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Becoming No One: Rereading Arya III


Lyanna Stark

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Septa Mordane is indeed a poisonous influence - putting Arya down and comparing her to Sansa, which, as we've discussed, is no way to bring up a child or to make them do what you want - but I'm far more willing to acknowledge that Cat was acting for what she thought was the best. Unfortunately, given the constraints of Westeros society, Arya would have had to fit into the role of 'lady' somehow (although I do believe that role has a wider remit than nine-year-old Arya or eleven-year-old Sansa ever realised.) Cat was trying to make Arya look right and behave right, not because she wanted to crush Arya's personality - I believe her later fond memories of Arya's untidiness and stubborness show that she loved Arya for who she was - but because she realised that the best chance of Arya being happy was in accepting this role as soon as possible. It's also worth remembering that Cat would have gone through a similar process herself. Raised in some ways as her father's heir, and with her naturally fierce personality, it must have been hard to adapt to womanhood, and I suspect that her worries about Arya stem to some degree from the fact that she sees a lot of herself in her. Ned's actions, although kind and understanding, simply delay the day that Arya must realise she can't take the path she truly wants in life.

I totally agree about Cat. All she did was because she was very aware of the society constraints for women and she wanted to prepare her girl to accept her role in this society and be happy. All the pressure she put on Arya was out of love. In a way, I could say the septa 's intentions were not malcious either.

Arya could possibly adapt in the lady's role. Realise she can't take the path she truly wants in life, accept it and go on, has been the fate of many many women with 'masculin' talents in our history (by 'masculin' I mean from politics and academics to a simple job that was not meant for women until recently).

Happiness is there in any path if you're willing to dig for it, but not self-fulfillment. Some women adapted only in surface and any happiness they could find in the housewife's role was always undermined by what-ifs (two of my great aunts are still, at 80+ years old, full of self regret for the path they were not allowed to take, despite having had good husbands, loving families, grandchildren etc).

Arya's character strikes me as the later, a person for whom self-fulfillment is really important and who could not be content with the next best available option. She would most likely rebel and defy the constraints, sacrificing the possibility of making her own family in the way - Sophie Germain comes to mind as a historical examble.

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Right Lummel, the dresses don´t tell us anything about Arya, but that she doesn´t particularly care for them. For her clothes serve the purpose of keeping her warm and shouldn´t get in the way otherwise.

However, these clothes are not only chosen by Lady Smallwood, but also by the author. So is it a reach if I suspect some foreshadowing of Arya´s future of leaving her tree gods past behind and changing to something connected to the baby pearls? It´s not only that Braavos´ culture is influenced by the sea and water in general (sweetwater shortage / aqueduct / moonpool), but that water is connected to death and birth. Water is another otherworld, the realm of the stranger.

ETA: It´s probably also showing that Arya is not so conscious about the influence of religion on her and society. :dunno:

The I was at the wrong place

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...However, these clothes are not only chosen by Lady Smallwood, but also by the author. So is it a reach if suspect some foreshadowing of Arya´s future of leaving her tree gods past behind and changing to something connected to the baby pearls? It´s not only that Braavos´ culture is influenced by the sea and water in general (sweetwater shortage / aqueduct / moonpool), but that water is connected to death and birth. Water is another otherworld, the realm of the stranger.

Yes and the author goes out of his way to show the clothes being put on Arya and that she doesn't choose them!

We know that Arya does leave forest world for water world, if you want to see this foreshadowed in the succession of dresses, well ok. What I would say about both is that there is no choice in either for Arya. Both are things that she is pushed into.

That seems to me to be true of Arya's journey from the coup back in AGOT. She wants to go home, to her mother, but others repeatedly intervene and direct her journey into a succession of alien environments.

The huge danger of water as a symbol is that it can be connected to birth and death. Linking such a protean symbol by itself to Arya is simply leaping on Foucault's pendulum. Without something further, it is too big and too varied to be meaningful, it's completely open to interpretation.

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As for clothes, I think Martin is doing his homework when it comes to Sansa, but not to Arya. For Arya, it seems to me, clothes is just that. No embelishment, no beautiful dresses, no emphasizing the beauty. Just something you put on and put off. But, I have always been intruiged by the fact Sansa is actually making clothes, therefore she is so much better in creating the image of herself needed in any occasion, something I believe she`ll need in the future. Arya on the other hand, tears clothes apart, but not all of it. She has been traveling for days with Boltons sign on her chest, and when she wears something she feels like shekels, she manages to tear it. For dresses are shekels to her, not because they are beautiful, than because they cast a new light on Arya. And that`s something she doesn`t want or isn`t prepared for. The dress alone is insignificant, but Gendry`s look is what bothered her...

So, Sansa is sewing dresses, Arya is tearing them. But, that`s all forshadowing for me. Because both of the are ready to renounce clothes in time of need. For clothes is just a cover, just a mask. And both girls have learnt that. Sansa is creating her own masks, and Arya is ready to take many of them and cast them away.

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Lummel, I agree, with all of this, I think. The point I wanted to make is that there is deliberation in the choosing of the dresses on the author´s part to make the story feel right.

So far we haven´t seen Arya make a conscious decission on who she allied with, she picked her pack with regard wether it would let her be a "wolf" and as you said enable her to get home or to her family.

Regarding the foreshadowing and symbolism, I see them as details that create an emotional backdrop and sense of connection in order to make the story more coherent, this means that often more than one meaning / possible interpretation is intended by Martin.

I think you might have misundertood where I wanted to go with the water symbolism, I didn´t want to sugest a clear foreshadowing of Arya dying or being reborn as an agent of death or the Others, but that she will turn in future, with as much care as she displays for the babypearls on her dress, to a religious organization connected to all of that. A decission out of necessity.

Of course this is going way ahead of this reread, but she does it only when she sees little hope of returning to her family and it shows how aware she is of the fact that she can´t continue in circles of fleeing. Of course pearls are a gem growing out of foreign particle in a mollusc ... ^_^ Just leave me my joy of symbolisms please :crying: .

no post gets right in one.

ETA: Mladen, the flayed man on Arya´s clothes is a very good point of the fact that Arya doesn´t care / is little aware of the representative purpose clothes can have, that there often is an agenda tied to them. And that despite the fact that she uses these symbols herself to identify strangers.

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...

ETA About the clothes

I look at the clothes business very differently. Clothes are something that you can put on and take off (I have noticed this), clothes are about roles and identity. You put on the white coat and hang a stethoscope round your neck and people think you are a doctor. Kleider machen Leute and all that.

<snip>

Clothes can be changed and are very much a symbol of identity so I would call this a continuation of the theme of imposed identities. Much later it will be the Kindly Man who dresses her in her first new face.

Still this is Arya's POV and everything we see she notices. She doesn't see some "stupid dress" or even a "stupid acorn dress." She notices these details of vines, pearls and acorns. It is also an evolution from her initial clothing attitude where she doesn't even identify dresses , stockings, shifts, etc.

Arya would only have to point, and the wolf would bound across the room, snatch up some wisp of silk in her jaws, and fetch it back.

A proper southron lady doesn’t just throw her clothes inside her chest like old rags, she says.”

“Is that what you did, little sister?”

“Well, they’re going to get all messed up anyway,” she said. “Who cares how they’re folded?”

As far as imposed identities go she doesn't truly object to this imposed ladyhood all that much-- certainly not like she felt about being returned to a mouse. Lady Smallwood lacks a broken nose to match Lem's. One aspect of this chapter is a little glimpse at a normal life. She's has the doting noble lady mother, she's a child escorted from the room to shelter her from the worst of the ill news of the outside world, she has male protectors watching over her encounters with boys.

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All she did was because she was very aware of the society constraints for women and she wanted to prepare her girl to accept her role in this society and be happy. All the pressure she put on Arya was out of love. In a way, I could say the septa 's intentions were not malcious either.

Just like the Sansa thread I think it is a mistake to but this conflict in only female terms... Jon or Robb or better yet Samwell also have very little options in what roll they should have in the world and how to act. Apprentices don't get to pick their contract and once in the role that was what you did. I agree women had even less options and power but its sort of a Modern overkill view to fail to notice most people for most of history have had no real choices about their life - or the one's in GRRM's medieval-istic one..

In the end Aryra rebellious nature is well structured because she is really in the tiny .00001% her world where it can be tolerated, The second daughter of a Great Lord of the North with seemingly no ambitions like his Father and who has three sons and his culture is rather more relaxed about ladies than the south.

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Lummel and Ragnorak - I agree with the ideas you've presented regarding Arya's dressing. She is not active in her choice with regard to Lady Smallwood's dresses. Also, later she is not active in her choice of garmets at the HoBaW. She is given them. Perhaps this is another motif for her and becoming "faceless." It is not about who Arya is, but rather who or what she can transform into. It also relates to her ability to "shapeshift," to change form to appear as someone or something else.

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...the flayed man on Arya´s clothes is a very good point of the fact that Arya doesn´t care / is little aware of the representative purpose clothes can have, that there often is an agenda tied to them. And that despite the fact that she uses these symbols herself to identify strangers.

yes, although, she did flaunt the badge to get the horses to escape from harrenhall. Clearly though it didn't occur to her or to the BWB to get her a different tunic from the inn or from any of the people that they met on the way to Lady smallwood's.

...One aspect of this chapter is a little glimpse at a normal life. She's has the doting noble lady mother, she's a child escorted from the room to shelter her from the worst of the ill news of the outside world, she has male protectors watching over her encounters with boys.

Yes definitely, sharpens up the contrast with the war zone.

ETA

... Perhaps this is another motif for her and becoming "faceless." It is not about who Arya is, but rather who or what she can transform into. It also relates to her ability to "shapeshift," to change form to appear as someone or something else.

That's a good way to put it, I like the link with warging!

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yes, although, she did flaunt the badge to get the horses to escape from harrenhall. Clearly though it didn't occur to her or to the BWB to get her a different tunic from the inn or from any of the people that they met on the way to Lady smallwood's.

Or it was just a good tunic and its not like they passed all that many other aristocrats handing out free stuff.

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I might also note here that although Arya is not too keen on the Acorn dress to start with, she tells Lady Smallwood at the end of the chapter that it was a pretty dress, and Lady Smallwood tells her she is also pretty. This made the impression on me more that Arya does not really feel natural in pretty dresses and that she does not find herself pretty. Contrary to someone like Brienne though, the people around her seem to think a pretty dress fits her and in turn, makes her look pretty, while most people (bar Jaime in Kings Landing) seem to find Brienne in a dress awkward and wrong. As both Brienne and Arya are "fighting women" it makes for an interesting comparison.

Regarding Arya's looks, part of her growing up looking rather nice may simply be down to genetics. We know Brandon and Lyanna most likely looked pretty good while Ned was the plainer sibling. Cat is supposed to be stunning and Lysa was said to be pretty when younger, hence most of Arya's relatives are supposedly above average, at least, if we go by the in novel judgments (always subjective of course, but all we have to go on). :)

But yes, somewhat of a trope that almost all the female heroines are great looking.

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Lummel and Ragnorak - I agree with the ideas you've presented regarding Arya's dressing. She is not active in her choice with regard to Lady Smallwood's dresses. Also, later she is not active in her choice of garmets at the HoBaW. She is given them. Perhaps this is another motif for her and becoming "faceless." It is not about who Arya is, but rather who or what she can transform into. It also relates to her ability to "shapeshift," to change form to appear as someone or something else.

But then we return to her core. And deep down, she`s Stark, no matter how dressed she is, no matter where she is, or how far from her family she is, she remains Stark. Perhaps she might resent it due to wrongdoings of her brother`s men, or the fact she is highborn captive, but she always holds the symbols of her family quite close to her heart

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...something that has always troubled me slightly about Arya is the propensity to impulsive violence that we see as early as Game, before she has undergone any traumatic experiences...

Well I think there can be a different way to look at this that might not be so troubling. See I think this tendency in Arya can be quite a normal thing for some children (it might mostly be seen as a male trait, maybe) and it's all in the way their parents help them learn to manage their aggression like encouraging team sports or working out as a way to channel this energy into something positive. These children are the ones who grow into adults that seek proffesions in the military and law enforcement and usually not as school teachers or bakers, society needs both types.

See I don't think that Jon giving Arya a sword and Ned proving sword lessons was only because Arya prefered male roles and did not like sewing and other typical female pursuits. I think for Jon and Ned to do something so extreme in their culture with such a young girl they felt it was necessary to provide Arya an outlet for her natural aggresive and violent energy. This would be quite normal if it were Bran but as much as he wanted to be a knight Bran has quite a calm demeanor compared to Arya.

The problem here though is helping Arya accept she will not be able to pursue the professions that suit her naturally because of societies expectations but at her age they had time to help her if they all had a normal life at Winterfell.

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ShadowCat Rivers, I think the point about self-fulfillment versus happiness is very well put, and I agree - Arya might have been happy in the role of the lady, eventually, but she wouldn't have been self-fulfilled.

See I don't think that Jon giving Arya a sword and Ned proving sword lessons was only because Arya prefered male roles and did not like sewing and other typical female pursuits. I think for Jon and Ned to do something so extreme in their culture with such a young girl they felt it was necessary to provide Arya an outlet for her natural aggresive and violent energy.

I also very much like this theory, and I think it could be one explanation for Arya's behaviour, and Ned and Jon's unusual attitude. I'm definitely not wed to the idea of 'Arya is naturally violent'.

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I am not sure I see any propensity for violence. She does not actually start thinking about killing (as the first best solution to any/most problems) until her world is up-ended and she has to live as a street urgent and than worse... She is willful before but that is not all that unreasonable since she very much not heir of Winterfell, is young and Ned seems to have no grand ambitions so at most he likely expected her to marry in North and Sansa was older. Its not like Arya before the Ned as Hand trip to the south habits would have prevented a match to say Reed's boy (honestly think of how Arya would have liked hanging out with Meera - Ned's just lucky Reed did not send his kids a year earlier or Arya would have been making nets and hunting frogs and demanding to live at Greywaterwatch)...

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Well... The level of rage she has now is certainly due to extreme circumstances, but I can't forget that she pushed her sister down and kept hitting her. I wouldn't be able to do that, and not for moral reasons - I remember wanting to, but I literally couldn't. My mom is same way. Hitting another human being can be a strong taboo, a psychological block that Arya doesn't have. Her rage leads directly to violence.

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That episode escapes me can you tell where about it is at?

The Ned III AGOT. when the children are hauled up in front of King Bob over Joffrey getting beaten up on the banks of the trident.

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The Ned III AGOT. when the children are hauled up in front of King Bob over Joffrey getting beaten up on the banks of the trident.

Thanks

So that seems a little exceptional... Sansa is lying/obfuscating and is betraying her own sister for some fantasy wet dream even after she has been witness to Joff's callous cruelty and quite without realizing just what Cersi would expect in punishment. I appreciate Sansa is living in a make believe bubble but I would would forever disappointed if one of my children turned on their sibling in that way (also of course Sansa has already manged to ignore how many other examples of Joff's disdain for her other siblings/house/family)- Arya had every right to beat her.

On balance its very much perhaps Sansa's low point in the books and her penalty is apt.

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... Arya had every right to beat her.

Well that's neither here nor there, or at least not really central to considering Arya as a whole. On the other hand propensity to violence is a useful idea in looking at Arya develop and change or not.

We learn from Brienne that learning to kill and not to hesitate in combat is a life or death skill, we see in AGOT that Arya does not pause to stick the stable boy with the pointy end - where does that come from? Nobody has taught to be able to do that. At the same time we see that Arya falls on Sansa in The Ned III and in Sansa I that she beat up Joffrey - even though we know from Bran chapters iirc that the children were told stories by Old Nan about the unpleasant things that happen to people who hit princes of the blood (and presumably princesses too).

In none of these cases does Arys appear to stop and think, which is why some of us see a propensity to violence. Fight first seems to be the rule for Arya in AGOT and early ACOK. That's not to say that the propensity is good or bad. With the stableboy, it saves her, with Joffery it causes a heap of trouble.

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