When you find yourselves in bed with an ugly woman, best close your eyes and get it over with.
-Petyr Baelish, 1x05
What follows is my personal headcanon. I really hope the show goes in this direction.
When Sansa agreed to marry Ramsay, she had to have known that sex was going to be involved. Baelish told her to seduce him, and when she found out what a violent perv Ramsay was, she decided that what he really wanted was another passive toy he could break, the way he broke Theon.
So maybe it's not a coincidence that this happened in an episode titled "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken." What I mean by that is that she's still Alayne, the clever manipulator, pretending to be Sansa, the weak and helpless little girl.
Let me be clear here: I'm not saying that Sansa was a willing participant in that final scene. Ramsay raped her. But what if she played up the helpless victim angle because she knew that would make him underestimate her later? In other words, she had to give him what he wanted, but she chose how to give it to him?
When Myranda is bathing Alayne and throwing out all those little anecdotes about Ramsay's previous bedware, Alayne retorts that she's Sansa Stark and Myranda can't scare her. She has to know that Myranda's going to tell Ramsay this, and she has to know that it's likely, given what she knows about Ramsay, that Myranda's telling the truth. That look that she gives the mirror at the end of that scene: is it her acknowledging that she's much more afraid than she told Myranda she was, or is that Alayne settling into the Sansa The Helpless Victim Role that Ramsay expects?
After the wedding, she could have hidden a dagger up her sleeve, and what would that have gotten her? She and Theon might be able to overpower Ramsay (guy waded into battle against the Ironborn shirtless, so I dunno...), but even assuming they did, what's the next step? They'd get caught, and Roose Bolton would flay her slowly. Winter's coming, and whatever else he is, Littlefinger's smart enough not pull a Napoleon and invade a giant country in wintertime; once the snow starts falling, Sansa becomes disposable. Besides, Roose has another heir on the way, so killing Ramsay wouldn't get her the revenge on House Bolton she wants. She can fight House Bolton, in which case she might preserve her virginity but lose everything else, piece by bloody piece, or she can join it - at a terrible cost - and then tear it apart from the inside.
(It's interesting to note in passing that Book!Daenerys had to give up her sexual autonomy for political gain right around this time when she was pressured into marrying Harzoo. Her show counterpart is much more proactive on that front; are they dumping part of Book!Dany's characterization onto Show!Sansa?)
So I think it's possible that we'll see an outward projection of weakness going forward - the Sansa Stark we all know and
As I started developing this fantasy, I found myself asking why Alayne didn't pretend to be freakishly into it the way Myranda is; the answer I came up with is that Alayne's not into it. It's easier for her to cry than to smile because the former is more in line with her actual feelings. Besides, it's pretty obvious once That Scene starts that Ramsay wants to exert power, not have mutually enjoyable kinky sex. (Also because Myranda's apparently as kinky as Ramsay, and a Myranda clone would probably bore him.)
BTW one thing I didn't address in my other That Sansa Scene post was the question of how the hell old Sansa's supposed to be at this point. Because there was criticism there that the character's only like 15 or something at this point. Yeah, and Book!Robb was a king at 14, with an heir on the way. Book!Jon's the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at 16. Book!Margaery's the same age as Robb and Jon, meaning she married Renly at 15 and Joffrey at 16. "Underage" has a different meaning today than it does in Westeros.
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