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West of Westeros: The Voyages of A. Stark


Johan Wehtje

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1 minute ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

If Arya was going to succeed we really should be given reasons why she should be different from Brandon the Shipwright and Elissa Farman

Never mentioned in the show. The show is much simpler, as everyone complains about so vocally. 

The maps end with Westeros and Arya wants to know what is west of Westeros. That's all they tell us and that makes sense for an adventurous young lady. Don't make it more complicated than it is in he show.

3 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

What is it about Arya that means she will succeed? That she is Arya Stark?

Well, that is one point, actually. She is our hero. If anyone at all, it's her.

Further, not coming back does not mean you didn't find anything.

And whether she actually never comes back or just not plans to do so, we don't know. We are just told what she expects.

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6 minutes ago, The Red Waste said:

For forty days and forty nights she will travel before reaching the shores of Americos. There she will join forces with The Redneck Woman and Pumpkin Pie to fight off a mysterious gathering threat beyond The Wall in the south. 

Then she will sneeze at them and they will die of common cold. It is known.

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Arya really needed to have a complete emotional breakdown at some point. I remember ironically watching 24 as a drinking game with friends at uni. It was a really silly show where Jack Bower doles out violence and patriotically poetic justice to EVIL terrorists. It was dumb, fun, ideological propaganda at its finest. EXCEPT at the end of season 3, after saving the world beyond all odds, getting tortured several times, murdering countless people, Jack goes out into his car and just break down weeping. At least she could have confronted Sansa and tearfully recounted all the nasty things she's done, try to get some kind of acceptance. This might be a misguided way to write a "strong female character" by simply writing a stereotypical "male action hero" and then having a woman read the lines. 

We really needed this from Arya. She hasn't been a human character for almost 4 seasons now, she has simply been a vessel for sadistic violence revenge on the characters that the audience see as EVIL. Jack Bower's bad-ass persona was revealed to be a MASK that hides his inner turmoil, guilt, despair, doubt, etc. Even a silly show like 24 produced a more 3D character than GOT. 

Arya should have:

a) Faced her emotional trauma before simply leaving everything behind and running away on an "adventure"

b) Eluded to the idea that she plans to die at sea, recognizing that she is too far gone, she cannot atone, she cannot apologize, the world doesn't need another killer 

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5 minutes ago, Jaime the Goldenhand said:

Arya really needed to have a complete emotional breakdown at some point. I remember ironically watching 24 as a drinking game with friends at uni. It was a really silly show where Jack Bower doles out violence and patriotically poetic justice to EVIL terrorists. It was dumb, fun, ideological propaganda at its finest. EXCEPT at the end of season 3, after saving the world beyond all odds, getting tortured several times, murdering countless people, Jack goes out into his car and just break down weeping. At least she could have confronted Sansa and tearfully recounted all the nasty things she's done, try to get some kind of acceptance. This might be a misguided way to write a "strong female character" by simply writing a stereotypical "male action hero" and then having a woman read the lines. 

We really needed this from Arya. She hasn't been a human character for almost 4 seasons now, she has simply been a vessel for sadistic violence revenge on the characters that the audience see as EVIL. Jack Bower's bad-ass persona was revealed to be a MASK that hides his inner turmoil, guilt, despair, doubt, etc. Even a silly show like 24 produced a more 3D character than GOT. 

Arya should have:

a) Faced her emotional trauma before simply leaving everything behind and running away on an "adventure"

b) Eluded to the idea that she plans to die at sea, recognizing that she is too far gone, she cannot atone, she cannot apologize, the world doesn't need another killer 

Why didn't everyone in LOTR collapse due to PTSD? If you don't like adventure stories, don't watch/read them.

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7 minutes ago, Jaime the Goldenhand said:

Arya should have:

Another hater... and this time against Arya.

No, she shouldn't. Her arc is believable and sensible. She came to terms with herself when returning to Winterfell and the Hound make her see thet hate and revenge is not everything and live is worth living. We got this redemption arc.

Arya was always very human and being a killer is not non-human. She was all Stark all the time, the pack survives. She is an adventurous tomboy and that's it. Resilience is important and Arya has plenty of it.

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We know what is west of Westeros, kinda. There is a small uninhabited archipielago, and then lots and lots and lots and lots of water... and then you circumnavigate the planet and arrive to Ulthos. There are clues about it in the Fire and Blood book...

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1 hour ago, Ser Lepus said:

We know what is west of Westeros, kinda. There is a small uninhabited archipielago, and then lots and lots and lots and lots of water... and then you circumnavigate the planet and arrive to Ulthos. There are clues about it in the Fire and Blood book...

Arya: What's west of Westeros?

Jon: I don't know

Arya: :-D

Sam: There is a small uninhabited archipielago, and then lots and lots and lots and lots of water... and then you circumnavigate the planet and arrive to Ulthos. There are clues about it in the Fire and Blood book...

Arya: :-O

 

Arya: ;-(

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4 hours ago, Kajjo said:

Another hater... and this time against Arya.

No, she shouldn't. Her arc is believable and sensible. She came to terms with herself when returning to Winterfell and the Hound make her see thet hate and revenge is not everything and live is worth living. We got this redemption arc.

Arya was always very human and being a killer is not non-human. She was all Stark all the time, the pack survives. She is an adventurous tomboy and that's it. Resilience is important and Arya has plenty of it.

Yes, Arya is a very human character...

I'm vividly reminded of her humanity as stabs this man's eyes out and then proceeds to stab him to death in the chest. I also feel deeply the humanity of the character as she feeds a man his children. 

She is never made to confront these gruesome acts of violence. She's just too bad-ass to feel real consequences for her actions.

This is not a probably unique to Arya. The show in general doesn't pay any attention to the consequences of being a violent person. The fact she needs the hound to tell her this at all suggests that she has never reflected on the gravity on what she became; a monster. However briefly, this was never resolved. For that reason, I don't think her sailing happily into the sunset was earned at all.  

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Stole this quote from someone else but wouldn't quote properly. 

A number of people here are wondering why Arya has turned explorer and sails West at the end, but this was foreshadowed in Season 6 Episode 8 when Arya was in Braavos.  While tending Arya's wounds from the Waif, Lady Crane invited her to join her theater group but Arya rejected that offer:

LADY CRANE: Where will you go? 
ARYA: Essos is east and Westeros is west.
But what's west of Westeros? 
LADY CRANE: I don't know.
ARYA: Nobody does.
That's where all the maps stop.
The edge of the world, maybe.
I'd like to see that.

And so, with her business in Westeros settled, she did! 

 

So Arya told us flat out on screen that she was going to do exactly what she ended up doing.

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Most likely arrives on an the coast of somewhere that looks abandoned and uninhabited, her and her men step off the ship and set up camp... the next day they are met by native tribes.... the men are slaughtered and Arya taken captive for well... can leave the to the imagination.

I appreciate her thirst for adventure and her kickass fighting skills but at the end of the day she is still a young girl with a young girls strength.. it's not safe to go off on adventure where her name counts for nothing and no idea who or what they will come across..... should have stuck with Gendry made babies.. 

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Somehow belatedly the hread title clicked...

Spinoff series opening narration:

"West of Westeros: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the sailship Nymeria. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!"

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10 hours ago, Jaime the Goldenhand said:

I'm vividly reminded of her humanity

Are traumatised children who experienced rape and violence bare of humanity for you, just because they feel hatred and revenge?

So you say most killers have no humanity in them? Do you think Mafia bosses do not authentically love their wives or children? Professionell killers have no love, sympathy, friendships just because they kill? What about police men or soldiers?

Arya has early on become callous to killing, partly as a necessity to survive, partly her courageous nature accepts it more easily than others might have. She reacts cruel out of revenge sometimes. She became a ruthless assassin. But she is also very human. She does not kill the insurance man or the actress Lady Crane, she asserts to be Arya Stark of Winterfell when leaving Bravos, she immediately returns to Winterfell when she learns from Hotpie that she still has family. From Winterfell on she becomes warmer again and "the pack survives". However, life has been tough to her and she is what she is now.

Feelings of love and hatred, of sympathy and vengeance, of social intelligence and empathy are actually a sign of humanity. Not the opposite. Arya is quite experienced in recognising lies and truth, in understanding motivations, in reading people. 

By the way, killing Meryn Trant is just a brutal action, but he well deserved it. Arya is a killer and she does well. I have no issues with that. The takes out who wronged and her dear ones. I can fully understand that.

Regarding the often mentioned "Frey pie", please be reminded that this refers to the legend "Rat Cook" about broken guest right and Arya knows her literature. This fits so well. Don't make this to a core of her character, but see and understand the legend. The show recounts the legend through Bran in S3 and Arya re-enacts it in S6.

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10 hours ago, dbunting said:

So Arya told us flat out on screen that she was going to do exactly what she ended up doing.

Yes, and this is why this ending is so satisfying and fulfills Arya's arc so well. I love this character and the ending.

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19 hours ago, StoneColdJorahMormont said:

Most likely arrives on an the coast of somewhere that looks abandoned and uninhabited, her and her men step off the ship and set up camp... the next day they are met by native tribes.... the men are slaughtered and Arya taken captive for well... can leave the to the imagination.

I appreciate her thirst for adventure and her kickass fighting skills but at the end of the day she is still a young girl with a young girls strength.. it's not safe to go off on adventure where her name counts for nothing and no idea who or what they will come across..... should have stuck with Gendry made babies.. 

Dripping with sarcasm I hope?  To say Arya needs protecting would be very insulting to her character and to suggest she should just make babies, well...

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On 5/20/2019 at 12:52 PM, Jaime the Goldenhand said:

Arya really needed to have a complete emotional breakdown at some point. I remember ironically watching 24 as a drinking game with friends at uni. It was a really silly show where Jack Bower doles out violence and patriotically poetic justice to EVIL terrorists. It was dumb, fun, ideological propaganda at its finest. EXCEPT at the end of season 3, after saving the world beyond all odds, getting tortured several times, murdering countless people, Jack goes out into his car and just break down weeping. At least she could have confronted Sansa and tearfully recounted all the nasty things she's done, try to get some kind of acceptance. This might be a misguided way to write a "strong female character" by simply writing a stereotypical "male action hero" and then having a woman read the lines. 

We really needed this from Arya. She hasn't been a human character for almost 4 seasons now, she has simply been a vessel for sadistic violence revenge on the characters that the audience see as EVIL. Jack Bower's bad-ass persona was revealed to be a MASK that hides his inner turmoil, guilt, despair, doubt, etc. Even a silly show like 24 produced a more 3D character than GOT. 

Arya should have:

a) Faced her emotional trauma before simply leaving everything behind and running away on an "adventure"

b) Eluded to the idea that she plans to die at sea, recognizing that she is too far gone, she cannot atone, she cannot apologize, the world doesn't need another killer 

Excellent post. Every step of her way was sympathetically portrayed, and we all pulled for her, but the fact is that Arya chose to go down a very dark road. She has been immersed in death during her formative years and is emerging into adulthood. She can't really be a normal person any more. 

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On 5/20/2019 at 8:32 AM, Wagshell said:

Hadn't Euron circimnavigated the world in the books, or did I make that up in my head?

It's implied. Never outright stated.

Of course, as Old Nan says, all crows are liars. Euron lies so much so often for no reason that it's hard to find out exactly what is true and what is false.

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On 5/20/2019 at 3:52 PM, Jaime the Goldenhand said:

Arya really needed to have a complete emotional breakdown at some point. I remember ironically watching 24 as a drinking game with friends at uni. It was a really silly show where Jack Bower doles out violence and patriotically poetic justice to EVIL terrorists. It was dumb, fun, ideological propaganda at its finest. EXCEPT at the end of season 3, after saving the world beyond all odds, getting tortured several times, murdering countless people, Jack goes out into his car and just break down weeping. At least she could have confronted Sansa and tearfully recounted all the nasty things she's done, try to get some kind of acceptance. This might be a misguided way to write a "strong female character" by simply writing a stereotypical "male action hero" and then having a woman read the lines. 

We really needed this from Arya. She hasn't been a human character for almost 4 seasons now, she has simply been a vessel for sadistic violence revenge on the characters that the audience see as EVIL. Jack Bower's bad-ass persona was revealed to be a MASK that hides his inner turmoil, guilt, despair, doubt, etc. Even a silly show like 24 produced a more 3D character than GOT. 

Arya should have:

a) Faced her emotional trauma before simply leaving everything behind and running away on an "adventure"

b) Eluded to the idea that she plans to die at sea, recognizing that she is too far gone, she cannot atone, she cannot apologize, the world doesn't need another killer 

I think Lady Stoneheart will play a crucial role in this aspect of Arya's arc.

It'll be horrific enough for Arya to pause and take time to reflect. Reuniting with Sansa, Bran, Jon and maybe Rickon will (especially Sansa and Jon)  also either serve to convince Arya to allow the healing process to run its course or Arya will sabotager her healing process because of the pain of it all.

And that's operating under the assumption that Arya doesn't develop a love/unhealthy obsession for violence, her own magical powers (and the magical power of others) or both.

Another character arc sabotaged by laziness and stupidity.

I've never understood how important Lady Stoneheart was until season 7. I now get why George R.R. Martin was so upset that they left out Lady Stoneheart. How many character arcs were ruined with her exclusion? It's at least three (Arya, Jaime and Brienne). And then there is the matter of Littlefinger and Bran coming face-to-face with her. And of course, we can only imagine the sparks that will fly should Sansa, Jon (after he is crowned King), Roose Bolton, Theon and/or Tyrion encounter her.

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6 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

I think Lady Stoneheart will play a crucial role in this aspect of Arya's arc.

It'll be horrific enough for Arya to pause and take time to reflect. Reuniting with Sansa, Bran, Jon and maybe Rickon will (especially Sansa and Jon)  also either serve to convince Arya to allow the healing process to run its course or Arya will sabotager her healing process because of the pain of it all.

And that's operating under the assumption that Arya doesn't develop a love/unhealthy obsession for violence, her own magical powers (and the magical power of others) or both.

Another character arc sabotaged by laziness and stupidity.

I've never understood how important Lady Stoneheart was until season 7. I now get why George R.R. Martin was so upset that they left out Lady Stoneheart. How many character arcs were ruined with her exclusion? It's at least three (Arya, Jaime and Brienne). And then there is the matter of Littlefinger and Bran coming face-to-face with her. And of course, we can only imagine the sparks that will fly should Sansa, Jon (after he is crowned King), Roose Bolton, Theon and/or Tyrion encounter her.

Yes! I completely agree. Arya needs to have a moment of reckoning. She never had this in the show. I think they were going for this with confronting Nymeria, but it just didn't have any weightI. It is a very forgettable scene.

Sometimes I wonder if they excluded this because Maisie isn't capable of giving a layered performance. But, at least she could try and confess something to Sansa instead of keeping everything hidden. 

The whole concept of the pack survives, to me, entails supporting one another, not just being on screen at the same time.

 

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17 hours ago, Kajjo said:

Are traumatised children who experienced rape and violence bare of humanity for you, just because they feel hatred and revenge?

So you say most killers have no humanity in them? Do you think Mafia bosses do not authentically love their wives or children? Professionell killers have no love, sympathy, friendships just because they kill? What about police men or soldiers?

Arya has early on become callous to killing, partly as a necessity to survive, partly her courageous nature accepts it more easily than others might have. She reacts cruel out of revenge sometimes. She became a ruthless assassin. But she is also very human. She does not kill the insurance man or the actress Lady Crane, she asserts to be Arya Stark of Winterfell when leaving Bravos, she immediately returns to Winterfell when she learns from Hotpie that she still has family. From Winterfell on she becomes warmer again and "the pack survives". However, life has been tough to her and she is what she is now.

Feelings of love and hatred, of sympathy and vengeance, of social intelligence and empathy are actually a sign of humanity. Not the opposite. Arya is quite experienced in recognising lies and truth, in understanding motivations, in reading people. 

By the way, killing Meryn Trant is just a brutal action, but he well deserved it. Arya is a killer and she does well. I have no issues with that. The takes out who wronged and her dear ones. I can fully understand that.

Regarding the often mentioned "Frey pie", please be reminded that this refers to the legend "Rat Cook" about broken guest right and Arya knows her literature. This fits so well. Don't make this to a core of her character, but see and understand the legend. The show recounts the legend through Bran in S3 and Arya re-enacts it in S6.

I get it. You like Arya. She is very bad-ass. Personally, I don't like the way she is portrayed in the show, while she is one of my favorites in the books.

The ethos of the first 3-4 seasons, which is very consistent with the books is that:

ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

Of course many characters would all like to cathartically murder everyone who has wronged us in the past. However, there are issues with this kind of reactionary brutality. We have to live with ourselves, we have to accept that someone else will be coming to take their vengeance on us, we have to dedicate time and resources to enacting out revenge.

Arya's story is devoid of these critical aspects. That's why it is best classed as revenge porn. Frey pie is poetic justice, but it comes at no cost. None of this callousness you mention comes across in the performance of the character. No one watching the show would ever question whether they would like to be like Arya. Hell yeah! Why not?! Super bad-ass, powerful, unflinching, loyal. Where is there any dimension to her character? 

I get that the flawless heroine is a popular trope these days. But it just doesn't do a thing for me. Boring character, undeserved non-ending to her non-arc. 

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