Dareon was a victim of Arya's brand of "justice"

[Bullrout]

On 1/31/2021 at 5:51 AM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Dareon is not the most mature man to ever wear the black.  But we can all agree that he was twice the victim of injustice.  The first came from Lord Rowan and his daughter at Goldengrove.  And the second injustice came from Arya Stark.  Arya Stark murdered Dareon in Braavos.  Arya's thirst for blood and revenge is not justice. 

It was unsettling at the very least.  I suppose the author purposefully wrote the chapter that way to make the reader see Arya for what she truly has become.  Arya only knows death and that is what she gave poor Dareon.  Something permanently broke inside Arya after she killed Dareon and the old Bravosi insurance man.  There's no more pity and remorse inside that horrible heart. 

[Nevets]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

I still think you’re being much too hard on her.  Roose Bolton turned Harrenhall into a rape camp.  Of course, she’d be afraid to reveal herself to him.  If she were in his power, there would be no need to find a Fake Arya for Ramsay.  And, the guard might have no choice but to serve Roose, but she and her companions were effectively prisoners.  So his death was sad, but legitimate, IMHO.

As to revenge, this is a world where acting like Titus Andronicus towards those who wrong you, your family, or your servants and people is universally considered the correct thing to do.  She shares that common mindset.  Justice and law, as we would understand these things, barely exist.  Instead, societies are governed by codes of honour, which anyone with a weapon is expected to enforce.

I think the Abomination really altered perceptions of Arya - that she’s a sadistic psychopath - in a way that does not fit the book character.

I'm not a fan of revenge, especially when done by someone as young as Arya, and I don't like the trajectory her story is taking.  I don't believe ease with killing is good at her age.

That said, I do not believe she is nearly as bad as some readers seem to think.  Troubled, certainly.  Psychopathic, crazy, or evil, no way.

[Lord Varys]

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

I still think you’re being much too hard on her.  Roose Bolton turned Harrenhall into a rape camp.  Of course, she’d be afraid to reveal herself to him.  If she were in his power, there would be no need to find a Fake Arya for Ramsay.  And, the guard might have no choice but to serve Roose, but she and her companions were effectively prisoners.  So his death was sad, but legitimate, IMHO.

I never said she should have revealed herself to Roose, specifically. There were other Northmen there and she had the chance but missed it. And it makes no sense to argue from hindsight when we discuss murder. When she realized Roose would leave her with Vargo Hoat she should have considered telling him who she was ... instead of murdering one of Robb's men and running away. Arya had no idea that Roose would betray Robb, so we cannot use that argument when considering her options.

And Arya and her gang weren't prisoners at all. Arya was the cupbearer of Roose Bolton, and her friends had decent jobs in the castle.

Also keep in mind that eventually Jaime and Brienne showed up at Harrenhal. If they had realized who Arya was a lot of things could have gone very different. Jaime may have insisted to either take Arya to KL or send her straight to Catelyn and Robb. Her being there could have also changed the entire Frey angle. They would have had one Stark to marry to a Frey - and Elmar was even conveniently there at Harrenhal.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

As to revenge, this is a world where acting like Titus Andronicus towards those who wrong you, your family, or your servants and people is universally considered the correct thing to do.  She shares that common mindset.  Justice and law, as we would understand these things, barely exist.  Instead, societies are governed by codes of honour, which anyone with a weapon is expected to enforce.

Arya doing a proper blood feud the way nobles do is somewhat different from what she actually does, no? I mean, I've not that much issue with her crossing off names from her list ... but even there, as we see with Raff, she uses very unpleasant methods. Granted, a small girl cannot challenge anyone to a duel and stuff ... but that doesn't change the fact that luring people into traps and murdering them when they are most vulnerable isn't exactly a great thing to do to put it mildly.

11 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think the Abomination really altered perceptions of Arya - that she’s a sadistic psychopath - in a way that does not fit the book character.

George's Arya isn't sadistic - but still enjoys her work. She can kill quickly and without inflicting all that much pain, but it isn't healthy or a good thing to do that. And the way she processes those things emotionally - completely detached, without mercy or compassion - is pretty much like a psychopath does it. There is no difference between how Littlefinger murders Lysa and how Arya murders Raff. Both are completely in control of the situation and both don't make a fuzz about it afterwards.

The problem with Arya is that she no longer sticks to her list ... and definitely doesn't view murder only as a means to get personal vengeance but more as a more general way to resolve problems she sees or to remove obstacles in her way.

I mean, if you view murders on the basis of personal insult/attacks/motives then Tyrion should get pretty much a pass for his murder of Shae. She humiliated him in public and gave testimony to incriminate him. She betrayed his trust on a very deep and personal level.

Yet that's still his most heinous and terrible act - and we didn't need George to explain that to use specifically. Arya's murders of Dareon, insurance guy and Raff are in the same ballpark in the sense that all were as much at Arya's mercy as Shae was at Tyrion's. Even the Bolton guardsman was completely helpless.

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, Nevets said:

I'm not a fan of revenge, especially when done by someone as young as Arya, and I don't like the trajectory her story is taking.  I don't believe ease with killing is good at her age.

That said, I do not believe she is nearly as bad as some readers seem to think.  Troubled, certainly.  Psychopathic, crazy, or evil, no way.

If you want to, you certainly can see Arya as a villain of sorts. She is at this point a murderer for hire as well as loose cannon who does her personal murders in her spare time.

Many of the characters who murder others are sort of villains - Tyrion for murdering the singer and Shae, Sandor for murdering Mycah, etc.

Doesn't mean they do have to suffer the fate of villains in a conventional sense, but it also makes little sense to find excuses for them - or take their own rationalizations at face value.

Jaime is a really great example for this kind of thing.

[Darth Sidious]

On 1/31/2021 at 5:51 AM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Dareon is not the most mature man to ever wear the black.  But we can all agree that he was twice the victim of injustice.  The first came from Lord Rowan and his daughter at Goldengrove.  And the second injustice came from Arya Stark.  Arya Stark murdered Dareon in Braavos.  Arya's thirst for blood and revenge is not justice. 

Arya has gone dangerously insane.  She should be incarcerated in a secure dungeon.  There is almost a zero chance of a cure.  Antipsychotic drugs have yet to be invented.   

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 1/31/2021 at 10:03 AM, Daeron the Daring said:

Dareon is a kind of character that makes you feel sorry for him (for how his life turned out) and makes you hate him too (for abandoning Sam and Maester Aemon). Yet, I don't think it was a fair move from Arya to kill him. He didn't know the guy the way he knew his other victims. All he knew was that Dareon was a Black Brother.

He would achieve nothing with changing his backstory and lying about his past. That's why it is likely true.

Either way, If I was a honorable Lord, and a singer would rape my daughter, I'd kill him. If a simple peasant singer would've slept with my daughter, I would've given him the chance of taking the black. Lord Rowan probably knew his daughter. Or he was so honorable that he gave the chance of taking the black even for the man who raped his daughter.

Either way it is illogical to think Dareon raped that girl. Imagine being a singer at a lord's court, then you suddenly try to rape his daughter. What you're gonna do next? Await for your execution? How do you run away if the girl runs for help instantly? And consider that a Lord can afford to look after you with dogs on horseback. It makes no sense, that's why it wasn't a rape. Dareon wasn't a bad guy unless he abandoned Sam and Aemon. And it wasn't fair for him to be killed by Arya, that's what the Kindly Man said too. Because Arya know nothing about his past (including why he was sent to the Wall). I'm totally fine with every act of Arya, except for this, and I think it's fair.

It was a horrible crime done by Arya Stark.  It's a crime because she has no authority to kill him. 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 2/1/2021 at 8:30 PM, lrresistable said:

it'll be interesting if Arya & Jon ever meet again, and if Arya will casually bring up the favor she did by executing one of his NW deserter's, the Singing Black Brother Dareon in Braavos.

 

I'd really love to see Jon's re-action to that.

Doubly interesting, because Jon has done things which are many times more illegal.  Will Arya judge Jon and punish him for starting a war with the Boltons?  She should.  It was many times more damaging compared to what a lone Dareon could do. 

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Doubly interesting, because Jon has done things which are many times more illegal.  Will Arya judge Jon and punish him for starting a war with the Boltons?  She should.  It was many times more damaging compared to what a lone Dareon could do. 

Why would she?  As I commented up thread, avenging one’s family is considered entirely fitting in this world.  If the Boltons were eradicated, most of the North would cheer.

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 2/1/2021 at 4:27 AM, SeanF said:

I don't think the author is expecting us to approve of Arya's action, here.  Daeron was a bit of a shit (even if he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, he's leaving his comrades in the lurch), but Arya really doesn't have the justification to kill him.  Daeron is not a vile man like Raff the Sweetling, the Tickler, et al, who grossly wronged her and her friends;  nor is this a case of self-defence, like killing the guard at Harrenhall.

Arya didn't have justification to kill the old businessman.  That murder is another one of her horrible crimes. 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

Arya didn't have justification to kill the old businessman.  That murder is another one of her horrible crimes. 

We’re not given enough information to know if he was guilty or not, but it’s not good for a 10/11 year old to be part of a cult of assassins.

That said, I think you (and others) are far too judgemental on her.  I’m quite sure that if any of us were thrown into this world, we would be just as fallible as the protagonists are.

[Daeron the Daring]

3 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

It was a horrible crime done by Arya Stark.  It's a crime because she has no authority to kill him. 

It is a crime, yes, and you what? I don't give a damn about it. I don't care,  nor did I care at the beginning of this topic. That, however, does not change the fact that she shouldn't have killed him.

[Moiraine Sedai]

On 2/6/2021 at 7:32 AM, Bullrout said:

It was unsettling at the very least.  I suppose the author purposefully wrote the chapter that way to make the reader see Arya for what she truly has become.  Arya only knows death and that is what she gave poor Dareon.  Something permanently broke inside Arya after she killed Dareon and the old Bravosi insurance man.  There's no more pity and remorse inside that horrible heart. 

Arya was already broken internally.  In her head.  That malicious act of murdering Dareon placed Arya in the villain category in my eyes.  

[Moiraine Sedai]

On 1/31/2021 at 9:15 AM, Lilac & Gooseberries said:

Can you prove that she is all that and not a traumatised 10 years old?

Trauma was a contributing factor which led to Arya's ptsd like symptoms.  Arya's numb to violence and has become one of the most cruel person there is.  She's like Aerys in that way.  

[Darksnider05]

14 minutes ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Trauma was a contributing factor which led to Arya's ptsd like symptoms.  Arya's numb to violence and has become one of the most cruel person there is.  She's like Aerys in that way.  

Yes she's like Aerys in that way biting off the breast of her wife and gaining sexual arousal from roasting people.  These post get weirder and weirder.

[Lilac & Gooseberries]

17 minutes ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Trauma was a contributing factor which led to Arya's ptsd like symptoms.  Arya's numb to violence and has become one of the most cruel person there is.  She's like Aerys in that way.  

Prove it.

[Julia H.]

On 2/5/2021 at 11:22 PM, Lord Varys said:

Arya knows a lot about Braavos at that time. She has lived with the Braavosi and among them for quite some time, and she is collecting new knowledge about the place everyday ... that is the entire point of her training at that point.

So maybe she knows the FM might not be a totally legal organization either? Or if they are legal, maybe she knows there is not much point in hoping that a government that is OK with an assassin organization who'd kill anyone for the right payment would be all for legality and justice? Honestly, we don't know how much Arya knows about the legal system in Braavos. From what we can see from her POV, it is next to nothing. (Of course, you can always give me the quote that tells us what she knows about the Braavosi authorities.) Based on what we know from her POV, we have no reason to believe that she has experienced in Braavos anything that could have restored her faith in an official justice system. 

Quote

Of course nobody would give a fig about an NW desertion in Braavos. Which is why this isn't a crime in Braavos and thus it is murder to kill a man for deserting the NW in Braavos.

And, of course, Arya, as an orphaned and lost child, should know all of that. Who has taught her on international law? If she thought she could trust the Braavosi authorities, she would reveal herself to them and ask for their help as a war orphan. But the world does not work like that in her experience. If it did, then the Kindly Man would have taken her to the local authorities responsible for orphaned and abandoned children instead of using her as an apprentice assassin.

Quote

Arya is doing the same thing a slaver's son would be doing who murders a slave who ran away from his father.

Nope. Dareon is nothing to her family or to her family's financial interests. The NW is about protecting the realms of men. All men.

Quote

We don't know Arya's viewpoint so far, she never explains why she murdered Dareon. But as I said, Ned never prepared his daughters for the role of lord-executioner so she is acting out of place here even for a Stark. Women do not rule, and women do not execute.

Except that we know her viewpoint and why she killed Dareon. I even gave you the quote before. Women may not rule or execute in general, but so far there have always been men to do it. Arya does not know if the Stark pack exists any longer. She is a lone wolf now, acting and surviving on her own.  

Quote

Ned isn't a bloodthirsty man, as AGoT makes very, very clear. If he knew what happened to Arya he would be horrified and blame himself and his decision to become Hand, etc. down to warning Cersei about what he found out ... but he would never become obsessed with vengeance.

I agree with you on this. I said he would want to kill the people who did this to his daughter, and I still think he would feel murderous if he found this out, but no, I don't think (nor did I say) that he would be obsessed with vengeance or that he would place vengeance before more important things, such as healing his daughter, for example, or the good of other people.  

Quote

Also, it is not trauma that turned Arya into a killer. It is her desire to fight - which was there in AGoT long before she was traumatized - and then he interaction with Jaqen at Harrenhal. She enjoyed being the ghost of Harrenhal, enjoyed having the control over life and death. It gave her power. And it is this desire which caused her to search out the Faceless Men and stay with them.

Her desire to learn to use a sword, as a child, does not mean she is bloodthirsty. She searched out the FM because that was her only idea to do in Braavos. The power she needed was control over her own life against anyone who'd want to torture, kill or rape her. That's a pretty understandable desire, given the world she lives in. By the way, she didn't go to Braavos immediately after she met Jaqen. She still wanted to go home to Winterfell, but then she almost stumbled into the Red Wedding, where her brother and mother were murdered. She went to Braavos only when she felt there was no other choice. 

Quote

Arya has long ago ceased to a victim. That stopped even before she left Harrenhal, with the weasel soup. There she took matters into her own hands and never let go of them. Not while she was alone with the boys, not with the outlaws, and definitely not with the Hound.

You know that you are talking about a (deeply traumatized) 10-year-old child, don't you?

Quote

Arya enjoys murdering Raff and his very proud of herself how effectively she is doing it. She likes crossing off names of her list ... and she also likes killing. It is what she wants to do - that's why she is with the Faceless Men. She doesn't have to be there, she wants to be there.

She wanted to go home. She tried extremely hard. And when she first met Dareon, she hoped she could ask him to take her to Eastwatch. That's how badly she wants to be with the FM.

Quote

Who cares? Arya could have interpreted that as desertion, too.

No, Arya does not "interpret" anything as desertion. Dareon admitted it often and loud enough that he was deserting. I gave you quotes on that a few days ago. 

Quote

Dareon wasn't tried and executed, he was just murdered. Arya has been through enough to cut Dareon some slack here. I mean, you do realize that she never murdered Gendry or Hot Pie or Jaqen unless I'm mistaken. They were all bound for the Wall, were they not? They are effectively all deserters, too. Even the boy Arry is.

As I pointed out last time, Arya does not kill anyone just because they are phyisically prevented from getting to the Wall. The boy Arry or Gendry are definitely not deserters. They have taken no vows and have not committed any crimes. They are refugees. We know that Jon would have been able to change his mind before taking the vow even though he had already lived on the Wall. But that wasn't even the situation with Yoren's group. They were captured and prevented from going to the Wall. And even in Braavos Arya briefly hopes that Dareon would take her to Eastwatch - in other words to the Wall. Dareon, however, took a vow and then admitted to desertion while on an NW mission.

Quote

Yoren had a mission ... Sam also had a mission, but who is to say that he actually gives a damn about it anymore? And who is to say that he doesn't break his vows with the woman - as he later actually does?

Again, Arya will not kill anyone because the person "might" be a deserter. She kills the one deserter who has freely acknowledged himself to be a deserter, giving proof of his desertion to anyone who can hear his words.

Quote

Arya is also abandoning her family and Westeros in general for her personal quest of vengeance and honing her skills as an assassin. She is acting much more selfish than Dareon who actually did his duty for quite some time ... whereas Arya just ran and hid and even murdered a man in her brother's service at Harrenhal.

Because she realized how dangerous Roose Bolton was?

She is not abandoning her family. She did everything in her power to go home, even though she actually doubted that Robb (and even her mother) would be happy to see her. She was betrayed by former Stark-men, and she still wanted to go home. She wanted to run to her family members during the Red Wedding, it was Sandor who stopped her. And, as I said above, she wanted to ask Dareon to take her to Eastwatch - why do you think she wanted to go there? To abandon her family and the North?

Quote

1) Had she overcome of her cowardice and fear and revealed who she actually was 2. she could have changed the course of the War of the Five Kings. And she could have prevented the deaths of her brother and mother.

1) You are a bit hard on a 9-year-old girl.

2) I haven't heard this theory yet. 

 

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Lilac & Gooseberries said:

Prove it.

As you’re familiar with The Witcher, I’d compare Arya to Ciri.  Do readers really think Ciri is a psychopath, because she commits murder, with the Rats?  Of course not.  Her life, like Arya’s became a trauma conga line, and she’s desperate to find a place where she can be accepted.  Most of the Rats are really victims of bad luck.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

3 hours ago, Darksnider05 said:

Yes she's like Aerys in that way biting off the breast of her wife and gaining sexual arousal from roasting people.  These post get weirder and weirder.

Yeah, I remember the time when Arya busted a huge nut after killing Daeron or that time when she became a pyromaniac

[Lilac & Gooseberries]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

As you’re familiar with The Witcher, I’d compare Arya to Ciri.  Do readers really think Ciri is a psychopath, because she commits murder, with the Rats?  Of course not.  Her life, like Arya’s became a trauma conga line, and she’s desperate to find a place where she can be accepted.

I agree with you. Both Ciri and Arya thought that they were alone in the world with nothing but treason and enemies around, at least for Ciri the Rats provided a family of some sorts. The difference is that Ciri at the beginning killed people because she enjoyed it without having an excuse, unlike Arya who even with a distorted way she is pledged to the law she knew. To me Dareon’s death is Arya’s way to use his powers because she is hurt and on the same time his way to serve the good side since from her point he was a deserter and there was a specific way of treating with them. In both cases I don’t see them as psychopaths and, I quote, one of the most cruel person there is like Aerys in that way.  

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 hour ago, Lilac & Gooseberries said:

In both cases I don’t see them as psychopaths and, I quote, one of the most cruel person there is like Aerys in that way.  

You forgot, Arya will blow up KL, to avenge Jon's murder. Trust me it makes sense...