Arya's Purpose?

[siyrean]

but for all Arya's fighting for justice... can we truely say she's doing the right thing?

i mean lets go back to where she attacks Joff on the way to kingslanding. was she justified in doing so? she was defending her friend, Joff was being an ass. so of course we think she did the right thing... but because she didn't respect social conventions, she got Mycha and Lady killed. was it right that they were killed? no, but because she didn't follow social conventions and yeild to those in power, Mycha and Lady are dead.

Arya doesn't think. the idea that actions have consequences, can have unjust consequences, doesn't censer her first instints.

i don't care if she adheres to her own personal moral code, there's just simply something not right with that girl.

[the silent speaker]

It's justified on the basis of ancient and absolute rule

No such one. Arya is not the Lady of anywhere and has no right to kill Night's Watch fugitives.

[Poobah]

but for all Arya's fighting for justice... can we truely say she's doing the right thing?

i mean lets go back to where she attacks Joff on the way to kingslanding. was she justified in doing so? she was defending her friend, Joff was being an ass. so of course we think she did the right thing... but because she didn't respect social conventions, she got Mycha and Lady killed. was it right that they were killed? no, but because she didn't follow social conventions and yeild to those in power, Mycha and Lady are dead.

Arya doesn't think. the idea that actions have consequences, can have unjust consequences, doesn't censer her first instints.

i don't care if she adheres to her own personal moral code, there's just simply something not right with that girl.

Depending on the moral philosophy that you adhere to consequences may or may not be irrelevent in determining the morality of an action.

Silent Speaker : you are assuming that only a Lord / Lady could execute a Night's Watch deserter. The impression I got from the various mentionings of deserting from the NW was that *anyone* would be perfectly justified in lynching you. And no, that isn't just by 21st century definitions of justice which involve things like a fair trial and so fourth, but this is a story set in a medieval time.

-Poobs

[AvengingAryaFan]

but for all Arya's fighting for justice... can we truely say she's doing the right thing?

i mean lets go back to where she attacks Joff on the way to kingslanding. was she justified in doing so? she was defending her friend, Joff was being an ass. so of course we think she did the right thing... but because she didn't respect social conventions, she got Mycha and Lady killed. was it right that they were killed? no, but because she didn't follow social conventions and yeild to those in power, Mycha and Lady are dead.

Arya doesn't think. the idea that actions have consequences, can have unjust consequences, doesn't censer her first instints.

i don't care if she adheres to her own personal moral code, there's just simply something not right with that girl.

Yes, let's all avoid riling up the bully, because he might hurt somebody and then it would be OUR fault, right?

Arya embarrasses Joffrey. Are you suggesting that Arya caused Joffrey to order Mycah to be killed? Or that Joffrey had no choice but to have Mycah killed under the circumstances? With a sense of justice like that, I can understand your position better, that's for sure. Mycah being killed was almost entirely Joffrey's fault, with an assist by Sandor who was all too willing to comply. To blame it on Arya is seriously twisted. God forbid you should ever be on a jury. You'd probably argue that a rape was the victim's fault.

I suppose you think that the investors who provided the money were at fault in the Enron meltdown because they gave the conspirators the opportunity to steal?

I'll tell you one thing, I REALLY doubt that GRRM believes that passively submitting to authority defines "right." I'm really sorry for this country that you are probably not alone in your position.

Actions have consequences, indeed. The passive inaction you're suggesting has consequences, too -- it permits people to start wars, torture people, illegally wiretap phones, destroy people's careers with impunity, etc., etc. It permitted Hitler to take over Germany. " "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

[Happy Ent]

But did we see aversion to killing itself in other POVs who kill?

Oh, absolutely.

Jon, for example. Had Arya been in Jon's shoes, Ygritte would be quite dead. Valar murghulis. The man found by Jon's raiding party at Queenscrown? Dead as a fish. Valar murghulis. Would Arya beat herself up about killing the Halfhand? Not for a second. Valar murghulis.

We also get Brienne's first kill related first-hand. It weighs heavily on her, with flash-back scenes to her swordmaster and whatnot. I can't quote from memory, but "It's hard to kill a man". And that fight isn't even murder, it's a straight fight. (Not even that. Brienne is outnumbered.)

Which other POVs kill? Let me see...

In battle, there are quite a few, but that's not what we are discussing, right? In battle, killing is normal. What I want to talk about is that for Arya, killing is normal outside of battle. She murders, or contemplates murder, and thinks nothing of it.

Tyrion murders, if not with his own hands, when he has a singer executed by Bronn. It's certainly not his first choice of action, but you could argue that he shows no regret. In fact, he's quite proud of himself.

At least he had not made the same foolish mistake with Symon Silver Tongue. See there, Father? he wanted to shout. See how fast I learn my lessons?

This is an example of character evolution. Tyrion is becoming more unpleasant, Tywin writ small. Arya's doesn't need that evolution. She kills without remorse from the start. Tyrion later murders Shae in a crime of passion, but I don't think that qualifies as remorseless. We don't know if he beats himself up over that later. Same story with Tywin.

There must be more... Jaime kills in battle, and I'm sure he's fine with it. I don't think that's a relevant data point. He seems to beat himself up over what he did to Bran, even though he has this veneer of arrogant indifference that makes it difficult to get a good estimation. (Would Arya be sorry she had pushed Bran out of the window?) We don't really know how much Cersei is burdened by watching the Blue Bard being tortured.

I have a hard time finding any more examples that compare to Arya's acts. Jon's refusal kill Ygritte and the Old Man seem to be the closest examples. And the only other POV I can think of who immediately looks for murderous solutions to his problems is Jaime. I even think Tyrion or Cersei reflects on that somewhere – Jaime solves his problems with a sword.

It's a good question, I'm sure I'm missing lots of examples, and I may be completely wrong. Please help.

[Gaston de Foix]

I've been enjoying the sturm and drang of this debate from the sidelines. One minor point.

just so we are clear on the language we are using there is a difference between a justification and an excuse for doing something. An excuse might be something like my husband used to beat me regularly and one day he came home with a broken beer bottle and started advancing on me threateningly and I lost it and out of fear and anger I killed him.. That's an excuse because you claim you did something dreadful because of the circumstances.

A justification is saying you did nothing wrong in the first place; my wife was suffering and I didn't want to her to live in pain, so I pulled the plug on her machine. You are making an argument that your decision was entirely defensible and sound in law and morality.

This distinction matters because Arya will rely on one or the other depending on which death you consider. The first man she killed was killed because of necessity which is always an excuse and never a justification. Similarly the guard at Harrenhall.

As for Daeron, well that could only be a justification. Arya killed him because he was a wrongdoer, and by Westerosi standards and by the standards of the Faceless Men, she thought she was justified in killing him, or giving him the gift of death. Depending on your standards you buy that justification or you don't.

if you want to advance the argument globally, as whether Arya's conduct throughout the series was justification or excuse, I think it's possible to make either argument. Arya kills so much because she went through some crazy shit. Arya kills so much because there are so many people who totally deserve to die during the War of the Five Kings. I would favour the first argument based on my sense that Arya might have become an awesome mixture of Brienne and Lyanna if Ned hadn't been beheaded etc etc. , but the arguments aren't necessarily exclusive.

as to her purpose (which is what this thread was originally about). I like JT's theory, I certainly agree a reunion with Nymeria is on the cards and a reunion with Jon and Sansa too. My own guess is that she's going to return to Westeros and kill dragons.

[Maia]

Jon, for example. Had Arya been in Jon's shoes, Ygritte would be quite dead.

So? Jon is conditioned not to kill women, even armed and dangerous ones which Arya, who is female herself wouldn't have been. Did Jon waste a single thought on a wildling he _did_ kill? His first kill, which is supposedly so difficult? No. And if Ygritte had been male she would have toast as well, with as little regret.

Interestingly enough, Robb wasn't too fussed about his underlings murdering common women though. "They lay with the lions", etc.

BTW, I don't remember Bran being affected either, although he "rode" Summer when he tore out Ironman guard's throat and even vicariously tasted his blood.

The man found by Jon's raiding party at Queenscrown? Dead as a fish. Valar murghulis. Would Arya beat herself up about killing the Halfhand? Not for a second.

Not sure how you can say that. Arya didn't kill any innocent bystanders yet, nor comrades-at-arms. Also, you have to take into account that Jon's war experiences were relatively tame up to that point, compared to Arya's. If he had seen and been subject to as much brutality as Arya was - who knows what he would have done? I'd just point out that unlike Brienne when "it was their lives or ours", killing came really easily to Jon. He also came close to killing Alliser Thorne in a fit of rage earlier. He seems to have the same "killer instinct" as Arya does.

Which other POVs kill? Let me see... In battle, there are quite a few, but that's not what we are discussing, right? In battle, killing is normal.

Of course, we need to define what is "battle". When the NW rangers stealthily attacked wildling lookout was that "battle"? How was that different from Arya attacking the stablehand or the guard? Etc.

What I want to talk about is that for Arya, killing is normal outside of battle. She murders, or contemplates murder, and thinks nothing of it.

I really need to re-read, but IIRC, Tyrion often contemplated killing before he actually ordered/ did it, Jaime's first line of thought in adversity is "I wish I could ram a sword through them" (paraphrased), Theon contemplates killing on many occasions and does/orders it in quite a few, Jon nearly killed Alliser Thorne in a fit of rage, Davos wanted to kill Melisandre, Cressen did try to kill her and even Ned wished he could kill some people on occasion, IIRC. Bran day-dreamed about it, too.

Really, the POVs who are used to killing, in battle or out are a rather violent bunch. It is true that they usually don't go through with it - but then unlike Arya they also have a lot of other options to fall back on and considerations to take into account. As we have seen with Jon "it is their lives or ours" is a sufficient justification even for the more ethical POVs. It was also the reason for most of Arya's kills (including Weese - she never could have escaped with him alive).

As for the rest - no northener who felt up to it would have suffered Daeron to live. Really, the only one whom Arya had "judged" was Cheeswyck... and I feel that any of the afore-mentioned POVs would have done the same if they could get away with it, whether they had legal authority or not.

[Happy Ent]

So? Jon is conditioned not to kill women, even armed and dangerous ones which Arya, who is female herself wouldn't have been.

Good point. He actually realises she's a woman before not killing. Example withdrawn.

The other one, though?

It felt queer, picking a man to kill. Half the days of his life had been spent with sword and shield, training for this moment. Did Robb feel this way before his first battle? he wondered, but there was no time to ponder the question. Stonesnake moved as fast as his namesake, leaping down on the wildlings in a rain of pebbles. Jon slid Longclaw from its sheath and followed.

It all seemed to happen in a heartbeat. Afterward Jon could admire the courage of the wildling who reached first for his horn instead of his blade.

That's what I'm looking for. And that's not how Arya's POV would be written.

In an Arya POV we would not be told that it felt queer. Arya wouldn't think about how it feels at all, and she wouldn't think about it "afterward". Arya would kill him, and be done with it. Valar murghulis.

He seems to have the same "killer instinct" as Arya does.

Then I'm still not making my point clear. Arya has no killer instinct, no more than I have a wash-my-hands instinct. What is remarkable about her is the complete psychological absence of a taboo against killing.

How was that different from Arya attacking the stablehand or the guard? Etc.

I'm not a psychologists, but in battle, your opponent is also expected to kill you. It's the whole point of the encounter. Killing a stablehand is not the same.

Theon contemplates killing on many occasions and does/orders it in quite a few,

Certainly not without remorse. His rationalisations fill pages. (At least it feels that way.)

Really, the POVs who are used to killing, in battle or out are a rather violent bunch.

Yes. I'm not claiming that Arya is violent. I'm claiming that she lacks empathy (or "model-of-mind-of-others"), lacks the (natural) emotional barrier towards killing, has a problem with authority, and doesn't play well with others. At the danger of overplaying my hand, I'm claiming that GRRM took a textbook description of the psychological profile of a murderer (namely, the profile sociopath) and modelled Arya on precisely that framework, going so far as to include her fondness for aliases. Moreover, I'm claiming that these "defects" (or aberrations) are present in Arya's personality from the beginning. There is no excuse-from-harshness for her behaviour, the war hasn't shaped her. (Instead, her cognitive make-up has made her survive.)

I'm not claiming she's cruel or violent. I'm even not claiming she's a bad person. And I'm certainly not faulting her for any of this. I really like her character.

As for the rest - no northener who felt up to it would have suffered Daeron to live.

As I said, I find her execution of Daeron completely correct and a logical consequence of her character and her FM training.

--

One more thing: even though I don't think Arya is a particularly bad person, I also find nothing good in her. She has no decency, tact, empathy, sense of justice, or any of these things. (Sansa has it, Cat has it, Jon has it, Tyrion has it. Arya? I'd be hard-pressed to find anything she does that is good without being simultaneously selfish.) The only exception are the prisoners in the crow cages (who get the gift of death). Are there other exceptions? Show me, I'd be happy to change my mind on this issue.

Another exception: But when we leave her character in FfC, she suddenly has a sense of justice because she kills Daeron. She didn't have that before. But that's an act. Arya Stark, the daughter of Winterfell is now just a mask, a glamour, a personality that she can put on and shed at will. Arya Stark of Winterfell executes deserters, as she should.

That's justice. (It doesn't make her a particularly good person.) But using any of her other aliases, Arya wouldn't kill Daeron. That's an example of why she quickly becoming a very good Faceless Man. (And hence "levels up" by getting the warm milk that makes her blind, ushering her into the next stratum of Faceless Manhood.)

[AvengingAryaFan]

I've been enjoying the sturm and drang of this debate from the sidelines. One minor point.

just so we are clear on the language we are using there is a difference between a justification and an excuse for doing something. An excuse might be something like my husband used to beat me regularly and one day he came home with a broken beer bottle and started advancing on me threateningly and I lost it and out of fear and anger I killed him.. That's an excuse because you claim you did something dreadful because of the circumstances.

A justification is saying you did nothing wrong in the first place; my wife was suffering and I didn't want to her to live in pain, so I pulled the plug on her machine. You are making an argument that your decision was entirely defensible and sound in law and morality.

This distinction matters because Arya will rely on one or the other depending on which death you consider. The first man she killed was killed because of necessity which is always an excuse and never a justification. Similarly the guard at Harrenhall.

As for Daeron, well that could only be a justification. .....

Now how did you conclude that necessity is not a justification? You just baldly state it, but it's backwards. Necessity is always a justification.

The only reason your abused wife would have needed an excuse is if it wasn't necessary to kill the guy. If she reasonably believed her life was in danger (necessary to protect herself), then she was fully justified, even in US law, in offing the bastard.

Yes, many people wrestle with killing. Arya herself was pushed into it gradually. The fact that killing is so common in Westeros just shows how many people have gotten inured to it ... including Arya. Arya kills without perceptible remorse ... but show me an example when she's not justified! Then compare that to the killings by people that you and I and everybody can agree are evil. For example, Cersei sends a knight to kill Bronn, just because he insulted her by naming his son Tyrion. LF killed Dontos just because he knew too much. Gregor seems to kill for the least advantage.

[Maia]

In an Arya POV we would not be told that it felt queer. Arya wouldn't think about how it feels at all, and she wouldn't think about it "afterward". Arya would kill him, and be done with it. Valar murghulis.

The man whom Jon remembered afterward wasn't even the one he killed! He never spared a single thought for _that_ one. And yes, he knew in advance that he was going to kill somebody, so he thought about it briefly. I see no barrier here though. Jon killed his man quickly and efficiently and felt neither regret no any after-reactions. That was his first kill, the one who is supposed to be most difficult.

As to Arya's first kill - she tells the stablehand to stay away. After he grabs her hand, hard (and he has a pitchfolk in his hand, so he isn't exactly unarmed):

"Everything Syrio Forel taught her vanished in a heartbeat. In that insant of sudden terror... She struck him with a pointy end, driving the blade upward with a wild, hysterical strength"

"Arya stood over the body, still and frightened in the face of death... She had to get away... someplace safe from the stableboy's accusing eyes."

So, it seems to me that Jon is the one who is a totally cool cucumber about his first killing. Of course, he was training for it and expecting it and he was older. But still, that is not a usual reaction, IMHO. Nor do I remember Bran reacting after he directed and experienced killing of a guard while warged into Summer. Of the 3 Starks kids POVs whose first kill we witnessed, Arya reacted the most actually. She was the most normal.

I'm not a psychologists, but in battle, your opponent is also expected to kill you. It's the whole point of the encounter. Killing a stablehand is not the same.

It wasn't supposed to be a battle. Jon and Ebben would have killed them while asleep if they could have. Jon would have killed Ygritte before she properly came awake if she had been male. And Robb _did_ attack sleeping men. So, they both were quite ready to deny their enemies a chances to defend themselves. As to the stableboy, he was bigger, stronger had a pitchfolk in his hand and wanted to capture Arya and give her to people who _would_ have killed her. He was an enemy. I see no difference, honestly. It didn't matter to Jon that the wildlings were asleep and their poor equipment had no chance against his Valyrian steel. "It was their lives or ours".

Certainly not without remorse. His rationalisations fill pages. (At least it feels that way.)

Sometimes, usually when it concerns the people he knows. Sometimes it is just - "they quickly killed the old and the young and raped and kidnapped the rest" and he moves on.

One more thing: even though I don't think Arya is a particularly bad person, I also find nothing good in her. She has no decency, tact, empathy, sense of justice, or any of these things. (Sansa has it, Cat has it, Jon has it, Tyrion has it. Arya? I'd be hard-pressed to find anything she does that is good without being simultaneously selfish.)

See my posts above. Arya actually tries to save somebody at the great risk to her life on a regular basis and certainly more often than most other POVs.

Gotta run now.

[a_homeless_harpy]

One more thing: even though I don't think Arya is a particularly bad person, I also find nothing good in her. She has no decency, tact, empathy, sense of justice, or any of these things. (Sansa has it, Cat has it, Jon has it, Tyrion has it. Arya? I'd be hard-pressed to find anything she does that is good without being simultaneously selfish.) The only exception are the prisoners in the crow cages (who get the gift of death). Are there other exceptions? Show me, I'd be happy to change my mind on this issue.

Arya was several years younger than Sansa when she witnessed the decapitulation of her own father and then many other, sometimes worse, attrocities, travelling with Yoren and being a captive in Riverlands. These conditions prevented her from developing empathy, sense of justice and other nice and noble notions. This is the fate of war orphans and you can find the examples in every war-ravaged country: in Africa, in ex-Yougoslavia, in Nazi death camps, everywhere. Children want to survive by any possible means. If the circumstances force them to kill, they will kill, even their relatives, take drugs, torture, rape etc. Don't expect Arya to cry over poor hurt innocents when nobody cried over her. She did many selfish things mainly because she was forced to fend for herself and in these circumstances being selfish helps a lot. I see a possibility for her to improve, however, just because she is still relatively young. If she is given the right example, a person with strong personality who could influence her, I am sure she will change. After all, she was more pliable than Sansa when her father asked her not to quarrel in KL. She understood and obeyed. It's a pity her father was murdered soon afterwards. From that time nobody could or wanted to occupy his place.

[Happy Ent]

See my posts above. Arya actually tries to save somebody at the great risk to her life on a regular basis and certainly more often than most other POVs.

The little girl + three prisoners saved by Arya in Clash are a particularly good example. Random act of kindness, at great danger to herself. I had forgotten that. (It's tangential to my point, however. It's not important for me to argue that Arya is not a particularly nice person; I'm sorry I brought that up.)

[Gaston de Foix]

Happy Ent, I have always enjoyed your posts, and even where we have disagreed you've usually had good reasons for saying what you say. Here, I don't know. I think you are seriously misreading Arya. I'm just going to take two or three lines

"I'm claiming that she lacks empathy (or "model-of-mind-of-others"), lacks the (natural) emotional barrier towards killing, has a problem with authority, and doesn't play well with others."

Arya lacks empathy? Read her chapter in the AGOT where she mourns her friend the butcher boy and is comforted by Ned Stark. Or the chapter where she refuses to let the men who were going to join the Night's Watch fight and die for her and gives herself up. Or the chapter where she tries to rescue Gendry from Gregor Clegane's men. Although she fails and is captured, as Peregrin Took said of Boromir, the gesture is no less valiant for that. It's true that she has trouble trusting, but that's with good reason as we go deeper into the series.

"What is remarkable about her is the complete psychological absence of a taboo against killing"

Really? Re-read her conversation with Beric Dondarrion

"Arya didn't know how much Robb would pay for her, though. He was a king now, not the boy she'd left at Winterfell with snow melting in his hair. And if he knew the things she'd done, the stableboy and the guard at Harrenhal and all "What if my brother doesn't want to ransom me?"

"Why would you think that?" asked Lord Beric.

"Well," Arya said, "my hair's messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard." Robb wouldn't care about that, probably, but her mother would. Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies. just thinking of it made Arya try to comb her hair with her fingers, but it was all tangles and mats, and all she did was tear some out. "I ruined that gown that Lady Smallwood gave me, and I don't sew so good." She chewed her lip. "I don't sew very well, I mean. Septa Mordane used to say I had a blacksmith's hands."

Sure she gives excuses in speech, but we have a pretty clear insight into her mind. She recognises there's a taboo against killing, she's just suppressed the guilt, and being a child doesn't a very clear sense of proportionality and hierarchy in wrongdoing.

"I also find nothing good in her"

That's just an astonishing claim. I have no words. Even if you ignore, as you seem to do, that Arya has changed over the books as both Jon and Tyrion have changed, her chapters in AFFC show her defending Sam against Bravos, missing Jon terribly, feeling sorry for little Narbo, and working fantastically hard as Cat of the Canals , in short showing qualities of sympathy, courage, love and determination and shrewd business sense. These aren't good things?

[Happy Ent]

I see a possibility for her to improve, however, just because she is still relatively young. If she is given the right example, a person with strong personality who could influence her, I am sure she will change.

Hm... why do you all want that?

Isn't it clear that GRRM wants Arya to become a remorseless killer? What other purpose could he have in mind? What role should she play if not a super-ninja-Faceless Man-trained-warg-Level 20 thief. He's writing a fantasy novel, after all.

And if that is GRRM's plan, then why should he not have chose then textbook sociopath archetype as a framework? She fits it perfectly. How do you think the alchemist started? What GRRM is doing is to take a standard fantasy archetype (Level 20 thief) and give us a plausible human being behind that. He takes a completely well-known human character (the sociopath from popular psycholgy) as a base frame, and then puts her through the necessary evolution (alienation, training) to arrive at that archetype.

Why should it be in his interest to change her back, to "improve" her? We would a reader want her to become just a tomboy with a heart of gold? To me, GRRM's plan seems obvious, and the execution so is just what I'd expect. (With a possible criticism of the deus ex machina-like decision for Arya to save Jaquen, thereby indebting the faceless order to her, which gives her access to the training. It's all a bit too neat and too planned, down to the coin which she just happens to present to just the right captain.)

Of course, I could be wrong.

[AvengingAryaFan]

... Yes. I'm not claiming that Arya is violent. I'm claiming that she lacks empathy (or "model-of-mind-of-others"), lacks the (natural) emotional barrier towards killing, has a problem with authority, and doesn't play well with others. At the danger of overplaying my hand, I'm claiming that GRRM took a textbook description of the psychological profile of a murderer (namely, the profile sociopath) and modelled Arya on precisely that framework, going so far as to include her fondness for aliases. Moreover, I'm claiming that these "defects" (or aberrations) are present in Arya's personality from the beginning. There is no excuse-from-harshness for her behaviour, the war hasn't shaped her. (Instead, her cognitive make-up has made her survive.)

...

One more thing: even though I don't think Arya is a particularly bad person, I also find nothing good in her. She has no decency, tact, empathy, sense of justice, or any of these things. (Sansa has it, Cat has it, Jon has it, Tyrion has it. Arya? I'd be hard-pressed to find anything she does that is good without being simultaneously selfish.) The only exception are the prisoners in the crow cages (who get the gift of death). Are there other exceptions? Show me, I'd be happy to change my mind on this issue. ...

Have you been reading the posts? Decency? Tact? Empathy? Sense of justice? That's EXACTLY what Arya has that the "evil" murderers don't. And the distinction is, in my view, the literary purpose of Arya.

Maia set forth a long list of Arya's compassionate acts. Decency? Arya didn't give the prisoners the gift of death, Anguy or somebody did. Arya gave them water. Arya tried to save Lommy despite his cowardice and attempted bullying, and tried to save the crying girl despite her worthlessness. Arya saved the three men despite Biter's threats against her. Sense of justice? Arya added Gregor et al.'s names to her list because of the things they did to the villagers, not to Arya. Arya stood up to Joffrey in his bullying of Mycah. Arya is furious at the Hound for unjustifiably killing Mycah. These points, and I'm sure there are others, demonstrate empathy, decency, sense of justice, and extraordinary courage.

Yes, she lacks the emotional barrier to killing. She was introduced to killing gradually, starting with when the stable hand was about to turn her in to the people who were wholesale slaughtering her family, and is fully inured to it by the time she kills Dareon, perhaps with a little help from the FM.

But don't worry about changing your mind -- you don't have to believe that Arya is a heroine, I'll do it for you.

[A wilding]

Stoneheart and the BwB blow off any of Brienne's words they don't want to credit as being "wind."

There is no mention of Jaime's baby threat, nor of the "Regards from Jaime" offered by the unknown soldier who finished Robb; yet you seem to feel that a) Stoneheart was aware of those statements from or about Jaime, and that trusting those examples of "wind" was justified, while ignoring Brienne's "wind" is also justified. They simply picked and chose what to believe, to "justify" Stoneheart coercing Brienne to murder Jaime.

We heard the "Jaime Lannister sends his regards" line in Catelyn's own PoV. It seems highly unlikely she has forgotten it!

While words may be wind, there is some distinction between Catelyn on the one hand hearing a man saying "Jaime Lannister sends his regards" while murdering her son in front of her eyes; and on the other hand hearing Brienne saying "Jaime doesn't deserve to die, but I err can't really give any reason for it except that I am obviously in love with him".

Lets be clear about Jaime's action. He had promised to see Arya and Sansa were returned. Instead he makes a mere gesture of sending Brienne after Sansa, while allowing a Lannister price to remain on her head. Brienne always had little chance of ever finding Sansa, and little chance of keeping her safe even if she did. Jaime also allowed the Lannisters to set up a fake Arya - and while Stoneheart probably knows she is fake, the letter of Jaime's commitment would surely require a public declaration of Arya's death.

From Stoneheart's PoV she has absolutely every justification for wanting Jaime dead, his token gesture of sending Brienne after Sansa, even if Stoneheart were to believe it, is trivial when balanced against his crimes. She also has absolutely every justification for ordering a sworn follower to kill him, and to execute the sworn follower if they refuse.

You may believe that honour and following your sworn word are evil concepts, and possibly this is the point GRRM is making. But I don't think it is possible to argue that in Westeros terms Stoneheart is not entirely justified in her actions.

[AvengingAryaFan]

Arya was several years younger than Sansa when she witnessed the decapitulation of her own father and then many other, sometimes worse, attrocities, travelling with Yoren and being a captive in Riverlands. These conditions prevented her from developing empathy, sense of justice and other nice and noble notions. This is the fate of war orphans and you can find the examples in every war-ravaged country: in Africa, in ex-Yougoslavia, in Nazi death camps, everywhere. Children want to survive by any possible means. If the circumstances force them to kill, they will kill, even their relatives, take drugs, torture, rape etc. Don't expect Arya to cry over poor hurt innocents when nobody cried over her. She did many selfish things mainly because she was forced to fend for herself and in these circumstances being selfish helps a lot. I see a possibility for her to improve, however, just because she is still relatively young. If she is given the right example, a person with strong personality who could influence her, I am sure she will change. After all, she was more pliable than Sansa when her father asked her not to quarrel in KL. She understood and obeyed. It's a pity her father was murdered soon afterwards. From that time nobody could or wanted to occupy his place.

Dang, homeless, I know you're trying to defend Arya, but that's just wrong! The incredible thing is that she DID retain empathy, sense of justice, and other nice and noble notions. See my post above for a few examples, and if you think you'll be able to come up with more. Arya consistently acts charitably, and never considers herself except insofar as staying alive.

[AvengingAryaFan]

We heard the "Jaime Lannister sends his regards" line in Catelyn's own PoV. It seems highly unlikely she has forgotten it!

...

From Stoneheart's PoV she has absolutely every justification for wanting Jaime dead, his token gesture of sending Brienne after Sansa, even if Stoneheart were to believe it, is trivial when balanced against his crimes. She also has absolutely every justification for ordering a sworn follower to kill him, and to execute the sworn follower if they refuse.

You may believe that honour and following your sworn word are evil concepts, and possibly this is the point GRRM is making. But I don't think it is possible to argue that in Westeros terms Stoneheart is not entirely justified in her actions.

First, quite right, of course Catelyn heard the assertion that "Jaime sends his regards." Though I have no idea where the assertion came from, because I don't in fact think that Jaime had any hand in the Red Wedding. The bearer is not identified or explained.

I do not concede that Stoneheart is justified, however. The conceded point is minor; I argue that she had ample information to conclude that Brienne was doing her very best to keep the very vow that she had made to Catelyn, and did not deserve to die. In addition to her previous knowledge of Brienne's honor, she should have known that Brienne had just risked her life to save a bunch of orphans. So on evidence that she had before her, Catelyn was incorrect. IMHO she was just trying to coerce Brienne into murdering Jaime ... which is a wrong thing to do, and a wrong goal (I think - we see Jaime's thought, after all).

But equally important is the fact that we, as readers, are quite certain that none of the three deserves to die. We, as readers, have the sort of knowledge generally limited to a god. We can see that Stoneheart's nod to legal form does nothing to make her decision correct in fact. And it is this error of an execution that "follows the rules," contrasted with the executions by Arya that we, as godly readers, know to be justified in fact, but which nonetheless fail to follow the rules in form -- it is this contrast that IMHO illustrates a principle important to GRRM: justice isn't in the form, but in the fact. Distrust authority, look to your own heart for the truth, etc. Just because authority says somebody deserves to die doesn't mean it is so, and just because there's no authority to say somebody should die, doesn't mean they shouldn't.

[AvengingAryaFan]

Hm... why do you all want that?

Isn't it clear that GRRM wants Arya to become a remorseless killer? What other purpose could he have in mind? What role should she play if not a super-ninja-Faceless Man-trained-warg-Level 20 thief. He's writing a fantasy novel, after all.

And if that is GRRM's plan, then why should he not have chose then textbook sociopath archetype as a framework?

...

Of course, I could be wrong.

Boy, I'll say you're wrong.

Arya may not be GRRM's favorite character, but she's apparently Parris's. You think he lavishes so much attention on her because he doesn't like her? You think he shows all the sentivities and yet the fierce determination and strength, just because he wants to create a sociopathic killer? Think again!

She is NOT a textbook sociopath. Damn, the APA definition of sociopath covers half the world! She certainly isn't "hostile to society," which is a perfectly reasonable dictionary definition, but to the contrary is passionately interested in being kind to people and in seeing that evil people (who ARE hostile to society) get punished for their evil acts.

And that's GRRM's point: Arya breaks all the rules and conventions, and even kills people, but far from being a bad person is an admirable heroine.

So Arya's literary purpose is to illustrate that truth. Arya's plot purpose is at least partly to avenge the monstrous wrongs done to the Starks. I hope.

[Insert Edit]

Sociopath Arya:

As Bravo #1 insults Sam the Slayer to his pudgy face, Arya watches from the shadows. A night's watch member about to be impaled on a sword! Cool! Bloody Westerosi anyway. Didn't help her when she needed it! It's going to be so much fun to see this fat-ass in black get his comeuppance. <shrinks into shadow with a grin on her face - stifling a giggle>

I'm pretty sure that's how that went right? Scratch Sam from the novels!