more likely to? Share your thoughts in the comments…

Mike P Williams is a freelance TV, film and entertainment writer, with an obsession for all things Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park and Pixar. Over the years he’s written for the likes of MTV, Total Film, BuzzFeed, and Yahoo Movies UK.

Picture credits: HBO