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Arya is dead calling it now!


Ser Davos

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Great idea OP!!

So, there are several clues as to how Arya being killed and supplanted by the waif could make sense, in book and in show both. 

1) It would make sense that the faceless men could make good use of an assassin wearing the face of a high-born girl such as Arya.  To what agenda, we don't yet know as we have only seen the FM use 'unknown' faces. If the waif is using Arya's face and mannerisms to appear to be her, then this is more like an undercover operation which might lead to an assassination. Could she get close to Jon for example?

2) It goes against the traditional narrative conventions .A character who sails off on an adventure, levels up, becomes a bad-ass with new skills and returns home to save the day. Whatever. Seen it done. So has GRRM. And we know how he likes to subvert fantasy tropes (bye bye Ned and Robb). Having Arya actually fail, die and have her face used to possibly bring down the ones she loves would be more in line with GRRM's bleak style. Plus, GRRM is sneaky, which brings us to the third point.

3) The way the chapters are titled in the text actually supports this theory. Arya chapters are suddenly named 'The Ugly Little Girl' or 'Mercy'. This allows GRRM to pull off a huge narrative 'sting' and solve a problem: how do you kill off a POV character without readers knowing? Simple. We have the waif as POV using a variety of aliases, as Arya has been doing already. One of those aliases might actually come to be called 'Arya' in the chapter headings. Double bluff!

How GRRM might do this, considering we are inside her thoughts - well that's the hard part. But the motivation behind the truth & lie game now becomes clearer. They have a TON of intel on Arya. Enough for the waif to actually pass for her. (My own feeling is that she will come undone because the waif never learns the name of her sword, Needle, whereas Jon clearly would remember it).

4) Jaqen smiled. Why? Arya was the girl who, at Harrenhall, named Jaqen himself as one to be killed. Maybe he never forgot this and has been playing a long con on her to extract revenge & use her for his own ends. Unless we believe he was just a big softy at heart. Yeah, that sounds very GRRM ....

The only doubts I have are to what extent GRRM fed the producers info on Arya's overall arc, but I guess we'll see!

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I think Arya now actually is No One.  Jaqen declared it when she returned. 

Then a girl says she's Arya Stark and is going home, and Jaqen smiles and let's her leave.

First of all, this is too un-Games of Thronish.  It's a pointless story with a cheezy, unrealistic happy ending.  No way that's what happened.  No way the story of the Faceless Men and their role in the story is so unimportant.  No way Jaqen let's Arya just walk out like that.

"Arya Stark" is the identify that No One is now using.  The final scene was Jaqen sending her off on a mission to Westeros to kill someone important while posing as "Arya Stark".  Perhaps Jon Snow?

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On 13. 6. 2016 at 5:01 AM, Ser Davos said:

That was the waif wearing her face she needs Arya face to go to winter fell for some unknown assassination. It's why they didn't show the fight and its gonna be that wtf moment next season when they reveal it. All the buildup the past 2 seasons wasn't just for Arya to return to westeros with nothing accomplished but some weird training it was for this! 

Then how do you explain her conversation with Jaqen?  "You sent her to kill me."  He never ordered Arya to kill the Waif.

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28 minutes ago, WhatIsDeadMayNeverLive said:

Then how do you explain her conversation with Jaqen?  "You sent her to kill me."  He never ordered Arya to kill the Waif.

She was proving to him that she had totally gotten into character?

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3 minutes ago, Ser Davos said:

The proof that Arya is dead is that she says she wants to see what's west of westeros and travel. Yet in final scene 'she' tells Jaqin that she is going home to winterfell

Good catch. Are we crazy for believing this theory? I don't really want to believe she's dead, but on the other hand it would be such a great reveal. 

:ph34r:

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33 minutes ago, Ser Davos said:

The proof that Arya is dead is that she says she wants to see what's west of westeros and travel. Yet in final scene 'she' tells Jaqin that she is going home to winterfell

One should also note that Arya fled back to the item that symbolizes home for her.  Winterfell in the form of Needle was her savior.  It seems only reasonable that her mind changes based on these events.

Not to mention that nearly the entire episode focused on changes of heart and people doing things a different way.  Arya arrived in Bravos a hothead who only thought of anger and revenge.  She leaves a different person.  

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On ‎6‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 11:01 PM, Ser Davos said:

That was the waif wearing her face she needs Arya face to go to winter fell for some unknown assassination. It's why they didn't show the fight and its gonna be that wtf moment next season when they reveal it. All the buildup the past 2 seasons wasn't just for Arya to return to westeros with nothing accomplished but some weird training it was for this! 

not bad at all. I don't think this will be the case because it actually would fit better than the lazy schlock we will more than likely get.

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How does this not get shut down by logic alone immediately before debating whether it was actually worthwhile time spent in Braavos?

Why would it be structured as some sort of big reveal and the waif needing her face to go to an assassination at Winterfell yet her Jaquen still plays along witht he whole thing of her being Arya and never as her boss mentions the assasination?

And in your world the Waif is wearing Aryas face so who's *&^%$#@!  face is on the wall?

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13 hours ago, Future Null Infinity said:

in the books, she can leave the FM at any time, in the show, the situation is different,  Jaqen wanted her death because she failed to kill her target, and a face must be added, but when Arya bring the Waif's face, she's was forgiven, Jaqen only worry about the faces, as long as someone add a face in the hall he don't give a damn, it's the only rule, it's not really a contradiction

Exactly.

In the books, in fact, the Kindly Man constantly says 'you should go home'. He is always pushing her to leave to test her resolve. It makes sense she can just walk away because she doesn't know anything that could sink the Faceless Men, like the magic used to change faces or the magic used to enable another person to do so. She learns about fighting blind, about how to control her face and her emotions, she learns about poisons and she washes a lot of floors and corpses. None of those are secrets the FM wouldn't want to get out.

In the show, however, Jaqen makes it pretty clear that you either join or you fail and die. He explicitly said that there had to be a face added to the wall because of the contract and it would either be Arya's or Lady Crane's (or the Waif's). If this was just part of a test, why would Jaqen sacrifice two of his assassins? I've seen people suggest the Waif was an apprentice, but obviously the Waif was a full blown FM since she was training Arya and could change faces, so she wasn't exactly expendable.

It seems pretty clear that the assassination of Lady Crane was exactly what Jaqen said it was - a test, and a second chance for Arya. If she failed she would have to pay the price because a face needs to be added and FM always fulfill their contracts.

It seemed like the price for failure rather than a way of preventing her from going rogue, since she doesn't have the ability to do so. Even if she knew how to change faces she presumably couldn't pass that ability on to others. If anyone other than the Kindly Man (and maybe someone close to him) knew the secrets of enabling others to change their face there would be rogue branches of the FM popping up all over Westeros. It makes no sense for him to kill her to keep their secrets. It's just bad writing.

People who look for plot intricacies and hidden meaning in the show that doesn't exist in the books are almost always going to be disappointed. The show doesn't really do subterfuge.

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Did anyone notice if Arya was clutching her stomach in pain during the last scene when she walked away from Jaqen? If she is secretly the Waif, then she wouldn't be injured there and would have no reason to clutch her stomach. (No reason to pull the wool over Jaqen's eyes if she is actually on a mission for him.)

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27 minutes ago, The Bear said:

People who look for plot intricacies and hidden meaning in the show that doesn't exist in the books are almost always going to be disappointed. The show doesn't really do subterfuge.

Tinfoil fans are working too hard to make a real situation looks like an extraordinary one, Arya was stabbed, she's strong and hard to kill, in round two she got the upper hand and kill the Waif-U, they are both trained and they are both good, I don't know what's the fuss about? 

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7 minutes ago, Future Null Infinity said:

Tinfoil fans are working too hard to make a real situation looks like an extraordinary one, Arya was stabbed, she's strong and hard to kill, in round two she got the upper hand and kill the Waif-U, they are both trained and they are both good, I don't know what's the fuss about? 

I agree. People are trying to made a mundane story into an extraordinary one. Possibly because they're so bored that it's the only thing that makes the show watchable for them.

When I saw Arya get stabbed I thought 'She's going to be fine'. It didn't occur to me for a second that it was anyone other than Arya, or that pig's bladders full of fake blood were a possibility. Maybe that just makes me unimaginative, but I've come to believe that 99% of the time Occam's Razor applies to the show. The simplest explanation (and the one the show gives, usually) is almost always the correct one. It's the same as when people thought Stannis might be alive, or the way people are now saying the Blackfish might have survived.

When dealing with plotlines in AAFC/ADWD, if there's no foreshadowing in the text that a character isn't really dead/going to stay dead (as with Gravedigger and Jon Snow) and they die in the show, they're dead. There has also never been an instance of a character ostensibly dying in the show offscreen and being revealed to be alive when the character is still alive in the books. They've always just been straight-up dead, like Stannis and Myrcella. There are very readily observable patterns in the show in that regard.

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19 minutes ago, The Bear said:

I agree. People are trying to made a mundane story into an extraordinary one. Possibly because they're so bored that it's the only think that makes the show watchable for them.

And now there are two camps, a camp saying that Arya didn't learn anything from her journey in Braavos and another camp making tinfoil theories and saying that Arya can't be stabbed and she's way, way, way more powerful that the Waif-U, they are fighting all over the internet and they are both wrong, Arya is a human and well trained, she's a little girl facing the most powerful organization of assassins in Planetos 

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