AryaRegina

Funnily enough, GRRM has actually talked about this, and his highborn ladies stay out of the kitchen:) [Are highborn ladies trained to a lot of practical things, like serving guests, making cheese, and so on?]H Sansa is more than just a young lady. She’s the daughter, not just of a noble, but of one of the most powerful nobles in Westeros. The great houses stand far above the lesser nobles, as the lesser nobles do above the smallfolk. She would not make cheese, no. But Arya might think it would be fun. -GRRM, (x) I did go through the POVs looking for culinary abilities in the characters a while ago, and out of the nobility, Arya was the only one we saw properly work in a kitchen, but we do see Bran, Brienne, Jon, Meera, and Sam prepare food. So Bran and Jon are two potential kings who know how to cook enough to feed themselves:) I would also guess Dany would know, but that's just a guess without any quote to back me up

Interesting... I've never thought to doubt the voice being the kindly man, but it is true that she didn't recognize the voice. Also, I've noticed the trend of dubious mentor's too, including the FM/Kindly man for Arya, especially the parallels with the Stark siblings (with Bran and Arya having the most obvious parallels, mentorwise, maybe?), so I'm looking forward to reading how that will turn out. Future Arya looking after her younger self is a new take. I'm intrigued. It's a well-known trope, but not one I've seen in ASOIAF context. It's not often we get new Arya theories, so even if I'm not sure I buy it, it's fun and intriguing, and we need more of that:) Interesting that he never mentions talking to Bran and that he seemed a bit confused about being called a crow, really interesting. While I do think dream talking is different than tree talking, so I wouldn't discount his ability to do it, you have raised an interesting question, whether BR and the 3EC are truly one and the same, but if not BR, who? This is probably the most heart-warming answer, and you both give great reasons for it actually being Ned talking to Arya. I love the thought of Ned being able to help out his little girl, to give her back her courage and her name, to help her become a wolf again. I think so too:) And I love whenever the kids do things that's supposed to be impossible, or very hard. Dany bringing back dragons, Arya easily slipping into the skin of a cat (which we're told in the ADWD prologue is an animal hard to control, and best left alone) and still having control over her own body, and of course Bran, literally changing the past, even if only as a whisper in the wind. This is a fantasy series, even if many readers prefer the political story, so I'm not counting anything out:) I love the return of magic plotline. Direwolves, greendreams, visions, prophesies, giants, children of the forest, skinchanging, face changing, glamours, glass candles, tree spying dragons, unicorns(), and why stop there? I'd love to see even more in coming books. Varys' little birds always makes me so sad, but the thought of one of those poor children deciding to help out Arya is sweet. How could Arya have heard their whisipers from inside the wall, though?

Spoiler from the TWOW Mercy excerpt:

I know Bloodraven said Bran can't change the past, and that he himself is unable to talk to his loved ones, but it does seem like there's some sort of vague communication to the past, as seen with Ned, even as just a whisper in the wind. And Ned is not shown to be magical, while Arya is, so... it might happen Lord Eddard Stark sat upon a rock beside the deep black pool in the godswood, the pale roots of the heart tree twisting around him like an old man's gnarled arms. The greatsword Ice lay across Lord Eddard's lap, and he was cleaning the blade with an oilcloth. "Winterfell," Bran whispered. His father looked up. "Who's there?" he asked, turning … … and Bran, frightened, pulled away. His father and the black pool and the godswood faded and were gone and he was back in the cavern, the pale thick roots of his weirwood throne cradling his limbs as a mother does a child. A torch flared to life before him. -Bran III, ADWD "Father." Bran's voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. "Father, it's me. It's Bran. Brandon." Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't. -Bran III, ADWD Me too! There's so much going on at Harrenhal with Arya, and it's a thrill to read True, that conversation with Ned did happen away from a godwood... so that does make it unlikely for it to be Bran or Bloodraven, but it does seem like more is happening than simple recollection. Good point about the physical signs! Why does the entity have to be malicious? Would it not make more sense for it to be neutral, like any natural force? Neither good nor evil?

It's one of my favourite, if not the favourite, parts in the books, but I can never really decide who speaks to Arya: In the godswood she found her broomstick sword where she had left it, and carried it to the heart tree. There she knelt. Red leaves rustled. Red eyes peered inside her. The eyes of the gods. "Tell me what to do, you gods," she prayed. For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said. "But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan." "You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you." "The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth. That night she lay in her narrow bed upon the scratchy straw, listening to the voices of the living and the dead whisper and argue as she waited for the moon to rise. They were the only voices she trusted anymore. She could hear the sound of her own breath, and the wolves as well, a great pack of them now. They are closer than the one I heard in the godswood, she thought. They are calling to me. -Arya X, ACOK Is it the old gods? Is it Bran? Or bloodraven? Some other greenseer? The scene with Arya is similar to what we later see with Theon: Theon found himself wondering if he should say a prayer. Will the old gods hear me if I do? They were not his gods, had never been his gods. He was ironborn, a son of Pyke, his god was the Drowned God of the islands … but Winterfell was long leagues from the sea. It had been a lifetime since any god had heard him. He did not know who he was, or what he was, why he was still alive, why he had ever been born. "Theon," a voice seemed to whisper. His head snapped up. "Who said that?" All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered them. The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate. A god's voice, or a ghost's. How many died the day that he took Winterfell? How many more the day he lost it? The day that Theon Greyjoy died, to be reborn as Reek. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek. Suddenly he did not want to be here. -The Prince of Winterfell, ADWD In the godswood the snow was still dissolving as it touched the earth. Steam rose off the hot pools, fragrant with the smell of moss and mud and decay. A warm fog hung in the air, turning the trees into sentinels, tall soldiers shrouded in cloaks of gloom. During daylight hours, the steamy wood was often full of northmen come to pray to the old gods, but at this hour Theon Greyjoy found he had it all to himself. And in the heart of the wood the weirwood waited with its knowing red eyes. Theon stopped by the edge of the pool and bowed his head before its carved red face. Even here he could hear the drumming, boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM boom DOOM. Like distant thunder, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once. The night was windless, the snow drifting straight down out of a cold black sky, yet the leaves of the heart tree were rustling his name. "Theon," they seemed to whisper, "Theon." The old gods, he thought. They know me. They know my name. I was Theon of House Greyjoy. I was a ward of Eddard Stark, a friend and brother to his children. "Please." He fell to his knees. "A sword, that's all I ask. Let me die as Theon, not as Reek." Tears trickled down his cheeks, impossibly warm. "I was ironborn. A son … a son of Pyke, of the islands." A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured. They know. The gods know. They saw what I did. And for one strange moment it seemed as if it were Bran's face carved into the pale trunk of the weirwood, staring down at him with eyes red and wise and sad. Bran's ghost, he thought, but that was madness. Why should Bran want to haunt him? He had been fond of the boy, had never done him any harm. It was not Bran we killed. It was not Rickon. They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water. "I had to have two heads, else they would have mocked me … laughed at me … they …" -A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD Or is it Ned's spirit? And if we go with that, did she also hear Syrio's spirit a book earlier? She had to leave now, she told herself, but when the moment came, she was too frightened to move. Calm as still water, a small voice whispered in her ear. Arya was so startled she almost dropped her bundle. She looked around wildly, but there was no one in the stable but her, and the horses, and the dead men. Quiet as a shadow, she heard. Was it her own voice, or Syrio's? She could not tell, yet somehow it calmed her fears. -Arya IV, AGOT Two of the guardsmen were dicing together while the third walked rounds, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Ashamed to let them see her crying like a baby, she stopped to rub at her eyes. Her eyes her eyes her eyes, why did … Look with your eyes, she heard Syrio whisper.¨ -Arya V, AGOT Or do you believe in the plain old nonmagical answer, that it's simply Arya recalling Ned's words to regain her courage, maybe spurred on by her connection to Nymeria? Or do you think it's someone (or something) else? At this moment, I myself am leaning towards the Bran answer, but I always go back and forth, so it's far from set in stone for me

Both are heroes, both are against slavery, both care for the smallfolk, both know how it is to be hungry and homeless, and both are tiny girls bonded with huge beasts who they identify with... Dany and Arya should be friends:) Also, I mostly read ASOIAF discussions on tumblr, and there Arya and Dany fans are usually overlapping, so it's strange to see it so different over here

Arya was not well liked on this forum a decade ago, from what I remember she wasn't hated as much as now , but more thought of as unimportant. She's still not well liked, but now her haters are louder and, well, ruder. I know a lot of Arya fans have given up on this forum ( or never even joined in the first place, because this forum's view on Arya is kinda infamous at this point), or just stick to other topics. I'm mostly a lurker myself, so I get it.

Arya was around 4 feet in ASOS, so she's small for her age: Beside the embers of their campfire, she saw Tom, Lem, and Greenbeard talking to a tiny little woman, a foot shorter than Arya and older than Old Nan, all stooped and wrinkled and leaning on a gnarled black cane. -Arya IV, ASOS Ned, Gendry, and many of the others were fast asleep when Arya spied the small pale shape creeping behind the horses, thin white hair flying wild as she leaned upon a gnarled cane. The woman could not have been more than three feet tall. The firelight made her eyes gleam as red as the eyes of Jon’s wolf. He was a ghost too. Arya stole closer, and knelt to watch. -Arya VIII, ASOS