Re: Game of Thrones 4.6 - "The Laws of Gods and Men" - Rate and discus
I think this was the first episode of the entire series in which we didn't see any of the Starks.
Also, a minor nitpick: During the trial, I thought I heard multiple references to Sansa as "Sansa Stark". Isn't she Sansa Lannister now?
No. She was never "Sansa Lannister" to begin with.
Women in Westeros don't necessarily take their husband's name - or may not use it at all, if their family is more prestigious than their husband's, or on the same level of prestige. In addition to this, Sansa would never call herself "Sansa Lannister"; other people don't identify her as one of the Lannisters, but one of the Starks, since everyone knows it was a forced marriage and that she was a hostage; and the Lannisters themselves wouldn't have had an incentive to call her a Lannister, when her Starkness is what gave them the claim to Winterfell, which is what they wanted from her - and now they have even less incentive to call her Lannister, when she has escaped and is accused of murdering Joffrey (again something related to her Starkness).
In the books, nobody ever called Sansa "Sansa Lannister" or "Lady Lannister" except one (anti-Lannister) character when he was specifically trying to dismiss her as the heir to Winterfell (since most of Westeros believes that all her brothers are dead) because it served his agenda.
Even in less extreme cases, married women from the great houses tend to be called by their maiden name (more so in the books than in the show). But I think that even in the show, Cersei is always Cersei Lannister, and Margaery is always Margaery Tyrell. Princess Elia is also always called Elia Martell in the books, and there's a Lannister aunt in the books who's married to a Frey and nobody ever calls her "_ Frey" (that one goes without saying). On the other hand, Selyse is often called Selyse Baratheon (though I think they also call her Florent at some point) and Olenna gets Olenna Tyrell and Olenna Redwyne, IIRC, but their families are less prestigious than their husband's. When it comes to the great houses, the exception are the Tully women - Catelyn gets called both Catelyn Tully and Catelyn Stark in the books, and Lysa gets Lysa Arryn more often than Lysa Tully (however, she is NEVER called Lysa Baelish), but the Tullys are arguably less prestigious than the Starks and the Arryns (as the Tullys were never kings in their own right before the Targaryen conquest) and besides, Catelyn strongly identifies with her Stark identity as much as she does with her Tully identity; while Lysa rules in the Vale, so it makes sense for her to be called "Arryn".
