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Point as to why Arya would even want to be a Faceless man?


Wavey Sauce

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with current season I came across this again.



She went there on false pretense. He offers her to come train so she can cross names off her list, Cersei, Trant, Tywin, Payne, etc. Learn how to kill and offer them all up to the red god etc etc. Then gets there and has to forget everything about herself etc etc etc



Point I was making is he def BS'd her about what she would be doing and learning


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Quotes I want quotes stop posting this garbage and get us quotes about this brain washing and memory wiping. Being a weak minded FM would preclude people from being FM.

They would lose themselves the first time they got a face if that was the case.

Evidence of any of what you said being true instead of just specialized training for deep infiltration.

Go read the book.............

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Darksnider isn't being lazy, he's making a point. The business about memory wiping has become an article of faith taken for granted, most of the people who believe it aren't actually able to make a formal argument for their own position.



Evidence, people. Bring on the evidence from the text. Without it you're just circle jerking with your theories and interpretations, based as often as not as much on guesses and wishful thinking and bias as on the actual text we're presented with. If you're too lazy to make a reasoned argument grounded in quotes from the text, you've left sound literary analysis and wandered off into fan fiction.



Trot out the relevant quotes, and I'll wager just as strong an argument can be made that it's just as easily interpreted that what is being discussed is a form of method acting, one extremely useful to a deep cover operative. She'll no more lose knowing she's Arya Stark than Brando convinced himself he's actually Don Corleone.



It's impossible to completely wipe a personality, and the FM probably know this. They probably tried at some point. Even with all the horror Theon has endured, he's constantly having to remind himself to be Reek and not Theon. Arya's getting off light in comparison, because erasing "Arya" isn't really the goal, learning to fully inhabit other characters or "faces" is. In the case of "Cat" she inhabited a costume and a new role, relatively simply. As "Mercy" she literally gets a new face, and a set or residual memories and personality traits along with the dead skin mask.


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with current season I came across this again.

She went there on false pretense. He offers her to come train so she can cross names off her list, Cersei, Trant, Tywin, Payne, etc. Learn how to kill and offer them all up to the red god etc etc. Then gets there and has to forget everything about herself etc etc etc

Point I was making is he def BS'd her about what she would be doing and learning

Not necessarily. If her training requires her to forget who she is.

How else would a tiny girl with big balls find her way into Cersei's court? With that face and attitude? They'd know her a mile away. The only way she gets close to those people on her list again is to be very good at being something very different. That is what he is training her to do.

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Arya thinks it will give her the skills she needs to avenge her family, and so on.

But let's not kid ourselves - a lot of it is because Arya thinks she has nothing left to live for. Mother, father, brothers all dead; sister who's hardly even family any more; half-brother is on the Wall so he's fated to stay there until he's dead too. She has no friends and is certain if she ever did they would leave her too. Even Winterfell is destroyed - sacked, burned, and occupied by the enemy.

So why not give up being Arya Stark of Winterfell and become a faceless killer ? She has nobody & nothing. Just a hole where her heart should be. :frown5:

But the time for Wolves is coming.

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Some posts here have pretty much summed up the total reasons (for me at least) why Arya wants to be a faceless man



1. Of all the main characters her journey has arguably been the most traumatic, especially given her age. She is, at least IMO, a very broken and disturbed girl by this point in the books. She was in the direct firing line of the Lannister atrocities for the first couple of books and has proceeded to lose every friend, family member and even reluctant protectors like the Hound. What else has she got to lose/live for?



2. Arya, by her very nature, has always been counter culture in terms of her desires as a female. Dreaming of handsome princes, wanting to have children, learnly manners and courtly things has never been in her nature, so in a sense, the faceless men give her one of the few legitimate methods for her to really strike out and be whatever she wants to be, unrestrained by 'tradition'.



3. As has been alluded to by many, again at least in my opinion, she believes she can learn all the badass skills she needs to payback all those who wronged her and her family. Now whether or not that is allowed is open to speculation, I understand it is definately not what they are supposed to be about, and I would imagine that through the training of losing 'yourself' that you would leave aside your own desires and emotions, but Arya is still young and probably doesn't understand this. And as I said, its not definitive that you can't get revenge anyway regardless.



4. Jaqen H'ghar really is Arya's last friend/authority figure that she can count on. At this point in the books (and correct me if I'm wrong) she is the only man who has never let her down and always treated her fairly, even from the get go when he called her "Sweetboy" etc. I personally think, due to her trauma, Arya has lost all respect for people who are weak, because she has witnessed so many people die and let her down by doing so, think of her reaction for example to Yoren's death where she was angry at him for letting her down and not getting her to Winterfell.



Jaqen on the other hand has never let her down, and has only helped her, and possesses the skills that she thinks are all that matter in the harsh world she has witnessed, the skills of killing and death.




I'm not arguing with your original question, as its completely legitimate, but if you look at it in isolation i.e. why would Arya want to become a faceless man, your right it makes no sense. But if you take in her journey through the books, it's quite a logical (if extremely unfortunate) turn of events. Obviously we know alot more than she does about Sansa, Bran, Rickon, Jon, but the key thing about Arya by DWD is that of all the characters, she is probably the most f*cked up in the head, and in actual fact even her managing to act the way she has done so far shows just how strong of a person she is. Most people in her situation would have given up and just died. But the single thing keeping her going at this point is revenge, she will not die unless she gets revenge, and the faceless men in her mind are the perfect way to fulfil her sole purpose in lfe.



Hope that helps :)


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  • 1 month later...

If she knew the FM rules when she was in Westeros she never would have gone. She only went cause she had nowhere else to go and she thought that she would least learn how to kill people and get some revenge.



She was told she could kill Cersei, King Joff etc that she would just have to go train and learn how. What if she would have went with Jaquen and not Gendry and Hot Pie? She gets there and then learns she has to forget who she is and cant kill anyone that she knows or even wants to.....


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Some posts here have pretty much summed up the total reasons (for me at least) why Arya wants to be a faceless man

1. Of all the main characters her journey has arguably been the most traumatic, especially given her age. She is, at least IMO, a very broken and disturbed girl by this point in the books. She was in the direct firing line of the Lannister atrocities for the first couple of books and has proceeded to lose every friend, family member and even reluctant protectors like the Hound. What else has she got to lose/live for?

2. Arya, by her very nature, has always been counter culture in terms of her desires as a female. Dreaming of handsome princes, wanting to have children, learnly manners and courtly things has never been in her nature, so in a sense, the faceless men give her one of the few legitimate methods for her to really strike out and be whatever she wants to be, unrestrained by 'tradition'.

3. As has been alluded to by many, again at least in my opinion, she believes she can learn all the badass skills she needs to payback all those who wronged her and her family. Now whether or not that is allowed is open to speculation, I understand it is definately not what they are supposed to be about, and I would imagine that through the training of losing 'yourself' that you would leave aside your own desires and emotions, but Arya is still young and probably doesn't understand this. And as I said, its not definitive that you can't get revenge anyway regardless.

4. Jaqen H'ghar really is Arya's last friend/authority figure that she can count on. At this point in the books (and correct me if I'm wrong) she is the only man who has never let her down and always treated her fairly, even from the get go when he called her "Sweetboy" etc. I personally think, due to her trauma, Arya has lost all respect for people who are weak, because she has witnessed so many people die and let her down by doing so, think of her reaction for example to Yoren's death where she was angry at him for letting her down and not getting her to Winterfell.

Jaqen on the other hand has never let her down, and has only helped her, and possesses the skills that she thinks are all that matter in the harsh world she has witnessed, the skills of killing and death.

I'm not arguing with your original question, as its completely legitimate, but if you look at it in isolation i.e. why would Arya want to become a faceless man, your right it makes no sense. But if you take in her journey through the books, it's quite a logical (if extremely unfortunate) turn of events. Obviously we know alot more than she does about Sansa, Bran, Rickon, Jon, but the key thing about Arya by DWD is that of all the characters, she is probably the most f*cked up in the head, and in actual fact even her managing to act the way she has done so far shows just how strong of a person she is. Most people in her situation would have given up and just died. But the single thing keeping her going at this point is revenge, she will not die unless she gets revenge, and the faceless men in her mind are the perfect way to fulfil her sole purpose in lfe.

Hope that helps :)

Arya doesnt want to be a FM then she wants to be a very well trained killer. She wants to get revenge on those who have wronger her and her family. She for sure didnt want to go learn how to be some bounty killer but under a different identity and then forget all the people in her past that she wants revenge on

Every point you made leads to Arya wanting to be a badass high level killer. Not a FM

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Like most recruiters, Jaqen lied.

Old Army joke: How can you tell when a recruiter's lying? Simple, his lips are moving.

Arya's arc in Braavos is giving us background info on Varys. That's my theory anyway. Her training also gives House Stark a potential spy/assassin if they ever need one, in addition to the leader (Jon, if he lives), the diplomat/gamer (Sansa), the greenseer/wizard (Bran) and the wild scary one (Rickon). If the pack can come back together they'll be unstoppable.

So why was he so persistent in trying to get her then? Are they really in that dire need of more and newer people? Where he would actually have to go recruit people to join

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Her protector had died and she wasn't presented with very many options afterward; travelling alone was too dangerous and she had nowhere to go; she didn't believe the Brotherhood would keep her.


  • The FM give her an opportunity to learn more ways to kill people, which helps not only with her revenge but also in protecting herself.
  • Changing faces helps protect her identity, which protects herself.
  • She has a roof over her head and food for her empty stomach, which cannot be said for most of her journey in the Riverlands.

I don't believe she every truly meant to join the FM, but to use them until she was more capable at killing/protecting herself. She's just an eleven year old with a thirst for revenge who was out of options.


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I admit, I've read the first part and only skimmed the rest of this thread, but has anyone brought up the fact that she didn't set out to join the FM? In the Saltpans, she was trying very hard to sway the captin to take her to the Wall. Since that wasn't happening, and she needed a place to go, this was a place. The captain's son even brought her to their door. It wasn't much of a conscious decision by Arya at any step of the way.

Once she was there, it's a roof, and they feed her. And it coincides, she thinks, with her thirst for revenge. So even though it wasn't her first choice, it's working out so far for her.

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Her protector had died and she wasn't presented with very many options afterward; travelling alone was too dangerous and she had nowhere to go; she didn't believe the Brotherhood would keep her.

  • The FM give her an opportunity to learn more ways to kill people, which helps not only with her revenge but also in protecting herself.

Changing faces helps protect her identity, which protects herself.

She has a roof over her head and food for her empty stomach, which cannot be said for most of her journey in the Riverlands.

I don't believe she every truly meant to join the FM, but to use them until she was more capable at killing/protecting herself. She's just an eleven year old with a thirst for revenge who was out of options.

Right learn how to kill people but only who they say. She isnt becoming some bad ass bounty hunter killer they have strict ass rules. And they are the type of guild that wont give all their secrets and fully teach someone that they feel just wants to serve themselves and will go kill who they want

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I admit, I've read the first part and only skimmed the rest of this thread, but has anyone brought up the fact that she didn't set out to join the FM? In the Saltpans, she was trying very hard to sway the captin to take her to the Wall. Since that wasn't happening, and she needed a place to go, this was a place. The captain's son even brought her to their door. It wasn't much of a conscious decision by Arya at any step of the way.

Once she was there, it's a roof, and they feed her. And it coincides, she thinks, with her thirst for revenge. So even though it wasn't her first choice, it's working out so far for her.

Correct she was out of options and places to go. But from the start when she first met Jaquen. He BS'd her on what she could accomplish. If she were to go train with him she could offer up Cersei etc to the fire god and kill everyone on her list. But she would have to go train and learn how. And then with getting there that is nowhere close to what she assumed and was told. If she knew how they worked and rules were that she would have ended up just trying to find a way to get to the wall

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Ok, sure, Jaquen oversold it, but I disagree that she would have turned her back on it and walked to the Wall. She really was out of options.

She can leave at any time, but chooses not to. Right now if she's dissatisfied with the FM she could use the skills she's learned up to this point to beg, borrow or steal enough money for passage to Eastwatch and reunite with Jon. She hasn't done that because she likes learning how to kill and is gaming the system. She will never truly become one of them, and she knows that or she would have gotten rid of Needle already.

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Right learn how to kill people but only who they say. She isnt becoming some bad ass bounty hunter killer they have strict ass rules. And they are the type of guild that wont give all their secrets and fully teach someone that they feel just wants to serve themselves and will go kill who they want

You are correct, but they are teaching her. She might not get all of the skills of a Faceless Man, but she's already learned a lot.

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