What do you feel about Arya and her...

[Silverx2]

Neither. She just craves power. To be a wolf, not a mouse, nor a crying child in the rain.

those are two different things.

Cesie craves power. She wants to rule over everyone and demands everyone respect.

Arya wants to not be taken advantage of. Arya has had literally everything she has ever loved taken from her. her parents were murdered, her brothers are all dead(from what she knows), her aunt was killed. and for all she knows sansa is still held by the lansiters. Her only ties in the world are now with her half brother Jon. what Arya wants is to survive, To have the strength when someone comes to hurt her to be the wolf and not the little girl. At such a young age she learned that being soft will get you killed, she wants to control her own fate, not be a puppet, not be taken advantage of. Arya doesnt want to be the princess that waits to be rescued, she wants to be the one that evades capture.

If Arya craved power she would want to be queen, or a princess. Instead all Arya wants is to live, and avenge the murders of everyone she cared about

[Errant Bard]

those are two different things.

What do you mean, "those"? I only mentioned one thing: power to kill. Power and power are two different things? Certainly, there are shades of it, if you only recall Varys' riddle and the simplistic three-way separation money/violence/authority, but all of it is still power, depending on how you use it or are used in turn. Arya just happens to want to be the invincible Ghost of Harrenhal, noone, a master of life and death, that's the soldier in the riddle.

I very much doubt she wants power for vengeance, I am pretty sure she wants it for herself, because she learned firsthand that powerlessness sucks, and she just loves when she is the one holding other people's lives in the palm of her hand.

[pqwert]

It's just ridiculous to say Arya is a murderer or even a serial killer. Arya lives in a world where there is no justice. The boy king killed her father. She stayed in the war zone for a long while. Both north and south did terrible things. So really, when there is no real king, she is her own king. In that sense, when the government can't seek the justice for the people, she has to seek it all by herself. So the revenge is not a murder at all. Instead, it is a seek for justice. The same is true for the brotherhood without banners, although they appear getting lost in the forest of revenge when Mrs. Stoneheart came into power. For Arya, that's not the case at all. She has a clear objective of the revenge and she's very practical. When she found that her wolf can't stay with her, she just drove the wolf away. When she found that she can't keep her sword, she just hide it away. In her deep heart, she is always Arya Stark, not anybody else. In human history, there are often periods when the justice can't be served by the government and at those times, people just seek the justice by themselves and revenge is the justice. The most difficult thing for those who seek for revenge is not to get lost in the forest of revenge and not to become a monster. Arya never feels happy when she kills. IMO, when she kills, it's more or less like a destiny. The same is true for Ned when he executed the night watch deserter. So Arya is never a murderer or assassin. She is just a Stark.

[Errant Bard]

So really, when there is no real king, she is her own king. In that sense, when the government can't seek the justice for the people, she has to seek it all by herself. So the revenge is not a murder at all. Instead, it is a seek for justice. The same is true for the brotherhood without banners, although they appear getting lost in the forest of revenge when Mrs. Stoneheart came into power. For Arya, that's not the case at all. She has a clear objective of the revenge and she's very practical.

Only, you can make that argument for anyone, including the Freys.

Would you be kind enough to spell out what "getting lost in the forest of revenge" means and how, in details, it is different from what you argue Arya wants and does?

Also, can you explain where Dareon stand in that "clear objective" of Arya's?

Arya never feels happy when she kills.

Quite an efficient death machine she is, but on the other hand, before and after the deed:

Eating Ser Amory's tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

"Ser Gregor," she chanted, as she crossed a stone bridge supported by four arches. From the center of its span she could see the masts of ships in the Ragman's Harbor. "Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." Rain began to fall. Arya turned her face up to let the raindrops wash her cheeks, so happy she could dance. "Valar morghulis," she said, "valar morghulis, valar morghulis."

[pqwert]

No way. Freys' revenge is simply over reacted and stupid. There is no such thing that if a boy breaks his promise to marry one of your daughters, you have to kill him, his mother and all his men, especially after the boy has apologized. If you call it a revenge, it is just a good example of "lost in the forest of the revenge". Dareon's matter is not revenge. Executing Dareon is Ned's or Robb's duty. Both are dead and Arya is also a Stark to execute Dareon for her father and brother. Really, it's simply pointless to use your daily experience to evaluate a figure in the fantasy world. In your life, you are protected by the police and you can always go to court to seek for justice. Revenge is justice when the government can't serve its duty. Over revenge is just a lost in the forest of revenge, which is what the Freys did.

Only, you can make that argument for anyone, including the Freys.

Would you be kind enough to spell out what "getting lost in the forest of revenge" means and how, in details, it is different from what you argue Arya wants and does?

Also, can you explain where Dareon stand in that "clear objective" of Arya's?

Quite an efficient death machine she is, but on the other hand, before and after the deed:

Eating Ser Amory's tart made Arya feel daring. Barefoot surefoot lightfoot, she sang under her breath. I am the ghost in Harrenhal.

"Ser Gregor," she chanted, as she crossed a stone bridge supported by four arches. From the center of its span she could see the masts of ships in the Ragman's Harbor. "Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." Rain began to fall. Arya turned her face up to let the raindrops wash her cheeks, so happy she could dance. "Valar morghulis," she said, "valar morghulis, valar morghulis."

[Errant Bard]

No way. Freys' revenge is simply over reacted and stupid. There is no such thing that if a boy breaks his promise to marry one of your daughters, you have to kill him, his mother and all his men, especially after the boy has apologized. If you call it a revenge, it is just a good example of "lost in the forest of the revenge".

[...]

Really, it's simply pointless to use your daily experience to evaluate a figure in the fantasy world. In your life, you are protected by the police and you can always go to court to seek for justice. Revenge is justice when the government can't serve its duty. Over revenge is just a lost in the forest of revenge, which is what the Freys did.

You know, I have a problem with that cut-off point of your when revenge stops being justice. Would you say Robb attacking the Lannisters because his father was taken prisoner is "over revenge"? The Lannisters attacking the Tullys because Tyrion has been taken? (same thing) What about killing someone because he forgot to give you a piece of roasted chicken? What about killing someone because he serves in the enemy army?

For the Freys, it's not a boy who broke his promise, it's a king, a warring king, who bought the Frey's alliegeance with that very marriage promise. So you think that if someone hires you, if he apologizes he's not required to pay you and should expect you to not go work for the other guys nor sabotage you?

It's just too convenient to point that Arya's motives are motivated by pure justice when half her kills were not on her list to begin with, and of those on her list she killed, only two actually did anything heinous.

And anyway, this is not our world, who are you to decide what's reaction is just and which isn't? Sure this is a land with no real central government, so maybe some people can be vindicated to taking justice in their own hands, but this is also a land where government, justice, peace and stability are upheld by marriage contracts (among other things), making the breach of those a mortal offense.

You cannot really have your cake and eat it on that point. Either Westerosi morals are divorced from our own, or they are not, but it's just too easy to cherry-pick what absolves your favourite character of anything wrong and not the rest which would absolve the "bad guys" actions.

Doesn't really change the fact that Arya herself thought she was tainted to the point where she thought her own mother would not take her in, anyway, so it would be useless to claim there is no clear stigma and wrongness with what Arya does. But as the quotes above show, she's still happy to be responsible of deaths, or to be in the position to be able to kill more. It would be interesting to see how people would react to Arya on film doing a little dance because she just had people killed.

[Loras]

I continue to agree with Errant Bard on this point. The argument that Arya is doing something that she sees as justice can't be correct, because Arya does not identify herself as Arya in this chapter, but as Cat of the Canals. The use of a title rather than Arya for this chapter is significant in this regard. Cat is braavosi, gone out of her way to commit murder.

The argument that it is her duty, as a Stark to do this duty is flawed too. Eddard beheads Gared not because he is a stark, but because he is the warden of the north, carrying out justice in the King's name. Therefore she cannot be performing justice, she has no legal position requiring it. So it becomes a vigilante attack, at best and cold blooded murder at worse. I do not think that the act can be defended using 'justice' as an argument, Arya was definitely not just in this case.

[Errant Bard]

I continue to agree with Errant Bard on this point. The argument that Arya is doing something that she sees as justice can't be correct, because Arya does not identify herself as Arya in this chapter, but as Cat of the Canals. The use of a title rather than Arya for this chapter is significant in this regard. Cat is braavosi, gone out of her way to commit murder.

The argument that it is her duty, as a Stark to do this duty is flawed too. Eddard beheads Gared not because he is a stark, but because he is the warden of the north, carrying out justice in the King's name. Therefore she cannot be performing justice, she has no legal position requiring it. So it becomes a vigilante attack, at best and cold blooded murder at worse. I do not think that the act can be defended using 'justice' as an argument, Arya was definitely not just in this case.

Just for the record, this is not my stance. What I see is that Arya, during the whole of "Cat of the Canals" shows how she, until the line before last, fails at not being Arya Stark, she even gets angry at Dareon because he should be on the Wall, connects with Nymeria, thinks of Lysa as her aunt, drinks milk brought for Arya Starkamong other stuff. It's certain that she kills Dareon as Arya Stark, and it's also certain her upbringing is the reason of that kill (she comments on it, again, saying he should be on the wall). She certainly sees what she does with Dareon as justice, even if she also saw other killings as tainting her too much to be accepted back by her mother.

However, where I diverge from the opinions such as AAF's, is at claiming that what she sees as justice is, objectively, justice, or that her motivations are "pure" duty/survival rather than mostly whimsical actions brought by anger and the thrill of having power over people's life. I also disagree that she gets no pleasure from killing, obviously.

As for the Braavosi thing, obviously even if she kills in Arya Stark's name, that doesn't make it legal in Braavos, since the westerosi have no authority there, unless murder is legal, which I doubt. In any case since it's outside of Westerosi authority, it's a murder, tolerated or not.

As for who can kill Night's Watch deserters, it's pretty clear anyone south of the Wall is allowed to do it, from the first Ned/Jon chapters in AGOT, it's even the reason NW deserters are considered extremely dangerous.

However, I am wary of confusing what a character is allowed to do and what is moral for him to do/what a good person would do. It's once again certain that Gregor, Lorch or Hoath were allowed and even asked to forage, kill, rape, maim and burn through the Riverlands. That does not make them less scummy. It's also certain that Ned was allowed and even ordered to kill Daenerys, as he would probably have been with Cersei and children. He did not do it. Arya, in our case, tends to resemble Gregor more than Ned.

[Silverx2]

What do you mean, "those"? I only mentioned one thing: power to kill. Power and power are two different things? Certainly, there are shades of it, if you only recall Varys' riddle and the simplistic three-way separation money/violence/authority, but all of it is still power, depending on how you use it or are used in turn. Arya just happens to want to be the invincible Ghost of Harrenhal, noone, a master of life and death, that's the soldier in the riddle.

I very much doubt she wants power for vengeance, I am pretty sure she wants it for herself, because she learned firsthand that powerlessness sucks, and she just loves when she is the one holding other people's lives in the palm of her hand.

You said "Neither. She just craves power. To be a wolf, not a mouse, nor a crying child in the rain."

there is a difference between craving power, and wanting to not be weak and easily abused.

[The Marquis de Leech]

While I don't disagree with the fact that Daeron was an oath breaker and therefore deserved to be executed, I do disagree that it is Arya's or in this case Cat's duty to perform the execution. To use a crude example, in some states murder is a capital offense, that does not mean it is okay for a citizen of that state to murder a murderer. Equally Cat isn't from the north, she is a Braavosi urchin, therefore has no right to be dispensing justice on Daeron's crime anyway.

Even leaving aside the issue that Arya had no jurisdiction to kill someone in Braavos, it could also be argued that Daeron said his oath at the point of a sword, after wrongly being accused of rape. The Westerosi don't seem to care about whether the oath was taken under duress, but by our own social standards, Daeron's desertion is understandable. Had I been in his shoes though, I'd have dropped Sam and Co. off at Oldtown first, then gone back to Braavos and disappeared (having people around knowing you are a deserter is just dumb).

[Errant Bard]

You said "Neither. She just craves power. To be a wolf, not a mouse, nor a crying child in the rain."

there is a difference between craving power, and wanting to not be weak and easily abused.

Err, yes, and Arya wants power as her way to not be weak and easily abused, in other words power is a means to and end (not being weak and easily abused), I never pretended the means and the end were the same thing.

[Silverx2]

she DOESN'T want power. she wants to not be weak.

there is a difference between having power, and being strong.

[Turgon]

Then why she is so content when she has the power to put three people to death?

Why she feels weak again when the three deaths are "used up"?

[pqwert]

It's pointless to debate on this issue with you as it appears. IMO, it is simply stupid to apply your own experience of your life in a peaceful society with laws enforced to judge fictional figures in a fantasy novel, where killing is many' everyday life.

You know, I have a problem with that cut-off point of your when revenge stops being justice ...

[Breakspear]

she DOESN'T want power. she wants to not be weak.

there is a difference between having power, and being strong.

That's a odd statement. Isn't weakness defined as a lack of power?

So, to desire not to be weak is to desire to be stronger, i.e. a desire for more power.

[Errant Bard]

there is a difference between having power, and being strong.

Oh, really? Can you explain that difference, keeping in mind Varys' riddle and the power of the soldier in it? I am not a native English speaker, you see, so there might be something escaping me. (I'll say for, the moment, your distinction seems totally meaningless, as strength is often used as a synonym for power)

It's pointless to debate on this issue with you as it appears. IMO, it is simply stupid to apply your own experience of your life in a peaceful society with laws enforced to judge fictional figures in a fantasy novel, where killing is many' everyday life.

I have provided examples from the books and only that, not "my own experience", and pointed that your "over-revenge" is actually based on your modern morals, instead of the morals in the books, where marriage promises are way more important.

Oh, also, glad to know you actually condone what Gregor did in the Riverlands. Killing, pillaging and raping is many's everyday life, after all. We have no right to judge.

[Silverx2]

That's a odd statement. Isn't weakness defined as a lack of power?

So, to desire not to be weak is to desire to be stronger, i.e. a desire for more power.

Ill try and explain it.

power and strength are similar and its possible to use either word when describing something,but at the same time the both can me very different things.

you can be very strong, but have no power.

You can very very powerful but have no strength.

Look at the movie kingdom of heaven. you have the king of Jerusalem, all the power of the Christian army, but physically he was very weak. what he lacked in physical strength he had the power to have anyone killed. people feared him because of the power he had, no his own personal strength.

Arya doesn't want power in the same sense. She wants to be strong of mind and body. she does not want to rule an army, she has no desire to strike fear into everyone she talks to. What arya wants is the strength to survive. Look back to things she thinks about in her POV. Talk about how the lone wolf dies, and the pack stays alive. How her pack is dead and now shes the lone wolf.

Arya simply wants the strength to survive in a world she quickly has come to realize is mean and full of hate and death.

Arya does not "crave power" arya wants a personal strength to overcome the adversities she constantly seems to be faced with.

When she was in harrenhal she was weasel when she was given the gift of three kills she was the ghost of harrenhal. during neither of those times was she truly happy, or felt completely safe. constantly throughout the books her story line involves "if i was stronger i wouldn't" situations being captured by the mountain, not being able to save her father or yoren or lem, not being pushed around in harrenhal, not getting away from the kings men, not being able to get back to her family.

its a recurring theme with Arya, you all talk like shes going around aimlessly murdering people, when in reality shes just growing up doing what those around her have done, shes witness so many people killed for little or no reason i think she has become desensitized to it, and at this point her main goal is to have fewer "if i was stronger" moments, She wants that personal strength, when shes tired to keep going, when shes hurt to keep fighting.

basically, goonies never say die, and arya is starting to live by that.

[Errant Bard]

Arya doesn't want power in the same sense. She wants to be strong of mind and body. she does not want to rule an army, she has no desire to strike fear into everyone she talks to. What arya wants is the strength to survive. Look back to things she thinks about in her POV. Talk about how the lone wolf dies, and the pack stays alive. How her pack is dead and now shes the lone wolf.

Arya simply wants the strength to survive in a world she quickly has come to realize is mean and full of hate and death.

Arya does not "crave power" arya wants a personal strength to overcome the adversities she constantly seems to be faced with.

That's power too. I constantly referenced Varys' riddle to Tyrion, where Varys breaks down power into three categories: money, sword and nobility, but you apparently still stick to the idea that only the "nobility" part can really be called power, which is wrong: the strong have power, the wealthy have power.

But anyway, Arya doesn't want "power to survive", she wants power to kill. Because she already has power to survive, after all she survived, but she wants more, she wants to be a predator ("a wolf, not a mouse"), she wants power to take revenge (revenge, is, I remind you, definitely not survival), she wants the power she lacked when her father AND her mother were killed in front of her and she couldn't do anything BUT survive. She doesn't even really care about surviving, look at how she ran to the Twin's portcullis, but she wants to control others, to own them, so as to prevent such things as the Red Wedding, a Ghost of Harrenhal if you will, but permanently. She turned down every other options proposed to her that would allow her to survive but without getting that power. She, simply said, wants to be an unstoppable killer. That's craving power.

And anyway, what's wrong with wanting power? Ambition is good.

[madking]

She reminds me of Hit Girl from Kickass!

Love, love hit girl!!

[undertow]

Strength is a type of power. I don't get what is so confusing about that. Either way, it seems to me that Arya is pretty much the Ubermensch.