A nice little Arya / Lyanna parallel

[pistachio]

Just a parallel I noticed. The few people in the story who knew Lyanna tell us that Arya looks like her, and that their personalities are similar.

Ned to Arya:

"Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." (A Game of Thrones - Arya II )
 
Harwin to Arya:

"You ride like a northman, milady," Harwin said when he'd drawn them to a halt. "Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna." (A Storm of Swords - Arya III)
 
Another more submerged parallel is the fact that both attack a boy(s) and win in quite consequential fights -- Lyanna beating up the squires with a wooden sword at Harrenhall, and Arya disarming Joffery with a stick, stones, and a direwolf at the Trident (which is near Harrenhall, if I'm not mistaken). 

LYANNA, At Harrenhall:

"The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four." (A Storm of Swords - Bran II)

ARYA, At the Trident:

Arya went for him.

Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince's head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa's horrified eyes. Joffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring curses. Mycah ran for the trees as fast as his legs would take him. Arya swung at the prince again, but this time Joffrey caught the blow on Lion's Tooth and sent her broken stick flying from her hands. The back of his head was all bloody and his eyes were on fire. Sansa was shrieking, "No, no, stop it, stop it, both of you, you're spoiling it," but no one was listening. Arya scooped up a rock and hurled it at Joffrey's head. She hit his horse instead, and the blood bay reared and went galloping off after Mycah. "Stop it, don't, stop it!" Sansa screamed. Joffrey slashed at Arya with his sword, screaming obscenities, terrible words, filthy words. Arya darted back, frightened now, but Joffrey followed, hounding her toward the woods, backing her up against a tree. Sansa didn't know what to do. She watched helplessly, almost blind from her tears.

Then a grey blur flashed past her, and suddenly Nymeria was there, leaping, jaws closing around Joffrey's sword arm. The steel fell from his fingers as the wolf knocked him off his feet, and they rolled in the grass, the wolf snarling and ripping at him, the prince shrieking in pain. "Get it off," he screamed. "Get it off!

Arya's voice cracked like a whip. "Nymeria!"

The direwolf let go of Joffrey and moved to Arya's side. The prince lay in the grass, whimpering, cradling his mangled arm. His shirt was soaked in blood. Arya said, "She didn't hurt you … much." She picked up Lion's Tooth where it had fallen, and stood over him, holding the sword with both hands. (A Game of Thrones - Sansa I) 

The person who really draws out the parallel for the reader is Renly when he says to Joffrey: "Perchance later you'll tell me how a nine-year-old girl the size of a wet rat managed to disarm you with a broom handle and throw your sword in the river." As the door swung shut behind him, Ned heard him say, "Lion's Tooth," and guffaw once more. (A Game of Thrones - Eddard III)

What's the point? It might just be a nice connection. But it also seems like we're being shown that history is repeating a little bit, with the difference being that Arya is getting to do traditionally male things that Lyanna wasn't allowed to.