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Arya Losin' It


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1 minute ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

She is too obsessed by her list.

Not anymore. Only Cersei and The Mountain remain. Certainly, she would seize an opportunity, but she is not focused on the list since several episodes. She understood that family is more important than her list. The key scene is Hot Pie telling her Winterfell belongs to the Starks again and she turns immediately.

She even calmly admits to The Hound that Beric was on her list "for a while". So she clearly is able to add to and delete people from her list.

 

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4 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Ha-ha, maybe so. Or maybe not. Arya rushed him into it, maybe he prefers more romance otherwise? Who knows. We never thought too much about Gendry's preferences in women.

The first time she shoved him in S2 he had to laugh and became her buddy. He likes bossy women. He's tall and strong enough to stand his ground against a petite girl like Arya. Sure, he sighs and grumbles along the way, nevertheless that's a dynamic that turns him on.

He'd have stayed away from redheads after Mel, and likely searched for someone that fits Arya's profile more. He was watching her from the shadows for a while, all cleaned up and in his best clothes. Which btw makes him probably the sole person who manages to sneak up on Arya without her noticing him, until he wants her to know.

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Thanks for this post, it made me realise exactly what that "stare" meant, when yo mentioned the HH aerial shot of her lying on her side next to a sleeping Gendry, reciting the "names on her list" to deal with her insomnia that began since she saw Ned's execution.

She still has insomnia, but no more names on her list anymore.

She took off Beric some time ago, and with what Gendry told her about what the Red Woman did to him and being alive and kicking she took Mel off the list as well. And if there is no more name on her list anymore, that means Cersei's of her list as well.

It's just Arya dealing with her ghosts of those she lost and her insomnia, the exact opposite of 'losing it'.

Exactly 

https://www.omega-level.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/204AryaList.jpg

 

The Hound also gets annoyed that she lies awake reciting her list when he is trying to sleep.

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4 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Not anymore. Only Cersei and The Mountain remain. Certainly, she would seize an opportunity, but she is not focused on the list since several episodes. She understood that family is more important than her list. The key scene is Hot Pie telling her Winterfell belongs to the Starks again and she turns immediately.

She even calmly admits to The Hound that Beric was on her list "for a while". So she clearly is able to add to and delete people from her list.

 

The Mountain's dead to her already, killed at Tyrion's trial (remember she saw a play about Cersei and Tyrion's betrayal in Braavos). So, he's off her list.

And since she wasn't naming anyone at all in that last scene, next to sleeping Gendry we can infer that Cersei's off the list as well.

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3 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

She seemed to soften on Cersei through the play in Braavos. She begins to understand her pain and why she would do what she did. 

Exactly. She'll fight, but for the living from now on. She'll kill, but within a justice system as executioner, not to avenge her ghosts.

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6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

He'd have stayed away from redheads after Mel,

Ha-ha, again, yes, probably he is not into redheads anymore. 

7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

He was watching her from the shadows for a while, all cleaned up and in his best clothes.

That's true. He did his best. He did not just carry her weapon up in any sweaty, stained smith's outfit. He understood she was flirting with him. He seemed to be interested.

8 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Which btw makes him probably the sole person who manages to sneak up on Arya without her noticing him, until he wants her to know.

Strange, though. Maybe bad writing?

6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And since she wasn't naming anyone at all in that last scene, next to sleeping Gendry we can infer that Cersei's off the list as well.

I don't think so. The list is just not the priority in this moment. She just had sex, the battle directly imminent, she has insomnia as she does often. 

The Great War is important, not her list with only Cersei. It is entirely believable.

Arya also does not always pray her list anyway, It's a long time ago we heard her recite it.

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7 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

She seemed to soften on Cersei through the play in Braavos. She begins to understand her pain and why she would do what she did. 

Not at all. After killing the Freys she was headed towards King's Landing and met the Lannister soldiers. She even told them she will kill Cersei and everyone laughed.

Up till meeting Hot Pie in the inn Arya was determined to kill Cersei. That is 100% sure.

Then she learns from Hot Pie, that not all of her family is dead, but Winterfell is back in Stark's hand. She immediately turns around and heads to Winterfell. Family has priority over killing list. 

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2 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Not at all. After killing the Freys she was headed towards King's Landing and met the Lannister soldiers. She even told them she will kill Cersei and everyone laughed.

Up till meeting Hot Pie in the inn Arya was determined to kill Cersei. That is 100% sure.

Then she learns from Hot Pie, that not all of her family is dead, but Winterfell is back in Stark's hand. She immediately turns around and heads to Winterfell. Family has priority over killing list. 

You don't think Arya understands her more now than as the evil queen who killed her sister's pet? Empathy is something a psycho doesn't have. I think Arya has it but like her father, he empathises with the Nights Watch deserter but he still executed him for his crime

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Just now, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

You don't think Arya understands her more now than as the evil queen who killed her sister's pet? Empathy is something a psycho doesn't have. I think Arya has it but like her father, he empathises with the Nights Watch deserter but he still executed him for his crime

I don't say Arya has no empathy. She very clearly and emphatically explains to Lady Crane what Cersei will have felt. By the way, another good sign of how human and full of emotions Arya still is.

But the "I will kill Cersei" scene after the killing the Freys is there. She wanted to kill Cersei. It was her top priority until she learned about Winterfell from Hot Pie. Just let us take the shown scene seriously and not phantasize too much.

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22 hours ago, nborders said:

Gendry has always known Arya to be a little girl. But between the knives, the scars, and her figure, he found out quite suddenly that she’s a woman now. 

You realize how creepy this sounds?

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6 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Not at all. After killing the Freys she was headed towards King's Landing and met the Lannister soldiers. She even told them she will kill Cersei and everyone laughed.

Up till meeting Hot Pie in the inn Arya was determined to kill Cersei. That is 100% sure.

Then she learns from Hot Pie, that not all of her family is dead, but Winterfell is back in Stark's hand. She immediately turns around and heads to Winterfell. Family has priority over killing list. 

It's like the Hound. She was with him and he protected her, but she still kept him on her list for a while, until she didn't anymore.

There's also another entire process going on psychologically with Arya, but I'm working on that post. That will make clear why Cersei's off the list.

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1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

It's like the Hound. She was with him and he protected her, but she still kept him on her list for a while, until she didn't anymore.

That's right.

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

 There's also another entire process going on psychologically with Arya, but I'm working on that post. That will make clear why Cersei's off the list.

I look forward to reading it. At the moment, I don't believe so. 

She hates Cersei and she wanted to kill her -- that's the last thing we know. I try to take the show (the shown scenes) seriously.

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22 hours ago, nara said:

Definitely did not see it coming, but I think it’s a good sign for Arya slowly getting back to a normal life. She’s had to protect herself for years by focusing on training and not being vulnerable. Now she can start reclaiming her friend and family relationships (while still being a kickass fighter 

She chopped up people and put them into pies... But maybe you're right, that's how it's going to end for her since D&D clearly can't write these characters.

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10 minutes ago, Nami said:

She chopped up people and put them into pies

Yes, what so bad about it? Do you understand that this is a allegory to the legend of broken guest right? Arya knows her literature. 

Walder Frey dishonored the guest right and that is pivotal to many people in Westeros.

Arya is a trained killer. Yes, no way around it. I have no problem with that. She is still very human, has emotions, empathy, family.

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I am a Gendrya fan since I first saw Gendry and Arya interacting throughout S2, and since I read the books (I started to read them after S3). I expected those two to have sex in S8 and before the battle. Still, I was surprised to learn via the leak that it happened, and when I saw it, I too was not sure how I felt about the whole scene from start to end, mostly because of Arya's interrogation style, the fast editing when they take each other's clothes off and some of that kissing, to the stripping scene, her pushing Gendry onto the sacks of whatever is in there and telling him to pull his pants of. I actually initially only liked that it happened and the final kiss.

But yesterday I've been going over the connections and recalls to previous scenes since the finale of S1 of every scene she had with him and the Hound since last week, as well as her overall arc since she murdered all the men of House Frey. 

So, she left Braavos, because she didn't want to be No-One. She wanted to be Arya Stark, but that was not someone she could reach that easy anymore. The last tether she had to being Arya Stark was her list of names she wanted to kill for revenge on the bad people who hurt the people she cared for. She killed two Freys first while posing as some kitchen/serving maid and eyed Jaime Lannister (Bronn noticed that). Now, while there's a finger in the pie, and she implies she baked Walder's sons into pies, it's doubtful she went that far or could have practically done that (for pragmatical reasons). For all we know, she knifed two Freys, chopped a finger off from one of the bodies and made sure it was in the pie she served Walder Frey. She then kills him, invites all the adult males over and has them poisoned with wine, but spares the women. Here she is Arya the assassin, using what she learned in Braavos to get names of her long list.

She then heads off to King's Landing to kill Cersei, but meets the friendly Lannister soldiers on their way to the Twins to find out what the hell happened there. Notice that she doesn't talk much, she just mostly listens, and she's quite honest about her intentions to kill Cersei though they all think she's joking. This is her first meeting with normal people on the side of the road, talking about their home and family, etc. Last time she was on that road, she was with the Hound and killed the Tickler and murdered a group of Freys snacking on the side of the road, but also ate with the father and daughter that the Hound finds dead in the same episode. She was mad at him then for robbing that father, knowing it might mean death. She lets go of blind hatred for anyone associated with the Lannisters, and leaves the soldiers alone (though we learned from the whores with Bronn, that one of them died in the battle with Dany, and Ed Sheeran lost his eyelids).

We next see her at the Crossroads Inn, and now she meets the second 'normal person', who's actually a ghost of her past, Hot Pie, who managed to survive. She is not Arya the assassin anymore, but Arya the Hound's adopted daughter, mimicking his cynical and off-hand remarks. As I pointed out, she regressed after each 'normal' contact to a prior personna arc or stage in her journey: from Arya the assassin to the Hound's daughter. As a living ghost of her past, Hot Pie represents several eventual crossroads for Arya. The last time she saw Hot Pie was when the Brotherhood had captured the Hound, and he had to fight Beric in a trial. Beric let the Hound go, and yet Arya still tried to kill him because she knew he had killed Mycah, but Gendry held her back. Good thing too that she didn't kill the Hound, or she'd probably be dead. More, Hot Pie asks whether that lady-knight (because she had armor on) ever found her, referencing the moment that the Hound died (as far as Arya knew). Him dying made her sail for Braavos instead of trying to get home to WF. So, with all that in the back of her subconscious together with the Cersei-empathising play in Braavos and the news that Jon's KitN, that's the moment she starts to let go of Cersei as a priority on her list, and chooses to go home instead.

Along the way, she meets Nymeria with her own pack. Nymeria is her second ghost of the past who managed to survive. She represents the moment when Cersei had Lady killed and the Hound killed Mycah. She invites Nymeria to come along with her, but Nymeria has her own pack now and leaves with them. For a moment, Arya is sad, but then recognizes that this may just well be for the best for Nymeria. It's the first moment that she can grieve over a loss of the past and yet imagine a happy ending for her wolf. And as she lets go of Nymeria, she lets go of Cersei.

Arya finishes off with the Hound's daughter personna, when she bests Brienne who beat the Hound. Why was that important to her? Brienne's actions led to Arya losing her foster father Sandor. Though she knows that Brienne did it with the best intentions, she still has to make her symbolically pay for that. So, this is the moment that she proclaims herself the daughter of her mother Catelyn. 

Once done with the Hound's daughter personna she ought to regress to a prior stage - the one before she ended up with the Hound and after she said goodbye to Hot Pie. Arya ended up with the Hound, because she ran away from the Brotherhood. She felt deeply betrayed by them when they sold Gendry to Melisandre. So, she regresses to someone who looks for signs of betrayal. She spies on LF and he uses her suspicion of him to create tension between Sansa and Arya and be rid of Sansa's protector Brienne. The sole way that Arya can discover whether her sister intends to betray Jon or not is through the-game-of-lies, especially when she discovers Sansa snooping in her room. Sansa's responses convince Arya enough that Sansa has no intentions to betray Jon, and she hands the dagger to Sansa, trusting Sansa enough to come to the right conclusions on her own. Arya also basically trusts her with her secret: that she was trained to be a Faceless Man. Yes, she threatened Sansa, but equally gave Sansa the benefit of the doubt, while she basically was dealing with her past trauma of betrayal by Beric. Arya meant well, but she has not regained the ability to communicate like a normal person (yet). IMO she wants to reach out to Sansa, but she simply doesn't know how anymore. When Sansa figures out she actually should distrust Littlefinger and not Arya, she heals Arya's betrayal-trauma.

At this stage, she's ready to reach out to people, to actually become and feel normal again, but she doesn't really know how to comunicate it all, and she doesn't have the right person yet to do so. She finds an understanding with her sister, but they weren't friends before and have very different interests. While they discover they love and respect one another as family, they don't have much in common to talk about. Arya chit-chatting with her sister, like Dany does for a moment with Sansa, is quite frankly unrealistic. They're not going to be besties anytime soon, especially since Sansa still has her trauma-dealing to do as well. Reconnecting with Theon who witnessed her abuse and helped her escape from it is one of the things that Sansa needs.

Anyhow, it's at this stage for Arya at the start of S8 that Jon, the Hound and Gendry show up. She seeks Jon out, privately, as soon as possible in the godswood. She's not just trying to reconnect with Jon, because they shared a past, but because he seems the most logical person to connect with over similar experiences while they were apart for so many years. He was stabbed multiple times at the Wall and lives, like she was stabbed multiple times and lives. And Jon killed the men who did it, just like she killed the Waif. So, when he tells her he didn't survive a knife to the heart, she feels free to fly in his arms. But two issues arise instantly. For one, even if she knows that they have similar physical traumas and dealt with it in a similar way, he doesn't know her journey and regards her as the little sister of 11. She finds she's unable to tell him the horrors she lived through. And secondly, because he tries to connect with her on the subject they used to as children - complaining about Sansa. She can't do that anymore. The result is that Jon reminds her of who she isn't anymore. And that doesn't help her find who Arya Stark is now. And it's quite logical that she dare not burst the bubble for Jon. There are some things that you don't want your big brother to know. But at least she has this with him: a heartfelt hug in silence. The physical contact with Jon is something that helps her far more than any chit-chat can do.

So, she goes to Gendry, but bumps into the Hound being a bully again to one of her friends. How much she is a Stark now is shown by her icy manner. The Hound refers to her as cold, but that's quite typical for Starks and how many people saw Ned Stark - any icy cold stern Lord. It only proves she's her real father's daughter, not the Hound's anymore. She's a Stark through and through. And then she finds herself talking alone with Gendry. Another ghost she assumed dead who managed to survive, and one she had a pre-teen crush on. He teases her like he always did, and she can tease him back. He's the easiest for her to reconnect with herself, because he lived through a lot of the horrors in the Riverlands. She was with him when she started on keeping a list of names to kill. He once argued with her who she should have picked to be killed by Jaquen. That's how cool he is with her. What she cannot reveal to Jon, she doesn't need to reveal to Gendry much. He already knows for a long time, and he still let her be Arya. Except he sees her as a girl, not as a woman yet.

For those who believe she never showed any signs even which gender she was interested in: there's a HH scene in the forge, where Gendry doesn't wear a shirt and Arya totally checks his abs out while snacking. When Arya checks him out again in the forge in epi 2 this season it alludes to that scene of S2. She thought him hot then, and she still thinks he's hot now... the sole difference is that this time he has a short on. That cat--got-the-canary look she has probably has her wishing he didn't have that shirt on. So, no, it doesn't come out of nowhere at all. And later Gendry himself refers to a S3 moment where she invited him to come to WF with her for she could be his family. What evidently becomes clear to Arya in the time between being turned on by seeing him in the forge (and imagining him shirtless) and the time she waits for him to give her her weapon is that her attraction to him isn't that of a pre-teen anymore but that of a grown woman, that she has actual sexual needs.

The scene with the Hound and Beric is important for Arya's arc is that she realises something's fundamentally changed, and it isn't her having assassin skills. He notices that she's become a quiet one. She's changed. She's not a child anymore who chatters on willy nilly. She's not a teenager even. She's a grown woman. And while Beric may be off the list, Mel isn't. The Hound reminds her he fought for her once, leading up to the unspoken question - why is Gendry here, when he turned her down years before. She can take three flies in one by waiting for him all by herself: find out whether Gendry's in WF for her, whether she can take Mel off her list, and connect with someone in the sole way she can (physically). 

Yes, her lying-game interrogation is awkward. It's supposed to be that way. She doesn't really know how to just talk with someone anymore. Jon's hugs are sweet, but not enough to complete her transformation in Arya the woman. And so, there's Gendry. And off go her layers: no lady cloak, off come the gloves, off come the assassin's leather, and off with the Arry-Riverlands-disguise, to reveal she's not a girl anymore, but a woman, scars and all. 

And after actually finally being intimate with someone who knows what she must have survived (he's the sole one who has seen her scars), she lies awake with no names to recite. There's nobody on her list anymore. Done. No more list.

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1 hour ago, Kajjo said:

Arya also does not always pray her list anyway, It's a long time ago we heard her recite it.

We haven't had a night scene of her trying to sleep for a very very long time. Last time was in Braavos at the House of the Undying in S5. She recited it every night for years, she didn't stop doing that. It was just something she still did off-screen, to keep the mystery who might still be on it, to keep the viewer speculating whether she might go to KL after all to kill Cersei or not; to make us wonder that she might assassinate Mel. But they showed us in episode 2, her in bed wide awake, with Gendry sleeping beside her, a shout-out to the HH scene of S2 when she was reciting her list. That's what we saw on-screen.

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22 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

We haven't had a night scene of her trying to sleep for a very very long time. Last time was in Braavos at the House of the Undying in S5.

Very long ago, true. It was at the House of Black-and-White. The House of the Undying is where Daenerys had her visions.

23 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

to make us wonder that she might assassinate Mel.

Arya took Melisandre, Beric and Thoros off her list in her last prayer in Bravos. She even talks about having forgiven Sandor in a game with the Waif.

My table of prayers is as follows:

  • first prayer: Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound, Jeoffrey
  • after Red Wedding: Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound, Jeoffrey, Polliver, The Mountain
  • in Harrenhall: Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound, Jeoffrey, The Mountain, Tywin 
  • after losing Gendry: Jeoffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound, Walder Frey, Jeoffrey, The Mountain, Tywin, Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr
  • first Braavos: Jeoffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, The Hound, Walder Frey, Jeoffrey, The Mountain, Tywin, Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr
  • later Braavos): Cersei, Gregor Clegane (The Mountain), Walder Frey, Ser Meryn Trant -- already without Melisandre, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Sandor Clegane

In Braavos she kills Meryn Trant and can remove him from the list.  Then she kills Walder Frey, his sons and two weeks later all males. No further prayer shown to us.

This leaves a short list:

  • Cersei and The Mountain.

I am sure she has not yet forgiven Cersei. The last we knew as she went there to kill her. She just canceled that because family had priority.

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On 4/22/2019 at 3:32 AM, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

She obviously likes Gendry but I think she is numb when it comes to caring for people or has learnt not to let emotions get in the way of things.

The scene afterwards looks like someone with a lot on her mind... feelings she tried to separate from sex raising its head I think

For me, sex can deepen relationships.  I think the feelings you mention might be love and now fear: fear of losing someone else she loves.

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38 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

She wanted to be Arya Stark, but that was not someone she could reach that easy anymore.

I believe you over-interpret drastically in your whole analysis.

Arya very clearly states: "I am Arya Stark of Winterfell and I will go home." She was never no-one. She was always true to herself. With empathy, with emotions. She went through a lot of hardship, though. She showed empathy explaining to Lady Crane the feelings and motivation of Cersei and by savin her, she showed emotion like hate and revenge when killing Meryn Trant.

41 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The last tether she had to being Arya Stark was her list of names she wanted to kill for revenge on the bad people who hurt the people she cared for.

She still has her sword "Needle" to take back a bit of her former self. And yes, she has her list, her revenge and hate. She cares very much still about all the family she has lost. When heading towards King's Landing she assumes no one is left. Then Hot Pie tells her about Winterfell and she immediately has the right priorities.

43 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

She is not Arya the assassin anymore, but Arya the Hound's adopted daughter, mimicking his cynical and off-hand remarks.

I wouldn't see her as "daughter" and she is not really like the Hound. But yes, there are similarities, like being on their own, like hate being a good motive to go on. But the talk with Hot Pie is immediately igniting the longing for her family. She does not hesitate, does not weigh options, she is 100% for heading home. 

I don't like all this "Arya is not Arya". Arya is always Arya, with different priorities, different hardships. People do not change all the time drastically, they changed over time, they develop. So did Arya. 

47 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

there's a HH scene in the forge, where Gendry doesn't wear a shirt and Arya totally checks his abs out while snacking.

Yes, indeed. 

47 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The scene with the Hound and Beric is important for Arya's arc is that she realises something's fundamentally changed, and it isn't her having assassin skills. He notices that she's become a quiet one. She's changed.

Yes, the Hound/Beric meeting was important for her. Suddenly she realises she doesn't want to sit with these two old bitter men, but to somehow enjoy her last hours before the battle.

49 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

to reveal she's not a girl anymore, but a woman, scars and all. 

Yep.

49 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And after actually finally being intimate with someone who knows what she must have survived (he's the sole one who has seen her scars), she lies awake with no names to recite. There's nobody on her list anymore. Done. No more list.

Nicely phrased, but I see the issue with the list in a different light.

I believe she as kid needed the list to come through the nights. A prayer to soothe, to give motivation. Now she has grown-up. A decisive battle ahead. Other worries than reciting names.

However, I believe she still wants to kill Cersei.

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