Becoming No One: Re-reading Arya

[Winter's Knight]

I'd just like to know why Ned did not later speak to Sansa about wandering off, sans chaperone alone with a boy and a sack of wine. The more I think about it, the more his negligence puzzles me-his two daughters are wandering off for long stretches of time alone and unescorted through swampland and woodland?

I mean, look at the incident with the poison kisses (huh-possible future special attack for Arya as a faceless woman?)-what if next time she'd eaten poisoned berries?

[Maester Victor]

As someone who grew up in a rural setting with strict parents I'd say that it's pretty normal. The second we were in the city or the suburbs however my strict parents had me at their side. Do you think maybe Ned is so lax because he's so used to having a safe, rural setting?

[Little Wing]

As someone who grew up in a rural setting with strict parents I'd say that it's pretty normal. The second we were in the city or the suburbs however my strict parents had me at their side. Do you think maybe Ned is so lax because he's so used to having a safe, rural setting?

Yep, agree. Ned was probably sure no one from Robert's retinue would harm his daughters too. All this talk how he was neglecting his daughters seems really forced.

[Winter's Knight]

Yep, agree. Ned was probably sure no one from Robert's retinue would harm his daughters too. All this talk how he was neglecting his daughters seems really forced.

But they weren't staying with the retinue-Arya would frequently leave the column on her own for instance and dressed in dirty riding leathers, she certainly wouldn't look like a noble lady to any chance peasant.

[PetitOiseau]

The thing that troubles me is Arya's having Stark features making her feel as an outsider... a Stark having Stark features feels uncomfortable and insecure about that... Is this a sign of the Starks forgetting of their roots in following "southron ambitions"?

This!

By the way, awesome thread. :D

[Lady Lea]

But they weren't staying with the retinue-Arya would frequently leave the column on her own for instance and dressed in dirty riding leathers, she certainly wouldn't look like a noble lady to any chance peasant.

In fact, we know that even people who knew Arya and had eaten with her and sewed with her (Tommen and Myrcella) did not recognise her when she was dressed in her leathers and dirtied up. The Stark men were probably used to her, but the Lannister men and everyone that was following? not likely.

[Winter's Knight]

In fact, we know that even people who knew Arya and had eaten with her and sewed with her (Tommen and Myrcella) did not recognise her when she was dressed in her leathers and dirtied up. The Stark men were probably used to her, but the Lannister men and everyone that was following? not likely.

Lea! What rock have you been hiding under?

And just so. I mean, Westeros being what it is, you'd expect the girls to be better watched, being girls and all.

Whoever recommended Septa Mordane owes Cat a hell of an apology.

[Little Wing]

But they weren't staying with the retinue-Arya would frequently leave the column on her own for instance and dressed in dirty riding leathers, she certainly wouldn't look like a noble lady to any chance peasant.

Well, I think she couldn't have gone too far because she'd get lost, and she didn't get lost. I'd like to think she'd stay in Ned's sights, running around as kids do. Sansa was with Joffrey so I guess no one was worried about her safety (ugh...) and we don't know if Arya said to someone that she was going to be with Mycah or not, for all we know, she could have.

Ned himself pointed out that he didn't know what goes on in his household when he saw Arya in possession of Needle, so he's definitely not perfect, I'm not trying to pass him off as such. But he wasn't a neglecting father...seems too harsh of a verdict.

Was she that filthy? It was in KL that Myrcella and Tommen couldn't recognize her.

[David Selig]

I'd just like to know why Ned did not later speak to Sansa about wandering off, sans chaperone alone with a boy and a sack of wine. The more I think about it, the more his negligence puzzles me-his two daughters are wandering off for long stretches of time alone and unescorted through swampland and woodland?

We are talking about a father who allowed a 3 year old to raise a direwolf mostly on his own and said to his 7 year old son that he was free to climb tall buildings and risk his life every day as much as he wants as long as he stayed out of his mother's sight. So at least he's consistent. ;)

[Winter's Knight]

Well, I think she couldn't have gone too far because she'd get lost, and she didn't get lost. I'd like to think she'd stay in Ned's sights, running around as kids do. Sansa was with Joffrey so I guess no one was worried about her safety (ugh...) and we don't know if Arya said to someone that she was going to be with Mycah or not, for all we know, she could have.

Ned himself pointed out that he didn't know what goes on in his household when he saw Arya in possession of Needle, so he's definitely not perfect, I'm not trying to pass him off as such. But he wasn't a neglecting father...seems too harsh of a verdict.

Was she that filthy? It was in KL that Myrcella and Tommen couldn't recognize her.

One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father.

She is also riding across rivers without supervision:

“I’m not,” Arya said, trying to brush a tangle out of Nymeria’s matted grey fur. “Mycah and I are going to ride upstream and look for rubies at the ford.”

The areas she's been wandering are riddled with quicksand, bogs and crocodiles.

ETA:

We are talking about a father who allowed a 3 year old to raise a direwolf mostly on his own and said to his 7 year old son that he's free to climb tall buildings and risk his life every day as much as he wants as long as he stayed out of his mother's sight. So at least he's consistent. ;)

D'oh. Thanks David. :bang:

Gods Ned, I love you dearly but sometimes I think that you were home sick the day they gave out brains.

[Little Wing]

But the Stark kids turned out alright, didn't they? :P

[Lady Lea]

But the Stark kids turned out alright, didn't they? :P

Did they? Or was Bran thrown from a tower, Arya almost killed the Prince, and Sansa lost her wolf?

Lea! What rock have you been hiding under?

Hey WK! miss you! not a rock, just a huge pile of reports and textbooks :(

[Winter's Knight]

But the Stark kids turned out alright, didn't they? :P

Absolutely spiffing.

Did they? Or was Bran thrown from a tower, Arya almost killed the Prince, and Sansa lost her wolf?

Hey WK! miss you! not a rock, just a huge pile of reports and textbooks :(

I believe said reports have zapped your sarcasm detecting powers. :P

[Lady Lea]

Absolutely spiffing.

I believe said reports have zapped your sarcasm detecting powers. :P

hahah d'oh!

[butterbumps!]

Nice summary, Lyanna.

Jon - Arya - Lyanna: We saw in Arya I that Jon and Arya share the "Stark looks". In this chapter we have Arya holding Needle and missing Jon, and just a few paragraphs later we have Ned telling her how she reminds him of Lyanna, who might have held a sword. So we have thematically linked:

Jon - Needle (sword) - Arya - Lyanna - Sword

I like this point a lot, as well as what Ned tells Arya in terms of the nature of some lies: "And even the lie was...not without honor." What stands out to me is that just prior to this line, we have Arya unwilling to betray Jon. Then Ned reminisces about Lyanna, and Ned's assertion about lies. Both are being "dishonorable" (Arya's disobedience in not telling Ned where she got the sword + Ned's promise to Lyanna, which includes a similar disobedience to his king) to protect the same person: Jon.

Sansa and Arya - the Sisters Stark: Quite a few throwaway lines here about how Arya "only has Sansa" and Ned's speech about them having to stick together, although the seem as different as the sun and the moon. Rather evocative all of it, but I can't think of a really good interpretation. Hopefully you excellent readers can come up with what I cannot. :)

lol, I bet one could go on a ton of tangents with symbolism possibilities here. I think the easiest one that does not depend on identifying the sisters as either celestial body is that Arya and Sansa may be opposites, but just as the Moon gets its light from the sun's reflection, they're mutually conditioned and co-dependent; they're part of the same system, though different, and I think this is what Ned meant. Of course Arya has later associations with the moon, shadow and darkness (the supposed "dark sister, etc"), but I don't truly think that Ned was thinking of his daughters as being either cosmic body here.

[Ragnorak]

@ Lyanna

Great Review and Analysis. Looking forward to Chapter two.

Septa Mordane really does not seem to get on well with Arya at all and it is little wonder that Arya is resentful. She has to repack her case because throwing her clothes in it is not what a "southron" lady would do. You really get a sense of Septa Mordane's antipathy towards the North. Also the Septa placing Arya folding her clothes above saying goodbye to Jon is also very telling.

Was Septa Mordane one of thise who like Cat, though Jon should have been brought up elsewhere. Did the Septa reinforce the idea of Jon being only a half-brother with the girls?

What I find interesting about Jon and Arya is that neither seem to hold Septa Mordane as an authority figure worthy of respect. Both seem almost dismissive of her. While the Septa herself has been a hellish teacher for Arya, there is a sense that Arya views her as someone who she can defy or be rude to with ease. In these inbetween chapters we have Sansa covering for Arya again and twice doing so, so far would lead to an inference that this may have been quite a common occurrence. Indeed as we saw in the previous chapter, the only true authority figure for Arya is her mother. As a high Lord's daughter this makes sense to a degree, but given the environment they were travelling into and how dangerous Ned and Cat knew it would be, you would have assumed that they would have immpressed upon Arya that she did have to obey the Queen, King etc. And that they are above her and her parents in the social structure.

We also might get more of a background of Arya's behaviour on the Trident from her relationship with Septa Mordane. Like in the scene in the last chapter where Arya runs out saying she has to shoe a horse, she is used to defying authority figures she doesn't like in an antagonistic way. Joff and the Queen by this point have become similar antagonistic authority figures and we see Arya refuse a Royal Invitation (socially unacceptable) and also attack the Crown Prince (socially unacceptable). Ned has a lot of the blame for this.

Similar to the situation with Bran and climbing, Ned has a lax parenting style, where if a child continues to disobey, he just gives in to them. Cat seems to set more boundaries for her children, but then Ned undermines her by telling Bran not to let his Mother see him climb. If he does this with all the children then it is contentious as he and Cat have not presented a united front. On the journey south, without Cat, there is only Ned, who lets things slide. Arya is not punished but rewarded for her little disobediences all the way down the King's Road until the Trident incident.

The repercussion of Ned's parenting style is that Arya does what Arya wants and that includes acting rudely to authority figures with little consequence, until the fight at the Trident.

Everytime I read this chapter I'm bothered about the way Ned just lets his two young girls run around by themselves on the road. There are certainly plenty of unpleasant types hanging around, and Sansa and Arya are just children. Micah is 13 and much bigger than Arya. He could have really hurt her if he wanted. And Sansa going off with Joffrey alone? Doesn't Ned care about what people will say about her? Anything could have happened to Arya when she spent four days wandering the woods.

I get that Arya reminds him of his sister and it's very sad, yadda yadda, but he is her father and has an obligation to look after her. The only reason she thinks she can get away with hitting her social superior, ignoring the Queen and mouthing off to her teacher is because Ned was negligent in her upbringing. That was bound to have consequences, and it did. Arya could have lost a hand, and in the end Lady had to face the consequences.

Also, I've said this before but I think Sansa was right in saying she didn't remember anything. That way she took no sides. If she had backed Arya, she would piss off her future husband who was already angry with her. She was going to spend her whole life with him! I'm sorry but it was just not an option. And of course she couldn't have backed Joffrey because who knows what would happen to Arya and he was lying anyway. There was no way she could win here.

I got the impression all the Stark children respected Ned as their father and feared him as far as matters of discipline were concerned. Arya is clearly wandering with Ned's knowledge and permission-- she gave him the flowers so he has to know. There is something desirable in having Arya actually see this land called the North that he rules as well as the South. The map is not the land. However permissive Ned may be, his children rarely defy him and clearly know not to talk back to him. Here's the section on Bran:

He confessed his crime the next day in a fit of guilt. Lord Eddard ordered him to the godswood to cleanse himself. Guards were posted to see that Bran remained there alone all night to reflect on his disobedience. The next morning Bran was nowhere to be seen. They finally found him fast asleep in the upper branches of the tallest sentinel in the grove.

As angry as he was, his father could not help but laugh. “You’re not my son,” he told Bran when they fetched him down, “you’re a squirrel. So be it. If you must climb, then climb, but try not to let your mother see you.”

Alone all night in the Godswood isn't exactly the most permissive response.

I grew up in a world before cell phones and play dates. Children went out to play with instructions to be home before the street lights came on. It was hardly unusual for children to vanish from breakfast to dinner on any given Saturday. There was very little parental organized activity compared to today. Children organized their own games, had to come to a consesus on rules, act as referees and essentially elect leaders among their peer group. This was a huge part of a child's education. The degree of adult supervision in children's lives today is not just more intense than my youth, it is wholly alien to my childhood experience. I can only imagine it was more so in the world of the Middle Ages.

Ned is beginning his job as Hand and the immediate supervision of the girls is really the Septa's job. She is supposed to be a governess of sorts. Issues like Sansa being allowed to go off unsupervised with Joffrey would fall sqarely on her shoulders.

Milady's post on the consequences of striking the royal body is dead on, but Arya has two forms of protection here-- she's a girl and she's the daughter of one of the most powerful lords. If Robb or Bran had struck Joffrey it would be more severe incident, but Renly's reaction is not unimportant. (I also think Renly's reaction is his calling bullshit on Joffrey's story.) You can't punish the Warden of the North's daughter for kicking the ass of the crowned prince (who had a sword) without undermining his future rule. Renly's reaction would be shared by the whole of Westeros if Arya were to be whipped through the streets. Noble children who surround the royal children must fight from time to time without the same dire consequences of a lowborn offender. Also as a daughter of the family of the betrothed that area is a bit more grey. The direwolf is really what makes it a far more precarious offense and that attack on the royal person justifies Cersei's otherwise quite unfair demand.

I'm certain none of those things crossed Arya's mind and that she knew enough stories to be aware that striking a crowned prince is just not done. What's telling here is that the values Arya was brought up with override these stories. I also don't think Arya was lying about the "biting a little" part. I think it was aimed directly at Joffrey for his not hurting Mycah much comment. She did a similar thing with "shoeing a horse" with the Septa. The habit of remembering and paying back offenses is consistent with her future prayer.

<snip>

The identification of Arya as a rider and with horses is a reflection of who she truly is. Physically, she (according to Sansa) resembles a horse. Also, Arya likes to be around horses and to ride them. Horses are far more than a means of transportation to Arya. Horses represent freedom. On horseback, she can see things she has never seen before. She can stray away from the others and "feel her oats." She isn't confined to a windowless wheelhouse on horseback. Like horses, Arya may be broken to ride (obey to a certain extent), but retains a spirit that can never be broken.

Absolutely love this. It is also reflective of their respective future paths.

[Fire Eater]

Gender:

Arya states straight out to Ned in this chapter that she does not want to be a Lady. He claims she has to be anyway and defends Septa Mordane. However, after considering Lyanna, he relents and allows Arya the rather unladylike training Syrio Forel can offer her. Perhaps Ned is trying to prevent the open revolt it seems Lyanna engaged in? Does he perhaps think that Arya will grow out of it?

I think this goes in line with Rapsie's comment:

He discussed the role of women - in bad fantasy where the princess refuses to marry the old ugly fart - women were raised to accept this as their fate (ie Sansa and Tyrion); he castigated the warrior princess in a chainmail bikini, who in that reality would get chopped in two with a longsword. You needed brute strength to fight a la middle ages (voila Brienne); but women could fight with other weapons (sand snakes), it was just very very rare.”

Lyanna's tale is a subversion of the trope of the girl refusing her father's arranged marriage for her. Lyanna chooses her own husband, rebelling against her father's choice, which results in war with Rhaegar getting killed and Lyanna dying in childbirth later on.

[Lyanna Stark]

I like this point a lot, as well as what Ned tells Arya in terms of the nature of some lies: "And even the lie was...not without honor." What stands out to me is that just prior to this line, we have Arya unwilling to betray Jon. Then Ned reminisces about Lyanna, and Ned's assertion about lies. Both are being "dishonorable" (Arya's disobedience in not telling Ned where she got the sword + Ned's promise to Lyanna, which includes a similar disobedience to his king) to protect the same person: Jon.

Good point on both Arya and Ned covering for Jon here.

I think you are right here. Ned is thinking of his own lie to Robert and how a lie can be "not without honour". Ned has a bit of disobedience to the rules in him as well, in that he lets his own moral compass rule instead of the norms of society, sometimes. He does it with Jon, and later he offers Cersei a way out after realising her children are born out of incest (and whose father is a man who injured him).

[Lyanna Stark]

Lyanna's tale is a subversion of the trope of the girl refusing her father's arranged marriage for her. Lyanna chooses her own husband, rebelling against her father's choice, which results in war with Rhaegar getting killed and Lyanna dying in childbirth later on.

Interesting comment. I know the Lyanna - Rhaegar tale has been accused of being cliche, but as you point out, there is a healthy dose of subversion to it. Both Lyanna and Rhaegar end up dead, and the realm plunged in chaos (of course, not personally by their doing, but as an unintended consequence).

[Lyanna Stark]

Sorry for the serial postings, but I am catching up with the various points made. :)

I got the impression all the Stark children respected Ned as their father and feared him as far as matters of discipline were concerned. Arya is clearly wandering with Ned's knowledge and permission-- she gave him the flowers so he has to know. There is something desirable in having Arya actually see this land called the North that he rules as well as the South. The map is not the land.

This is a very good point. Do you think this can be another dichotomy between northern vs southern values? Ned as a northerner is interested in the land, in how it looks, can things be grown on it, is it woodland etc. while in the south, the Game of Thrones and politics (indoor games) are more important?

Or is it perhaps Ned's personal values that are coming through more than anything (know your men, know the land etc etc)?