The Parallel Journey of Daenerys Targaryen & ... Part I

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Anyhow, in this GRRM interview he seems to imply heavily that Westeros is indeed Dany's home:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.”

I think he meant they are both going back to their roots rather than actual home. However I could be wrong.

[Hrafntýr]

Thanks QA!

What I also find interesting: the Undying find life to be a good thing, yet I would call them the more menacing of the two...so far. The FM are still a big ol' mystery to me, but the Kindly Man vs Pyat Pree for example, I know who I would chose to spend an afternoon with.

Also, I was re-reading some Arya today and the KM calls death/death's avatar a "dark angel" which I feel is a bit of a contrast and contradiction, at least from popular conceptions of angels--with the exception perhaps of Lucifer, particularly in Milton where Lucifer is the ruler of Hell, but you never forget that he was an angel first.

Welcome to the Re-Read! Feel free to speak up :)

Going back a little bit to the discussion of life and death in the presentation of our heroines, I would agree with those who suggested that the novels may well undermine any opposition between life and death, showing the way in which death is needed in service of life, even if it might seem like death is the end of life. I love the "dark angel" story/image/metaphor that the KM offers to Arya, as indeed I find much that is wonderfully thought-provoking in the philosophy of the Faceless. Death can be a gift, a mercy, just as it can also be a theft. Arya's refusal to kill the Hound is for me one of the richer moments in her already rich story: is she refusing him mercy because she still hates him (refusing, as it were, to serve as his dark angel)? or is she allowing him to live, because she no longer hates him? is it both? is she refusing to assume the position of judge?

There's so much blood in both our heroine's stories, and blood is just so powerfully connected with both life and death: blood of wounds and war alongside the blood of menstruation and childbirth (well, in Dany's story, not yet in Arya's).

I also really loved all the discussion surrounding the "Pandora's box" interpretation, which I think is quite apt. Though I think that the consequences of action-or inaction-is central to most characters' storylines, the very gendered nature of the Pandora story makes it really fit these young women's stories, since in the Greek it is the first human woman who is created to unleash, in all her innocence, evil on the world (it was a punishment for the theft of fire and its bestowal on humankind). I think GRRM's tying of these two heroine's stories to death and destruction taps into those deeper cultural stories that figure "evil" as originating in the acts of a woman. But, of course, those evils are nothing other than the human condition; women are the origin of what it is to be human, and it's but a (sexist) mythological creation to think we could have a world without scary stuff and still be humans. Which is not to say that the world can't be better!

I disagree with the idea that Dany's home is a specific location, such as Westeros or Essos

On the topic of home, what qualifies as home to Dany is somwhere that will give her the same feeling she had in the house with the Red Door which is a sense of protection and happiness.

There is no set location as of now for where Dany's home is, it has more to do with her psyche.

I think that's jumping a bit ahead, we don't know what events will unfold in Westeros. She could end up finding happiness if she discovers someone from her family such as Jon/Tyrion or she may not and may find true happiness amongst her freedmen, we have to wait and see.

I think that this is very well said, and I agree, though I don't think that Dany realizes fully what home means to her. I really wonder if Dany's story is supposed to imply that home is someplace you find or something you make.

[BearQueen87]

I disagree with the idea that Dany's home is a specific location, such as Westeros or Essos

On the topic of home, what qualifies as home to Dany is somwhere that will give her the same feeling she had in the house with the Red Door which is a sense of protection and happiness.

There is no set location as of now for where Dany's home is, it has more to do with her psyche.

Ultimately that is where I come down. Home is feeling for Dany. If she doesn't find it Westeros, then I do think she'll leave because she was pretty content at "Dragonstone" in ADWD. If she does find it in Westeros, then she'll stay, but what will shatter is the illusion Viserys gave her. Home is a feeling, but it's not always perfect.

For someone who didn't have a constant home, I think that idea of home for Dany is actually where her family is. And her family are her dragons. So, Meereen or KL, her home is wherever those three dragons are. The connection between her and them is the most important one in her life.

I would say the dragons are part of her family but not the sum total. She thinks of herself as alone a lot but she's not. The Unsullied will only fight for their mother, Missendei is loyal to Dany, Barry is loyal only to Dany; Jorah (you knew it was coming) refuses to go home because his own concept of home has changed. She does have a non reptilian family...she just think no one can love her because she is a "dragon" and "who would ever dare to love a dragon?" Part of her journey, I think, is learning that she can be loved without giving up being a dragon. She can be a woman and be queen and be a dragon. The contradiction exists only because she makes it so.

I think that this is very well said, and I agree, though I don't think that Dany realizes fully what home means to her. I really wonder if Dany's story is supposed to imply that home is someplace you find or something you make.

Right. And I said this before in this thread, but Dany was "at home" in the Dothraki Sea in AGOT where there are no doors, let alone red ones. She was "at home" in Vaes Tolorro, a city of death that she brought back to life, however briefly. The outside would keeps interfering but she can have a home that is not tied specifically to that red door. She makes the home; she makes the family out of a rag tag team.

[MoIaF]

I think he meant they are both going back to their roots rather than actual home. However I could be wrong.

It could be both - I mean they are returning to themselves after loosing themselves in ADWD. But also they are returning home to Westeros and as I said whether Westerosis Dany's true home or not she believes it is and we can expect her return to Westeros (hopefully) by the end of TWOW.

Going back a little bit to the discussion of life and death in the presentation of our heroines, I would agree with those who suggested that the novels may well undermine any opposition between life and death, showing the way in which death is needed in service of life, even if it might seem like death is the end of life. I love the "dark angel" story/image/metaphor that the KM offers to Arya, as indeed I find much that is wonderfully thought-provoking in the philosophy of the Faceless. Death can be a gift, a mercy, just as it can also be a theft. Arya's refusal to kill the Hound is for me one of the richer moments in her already rich story: is she refusing him mercy because she still hates him (refusing, as it were, to serve as his dark angel)? or is she allowing him to live, because she no longer hates him? is it both? is she refusing to assume the position of judge?

There's so much blood in both our heroine's stories, and blood is just so powerfully connected with both life and death: blood of wounds and war alongside the blood of menstruation and childbirth (well, in Dany's story, not yet in Arya's).

I also really loved all the discussion surrounding the "Pandora's box" interpretation, which I think is quite apt. Though I think that the consequences of action-or inaction-is central to most characters' storylines, the very gendered nature of the Pandora story makes it really fit these young women's stories, since in the Greek it is the first human woman who is created to unleash, in all her innocence, evil on the world (it was a punishment for the theft of fire and its bestowal on humankind). I think GRRM's tying of these two heroine's stories to death and destruction taps into those deeper cultural stories that figure "evil" as originating in the acts of a woman. But, of course, those evils are nothing other than the human condition; women are the origin of what it is to be human, and it's but a (sexist) mythological creation to think we could have a world without scary stuff and still be humans. Which is not to say that the world can't be better!

I think that this is very well said, and I agree, though I don't think that Dany realizes fully what home means to her. I really wonder if Dany's story is supposed to imply that home is someplace you find or something you make.

I said this in my original comment, that for Dany home is family, it just seemed to me to discard Westeros as Dany's home as something premature. It is important to note that Dany also sees home as King's Landing, the Red Keep, the Iron Throne but these surely won't survive the series. Finding out that home might be somewhere in Dorne, or Dragonstone, or even somewhere North where the she find her family or makes a family of her own with her people will also be part what she needs to learn.

Whatever dream or illusions she might still be holding on to will change and have to be adjusted to the reality at hand but Dany has always been very good at persevering, of adjusting herself to circumstances as long as she stays true to herself. I believe Dany has these strong parallels with the Stark children for a reason, they are part of family through a shared relative and I think that'll be important in the future.

[BearQueen87]

I'd like to believe the Stark children will welcome Dany into their little pack by series end. I suspect that Araa will meet Dany somehow in Essos and be the one to speak up initially for welcoming Dany into the wolfy fold.

Or this is my overly sappy dream...

[Mladen]

I'd like to believe the Stark children will welcome Dany into their little pack by series end. I suspect that Araa will meet Dany somehow in Essos and be the one to speak up initially for welcoming Dany into the wolfy fold.

Or this is my overly sappy dream...

I would be satisfied if they reach the mutual understanding, something I find very plausible. I think that she can identify with the key Starks in Westeros now - Jon, Sansa and Arya, as well as they can identify with her. She can understand Jon's possible identity crisis and sense of responsibility, Arya's toughness, Sansa's need to become stronger. So, I doubt they will all be one happy family, but I believe that some mutual understanding can be expected.

Also, advise plea for Kyoshi when he starts doing his Dany/Sansa essays... Please, focus on possibility that Sansa might see in Dany what she saw in Margaery... That would be interesting dynamics to see.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper' s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty. The guilt …

Oh dear. Conflict makes me uncomfortable.

Like if I point out the following quote it's not me trying to suddenly cast a black mark on my beloved Silver Queen:

(Daenerys II, ADWD)

This quote is often used for reasons that Dany is unreasonable, unwilling to learn, to listen, ect. She is lumping all families together as being her enemies even though Barry is telling her that Ned Stark was a good man. Now, I don't go to the "unreasonable" argument because what I find MORE compelling are the ellipses. Drogon killed that girl, but I am the mother of dragons so therefore I am responsible. That particular chapter ends with Dany calling herself Mother of Dragons...Mother of Monsters...if they are monsters, then what am I? She sees herself as one of the "pack of hounds" that tore out the child's throat. That, to me is the real takeaway of her blanket punishment--it applies to her as well.

Thank you for posting that quote, that is the one I was thinking of, along with this one;

Skahaz says " Women do not forget. Women do not forgive"

No, Dany thought, and the Usurper's dogs will learn that, when I return to Westeros.

They are from Dany I and Dany II in DwD. And that is it, she does not mention it or think of it again through the rest of the novel. She has 1 million other things to occupy her thoughts and time and, for some reason, seems to let go of her hate towards those in Westeros. Anyway that was my point, that yes she said those things, but not recently, she has 8 more chapters where it does not come up. In her last chapter in DwD she goes over everything that is important in her life/story thus far, she thinks of the Undying, of Viserys, or Jorah, Barristan, Quaithe, XXD, everyone and everything that matters in her life. But what does she omit? any thoughts or ill will towards 'the Usurper's dogs'. Which is exactly why I don't think revenge is such a big part of her thought process anymore. She grew during her time in Meereen, characters grow and change in novels all the time, and this subject is something that Dany is not fretting with anymore.

[The Breaker of Chains]

Absolutely love this thread, I intend to read it in greater detail in the near future.

I'm writing an essay of my own (unrelated to ASOIAF) and this topic will keep me occupied in the downtime! :D

[Seams]

A few shared Dany / Arya metaphors I would love to puzzle out with the others in this forum. Several are connected with the blood theme and with the desire to find (or return to) home, I think. And then there's that pesky slavery thing that never seems to go away...

Grey / grave worm and leeches - One of the Unsullied chooses to keep the humiliating name Gray Worm that had been randomly assigned to him on the day Dany frees the Unsullied. He is free, but chooses to serve Dany. Arya tries to eat the grave worm in the eye socket of the Kindly Man (but it disappears when she reaches for it). Why does GRRM juxtapose these worms for us? Is Dany obtaining a servant and Arya becoming a servant? But recall that Arya served as a cupbearer for Roose Bolton. She was chosen for this task precisely because she was brave enough to handle the leeches - which seem like they are part of the gray worm motif - Bolton wanted applied to his body. So maybe Arya's attempt to eat the worm was just proof that she had mastered the handling-leeches thing and was willing to turn it up a notch by eating one. I'll be interested if anyone has suggestions to clarify the interpretation here.

Harrenhal + House of the Undying and House of Black and White - Although BQ's good analysis showed the connections between the latter two magical places, there are some things that make me think Harrenhal should be considered alongside Dany and Arya's "houses" in Essos. That possible connection of the leeches to the grey/grave worms is one thing. This may be a stretch, but the ironic name of The Tickler also may be linked to the invasive and painful caresses the Undying give Dany as they touch and grab her body, trying to suck the life out of her. With Jaqen's pledge of assistance, Arya also begins to take lives at Harrenhal, showing her first signs of bloodlust for revenge instead of immediate survival. Instead of a simple third death as promised by Jaqen, however, Arya secures his assistance in freeing Robb's bannermen. She has been a servant at Harrenhal (as she is again at the House of Black and White?) and the weapon that proves central in the effort to free the bannermen is a big pot of hot soup. (This weapon seems significant to me, somehow: maybe because it is uniquely a servant's weapon; maybe because it is hot off a fire, and the last Stark to use a hot weapon was Jon Snow in the White Walker attack on Lord Mormont. But I may be digressing from the consideration of Harrenhal.)

I wonder whether the freeing of Robb's bannermen from the Harrenhal dungeon is another example of a Pandora's Box in Arya's story? She is trying to do the right thing (and to find someone who will take her home) but she ends up inadvertently helping the evil Roose Bolton to advance, and does not achieve her goal of finding a friend to help her return to Winterfell. Rorge and Biter are also part of the effort to free the bannermen - the two most clearly evil characters freed from Arya's first Pandora's Box. Jaqen (strongly connected to the House of Black and White, as we soon find out) is a major presence for Arya at Harrenhal and he gives her the coin here after he points out that she has blood on her hands.

Planting trees - As Dany tries to sort out how or when or whether to leave Meereen, she refers a couple of times to the enjoyment she derives from planting trees. (Presumably the olive trees planted to replace the groves wrecked by the previous rulers of Meereen as Dany and her Unsullied advanced toward the city.) We know that trees are central to the Stark religion. Is it important that Dany plants trees because she wants them to bear fruit while Starks revere trees because trees have a life of their own? We know that Winterfell has fruit-bearing trees only because they were brought up from the south and are kept in a greenhouse - they are not a normal part of the northern lifestyle.

For a few days in Arya's odyssey around the Riverlands, she is recognized as "high born" and forced to wash and dress in a way befitting her status. She doesn't like wearing a dress again, but GRRM goes to great pains to note that the dress she wears is decorated with embroidered acorns. (Or as Jon Snow's raven would say, "a-CORN!")

Gendry really, really likes seeing Arya cleaned up and in a dress. So much so that he asks her to go for a walk to the nearby blacksmith's shop (such a romantic first date!). Canadian readers on this thread may then recognize a set-up that was also used by Robertson Davies in the Deptford Trilogy: Gendry playfully grabs at Arya's nose with a pair of tongs and the two of them end up wrestling. Davies and, I believe, GRRM were alluding to St. Dunstan using blacksmith's tongs to grab the devil by the nose; the saint and the devil end up wrestling in the original story and in Davies' novel as well. Gendry would really like Arya to be free of the devil, to clean up and to return to her roots, as it were. Just as Jorah Mormont sees Dany as a woman in addition to being a queen, Gendry sees through Arya's disguises and sees the girl under the layers of blood and dirt and bravado.

Gendry's crush on Arya is probably mostly unrelated to the acorn motif on her dress, but it seems like there is a symbolic link there about returning to her roots. At any rate, mighty oaks from little acorns grow. Let's hope Arya has planted the right kind of acorns to grow into the best woman she can be.

Up and down, servant and served - With the taking of the high-born Meereenese children as cupbearers, it seems to me that Dany has taken a step on a slippery slope. She purports to hate slavery, yet here are these servants, held against their will. Are they being paid? Do they have the right to come and go from their positions in her household? Dany has gone from sleeping in tents and making love in the open air to living at the top of a pyramid. She has convinced herself that she is the mother of all these captives and servants - she doesn't really want to execute the children, she knows, but she can't really reassure their families about that. I know that there are many Dany defenders and lovers on this thread, and I don't mean to offend you - I hope that Dany will recognize that she has become someone she doesn't want to be (maybe that is what is happening when Drogon spirits her away from the fighting pit and takes her back to the wilderness). It's a hard balance to strike, being the champion of the downtrodden yet ruling effectively.

Arya is often described as going down into a hole - into the crypts and the hidden stairway at King's Landing; falling into a hole when Yoren's wagon train is attacked; into the hollow hill with the BWB. This is consistent with her "Arya Underfoot" nickname from childhood - the earth and Arya are both underfoot. As we all know, Arya's close friend was Mycah, the son of a butcher at Winterfell. After leaving King's Landing, she teams up with a dye worker (Lummy Greenhands) and a baker (Hot Pie) and a candlestick maker smith (Gendry). Arya is not just a champion of the downtrodden; she really is one of them, befriending servants and becoming one. Instead of climbing steps to the towers where high-born people live, Arya scrubs those steps. (It does seem significant, though, that she hides her sword by burying it under a loose step near the canals in Braavos. She can't quite let go of her sword or of her previous identity as a high-born girl.)

There have been some good points made in this thread about the similarities in Dany and Arya's motives toward justice. It would be interesting to hear if people see a difference in the way they live out this justice in their own lives. Or maybe that's part of BQ's next essay?

Home - I am afraid to rekindle the back and forth that dominated this thread for a few days, but I did notice something interesting about the way Dany pictures her home:

I pray for home too ... It was Kings Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her minds eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her minds eye, all the doors were red.

Arya's home had a fire blazing in every window because Ramsay Bolton burned it down. (Something similar happened at Harrenhal, if anyone cares to join me in looking for additional Harrenhal links to these heroines.) Maybe Dany's vision of the Red Keep and Dragonstone are prophetic of the warm and welcoming place where she will feel at home, but maybe it is a vision of the destruction that is in store for these landmarks. Fwiw.

[BearQueen87]

@Seams

I only have a brief time to talk about this as I am heading out, but I will address one idea right now and the rest when I get home.

Harrenhal.

There is a lot of Targ history in that joint. Dany is basically Aegon the Conqueror come-again and we know that Aegon I basically devastated the castle the day it was finally built. It's also the place where the end of the Targs began. Dany sees herself also as Rhaegar come again--he was supposedly the Last Dragon, but Dany is the real last dragon. Hence why she sees his armor in her dream, but it's really her face in the suit.

Arya spends time in HH and talks a lot about the ghosts of HH that were caused by Aegon I. It's the place where her own "ghost" identity is cemented. It's interesting that Arya is a Lyanna stand in and she sets out with companions at the end of ACOK and then is set upon by a group that takes her hostage (the rough story of Lyanna and Rhaegar).

I'll talk about HH/HotU/HoBaW when I get back but for just HH, I think both Arya and Dany will return there at some point. Dany almost has to since it's such a big part of Targ history. I think Arya will since it was the seat of a lot of her changes in identity.

[Seams]

I almost forgot one more common metaphor that I would love to try to sort out:

Butchers - Mycah is known as the butcher's boy. He seems like 100% victim, sort of a whipping boy for Arya, who was really the one to go after Joffrey. But butcher's boys usually grow up to be butchers, right? And there is definitely a motif around butchers as bad guys and humans as slaughtered meat. Is that why Mycah is known as the butcher's boy? On another thread I wondered, though, whether he is labeled the butcher's boy because The Hound is the butcher and Mycah is butchered by this violent man.

I think it's worth trying to figure out Mycah's status as the butcher's boy because Dany's actions in Astapor lead to the rise of The Butcher King, Cleon. This is a former butcher who rises to take charge of the city, in spite of Dany's efforts to prevent a new absolute ruler. He does a bad job and is put to death.

Why the shared butcher motif in Dany and Arya's stories?

[Hrafntýr]

Thank you for posting that quote, that is the one I was thinking of, along with this one;

They are from Dany I and Dany II in DwD. And that is it, she does not mention it or think of it again through the rest of the novel. She has 1 million other things to occupy her thoughts and time and, for some reason, seems to let go of her hate towards those in Westeros. Anyway that was my point, that yes she said those things, but not recently, she has 8 more chapters where it does not come up. In her last chapter in DwD she goes over everything that is important in her life/story thus far, she thinks of the Undying, of Viserys, or Jorah, Barristan, Quaithe, XXD, everyone and everything that matters in her life. But what does she omit? any thoughts or ill will towards 'the Usurper's dogs'. Which is exactly why I don't think revenge is such a big part of her thought process anymore. She grew during her time in Meereen, characters grow and change in novels all the time, and this subject is something that Dany is not fretting with anymore.

Dany has had the experience, in Meereen, of attempting to reconcile with her former enemies. She made a pretty monumental effort of trying to make this work, culminating in her marriage to Hizdahr. But at that point, signaled by the reopening of the fighting pits, it became insufferable to her, which is what I take Drogon's arrival to mean. It's hard to know what her current feelings about reconciliation might be, though it's a good point that it's been a while since she gave thought to the Westerosi enemies of her house.

A few shared Dany / Arya metaphors I would love to puzzle out with the others in this forum. Several are connected with the blood theme and with the desire to find (or return to) home, I think. And then there's that pesky slavery thing that never seems to go away...

Grey / grave worm and leeches - One of the Unsullied chooses to keep the humiliating name Gray Worm that had been randomly assigned to him on the day Dany frees the Unsullied. He is free, but chooses to serve Dany. Arya tries to eat the grave worm in the eye socket of the Kindly Man (but it disappears when she reaches for it). Why does GRRM juxtapose these worms for us? Is Dany obtaining a servant and Arya becoming a servant? But recall that Arya served as a cupbearer for Roose Bolton. She was chosen for this task precisely because she was brave enough to handle the leeches - which seem like they are part of the gray worm motif - Bolton wanted applied to his body. So maybe Arya's attempt to eat the worm was just proof that she had mastered the handling-leeches thing and was willing to turn it up a notch by eating one. I'll be interested if anyone has suggestions to clarify the interpretation here.

Harrenhal + House of the Undying and House of Black and White - Although BQ's good analysis showed the connections between the latter two magical places, there are some things that make me think Harrenhal should be considered alongside Dany and Arya's "houses" in Essos. That possible connection of the leeches to the grey/grave worms is one thing. This may be a stretch, but the ironic name of The Tickler also may be linked to the invasive and painful caresses the Undying give Dany as they touch and grab her body, trying to suck the life out of her. With Jaqen's pledge of assistance, Arya also begins to take lives at Harrenhal, showing her first signs of bloodlust for revenge instead of immediate survival. Instead of a simple third death as promised by Jaqen, however, Arya secures his assistance in freeing Robb's bannermen. She has been a servant at Harrenhal (as she is again at the House of Black and White?) and the weapon that proves central in the effort to free the bannermen is a big pot of hot soup. (This weapon seems significant to me, somehow: maybe because it is uniquely a servant's weapon; maybe because it is hot off a fire, and the last Stark to use a hot weapon was Jon Snow in the White Walker attack on Lord Mormont. But I may be digressing from the consideration of Harrenhal.)

I wonder whether the freeing of Robb's bannermen from the Harrenhal dungeon is another example of a Pandora's Box in Arya's story? She is trying to do the right thing (and to find someone who will take her home) but she ends up inadvertently helping the evil Roose Bolton to advance, and does not achieve her goal of finding a friend to help her return to Winterfell. Rorge and Biter are also part of the effort to free the bannermen - the two most clearly evil characters freed from Arya's first Pandora's Box. Jaqen (strongly connected to the House of Black and White, as we soon find out) is a major presence for Arya at Harrenhal and he gives her the coin here after he points out that she has blood on her hands.

<snip>

For now I'll just pick up on these first two points, though these are all interesting potential parallels between our two heroines. On the worms and leeches, I'd add that in Indo-European literature (and I tend to think of GRRM's work as continuous with that tradition), the worm or leech, is symbolically linked to the serpent/dragon. Of course in that tradition the worm/dragon/monster is the opponent of the hero, who in the basic formula of I-E literature slays the dragon, sometimes with the help of a companion, and sometimes with a special weapon. But here one of our heroines IS the dragon and is the mother of dragons. I hadn't picked up on the Grey Worm connection (nice!), which also gives the worm/dragon a positive valence in Dany's story. With Arya it seems like the emphasis is upon her lack of fear with respect to the leech/worm, rather than the leech/grave worm being something intrinsic to her character. (If I'm not mistaken, I think Arya, Gendry, Hot Pie and Lommy were reduced to eating worms at one point, I seem to remember the epithet "Wormbreath" being cast about")

As for Harrenhal, as BearQueen notes, there's definitely plenty of dragon connections with Harrenhal (not to mention that it's the site of a significant Stark/Targaryen interaction), and I'm inclined to agree with her that we're likely to see the place again. I hadn't made the connection with the leeches, though, which is a good catch, Seams, a way that Arya's time there manages to incorporate the dragon. Harrenhal may also significant, I think, for its placement on the Gods Eye, which played a role in more distant Targaryen past, and maybe for its Iron Islands history as well, if Dany gets bound up with Euron. And yes, in many ways Harrenhal is the site of Arya's "initiation" into the world of the Faceless. It's in the godwood there that she has her brilliant moment of seeing right to the heart of the "no one" business, and shows herself as worthy of initiation to Jaqen.

[BearQueen87]

@Seams I'm back so I'll try to touch on some more stuff. Confession first

Just as Jorah Mormont sees Dany as a woman in addition to being a queen, Gendry sees through Arya's disguises and sees the girl under the layers of blood and dirt and bravado.

In Essay #1 originally there was an entire section devoted to Gendy/Arya and Jorah/Dany parallels with the understanding of getting to know the "real you" and seeing you for who you are. Maybe someday whenever we put together a Dany and her men Re-read like MOIAF and I have tossed around, I'll tackle it again. There are some surprising things, I think.

Planting trees -

So, trees. What's up with that? I will say that I don't think Dany's not planting trees has anything to do with the Starks but rather the idea of rootedness. It's a theme for both Arya and Dany. Allow me to extrapolate Both Arya and Dany long for the day when they can put down roots. Roots metaphorically represent being grounded, unmoveable. WF was Arya's original "rooted" location--and in fact, WF is event described as a tree with deep roots by Maester Luwin in Bran II in AGOT. Dany has never had roots, but she thought she could have it Meereen. She wanted to put down roots, see life develop around her. But the problem is that Meereen is never going to be her city. The tree/roots reject the planter. So now Dany must once more uproot her life. More than maybe any character, Dany and Arya are all about movement. They both have really long travelogues and are constantly moving from one place to the next. I don't think Arya will be long in Braaovs and we know Dany is coming home in Winds. I think if given the oppertunity, they both want to plant some roots.

With Arya's dress at Acorn Hill, she's rejecting the idea of putting down roots--of being Lady Smallwood's "daughter" incarnation--because it's not who she is. During ASOS Arya is very much in control of her identity. She rarely adopts another name or another persona. She's just Arya. So someone trying to force another identity or set of roots on her is unacceptable.

I almost forgot one more common metaphor that I would love to try to sort out:

Butchers - Mycah is known as the butcher's boy. He seems like 100% victim, sort of a whipping boy for Arya, who was really the one to go after Joffrey. But butcher's boys usually grow up to be butchers, right? And there is definitely a motif around butchers as bad guys and humans as slaughtered meat. Is that why Mycah is known as the butcher's boy? On another thread I wondered, though, whether he is labeled the butcher's boy because The Hound is the butcher and Mycah is butchered by this violent man.

I think it's worth trying to figure out Mycah's status as the butcher's boy because Dany's actions in Astapor lead to the rise of The Butcher King, Cleon. This is a former butcher who rises to take charge of the city, in spite of Dany's efforts to prevent a new absolute ruler. He does a bad job and is put to death.

Why the shared butcher motif in Dany and Arya's stories?

for me it's because Arya and Dany are the two characters who witness the bloody cost of war firsthand. Arya is thrown into a war during the actual war, and Dany starts a conquest. They are surrounded by blood and gore. Think of the Astapor poem about how blood built the city. Dany's walking on bricks of a city made by "blood" (metaphorical of course, but it's highly evocative). Arya's walking the Riverland which is just...soaked. Everything about the Riverlands is bloody.

[Kyoshi]

Of what home you talk about? Westeros was never her home, it is an idea of home, idea she got from Viserys. The only real home she knows is in Braavos. Asserting self as conqueror and a queen isn't a bad thing, that is who she is. That doesn't mean she is soulless creature, it means that she goes to Westeros for other reasons than Viserys' "returning home". Let's face it, her sense of belonging to Westeros is Viserys'. She doesnćt have the first cliue about it and hence making her and Arya's journeys home is fundamentally wrong, because Arya is returning to home she knows, to place where she felt safe, as Daenerys is going to Westeros basically to show everyone that you don't mess with the dragon. Therefore, we can't talk about "Dany's return home" since Westeros was never her home. Braavos and house with red doors, yes. Westeros, not so much.

I agree with Suzanna, Bear Queen and MOIAF's posts. Especially the one I quote below:

I have to disagree with this.

I think you are fixating too much on the idea that because Dany has never been to Westeros and what she knows of it has been filtered through her brother that somehow that means that Westeros cannot be her home. Of course she will face harsh truth, even Jorah who lived most of his life in Westeros will face harsh truths when he sees what the Wot5K has done to his home. Westeros isn't the place it was at the beginning of the series for anyone. Everyone, every single one of the characters has to face the new reality that is their world, their old word, the one they all grew up in, no longer exist. And once the Long Night hits, forget it, it will be unrecognizable at the end.

The journey that Dany and Arya have embarked in has so many similarities. Yes, Arya had a concrete home and life in Westeros before this all happened, but that life and family no longer exist, her family doesn't even rule Winterfell anymore. So, the idea of home is a dream now for both girls. Dany's is a dream of an imagined life and Arya's is a dream of a pass life that will never come back.

Home for Dany is family and the only family she has in the whole world, even if she doesn't know it, is in Westeros. That will make Westeros home for her. In her fevered dream she thinks to herself:

"She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door. ... the dragon... "

This is of course more than a mere dream, it's a prophetic dream and that description of home sounds an awful lot like Westeros.

Will home (Westeros) be what Dany imagined it to be, of course not, it'll be a rude awakening for her. Once she realizes what Westeros is, do you believe she's going to turn around and say, "well this isn't what I thought it'll be, let's get the hell out of here". Of course not, she will make Westeros a cause and fight for it, she will adopt it's people, because she believe they are her people, and because that's what she does. She can't just let the downtrodden be stomped on in her presence. Please, they will rue the day they ever tried.

Anyhow, in this GRRM interview he seems to imply heavily that Westeros is indeed Dany's home:

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.”

I still disagree with you very strongly, Mladen. Not only because you appear to limit home to a structure, a set of walls and a specific location, but because you also seem, at last to me, to trivialise the pursuit of such a thing as the idea of belonging.

Arya's Winterfell has been defaced and reclaimed by another family. Yeah sure, she was born there and has beautiful memories, but it's not her Winterfell anymore. Yet that has not stopped Arya from trekking through the Riverlands and getting on ships with strange men just so she can return to that sense of safety she once felt in WF. Similar to Dany, Arya has to reclaim Winterfell since it does not quite belong to her anymore. Sansa, Bran, Jon and Rickon also have to reclaim WF by whatever means is acceptable to their subjects. Given the setting of the events and the nature of the relevant culture, I would say that the acceptable means will most likely be right of conquest. Hence the impending battle of Winterfell where we see some Stark loyalists waging war on the Boltons in Arya's name.

I think it naive to assume that simply because a person has no physical concept of a place then that place does not quite belong to that person. I would say Westeros is Dany's home, in every way that a place can be someone's home. Even the Essosi begrudge the fact that Dany is an outsider. Hell, even the majority of the boarder begrudges Dany the fact that she is an interfering outsider in Essos.

And if she does not belong to Essos, where does she belong, I ask you.

[Kyoshi]

Also, advise plea for Kyoshi when he starts doing his Dany/Sansa essays... Please, focus on possibility that Sansa might see in Dany what she saw in Margaery... That would be interesting dynamics to see.

Thanks for the tip. :) I should also add that the thought of you reading my essays makes me shake in my boots. I now regret volunteering for the Sansa parallel.

[Mladen]

I still disagree with you very strongly, Mladen. Not only because you appear to limit home to a structure, a set of walls and a specific location, but because you also seem, at last to me, to trivialise the pursuit of such a thing as the idea of belonging.

I am not talking about location. I agreed with Queen Alysanne regarding that Dany's home first and foremost is with her dragons. I am not trivializing her sense of belonging and ultimately, if she feels that Westeros is her home, as I said, that is the end. But, just look at her journey. In AGOT, she was basically a lost girl wanting a home. She still does want that, but she also wants more. This surpassed the "going home" the moment those dragons were born, the moment she created her khalassar and refused to be set aside and grow old as Dosh Khaleen. The burden of entire dynasty, her natural strength and ambition with empowering nature of the dragons gave her more than just going home. I don't see it as a bad thing. She is a normal person, descendant of powerful family. It is just that Dany from AGOT who wanted home and Dany the Dragon Queen from ADWD are two different persons.

Arya's Winterfell has been defaced and reclaimed by another family. Yeah sure, she was born there and has beautiful memories, but it's not her Winterfell anymore. Yet that has not stopped Arya from trekking through the Riverlands and getting on ships with strange men just so she can return to that sense of safety she once felt in WF. Similar to Dany, Arya has to reclaim Winterfell since it does not quite belong to her anymore.

The point wasn't about Targaryens being dethroned and that Dany have no right to feel about Westeros as home. That is not what I claimed. First thing is that Dany was raised in Braavos, her warmest memories are of house with red doors, and later of Drogo. Those were the places where she felt home. The difference between Stark children and her, is that Stark children don't just have the idea of home, they lived there, they call WF their home because it was. Dany never grew in Westeros, her idea of home, her sense of belonging originates in Viserys. Those feelings are real, no debate in that. She has every right to feel that way, I don't even argued against that. It is just that there is a difference between how Stark children feel about Winterfell and how Dany feels about Westeros.

I think it naive to assume that simply because a person has no physical concept of a place then that place does not quite belong to that person. I would say Westeros is Dany's home, in every way that a place can be someone's home. Even the Essosi begrudge the fact that Dany is an outsider. Hell, even the majority of the boarder begrudges Dany the fact that she is an interfering outsider in Essos.

Again, I have never said that Dany doesn't belong to Westeros. Just that in comparison to Arya's emotions about WF, Dany's emotions are based on the stories she got from Viserys. Westeros is her idea of home, but the moment she lands there, she will start to learn about Westeros. She does belong there, because as MOIAF noticed, culturally and in every other sense, she is Westerosi. My point just was that Westeros, although she feels it as home, was never realistically her home. The feelings she has, as real as they are, are for the idea Viserys created for her, not her own experience.

And if she does not belong to Essos, where does she belong, I ask you.

For the third time, she does belong to Westeros. That was never a question.

Thanks for the tip. :) I should also add that the thought of you reading my essays makes me shake in my boots. I now regret volunteering for the Sansa parallel.

No need to feel that way. I am positively confident that you will do a great job. There are so many comparative elements between those two and so many differences.

As for this project, I have to say that after two BQ's essays, I see the narrative point of some comparisons and the thematic and narrative value of these essays, Keep up the good work... Good job, BearQueen. And I am not being just polite :)

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Dany has had the experience, in Meereen, of attempting to reconcile with her former enemies. She made a pretty monumental effort of trying to make this work, culminating in her marriage to Hizdahr. But at that point, signaled by the reopening of the fighting pits, it became insufferable to her, which is what I take Drogon's arrival to mean. It's hard to know what her current feelings about reconciliation might be, though it's a good point that it's been a while since she gave thought to the Westerosi enemies of her house.

Yes that was my point, that she thought and spoke of these things when she first got to Meereen, then completely let it go as more important, pressing matters were drowning her. Then she became involved with Daario and HIzdahr. And 8 chapters later when she finally changes her mind at Dragonstone she recaps everything important. Revenge on her Westeros enemies is hardly paramount. certainly not a theme she is carrying through the entire book.

[BearQueen87]

The Last Dragon and The Lone Wolf: Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark

Essay Number Three:

Identity

Daenerys Targaryen. Stormborn. Blood of the Dragon. Khaleesi. Mother of Dragons. The Unburnt. Slayer of Lies. Mhysa. Breaker of Chains. Queen in Meereen. Dany.

Arya Stark. Arya Horseface. Arry. Weasel. Nan. Salty. The Lone Wolf. Cat of the Canals. The Little Blind Girl. The Ugly Girl. The Night Wolf. Mercy. No One.

If we were to make a list of the major themes that George RR Martin has woven into his series thus far, identity would be somewhere near the top. Whether a character is hiding their true identity, whether their identity is slowly being revealed to the reader, or whether their identity is being stripped away, the question of “who are you really” gets put to every POV character in the series. This includes Daenerys and Arya, two characters who are trying to negotiate their own identity as women, nobles, conquerors or killers, traumatized youths, and lonely little girls. Both Arya and Dany present readers with a chance to see that our identity is constantly in flux and responds to our situations, our friends, our environment and circumstance.

For Arya, I propose that we look at our Young Wolf Girl as an actress. Over the course of their careers, actresses will play hundreds of roles—thousands if they are lucky. Part of their job is to embody their character; you hear actresses and actors talk about needing to get inside the head of their character, to understand (not just play) their role. This is helped, along the way, by conscience clothing, hair, makeup, and expressive decisions such as ticks, dialect, hand gestures, ect. Arya goes through all of this. She is not simply playing roles when she adopts different names; she becomes a different person, complete with costume changes and manner of thinking.

For Dany, I propose that she is a bit different. She might put on various costumes, but they are in service of furthering her true identity as Daenerys Targaryen. This is why, when she does try to squash (or chain) her identity in A Dance with Dragons, the results are emotionally disastrous and uncomfortable for her. In other words, where Arya embodies, Dany plays.

Finally, I want to discuss the idea of emotional touchstones as markers of identity for both characters and how they might be the saving grace for Dany and Arya.

Identity Study: Arya

Arya’s first costume change comes on the heels of one of the saddest moments in her young life: the death of her father, Eddard. Even before the well known event at the Sept of Baelor, Arya begins to learn that in order to survive it is necessary to become another person, in this case your common and ordinary street rat. She is aided in this as bits and pieces of Arya Stark’s former life—a well born lady—are taken from her:

The silver bracelet she’d hoped to sell had been stolen her first night out of the castle, along with her bundle of good clothes, snatched while she slept in a burnt out house off Pig’s Alley. All they left her was the cloak she’d been huddled in, the leathers on her back, her wooden practice sword…and Needle.

[snip]

They were looking for a girl, but he thought she was a boy. She’d be a boy, then.

(Arya V, AGOT)

For Arya, it is not enough to simply pretend to be a boy or a gutter rat in Flea Bottom; she needs to be one. Arya does all the things orphans of King’s Landing do: she catches pigeons (and even eats a few raw), she visits the pot shops and sups on bowls of brown, contemplates thievery, fights, and steals into abandoned houses for shelter. These lessons of becoming whatever (or rather, whomever) are needed for survival is something Arya carries with her.

The first of Arya’s costume changes is a haircut. While Ser Ilyn Payne is removing Eddard Stark’s head at King Joffery’s order, a smelly, sour man dressed in all black roughly pulls Arya away from the scene. Yoren, of the Night’s Watch, recognizes who Arya is and determines to take her home to Winterfell. In order to keep Arya safe, Yoren quickly performs the change.

When Yoren had dragged her into that alley she'd thought he meant to kill her, but the sour old man had only held her tight, sawing through her mats and tangles with his dagger. She remembered how the breeze sent the fistfuls of dirty brown hair skittering across the paving stones, toward the sept where her father had died.

Afterward he told her that from there to Winterfell she'd be Arry the orphan boy.

(Arya I, ACOK)

Arya has now become Arry; Arry and Arya don’t differ a whole lot (note how the name is very similar), except in their sex, and throughout the early Riverland escapades we even see “Arya” peek out from behind Arry such as during fighting skirmishes, her interactions with Hot Pie, Lommy, and Gendry in which Arry is sassy and defensive. Like Arya who tries to rescue Mycha from Joffrey, Arry rescues those around “him.”

Arry is not long for this world and once The Mountain and his ilk find the little rag tag team, Arya’s secret is discovered and her new (very brief) identity is not even human. She’s a sheep; she sits in a pen with other sheep, she moves from “pasture” to “pasture;” she gets hit if she bleats, and other sheep die if they bleat too much or don’t bleat at all. During her time as a sheep, Arya loses the one item that has always been her link to Arya Stark of old: Needle, the sword Jon Snow gave to her at Winterfell. Obviously, Needle is going to play a larger role in Arya’s identity, so keep it in mind.

Without Needle, Arya arrives at Harrenhal and becomes one more creature, something even less significant than a lamb: Weasel, the mouse. Notice the repetitive animals names. Arya has no trouble associating with animals; she is a direwolf after all. But here we have tiny, scared animals that couldn’t hold their own against wolves, lions, stags, or any other animals that double as a sigil. As we might expect, when Arya becomes Weasel, she gets a new costume to help her embody her new mouse status.

Arya dared not say her true name, but Arry was no good either, it was a boy’s name and they could see she was no boy. “Weasel,” she said, naming the first girl she could think of. “Lommy called me Weasel.”

[snip]

“Harra, I believe we should give this one to Weese.”

“If you think so, Amabel.” They gave her a shift of grey rough spun wool and a pair of ill-fitting shoes, and sent her off.

(Arya VI, ACOK)

As Weasel, the mouse, she scurries and cleans and keeps out of the way, and runs from all the danger around her. Nothing about Weasel is Arya who takes Weese’s beatings and taunts, who hears the horror stories of the war ravaging around her and knows that as a mouse, she is powerless.

On the road, Arya had felt like a sheep, but Harrenhal turned her into a mouse. She was a grey mouse in a her scratchy wool shift and like a mouse she kept to the crannies and crevices and dark holes of the castle, scurrying out of the way of the mighty.

(Arya VII, ACOK)

The death of Weasel, the mouse, comes in two parts. First, an old character enters Arya’s little play. Jaqen H’gar grants Arya the power of death over her enemies and she becomes Weasel, the Ghost, a much more powerful figure at Harrnehal. Because she has stepped out of the dark crevices where little mice like to hide, Weasel the Ghost becomes a bit more like the Arya we once knew. She spends time with Hot Pie and teases him, swiping pies; she visits Gendry, the only person who knows her true identity. During this time, Weasel the Ghost gets a prop that helps her become a mix of the Ghost and Arya, the Wolf.

There, beneath the rotting wood and twisted splintered branches, she found her hidden sword.

[snip]

Arya climbed. Up in the kingdom of the leaves, she unsheathed and for a time forget them all, Ser Armory and the Mummers and her father’s men alike, losing herself in the feel of rough wood beneath the soles of her feet and the swish of sword through air. A broken branch became Joffery. She struck at it until it fell away. The queen and Ser Ilyn and Ser Meryn and the Hound were only leaves, but she killed them all as well.

(Arya IX, ACOK)

The second and final death of Weasel comes during the famous Weasel soup incident when the red blood of those killed for her ruins the former mouse’s attire: The Lorathi brought the blade to Arya still red with heart’s blood and wiped it clean on the front of her shift. “A girl should be bloody too. This is her work.”(Arya IX, ACOK)

The northern men take the castle and Roose Bolton takes over as protector of Harrnehal. Weasel, both the mouse and the ghost, are put aside and Arya picks up her next identity: Nan.

”They tell me you are called Weasel. That will not serve. What name did your mother give you?”

She bit her lip, groping for another name. Lommy had called her Lumpyhead, Sansa used Horseface, and her father’s men once dubbed her Arya Underfoot, but she did not think any of those were the sort of name he wanted.

“Nymeria,” she said. “Only she called me Nan for short.”

[snip]

The lord waved a hand. “Make her presentable,” he said to no one in particular, “and make certain she knows how to pour wine without spilling it.”

(Arya IX, ACOK)

There is an interesting matter to consider in the above paragraph. Let’s all acknowledge that George RR Martin knows how basic English sentences work. Starting a paragraph with “she” when you have not established that the “she” in question is Arya in a preceding sentence (in fact the word “Arya” has not been used since just before the conversation with Roose began), goes against some rules of writing. Bolton is asking, point blank, for Arya’s identity and GRRM doesn’t take this time to enforce that she is Arya by stating her name, even though we have the characteristic lip bite. I think that GRRM did this deliberately. Right now, this girl is an empty vessel and is searching for her new identity. She can’t be Arya or Weasel and so she picks out a name that is very significant to the person she wants to be (Arya). Recall that Weasel the Ghost has begun to act more like Arya Stark, sassy and adept at swordplay, but because she cannot be the Arya Stark, she chooses the next best thing, Arya’s familiar, the wolf pup Nymeria who is out in the Riverlands still causing all sorts of havoc. To drive this point home, I don’t think it’s a big coincidence that Nymeria the Wolf and her pack are mentioned as menaces by Roose in the chapter right after Arya this one.

Nan’s existence is short, but she does receive a new costume in the form of a tunic with a “little bloody man” on the front and Nan picks up her new skill of being a cupbearer almost instantly, as if she had been doing it for her whole life. Nan even contemplates if Roose Bolton might take her with him when he leaves Harrnehal. It is only when she realizes that he will not that Arya Stark resurfaces and she is forced to remember just who she is.

For a long moment there was no sound but the wind and the water and the creak of leaf and limb. And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. Gooseprickles rose on Arya's skin, and for an instant she felt dizzy. Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

(Arya X, ACOK)

That moment is not only her “crossing the Trident” moment but it is also the death of Nan. Arya entered Harrnehal as a sheep but she leaves as Arya Stark, a bit darker and with some blood on her hands, but she is Arya once more.

A Storm of Swords presents us with an interesting case in that for the most part, Arya stays Arya. In fact, we might even venture to say that she becomes more Arya-ish over the course of the book than in the previous one. She adopts few names along her adventures, either with the Brotherhood Without Banner or with the Hound. Arya calls herself Squab at one point, but it’s a name the BwB give her in jest and not one she embodies. The costume change that is forced upon her by Lady Smallwood is rejected almost immediately by Arya as she does not wish to be dressed in pretty dresses and does not wish to be a lady: "In times like these, we all must make do as best we can." Lady Smallwood fussed at the bodice of the gown. "Now you look a proper young lady." I'm not a lady, Arya wanted to tell her, I'm a wolf. (Arya IV, ASOS)

It is when Arya reaches Braavos and begins her time at the House of Black and White that we begin to see the deconstruction of her identity really take over her entire storyline. What happens to Arya is Braavos I can only describe as an almost total erasure of self. I hesitate to use this word because it has a host of negative connotations, but if we think of the Faceless Men as a cult then Arya’s emotional storyline is one that happens in the real world when someone must fork over not only one’s possessions but give up their identity to be part of the group mentality. In order to be “one of them” you must stop being “you.” The journey to this unremarkable, malleable, void of a human first begins with Arya acknowledging who she is, truly.

The priest studied the coin, though he made no move to touch it. The waif with the big eyes was looking at it too. Finally, the cowled man said, "Tell me your name, child."

"Salty. I come from Saltpans, by the Trident."

Though she could not see his face, somehow she could feel him smiling. "No," he said. "Tell me your name."

"Squab," she answered this time.

"Your true name, child."

"My mother named me Nan, but they call me Weasel—"

"Your name."

She swallowed. "Arry. I'm Arry."

"Closer. And now the truth?"

Fear cuts deeper than swords, she told herself. "Arya." She whispered the word the first time. The second time she threw it at him. "I am Arya, of House Stark."

(Arya I, AFFC)

From here, she gets—you guessed it—a costume change and this one is a reflection of her new “no one” self. The garment is unremarkable, totally devoid of personality, color and anything that would remind Arya of a former identity. If we continue to think about the FM and HoBaW as a cult, then the way that they try to “break” Arya is through repetitive questions and by giving up possessions that tied Arya to her former world:

Only the kindly man knew the Common Tongue. "Who are you?" he would ask her every day.

"No one," she would answer, she who had been Arya of House Stark, Arya Underfoot, Arya Horseface. She had been Arry and Weasel too, and Squab and Salty, Nan the cupbearer, a grey mouse, a sheep, the ghost of Harrenhal . . . but not for true, not in her heart of hearts. In there she was Arya of Winterfell, the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catelyn, who had once had brothers named Robb and Bran and Rickon, a sister named Sansa, a direwolf called Nymeria, a half brother named Jon Snow. In there she was someone . . . but that was not the answer that he wanted.

[snip]

And her cell was hers alone. She kept her treasures there: the silver fork and floppy hat and fingerless gloves given her by the sailors on the Titan's Daughter, her dagger, boots, and belt, her small store of coins, the clothes she had been wearing . . .

And Needle.

Though her duties left her little time for needlework, she practiced when she could, dueling with her shadow by the light of a blue candle. One night the waif happened to be passing and saw Arya at her swordplay. The girl did not say a word, but the next day, the kindly man walked Arya back to her cell. "You need to rid yourself of all this," he said of her treasures.

Arya felt stricken. "They're mine."

"And who are you?"

"No one."

He picked up her silver fork. "This belongs to Arya of House Stark. All these things belong to her. There is no place for them here. There is no place for her.

(Arya II, AFFC)

I’ll return to Needle at the end of the essay, but Arya does give in to the Kindly Man’s demands and lets go of her treasures. Her rationale behind it is possibly one of the saddest sentences in her long journey: “She would be no one if that was what it took. No one had no holes inside her.”

Once those items are done away with, Arya picks up two more identities. One is another name, with new clothing, a new persona, and a new life: Cat of the Canals is just an ordinary orphan girl in “a cloak, a patched faded thing of the sort an orphan might wear.”

The other is meant to be her new true self, an acolyte in the House of the Undying: “her servants garb was taken away and she was given a robe to wear, a robe of black and white as buttery soft as the old red blanket she had once had at Winterfell.”

I don’t wish to spend a lot of time with either of these two new figures, but it’s worth noting that once Arya lets go of all her treasures and adopts this new black and white garb, no matter what she is doing in the books, her POV changes to reflect a new identity. Even though she spent most of the time in ACOK as different people, her POV’s were always “Arya.” Here, for the first time, we see a total change: Cat of the Canals, The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl. GRRM often does this to signal an almost total dissociation from the characters previous identity and you’ll see in POVs like this that the character will reinforce their new identity by way of contrasting the new from the old: I should not be dreaming wolf dreams, she told herself. I am a cat now, not a wolf. I am Cat of the Canal. The dreams belong to Arya of House Stark. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

One final point to note before I move on to Dany, but at the end of A Dance with Dragons, the idea I’ve been hammering home about taking on a new name, new clothing, new identity becomes scary literal as Arya get her first taste of being a Faceless Man.

"Sit," the priest commanded. She sat. "Now close your eyes, child." She closed her eyes. "This will hurt," he warned her, "but pain is the price of power. Do not move."

Still as stone, she thought. She sat unmoving. The cut was quick, the blade sharp. By rights the metal should have been cold against her flesh, but it felt warm instead. She could feel the blood washing down her face, a rippling red curtain falling across her brow and cheeks and chin, and she understood why the priest had made her close her eyes. When it reached her lips the taste was salt and copper. She licked at it and shivered.

"Bring me the face," said the kindly man….

She felt his fingers brushing back her hair. "Stay still. This will feel queer. You may be dizzy, but you must not move."

Then came a tug and a soft rustling as the new face was pulled down over the old. The leather scraped across her brow, dry and stiff, but as her blood soaked into it, it softened and turned supple. Her cheeks grew warm, flushed. She could feel her heart fluttering beneath her breast, and for one long moment she could not catch her breath. Hands closed around her throat, hard as stone, choking her. Her own hands shot up to claw at the arms of her attacker, but there was no one there. A terrible sense of fear filled her, and she heard a noise, a hideous crunch ing noise, accompanied by blinding pain. A face floated in front of her, fat, bearded, brutal, his mouth twisted with rage. She heard the priest say, "Breathe, child. Breathe out the fear. Shake off the shadows. He is dead. She is dead. Her pain is gone. Breathe."

(The Ugly Little Girl, ADWD)

Identity Study: Daenerys

We are introduced to the idea of Dany wearing clothing as part of an intricate power play, but with Dany unable or unwilling to accept the role being forced on her, in her very first POV.

When she was clean, the slaves helped her from the water and toweled her dry. The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver, while the old woman anointed her with the spiceflower perfume of the Dothraki plains, a dab on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last one, cool on her lips, down there between her legs. They dressed her in the wisps that Magister Illyrio had sent up, and then the gown, a deep plum silk to bring out the violet in her eyes. The girl slid the gilded sandals onto her feet, while the old woman fixed the tiara in her hair, and slid golden bracelets crusted with amethysts around her wrists. Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

"Now you look all a princess," the girl said breathlessly when they were done.

(Daenerys I, AGOT)

But for Dany, the collar is heavy, the dress is scary, the party she is going to attend is horrifying, and all she wants is to join the street children who wear tatters. Dany has no idea what it means to be a princess, what it means to be a potential bride, nor what it means to be a Targaryen dragon: “and perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not.”

However, this moment might serve as a learning experience for Daenerys as afterwards she continuously adopts dress and manners of the various non-Dothraki cultures she encounters without ever becoming one of them. Any new costume she puts on does not erase Dany, and it only serves to further her agenda. For example, in Qarth:

She was garbed after the Qartheen fashion. Xaro had warned her that the Enthroned would never listen to a Dothraki, so she had taken care to go before them in flowing green samite with one breast bared, silvered sandals on her feet, with a belt of black-and-white pearls about her waist. For all the help they offered, I could have gone naked. Perhaps I should have.

[snip]

"They said no." The wine tasted of pomegranates and hot summer days. "They said it with great courtesy, to be sure, but under all the lovely words, it was still no."

"Did you flatter them?"

"Shamelessly."

"Did you weep?"

"The blood of the dragon does not weep," she said testily.

Xaro sighed. "You ought to have wept." The Qartheen wept often and easily; it was considered a mark of the civilized man.

(Daenerys III, ACOK)

Or when she visits Astapor for the first time, she pretends to understand no Valyrian in order to get a true sense of the Masters

“Kraznys's High Valyrian was twisted and thickened by the characteristic growl of Ghis, and flavored here and there with words of slaver argot. Dany understood him well enough, but she smiled and looked blankly at the slave girl, as if wondering what he might have said…."They might be adequate to my needs," Dany answered. It had been Ser Jorah's suggestion that she speak only Dothraki and the Common Tongue while in Astapor. My bear is more clever than he looks.”

(Daenerys II, ASOS)

The second time, she wears the Qartheen gown to disarm the Slavers even more as the Qartheen are considered to be indulgent, combined with Daenerys’ Westerosi origins making her too “young” for Old Ghis in Kraznys’s mind. In all three of these instances, Dany stays Daenerys Targaryen. She never adopts another name, another persona. She might question her choices, such as her Astapori plan, but her various costume changes do not dictate her identity. Until Meereen.

The most significant costume change Dany undergoes is that of the tokar in A Dance With Dragons.

"You must excuse me, ser. The petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen again.”

[snip]

Only then did Dany go back inside the pyramid, where Irri and Jhiqui were waiting to brush the tangles from her hair and garb her as befit the Queen of Meereen, in a Ghiscari tokar.

The garment was a clumsy thing, a long loose shapeless sheet that had to be wound around her hips and under an arm and over a shoulder, its dangling fringes carefully layered and displayed. Wound too loose, it was like to fall off; wound too tight, it would tangle, trip, and bind. Even wound properly, the tokar required its wearer to hold it in place with the left hand. Walking in a tokar demanded small, mincing steps and exquisite balance, lest one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes. It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The tokar was a master' s garment, a sign of wealth and power.

Dany had wanted to ban the tokar when she took Meereen, but her advisors had convinced her otherwise. "The Mother of Dragons must don the tokar or be forever hated," warned the Green Grace, Galazza Galare.

"In the wools of Westeros or a gown of Myrish lace, Your Radiance shall forever remain a stranger amongst us, a grotesque outlander, a barbarian conqueror. Meereen's queen must be a lady of Old Ghis." Brown Ben Plumm, the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly. "Man wants to be the king o' the rabbits, he best wear a pair o' floppy ears."

(Daenerys I, ADWD)

Instead of putting on a play-costume to fool others and further her own agenda, the tokar is being forced on Dany to further certain Meereeneese agenda. If she wants to be Queen of Meeren she must ascribe to their demands and cultural mores. And slowly, bit by bit, Dany loses more of what it means to be Daenerys Targaryen: she weds Hizdahr zo Loraq in pure Meereeneese fashion, the fighting pits reopen, she chains her dragons. Notice that the tokar as described above is an absolute terror to wear; it must be put on Dany just right in order for her not trip over it or have it fall off. On a literal level, it’s because it’s more or less a giant sheet but on a metaphorical level, it’s a garment that doesn’t fit her identity at all. It’s a burden, and a heavily unwanted one at that.

The liberation from the tokar is more than just getting rid of a heavy awkward garment; it’s Dany’s refusal to be anything other than what she was meant to be. Her shinning moment in the pit comes on the heels of her literally ripping the garment off before she flies off on a dragon. For all GRRM’s subtly, this image…not so much:

The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

"Khaleesi? " Irri asked. "What are you doing?"

"Taking off my floppy ears."

When we next see Dany on the Dothraki Sea, she is ill, almost naked, burnt, hairless and probably more at peace than she was for the entirety of A Dance with Dragons. She is reclaiming her identity during her walk back to Meereen:

“No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

"Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

(Daenerys X, ADWD)

If Dany only plays when she puts on costumes, with the exception of the tokar which attempts to constrict her entire identity, then we must ask what does Dany wear when she is at her most comfortable, when she is most at peace or self-assured. In every instance, it is something that is associated with the Dothraki. It could be traditional riding garb, complete with bells in her hair, or it could be the pelt Drogo made for her from the grassland lion. A few examples from various books:

The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany's sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. Swinging down from her saddle, she let the silver graze while she pulled off her high boots.

[snip]

"Have you forgotten who you are? Look at you. Look at you!"

Dany did not need to look. She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a painted vest given her as a bride gift. She looked as though she belonged here.

(Daenerys III. AGOT)

"What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?"

Ser Jorah stood. "Perhaps it's time you found that out."

"Yes," she decided. "I'll do it!" Dany threw back the coverlets and hopped from the bunk. "I'll see the captain at once, command him to set course for Astapor." She bent over her chest, threw open the lid, and seized the first garment at hand, a pair of loose sandsilk trousers. "Hand me my medallion belt," she commanded Jorah as she pulled the sandsilk up over her hips. "And my vest—

(Daenerys I, ASOS)

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage. Today she rode her silver, clad in horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of Dust.

(Daenerys III, ASOS)

“Bring the grey linen gown with the pearls on the bodice. Oh, and my white lion’s pelt.” She always felt safer wrapped in Drogo’s lionskin

(Daenerys IV, ADWD)

Arya and Dany (and just about everyone else in ASOIAF) are going through identity crises. Arya’s identity constantly shifts from character to character and her ASOIAF arc thus far ends with her trying to become no one, to lose her identity completely. Dany is the opposite in that, tokar aside, she’s never tried to become another person, only played at other identities in order to move along. Her ASOIAF arc ends with a better understanding of what being Daenerys Targaryen means.

Identity Touchstones

A touchstone is a fundamental or quintessential part or feature. For Dany and Arya, it is something that they cannot exist without, something that—if removed from them—they would cease to be their true selves. Dany’s touchstones are her dragons, and for Arya it is her sword Needle. The first thing I’d like to note briefly is that both the dragons and the sword are weapons, which is an interesting and non-traditional choice for two young women on Planetos. Both the dragons and Needle are gifts given on momentous occasions. Jon Snow gives Needle to Arya before she leaves Winterfell for the first time; Illyrio Mopatis gives Dany her eggs on the day of her wedding to Khal Drogo. Outside of these rather basic similarities, however, there is one characteristic of both Needle and the eggs-turned-into-dragons that both girls share: literal touch.

There are many instances—too many to list—in which Dany and Arya stroke, tap, touch, or hold their identity markers for the specific purpose of drawing strength, lessening their fear, or reminding themselves who they are. In AGOT before the dragons hatch, Dany will hold the egss, feel their heat and in some cases she even sleeps with them:

”Bring me…egg…dragon’s egg…please…” Her lashed turned to lead, and she was too weary to hold them up.

When she woke the third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon’s egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter cream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it…Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracking the wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt something twist and stretch in response. It did not frighten her. All her fear was gone, burned away.

(Daenerys IX, AGOT)

In her dragon dreams, the fire of the dragon will bathe her and make her stronger and reduce her fears during her first few weeks on the Dothraki Sea. After the dragons hatch, Dany will carry the new babies around on her shoulder; she often strokes their head or under their chin, the babies reciprocating this affection with a nip. In one instance in ASOS, she wrestles with Drogon playfully and it calms her after a fight with Jorah.

Arya is much the same way with Needle. In moments of fear, she will draw it for protection, though often she never recalls doing so. She will pat the hilt to calm herself.

”The Braavosi feed him [The Titan] on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls,” she heard Old Nan say again, but she was not a little girl, and she would not be frightened of a stupid statue. Even so, she kept one hand on Needle as they slipped between his legs.

[snip]

”I am a wolf and will not be afraid.” She patted Needle’s hilt for luck and plunged into the shadows.

(Arya I, AFFC)

Both Dany and Arya experience life without their identity markers at some point in the series and in the cases I want to examine, it is a voluntary experience in order to become someone else. Like wearing the tokar, Dany’s identity is crushed and chained (literally!) in Meereen. Her decision to chain her dragons is symbolic of her inner dragon being chained, a theme that even goes so far as her wedding to Hizdahr.

When Rhaegal roared, a gout of yellow flame turned darkness into day for half a heartbeat. The fire licked along the walls, and Dany felt the heat upon her face, like the blast from an oven. Across the pit, Viserion's wings unfolded, stirring the stale air. He tried to fly to her, but the chains snapped taut as he rose and slammed him down onto his belly. Links as big as a man's fist bound his feet to the floor. The iron collar about his neck was fastened to the wall behind him. Rhaegal wore matching chains.

(Daenerys II, ADWD)

~~~~

When her feet were clean, Hizdahr dried them with a soft towel, laced her sandals on again, and helped her stand. Hand in hand, they followed the Green Grace inside the temple, where the air was thick with incense and the gods of Ghis stood cloaked in shadows in their alcoves. Four hours later, they emerged again as man and wife, bound together wrist and ankle with chains of yellow gold.

(Daenerys VII, AWD)

The chaining of her literal dragons also causes her to question who she is. Before, being blood of the dragon was a powerful concept for Dany. She walked into a fire because she knew that her children were calling to her and she had to answer. Now the dragons are not her children that helped win her throne, but monsters:

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less take back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I. (Daenerys II, ADWD)

Over in Braavos, Arya is told that if she wishes to be one of the Faceless Men in the House of Black and White, she must get rid of her “treasures” from her past lives. While Arya likes the trinkets, she has little difficulty in getting rid of most of them, until it comes time to throw away Needle.

At the water's edge she stopped, the silver fork in hand. It was real silver, solid through and through. It's not my fork. It was Salty that he gave it to. She tossed it underhand, heard the soft plop as it sank below the water.

Her floppy hat went next, then the gloves. They were Salty's too. She emptied her pouch into her palm; five silver stags, nine copper stars, some pennies and halfpennies and groats. She scattered them across the water. Next her boots. They made the loudest splashes. Her dagger followed, the one she'd gotten off the archer who had begged the Hound for mercy. Her sword belt went into the canal. Her cloak, tunic, breeches, smallclothes, all of it. All but Needle.

She stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don't tell Sansa! Mikken's mark was on the blade. It's just a sword. If she needed a sword, there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She'd been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. "It's just a sword," she said, aloud this time . . .

. . . but it wasn't.

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

Polliver had stolen the sword from her when the Mountain's men took her captive, but when she and the Hound walked into the inn at the crossroads, there it was. The gods wanted me to have it. Not the Seven, nor Him of Many Faces, but her father's gods, the old gods of the north. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can't have this.

(Arya II, AFFC)

If the dragons are the embodiment of Dany’s true self as the “Last Dragon” then Needle is everything Arya has lost. The sword reminds her not only of home but the life she had before she went south with Ned and lost her Stark pack. Like Dany, Arya chooses not to rid herself of her most important identity marker. Dany could have set the dragons free, let them roam with Drogon far afield; she could have tried to kill them. But she doesn’t. She locks them behind stone because they are a part of her. Arya can no more get rid of Neelde than Dany could ever get rid of her dragons:

"You'll be safe here," she told Needle. "No one will know where you are but me." She pushed the sword and sheath behind the step, then shoved the stone back into place, so it looked like all the other stones. As she climbed back to the temple, she counted steps, so she would know where to find the sword again. One day she might have need of it. "One day," she whispered to herself.

Arya’s story thus far has not yet progressed to the point where she has taken back Needle from its cubby hole but we can imagine it might go something like Dany’s reclaiming her outer and inner dragon in the Pit, at least the emotion behind it.

Dany could hear someone pounding after her. "Drogon," she screamed. "Drogon. "

His head turned. Smoke rose between his teeth. His blood was smoking too, where it dripped upon the ground. He beat his wings again, sending up a choking storm of scarlet sand. Dany stumbled into the hot red cloud, coughing. He snapped.

"No" was all that she had time to say. No, not me, don't you know me?” The black teeth closed inches from her face. He meant to tear my head off….His eyes were molten. I am looking into hell, but I dare not look away. She had never been so certain of anything. If I run from him, he will burn me and devour me.

In the smoldering red pits of Drogon's eyes, Dany saw her own reflection. How small she looked, how weak and frail and scared. I cannot let him see my fear. She scrabbled in the sand, pushing against the pitmaster's corpse, and her fingers brushed against the handle of his whip. Touching it made her feel braver. The leather was warm, alive. Drogon roared again, the sound so loud that she almost dropped the whip. His teeth snapped at her.

Dany hit him. "No, " she screamed, swinging the lash with all the strength that she had in her. The dragon jerked his head back. "No, " she screamed again. "NO! " The barbs raked along his snout. Drogon rose, his wings covering her in shadow. Dany swung the lash at his scaled belly, back and forth until her arm began to ache. His long serpentine neck bent like an archer's bow. With a hisssssss, he spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames, swinging the whip and shouting, "No, no, no. Get DOWN! " His answering roar was full of fear and fury, full of pain. His wings beat once, twice …

… and folded. The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I.

(Daenerys IX, ADWD)

I very much doubt that Arya will pull Needle out from behind the rock in the middle of a confusing slave pit. But I do expect that Arya’s emotion at having her sword again will be akin to Dany’s euphoria at taming then flying Drogon. And to speculate a little, I believe that whenever Arya takes back Needle it will be because she is heading back home to Westeros having learned all she can from the Faceless Men but unwilling to go that final step and completely get rid of Arya Stark. As for Dany, she’ll never again lock up her dragons, literal or metaphorical.

Conclusion to “The Last Dragon and the Lone Wolf”

We’ve reached the end of the Daenerys and Arya re-read and while there is probably a lot more I could say, I think these three essays were sufficient enough to show that despite being from different families, different places on Plantos and undergoing different storylines, Arya and Dany share some unique similarities while also contrasting each other.

[MoIaF]

The Last Dragon and The Lone Wolf: Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark

Essay Number Three:

Identity

Another great essay and an excellent conclusion to your series! :bowdown:

As you note the idea of identity is very important throughout the series, we see our POV's trying to find themselves or trying to forget themselves, whichever the case may be. The struggle for identity is a perfect example of one of the main themes of the series, which is the human heart in conflict with itself. Learning from our experiences and coming to turns with are actions and the consequences of these actions shape us as people, and we see those examples demonstrated well in Dany and Arya's arcs.

I think your essay demonstrates well how both girls heading in different directions. At the beginning of her story Arya knew who she was, where she belonged, she had a family and a home. As the story progresses she looses herself bit by bit, until she is No One and the face that she has are no longer her own. However, she refuses to give up that little sliver of her identity, that last reminder of the person she once was, he Needle.

In Dany's case she doesn't really know what it is to be a "dragon" a Targaryen, she simply knows what her brother has told her. She didn't have a home a family to teach her, no Maester to know her history, the dragon she recalls for strength are merely things she was thought to do. As the story progresses, however, we see her begin to embody a true dragon, she becomes, strong, fierce, brave, embolden by the inner strength she finds within herself. And the girl who was once afraid to touch a silk dress, takes whip to tare a man's face apart. So, even as she is wearing different customs, it's all a linear growing experience in becoming a dragon. All these different facets are just levels in understanding who she is. By the time we get to Meereen she has come close to being a fully realized leader, a dragon, a Targaryen but she becomes afraid of what she sees, she becomes afraid of not being able to control her dragons and herself. In many ways her wearing of the tokar is another level in her growth as a dragon, because she learns to understand that she can never be a Harpy, she can never be anything but a Dragon.

Even as the girls headed in these diverging path, I believe they will end in the same place, that is Arya will come back to who she was, in the end. It's an interesting juxtaposition of the identity path, no everyone will take the same road, not all experience effect people the same way, we all have to take our own path but that doesn't mean we won't reach the same place. What is it that Jon tells Arya, "different roads sometimes lead to the same castle."

[Dragon's Daughter]

Identity Touchstones

A touchstone is a fundamental or quintessential part or feature. For Dany and Arya, it is something that they cannot exist without, something that—if removed from them—they would cease to be their true selves. Dany’s touchstones are her dragons, and for Arya it is her sword Needle. The first thing I’d like to note briefly is that both the dragons and the sword are weapons, which is an interesting and non-traditional choice for two young women on Planetos. Both the dragons and Needle are gifts given on momentous occasions. Jon Snow gives Needle to Arya before she leaves Winterfell for the first time; Illyrio Mopatis gives Dany her eggs on the day of her wedding to Khal Drogo. Outside of these rather basic similarities, however, there is one characteristic of both Needle and the eggs-turned-into-dragons that both girls share: literal touch.

There are many instances—too many to list—in which Dany and Arya stroke, tap, touch, or hold their identity markers for the specific purpose of drawing strength, lessening their fear, or reminding themselves who they are. In AGOT before the dragons hatch, Dany will hold the egss, feel their heat and in some cases she even sleeps with them:

I think it is interesting that in this comparison, they both relate to items that were given to them in the first few chapters of AGOT. While there were some problems with their lives before, especially in Dany's case, I think it is noteworthy that the time when Dany and Arya were given these items was a time where they were more innocent and things seemed simpler. For Arya, she was given Needle in her home by the sibling she felt closest to, prior to witnesses her father's execution, the destruction of the Riverlands, etc. She is still a child, but she has lost her childhood innocence. Yet when she received Needle, she was still very much a child.

Dany, on the other hand, had already experienced some bad things in her life by this time... being on the run, abuse by Viserys, and paranoia. However, I would argue that the worst things that happened in her life and the things that shaped her the most happened afterwards. She lost her brother, husband, and son after receiving the eggs. She dealt with the Red Waste, the Undying, and Slaver's Bay after the dragons hatched. Despite her unstable childhood, I would argue that the worst horrors she experienced came only after she was in possession of the eggs. In that way, I feel like they represent a time not of innocence in the strictest sense, but a time before all of the tragedy and terror of the novels.

For both, I see these touchstones as a way of keeping with who they were before all of the tragedies of the novels and for the desire to escape the atrocities they have seen since receiving Needle/the eggs.