Where is the love?

[Le Cygne]

1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

How can a romance cheapen a story?

And, btw, what are these other interesting things she has to do? If you consider her a person with no empathy towards the other (a psychopath ( who she isn't bc she befriends people and has feelings for them) and she just kills people (who nobody else would kill apparently.....?) then, what is interesting in her story?

Yeah, I never get that. Romance not only adds to a story, it's often central to character development for both involved. When it's a good romance, it's a very deep bond, a very meaningful friendship, expressed in beautiful ways.

[Lord Varys]

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

@Lord Varys While I too worry about Arya's future, I don't necessarily consider it as necessarily as bleak as you do.

I don't think it is that bleak, either. It just don't think she will ever be able to forget what she lived through or what she did. And I think she is not going to want to stop killing or settle down in some fashion. She never wanted to be a lady or anything of that sort, making it completely pointless for her to ever hang out at Winterfell again (at least for a longer time). She has completely transcended or grown beyond that boring lifestyle.

I'm incredibly interested what kind of person a 30-40-years-old Arya could be. Her future - if she survives the series (which I'm not sure she will) - is one of the most interesting scenarios for me. Unfortunately I'm not sure we'll ever get a good picture of her.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

For one thing, her non self-defense body count isn't all that high (I consider Harrenhal guard and the Tickler as essentially self-defense.  they were certainly done from necessity.)  

The Bolton guardsman wasn't 'self-defense'. It was cold-blooded murder. The killings in the inn are somewhat okay, considering that she had to defend herself, but the frenzy she worked herself when butchering the Tickler shows her true colors. And even more so her refusal to kill Sandor. That is perhaps the cruelest thing she did so far, giving in to hatred to such a degree that she wants a dying man to suffer even more.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

 And Insurance Man was ordered of her; and even then she was pressured.

She has gotten a lot of opportunities to leave the House of Black and White. And I must say I honestly prefer the philosophy of the Faceless Men - we get paid by people and kill people who have to die anyway and who deserve to die in the mind of the people who are willing to pay for it without personal involvement and emotion - to Arya's own twisted sense of justice. That doesn't mean I find the Faceless Men very sympathetic (far to the contrary, actually) but within their nihilistic philosophy their actions are justified. Arya's aren't.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

I will admit to being uneasy about her murders of Dareon and Raff, especially the ease with which she did them, but I don't she is entirely lost - yet.

Raff is a textbook case of a carefully planned and coldblooded murder. You cannot get much worse than that. And Dareon is so hideous because from Arya's POV Jon, for instance, would deserve to die, too, if she caught him beyond the Wall fucking Ygritte. Not to mention that we don't yet know how she did it and how cruel and painful it was for him.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

Further association with the FM will probably only make matters worse, though, so I expect her to leave quickly if GRRM has any real plans for her.  Time with a courtesan could be interesting and beneficial for her.  That is certainly a possibility, especially if the FM decides she isn't cut out to be an assassin (she isn't).

I don't think she will leave. I think she'll get a mission from the Faceless Men either in Essos (killing Daenerys, a scenario I'd very much prefer) or return to Westeros to take out Stannis' enemies (Aegon and his gang). The chances that she can leave the Faceless Men are about zero. Especially since they seem to have plans of their own, plans that might lead Arya to reconnect with the main characters.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

I agree with you about Arya and Gendry.  they really have nothing in common.  Different backgrounds, educations, and life experiences (even before the war).   I do expect her to become sexually active after she gets her moonblood, though.  I can see her targeting Gendry, and him running away.  He will not want to have anything romantic with a 12-year old highborn.  That is trouble.  I think he sees her as more of a sister than anything romantic, anyway.

I don't think Gendry would care about Arya even if he met her again (not that likely). And while Arya might have sex when she is 'ready' I expect that to happen within a job/assassination she does.

40 minutes ago, Nevets said:

If she does have sex (or romance), I expect it will be with someone her own age - a squire or someone similar.  I felt she got along well with Edric Dayne, so I could see her with him or Podrick, or somebody like that.   And I will keep an eye out for blonde 14 year old squire types in her (and Sansa's) story.  (Tyrek is out there someplace).

Well, people of her own age are not likely to be all that sexually active. If Arya has sex we are going to get pedo sex by our standards.

[Meera of Tarth]

56 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Agreed. I really love both stories (Sansa/Sandor and Arya/Gendry) because of that. Also Jaime/Brienne is great.

I always love your take on sexuality. Yeah, Sansa is so working herself up sexually about Sandor, she's gonna jump him.

Rethinking Romance will continue, I just wanted more material to finish SanSan and J/B. Meanwhile, I put lots of SanSan stuff here.

It would be awesome!

[Lord Varys]

13 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

@Horse of Kent, disregard this, I meant to quote only @Lord Varys, but I wanted the above part of his post. 

Sooooo... I remember another discussion not that long ago - iirc in one of the recent Jon hate threads - where you said that if someone is a criminal they can expect to be killed by anyone, that that's how this society works. But now you're saying that even though Chiswyck and Raff "deserved to be punished", and there's no doubt that they are criminals, it wasn't Arya's place to do it. So, which one is it? 

That is different. An outlaw is defined as a person who can be killed by anyone because he or she has committed crimes and has been declared an outlaw by the authorities. Usually that happens when, say, a person commits a crime and gets condemned in his absence because he runs away before he gets arrested. The news that he has been declared outlaw is spread, and eventually somebody is going to put him down.

That's how these things were done in medieval societies. A black brother becomes an outlaw simply by deserting the Watch. He doesn't have to commit any other crime.

While Chiswyck and Raff are not properly sentenced to death or properly declared outlaws they don't deserve to be killed by the average murderous girl.

[Meera of Tarth]

6 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Yeah, I never get that. Romance not only adds to a story, it's often central to character development for both involved. When it's a good romance, it's a very deep bond, a very meaningful friendship, expressed in beautiful ways.

I couldn't agree more with this! a good romance needs time to develop and it doesn't diminish the other parts of the character's story, it only adds more nuances to their development and personality.

[sweetsunray]

1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

How can a romance cheapen a story?

It doesn't. BTW her story and chapters read very much like a fairytale, a dark fairytale. She gets 3 wishes. She tricks the wish-granter into doing something special for her for her last wishes (giving her lots and lots more). The horror castle and her escape of it, and how much she manages to steal. Just imagine how Roose felt when everybody came in to report all that had gone missing. And then the wolf pack killing the Bloody Mummers hunting them. The whole BwB meeting, etc... And even in dark fairytales there can be love and romance. It's not the main part of the plot, and nobody is saying that it is or even that it should.

Gendry has seen her kill, knows she killed, and he doesn't care. He's also seen her rescue hardened criminals, he would never have rescued, or insist on giving a dying man in a cage a drink. Meanwhile he himself has got no problems delivering unsuspecting visitors of the inn to the BwB and LS. Sounds to me that some readers are simply projecting their "oughts" onto characters, while ignoring what the text is telling us about these characters.

[Meera of Tarth]

8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

She has gotten a lot of opportunities to leave the House of Black and White. And I must say I honestly prefer the philosophy of the Faceless Men - we get paid by people and kill people who have to die anyway and who deserve to die in the mind of the people who are willing to pay for it without personal involvement and emotion - to Arya's own twisted sense of justice. That doesn't mean I find the Faceless Men very sympathetic (far to the contrary, actually) but within their nihilistic philosophy their actions are justified. Arya's aren't.

 

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Murder isn't justice. And Arya having a list doesn't make it right, either. There is no doubt that Chiswyck and Raff deserved to be punished, but this doesn't mean it was her place to do that. Nor had she certainly had no right to kill Dareon, the Bolton soldier, the insurance guy, or Weese.

 

I don't understand this. So people who pay the Faceless Men to kill someone means that person deserves to die and you prefer this philosophy, yet at the same time, you are saying that one member of the Faceless Men committing a certain crime/job (killing the insurance man) means that this person had no right to do this. 

[Meera of Tarth]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

It doesn't. BTW her story and chapters read very much like a fairytale, a dark fairytale. She gets 3 wishes. She tricks the wish-granter into doing something special for her for her last wishes (giving her lots and lots more). The horror castle and her escape of it, and how much she manages to steal. Just imagine how Roose felt when everybody came in to report all that had gone missing. And then the wolf pack killing the Bloody Mummers hunting them. The whole BwB meeting, etc... And even in dark fairytales there can be love and romance. It's not the main part of the plot, and nobody is saying that it is or even that it should.

Gendry has seen her kill, knows she killed, and he doesn't care. He's got no problems delivering unsuspecting visitors of the inn to the BwB and LS. Sounds to me that some readers are simply projecting their "oughts" onto characters, while ignoring what the text is telling us about these characters.

Absolutely. Gendry has accepted her from the start, and he has been with her in "dark" circumstances, as you mention. He could try to understand her and I think he would, given what they have experienced together.

And of course, not being the main part of the plot, doesn't mean it can't exist.

About ignoring the text....Yes, I do think the same.

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I don't understand this. So people who pay the Faceless Men to kill someone means that person deserves to die and you prefer this philosophy, yet at the same time, you are saying that one member of the Faceless Men committing a certain crime/job (killing the insurance man) means that this person had no right to do this. 

I prefer the philosophy when we talk about killing. If you have to do it you should not make a fuzz about it or prefer the thugs who wronged you or your friends over other assholes. Arya just kills people she doesn't like, hates, despises, etc. while not giving a shit about other assholes.

But from a 'normal moral viewpoint' the Faceless Men are just as worse people as Arya. Killing people for money is never positive.

[Meera of Tarth]

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

Also he's got Beauty and the Beast parallels in Sansa/Sandor and Jaime/Brienne (I am waiting for more parallels, too):

• Sandor is Sansa's Beast, Jaime is Brienne's Beast (they trade roles in that Brienne the Beauty is Beastly on the outside)
• Joffrey was Sansa’s prince, Renly was Brienne’s prince
• Both Beauties, Sansa and Brienne, receive roses from men they reject (Loras and Red Ronnet) in their thoughts and dreams for their respective Beasts, Sandor and Jaime
• Florian and Jonquil and true knights come up with both Beauty and the Beast pairs, too
• Sandor tells Sansa there no are true knights, Jaime tells Brienne there are no true knights
• Both Beauty and the Beast pairs have key rescue scenes; Sandor rescues Sansa from rape, Jaime rescues Brienne from rape
• Sansa thanks Sandor after the rescue, Brienne thanks Jaime after the rescue; both remember the rescues
• There’s a sexy symbolic deflowering scene for both Beauty and the Beast pairs; Blackwater for Sansa/Sandor, the sword fight for Jaime/Brienne; both scenes are filled with sexual symbolism (both men pull daggers on the women)
• Sansa thinks many times about Sandor’s cloak, and he gives it to her twice; Brienne is cloaked by Renly to be his kingsguard, but then she dreams of Jaime cloaking her instead

I like all these points! There are lots of parallels between the two Beaty and The Beast stories.

About the not-true knights. This is very interesting because they are telling them the reality of life, from their experiences in the past, from their frustration. From Sansa's point of view it has a meaning in the sense that she will realise that her dreams about Princes and Knights that she associates with real love are not necessarily true, she is idealizing men, but not falling in love with a real person, who has flaws. With Brienne it's ironic since she is like the most honourable knight in Westeros but she isn't one, and she is the one that will teach Jaime how to be the "real" knight he used to be in the past, or even a better one, orat least a better person.

[Meera of Tarth]

10 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

Well after the RW, she imagines finding the the BwB again and riding along side Gendry as an outlaw like Wenda the White Fawn.  Oh, but that's stupid Sansa stuff right out of the stories  uh huh.  I agree, if she has an endgame with him I think it will be utilizing both their talents and values by defending the smallfolk.  She has acceptance that she has always longed for and a purpose that is fulfilling to her character.  

I don't think Sansa is any different. I think the story is clearly moving away from arranged marriages that uses either of them for their claims.  It didn't seem like it in the beginning, but both girls really have the willfulness to resist that fate.  

Oh yeah, they'll be way more alike in the end    IMO, there's a possibility that Sansa's husband might take her family name to keep the next generation of Starks going.  "She's not a dog, she's a direwolf."  Wives taking the husband's last name is not automatic according to George.  IIRC, there is one precedent for the above happening, but I need to look it up.  Would be a rare event in the story of an outsider wanting to be a Stark and actually becomes one.           

Yes! That's one of those moments when Gendry appears in her mind. She is still upset with him, but she can't avoid thinking of him. She is thinking about what she could do in the future in that paragraph and many people appear in her mind, but the last person she thinks of is Gendry, while being with the BWB, she would be an outlaw, riding with him. And it's interesting that just it's in this exact moment when he comes into her mind that she thinks that she is just dreaming like Sansa would do = (an idealization). In my opinion she doesn't want to acknowledge her feelings for him for some reasons (one of these could be that she is upset with him).

But Sansa is becoming more aware of the cruelty of real life. So she is moving from her dreams due to her bad experiences with some people, which is ironic.

[Le Cygne]

18 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

I like all these points! There are lots of parallels between the two Beaty and The Beast stories.

About the not-true knights. This is very interesting because they are telling them the reality of life, from their experiences in the past, from their frustration. From Sansa's point of view it has a meaning in the sense that she will realise that her dreams about Princes and Knights that she associates with real love are not necessarily true, she is idealizing men, but not falling in love with a real person, who has flaws. With Brienne it's ironic since she is like the most honourable knight in Westeros but she isn't one, and she is the one that will teach Jaime how to be the "real" knight he used to be in the past, or even a better one, orat least a better person.

Great points! Yeah, Sandor and Jaime are true knights in ways they never expected. Appearances vs. what's beneath the surface. It's all about seeing - and feeling! - what's real, and what's real turns out to be beautiful in meaningful ways.

[LongRider]

2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Sansa thinks many times about Sandor’s cloak, and he gives it to her twice, and keeps it in a cedar chest; Brienne is cloaked by Renly to be his kingsguard, but then she dreams of Jaime cloaking her instead

The wedding cloak symbolism in ASOIAF is very powerful in this story.  There are several examples of this in Sam and Gilly's story too.  When Sansa wouldn't kneel for Tyrion to put the wedding cloak on her that was a wonderful scene of her rejecting what was being forced on her. 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Meera of Tarth said:

It would be awesome!

             

[Le Cygne]

9 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

The wedding cloak symbolism in ASOIAF is very powerful in this story.  There are several examples of this in Sam and Gilly's story too.  When Sansa wouldn't kneel for Tyrion to put the wedding cloak on her that was a wonderful scene of her rejecting what was being forced on her. 

Oh yes, that was a clear rejection. And by contrast, Sansa put on Sandor's cloak herself, twice (GRRM does like threes! third time is the charm!), then kept it with her summer silks in a cedar chest. A dream of spring, for a better day. It's about hope (and cedar chests are called hope chests, where a woman keeps her treasures for when she's married). Not to mention the marriage consummation symbolism of the bloody cloak, red on white, is classic. This is all traditional and common symbolism, so is the phallic symbolism, and he adds his own in-story traditions, to hammer this in.

[LongRider]

13 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Oh yes, that was a clear rejection. And by contrast, Sansa put on Sandor's cloak herself, twice (GRRM does like threes! third time is the charm!), then kept it with her summer silks in a cedar chest.

GRRM set up a nice compare and contrast with Sansa and the cloaks from the men in her life; one she cloak she sought out, and one she outright rejected.  And yup, looking forward to the coming third occurrence of Sandor and a cloak for Sansa.    

[Morgana Lannister]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Arya and Gendry are the classical example of two people who become friends because of arbitrary circumstances. Like, you playing with the neighbor's children because they are living next door, you hanging out with your classmates because they are your classmates. But those kind of friendships are contingent upon you being part of the same circles, club, environment, etc.

All Arya and Gendry have in common is that the Lannisters look for them and that they have to survive in an enemy environment. They belong to different classes, follow different professions, and have different views on gender roles.

The chances are about zero that Arya wants to spend her life as the wife of an armorer just as the chances are about zero that Gendry would want to be the husband of a female sellsword or assassin (or live as the lowborn husband/paramour of a Stark at Winterfell). Gendry is very much his own man. He doesn't compromise. And neither does Arya.

Not to mention, you know, that Gendry is already a man by the standards of this society while Arya is still very much a child. Any woman Gendry would be interested in would be an actual woman, not a little girl. Should Gendry ever meet Arya he would be horrified by what she has become and done, and rightfully so. And I'm pretty sure she wouldn't exactly like the zealous follower of R'hllor he has become.

This whole thing has no future even if it was a romance (which it clearly never was).

Okay, have been lurking in this thread for a while but there is so much material that I will have to come back to the original theme, but anyhow:

I agree with what you say in the first paragraph.  However, everyone seems to have forgotten that, despite a very different education, Gendry is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon!  Okay, I know I should not mix show and books here, but since Jon becoming King or close to it has been discussed (as a hypothesis in both) going ahead.  Well, Jon would have (as the bastard grandson of a Targaryen King, even less grounds for this than Gendry...) [Of course depending on which dynasty could claim the throne]  lol not saying that Gendry will be KIng lol no! (okay Jon doesn't want the IT but Gendry would just be like "what???") Still if he is as "high born" as many fans consider suitable for the throne... he is certainly no low born! (even if he may hate it himself. or his father for it!).   Furthermore, he is the last direct descendant of his line (provided okay, but George confirmed, say Shireen dies in the books too - cried by the way- )

Now, in real history, in England, at least, at the height of a feudal system we have had kings who were bastard-born lol

Now, his education is not that of a high born, but a very skilled armourer, but Arya, despite her title, as you and many others pointed out, doesn't want to be a lady either.  I could see them with Dragonstone or Storm End or somewhere...

They are both fiercely independent, yes, and as much as I love Arya, it takes a strong guy (not just physically) to make her happy and contain her most base desires (not talking about the bed chamber but revenge, say...).

She may be yet unflowered but not for long lol and we keep going back to our own age of consent etc... in the middle ages 14 was the norm, say! for both men and women (and women tend to flower sooner than men become capable...).  I understand a lot of us feel a bit freaked out by this, but if George had adhered to our moral rules, the series as a whole wouldn't be so immersive into their world.  So Gendry would not think himself a pervert in that context " me thinks."

Point taken given the stuff she has done.  I think he would understand that she was broken and psychologically desperate at the time and now on phase 3 of her arc (I hope) back into a more sort of less murderous person lol

As for "was it there? or was it not?" the banter they had especially play kicking each other is almost like the kind of playful nonesense that a counselor would advise a couple who have been married for years and their relationship has lost that sense of play (even if they have routine sex, say) if you get my drift.  Not all banter or all crushes or all imaginary kisses have to lead to "the real thing" (if there is such a thing to begin with) but yeah, shows huge chemistry IMHO.

[teej6]

7 hours ago, Horse of Kent said:

Why not? On what criteria should licenses to dispense justice given out? If you are basing it on who holds the most power in the feudal society, then it is, as GRRM has gone to great lengths to show us in this series, ripe for abuse. I would much rather someone who genuinely cares about separating the guilty from the innocent than someone who decides according to self-interest. Also, as I pointed out above and you have spectacularly failed to address that this would equally bar Dany.

 

You appear to be blaming Arya for something someone else has done and tarring whole societies by the action of one person. It is turning into a bit of a habit for Dany and her fans.

Is Arya honourable? No, she would rather do what is right than what is honourable. Much like Jaime in killing Aerys to save hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

Arya must have very high levels of empathy if she felt very close to that girl Chiswyck raped who she never met or the family of the man whom the insurance salesman defrauded who she never met. So strange that you then call her a psychopath. It is almost like she cares about justice as a concept, not just for herself.

 

Four of the six main characters have had people executed without a trial. It is incredibly hypocritical to single one of them out, especially when they are the one who goes to the greatest lengths to ensure that they are guilty and would almost certainly give a hearing if they were in a position to do so (not that it would do them any good when the evidence is damning).

I fully agree with the above. I couldn't have said it better. @Lord Varys is a known Stark hater and Dany fan who's interpretation of the texts are skewed in one direction. He argues that Arya had no right to kill Raff and Chiswyck (two despicable men), but of course if you ask him who gave Dany the right to kill hundreds of people to implement her views of right and wrong, he'd justify it through a biased, lengthy and convoluted post. I fail to see how Dany defining what is right/wrong en masse for entire populations any different than Arya doing it on a smaller scale. If you think one is wrong you can't justify the other. Dany dispenses justice arbitrarily as queen of Meereen. But don't expect LV to diss his silver haired tyranical princess. 

And as you said, Arya is probably one of the most empathetic characters in the books. Her only questionable kill so far (which wasn't motivated by revenge or survival) has been Dareon. Oddly everyone goes on about how she killed Dareon but no one bothers to state how she saved Sam from Terro and Orbello or how she let Sam have the clams for free. People easily forget the kindness and humanity she shows but harp on her kills. Yes, Arya has done some disturbing things and her obsession with death is troubling but she's a traumatized child who's trying to adapt and survive in a brutal world the only way she knows how. I don't believe GRRM will keep her with the Faceless Men much longer. She'll regain her Stark identity and her pack and will eventually come to terms with her brutal past.

[TMIFairy]

17 minutes ago, teej6 said:

 @Lord Varys is a known Stark hater and Dany fan who's interpretation of the texts are skewed in one direction. He argues that Arya had no right to kill Raff and Chiswyck (two despicable men), but of course if you ask him who gave Dany the right to kill hundreds of people to implement her views of right and wrong, he'd justify it through a biased, lengthy and convoluted post.

LOL!

What a cruel yet apt dismissal of his posts

Personally I've grown tired of his "I am always right" meandering musings and put him on "ignore".

[teej6]

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is different. An outlaw is defined as a person who can be killed by anyone because he or she has committed crimes and has been declared an outlaw by the authorities. Usually that happens when, say, a person commits a crime and gets condemned in his absence because he runs away before he gets arrested. The news that he has been declared outlaw is spread, and eventually somebody is going to put him down.

That's how these things were done in medieval societies. A black brother becomes an outlaw simply by deserting the Watch. He doesn't have to commit any other crime.

While Chiswyck and Raff are not properly sentenced to death or properly declared outlaws they don't deserve to be killed by the average murderous girl.

So by your interpretation/defintion Arya killing Dareon is okay but her killing Raff and Chiswyck is not because they weren't declared outlaws by the authorities. Now which authority would that be? They were both Gregor's men who Ned as Hand had declared an outlaw, so by extension his men were outlaws too. But the whole point is moot cause I don't know how you came up with the idea that an outlaw can be killed by anyone. I don't think it works that way. Lords and nobles who are given the responsibility to dispense justice are the ones with the right to execute a condemned man and not just any outlaw. If as you say anyone can kill and an outlaw, I wonder why the person(s) who captured Gared did not kill him right away and instead waited for Ned to come and pronounce judgement and execute him.

Arya killing Raff and Chiswyck is the same as Dany killing Mirri or the slavers or anyone else she saw as an enemy. Just because she has an army and three dragons does not make her killings any less murderous than Arya's. So according to you Arya does not have the right to kill Raff and Chiswyck although they are horrible people because they are not outlaws. So by that logic, Dany does not have the right to kill the slavers cause they are not outlaws either. They are respectable, law abiding citizens in their socities. Just because they are terrible people, Dany has no right to kill them, right?

Arya is a vigilante who's taking revenge on those who wronged her and who she sees as bad, and Dany is a tyrant who kills her enemies and those she deems evil. You can't condemn one and justify the other.