Arya Stark: Mindless Psycho Killer or Righteous Avenger?

[GoldenGail3]

Gendry as Lord of Storm’s End? In the books? Are we living in another dimension people? His mother worked at a bar house were she met Robert. Why would he ever be LOSE? 

[Kierria]

Mindless Psycho Killer or Righteous Avenger

Arya is not righteous.  She is very far away from righteous.  Like in a different zip code.  She is deliberate and therefore not mindless.  Arya is a killer and sometimes an avenger.  I am siding with the comments who condemn Arya's killing of the old insurance vendor.  There was nothing good or righteous about that wicked act.  Maybe Mr. Martin was denied an insurance claim and he decided to do write this as a revenge for insurance companies in general.  It still was wrong of Arya to murder that old man.  I will also argue that there was no moral justification for murdering the singing crow, Dareon.  Arya murdered that boy because she wanted to.  

 

[Shi Qiang]

On 7/30/2020 at 5:57 PM, James West said:

I can understand a reader getting entertainment out of somebody like Arya and still not like her.  Some of her chapters are good reads but I still do not like her.  Jason and other movie villains have been pointed out and they add something of value to the plot.  I see the same thing for Arya.  I do not like her but I understand the value she adds to the plot.  

Arya is a Stark inside and much more.  Some fans see that as a good thing.  I do not.  Being Stark in character does not make Arya better nor more likely to turn out good.  

Arya is what some of the fans will remember long after the last book has gone off the bestseller list.  Similar to why Long John Silver is remembered more often than Jim Hawkins (Treasure Island).  LJS was more colorful.  George wanted to create a very colorful Arya.  Such a character will divide opinions.  As we can see here. 

On 7/29/2020 at 5:36 PM, nyser1 said:

Sensing a strong show influence vibe with this thread.

The show version has been cleaned up to make Arya more acceptable.  It doesn't look good to murder an old man whose only crime was to peddle insurance.  The version we got on the show is not the terrible person in the pages of the books. 

[James West]

22 hours ago, Allardyce said:

Arya is what some of the fans will remember long after the last book has gone off the bestseller list.  Similar to why Long John Silver is remembered more often than Jim Hawkins (Treasure Island).  LJS was more colorful.  George wanted to create a very colorful Arya.  Such a character will divide opinions.  As we can see here. 

The show version has been cleaned up to make Arya more acceptable.  It doesn't look good to murder an old man whose only crime was to peddle insurance.  The version we got on the show is not the terrible person in the pages of the books. 

I have always thought of the Starks as a bunch of shitheads.  Still do.  Arya is at least providing reader entertainment in some of her chapters. It makes her a good addition to the cast of characters even if we don't like her.  It's been a long time since I read Treasure Island. Long John is most alike to Mance Rayder.  Arya is not as colorful in terms of interesting but she is the one who brings on the cringe.  She is a creepy shocker to make the reader feel unsettled.  Kind of scary.  

[Ser Leftwich]

This topic: false dilemma or false dichotomy?

[nyser1]

22 hours ago, Allardyce said:

Arya is what some of the fans will remember long after the last book has gone off the bestseller list.  Similar to why Long John Silver is remembered more often than Jim Hawkins (Treasure Island).  LJS was more colorful.  George wanted to create a very colorful Arya.  Such a character will divide opinions.  As we can see here. 

The show version has been cleaned up to make Arya more acceptable.  It doesn't look good to murder an old man whose only crime was to peddle insurance.  The version we got on the show is not the terrible person in the pages of the books. 

Show Arya encompasses book characters. I prefer the book version.

[James West]

Most prefer her book version.  

[Big P]

Is Arya Stark a mindless psycho killer or a righteous avenger?

She is an avenger but there is no justice in the killings of Dareon and the Insurance agent.  I will choose psycho killer as the more apt category where Arya belongs. 

 

 

[Skahaz mo Kandaq]

Simple answers are fine but do not properly address what Arya is like.  She's a complicated person on the same level as Tyrion, Dany, Jaime, Jorah, and Barristan.  She is a mindless psycho killer one minute but a thoughtful righteous avenger a short time later.  Her nature can be both.  She changes back and forth.  Do we judge people from their worst act or their kindest?  Should we look at the whole person or pass sentence based on the most evil sin they have done?  You see, she didn't give Dareon that same benefit of the doubt, did she.  The courts hand out sentences based on the baddest thing the person has done, in other words, what brought them to trial.  It has more purpose besides justice but to deter others from doing the same thing.  

I am not an Arya supporter but I am not confident enough at this time to label her evil.  I probably did in past discussions but more consideration pointed out her complexity.  She will act out and commit "mindless psycho killer" murders.  Her character is moving in that direction.  But she will also kill some people who deserved it.  I am thinking here of Ramsay and Lothar types.  But Arya still needs to be stopped.  I think she needs to eventually pay for her crimes.  She needs to die for killing Dareon and that old man.  The insurance underwriter at the diner.  She is created by her tragic experiences but we can't ignore the power of choice.  She had choices.  Justice is in shortage in Essos and Westeros, but she cannot and should not be allowed to take it upon herself to start murdering people.  That is the worst kind of vigilante.  I agree about the show bleaching Arya.  The book won't do that.  Killing that bodyguard could cause problems getting that bank loan and a lot of people back in Westeros will suffer.  There is a butterfly effect and it will be terrible for people.  All the insurance premium collected by the insurance underwriter, does it go back to the insured? Who pockets all of that?  What happens if somebody files a loss claim?  The man can't pay because he's been murdered by Arya.  

And James West.  She is very scary.  Her mind is frightening.  

[TedBear]

I don't understand much about it, but shouldn't a psycho be born a psycho?

 

[Springwatch]

20 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

This topic: false dilemma or false dichotomy?

One of them. How about a third option? Normal child under supernatural/fantasy/god influences. There's actually three:

• wolf blood
• warg relationship with Nymeria
• many-faced god/Stranger (possibly old gods too)

[Roswell]

I don't want to get bogged down in good vs. bad gridlock.  I want to talk about a possible future light at the end of the dark tunnel.  Arya might be a child in years but she definitely is not a child in any other way.  So how the heck is anybody getting a chance to rehab her?  An adult man giving her a spanking for bad behavior will get murdered in his sleep.  Joffrey will have been hard to reform.  Arya is harder still.  Remembering she's a Stark is not the correct answer.  The Stark kids are not good role models.  Her big brother Jon is not coming back in a right state of mind.  He wasn't when he was killed.  Coming back from death is not going to improve his morals nor his temper.  Arya is not going to listen to a tree.

 

[TheLastWolf]

11 hours ago, TedBear said:

I don't understand much about it, but shouldn't a psycho be born a psycho?

( Mouth agape in shock) Tsk Tsk Tsk.... 

Everyone is born the same. It's how you are brought up, how society influences you, what you experience makes you what you are. Jon would have ended up like Ramsay if he underwent similar things in life. Hell, anybody would have. 

Psychopaths usually come from broken families, abusive parents and other negative influences in childhood which affect their mental health severely. 

Ramsay is what he is because of Reek, his mother and emotionless Roose. 

The Targaryen madness is different. Incest × Incest = Loonytunes. 

So no @TedBear

[TheLastWolf]

And I noticed that @zandru, @MissM myself among others have not seen fit to reply to several haters ( not gonna enumerate that long list) preposterous opinions about why Arya is Norman Bates, Michael Myers and Ramsay Bolton rolled into one (with Euron for spice).....without VALID POINTS to support them. They just go " She's a Psycho, don't ask me why".

The only two reasons I can think of are that we've grown numb to constant hate comments or that it is of no use trying to convert hardcore haters. Am I right? 

Quote

Here's a related question which might improve the level of discussion:

 

For those of you who think Arya is dark, getting darker, is just plain bad -- what was it that turned you against her? What factors are involved in your (apparent; I don't want to judge) dislike of this character?

 Never really got a proper response. Because there isn't one. All wishful haters' fanfic

[Moiraine Sedai]

16 hours ago, Roswell said:

I don't want to get bogged down in good vs. bad gridlock.  I want to talk about a possible future light at the end of the dark tunnel.  Arya might be a child in years but she definitely is not a child in any other way.  So how the heck is anybody getting a chance to rehab her?  An adult man giving her a spanking for bad behavior will get murdered in his sleep.  Joffrey will have been hard to reform.  Arya is harder still.  Remembering she's a Stark is not the correct answer.  The Stark kids are not good role models.  Her big brother Jon is not coming back in a right state of mind.  He wasn't when he was killed.  Coming back from death is not going to improve his morals nor his temper.  Arya is not going to listen to a tree.

 

[zandru]

On 8/8/2020 at 4:42 PM, Allardyce said:

It doesn't look good to murder an old man whose only crime was to peddle insurance. 

Obviously not. Now, an old man who defrauded a captain who apparently later died at sea but who had taken out a policy to ensure his family wouldn't be left penniless, but then they were because the old man y'all love so dearly refused to honor the contract and pay up? That's different, and that's what the text says. You can whinge how this was a "civil case" and how the family "should have taken it into mediation" and file a report with the Braavosi Better Business Bureau or write to their congressman. But all that is irrelevant to the unfounded assertion that Arya Stark is a mindless psycho killer.

21 hours ago, Roswell said:

An adult man giving her a spanking for bad behavior will get murdered in his sleep. 

A "spanking"? What century is this suggestion coming out of? Perhaps you missed the many times Arya has been reprimanded, or at least called, and sometimes received corporal punishment. Only Weese is now dead, and by the literal hand of Jaqen H'gar. Currently, Arya's under the tutelage of the Kindly Man (note the term KINDLY), who speaks gently, corrects rather than beats (unless it's part of self defence training), and is unfailingly patient. Ditto the Waif. People who have the Arya-hate on them don't seem to notice the innumerable contradictory examples in the text. Not opinion; clear fact.

15 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Never really got a proper response. Because there isn't one. All wishful haters' fanfic

Thanks! Too true. Lots of peoples' heads will explode when the next book comes out and destroys all of their carefully cultured pathological interpretations.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, zandru said:

Thanks! Too true. Lots of peoples' heads will explode when the next book comes out and destroys all of their carefully cultured pathological interpretations.

The next book is not going to undo what Arya did in the earlier books. This idea that the ending or some future changes sort of do away with everything that happened before wouldn't even make sense if this was a fairy tale (which it is not). Arya can save the world for all I care - she would still have to answer to that Northman she murdered in cold blood, for Dareon, and for insurance guy. Just as Tyrion is likely going to pay for what he did to Shae and Tysha.

And the Arya problem is really a hard problem. Her plot is only interesting if she continues on her assassin journey - that is how she can make a difference in relation to the overall (political) plot, but for her personal story it would be childish fan fiction if she ever became a nice and normal little girl again. The author turned her into a murderess and assassin for a reason. He wanted her to go to that dark place. That is not some sort of weekend excursion, it is her life now. Her story would be pointless and stupid if she did not continue on her path to the bitter end.

And the way she is decribed when she murders Raff she acts like a perfect psychopathic serial killer. For her killing is a thing like everything else ... and something she very much enjoys in this case. What exactly the author wants to accomplish by depicting a child who gets better and better at killing people is everybody's guess but a good guess is that this is not going to turn her into a heroine nor will it be good for Arya on a personal level.

[zandru]

18 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The next book is not going to undo what Arya did in the earlier books.

And folks who misread or read badly in the earlier books won't do any better in the next ones. I understand.

19 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

he would still have to answer to that Northman she murdered in cold blood, for Dareon, and for insurance guy. Just as Tyrion is likely going to pay for what he did to Shae and Tysha.

Where and how have you gotten the idea that ASOIAF is all about simpleminded "justice"? The evil constantly prosper and the good have died young. This isn't an Aesop's fable, where everyone dines on their just deserts.

20 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Her plot is only interesting if she continues on her assassin journey

I think you greatly underestimate how interesting Arya is.

21 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

it would be childish fan fiction if she ever became a nice and normal little girl again.

Arya will never be a little girl, nice & normal. She's nearly a woman. You infantilize her at your peril!

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Her story would be pointless and stupid if she did not continue on her path to the bitter end.

Well, now you're underestimating George RR Martin.

23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And the way she is decribed when she murders Raff she acts like a perfect psychopathic serial killer.

Or, a professional? Totally sane, just businesslike and efficient? I suspect you're put off by a young woman who not only is able to fight back against grown men, but is really good at it.

But don't worry too much. As TheLastWolf notes, haters gotta hate.

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

And folks who misread or read badly in the earlier books won't do any better in the next ones. I understand.

Murder is bad, even in Martinworld. There is no middle ground there.

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

Where and how have you gotten the idea that ASOIAF is all about simpleminded "justice"? The evil constantly prosper and the good have died young. This isn't an Aesop's fable, where everyone dines on their just deserts.

They don't actually, there is a lot of karmic justice and stuff going on - Jaime losing his hand, Joffrey being murdered by the Tyrells, Tywin getting shot by the son he abused his entire life, the Mad King being murdered by a man he himself chose for the KG, Ned beheading a man we would consider innocent of the crime he stands accused of is beheaded in turn, Theon gets tortured and maimed and castrated after betraying his foster family and murdering innocent children, etc.

It is not that the evil constantly prosper - smart people prosper and fools and morons end up dead. Stupid people like Theon fail quickly, smart evil people like Littlefinger still thrive ... but there is no doubt that he is going to be cast down, too.

Part of Arya's story is that she is murdering people on a regular basis now - this will come back to haunt her eventually in some fashion. I didn't say she will have to die for that, I just said she won't escape this thing.

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

I think you greatly underestimate how interesting Arya is.

I'm talking about myself when I use subjective language. And I've gone on record more than once stating that I found Arya's and Bran's chapters up until AFfC/ADwD boring as hell. They didn't have any stories of their own up to that point, were just telling other people's stories.

Arya gets interesting when she first meets Jaqen and starts her path to become an assassin.

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

Arya will never be a little girl, nice & normal. She's nearly a woman. You infantilize her at your peril!

She is an 11-year-old girl and she will never become a woman within the confines of this series. Girls turn into women when they come of age at the age of sixteen.

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

Or, a professional? Totally sane, just businesslike and efficient? I suspect you're put off by a young woman who not only is able to fight back against grown men, but is really good at it.

Why should I be put off by that? I think 'Mercy' is one of the best chapters George has ever written precisely because it effectively portrays an eleven-year-old psychopaths using the allure of sex to murder somebody. That is great literature, I enjoy stuff like that, but that doesn't mean the character depicted in that story is a hero.

5 minutes ago, zandru said:

But don't worry too much. As TheLastWolf notes, haters gotta hate.

What am I supposed to hate here? I like Arya as a character precisely because she goes to dark places and kills people ... I just don't delude myself into believing this doesn't make her dark or damaged character whose ultimate fate is not likely going to be all that nice.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

41 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The next book is not going to undo what Arya did in the earlier books. This idea that the ending or some future changes sort of do away with everything that happened before wouldn't even make sense if this was a fairy tale (which it is not). Arya can save the world for all I care - she would still have to answer to that Northman she murdered in cold blood, for Dareon, and for insurance guy. Just as Tyrion is likely going to pay for what he did to Shae and Tysha.

And the Arya problem is really a hard problem. Her plot is only interesting if she continues on her assassin journey - that is how she can make a difference in relation to the overall (political) plot, but for her personal story it would be childish fan fiction if she ever became a nice and normal little girl again. The author turned her into a murderess and assassin for a reason. He wanted her to go to that dark place. That is not some sort of weekend excursion, it is her life now. Her story would be pointless and stupid if she did not continue on her path to the bitter end.

And the way she is decribed when she murders Raff she acts like a perfect psychopathic serial killer. For her killing is a thing like everything else ... and something she very much enjoys in this case. What exactly the author wants to accomplish by depicting a child who gets better and better at killing people is everybody's guess but a good guess is that this is not going to turn her into a heroine nor will it be good for Arya on a personal level.

Do you really think Tyrion will be held to account for Shae?  He is the author's favorite character. 

George wanted an extreme if uncomfortable character in Arya.  He will stay the course (in my humble opinion) and proceed to make her kill a lot of people.