[TWOW Spoilers] NEW Chapter Discussion - "Mercy"

[Nymeria_Snow]

I just really love that despite all her training as 'No One' she still hasn't forgotten her list! Also feeling a little bit stunned- you forget how much they've all aged since the very first one.

[kephv]

That was quite good. Looks like things are about to be shaken up in Braavos, and Massey still has yet to arrive. Arya's definitely not leaving the House of Black and White any time soon either; she's just barely begun. And it was most likely Sansa she was playing, considering her age and how she going to disappear after the show.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

I take Ran's words as Law :bowdown:

Please don't lead me astray, but show me more wisdom from your inside knowledge :drool:

ETA: And i find it funny that 250+ people are reading this thread lol

LOL The list is amazing and it's hard to get a post to go through.

I saw the M'Lord bit about dialogue, okay.......I'm giving it a 10% chance on being Shae, I doubt it. Told ya, evuuuuuuuuuul, and funny. :lmao:

[Caesar beyond the wall]

I want more!

[Cas Stark]

Em, back to her being a stone cold killer....WTF.

She literally randomly sees Raff and immediately crafts a plan for murdering him...in EXACTLY the way he killed Lommy...down to getting him to use EXACTLY the same set of words...and then executes it in a matter of minutes between her other duties.

I love Arya, but this is disturbing.

[MercyTheBlindUglyLittleCat]

I'm practically crying I'm so damn happy right now!!!!!!! It feels like an official Arya superfan day!!!

[The Wolves]

NO! They refer to her as the gold queen in this chapter. What about the Tyrells is gold?! Come on man.

Don't the Tyrells have a gold flower as a sigil?

[Elaena Targaryen]

I just read a chapter involving crude sexual material, murder and a twelve years old... and enjoyed the sh!t out of it. What does that make of me?

That was truly a fucking AMAZING chapter though wasn't it!!!!

That being said, amazing chapter. Beautifully written and constructed, uneasy to read, and just another confirmation that, screwed up as she may be, Arya is the best and most badass character ever. I am unsure if the end means she will willingly leave Braavos to return to Westeros, if she expects the FM to throw her out, or if she thinks they will do something like making her blind again.

When it was first pointed out to me that Raff would be going to Braavos with Swyft I always felt Arya would see them at a mummer show and she would kill Raff swiftly and I had high hopes the Kindly Man would be so mad he would throw Arya out on her ass but I doubt we'll be that lucky...

I do wonder if we have seen the last of the King of the Mummers though as all it would require is a new face, especially if he knows where she came from and why she has an apprenticeship with him.

It's very heavily hinted in the chapter that this isn't the first time she kills like that, and from the way it happens it seems she takes an almost sexual pleasure from murder. I see a Romeo and Juliet connection here; she is deflowered by Death. Death is the only true lover she will ever have, it seems.

I agree and this line "As I cannot be the hero, let me be the monster, and lesson them in fear in place of love.” says it all and I felt the entire chapter from the very start had such a Shakespearian quality it was wonderful!

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Yes Sigh we may never know.

We may never know, I want to know so I can say I told ya so, but perhaps we should just go with the flow. :cheers:

I'm wondering if they, The Braavosi, thought it was better to make the young Sansa look like a disappeared victim, or something, instead of the murderer Cersei makes her out to be? It could just be about not trying to offend too many people at once, outright? Tyrion is the big baddie in the play, and maybe the Braavosi think that is good enough? No room for the viriginal bride turned murderess? Maybe not many buy Cersei's BS, not that it stops people from hunting Sansa, afterall, look how the dwarf here is shown to be in danger. Just some ideas.

Yes, sigh we may never know...I'll try to chill. I should go to bed but how can I sleep now??

I wonder if a certain young Mummer girl by name of Mercy might have influenced the play, no make the bride innocent I don't think the audience would want her to be a villain, but an innocent maid. After all if the bride is raped, it makes no sense that she colludes with the dwarf. For her to be a villain would require her to be his true wife if that makes sense.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

I thought that, too. What about sealing the deal with the Stranger by drinking from a cup? What's that from? (I've never read Faust. Is it from some version of that?)

I wonder if that's a nod to The Many Faced God? Drink from the cup of death?

[Ibbison from Ibben]

BTW the dwarf's name is Bobono. Similar to bonobo, a pygmy chimp (actually a separate species, one of the great apes, and closely related to humans.) They are known for high levels of sexual behavior.

It's a monkey demon reference.

[kephv]

I love Arya, but this is disturbing.

It's meant to be. Arya is a stone cold killer, and she's only going in deeper from here.

[WiDMNDBAMMD]

My mind is exploding right now.

Why is she practicing to be a mummer

The Kindly Man told her that sometimes mummer's tricks to change a face are just as good as sorcery. Look at how many years Varys has worked in the dungeons of KL as an alias and no one hardly knew.

Awesome, awesome chapter, very well written, very exciting!

- Forel = certainly a link with Syrio.

- Also, Arya seems to change identity once she has given the gift to someone... Although apparently she is able to give the gift to the person she wants?

Super exciting chapter!

I'll throw out the theory that Syrio is alive and living with his brother Pherario. I don't think that they can be the same person since Pherario has written so many plays but who knows.

Arya loses her identity because Mercy is going to be wanted for questioning since she was the last person seen with Raff who disappeared.

and no she's not suppose to give the gift to people she wants, but clearly she's not paying attention to that rule.

If Raff has joined Harys Swyft that implies Desmond Grell and Robin Ryger have reached Maidenpool and are on the way to the wall... Wonder what they'll find at Eastwatch...

If I understand the end of the chapter right, does she leave the FM?

She is going to lose her identity of "Mercy" .... it's not clear how the FM will react to "this"

Also liked the mention of "a tree that watched her as she ran." Bran looking for his sisters :(

Bran might be trying to communicate with Arya, like he did with Jon Snow as Jon was Ghost listening to the talking tree with Bran's face.

If Phario Forel is related to Syrio Forel, that could be the entire point. The Lannister regime murdered Syrio. His relatives in Braavos are likely quite pissed off.

Or they could be the same person? Not likely since Phario has been writing plays a long time it seems.

The other thing is, we know there were no further Cersei chapters in ADWD, so if this is meant to refer to Cersei being back in power, isn't that a huge spoiler within the book for something that hasn't happened yet?

Unless Swyft went straight to the docks after the small council meeting, he would still have been in town when Kevan was killed.

We don't know how much information Raff and the other guards have.

Kevan's epilogue took place over a couple of hours, from the small council meeting (which Swyft was present at, and the idea of him going to Braavos was floated, though not decided, as I recall) to dining with Cersei and Tommen, to getting murdered by Varys. Unless Swyft went straight from the meeting to the docks and boarded a ship, there's no way he could have left before Kevan was killed.

I thought about that, but that would make even less chronological sense, since Massey isn't even sent until Theon's sample chapter, and he has to go back to the Wall first.

We don't know how quickly someone will find out that Kevan and Grand Maester Pycelle were murdered though. I doubt Varys would hide the bodies but "they" could move them or lock the door so it could take a day or two for someone to realize something is amiss?

Surely Arya will be forced out of the temple now?

There's no way to "know" really. Almost all of her "assignments" have been with her killing someone, the FM haven't exactly ever told her how she is suppose to "pass these assignments"

Perhaps her successfully seducing a man back to her chambers was the point of her learning to be a mummer?

I'm gunna go against the tide here and say she was playing Shae not Sansa. If the play was about Robert's death and Tyrion as a villain I don't even think Cat would be in it, yet there's a part that mentions Mercy having to fix "Lady Stork's gown" I think the other chick Wendeyne or whoever is playing Sansa, and Arya is playing Shae who we do know was murdered.

Also Arya only has a few lines. Sansa would HAVE to have more than a few lines in a play about Tyrion.

Keep in mind that the play is not "historically" accurate. Tyrion is clearly suppose to be the villian.

I'm thinking the character that Arya/Mercy was playing had to be Sansa, one of the few spoken lines she sites has her character claiming to be a maiden. What known whore claims to be a maiden? Not to mention, Cersei had alot of the Shae business, specially in relation to Tywin, hushed up, I don't think it was Shae.

My girl Arya has a new theme song in my head now: Mercy, mercy me. The Robert Palmer version. :wub:

Here's another thing I think that clearly shows that Arya is playing Shae or even someone else. There's no mention of a wedding or anything. She's just an innocent girl that the evil dwarf rapes and murders. Hence the title "The Bloody Hand (of the King)"

[LaylaC]

Maybe Arya was playing Tysha? Well, maybe not since it would predate the events of the play

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Yes Sigh we may never know.

Yes, sigh we may never know...I'll try to chill. I should go to bed but how can I sleep now??

I wonder if a certain young Mummer girl by name of Mercy might have influenced the play, no make the bride innocent I don't think the audience would want her to be a villain, but an innocent maid. After all if the bride is raped, it makes no sense that she colludes with the dwarf. For her to be a villain would require her to be his true wife if that makes sense.

Awwwww, that's beyond sweet, your idea. I need to reread, not bedtime, but RL in the way.

I am on 10% thinking now MAYBE Shae, maybe. I always try to temper my wanting to know a little tidbit with the notion that.....we may never know, and try and live with that. It helps. It helps with the big wait on the books, too.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

Arya playing Sansa is brilliant writing.

And Bran was watching Nymeria through the weirwood eyes.

[wallofice]

In terms of the character saying "m'lord," I thought that might just as likely be because Mercy is supposed to be lowborn and wouldn't know to say "my lord". But I am sure we are meant to question who Arya was playing regardless.

I was captivated by the chapter, though the path Arya has taken hurts my heart. Getting to see a glimpse of Bran in her dream and knowing that she can still be Arya - even if murder is what brings it out of her - were enough to get me by for now.

[jhillnorthman]

After this sample I sadly feel that Arya will be the one to off king Tommen especially because of Tommen's fondness of cats I think that was a nod to Arya. I think Arya will infiltrate Kings Landing if she leaves Bravos on Ser Harys Swifts boat. So if she does leave on Harys boat and infiltrates Kings Landing she could be a possible candidate for Cersei's Valonqar?

not sure but doesn't volanqar mean little brother in high valeryian

[Abaddon]

Wow that was an uncomfortable read. Brilliant, and compelling... but uncomfortable.

[bloodsteel bitterraven]

Oh yeah, she's definitely running into Dany.

Arya will become Rhaegal's rider.