Arya's Return to Westeros... To Where?

[YeniAy_Ottoman]

 

Hello everyone,

Introduction

As you know, Arya Stark escaped from King's Landing at the end of the first book and constantly made an effort to reach her family and home, but so far she has not been successful. Both her family and the house have been destroyed, at least that is what within Arya's knowledge. On the other hand, she knows that Jon Snow is still at the Wall, and when she went to King's Landing, she often missed Jon and dreamed of going to him, even on her way to Braavos, she actually intended to go to the Wall, but the captain refused her. He took her to Braavos, but when Arya saw the two Men of the Watch even while she was there, she wondered if they would return to the Wall because she still had in mind to go to the Wall, to Jon's side.

On the show, they gave Lady Stoneheart's Frey scenes to Arya(Yeah they did this a alot). When this happened in the show, many readers began to think that Arya would likewise go directly to the riverlands when she returned to Westeros. A few things put forward as justification for this; The presence of Nymeria and Cat there; and also Beric and his crew and Gendry characters... and even the Freys themselves.

This is more of a fictional math guess, of course. There are these people in the land of the river, and these are the people Arya has met before, if so, Arya will return here ... Even if there is a bit of plain logic, this is one of many interpretations and is possible. Of course I do not think so.

• Why not riverlands?

In the first place I want to express my opinion, why not Riverlands? To summarize briefly, there is nothing there for Arya. During her time there, she did not take any time to find Nymeria, and actually she did not have much opportunity, but although Nymeria was constantly around her, she never went directly to her. Even if they meet there, there is nothing they can do on the first stage riverlands. It makes no sense to expect a meeting without purpose. On the other hand, those Beric and his crew are not important for Arya, so there is no reason for them to go there. She could only go for her mother, but she doesn't know that her mother is alive. The Freys might have been a good reason, but Arya couldn't kill anyone she didn't know their name and couldn't add names to her prayer because she didn't know the Frey's names. Naturally, she is not after them.

The riverlands had already covered most of Arya's adventure over the course of two books, and she did what she would do there, learned that she would learn, and she was done ... It makes no sense to go riverlands as her first target when she decides to return.

There are those who say she will go to King's Landing to kill Cersei, but as we know when Cersei's death will come, we know that her death will be carried out by a Valonqar, so it is pointless for the author to take Arya there for something she could never achieve. In addition, it is logical that Arya, who is trained in Faceless Men, should infiltrate Cersei and kill her.

That's why as a writer you wouldn't want to use such a character that way because either you have to kill one of your character early, or you write an unsuccessful attempt and write a meaningless and ridiculous scene, and your character will be distracted by empty scenes, like the show playing for time...this is what a novice writer does... Also, Arya will woke up one night and said that, "OK, I'll go and kill Cersei." ? It would be a little ridiculous.

In summary, according to the mathematics of fiction, Arya's possible directions do not fit these two places, and I have not seen any signs of them yet.

Let's come to the question of why Arya Stark will go to Jon Snow, towards the Wall.

First Cause: Jon Snow himself

As I said at the beginning of the article, Arya has missed Jon since she left Jon in the first book and wanted to go to him, even when she got on the ship of the captain from Braavos, she said it was where she wanted to go, but received a refusal. Even as Yoren was taking her to Winterfell, she somehow wanted to reach first to the Wall.

When at last she slept, she dreamed of home. The kingsroad wound its way past Winterfell on its way to the Wall, and Yoren had promised he'd leave her there with no one any wiser about who she'd been. She yearned to see her mother again, and Robb and Bran and Rickon . . . 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.

As I am sure that Brienne's whole purpose and the focus of her current story is to find Sansa, she will eventually find her, so I'm sure Arya will go where he is because of her wish go to Jon Snow since the first book.

We already have two sample scenes showing that she is still thinking of going to wall while in Braavos. The desire of someone with this goal to go elsewhere is unthinkable, especially if we consider that this girl suffers from family longing and loneliness as much as the desire for revenge.

Personally, if I were Arya, I'd rather go to my only living family than take revenge. First I would like to feel safe and whole again. For example, Sansa, although she knows the state of Winterfell, her heart prefers to go there ... she knows that she will feel safer and stronger there.

The place where Arya will feel safe and quench her desire for home is obviously Jon Snow himself. Indeed, even Jon had told Mance to "bring Arya" home. Logically, Arya was already at home, but for Jon it is obvious that the home is not there, but him side.

In the conversation between Jon and Arya, Jon said, "Sometimes different roads lead to the same castle." After all, they both differed ways, but they will eventually meet at the same castle. You know Martin wanted to reunite the two characters at the Wall, as he wrote in the first outline.

Of course, this interpretation is possible. "Okay, it looks like a strong foreshadowing, but this castle doesn't have to be Black Castle, they can meet at Winterfell."

It is quite possible, which is a very strong possibility. It doesn't matter much, either the Wall or Winterfell ... Arya's direction will be Jon Snow, this is the important part; I don't think their meeting at the Black Castle or Winterfell is important for the development of the story. However, I still have to say that there are signs that she will go to the Wall, I will mention that when the time comes, let's continue.

So the question is… Why would Arya Stark want to stop training and leave when she was training the Faceless Men in Braavos? We do not know how many years this training takes in total, but we know that it should take years, so Arya looks like she has taken several years of training. I have already said that Martin wanted the 5-year jump for Arya and Bran's education and growth.

• Parallelism

There is a parallel story development between Arya and Jon. The two got into an organization where they would never marry, have no children, and would leave their families behind completely. These are the things that are demanded of them. Both of them have to spend their entire lives in this organization.

Both stand out in the books as each other's "weakness". For example, even for her father, Arya did not betray Jon and remained silent(about Needle), or when someone accuses Jon of being a thief (even indirectly), Arya got angry ...Jon did what he did not do for Robb and Ned or even Ygritte; He goes around his vows for Arya and tries to use anyone he can use for Arya Stark ...

I think we will see a parallel development from now on. Jon decides to break his vows for Arya in the last book and is killed. It is also the author's use of the Arya factor to free Jon from his vows. I think a similar thing will happen on Arya side. We have read that Arya can sometimes get news from Westeros; She learned that her aunt was dead, and even learned about Hardhome.

Also, we also read that from time to time she heard about Jon Snow being spoken in taverns and inns. In short, our girl gets information about Jon Snow. Martin must not have added this part for nothing. If even she gets some news Jon's election as Lord Commander at the Wall, then I see no reason not to hear the news that Jon was dead. So, how will Arya react when she finds out that her only family member and her most fond and beloved family member have died? Do you think it is appropriate for Arya to sit calmly and continue her education and shed two tears? I do not think so. Anyway, this girl is Braavos for a reason and has to return before completing the training. Why is that?

It's actually very simple. Being a Faceless Men means being of all identity and not. When a person becomes FM, that person becomes "nobody"; she has no identity, you cannot call her an individual, only a means of her deities; are people who constantly live under other identities and faces. Consequently, if Arya completes her education as FM, she will no longer be Arya Stark and she will completely lose her identity. In this case, Arya has no place in the story because Arya is dead. We wouldn't read Arya ... Therefore, we cannot wait for Arya to seek revenge in Westeros or to meet with other characters, because she wouldn't be Arya anymore.

When the emphasis was made in a question in an interview that Arya was the Faceless Men, Martin objected to this; “She's not yet the Faceless Men, you assume she will. She's still an apprentice. ” he said. In other words, Arya did not take an oath as she had not completed the training yet. You know Jon was trained first and was taken when it was decided he was ready. It would be absurd to expect her to complete the training in a year, anyway. Although Arya's education is progressing much faster than usual, this is a separate topic sure.

In other words, after learning as much as Arya should learn, she will need a reason to leave here before she has the opportunity to complete the training, without being promoted to be the Faceless Men and taking their oaths; that's Jon Snow. The death of Jon will save Arya from being the Faceless Man and return her home, just as the author eventually caused his death by using Arya reason to escape Jon's from his vows.

Anyway, Arya had given us the signal that she would not throw the Needle that Jon gave her, but would continue to be Arya by hiding it, and that she would never lose her identity. The needle symbolizes Arya's identity in the books. It symbolizes her connection with her home, family and Jon.

She stood on the end of the dock, pale and goosefleshed and shivering in the fog. In her hand, Needle seemed to whisper to her. Stick them with the pointy end, it said, and, don't tell Sansa! Mikken's mark was on the blade. It's just a sword. If she needed a sword, there were a hundred under the temple. Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She'd been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. "It's just a sword," she said, aloud this time . . .

. . . but it wasn't.

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

As it seems from this quote, Arya doesn't want to give up her identity. We actually have a possible foreshadowing scene where Arya might act to avenge Jon.

He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall.

As you know, Jon Snow was actually a Targaryen prince as Rhaegar's son and killed, and Arya is a character who will avenge her prince. And yes, maybe the singer will go to the Wall.

Cause Two: The Night's Watch

To explain this, I want to go through another example first. When you read Jaime Lannister's POV on the Riverlands, especially in book 4; There was an intense interaction with Brotherhood without banners. On the first povs with Brienne, he almost fell into their trap, but they did not swallow the bait and escaped. Later, we read that when Jaime returned to the Riverlands, he often spoke about Brotherhood without Banners and heard news from them. If I was not mistaken, he had assigned someone to hunt them.

There is a similar thing for Brienne, but there was not as much interaction as with Jaime, of course, his was more extreme, but there was for Brienne too. Of course, even they heard the name of Lady Stoneheart. As a result, both of them are now in the hands of the without Banners and Lady Stoneheart(at least we assume it). In a way, Martin "made a way" to the characters here ... For example, he said that he made the way for Tywin's death by using the "gold shitting" theme, as a sign. For Jaime, there is another "way build" that he interacts with; Nymeria and her pack. There are many references to this as well, as Jaime will probably encounter not only the Cat, but also the direwolf and her pack.

There is a similar theme for Arya. Night's Watch. Arya is constantly interacting with the Night's Watch (another thing she's interacting with is dragons, by the way). Let's continue with the watch. Logically, the first member of the brotherhood with whom he interacted is Jon Snow(after Benjen), who left home to join. Later, she meets Yoren and the first one she asks is Jon, and she even talks about wanting to send him a letter.

Then, at the end of the book, Yoren finds Arya and disguises her as a boy, takes her with him as one of the apprentices of the Watch and leaves the city. His goal, of course, is to bring her to her family. When Yoren first saw our daughter Arya, he thought she was even a boy. In fact, the "boy" theme is another sign for Arya ... It is not surprising that a child is thought to be "boy" when she is scruffy and dressed in boy's clothes. We know that when Cersei changed her clothes with Jaime as a child, even her father thought she was a boy(Jaime). Consequently, they thought Jaime was a girl(Cersei) too. Nevertheless, for Arya, it was a recurring thema, and eventually our she-wolf disguised as a boy and joined the Night's Watch.

Well, do you know the story of a girl participating to the Watch disguised as a boy? You know. Danny Flint. Flint girl disguises herself as a man to join the Watch to escape the abuse. Her story is sad and the only part that interests us as a matter of our subject is the girl figure who participated in the watch disguised as a boy. The name of this girl is mentioned in three places; We heard the first one while Bran was hiding at the Wall. We heard the second from Lord Manderly's mouth in Theon POV called Prince of Winterfell in the last book, which I think was a very interesting combination. And later again in last the book, from Jon's mouth.

• The Manderly part is remarkable.

After serving Frey pies at Arya Stark's wedding feast, our fat lord was so happy and wanted for 2 songs for Arya Stark; The first one is "Ending Night", which tells the end of the Long Night, and the other is the song of "Brave Danny Flint". It is interesting, is not it? He wanted for Arya two songs about the Long Night and the girl who participated in the Watch as a boy.

By the way, for those who don't know, Arya probably takes her name from one of her great-grandmothers who lived years ago; the woman's name was Arya Flint.

Lets continue. Arya continued her journey with the Watch in the second book, she had beaten Pie well, and Yoren had beaten her as a punishment and then made the following phrase.

"Might be I got your attention now," Yoren said. "Next time you take that stick to one of your brothers, you'll get twice what you give, you hear me? Now cover yourself."

They're not my brothers, Arya thought as she bent to yank up her breeches, but she knew better than to say so. Her hands fumbled with her belt and laces.

Brothers? They are not Arya's brothers... because Arya is not an apprentice to join the Watch, not even a boy. Despite this, the author wrote such a sentence in Yoren's mouth. Why is that? If a character says something stranger than usual, I guess we should pay attention.

The reason is obvious, it is highly probable that Arya gave a sign that she was going to the Wall; he's making a way. Everything is in front of our eyes; The story of the Flint girl; some people thinks Arya is a boy in the first books and she travels with the Watch, even when she goes to Braavos, meeting two Night Watch members and intending to go to Wall with them. There were always Night's Watch around this girl; Just like there are references to Braavos and Braavosi people in the first book, and eventually she went to Braavos ... I think it would be a correct inference to predict that she will go to Night's Watch as all previous character examples tell us that this is the case.

In addition, considering that she has aimed to reach Jon from the first moments, when they are all combined, it leaves us no choice but the Wall. So, at worst, Arya will surely leave Braavos and education for Jon Snow, and at best, the meeting place will be the Wall.

• It is possible to present another sign in this regard. Dead man's boots ...

You know Melisandre and Mance thing... Melisandre said to Jon "Mance will help you for Arya" and Jon asked "how he can live and she changed his looks"

Melisandre said:

"The bones help," said Melisandre. "The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man's boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man's shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer's essence does not change, only his seeming."

In other words, the magic of blindfold is mentioned where Arya is mentioned and one of the things mentioned as sample items is "the boots of a dead man ..." (By the way, it is also interesting to refer to Davos's finger bones)

Dead man's boots ... logically, the item does not have to belong to a dead person in order to wear someone's image as a cloak, because we saw Mance and the other man were both using each other's belongings while they were alive. There's a dead man accent though, why?

So now I'm taking you back to the Arya scene. We're in Braavos and Arya gets an impression of Dareon. The singer called the Black Singer, but none of his clothes were black except for his boots.

The whores called him the black singer, but there was hardly any black about him now. With the coin his singing brought him, the crow had transformed himself into a peacock. Today he wore a plush purple cloak lined with vair, a striped white-and-lilac tunic, and the parti-colored breeches of a bravo, but he owned a silken cloak as well, and one made of burgundy velvet that was lined with cloth-of-gold. The only black about him was his boots.

In the Arya scene, the "boots" first catch the eye, and then, chatting with this singer, she continues to walk and kill him, and when she go to Brusco has these black boots with her.

By the time Cat returned to Brusco's house, an evening fog was gathering above the small canal. She put away her barrow, found Brusco in his counting room, and thumped her purse down on the table in front of him. She thumped the boots down too.

Brusco gave the purse a pat. "Good. But what's this?"

"Boots."

"Good boots are hard to find," said Brusco, "but these are too small for my feet." He picked one up to squint at it.

"The moon will be black tonight," she reminded him.

In the same POV (all aff this happening in the same pov) later she went to Kindly Man.

This time she did not hesitate. "Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night's Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots."

"Good boots are hard to find."

"Just so." She tried to keep her face still.

In both scenes, there is an emphasis on "good boots are not easy to find". How does Kindly Man knows that the boots are good which he has not seen, it is thought provoking, but I think it is not just the quality of the boots here. Dead man's boots are a good tool for Arya's future purpose ... so they're good boots ...

In other words, the emphasis on the boots of the dead man here indicates that Arya can wear these boots and go to the Wall as a man with the magic of the blindfold. Well, does Arya know about this spell? Where can she learn? Let's listen to the Kindly Man.

"Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with."

KM mentions that he will teach all face replacement methods; The method of a mummer(which Arya is with the mummers at the moment) and he will also teach the magic of the blindfold ... On the other hand, there is also the issue of wearing the faces of dead people, it's already being told during this scene ... In short, when Arya is done here, she will knows all of this, and naturally, she will go to the Wall by making a "blindfold" spell with the boots of the dead man belonging to the Night watch member, disguising herself as Dareon. I think it will be a very interesting and funny scene.

Let me even give another possible parallel scene example for this scene that I expect in the future. Now Theon is Jon's foil anyway. Martin pointed out that the two had similar positions, but that they both made different choices. Another thing that the two have in common is that both Jon and Theon have sisters they saw as a child. Theon did not recognize Asha when he returned home, the scenes are well known to you all.

Jon was also wondering if he would recognize Arya even if he saw her right now, we can expect him not to recognize Arya at first because she's already grown up, but especially if she use this spell, he cannot recognize her at all, and we can read funny scenes. A little parallel with Theon, but I think it will be a nice thing.

What if they meet at Winterfell instead of the wall, I think it probably coincides with the moment of war. When Martin wrote the last script for the series, he added a scene note where Ramsay fought direwolves against his hounds. He noted something that would probably happen in the books, and there is already information that Ramsay raised his hounds to kill wolves in Theon pov. These wolves are undoubtedly Ghost and probably Rickon's wolf Shaggydog, but since GRRM stated that they had plans for Nymeria and did not write this wolf pack for decoration, it is possible to see Nymeria and her pack in the final battle with the Boltons in the north. How long will they stay in the riverlands? If the owner is there, the wolf is there too; if the wolf is there, the owner is there too ...

So this end. Thank you for read and sorry my bad grammer.