Is it possible to redeem Arya?

[123456750]

You are about to be attacked along several lines.

1) the idea that she needs redemption

2) the idea that a girl can't be an assassin without being immoral

3) the fact that the answer for her is 'the right man'

I think 1 is certainly arguable. I think 2 should be arguable...I don't think gender ought to play a role in this, and would normally argue against the assumption that it does, except for 3, where IMO you kind of fucked the pooch.

Edit: just read beyond OP, see much of my post already covered.

On 3) I said that a loving man can be one of the possible solutions to keep her away from later killings (not the only solution).

On 2) I didn't mean that a girl or a woman can't be an assasin. Arya is one of my favourite characters and I don't want her to end up being a serial killer, the same is with my other favourites (male or female).

Overall, when she kills people like Tickler or Raff, I don't blame her. But all these killings affect her badly, and the fact that she is already killing people who didn't harm her in any direct way, is proving that she has become something more than just a survivor or avenger, she is becoming something worse.

[ARYa_Nym]

Well, if she was a female serial killer leaving the FM would only help that because then she can continue to kill for her own reasons and in her own style without worry from the FM unless they decide to hunt and kill her. The FM aren't preventing her from doing that currently.

Is it really love if it's conditional? I'll love if only you were more like someone else. Plus, I doubt a love story would be happening. Sure she might have meaningless or murderous connections with men or women but I doubt she'd be around one long enough for there to be any love happening. Anyone she knew before would have to get to know her again because she's already changed from ASoS and to really know her this would have to depend on her not lying which I don't think is likely. She is being taught to make up lies about her past and it's not in her interest to tell people about what she's been up to.

[James Arryn]

On 3) I said that a loving man can be one of the possible solutions to keep her away from later killings (not the only solution).

On 2) I didn't mean that a girl or a woman can't be an assasin. Arya is one of my favourite characters and I don't want her to end up being a serial killer, the same is with my other favourites (male or female).

Overall, when she kills people like Tickler or Raff, I don't blame her. But all these killings affect her badly, and the fact that she is already killing people who didn't harm her in any direct way, is proving that she has become something more than just a survivor or avenger, she is becoming something worse.

On 1 and 2 I said i would argue similarly. IMO her murders are a concern because they're a child committing murders, not because they are a girl committing murders.

But I would say you make your argument tougher by raising the gender aspect. Even if we assume you'd argue the same for the opposite gender, the idea that a person is incomplete without a mate is very problematic and usually indicative of the kind of thinking that finds similar footing to gender bias.

[Dya of Oldstones]

Love conquers all wasn't even enough for Ned and Catelyn, which is arguably the most stable and loving marriage in the books.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

I have read many comments in this forum and realised that many people think that Arya can't have a bright future and will become a ruthless assasin. So I decided to create this topic to discuss if it is possible to redeem Arya (if yes then how?).

I, for example, think that if she meets a strong and honourable man who will love her (maybe even Gendry), then that man can make her stop being a serial killer (even forcibly if needs be), and save her.

That's prison.

Generally, imprisoning killers is only logical. But let's not call it "redemption", nor "love".

However, I can't see how any in-story "authority" would be "justified" in imprisoning/punishing her, as it seems authorities are, by large, a lot more murderous and unjust than she is.

Arya will not stop killing, unless she doesn't need to anymore. That would mean, revenge (or justice) served, and a sense of safety and justice for her and those she cares about (but that would practically be never...)

Anyway, Arya's greatest "sin" is not being childish like she's supposed to be, as in, "sweet and innocent". Well, children who have to fend for themselves rarely are... Her secondary "sin" is that there are no true knights around so that she doesn't have to do the dirty job on her own. That is true in ASOIAF, same as in shanty towns all over our world. Her third "sin" is that she didn't just lay down to die like a proper little saint would do, because sadly, the world she inhabits is much like the Hound described it.

That means IMO, if her world is ever "redeemed", she might be too.

[Hand to King Davos]

I think it comes down to if Arya wants to be redeemed. If she finishes her list and decides that her role in life is to punish all evildoers, then she will not be redeemed. But if she meets Jon, then she will shoot for a better ending, and achieve it.

[Stannis's birthright]

If Ayra starts feeling compelled to kill random people for no go reason I might think that she needs redemption but as of now I don't see it .. I believe all the hate will takes it toll on her though .. If she could find some Relief from all the hatred either from find a place to belong .. Reuniting with her family ( what's left of it or ... Finding Someone to be with .. Moon boy , Edric.. Gendry ) to find peace. I'm all for that . I'm not one for more tragedy

[ARYa_Nym]

I don't see other people as a fixer upper. Even when she was with her family in AGoT Alyn of WF said he'd never seen a little girl so angry and she was furious and miserable around her family because of the Joffrey/Mycah incident and had no one to talk to while in KL until Ned started her Syrio lessons which is actually about swordplay and one kills with a sword obviously. She wasn't murderous then but she was already violent.

ETA: Plus, I don't think that's a good thing. I don't like how you are. I want you to completely change the things that make you who you are. The things you like. The things you want. Revolve your life entirely around how I want you to be.

The Ghost of High Heart already told us what it was going to be.

[oursisthefury69]

I have read many comments in this forum and realised that many people think that Arya can't have a bright future and will become a ruthless assasin. So I decided to create this topic to discuss if it is possible to redeem Arya (if yes then how?).

I, for example, think that if she meets a strong and honourable man who will love her (maybe even Gendry), then that man can make her stop being a serial killer (even forcibly if needs be), and save her.

What does any of this even mean? Why does she require redemption?

[SeanF]

No.

Once a person has seen that much pain, despair, and tragedy nobody can return from that, at least not fully. This is happening during her childhood....

This. Arya will become another Pretty Meris. A torturer and assassin, with dead mackerel eyes.

[ARYa_Nym]

This. Arya will become another Pretty Meris. A torturer and assassin, with dead mackerel eyes.

So when you had first introduced Arya, you knew she was going to become an assassin?

Well she's not an assassin yet. You are assuming she is going to become one. She's an apprentice.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/george-r-r-martin-the-complete-unedited-interview-886117845

I don't see the torturer. Given her style she really needs to kill her targets quickly. She needs to take them by surprise or have them not notice her when she kills and taking the time out to torture goes against that. She also hasn't shown the Tickler's patience.

[Stannis's Lawyer]

I, for example, think that if she meets a strong and honourable man who will love her (maybe even Gendry), then that man can make her stop being a serial killer (even forcibly if needs be), and save her.

Arya hardly ever thinks about Gendry. Gendry doesn't seem to 'love' Arya that much, either, since he joined the BwB.

And why a 'strong man', really? Why not Sansa or UnCat?

Anyways, I think Jon Snow, Sansa, or LS could stop her from being 'no one'. (Syrio being dead)

[ShadowCat Rivers]

This. Arya will become another Pretty Meris. A torturer and assassin, with dead mackerel eyes.

I have seen before this connection you make with Pretty Meris, but I don't see where the connection is based.

Meris has nothing in common with Arya, and we don't even know what her childhood was like. She does have an obvious lot in common with Brienne though, she is sort of a foil to Brienne's character.

[SeanF]

I have seen before this connection you make with Pretty Meris, but I don't see where the connection is based.

Meris has nothing in common with Arya, and we don't even know what her childhood was like. She does have an obvious lot in common with Brienne though, she is sort of a foil to Brienne's character.

We don't know much about Meris' backstory, except it was pretty awful. Meris was raped and mutilated. Arya hasn't been, but she's been repeatedly threatened with both, witnessed such things, and seen her father, mother, and brother murdered, and the bodies of the last two desecrated. Her life has been a nightmare. I think she will finish up cruel, cold, and remorseless, like Meris.

[Errant Bard]

that Arya can't have a bright future and will become a ruthless assasin.

Assassins can have a bright future, and so can murderers, assholes and genocidal maniacs (see: Tywin)

Maybe she will not become a full-fledged assassin with a FM diploma, but that does not mean she will lose what she learned, what she became. And it will not undo her murders either... yet, redemption? Redemption in whose eyes? her own? Sure, she does think that she is a monster

The "Mercy" chapter is spoiled so much I knew what was in it before reading it, but nevertheless, she does identify with

Richard III Tyrion the monster of that play, in direct contrast with the hero

, she did ever since she killed her first boy ( she even thought she was too corrupted for her mother to take her back, before the Red Wedding), but I think she she is wayyy to far gone to even look for a path to something she would see as redemption... I don't even think she can think of something she would accept as redemptive, anyway. She'll likely grow up to accept what she is in the same way Asha (or Ramsay, Ned, Roose, whatever) accepts it: kill people, well, it's nothing interesting, it's how the world works. (now if she killed loved ones/family, it'd be another thing)

In readers' eyes, redemption for Arya? Bwahahaha. Most consider that everything she does is the right thing and totally not unlawful, immoral or even problematic. Martin can make her genocide puppies and she'll still be cheered on.

I, for example, think that if she meets a strong and honourable man who will love her (maybe even Gendry), then that man can make her stop being a serial killer (even forcibly if needs be), and save her.

I would hate nothing more than the old trope of the woman meeting a man, giving up her agency and basically becoming "the wife of", thus "redeeming" herself by basically becoming a non-entity with no thought, personality, motivation, background, traumas, or opinions beyond being that man's thing. :stillsick:

[SeanF]

After having read both volumes of Dreamsongs, I think Martin mainly goes for sad, poignant, endings. Having the characters we root for survive the series, even achieve their ambitions, but finish up morally ruined, would be one such ending. Arya becoming what she most hated (The Tickler) would be in keeping with this.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

We don't know much about Meris' backstory, except it was pretty awful. Meris was raped and mutilated. Arya hasn't been, but she's been repeatedly threatened with both, witnessed such things, and seen her father, mother, and brother murdered, and the bodies of the last two desecrated. Her life has been a nightmare. I think she will finish up cruel, cold, and remorseless, like Meris.

She could finish up cruel, cold and remorseless, but why like Meris? There are many ways one can be all those things. Tywin was such a person, for examble, but in a very different way than Meris. Sandor too, he had his own way of being cruel, cold and remorseless (until he wasn't so anymore...).

I just don't think that Meris' way adds up for Arya. Different experiences, different "asets", different goals...

I don't excude the possibility to end up an emotionless / cruel being but in that case IMO, a hybrid of Tywin & Sandor would make more sense than Meris.

[Crowford]

Yeah. Sure. She needs a dashing gentlemen to "redeem" her. From what? Ah, yes, the thoroughly unwomanly act of killing people, for the most part on her own volition and with a certain reasoning behind it, if you agree with it or not. Even the "child soldier" angle is rather insidious, denying her any agency in her actions. Is Arya growing up with the worldview that killing people is a good way to solve problems or past grievances? Yes, probably. Is that good in the long run? Probably not. Is it the worldview that a solid 75% of characters in that series espouse to a greater or lesser degree? Yes, but they don't need redemption, they are not girls. They are considered redeemed when they start killing the right people.

[ARYa_Nym]

These people are able to do what they do because of training and the way they're built. This is why she can't be a Meris or a Sandor. She is small and not fully trained in arms so she needs to use underhanded methods. I can't see Meris using poison or trying to trick someone into killing them. The Tickler is a man and thus can restrain his victim. Arya is a tiny little girl where this would be extremely difficult for her since she's not going after other children. The sooner she kills her victim the less time it gives them to turn around and kill her.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

These people are able to do what they do because of training and the way they're built. This is why she can't be a Meris or a Sandor. She is small and not fully trained in arms so she needs to use underhanded methods. I can't see Meris using poison or trying to trick someone into killing them. The Tickler is a man and thus can restrain his victim. Arya is a tiny little girl where this would be extremely difficult for her since she's not going after other children. The sooner she kills her victim the less time it gives them to turn around and kill her.

I agree on the practicalities.

If this was a response to my post above, I should clarify that I mentioned Sandor in terms of mindset and doing the dirty work on her own, not in terms of modus operandi.