AFFC Reread Project - Arya

[Errant Bard]

Cats can bound, and they also like to be on rooftops, what's wrong with bounding over rooftops? It's just a fancy way of walking over rooftops, a feat that even somnabulic people can achieve.

[Happy Ent]

Well, I am convinced. Arya has warged into a cat. Very good catch!

[sh_wulff]

Arya is still alone and still reaching for a pack. As she strives to identify with herself a Cat, she may have formed some connection to the felines.

that may be true...but cats are generally solitary animals... which does make sense as Arya has lost her pack

[Seventh Pup]

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal stalking shadows through the fog.

Another thing that makes me think that she was in a physical form, like a cat, is the verbs GRRM uses. If it was merely her soul floating aimlessly around Braavos , you would expect verbs like "float" or "glide". Instead Arya "prowled", "stalked" "bounded" and "padded" through Braavos, which makes it sound more like she was in a solid form.

If it's true that her warging powers are growing this leads to a whole host of possibilities. One of the most practical is that of an assassin. If she could take control of a targets horse or dog she could kill anybody, and it would be nothing but a terrible accident. I don't think this is where her powers are going though. (At least I kind of hope not, I love Arya but not as an unstoppable assassin that can kill using animals).

Another interesting possibility is that since Arya is now blind if her warging became her vision. I admit I like this possibility. I like to think that while she is performing her duties to the temple blind during the day, at night she is exploring Braavos or the forests of the Riverlands. I think her becoming blind will make her develop her warging more.

It also raises the question that I have long had for Bran. Can dragons be warged into? If Dany stops by Braavos on her way to Westeros it would be an interesting to see what happens.

[Lupigis]

OK, even though I was sceptical at first, you guys are starting to convince me that maybe Arya is warging into a cat instead of Nymeria.

However, that still doesn't explain why her connection with Nymeria is now broken. Arya has been warging into her direwolf for every night for more than a year - but after getting the potion she's not! This can't be a coincidence.

The kindly man gave Arya the potion specifically because "Arya Stark" had returned. He clearly wanted to remove Aryas "Starkness", to help her become no one. It looks like he succeeded, even if Arya has found a substitute in some Braavosi cat.

[Errant Bard]

That can be a coincidence. The only thing written is she drinks the stuff, sleeps and wakes up blind. It's really too open to make any conclusion. I have my theory about it, that greatly differs from yours but I won't discuss it here. It has been beaten to death in the normal forums .

By the way, while we are talking about this: in Arya 1 there is this line:

The doors closed behind her, and for a moment she was blind.

So don't be even so sure her blindless is real. (although there is 99% chances it is)

[rpthomps]

By the way, while we are talking about this: in Arya 1 there is this line:

So don't be even so sure her blindless is real. (although there is 99% chances it is)

Actually, you have convinced me that she is NOT blind. Perhaps she has depended on her WARG sight for so long that once she drinks the potion, which inhibits this special sight, she thinks she is blind. She is not blind in any sense that we know of, rather her second sight has been eliminated.

[Mauvka]

The kindly man gave Arya the potion specifically because "Arya Stark" had returned. He clearly wanted to remove Aryas "Starkness", to help her become no one. It looks like he succeeded, even if Arya has found a substitute in some Braavosi cat.

I don't think the potion had such an effect. I am basing this theory prtly on the evidence that Arya has had multitudes of cats following her around for the past 9? months. Perhaps her bond to Nymeria is not completely broken, but weaker than the new ties Arya is forming.

I too would like to see Arya living a secret night life that even the Kindly Old Man knows nothing about. What are the chances that he is aware of wargs?

[ThomasFoster]

I'd like to move back a few points and address the question of whether "Kindly old man" is the real face and personality of Arya's mentor. If that appearance is just a facade do we have any reason to believe it's always the same person behind it?

[Lord Eddard's Shame]

The House of Black and White disturbs me for quite a few reasons, which I will get to later.

I don't believe Arya will in any way be permanently blinded. She is now in the first stages of being an acolyte, like the blind boy she sees when she first enters the temple who is in charge of lighting the candles. It is like her fencing master used to tell her (who I think is Jaqen, I believe Syrio was captured by the gold cloaks and thrown in the black cells where he morphed into Jaqen to confuse them then took the black to escape, but that's neither here nor there) "Listen with your ears." They are teaching Arya to use her other senses to see, just as they taught her to use her eyes to tell if someone is lying rather than her ears. A voice is easy to disguise, one's tells are somewhat more difficult. Once she learns that lesson her sight will come back to her, I'm sure.

As for her warging . . . Even if Arya did warg into a cat (good call there, I never thought of that one!) it does not mean her bond with Nymeria would be severed, we just never saw another instance of her warging after that. Bran steps into Hodor once, yet maintains a link with Summer. And that Wildling guy had six-skins. You can have more than one Warg. I'm guessing that it does work on dragons and I think that Jon, after he marries Dany, will use it to good effect on his dragon.

Now for why the Faceless Men and the House of Black and White disturb me.

The Kindly Old Man explains that all religions have a god of death. The Seven have the Stranger, the Quohorik the Black Goat, etc. The thing that disturbs me is that R'hollor, God of Fire, has The Other. Mellisandre tells Jon in ASoS that "life is light and warmth, only death is cold." If the Faceless Men serve the gods of death, who are all one, does that mean they serve the Others?

This worries me further when taken in conjection with Bran's story and Coldhands who cannot cross the Wall, which was built only to keep Others out. Even wights can cross. But more on that on some Bran thread

I don't understand why people think someone hired a Faceless Man to kill Balon Greyjoy. Where is the proof of that? It is quite possible that he simply fell during a storm. I don't think R'hollor is above using a gust of wind as his agent, though I suppose the other two did die at the hands of other men. Still, I doubt we'll ever know if it was more than just an accident.

Also, I read something in the beginning of this thread that I thought was intriguing.

In any case, the Faceless Man is now free to continue to Oldtown to kill Pate. As we already observed, he needs Pate to be a criminal in order to kill him. This makes me believe that there is no contract on Pate in particular. Pate is just a convenient new identity. Faceless Men cannot just kill out of convenience. They need a debt. However, Faceless Men can kill criminals, including thieves (Pate) and oathbreakers (Daeron). Pate having been accused of stealing isn't enough.

This is an interesting take on the Faceless Man code, one I had not thought of. I'm not sure if it is correct, however, but the fact that after Arya commited a "righteous murder", killing a man guilty of a crime which demands capital punishment, she is made an acolyte indicates that it may very well be. Another idea, however, is that the Faceless Man in Oldtown needed the identity of someone within the Citadel and Pate was a good candidate because he is stupid and uninteresting, yet has access to the Archmaesters. Gaining access to a key which will open any door is also nothing to be scoffed at. We need to wait until we know more about his mission in Oldtown.

This was in the first real post:

Arya concludes on page 93 that Bravos has no trees, yet on the Titan’s Daughter she sees “slopes covered with pine and spruce†(pg 90)

In Sam's first chapter after reaching Bravos he is ruminating about the price of firewood and states that the lords of Bravos will not permit people to chop down the trees surrounding the city because they act as a windbreak.

[Barba]

I don't understand why people think someone hired a Faceless Man to kill Balon Greyjoy. Where is the proof of that? It is quite possible that he simply fell during a storm. I don't think R'hollor is above using a gust of wind as his agent, though I suppose the other two did die at the hands of other men. Still, I doubt we'll ever know if it was more than just an accident.

It's because of that old woman (Ghost of high heart) in the SOS. Baloon died during 2nd half of SOS, and she had a dream: "I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings."

Man without a face is faceless man, and Drowned crow is Euron.

[Lord Eddard's Shame]

Good catch! I'd forgotten about that bit. I had thought the man without a face was Balon himself and the drowned crow with seaweed was Aeron Damphair. This makes much more sense. Should've seen that myself! It's been a while since I read ASoS though.

Where is that theory posted? Has anyone mentioned that it could be Jaqen? There is enough time between when he left Harrenhall and arived in Oldtown for him to have done it. And it's sort of on the way if he were to take the quickest route to the sea and then take ship to Pike and from Pike to Oldtown.

[shadowbinding shoe]

About the choices the kindly man offers to Arya before she commits herlself to them I thought it very manipulative and quite a bit cruel. He offers her a chance to become a fighter (a bravosi), a lover/mistress (one of the braavosi high class courtesans) or a chance to return to return to her homeland (a ship to Westeros).

Each of these paths holds a part of Arya's life: she has long trained to be a swordswoman, as a noble daughter she was expected to marry for political purposes and she belongs in westeros where her heritage lies but the way the kindly man represents them make them seem empty and petty.

Arya doesn't want to become a fighter for fighting's sake like the empty headed bravosi of Braavos that pick up fights with anyone they see, she wants to be a fighter so she could protect the weak (herself included but also her friends) and give justice. the kindly man make her training with her sword seem an empty thing. Instead of a knight he make her seem like a sellsword

The same is true with his offer to make her a courtesan. Instead of marriage which holds sanctity in it and love perhaps he offers her to become a prostitute. a high class prostitute but a prostitute all the same. The ideals her mother taught her are mocked.

Finally he offers her a chance to return home. At first glance this looks like an attractive offer but what is a place when it is no longer home? just a piece of land where she can't have family, safety, or even a house of her own. she can try and reach her brother on the wall but she doesn't have a place on the wall and how could she imposition her brother by asking for it?

To me the offer the kindly man gives her is just his way of crushing any dreams she might have had or will have in the future.

[Arataniello]

That can be a coincidence. The only thing written is she drinks the stuff, sleeps and wakes up blind. It's really too open to make any conclusion. I have my theory about it, that greatly differs from yours but I won't discuss it here. It has been beaten to death in the normal forums .

By the way, while we are talking about this: in Arya 1 there is this line:

The doors closed behind her, and for a moment she was blind.

So don't be even so sure her blindless is real. (although there is 99% chances it is)

In either the first or second chapter of Arya's in AFfC, there is a reference to a "blind acolyte" working in the temple. I suspect that the blindness Arya is experiencing is a part of her progression in the Faceless Men organization.

Aratan

[aspasia]

About the choices the kindly man offers to Arya before she commits herlself to them I thought it very manipulative and quite a bit cruel. He offers her a chance to become a fighter (a bravosi), a lover/mistress (one of the braavosi high class courtesans) or a chance to return to return to her homeland (a ship to Westeros).

Each of these paths holds a part of Arya's life: she has long trained to be a swordswoman, as a noble daughter she was expected to marry for political purposes and she belongs in westeros where her heritage lies but the way the kindly man represents them make them seem empty and petty.

Arya doesn't want to become a fighter for fighting's sake like the empty headed bravosi of Braavos that pick up fights with anyone they see, she wants to be a fighter so she could protect the weak (herself included but also her friends) and give justice. the kindly man make her training with her sword seem an empty thing. Instead of a knight he make her seem like a sellsword

The same is true with his offer to make her a courtesan. Instead of marriage which holds sanctity in it and love perhaps he offers her to become a prostitute. a high class prostitute but a prostitute all the same. The ideals her mother taught her are mocked.

Finally he offers her a chance to return home. At first glance this looks like an attractive offer but what is a place when it is no longer home? just a piece of land where she can't have family, safety, or even a house of her own. she can try and reach her brother on the wall but she doesn't have a place on the wall and how could she imposition her brother by asking for it?

To me the offer the kindly man gives her is just his way of crushing any dreams she might have had or will have in the future.

Doesn't he also offer to find a husband for her, and lists several different options for kinds of husband and therefore family life? I don't see his offers as cruel or mocking at all. He's reminding her that there are lots of other lives she might live other than being a devotee of the God of Death. I think he is actually correct that Arya wants to stay primarily because she thinks there is nowhere else for her to go-- she thinks just those words. But she has experienced so much danger and trauma and FAILURE chasing goals, trying to get places, that she now wants to stay the one place she has found safety and kindness. The only reason I see for Arya wishing to become an acolyte of the House of Black and White is that the kindly man has challenged her, said that the life is difficult and that he does not think she can give up herself. Being Arya, she has to say "yes I can!" even though she has no reason to DESIRE giving up all of herself. She wants to keep her memories of Winterfell... but tries to want to give them up because the kindly man doubted she could.

So I don't read the kindly man's offers the way you do at all. He gently challenges her assumption that being able to fight all the time is important. She has the chance to have a life where she does not have to fight. Many different kinds of lives, depending on what she really wants. She does not have to become a Faceless Man just because the House of Black and White has been a refuge for her. He is saying that they will help her even if she doesn't become one of them, but that they aren't an orphanage; if she wants to stay, she has to serve.

Does Arya have a vocation to serve the God of Many Faces? Or is she just fooling herself because she wants to show the kindly man he is wrong, while serving them out of gratitude?

aspasia

[The Dwarf of Braavos]

... I think that the only realistic chance Arya has of breaking whatever conditioning comes with FM training is in being a Warg while not knowing that she is one. It is possible that the FM have never tried to train a Warg before, and it might trip them up.

I recently stumbled upon this board and love reading everyone's thoughts and comments. I do have 1 queston that this quote made me think back upon... something that's always bothered me.

When Jaqen 'killed' Chiswick (sp?) in ACOK, his dog (that he raised from a pup) ripped his throat out - and it was odd enough that it was commented on by several people but written off as part of the curse of Harrenhal. Is it at all possible that Jaqen, and maybe other FM's, have warg-like abilities or are wargs themselves, and that's how he was able to pull this off?

TDOB

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Is it at all possible that Jaqen, and maybe other FM's, have warg-like abilities or are wargs themselves, and that's how he was able to pull this off?

That's not how he was able to pull it off. In "Cat of the Canals", the waif mentions a poison known as basilisk blood that can induce "violent madness, in beasts as well as men." It also makes meat smell savory, and so is an easy thing to convince a dog to eat.

[The Dwarf of Braavos]

That's not how he was able to pull it off. In "Cat of the Canals", the waif mentions a poison known as basilisk blood that can induce "violent madness, in beasts as well as men." It also makes meat smell savory, and so is an easy thing to convince a dog to eat.

Hmm, maybe, but I don't know... JH was shut away in the dungeons of KL for who know's how long and then pulled (literally, in chains) for days/weeks by the NW towards the wall - in both cases as a prisoner, kept under their harshest conditions. I just can't see him being able to hang on to his bag of poisons throughout this time. I can't really see him taking the time to restock after he's released (before Arya starts naming names for him)... Maybe, but it seems thin to me.

Anyway - thanks for the reply TFM, I appreciate feeling like I'm participating in the discussion

TDOB

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

He didn't necessarily still have a store of potions. He may have stolen into the maester's cell when the maester was consulting with Lord Tywin, or perhaps it was easily manufactured from local ingredients.

[shadowbinding shoe]

The House of Black and White and its disciples seem to have support from various outsiders such as the fisherman that houses Arya (he knows she goes back to the temple every month). Are these people that got favors from this religion and are now in debt to it? The 'kindly man' offers Arya chances at new lives apparently for free but could it be that if she had accepted one of them, one day someone would have knocked on her door and demanded repayment?

He didn't necessarily still have a store of potions. He may have stolen into the maester's cell when the maester was consulting with Lord Tywin, or perhaps it was easily manufactured from local ingredients.

The maester's stock is the only realistic way he could have obtained it. The prime ingredient this poison is made of comes from Basilisks which only live in the Eastern continent