Arya's storyline going forward

[Darth Sidious]

Just now, kissdbyfire said:

How can anyone argue that a child - any child - doesn't deserve empathy is so beyond me I can't even wrap my head around it. 

That child chose to murder people.  Talking sweet to Arya and giving her chocolates are not the answers.  Incarceration is needed to stop her from doing more of the same.  

[winter daughter]

47 minutes ago, Prince Rhaego's Soul said:

That child chose to murder people.  Talking sweet to Arya and giving her chocolates are not the answers.  Incarceration is needed to stop her from doing more of the same.  

And Daenerys has done much worst and yet she is your favorite character. What is needed to stop her I wonder? Because let's be honest with three dragons and a huge army at her back she is the one we should all be worried about.

[rustythesmith]

On 5/5/2020 at 9:19 PM, chrisdaw said:

(all Nymerias symbolically or literally lead to Arya)

If it isn't a lot of trouble could you expound on that please?

[teej6]

4 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Arya knows she's a Stark. She hasn't been able to shed that. The only reason she's sticking around the HoBaW is because she has nowhere to go. Her parents are dead, her home is gone, and the brother she has is all the way at the Wall, and she tried to get to him when she got on the Titan's Daughter, but her request was denied. 

Arya has been living with this fear that she will be thrown out by the kindly man, and every time she feels that noose tighten around her, she wonders where she will go and does what she is being asked. 

Yes, I know. Arya knows she’s a Stark (maybe I should have said she will come to the realization that she can’t stop being one) but she is trying so hard to forget her past and shed her Stark identity so she can fit in with an order/ identity she thinks she needs to survive.

As for the bolded, I don’t fully agree. Arya did ask the captain of the Titan’s Daughter to take her to the Wall at first. But once she finds out that that’s not an option, she is contend with going to Braavos. Then when she gets to the HoBaW, she reconciles herself with the fact that life as a FM is her future. It’s not something she actively chooses for herself, but it’s not something she runs away from either. Yes initially, Arya was afraid of being turned out (and she thought she had nowhere else to go), but I don’t think that that fear is what’s driving her now to be a FM. At least, not the fear of being turned out onto the streets. In AFFC, the kindly man does state that they will require Arya’s absolute obedience if she must stay, but later on he gives her other options, which she dismisses and refuses. There’s still some part of Arya that is afraid of being turned away, however, this fear does not stem from a feeling of helplessness, but it’s the fear of not succeeding. Arya thinks that only the FM can offer her the skills/ tools to survive. Arya is nothing if not determined. 

4 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

But she has been unable to embrace the "no-oness" fully.

It's all incredibly tragic. 

And this is exactly the point I was making in my post. Arya’s old self is very much part of who she is and she will never fully be able to embrace the FM’s ways. And I suspect the kindly man knows this or else he wouldn’t be very good at his job. IMO, the motives of the FM, despite being assassins and practicing some form of occultism, are not entirely nefarious in the books (we’ll have to wait and see). For instance, I don’t think they will try to hunt and kill Arya if she decides to call it quits, which she will (hopefully by the next book).

[Nagini's Neville]

20 hours ago, Victor Newman said:

I think there is a general agreement among her critics but there are also subtle differences of opinion.  Do I believe Arya  Stark will turn herself around?  No.  I do not believe she will turn herself around.  I will opine as you have and say she is already a killing machine now.

IMO Lady Stoneheart was literately created to "turn Arya Stark around". And you know what? she still will have all of her skills and her training from the faceless men so her survival chances during the long night will be pretty high.

[Nagini's Neville]

7 hours ago, Prince Rhaego's Soul said:

That child chose to murder people.  Talking sweet to Arya and giving her chocolates are not the answers.  Incarceration is needed to stop her from doing more of the same.  

That child had to kill people to survive and part of it is also her reaction to the traumata she had to endure. Children react to trauma differently. Arya is actually not that different from Dany in that regard in that she only longs for "the power" to defend herself so that she'll never feel so helpless and like mouse ever again. And given, that her whole family has been murdered, her family home stolen and her own life constantly in danger ever since her escape from KL, that's only understandable.

Dany also doesn't have to go from place to place and keep on conquering cities, she doesn't have to plan to conquer Westeros! How many people will die/ have died because of her actions? More than Arya could ever manage to kill in a lifetime.

And I love Dany and I understand why she is doing it, but lets not pretend like her actions don't have a lot of negative consequences.

[Prince_Of_SummerIsles]

Unless she can lie her way around the Kindly man I see her getting kicked out of the HoBaW

 

[a black swan]

1 hour ago, Prince_Of_SummerIsles said:

Unless she can lie her way around the Kindly man I see her getting kicked out of the HoBaW

 

Yeah, but she has been lying ever since she got there and they see right through her and yet... they keep her around. Makes you wonder why? They must know she is a warg and reward her for breaking their rules. The FM have ulterior motives that we have yet to learn. 

2 hours ago, Nagini's Neville said:

That child had to kill people to survive and part of it is also her reaction to the traumatic she had to endure. Children react to trauma differently. Arya is actually not that different from Dany in that regard in that she only longs for "the power" to defend herself so that she'll never feel so helpless and like mouse ever again. And given, that her whole family has been murdered, her family home stolen and her own life constantly in danger ever since her escape from KL, that's only understandable.

Dany also doesn't have to go from place to place and keep on conquering cities, she doesn't have to plan to conquer Westeros! How many people will die/ have died because of her actions? More than Arya could ever manage to kill in a lifetime.

And I love Dany and I understand why she is doing it, but lets not pretend like her actions don't have a lot of negative consequences.

Nicely said, seems like there is one rule for Dany and another for Arya with certain people.   

6 hours ago, teej6 said:

And this is exactly the point I was making in my post. Arya’s old self is very much part of who she is and she will never fully be able to embrace the FM’s ways. And I suspect the kindly man knows this or else he wouldn’t be very good at his job. IMO, the motives of the FM, despite being assassins and practicing some form of occultism, are not entirely nefarious in the books (we’ll have to wait and see). For instance, I don’t think they will try to hunt and kill Arya if she decides to call it quits, which she will (hopefully by the next book).

Agreed. Seems like they need her for a purpose we have yet to learn about. Perhaps they'll get her to agree to help them and she gets to walk away. or maybe Arya will trick them into a bargain that benefits her greatly ala Jaqen and the 3 names. 

Speaking of Arya's story going forward:

Quote

"You believe this is the only place for you." It was as if he'd heard her thoughts. "You are wrong in that. You would find softer service in the household of some merchant. Or would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty? Speak the word, and we will send you to the Black Pearl or the Daughter of the Dusk. You will sleep on rose petals and wear silken skirts that rustle when you walk, and great lords will beggar themselves for your maiden's blood. Or if it is marriage and children you desire, tell me, and we shall find a husband for you. Some honest apprentice boy, a rich old man, a seafarer, whatever you desire."- Arya, AFFC

3 lives the KM offered her in AFFC. Seems she may get to live some variation of the these proposed "lives".

1. As Cat of the Canals, she sold fish for Bursco and lived in his Household.

2. Handmaid to a Courtesan is hinted at with the Black Pearl once again re-entering Arya's storyline. 

3. Marriage & children with the 3 examples of husbands on offer. 

She wanted none of these offers and yet... 

[winter daughter]

1 hour ago, a black swan said:

Nicely said, seems like there is one rule for Dany and another for Arya with certain people.   

Haters and their double standards

[Pdor]

12 hours ago, Prince Rhaego's Soul said:

Empathy is not what Arya needs.  Arya is not some kid who was forcibly taken from her village and forced by soldiers to fight.  She chose to walk the road of revenge.  The choices were made by her.  Arya is not the only child who lost a family to war.  Most orphaned by war do not go around with a list of people to kill.  What Arya needs is incarceration and professional help if she were living in our modern world.  The only thing they can offer her in theirs is incarceration and punishment.

I agree with the bolded, in a healthy real world-environment she would have been entrusted to social services. That said, she is a fictional character living in a fantasy world, so that isn't a option.

We do know that before all the bad things that appaened to her she was one if not the most good-hearted character in the books, even protecting a low-born against the crown prince, not many high-borns would have done that. This, in my eyes, makes her transformation even more tragic. Of course she deserves empathy.

The fact that other children, like Hot Pie or Gendry, settled in more peaceful accomodations, can be explained. First, trauma can affect different people in differt ways. Second, she is a high-born in a world were nobles act on revenge all the time and the law has no meaning when your army is bigger than your enemy's. In my opinion she, even when she knows that many of the social norms of her world are unjust, has unwillingly internalized some of them. As a result, here we have her revenge thirst and the "execution" of the NW deserter.

[a black swan]

2 hours ago, Pdor said:

We do know that before all the bad things that happened to her she was one if not the most good-hearted character in the books, even protecting a low-born against the crown prince, not many high-borns would have done that. This, in my eyes, makes her transformation even more tragic. Of course she deserves empathy.

Arya protects people by her nature. You forget she risked her life to save the 3 year old girl during the battle at the holdfast where Yoren was fighting the gold cloaks. 

Quote

Quick as that he was gone, off to fight, sword in hand. Arya grabbed Gendry by the arm. "He said go," she shouted, "the barn, the way out." Through the slits of his helm, the Bull's eyes shone with reflected fire. He nodded. They called Hot Pie down from the wall and found Lommy Greenhands where he lay bleeding from a spear thrust through his calf. They found Gerren too, but he was hurt too bad to move. As they were running toward the barn, Arya spied the crying girl sitting in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by smoke and slaughter. She grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet as the others raced ahead. The girl wouldn't walk, even when slapped. Arya dragged her with her right hand while she held Needle in the left. Ahead, the night was a sullen red. The barn's on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. "Arry, come on! Lommy's gone, leave her if she won't come!" - Arya, ACoK

If you notice Lommy and later Gendry want to leave the crying girl behind but Arya saves her with risk to her own life. Arya then takes care of the little girl. 

Or in a ASOS when Arya arrives in the Stoney Sept as sees those Northmen in the cages starving to death in the heat and begging for water:

Quote

At the sound of her voice, the fat man opened his eyes. The skin around them was so red they looked like boiled eggs floating in a dish of blood. "Water . . . a drink . . . "

"Pay them no mind, boy," the townsman told her. "They're none o' your concern. Ride on by."

"What did they do?" she asked him.

"They put eight people to the sword at Tumbler's Falls," he said. "They wanted the Kingslayer, but he wasn't there so they did some rape and murder." He jerked a thumb toward the corpse with maggots where his manhood ought to be. "That one there did the raping. Now move along."

"A swallow," the fat one called down. "Ha' mercy, boy, a swallow." The old one slid an arm up to grasp the bars. The motion made his cage swing violently. "Water," gasped the one with the flies in his beard.

She looked at their filthy hair and scraggly beards and reddened eyes, at their dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Robb's men? She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike. The old man had squeezed three fingers out between the bars. "Water," he said, "water."

Arya swung down from her horse. They can't hurt me, they're dying. She took her cup from her bedroll and went to the fountain. "What do you think you're doing, boy?" the townsman snapped. "They're no concern o' yours." She raised the cup to the fish's mouth. The water splashed across her fingers and down her sleeve, but Arya did not move until the cup was brimming over. When she turned back toward the cages, the townsman moved to stop her. "You get away from them, boy-"

"She's a girl," said Harwin. "Leave her be."

"Aye," said Lem. "Lord Beric don't hold with caging men to die of thirst. Why don't you hang them decent?"

"There was nothing decent 'bout them things they did at Tumbler's Falls," the townsman growled right back at him.

The bars were too narrow to pass a cup through, but Harwin and Gendry offered her a leg up. She planted a foot in Harwin's cupped hands, vaulted onto Gendry's shoulders, and grabbed the bars on top of the cage. The fat man turned his face up and pressed his cheek to the iron, and Arya poured the water over him. He sucked at it eagerly and let it run down over his head and cheeks and hands, and then he licked the dampness off the bars. He would have licked Arya's fingers if she hadn't snatched them back. By the time she served the other two the same, a crowd had gathered to watch her. "The Mad Huntsman will hear of this," a man threatened. "He won't like it. No, he won't."

"He'll like this even less, then." Anguy strung his longbow, slid an arrow from his quiver, nocked, drew, loosed. The fat man shuddered as the shaft drove up between his chins, but the cage would not let him fall. Two more arrows ended the other two northmen. The only sound in the market square was the splash of falling water and the buzzing of flies.

Valar morghulis, Arya thought.

Arya showing mercy and empathy in a situation like this says a lot about her character. 

Or Arya in ADWD saving Samwell Tarley when he was threatened by 2 attackers in Braavos. 

These characters aren't as black & white as you would imagine.

[Texas Hold Em]

The top tier characters (Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, and Bran Stark) are all grey. 

We cannot know with certainty how a character's story will progress but we have clues.  The debate here seems to divide among those who believe Arya will change her tune and abandon her plans to kill a hell of a lot of people.  While those who believe otherwise are thinking she will continue to follow the Hit List and further move towards the black. 

A question to the first group:  How can you fault somebody for believing she won't change?  It is the safer choice because it is the most probable result.  She is somebody with a plan and a list.  Signs of a strong intent to carry through. 

 

2 hours ago, a black swan said:

Arya protects people by her nature. You forget she risked her life to save the 3 year old girl during the battle at the holdfast where Yoren was fighting the gold cloaks. 

If you notice Lommy and later Gendry want to leave the crying girl behind but Arya saves her with risk to her own life. Arya then takes care of the little girl. 

Or in a ASOS when Arya arrives in the Stoney Sept as sees those Northmen in the cages starving to death in the heat and begging for water:

Arya showing mercy and empathy in a situation like this says a lot about her character. 

Or Arya in ADWD saving Samwell Tarley when he was threatened by 2 attackers in Braavos. 

These characters aren't as black & white as you would imagine.

 

[Pdor]

4 hours ago, a black swan said:

Arya protects people by her nature. You forget she risked her life to save the 3 year old girl during the battle at the holdfast where Yoren was fighting the gold cloaks.

These characters aren't as black & white as you would imagine.

You are right, I forgot . My last read dates back to 7 years ago, more or less, The thing is, when I think of her situation, it's the Mercy chapter the first thing that comes to my head, and as much as I always liked her, that chapter left me with a bad taste.

No, of course they are not black & white, that would be rather boring

[rustythesmith]

I tend to think of Sansa's hardships as penance for what I call her original crimes. She betrayed Arya and Ned, and I think those are easy to identify because they're significantly wrong, even if understandable or forgivable.

But Arya's original crimes are hard to pin down. She doesn't seem to have any big mistakes in her beginning. There are a few small ones like being unappreciative of her sister sometimes, being disobedient and being naive of the world and how it works. But she's nine or ten years old, so none of those seem particularly damning either. My sister and I fought when we were that age too. It's normal for siblings to fight even while the relationship is still fundamentally characterized by loyalty and an unbreakable bond.

I want to say that there is no character who has been through as much hardship as Arya. But I think that's wrong. There are characters who have been through as much hardship as Arya. It's just that Arya is a kid, which changes some things. (1) Traumatic events that are normalized for the adults are not yet normalized for Arya. (2) And it's hard to imagine that a kid has earned as much suffering as Arya is going through. It's so profoundly unfair that I find myself turning my critical eye from the story to the author. What the hell is Martin doing with Arya? By all rights, he should have sent her home in ACOK. Whatever lesson was to be learned, perhaps about family, I think she learned it a long time ago.
 

Quote

        but it was Jon Snow she thought of most. She wished somehow they could come to the Wall before Winterfell**, so Jon might muss up her hair and call her "little sister." She'd tell him, "I missed you," and he'd say it too at the very same moment, the way they always used to say things together. She would have liked that. She would have liked that better than anything. (ACOK Arya I)

Now I think the answer is staring me in the face. The unfairness is the recipe. The question Martin seems to be dealing with in this character is the same question that underlies much of what everyone has to say about Arya. How far gone is too far gone?

Is it possible for a person to have her father torn away from her by a corrupt king and a treasonous sister, and still be okay at the end? Is it possible to forgive such things? Is it possible to have your mother and brother torn away just a moment before you're reunited with them and still be okay at the end? Can she carry the guilt of murder? Can she hold on to hope when the gods seem to smother it at every turn? Can she hold on to herself when herself is the one person it isn't safe to be? Can she hold on to Jon and Sansa and home? Can she do it for a year? For two? Three?

The further Arya's story goes, the more difficult it is to believe that she will be okay in the end. I think most people have a sense that, after experiences of such magnitude, there is no going back to being the person she used to be. Not entirely and not mostly. But maybe fundamentally.

Arya is holding onto her identity as stubbornly as the readers are holding onto her happy ending. I feel it slipping away with every turn of the page, but I still can't let it go. There's a sense that my hope is linked with hers. And so I think I'm going to be hyper-receptive to whatever it is that Martin's story has to say about people or the world in the final assessment of Arya Underfoot.

Arya's Crimes

These are crimes in the context of the theme rather than crimes of law, particularly. As far as I can tell, the most consistent idea that runs through the story is some sort of criticism of good and evil world views. So that's the theme.

Like most of the characters, Arya begins the story with a good and evil understanding of people and the world. She condemns the Hound for killing Mycah, and that's completely understandable. But she never stops to imagine herself in the Hound's shoes.

The Hound is sworn to protect and obey the royal family. He was ordered to hunt down a boy who reportedly injured the King. Sandor doesn't know the truth of the Lady situation any better than Robert does.

Since Arya has judged the Hound evil, the appropriate thing to do with evil people is, of course, to kill them. So she adds him to her list.

Arya does this over and over again throughout the story. She condemns Meryn Trant to die and the reader is left to his own devices. Does Meryn deserve to die or doesn't he? I think, upon closer inspection, Meryn's situation is similar to the Hound's. He doesn't deserve to die, and Arya is too quick to judge people evil and kill them.

Take Dareon for example. Upon first glance it seems like he deserves to die too. I dislike Dareon after seeing him from Sam's point-of-view. He's a deserter, and the appropriate punishment for desertion in this setting is death. Additionally, I can look at Arya's heritage in the North where the Night's Watch is highly revered and see that Arya might even feel a sense of duty to give Dareon the punishment he has earned.

But upon closer inspection I find once again that the supposed evil character has a sympathetic story of his own. Dareon never should have been sent to the Wall in the first place. He was invited into a girl's room for sex. When they were caught by her father, she falsely accused Dareon of rape in order to escape responsibility and her father's judgement.

If I were in Dareon's situation, would I honor my vow to the Night's Watch? Would I honor my vow to hold no lands, father no children and spend the rest of my life rotting at the miserable frozen edge of the world protecting the civilization that betrayed me? When a self-righteous little girl who knows nothing about my situation cuts my throat and dumps me in a canal, am I thinking "Yeah, I deserve this?" Well, probably not.

So these are the sort of moral exercises I think the readers are supposed to be doing. And from what I can tell, the author is consistent in this condemnation of good and evil world views. The theme hangs over Arya like an executioner's sword, and I tend to want to think that Arya is exempt from this condemnation because of her age. But I don't think she is. Being young or ignorant does not seem to exonerate characters of the narrative consequences of contradicting the theme. "Everything serves the almighty theme" as I've heard Martin say in an interview.

That said, I don't think the narrative consequences of contradicting the theme necessarily have to be a wholly unhappy ending, as they might in a conventional story.

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, rustythesmith said:

Arya does this over and over again throughout the story. She condemns Meryn Trant to die and the reader is left to his own devices. Does Meryn deserve to die or doesn't he? I think, upon closer inspection, Meryn's situation is similar to the Hound's. He doesn't deserve to die, and Arya is too quick to judge people evil and kill them.

Do you mean Trant is n Arya’s list? Because he’s very much alive as of Dance’s epilogue, unlike that ridiculous faux Kill Bill death he suffered in the abomination. 

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, rustythesmith said:

If I were in Dareon's situation, would I honor my vow to the Night's Watch? Would I honor my vow to hold no lands, father no children and spend the rest of my life rotting at the miserable frozen edge of the world protecting the civilization that betrayed me? When a self-righteous little girl who knows nothing about my situation cuts my throat and dumps me in a canal, am I thinking "Yeah, I deserve this?" Well, probably not.

Irt the bold, fair enough. But would you leave your mates, one of which is a sick old man, plus a young woman and a baby w/o means to feed themselves or go anywhere? 

I don’t think we can look at Dareon’s situation and see one side only, the poor man who was sent to freeze his arse b/c of so,etching he didn’t do. 

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

I could see Arya being at the Twins for Red Wedding 2: Red, Wed, and Dead All Over. But Idk if I see the House of Black and White sending her there on a mission. I think maybe she'll run away from them. Either because she has to, or maybe she just sees an opportunity and hops a ship.

[rustythesmith]

43 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Do you mean Trant is n Arya’s list? Because he’s very much alive as of Dance’s epilogue, unlike that ridiculous faux Kill Bill death he suffered in the abomination. 

Yes, I mean he is on her list and therefore condemned to death.

[rustythesmith]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

Irt the bold, fair enough. But would you leave your mates, one of which is a sick old man, plus a young woman and a baby w/o means to feed themselves or go anywhere? 

I don’t think we can look at Dareon’s situation and see one side only, the poor man who was sent to freeze his arse b/c of so,etching he didn’t do. 

Yes, personally that's a relatively easy choice. If I were Dareon I would be majorly unconcerned with the well-being of either Aemon, Sam or Gilly. I might feel a slight pang of guilt if they're at risk of starvation, but certainly not enough to throw away this rare opportunity to "desert" this band of criminals called the Night's Watch and the society that unjustifiably placed me among them. How many more years will I have to wait before I have an opportunity to desert the Night's Watch so effectively? Braavos is a long way away and the Night's Watch can hardly spare the resources and bodies to reach Dareon across the Narrow Sea. Dareon can take a new name, a new haircut, and make a relatively phenomenal life for himself with his musical skills.

I can see Sam's side too. If I were Sam I would have fought Dareon too. Sam was unfairly sent to the Night's Watch too, so he might think Dareon should pick up his suffering and carry on with it.

And then from Dareon's point-of-view, that's an easy criticism for Sam to make when Sam has a woman of his own, a comfortable future at the Citadel, and then a prestigious position at the Wall to look forward to as the Maester and best friend of the Lord Commander.

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, rustythesmith said:

Yes, personally that's a relatively easy choice. If I were Dareon I would be majorly unconcerned with the well-being of either Aemon, Sam or Gilly. I might feel a slight pang of guilt if they're at risk of starvation, but certainly not enough to throw away this rare opportunity to "desert" this band of criminals called the Night's Watch and the society that unjustifiably placed me among them. How many more years will I have to wait before I have an opportunity to desert the Night's Watch so effectively? Braavos is a long way away and the Night's Watch can hardly spare the resources and bodies to reach Dareon across the Narrow Sea. Dareon can take a new name, a new haircut, and make a relatively phenomenal life for himself with his musical skills.

Given that Dareon’s mission was to be a wandering crow, trying to get recruits for the Watch, I’d say he’d have plenty of opportunities, and therefore he should have made sure the rest of the party were safe and able to reach their destination before deserting. But to each their own.