Jump to content

Does anyone believes that Arya would get a happy ending?


Masha

Recommended Posts

I don't know if its been discussed before, and I know she is mine (and probably most of people here) one of the most favorite characters in the book. But the way her storyline been going and the way she has been damaged, I sincerely doubt that she would have any sort of happy ending.



Even if everyone's dreams for Stark return come true, Starks regain the North and Winterfell is rebuild, I don't think Arya can come back and be what she was - a highborn Lady with all responsibilities and duties that comes with it. At worst, she would be an embarassment to the family - a wild, damaged, fallen girl - even to the sensibilities of the North (not counting the South). I don't see any future for her. I doubt she would marry anyone, I doubt she would be a loyal retainer, I doubt she can be someone like Brianne.



She is a stone cold killer, with almost no morality or sense of self left. The only thing she retains from her former identity is Needle and only as tools for revenge=murder. While I root for her, I find her very disturbing as she murders people who have done nothing bad to her - her target for FM, Daeron... and she doesn't realize the morality of her act.



What do you think would happen if she encounters - Jon, Sansa, Bran or Rickon again?



Will she attack or hug, or try to kill herself, become unresponsive or walk away?



I think for her the "happy ending" would be to clear out her "nighttime" list and see her Stark siblings regain the North and she would simply walk away. If GRRM would keep true to his portrayals of characters, she would not have a happy reunion and become "old Arya" again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if its been discussed before, and I know she is mine (and probably most of people here) one of the most favorite characters in the book. But the way her storyline been going and the way she has been damaged, I sincerely doubt that she would have any sort of happy ending.

Even if everyone's dreams for Stark return come true, Starks regain the North and Winterfell is rebuild, I don't think Arya can come back and be what she was - a highborn Lady with all responsibilities and duties that comes with it. At worst, she would be an embarassment to the family - a wild, damaged, fallen girl - even to the sensibilities of the North (not counting the South). I don't see any future for her. I doubt she would marry anyone, I doubt she would be a loyal retainer, I doubt she can be someone like Brianne.

She is a stone cold killer, with almost no morality or sense of self left. The only thing she retains from her former identity is Needle and only as tools for revenge=murder. While I root for her, I find her very disturbing as she murders people who have done nothing bad to her - her target for FM, Daeron... and she doesn't realize the morality of her act.

What do you think would happen if she encounters - Jon, Sansa, Bran or Rickon again?

Will she attack or hug, or try to kill herself, become unresponsive or walk away?

I think for her the "happy ending" would be to clear out her "nighttime" list and see her Stark siblings regain the North and she would simply walk away. If GRRM would keep true to his portrayals of characters, she would not have a happy reunion and become "old Arya" again.

Really weird to see people having such issues with Arya growing up to be a killer. Like the majority of the people in the books.

But where did you ever get the idea that an older Arya would give a shit about what anyone thinks about her actions. Let alone kill herself because of them

A Happy ending is simply living and retaining her agency. Anything after that is just a plus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have not thought she is going to have a happy ending for quite some time now. She is in league with some dangerous people.



The only hope I would hold out for her, is GRRM's parallel's he likes to write. We know that she is a lot like Lyanna but her arc is definitely going in a different direction. I try to think positively about her charachter, but the more we see the more less likely a "happy ending" it is going to be.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really weird to see people having such issues with Arya growing up to be a killer. Like the majority of the people in the books.

But where did you ever get the idea that an older Arya would give a shit about what anyone thinks about her actions. Let alone kill herself because of them

A Happy ending is simply living and retaining her agency. Anything after that is just a plus.

I felt the same way too....however...

I think the reason people feel this way is how very un-empathetic and ruthless she has become. Revenge is one thing, but when you can kill and feel happy about it?.....the Hound even broke down while speaking with her about all of the people he has killed. Maybe she is not completely emotionally damaged, but I am starting to think otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can hope.



It strikes me as very reasonable for Arya to return to Westeros and join and lead the Brotherhood without Banners organization. Under her (and maybe even Gendry's!) guidance, the organization becomes a check on the power of the nobility, an organization the commoners can turn to for redress against people to powerful to otherwise face justice.



Regardless, there are a handful of people who love her, and would help her heal from the trauma she's endured. Sansa and Bran obviously top this list. Jon would as well, but he has his own obligations.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can hope.

It strikes me as very reasonable for Arya to return to Westeros and join and lead the Brotherhood without Banners organization. Under her (and maybe even Gendry's!) guidance, the organization becomes a check on the power of the nobility, an organization the commoners can turn to for redress against people to powerful to otherwise face justice.

Regardless, there are a handful of people who love her, and would help her heal from the trauma she's endured. Sansa and Bran obviously top this list. Jon would as well, but he has his own obligations.

I agree with the OP intro that Arya has, and continues to be, one of my top 5 characters in the series. However, with that being said after Season 1 opener and the closing act where she got quite a bit of enjoyment out of killing the two Lannister men....I just don't see her having a happy ending.

Her and Sansa never seem to have a great relationship so I'm not sure if Sansa would come running to her rescue...especially if she found out about the carnage that lie in Arya's wake. As for Bran, I suppose he could lend a hand (make that a limb or a branch) once she gets back into Westeros. Jon, offers the best prospect IMHO of providing her assistance; but right now he has his hands full at the Wall and his future is somewhat cloudy (and no, I don't think he is dead).

My guess....and this is strictly a guess....is that her best possible scenario is to roam the forests of Westeros with Nymeria.

But like you....I can hope for the best.

Edited: grammer and spelling correction

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What do you think would happen if she encounters - Jon, Sansa, Bran or Rickon again?

I don't know. But I do think we'll find out.

I also predict she will survive the series.

Whether she has a happy ending... well, not like Buttercup from The Princess Bride, that's for sure. I expect she'll be happier than Walder Frey, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know. But I do think we'll find out.

I also predict she will survive the series.

Whether she has a happy ending... well, not like Buttercup from The Princess Bride, that's for sure. I expect she'll be happier than Walder Frey, though.

Whoa an Arya survival prediction!

Details details :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree that there is no 'happy' ending for Arya. A little girl who has killed, or been directly responsible, for the deaths of about a dozen people (including weasel soup) before the age of 13 is not going to end up being a stable adult.



I think she will end up on the Quiet Isle with the Hound in the order of the quiet monks, or else be a septa in some other cut off from humanity order. Where Jon Snow will be allowed to visit her every name day.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arya survives - who is going to kill her at this stage? She is a water dancer and a mostly faceless woman - she is growing into adolescence, and as painful/awkward as the Mercy chapter was to read, she is only growing more dangerous and aware as she ages.



I don't think she is completely lost, and she is definitely not suicidal. This is a world where killing, especially if remotely in self-defense, is not the same as it is in the modern world. Sure, the Hound breaks down a bit - but he is dealing with some larger issues than even Arya - his own brother is the one who mutilated him, and probably killed their sister. His is a deformed monster (in appearance), that has accompanied and enabled Joffrey for many years. He is treated like a dog, and he associated with a dog to the point of wearing a Hound helm. He has killed hundreds of people, not a handful (or two handfuls at this point for Arya). And he never never never had a chance of any kind of actual family relationship - whereas Arya still has a chance at reuniting with Sansa, Rickon, Bran and Jon, and also Nymeria, Shaggydog and Summer.



I think Arya returns to Westeros at some point, especially if rumors reach her that RIckon or Bran or Sansa are still alive. Warg dreams become more immediate the closer she is to Nymeria, and she becomes the she-wolf of her own Brotherhood without Banners - the wolf pack. You think Varamyr looked like a badass rolling into a conflict with a couple wolves, a shadow cat and a bear? How about rolling in with Nymeria and her battalion of cousins?


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Arya has been, at once, one of the most appealing characters, and one of the most frightening. From early on, from the moment of her fateful confrontation with Joffrey, her story has been about vengeance and death. She is, literally, obsessed with thoughts of vengeance, and I believe we've seen her directly and deliberately kill more often than any other character.



I can imagine her surviving the end of the story, though I don't think that's most likely. But I can't imagine her finding happiness in what she, or we, would consider a normal adult life.



Her identity seems very much defined by her relationships with Sansa and with Jon Snow. Jon, like Arya, has forsworn a conventional life; Sansa seems fated to achieve a "conventional" success, to become a queen as she once dreamed, though the reality of it will be more bittersweet than she could have imagined. I suspect that the fate of Jon and Arya will be closely linked, in a tragedy of sacrifice and vengeance, with Sansa to mourn both.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

For Arya I would hope a surviving & good ending, yet I can see her going down in a bittersweet way to save the day.



I see her dying with the hands of Jon going through her hair as she has wished for since she left for KL back in a GoT.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

GRRM promised his wife that Arya would survive, I believe. I think she is his wife's favorite character! I think Arya will become something extremely powerful... And I don't think she is a cold blooded killer.. I think she seeks justice... I think she symbolizes justice and karma in the book, and I believe she will get it. She is just a child now, but she has a much wiser soul than all of the other people in the book. I mean all of them. She knows that she can never go back to being Ned's lil girl. She never really questions that and she is willing to sacrifice herself in order to learn how to bring those people she hates to justice. I really hope I'm right... I


Link to comment
Share on other sites

GRRM promised his wife that Arya would survive, I believe. I think she is his wife's favorite character! I think Arya will become something extremely powerful... And I don't think she is a cold blooded killer.. I think she seeks justice... I think she symbolizes justice and karma in the book, and I believe she will get it. She is just a child now, but she has a much wiser soul than all of the other people in the book. I mean all of them. She knows that she can never go back to being Ned's lil girl. She never really questions that and she is willing to sacrifice herself in order to learn how to bring those people she hates to justice. I really hope I'm right... I

He did not promise. Parris promised to make him sleep on the couch if he killed Arya. That's not the same thing. Also, Arya was her favourite character almost 15 years ago. We don't know if she still loves Arya as much as she did. I still love Arya, but not all the posters here feel the same. Maybe George is doing an end run to make his wife give the green light.

At this stage I will just be happy if Arya survives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reading all the replies, I am wondering if there is something wrong with my moral sense. The only time I was disturbed about Arya's actions was when she seduced Raff in Mercy, and that was because she was too young. I believe she did the right thing killing all those men. Weasel soup wasnt her idea, and Amory & co deserved to die anyway.



The fact that she kills people who did no harm to her shows her sense of justice, not lack of morality. I could empathise with her anger towards Dareon, especially after Sam's chapter which showed what a pervert Dareon was. Also remember that she is a daughter of Winterfell, who grew up hearing that nightwatch deserters deserve death. She just did what her father would have done.



The part where Arya killing Tickler in SoS is one of my favorite scenes of the entire series. I am not a supporter of capital punishment in real world, but in Westeros, its a different matter.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reading all the replies, I am wondering if there is something wrong with my moral sense.

I don't think so. There's something like suspension of disbelief, in which we adjust our moral standards to the tone the author hints we should expect. That's not an objective process, nor a simple one -- many authors deliberately surprise our expectations, and make us question our assumptions about characters or our acceptance of social conventions or narrative conventions. GRRM cultivates ambiguity and moral complexity, so I don't think it would be fair to assume that there's only one way to respond to the actions of the characters. So I'm talking about my reaction to Arya's character arc, with a hunch that I'm reacting about as GRRM intended for a reader to react. I can't be certain that GRRM intended my sort of reaction, nor is a reader obligated to react as GRRM intended.

That said, it's not that I ever felt that Arya's actions were ever quite unjustified, though there is a range. But I do feel that there is something profoundly unsettling, that we've seen Arya deliberately kill, more often than we've seen any other character kill. And by that, I mean we know their names, we know how Arya decided to kill them, we know how they died. Compare that to, say, Robb Stark -- we know he was effective in combat, but it was all off-stage, and we don't know how many people he actually killed directly, nor who they were exactly. And much of the reason it's unsettling is that I like Arya Stark. Just imagine how Jon Snow would react if she told him what had happened to her and what she'd done. I think he would weep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think she is justified in all of her actions. I was uncomfortable reading her seducing Raff, but I had to remember that she was wearing Mercy's face, not hers.

She reminds me of Drogon, the black dragon, in a lot of ways. Drogon is the biggest and most vicious of the dragons and so is Nymeria/Arya of her siblings.

I love the idea that Bran, Arya and Jon will warg into the dragons to assist Dany, who is A A reborn and the dragon rider. I know there is a rumored 4th dragon so maybe Rickon plays a part there since both he and that dragon are somewhat isolated. I know, I know... total crackpot theory. But, if it's so, then that's a happy enough ending for me, even of she dies warging a dragon, haha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...