Arya Losin' It

[Ferrum Aeternum]

8 minutes ago, Charlie Hustle said:

The scene was "cute" to me. She's a teenager in the books by then. Many teens were smashing in the books, consummating marriages and all. So Arya was just another of them. Maisie is an adult now. Didnt bother me one bit.

My immediate reaction was it was quite possibly the most normal and believable sex scene in the history of the show. 

The "out of character" stuff is comical to me. Because it's soooo bizarrely out of character for a teenager to (rather impulsively) want to have sex with someone they know and are attracted to. I thought the earlier scenes between them this season played into this well.

[Red Dragon10]

11 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

My immediate reaction was it was quite possibly the most normal and believable sex scene in the history of the show. 

The "out of character" stuff is comical to me. Because it's soooo bizarrely out of character for a teenager to (rather impulsively) want to have sex with someone they know and are attracted to. I thought the earlier scenes between them this season played into this well.

For any other teen (except maybe Sansa..she has been through so much, I can't picture her wanting to have sex right now!) I would say this is true.  But Arya is just not your average teen.  She was a lot more typical back in the days when she was telling Gendry "I could be your family".  A LOT has happened to her and been committed by her since then....I don't put her in the same category as an average teen. 

[darmody]

8 hours ago, Kajjo said:

She knows Gendry, she flirted with him in E1, he is a kind and fine man.

Why on earth would a young woman would need to go to a brothel? Women can get sex exactly in the way Arya did. A main advantage of women in real-life, too.

Only men need brothels.

That was a joke.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

5 minutes ago, Red Dragon10 said:

For any other teen (except maybe Sansa..she has been through so much, I can't picture her wanting to have sex right now!) I would say this is true.  But Arya is just not your average teen.  She was a lot more typical back in the days when she was telling Gendry "I could be your family".  A LOT has happened to her and been committed by her since then....I don't put her in the same category as an average teen. 

One can be quite far from average and still get horny, I speculate.

[darmody]

17 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

My immediate reaction was it was quite possibly the most normal and believable sex scene in the history of the show. 

The "out of character" stuff is comical to me. Because it's soooo bizarrely out of character for a teenager to (rather impulsively) want to have sex with someone they know and are attracted to. I thought the earlier scenes between them this season played into this well.

That's just the premise of the scene. Well, that and Arya finding things out about Gendry. The premise isn't what made it awkward. 

Also, Arya is not a normal teen. She has no personality and is a serial killer. Not just because revenge, either. Deadly violence gives her physical pleasure. 

[darmody]

Just now, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

One can be quite far from average and still get horny, I speculate.

Like Ted Bundy?

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

3 minutes ago, darmody said:

Like Ted Bundy?

I'm really not digging your comparison.

[darmody]

13 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

I'm really not digging your comparison.

She was intensely interested in how it feels to be around dead bodies. 

[Cas Stark]

The writing and line delivery is what made it awkward.  Certainly, there was a way to write a tender love scene between Arya and Gendry and have it work...either more time in this particular scene and some different dialogue or more lead up time in the previous episodes where there is more of a romantic sense between the two.  Also, giving Arya a more mature and feminine look wouldn't have hurt the believability of the scene either.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

22 minutes ago, darmody said:

That's just the premise of the scene. Well, that and Arya finding things out about Gendry. The premise isn't what made it awkward. 

Also, Arya is not a normal teen. She has no personality and is a serial killer. Not just because revenge, either. Deadly violence gives her physical pleasure. 

This is an exaggeration. She showed plenty of personality when she was flirting with him, when she reunited with Jon, when she sassed the Hound and Beric, when she was furious as Sansa 'betraying' their family and when she said she missed Ned. Getting revenge on the Freys made her happy. She had no reaction to killing Littlefinger. I fail to see this physical pleasure aspect. 

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

6 minutes ago, darmody said:

She was intensely interested in how it feels to be around dead bodies. 

She wants to know about the enemy. You really twist things in an odd way

[bizzle]

6 hours ago, The Knight of Flours said:

And was there any scandal a few seasons back when Arya became a faceless prostitute to kill Meryn Trant?

Let alone in the books when 12 yo(?) Dany was sold off to Khal Drogo.

Both of those examples were criticized and discussed both within forum communities and the popular/news media.  Arya's was mostly resolved by people pointing to the age of her character and the fact that she didn't actually perform in those scenes--that it was a ruse rather than her being an actual prostitute. I don't remember Dany's resolution beyond much more than it was claimed to have been handled more sensitively than in the books, maybe a conversation about a difference in age between her in-show vs her in-book, and both discussed within the context of the show's culture, laws, expectations, etc.

The bottom line is all of the young females on this show shows in sexually explicit terms have had substantial conversation or "controversy" over what they are doing. Such conversations have even risen to the meta level where criticisms arise based on national perspective (like the US vs. Euro pre-occupation with sexuality vs. violence referenced earlier in this thread) and even angles of sexism in that the male characters are not held to the same scrutiny of whether they are 17 or 18 or whether their actors are 17 or 18, etc. (not exact numbers, but an example intended to illustrate how frequently these conversations turn on whether the character is or is not of acceptable cultural or legal age of consent and also whether the actor underneath the character is appropriately legal, too).

 

As for whether the show built this up correctly, I wonder how many of the responsive have been from women. For me, I was reluctant to perceive the buildup. I didn't have a stake in it, but I mean I was simply regarding any awkwardness between her and Gendry as her playing around with him. My wife, however, called her interest out within a few seconds of them both being on scene. When I responded that was silly, she then proceeded to point out every single facial feature, eye raise, sideways glance (and the camera cutaways to Gendry's loose clothes and prominent muscles). It got to the point where I asked if she was trying to tell me something, maybe we should pause the show if she was projecting  She also told me there was indications in E1 on account of their playing/teasing with one another (she did label it as flirting, but she is much younger than me in her mid-20s) but it was E2 where she said that it's happening, it's going down, and that wasn't clear to me until right about seconds before she started unlatching her clothes.

That said, this also isn't too far from reality, either! That is, despite our culture's perspective on who initiates sex more frequently between the sexes, it's been my experience that I and other guys I know don't always know a woman has made her mind up to have sex with one of us until she's literally sitting on our lap or face. I'm not always oblivious I'm just having flashbacks to when I was in high school and remembering one of the girls in my class that I was very attracted to who asked me what my plans were for prom. I told her I hadn't asked anyone and no had asked me, so I had none and she said yeah no one had asked her either. After about a beat, I said oh man that's strange, well ok see you tomorrow! Anyway, it's completely within the realm of plausibility that the show was showing us things we weren't picking up rather than them simply not being there.

 

[MinscS2]

3 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

She wants to know about the enemy. You really twist things in an odd way

"Welcome to the Forum of Ice and Fire, where people greatly exaggerate and twist words and occurrences to fit their own narrative and opinion regarding certain characters on the show. Enjoy your stay."

[D-Shiznit]

Just now, MinscS2 said:

"Welcome to the Forum of Ice and Fire, where people greatly exaggerate and twist words and occurrences to fit their own narrative and opinion regarding certain characters on the show. Enjoy your stay."

Especially in regards to female characters.

[darmody]

4 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

This is an exaggeration. She showed plenty of personality when she was flirting with him, when she reunited with Jon, when she sassed the Hound and Beric, when she was furious as Sansa 'betraying' their family and when she said she missed Ned. Getting revenge on the Freys made her happy. She had no reaction to killing Littlefinger. I fail to see this physical pleasure aspect. 

Do you remember her face when she slit Frey's throat? I'm not saying it was necessarily sexual, but she was definitely euphoric. 

Those other things you mention, the fairly universal reaction to Arya's recent interactions has been that they were a massive letdown because she's at best a wet blanket. Being angry at Sansa was at least emotion, and one wants to feel it was out of loyalty to Jon. But first of all that whole storyline was poorly written, with far-fetched motivations arising nearly out of nowhere. 

More importantly, the personality she showed was just smirking badass psycho killer with a Starks Forever! frosting. 

[chatty83]

I just assumed that where her story arc was going anyway. Since a child shes been a tomboy who would prefer to play soldier than princess. We got that scene where Ned tells her when shes older she'll marry a lord or prince and have children and she said that wasn't for her. Of course, shes went off and spent the last so many years learning to be an assassin, killing people on her list, fighting alongside brutes like The Hound etc. I assumed her overall arc would see her do that then would end up seeing how brutal that life is and revert to wanting to find a lover and have children etc. I meant how much trauma do you want in your life before you say i'd rather the quiet(er) life.

Anyway, they've played up her relationship with Gendry for a long time and hinted they would go this way from season 1 so it was inevitable. I thought they done it alright tbh, the night before the biggest battle where you could well die it would be natural to think of regrets, the things you haven't done, what you want to do if you survive and that was natural for Arya to want to have some sort of emotional link to someone again. They did make her a bit cold, I dunno if that was the intention or the actress but it fits anyway, you could go on years of killing and destruction and then turn it all off. Gendry was taken back by the scarring but she wasn't because that's hows shes always lived. I thought it was a fair enough scene to include.

[darmody]

10 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

She wants to know about the enemy. You really twist things in an odd way

Imagine Brienne asking Gendry about his encounter with the dead. Would she ever in a million years want him to write a stream of consciousness short story about how he felt?

Why can't everyone recognize how weird Arya is? She's not the plucky girl a bit too obsessed with her list. She's nearly affectless (aside from the smirk), mentally deranged and excited by killing. 

[tallTale]

1 minute ago, darmody said:

Imagine Brienne asking Gendry about his encounter with the dead. Would she ever in a million years want him to write a stream of consciousness short story about how he felt?

Why can't everyone recognize how weird Arya is? She's not the plucky girl a bit too obsessed with her list. She's nearly affectless (aside from the smirk), mentally deranged and excited by killing. 

Arya is in need of something to help her re-enter the normal human race. Perhaps she'll bring "life" into the world for a change with a baby.

[Gertrude]

7 hours ago, The Knight of Flours said:

And was there any scandal a few seasons back when Arya became a faceless prostitute to kill Meryn Trant?

It would be a HUGE fucking stretch to call the girls Trant reviews as prostitutes. They were terrified.

[xander_blackfyre]

I will admit that at first I was a little freaked out by the scene.  Not because of the age thing but because I just had never seen Arya as a sexual create the only thing that gave her pleasure was killing, I thought to myself in the whole series the most sexual thing that I has seen from her was when she slit Walder Frey's throat and the look on her face while he was bleeding out looked like she was having an orgasm.  In the last few years the producers have attempted to bring out her more girly side but I have can only see her as that tomboy.  if I am really being honest what bothered me more was the scene where she was eyeing him and sizing him up.  

The scene itself was kinda clunky and super awkward but in the context of what is about to happen there really was no time for romance.  So I understand Arya going all I want it and you are going to give it to me, and Gendry being the guy makes sense since like other have stated she had a crush on him years ago, she might not have understood the feelings all those years ago though.  Plus her other option was the hound am I mean come on.