Arya the Explorer

[ARYa_Nym]

2 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Except that show-Gendry fulfills two book roles that of Gendry and Edric Storm. You seem to think that Edric will wind up dead, and the Stepstones do sound like a dangerous area to be at around aDwD. However, Edric is the sole acknowledge male Baratheon bastard and then there's Mya Stone.

In order for Gendry to become legitimized, he would need to be acknowledged by a king or queen. The sole one in the books who can presume to have this jurisdiction is Stannis, and he would rather offer Robert's bastard to the fire than acknowledge him let alone legitimize him. Gendry is unlikely to meet Stannis, as Stannis eventually will be doomed because Mel ends up burning Shyreen, and she wouldn't burn Shyreen if she had a bastard as alternative.

Instead Edric Storm seems to be put in the pathway of Dany or any of her allies. Since he's already acknowledged, she can far more easily legitimize him.

That doesn't mean that Gendry's relation to Robert goes unnoticed. Tom Sevens' song implies some of the BwB recognize his father in him. LS seems to know, because she keeps Gendry away from the BwB who actually do most of the fighting, and has the inn where he is stationed guarded by the veterans. Meanwhile Gendry's thematically deeply entrenched in Arya's story.

There are two Edrics in the story (apart from Ned Stark): Edric Storm and Edric Dayne. Both represent something that he might get envious over. He is jealous of Edric Dayne getting Arya's attention, after Gendry got himself knighted, and Edric Storm is set up to be the Lord of SE, which is something that Gendry might believe he needs to be Arya's equal. But ultimately there is no reason to be jealous at either two, because within a day Arya's more mad with Edric Dayne than she's with Gendry and as Tom Seven pointed out, Arya's a forest lass. And it's funny that George gave them both the name Edric, which is actually Ned's birthname, and it are mostly Ned Stark's actions that set Gendry on Arya's paths to coincide. It's as if all these Neds make sure that Gendry remains in Arya's arc.

That said, they might end up having separate fates, but I do not believe it is because Gendry gets Storm's End whatsoever.

But if Edric dies, there's a potential male heir that Dany can use to gain a region that is loyal to her, (in her mind). The show gave a plausible reason for them to cross paths given Gendry's training under Tobho Mott. If he does have a pivotal role in forging weapons for the battle against the Night King, I can see that being his reward. Or he's just given lordship over an area where the previous line has died. 

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, ARYa_Nym said:

But if Edric dies, there's a potential male heir that Dany can use to gain a region that is loyal to her, (in her mind). The show gave a plausible reason for them to cross paths given Gendry's training under Tobho Mott. If he does have a pivotal role in forging weapons for the battle against the Night King, I can see that being his reward. Or he's just given lordship over an area where the previous line has died. 

There is theoretically a lot of potential for a lot of things, but I don't see this in George's writing when it comes to the chapters in which Gendry appears. It serves that Gendry has his father's blood so that people have the inclination to keep him safe and help him survive, but also of lowborn status so Arya Underfoot is inclined to hang out with him. He's been written to satisfy Arya's taste and status preferences, without her family ultimately having issues with it.

[ARYa_Nym]

8 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

There is theoretically a lot of potential for a lot of things, but I don't see this in George's writing when it comes to the chapters in which Gendry appears. It serves that Gendry has his father's blood so that people have the inclination to keep him safe and help him survive, but also of lowborn status so Arya Underfoot is inclined to hang out with him. He's been written to satisfy Arya's taste and status preferences, without her family ultimately having issues with it.

I don't think he's there just for that no more than I think Sandor is just in the books for Sansa. Gendry didn't need to be given skills that would be useful for the upcoming battle. 

[sweetsunray]

31 minutes ago, ARYa_Nym said:

I don't think he's there just for that no more than I think Sandor is just in the books for Sansa. Gendry didn't need to be given skills that would be useful for the upcoming battle. 

Those skills have little to do with Storm's End. They work within Arya's arc trying to get to Winterfell.

[ARYa_Nym]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

Those skills have little to do with Storm's End. They work within Arya's arc trying to get to Winterfell.

I wasn't referring to either. I mean that Jon and Dany will see him as useful because they will need weapons. Furthermore, him crafting a helmet for himself indicates that he will have a fighting role, which he previewed in Brienne's chapter. 

 

Now yes, after that it makes sense that he would be rewarded for his role. 

[sifth]

I still find it funny how in this shows universe the Faceless Men just let her go and are fine with Arya using their magic and killing skill to take out anyone she wants.

 

 

[sweetsunray]

10 minutes ago, ARYa_Nym said:

I wasn't referring to either. I mean that Jon and Dany will see him as useful because they will need weapons. Furthermore, him crafting a helmet for himself indicates that he will have a fighting role, which he previewed in Brienne's chapter.

Now yes, after that it makes sense that he would be rewarded for his role. 

Of course he has usefull skills and I'm sure he'll be a fighter eventually. Nobody denies that. He should be a believable well-rounded supportive character to matter in a main POV.

But I very much doubt that it makes sense to reward him with SE after that. A Lord Paramount is something else than a holdfast. At the moment he's a hedge knight with no land. If you have to imagine Edric Storm dying, after the effort it took to save him and put him in Dany's path, to then make way for Gendry so that Arya must reject him, then I read more a poster's wishes in that who have time and time again expressed preference for Arya to grow up asexual and die with a needle in her hand. 

[BlackLightning]

14 minutes ago, sifth said:

I still find it funny how in this shows universe the Faceless Men just let her go and are fine with Arya using their magic and killing skill to take out anyone she wants.

I think that they are going to either be hunting her down for most of A Dream of Spring (if not all of it), sending her to kill the Great Other/Night King-type figure because their whole zombification stuff profanes the God of Death or they'll be sending her to Westeros as a spy/informant so that they can creepily keep tabs on the apocalypse therein.

Those are the only options.

No way they are just going to let her go and never explain why.

[ARYa_Nym]

11 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Of course he has usefull skills and I'm sure he'll be a fighter eventually. Nobody denies that. He should be a believable well-rounded supportive character to matter in a main POV.

But I very much doubt that it makes sense to reward him with SE after that. A Lord Paramount is something else than a holdfast. At the moment he's a hedge knight with no land. If you have to imagine Edric Storm dying, after the effort it took to save him and put him in Dany's path, to then make way for Gendry so that Arya must reject him, then I read more a poster's wishes in that who have time and time again expressed preference for Arya to grow up asexual and die with a needle in her hand. 

Why are you jumping to that? Her ending, (which makes sense to me) doesn't even amount to asexual and dying with a needle in her hand.

 

Whether he's a lord or not I think Arya will reject him. They're on different paths. 

 

I just think giving him lordship makes sense as a reward. A lot of people are going to die since there's way more miscellaneous characters, which makes room for unlikely people to rise to some type of position. The only other possible option I see is knighthood. 

[JagLover]

11 hours ago, Troy Wessels said:

Let's not make that comparison shall we? Her aunt was never allowed a sword and only ever got to practice some with her brothers, who likely took it easy on her. We also know from the books that jousting is 90% horsemanship, so that says very little.

Lyanna was much more like Sansa. The only difference is that she did not like her bethrothed, and looked elsewhere.

Arya is vastly different. Travelling through the wartorn Riverlands, being in Harrenhal and seeing the Mountain's men at work, training as an assassin? 

To expect a conventional outcome after that seems rather silly to me after that.

This dream of hers is also something that's actually established, back in Braavos with Lady Crane.

What little we saw of young Lyanna reminded me far more of Arya to be honest. Do you really see Sansa defending Reed?, or taking part in a tournament?. The difference to Arya is that we saw her in a more conventional setting at a later age. Arya herself is described as pretty later on in the books.

A satisfying outcome for her would not have been to marry Gendry no, to simply be his lady with little power. How about though if Sansa had given her one of the many now vacant castles in the North and she could have supported her sister as her bannerwoman and also started her own family. Is that truly a betrayal of her character?.

Yes she saw many horrible things which changed her, but the war is over now, and just as men return and start families after going through the horror of war, then so could she. 

[JagLover]

9 hours ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

This is what I was hoping too. I was hoping that Arya, having been the viewpoint of so much suffering of the smallfolk would be the champion of their cause. To reduce it to 'I don't want to be a Lady', something she said before her first period was nonsense to me. Like Sansa still talking about marrying a dashing prince. Instead she disappears forever. 

 

Well exactly, she had decided to return to being a Stark, and part of that is duty to the people of the north. Would her father's daughter just head off and leave her sister unsupported when they are all that is left of their house?. The suffering she had seen could be her motivation to spend her life trying to improve the lives of the common people and therefore be pay off for her character's journey, not just dreams she had as a nine/ten year old. 

[ARYa_Nym]

She is still true to her house as the boat had Stark banners. 

 

At sea, she can still have relationships with people as we see with Asha and Qarl. She could also end up in some eastern country and meet people there. 

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

3 hours ago, JagLover said:

Well exactly, she had decided to return to being a Stark, and part of that is duty to the people of the north. Would her father's daughter just head off and leave her sister unsupported when they are all that is left of their house?. The suffering she had seen could be her motivation to spend her life trying to improve the lives of the common people and therefore be pay off for her character's journey, not just dreams she had as a nine/ten year old. 

Her skipping out on Sansa and Jon is not only a refusal of duty its downright selfish. House Stark is dead if something happens to Sansa.  Of all people, Arya Stark was the one that could not defy the convention of her role and instead bailed on it entirely. Sansa is doing something no other woman has ever done, so is Brienne. Arya just does an Elissa Farman? She doesn't change anything. She accepts the roles as presented. Says she doesn't want them and disappears off the edge of the world. She is reduced to the soundbyte of an 11 year old.

[sweetsunray]

2 hours ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

Her skipping out on Sansa and Jon is not only a refusal of duty its downright selfish. House Stark is dead if something happens to Sansa.  Of all people, Arya Stark was the one that could not defy the convention of her role and instead bailed on it entirely. Sansa is doing something no other woman has ever done, so is Brienne. Arya just does an Elissa Farman? She doesn't change anything. She accepts the roles as presented. Says she doesn't want them and disappears off the edge of the world. She is reduced to the soundbyte of an 11 year old.

Agreed. Arya may do something she finds inspiring, but just doing Elissa Farman is absurd. Why would George give her something in the end that was done by someone he wrote in F&B. I have played around with the sailing away idea since S6, for Arya, and saw it as a possibility, until Fire & Blood was published., It read like "Ok, so, George wrote out one of the potential things Arya could do, to get it out of his system. He's not going to copy that anymore". So, scratch the Farman exploration.

If Arya does sail west, it won't be as Farman copycat, let alone just for herself. If she does it, it will be for migratory purposes imo. I also agree with others that she won't be Lady of a high status castle through marriage. She likes to have meaningful interactions with those around her. She likes to have people stay around her. And she likes to boss people around, but without the restrictions of protocol. She's a leader figure, but not a power figure, and high power status means loneliness.

Unlike the show, Arya also has an emotional warg bond with her direwolf Nymeria, and thuogh she does not comprehend that bond yet, she is bound to become aware of it, especially since she started to skinchange cats. She will inevitably be pulled towards the Riverlands again. And she felt a calling towards the isle of the Gods Eye.

While people seek for the sailor links mentioned, there are far more references for her as a "Child of the Forest".

• she's called a squirrel several times
• she visits the tree village of the Lady of the Leaves., which is how the CotF used to live and we have a CotF called "leaf". Arya is fascinated about it.
• she climbs trees as often as she can, even practices her water dancing in a tree
• she tries to save Weasel, who runs off into the forest and disappears. Later she calls herself Weasel. Weasel was a "child" and by running into the forest, Weasel is a "child of the forest" (though of course that girl is likely dead). But it mostly serves as a metaphor to tell us Arya's nature.
• she skinchanges cats, and as the blind girl, sees through cat's eyes. The eyes of the CotF are catlike-eyes.
• Her song with Gendry, identifies her as a forest lass
• Her wolf is in a forest
• A bossy Arya lookalike is called Willow and takes care of her people
• she imagines living like the white fawn
• one of the signs that she won't stay in Braavos is because there are no trees there. The sole thing that vaguely can look like a forest are harbors full of ships with masts. That's why she loves hanging around at the harbor. She'd be miserable on just one ship on an open ocean, unless it's a whole armada sailing.
• then there are all the swan references. You won't find swans on an ocean, but at lakes and rivers.

All this makes me think her final destination is far more likely to be the forest in the Riverlands. There's wild forest. There are rivers and lakes. There are lots of smallfolk to help and boss around. The show just didn't want to have Jon disappear into the haunted forest AND have Arya disappear into the forests of the riverlands, so they decided on copycat Farman instead. And it showed, because they didn't even make an effort to give her much motivation whatsoever on this. 

[Kajjo]

5 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Agreed. Arya may do something she finds inspiring, but just doing Elissa Farman is absurd.

In the show it is fitting. Come on.

5 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

there are far more references for her as a "Child of the Forest".

In the books, in the show there is NOTHING of your list.

5 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

And it showed, because they didn't even make an effort to give her much motivation whatsoever on this. 

Arya as adventurer makes a lot of sense and was well enough done. I can not imagine her as simple right hand to Sansa or the like. The pack survives and the sisters supported each other, but they are more or less incompatible anyway.

[sweetsunray]

7 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

In the show it is fitting. Come on.

In the books, in the show there is NOTHING of your list.

Arya as adventurer makes a lot of sense and was well enough done. I can not imagine her as simple right hand to Sansa or the like. The pack survives and the sisters supported each other, but they are more or less incompatible anyway.

We are discussing here in how much the show's ending is the potential ending for Arya in the books.

I did not propose her to be Sansa's right hand. Did you actually read my post in full?

And no, I don't find it fitting. Arya was never portrayed much as an adventurer ever in the show. And there's no explanation whatsoever why she never intends to return north anymore. It's some white rabbit they pulled out of their hat except for that one line to Lady Crane. Not that they ever understood Arya much aside from what they believed would look 'cool'.

[wvchemteach]

On 5/20/2019 at 11:13 PM, Hodor's Dragon said:

• NO experience in command.
• NO experience with ships.
• NO experience with cartography.
• NO experience with naturalism.
• NO experience with provisioning a force.

But hey, if they discover something that needs killin', well there you go.

The problem with Arya the entire Season 8 is that once they decided to 

1. Have her steal Jon's story arc and kill the Night King
2. Give up on her story arc and finish off Cersei.

They had no idea what to do with her... I would have found her ending more believable if she would have bonded with someone who actually knew how to sail a ship.

Personally, I had saw her, becoming sort of a traveling hedge knight type much like Set Duncan the Tall from Dunk and Egg

 

 

[fairwarging]

On 5/21/2019 at 4:31 AM, Greenmonsterff said:

Totally out of left field. D U M B dumb.

While it doesn't make perfect sense, there wasn't much left for her character to do. I think she has too many things to work out to stay in one place. I was certain she would go to Essos, but this is ok. Also she named her direwife after Nymeria, a queen who sailed West settled a new land, and confirmed in a conversation with Tywin she was one of her heroes. 

[fairwarging]

15 hours ago, sifth said:

I still find it funny how in this shows universe the Faceless Men just let her go and are fine with Arya using their magic and killing skill to take out anyone she wants.

 

 

This is almost as bad as Sam just stealing some books from the citadel and then becoming Grand Maester

[valgrel]

3 minutes ago, fairwarging said:

While it doesn't make perfect sense, there wasn't much left for her character to do. I think she has too many things to work out to stay in one place. I was certain she would go to Essos, but this is ok. Also she named her direwife after Nymeria, a queen who sailed West settled a new land, and confirmed in a conversation with Tywin she was one of her heroes. 

With Tywin she spoke of Visenya, but I doubt she is so found of dragons now.

Sailing west is a good option for me, not the sweetest one because of the probability of nether going back home, I would have prefer her travelling in the known world.