Is Arya on her way to becoming a female Sandor?

[OldGimletEye]

The reason she wanted to kill him, though, is because he was a deserter of The Night's Watch. I'm not sure that I can recall Arya ever killing anyone just for being an obnoxious asshole. It seems to take more than asshattery to get Arya to kill.

This appears to be true. If obnoxious assholery were enough for Arya to kill, then poor ol Sandor would probably be dead.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

This appears to be true. If obnoxious assholery were enough for Arya to kill, then poor ol Sandor would probably be dead.

Yeah, it seems being an asshole doesn't put someone on Arya's list, either. Could you imagine that? She'd never finish her damn prayers.

[DogLover]

There is one thing that makes a huge difference in their respective formative experiences.

Sandor was harmed by his own family, not only by Gregor but by his own father who just covered it up. This is not a detail; it is very significant in pushing Sandor into the belief that everyone is for him/herself against the world, that the world is made for the strong and either you become strong or you "deserve" to die for being weak.

On the contrary, Arya's family is always with her, even when she thinks they are all dead. Their memory follows her everywhere and if this wasn't enough already, there is always Nymeria. Arya has a very knightly mindset (even if some would describe it as distorted), that the strong have a duty to protect the weak and that they deserve to die if they do the opposite. This is evident in her thought process involving her kills, too (Dareon for abandoning his companions, the insurance man for cheating on widows and orphans), when she told the KOM that the first FM should kill the masters, not the slaves etc.

They do have some things in common, but the differences are a lot more significant.

I definitely agree with this in a sense--it's a significant difference between the two. Very much so. Yet I feel the similarities are equally significant. Sandor and Arya share the same emotional state when they first cross paths and during their journey together. It isn't until they separate that Arya continues on a very dark path, a similar, albeit not identical path, as the Hound once did, whereas the Hound travels in the opposite direction--one of self-reflection and redemption.

When the Hound and Arya meet up at the Brotherhood without Banners hideout, both are lost. Arya is struggling to find her way back home and the Hound is struggling to find a purpose after abandoning the Lannisters (Thoros states that the Hound has lost master and kennel, as well as all of his gold). When Sandor abducts Arya, after a bit, both share a hopeful future. Arya is on her way to being reunited with her family and Sandor has hope of serving a new master, even of being elevated to the station of Lord, a desire never revealed to the reader before. The Red Wedding dashes all of this for the both of them. They then spend months roaming the Riverlands continuing to share a similar emotional state, but a sharp contrast to the sense of hope they once both held. They're both bitter, angry, and hurting.

I don't think a "who's more moral than whom" is the best way to compare these very dark characters. While they have different experiences and motivations, both do have a moral compass. But, as I previously stated, Sandor is struggling to find his while Arya is losing hers. Arya's influence on Sandor is profound. She refuses to let Sandor brush off Mycah's death, which clearly gets under Sandor's skin. So much so, he feels the need to declare that he's actually capable of some good. He's defending himself and trying to portray himself as someone who isn't all that bad. And I do think Sandor strongly influenced Arya. Aside from Sandor's lesson of the Gift of Mercy, what Arya really learns from the Hound is self-reliance and being able to protect oneself, sadly by resorting to violence. She thinks of this when she's swindled by the woman she tries to sell Craven to (thinking that no one would ever do that to the Hound).

Both Arya and Sandor are motivated by revenge. Sandor has his own death-wish list, but, unlike Arya, it has only one name--Gregor (it actually can be argued that Tyrion also holds a special spot). Arya wants to avenge those who have hurt her and her loved ones. Sandor wants to take revenge against the one person (alive) who hurt him. It's because of this hurt that Sandor created the Hound persona--a fearsome killer, and it's the hurt that Arya has experienced that leads her to create the No One persona--a fearsome killer.

[ARYa_Nym]

And I do think Sandor strongly influenced Arya. Aside from Sandor's lesson of the Gift of Mercy, what Arya really learns from the Hound is self-reliance and being able to protect oneself, sadly by resorting to violence. She thinks of this when she's swindled by the woman she tries to sell Craven to (thinking that no one would ever do that to the Hound).

I don't think she actually believes in the gift of mercy. She doesn't do it because she actually wants to give them mercy that is just what she called it. This is really exemplified by her latest chapter. She's more of the FM mentality of the death gives all the gift whether or not if she really is giving them mercy.

I also don't think the Hound taught her to be able to protect herself through violence. She is responsible for the deaths of several people already by the time she gets to the Hound.

In the first book she tries to solve the Joffrey/Mycah problem through violence and she solves the problem of the boy wanting to take her to the Lannisters by sticking him with the pointy end.

In the second book there's all the killing she does but most notably in Harrenhal she uses violence to solve her problems. Her captor beats and threatens her so through Jaqen she has him killed. Chiswyck hits her and tells a terrible tale of his deeds and she solves it by having him killed. She want to free the Northmen she solves that by the weasel soup which was violent. ETA: & her plan of escaping Harrenahl. She killed the guard rather than risked it. Her friends didn't want to use violence but she did.

Plus, the observation she made about Sandor isn't anything she hadn't already made by Jaqen. She wanted to be like him and learn how to change her face when she thought she was just a mouse. & really what she said of the Hound highlights the differences I think rather than similarities. The Hound is physically intimidating and can fight off people through brute strength. Arya in making that observation realizes she can never be like that and thus she must learn other ways. She joins an organization that uses advanced forms of what she already uses cunning and stealth. These are things that the Hound does not use while fighting and he likely would scorn their methods such as using poison.

& I don't think she's lost her way unless one thinks being a bad person means being lost which I don't. Unlike the Hound she has finally embraced being bad and no longer feels shame which is actually a parallel to Tyrion.

In her latest chapter she identifies with Tyrion not his victim.

[Light a wight tonight]

You need to stop dumbing down her character. I'm sorry you don't like the path she is headed down but that doesn't change the facts. She literally killed a man for his boots and tossed him in the canals. After what she's been through I wouldn't blame her for becoming the next Ramsay. Not every Stark has to be "good" She might as well be Amory Lorch at this point. Thats what makes her character so interesting, she is a way more complicated that your average do gooder.

Sorry, she executed a deserter who betrayed his companions and only took the boots so they wouldn't go to waste. "Good boots are hard to find" is a minor recurring theme. Slynt's boots, and one other instance that I forget the details of.

[Light a wight tonight]

I don't think she actually believes in the gift of mercy. She doesn't do it because she actually wants to give them mercy that is just what she called it. This is really exemplified by her latest chapter. She's more of the FM mentality of the death gives all the gift whether or not if she really is giving them mercy.

I also don't think the Hound taught her to be able to protect herself through violence. She is responsible for the deaths of several people already by the time she gets to the Hound.

In the first book she tries to solve the Joffrey/Mycah problem through violence and she solves the problem of the boy wanting to take her to the Lannisters by sticking him with the pointy end.

In the second book there's all the killing she does but most notably in Harrenhal she uses violence to solve her problems. Her captor beats and threatens her so through Jaqen she has him killed. Chiswyck hits her and tells a terrible tale of his deeds and she solves it by having him killed. She want to free the Northmen she solves that by the weasel soup which was violent. ETA: & her plan of escaping Harrenahl. She killed the guard rather than risked it. Her friends didn't want to use violence but she did.

Plus, the observation she made about Sandor isn't anything she hadn't already made by Jaqen. She wanted to be like him and learn how to change her face when she thought she was just a mouse. & really what she said of the Hound highlights the differences I think rather than similarities. The Hound is physically intimidating and can fight off people through brute strength. Arya in making that observation realizes she can never be like that and thus she must learn other ways. She joins an organization that uses advanced forms of what she already uses cunning and stealth. These are things that the Hound does not use while fighting and he likely would scorn their methods such as using poison.

& I don't think she's lost her way unless one thinks being a bad person means being lost which I don't. Unlike the Hound she has finally embraced being bad and no longer feels shame which is actually a parallel to Tyrion.

In her latest chapter she identifies with Tyrion not his victim.

I can agree with most of this. What I disagree with is moralizing on her character. As a 9 year old she's basically taken from the safety of Winterfell and dropped into a world where violent death is commonplace, starting with Mycah, continuing through the slaughter of the Stark household in King's Landing, her father's execution, the assault on the recruits for the Night's Watch, etc, etc. So, she sees that this is the way the world works. You sometimes have to kill to stay alive and you sometimes get to deal a little retribution.

[Pod The Impaler]

Odd thread.

For those who have not read the books or 'MERCY' all indications are that Arya is on her way , or maybe has already arrived, at being 100 times more dangerous than Sandor... but in a completely different more subtle way.

I have often thought so - that there is sort of destiny about her, making her more than an 11 year old with a penchant for blades and revenge.

I think Arya is one of the most poorly-understood characters by the fanbase. We never meet a weak, meek, peaceful, helpless, benign little girl. She isn't that in GoT, and she certainly isn't that afterwards. From the beginning she is preternaturally self-reliant (a little girl who evaded capture and survived for days in the wilderness on her own after running away after the Joffrey incident; then escaped and survived even longer on her own in King's Landing), and, in matters of injustice and harm to "her people", gets extremely angry and dangerous and inflexible. She's been this character since the very beginning of the series, when she was a very little girl - all we've seen is her become increasingly self-controlled and capable. She's the same weapon she always was, with the same purpose she's always had, just honed. And she's been more or less consciously guiding herself the whole time precisely in order to hone the weapon she is and had (since the very beginning of the series) always been.

Yup. Arya was always different. She has a lot of little girl aspects still, but it says something about her "wolf blood" that when confronted by a "ghost" in the crypts of Winterfell, her first reaction was to punch it. (How old was she then... 5? 6?) Her father finds her with a sword, but then decides he cannot take it away because she'll just acquire a morningstar of something. As you said, she has a strength of will and fierceness of character that is way beyond normal someone her age, perhaps for someone of any age.

Reducing Sandor to a mindless Lannister tool who bears no responsability for his deeds is definitely taking away from his character, making him boring. Sandor is meant to be evil and to know that he is evil, making a conscious decision to be so, while most villains are delusional and see themselves as innocent (I was ordered to ....)

Indeed, Arya's role was important in this respect.

It can be argued that Sansa broke the Hound's loyalty to the Lannisters, by undermining the warped pride he had felt in being one of Tywin's best monsters. He could not be around her and still be the Lannisters' loyal dog.

However, the Hound still had to face the reality of what he had already done, of the kind of man he had let himself become. Arya was the one who cut him right to the core, with her unflinching and scornful judgement of him. He had done evil, not merely by the terms of conventional people like Beric, but by his own standards, according to his own ethics. Arya was very much like him - not respecting social class or titles, not interested in lawful excuse-making, refusing to back down from a wrongdoer just because of a personal imbalance of power, and willing to fiercely tell the truth. The Hound looked in the mirror, and was damned according his own values. Arya broke him; she turned Sandor against the Hound.

If not for Arya, the Hound would never have felt any genuine remorse for the things he had done, or not ever let it surface. He finally did confess truthfully, and because of that, Arya of House Stark looked in the man's eyes, heard his last words, and for better or worse, decided she would not kill him. It is debatable whether this was mercy on her part, or lack of it, but we do know at that point he had been judged.

[Woman of War]

^ :agree: very much

[Hodor's Dragon]

Nice post, Pod.

[Mad Madam Mim]

There are many similarities between Sandor and Ayra; both are morally 'lost', both are victims of the anger caused by their traumatic pasts and both are killers, but I think the underlying nature behind their killing is different. Sandor is simmering with hot rage and reacting to the cruelty of the world with violence, whereas Ayra is colder and more calculated, she is proactively avenging those who she has judged as wronging her. Neither are healthy, both are wrong but it will be interesting to see how they both try and overcome their demons.

[The Mother of The Others]

I guess dude counts as one of Arya's mentors. So he was a lone wolf, and she would be in danger of going down that same path except for how she's skirted that problem ("the lone wolf dies when winter comes") by being Nobody. Therefore, she doesn't exist as a piece on the chessboard, and doesn't qualify as having that lone wolf weakness?????? Someone who can fade into the shadows or become another person can't really be hunted by the pack. So maybe she avoids the Sandor fate in this way, by being able to sidestep fate's slings and arrows. (or so one would hope,...... a hope which GRRM is of course aware of......... as he hoists a piano high above the Arya plotline and waits for us to forget it's there.....)

[ShadowCat Rivers]

I definitely agree with this in a sense--it's a significant difference between the two. Very much so. Yet I feel the similarities are equally significant. Sandor and Arya share the same emotional state when they first cross paths and during their journey together. It isn't until they separate that Arya continues on a very dark path, a similar, albeit not identical path, as the Hound once did, whereas the Hound travels in the opposite direction--one of self-reflection and redemption.

...

I like your idea of crossroads as a metafore. But I think that their current paths do not point to the direction that had been each other's starting point. Sandor's trip is mainly esoteric, Arya's less so IMO. They do share emotions and the revenge theme is prominent in both their arcs, but to me, the difference in their respective drives is what colours their arcs and make it sort of mirroring, but rather asymptotic. I can't express better what I have in mind... Anyway, I think that my conclusion is in regards to the thread title; because of that difference I can't see Arya becoming the "Hound" equivalent in spite of the similarities.