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Is Arya on her way to becoming a female Sandor?


Kaguya

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I don't think so. Actually, I believe that Sandor is true Faceless Man material, in that he sees death as a gift. Arya on the other hand does not. She sees death as a punishment. At least twice the Kindly Man has told her stories where death is given to a victim and Arya sees it as unfair. She even tries to find justification for her own hit on the insurance salesman. Sandor would have seen the point of the stories immediately.


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I see Arya reaching a breaking point, where she realizes her path of bloody vengeance is not good for all those involved.



For some odd reason, I feel courtesan training/interactions will be a turning point. They seem to be mentioned way too much to not have some play in the story. The black peril in particular....


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Arya's arc seems to be centering on the question of if it is her right to judge who she gives the gift of mercy. There's no such question in Sandor's arc. Mycah was a simple mistake.

Yeah, Mycah's death seems completely the result of The Hound following Joffrey's orders, rather than something he'd chose to do himself. He doesn't tear himself up about it as he's pragmatic enough to know refusal would have meant either death or The Wall for him, but he's not particularly proud of it.

I think Arya's bouncing around trying to find her own identity, but it's currently lost in the Riverlands - and until she reunites with Nymeria, she'll be struggling to find 'her place'.

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For one thing it wasn't an abstract judgement on principle, though it contained a moral judgement as well. She had him pegged for an enemy, for killing Mycah, working for the Lannisters, kidnapping her for ransom etc. The characters also might have found themselves at similar junctions, but are ultimately very different in certain aspects. Arya is cool and calculating, while Sandor is anything but. They both loads of anger, but Sandor basically lets is lash out, while Arya hoards it and points it at certain directions. Arya isn't immoral because she kills. She kills because she is moral. She believes that bad things should happen to bad people and makes sure they do.



In many ways that is a lot scarier.


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Yeah, Mycah's death seems completely the result of The Hound following Joffrey's orders, rather than something he'd chose to do himself. He doesn't tear himself up about it as he's pragmatic enough to know refusal would have meant either death or The Wall for him, but he's not particularly proud of it.

I think Arya's bouncing around trying to find her own identity, but it's currently lost in the Riverlands - and until she reunites with Nymeria, she'll be struggling to find 'her place'.

Didn't Cersei have Mycah killed?

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Didn't Cersei have Mycah killed?

Yeah, I think I'm getting the books and series mixed up. But still, if Sandor had refused on the basis that "Joffrey is a little shit, the butcher's boy is probably innocent, and I won't kill a child" then he'd either end up dead for treason or sent to The Wall. I think after he leaves KL he's got no intentions of ever following an order he doesn't agree with again.

Hell, he had a pipe dream of serving King Robb, and he'd have known that Robb would have needed someone to do his dirty work, but that his dirty work wouldn't involve raping young girls or killing innocent children. Plus it'd have meant him facing Gregor...

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There's no clear evidence he was ordered to kill Mycah, it's very possible but in his defence Sandor only says he had it from royal lips Mycah struck the crown prince.

I disagree that it didn't trouble him. I think his anger towards Arya always mentioning Mycah's name is GRRM showing us he does care, but he's trying to forget. He wants her to stop bringing it up. Hence him crying at the end when he lists what he'd done to try and get Arya to kill him.

In what he heard of what happened between Mycah and Joff I believe the Hound saw Gregor and himself, and pegged Mycah for a bully. From there the anger flowed and there was only ever going to be one result when he found Mycah.

Essentially his anger caused him to make a rash and illogical judgement. Had he not carried this anger he could have thought about things logically, he knew Joff's and Cersei's nature, and should have had better sense than to take them at their word, but he was so eager to see a bully and exact vengeance that he was blinded to the situation.

The central theme to Sandor's character arc is his anger, the anger that Sansa prays to the Mother to soothe, a prayer which may well have been heard. Without the anger, the guy is almost your garden variety hero.

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There's no clear evidence he was ordered to kill Mycah, it's very possible but in his defence Sandor only says he had it from royal lips Mycah struck the crown prince.

I disagree that it didn't trouble him. I think his anger towards Arya always mentioning Mycah's name is GRRM showing us he does care, but he's trying to forget. He wants her to stop bringing it up. Hence him crying at the end when he lists what he'd done to try and get Arya to kill him.

In what he heard of what happened between Mycah and Joff I believe the Hound saw Gregor and himself, and pegged Mycah for a bully. From there the anger flowed and there was only ever going to be one result when he found Mycah.

Essentially his anger caused him to make a rash and illogical judgement. Had he not carried this anger he could have thought about things logically, he knew Joff's and Cersei's nature, and should have had better sense than to take them at their word, but he was so eager to see a bully and exact vengeance that he was blinded to the situation.

The central theme to Sandor's character arc is his anger, the anger that Sansa prays to the Mother to soothe, a prayer which may well have been heard. Without the anger, the guy is almost your garden variety hero.

I don't think I agree...I don't think Mycah is as significant for him as it was for Arya, and I think he long ago learned to whistle past the moral cemeteries...but I just wanted to say I enjoyed the idea, and think it very interesting.

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Also it's important to note that the Hound does not instigate the fight with the Mountain's men. When they do however, he says he had hoped they would. That's to say he wanted to kill them, he thought they should die, but he wouldn't himself play judge and executioner. It's not his place to judge.

Arya in contrast does play judge and executioner.

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Also it's important to note that the Hound does not instigate the fight with the Mountain's men. When they do however, he says he had hoped they would. That's to say he wanted to kill them, he thought they should die, but he wouldn't himself play judge and executioner. It's not his place to judge.

Arya in contrast does play judge and executioner.

He knew it would end in a fight the moment he went in there. Everybody knew it would end in a fight. That's why the inn cleared out. He just was past caring.

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If you say so. I think it's thematically critical that he did not instigate the fight in contrast to Arya's proactive judgement as further explored in her FM chapters and brought to fore by the Kindly Man questioning her of it.

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If you say so. I think it's thematically critical that he did not instigate the fight in contrast to Arya's proactive judgement as further explored in her FM chapters and brought to fore by the Kindly Man questioning her of it.

I just find questions about right or wrong irrelevant in Sandor's case. He spent fifteen years as Cersei's bodyguard and enforcer and there had been no sign that he ever displayed any hesitation or scruples about following his orders. In fact during Sansa's arc he tries to beat it into her skull that questions of right or wrong are pointless and all that matters is strength. There is also the fact that they were his brother's men, it was personal enmity. Particularly, in that frame of mind, I don't see him caring about shoulds or shouldn'ts. They were just there.

Arya, for that matter wasn't concerned about judgement in that particular scene. She thought it was not safe to go into the inn in the first place and she wanted to get out with rest of the crowd afterwards.

I'm not seeing the connection.

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There's also Gregor. We know Sandor wants to kill him. We know he's not afraid to fight him. He fought him in defence of Loras and no doubt hoped he'd get the chance to finish it, but he has never gone and sought his revenge simply on the basis of what Gregor did to him.

If it were Arya, she'd have slit Gregor's throat while he slept.

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There's also Gregor. We know Sandor wants to kill him. We know he's not afraid to fight him. He fought him in defence of Loras and no doubt hoped he'd get the chance to finish it, but he has never gone and sought his revenge simply on the basis of what Gregor did to him.

If it were Arya, she'd have slit Gregor's throat while he slept.

Gregor is a landed night and a Lannister bannerman, who normally resides in a keep and during the war always had men around him. Besides, if he did actually kill him what would he have to live for?

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