Arya Is Portraying Shae in The Bloody Hand

[BlackLightning]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:13 AM, PrettyLittlePsycho said:

Well, I love Arya,but I don´t need 3 chapters of her rehearsing her text and trying on costumes.

Don't be silly. Since when has a ASOIAF POV chapter only been about one thing. Each chapter is multidimensional; even in the more simpler days of A Game of Thrones, the POV characters were doing and thinking and seeing multiple things at once.

So, to think that we will get 3 chapters of Arya doing nothing but rehearsing is silly. Those 3 chapters may also include scenes or sequences where Arya learns more about the magic of the Faceless Men, where Arya actually learns how to practice said magic, where Arya sees the arrival of Jeyne Poole and/or the wildlings, where Arya learns of Daenerys Targaryen or where Arya gets a chance to meet the Sealord.

 

I also think it's worth mentioning that we don't know which queen they are talking about in Mercy. Is it Cersei, Margaery, Myrcella or Arianne? Just because the Sweetling and Harys Swyft are acting on Cersei's orders, it doesn't mean that she is still in power. Ship voyages take time and by the time that they reach Braavos and sit down to watch The Bloody Hand, the actual queen in power could actually be Margaery. If it is the first Arya chapter, then that's the only scenario that works.

And yes, I think Mace Tyrell will successfully make moves to make Margaery the new Queen Regent.

[PrettyLittlePsycho]

57 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Don't be silly. Since when has a ASOIAF POV chapter only been about one thing. Each chapter is multidimensional; even in the more simpler days of A Game of Thrones, the POV characters were doing and thinking and seeing multiple things at once.

So, to think that we will get 3 chapters of Arya doing nothing but rehearsing is silly. Those 3 chapters may also include scenes or sequences where Arya learns more about the magic of the Faceless Men, where Arya actually learns how to practice said magic, where Arya sees the arrival of Jeyne Poole and/or the wildlings, where Arya learns of Daenerys Targaryen or where Arya gets a chance to meet the Sealord.

 

I also think it's worth mentioning that we don't know which queen they are talking about in Mercy. Is it Cersei, Margaery, Myrcella or Arianne? Just because the Sweetling and Harys Swyft are acting on Cersei's orders, it doesn't mean that she is still in power. Ship voyages take time and by the time that they reach Braavos and sit down to watch The Bloody Hand, the actual queen in power could actually be Margaery. If it is the first Arya chapter, then that's the only scenario that works.

And yes, I think Mace Tyrell will successfully make moves to make Margaery the new Queen Regent.

Well, thats not really what I meant.

I believe Aryas time with the mummers was pretty uneventful so far, like she was just doing mummer´s stuff. Ever since she moved to Braavos we get a lot less chapters from her then we used to but GRRM cuts it down to the intersting things.

From the way she is familiar with the troupe and integrated into the play, I assume she´s spent at least several month with them learning to act (definately a very useful skill for a faceless man).

I´m just saying we don´t need to see these uneventful months in detail. The important part is: she learned.

PS:

I believe the parts of learning magic (glamours) and meeting Jeyne will surely come, but later.

 

[BlackLightning]

30 minutes ago, PrettyLittlePsycho said:

Well, thats not really what I meant.

I believe Aryas time with the mummers was pretty uneventful so far, like she was just doing mummer´s stuff. Ever since she moved to Braavos we get a lot less chapters from her then we used to but GRRM cuts it down to the intersting things.

From the way she is familiar with the troupe and integrated into the play, I assume she´s spent at least several month with them learning to act (definately a very useful skill for a faceless man).

I´m just saying we don´t need to see these uneventful months in detail. The important part is: she learned.

PS:

I believe the parts of learning magic (glamours) and meeting Jeyne will surely come, but later.

 

How can learning the magic of the Faceless Men and meeting Jeyne come later if, as the chapter makes clear, that that is Arya's last night. It's made clear that that was her last night with Izembaro 

Unless it was her express mission to kill Raff the Sweetling (thus ignoring the bigger, more likely target that is Harys Swyft lol) or unless Arya was able to hide her unauthorized killing of Raff the Sweetling, Arya's time with the Faceless Men is done. She will have been an acolyte of the Faceless Men (a big step from her status as a novice in A Feast for Crows) for all of five minutes before being expelled and maybe punished. Which would mean that she spends the rest of The Winds of Winter either on the run or held prisoner.

However, now that I think about it, Mercy can work as a first chapter. Arya's training with Izembaro is finished with the debut of The Bloody Hand and, after reporting back to her superiors and getting away with murdering Raff, she goes on to do other more important things with the Faceless Men. It works then. Or if killing Raff was a test and she passed. Or if she has been assigned to assassinate both Raff the Sweetling and Harys Swyft (or even the entire Westerosi envoy) and that Raff was merely the first and the others will die in subsequent chapters. 

In any case to get it to work, you have to spend all of the next chapter explaining that it was all part of the plan, what Arya learned from Izembaro and laying out the next steps for Arya.

[PrettyLittlePsycho]

6 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

How can learning the magic of the Faceless Men and meeting Jeyne come later if, as the chapter makes clear, that that is Arya's last night. It's made clear that that was her last night with Izembaro 

Unless it was her express mission to kill Raff the Sweetling (thus ignoring the bigger, more likely target that is Harys Swyft lol) or unless Arya was able to hide her unauthorized killing of Raff the Sweetling, Arya's time with the Faceless Men is done. She will have been an acolyte of the Faceless Men (a big step from her status as a novice in A Feast for Crows) for all of five minutes before being expelled and maybe punished. Which would mean that she spends the rest of The Winds of Winter either on the run or held prisoner.

However, now that I think about it, Mercy can work as a first chapter. Arya's training with Izembaro is finished with the debut of The Bloody Hand and, after reporting back to her superiors and getting away with murdering Raff, she goes on to do other more important things with the Faceless Men. It works then. Or if killing Raff was a test and she passed. Or if she has been assigned to assassinate both Raff the Sweetling and Harys Swyft (or even the entire Westerosi envoy) and that Raff was merely the first and the others will die in subsequent chapters. 

In any case to get it to work, you have to spend all of the next chapter explaining that it was all part of the plan, what Arya learned from Izembaro and laying out the next steps for Arya.

It´s her last night with the mummers as "Mercy" can´t show her face again, but I don´t think she will leave the FM just yet.

The FM let her get away with murdering Dareon they won´t kick her out for murdering Raff. I firmly believe the learning glamours part will come with an apprenticeship with a courtesan. They are often referred to as somewhat "unnaturally" beautiful, they appear frequently in Aryas Braavos chapters and served no purpose so far.

Arya/fArya meeting isn´t happening until maybe halfway through the book, Jeyne is still a continent away in the beginning.

[BlackLightning]

On 9/1/2020 at 7:36 PM, PrettyLittlePsycho said:

The FM let her get away with murdering Dareon

Did they though? Idk...they did strike her blind. I know they said it was part of her training but why spring it on her as a surprise? The timing makes me think otherwise. And if it was all just about training, they don't know that Arya cheated her training by skinchanging. 

If the FM are letting her get away with all these murders and violations, then the FM are either little more than charlatans rather than worshipers of the god of death or really are up to something and they plan to use Arya as a means to an end. She might even be the means to an end.

Or both?

Idk. Mercy can only be a first chapter if it's truly Arya's last day of acting/roleplaying training with Izembaro and she's about to get into the really meaty stuff in the next chapter.

[Drabanten]

On 9/2/2020 at 1:15 AM, BlackLightning said:

Or if killing Raff was a test and she passed. Or if she has been assigned to assassinate both Raff the Sweetling and Harys Swyft (or even the entire Westerosi envoy) and that Raff was merely the first and the others will die in subsequent chapters. 

 

Really can't see this kill being sanctioned by the FM. They way she switches from "being" Mercy, to in the last paragraph when she says "Think so?" switching to Arya makes it near certain that this is Aryas kill, not the FMs. 

[MissM]

3 minutes ago, Drabanten said:

 

Really can't see this kill being sanctioned by the FM. They way she switches from "being" Mercy, to in the last paragraph when she says "Think so?" switching to Arya makes it near certain that this is Aryas kill, not the FMs. 

Look at the difference in her attitude after killing the Oathbreaker (concerned, knows she's in trouble when she gets back) and how she reacts after killing Raff. She is not worried about returning to the HoBW at the end of Mercy because it was her job to create trouble for the current Sealord of Braavos and this action certainly achieves that. It was a happy coincidence or fate that let her kill two birds with 1 stone = Cross a name off her list and complete her mission. George confirmed in a SSM that we will not see Mercy again and that this chapter is Arya's opening for TWOW. It introduces the Black Pearl very clearly and I feel her role will grow in importance to Arya in her following chapters. 

[Drabanten]

I think the difference in her attitude is more down to her own attitude. I think this is her end in the HoBW and thus she's not as concerned. But we'll see  I guess =) 

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

On 8/3/2020 at 7:23 PM, Amris said:

Arya thinks of only 2 lines of text that Mercy has to say:

The m'lord has been sold as a hint. That's thin though: People have completely overlooked that the play has been written and acted out in Braavosi!

So there really is no Westerosi m'lord in the play. That the word m'lord falls at all is just for the benefit of us readers. It is so we can understand Arya's words since we do not speak Braavosi. But really the characters in-world talk Braavosi there and the play is in Braavosi too. We don't know if there even is a difference between m'lord and mylord in Braavosi. And if there is if it even has the same meaning as in Westeros. Braavos is a completely different society there compared to Westeros.

Ontop of that the chapter makes it very obvious that Arya is very deeply into her disguise as Mercy. She is even thinking like Mery. Which means that when she - in her Mercy disguise! -  plays her role in the play she acts like Mercy would play the role. Not like Arya from house Stark would. So if the m'lord has a meaning at all it just means Arya is deep in her Mercy disguise. Which is good for high-class assassin in training.

 

I looked up the Mercy chapter, and when she is not playing her role in the Bloody Hand, Mercy uses 'my lord' rather than 'm'lord'.

Quote

Mercy mouthed the last lines along with him. They were better lines than hers, and apt besides. He’ll want me or he won’t, she thought, so let the play begin. She said a silent prayer to the god of many faces, slipped out of her alcove, and flounced up to the guardsmen. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. “My lords,” she said, “do you speak Braavosi? Oh, please, tell me you do.”

Note that she asks this in Braavosi, so there seems to be a distinction between the two in Braavosi, and Mercy uses my lord when she's not acting. 

Now this may just be sloppy writing, it's not an edited chapter in the published book yet, after all. But since this is all we have to go by, it's at the very least an indication that Mercy is playing a lowborn character in the Bloody Hand, and that the difference is probably intentional.

If Mercy was the one who couldn't make the distinction between 'm'lord' and 'my lord' your argument would've been absolutely valid, but this doesn't seem to be the case. There's a slight possibility of this being Arya coming through, but that's not indicated in the text. Apart from her plan to kill Raff that is. Otherwise she's thinking as mercy at this point.

[BlackLightning]

On 9/3/2020 at 4:45 AM, Drabanten said:

I think the difference in her attitude is more down to her own attitude. I think this is her end in the HoBW and thus she's not as concerned. But we'll see  I guess =) 

But if this truly is the end of her time with the HoBW, then Mercy cannot be the opening Arya chapter in The Winds of Winter. Not unless GRRM wants to spend the next two Arya chapters telling the story of what caused what and why backwards. And we know that GRRM doesn't want to do that because if he did, then we would've gotten the 5 year gap.

 

On 9/3/2020 at 3:33 AM, Drabanten said:

 

Really can't see this kill being sanctioned by the FM. They way she switches from "being" Mercy, to in the last paragraph when she says "Think so?" switching to Arya makes it near certain that this is Aryas kill, not the FMs. 

Me neither but @MissM and @PrettyLittlePsycho have persuaded me to open my mind a little more and think.

Unless Arya has completely snapped and become a psychopathic murder, there is no way Arya could be so calm and pleased after killing someone she wasn't supposed to kill at such a compromising moment. Arya doesn't even think about what to do with the corpse nor does she check to make sure there is no blood or residue on her body.

On 9/3/2020 at 3:46 AM, MissM said:

Look at the difference in her attitude after killing the Oathbreaker (concerned, knows she's in trouble when she gets back) and how she reacts after killing Raff. She is not worried about returning to the HoBW at the end of Mercy because it was her job to create trouble for the current Sealord of Braavos and this action certainly achieves that. It was a happy coincidence or fate that let her kill two birds with 1 stone = Cross a name off her list and complete her mission. George confirmed in a SSM that we will not see Mercy again and that this chapter is Arya's opening for TWOW. It introduces the Black Pearl very clearly and I feel her role will grow in importance to Arya in her following chapters. 

Hmmm

Good point. Very good point....

All the more so since we know that there is more than one connection between the current Sealord, the wildlings and Daenerys Targaryen. The murders of diplomats and envoys right under the Sealord's nose does make him look very bad.

16 hours ago, Manderly's Rat Cook said:

I looked up the Mercy chapter, and when she is not playing her role in the Bloody Hand, Mercy uses 'my lord' rather than 'm'lord'.

Note that she asks this in Braavosi, so there seems to be a distinction between the two in Braavosi, and Mercy uses my lord when she's not acting. 

Now this may just be sloppy writing, it's not an edited chapter in the published book yet, after all. But since this is all we have to go by, it's at the very least an indication that Mercy is playing a lowborn character in the Bloody Hand, and that the difference is probably intentional.

If Mercy was the one who couldn't make the distinction between 'm'lord' and 'my lord' your argument would've been absolutely valid, but this doesn't seem to be the case. There's a slight possibility of this being Arya coming through, but that's not indicated in the text. Apart from her plan to kill Raff that is. Otherwise she's thinking as mercy at this point.

You read Mercy asking the Westerosi visitors if they spoke Braavosi as Braavosi?! I read it as if Mercy asked that question in the Common Tongue? Mercy does not ask the Westerosi lords if they speak Braavosi in Braavosi.

And what's wrong with Mercy not being able to make the distinction between "m'lord" and "my lord." It means the same thing and there's not much of a difference. Least of all to native-born Braavosi girl who has never set foot in Westeros, much less had a Westerosi as a teacher.

And pause.

Arya portraying Shae in "The Bloody Hand" or is she portraying Sansa? I'm still stuck on that detail.

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

8 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

 

You read Mercy asking the Westerosi visitors if they spoke Braavosi as Braavosi?! I read it as if Mercy asked that question in the Common Tongue? Mercy does not ask the Westerosi lords if they speak Braavosi in Braavosi.

And what's wrong with Mercy not being able to make the distinction between "m'lord" and "my lord." It means the same thing and there's not much of a difference. Least of all to native-born Braavosi girl who has never set foot in Westeros, much less had a Westerosi as a teacher.

And pause.

Arya portraying Shae in "The Bloody Hand" or is she portraying Sansa? I'm still stuck on that detail.

Not entirely sure if she asks in Braavosi or the common tongue to be fair. I figured from the confusion in their response that they didn't understand her. But could be that she asked in the common tongue.. To me it appeared as if Mercy wasn't meant to speak or understand the common tongue at all, but Arya decided she did speak a little, in order to lure Raff away. Earlier in the chapter Daena is explaining to her that Westerosi are all savages, so it seemed to me that Mercy was meant as a character who'd had little interaction with Westerosi. Here's the response to her question if they speak Braavosi:

Quote

The two guardsmen exchanged a look. “What’s this thing going on about?” the older one asked. “Who is she?”

“One of the mummers,” said the pretty one. He pushed his fair hair back off his brow and smiled at her. “Sorry, sweetling, we don’t speak your gibble-gabble.”
Fuss and feathers, Mercy thought, they only know the Common Tongue. That was no good. Give it up or go ahead. She could not give it up. She wanted him so bad. “I know your tongue, a little,” she lied, with Mercy’s sweetest smile. “You are lords of Westeros, my friend said.”

It could have been asked in either Braavosi or the common tongue.. it doesn't really matter though, the point is that Mercy only uses 'm'lord' in the lines in the play, and I think GRRM made that distinction intentionally, perhaps to hint that she's portraying Shae, but it could also mean that at this point she's more Arya than Mercy. I'm leaning towards her portraying Shae at this point, the imp is intended to be portrayed as badly as possible, so it makes sense to turn a whore into a maiden being raped, to make him look even worse. Mummer's shows weren't intended to portray the truth, but rather to amuse and please the public. In this case the public included lords from Westeros in service of Cersei, so making the imp (and Sansa) look as awful as possible would be the way to go.

I'm also not really sold on the matter of Braavosi being a different language, and mixing the pronunciation of titles would therefore be irrelevant. Titles get an awful lot of attention in all languages, so I think the fact that both pronunciations are used here is intended to mean something. If there was no distinction between the two in Braavosi, I think that GRRM would've stuck to using one form; I'm guessing that would be 'my lord' in this case, because those are the two actual words. The m'lord being used in the play is clearly indicated that at that point Mercy speaks as a commoner. Whether that means that she's portraying Shae, or that Mercy speaks like a commoner in Braavosi is open for discussion, but it makes little sense to make the distinction between both forms in one chapter, if it's entirely unimportant, unless it's a mistake that was overlooked.

[Brother Seamus]

I think many of you are overthinking the details and ignoring the story.

Arya's conflict, with herself, is over her identity as Arya of House Stark. It has roots in her need to disguise her identity, gender and social class on the road with Yoren.  Aside from gender this continues through her capture by the mountain and sojourn at Harrenhall. There's a respite during her time with the BwoB and the hound, but her lesson from this is that Arya of House Stark is a commodity to be traded. And then she learns her family is nearly all dead.

By the time she gets to Braavos and learns that the price of staying there, of finding a home away from the horror and violence of westeros, of starting a new life, is giving up her identity, she is all in. But she can't do it.

The point of her stay in Braavos is not learning mad assassin skills, but struggling with the decision to relinquish or reject her identity. She's trying to give up her Arya identity but she can't do it. She's kept needle, killed the night's watch guy, and probably a couple of other things, and now she's killed Raff. Whether killing Raff is the third or fifth strike, it's her last. The FM will realize, and Arya herself will realize, it's hopeless. She can't give up being Arya of House Stark.

The Mercy chapter will be her first chapter in wow, and her last, or, possibly, next to last, in Braavos. I doubt she'll even go back to the hobaw. I expect the next Arya chapter will be called Arya, to signify that she has re-taken her identity, and she will be on her way to Westeros by the end of the chapter.

The main question to me is whether the fm let her go without repercussions or try to kill her on the theory that once you join the fm the only way out is death. I don't remember any textual support for such a rule, and i think the kindly man has said one or more times that if she wants to leave she is free to leave. So, I think they'll let her go. We might see some kind of final goodbye scene between Arya and the kindly man, but maybe not, and in any case that will be it.

An alternative is that she stays in Braavos (but not with FM) for another chapter or two, long enough for Dany and Tyrion and Justin Massey to show up, and then Arya hitches a ride with one or more of them back to Westeros, either revealing, or, more likely, concealing her identity. That's not my prediction though; I expect her to leave Braavos within 24 - 48 hours of killing Raff. Her FM interlude is over. After killing Raff, she's Arya Stark again. That's the entire point of including her killing Raff.

[Brother Seamus]

On 9/5/2020 at 1:26 AM, BlackLightning said:

But if this truly is the end of her time with the HoBW, then Mercy cannot be the opening Arya chapter in The Winds of Winter. Not unless GRRM wants to spend the next two Arya chapters telling the story of what caused what and why backwards. And we know that GRRM doesn't want to do that because if he did, then we would've gotten the 5 year gap.

 

Me neither but @MissM and @PrettyLittlePsycho have persuaded me to open my mind a little more and think.

Unless Arya has completely snapped and become a psychopathic murder, there is no way Arya could be so calm and pleased after killing someone she wasn't supposed to kill at such a compromising moment. Arya doesn't even think about what to do with the corpse nor does she check to make sure there is no blood or residue on her body.

Hmmm

Good point. Very good point....

All the more so since we know that there is more than one connection between the current Sealord, the wildlings and Daenerys Targaryen. The murders of diplomats and envoys right under the Sealord's nose does make him look very bad.

You read Mercy asking the Westerosi visitors if they spoke Braavosi as Braavosi?! I read it as if Mercy asked that question in the Common Tongue? Mercy does not ask the Westerosi lords if they speak Braavosi in Braavosi.

And what's wrong with Mercy not being able to make the distinction between "m'lord" and "my lord." It means the same thing and there's not much of a difference. Least of all to native-born Braavosi girl who has never set foot in Westeros, much less had a Westerosi as a teacher.

And pause.

Arya portraying Shae in "The Bloody Hand" or is she portraying Sansa? I'm still stuck on that detail.

No way this was a sanctioned FM assassination. Killing Raff was Arya's last strike. Proof positive she can't relinquish her identity as Arya Stark, her personal history, and her list of names on which she burns to take revenge. She's done with the FM.

[Isobel Harper]

Forgive me if this was already discussed or disproven, but any chance Arya might be playing Tysha?

[PrettyLittlePsycho]

On 9/19/2020 at 2:42 AM, Isobel Harper said:

Forgive me if this was already discussed or disproven, but any chance Arya might be playing Tysha?

????? How the hell would Tysha fit into the play ?

[Isobel Harper]

58 minutes ago, PrettyLittlePsycho said:

????? How the hell would Tysha fit into the play ?

The rape scene being a depiction of her and Tyrion's wedding?  

[PrettyLittlePsycho]

57 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

The rape scene being a depiction of her and Tyrion's wedding?  

Hm, Tysha/Tyrion wedding happend years before the events of the play, so no, it´s not Tysha.

[Lady Winter Rose]

only thing it's giving me doubts it's Lady Stork rips her dress, but everything else fits more Sansa than Shae... Shae was literary nobody and was just funny little character on trial, there's nothing about Shae to be written about in plays.

the fact that she was murdered in play makes sense - for Jaime Sansa's dead meat because he believes there's nowhere safe for Sansa and many might share that belief.

[AryaRegina]

2 hours ago, Lady Winter Rose said:

only thing it's giving me doubts it's Lady Stork rips her dress, but everything else fits more Sansa than Shae... Shae was literary nobody and was just funny little character on trial, there's nothing about Shae to be written about in plays.

the fact that she was murdered in play makes sense - for Jaime Sansa's dead meat because he believes there's nowhere safe for Sansa and many might share that belief.

Think about it this way: Sansa is the daughter of a Great Lord, basically a princess, she was betrothed to Joffrey, and married to Tyrion, do you think her role in play about Tyrion would be so tiny that her lines would only be "Oh, no, no, no",  and "Don't, oh don't, don't touch me" and "Please, m'lord, I am still a maiden"? I think Sansa would have a bigger role than that, I think Arya plays Shae (or another "nobody") precisely because of how insignificant Mercy's character seems to be.

[Manderly's Rat Cook]

On 9/20/2020 at 10:06 PM, AryaRegina said:

Think about it this way: Sansa is the daughter of a Great Lord, basically a princess, she was betrothed to Joffrey, and married to Tyrion, do you think her role in play about Tyrion would be so tiny that her lines would only be "Oh, no, no, no",  and "Don't, oh don't, don't touch me" and "Please, m'lord, I am still a maiden"? I think Sansa would have a bigger role than that, I think Arya plays Shae (or another "nobody") precisely because of how insignificant Mercy's character seems to be.

You make a very good point here. On top of that this was the first time that Mercy actually had lines in a play, it's indeed unlikely that she would play someone as important as Sansa in her first larger role. Presumably they'd use someone who already had a bit of a name as an actress, and was known for her beauty, given that the Tyrion Sansa mariage was a bit of a beauty and the beast story, which is something that would certainly be emphasized in a play that was meant to ridicule both Tyrion and Sansa. A match like that is comedy gold.