Why on earth did Arya not have...

[Ser Malthred Storm]

Cuz she had an iron coin? j/k

The three deaths were GRRM's take on the genie and the three wishes, the first two are mistakes and the third is to try to make up for the first two. We, as the all knowing adult readers could easily give her three or four people that were better choices, but she is a traumitized, reactive child. What is she, nine? She is not going to think about the big picture.

She wouldn't need to. Cersei and Joffrey executed her father. (Technically not Cersei, but she doesn't know that).

[lyvyathan]

Cuz she had an iron coin? j/k

The three deaths were GRRM's take on the genie and the three wishes, the first two are mistakes and the third is to try to make up for the first two. We, as the all knowing adult readers could easily give her three or four people that were better choices, but she is a traumitized, reactive child. What is she, nine? She is not going to think about the big picture.

Yeah, but what about the death of the people she's praying for every night? Its not the big picture here - its Arya's picture.

[Blaer Dayle]

A story has a certain integrity about it - but when it starts to evolve or change - it might not be so good. Adding Deux Ex Machina subplots to save the main plots tears at that integrity. I give you another comparison - the Eagles in Lord of the Rings - When I first read it as a kid, I thought it was wonderful that they suddenly showed up to save the day in book 3. But thinking about it later - you have to wonder about it - "Where were the damn things all this time?" etc...

So throwing in a super ninja genie into the mix - and letting Arya use him to kill off minor characters is a bit like that.

Fair enough, I've always thought the same about the eagles myself, but Tolkien did explain why they chose to hide for so long, and gave hints earlier in The Hobbit that they would not fly far from their homes until there was no other choice.

In much the same manner, Jaqen H'ghar is not Deus Ex Machina, as the faceless men were already mentioned (albeit in passing) when the small council discussed assassinating Dany the first time. Petyr Baelish mentions that they are the best in their field, and makes a passing remark that there may be some magic behind their guild. The hint was thrown in there that one would show up in the story, and although he came to the character who needed him most which may seem like a cheap way out, that was GRRM's intention all along, so I say it is perfectly justified to take place in the world he created. Also, I feel that it will play into Arya's story a lot in the future, with the coin, "valar morghulis" and her assassination of the gate guard. I haven't read past some of ASOS yet, but I feel he is there for a reason and not just some plot device GRRM used to get Arya out of a tight spot.

[lyvyathan]

In much the same manner, Jaqen H'ghar is not Deus Ex Machina, as the faceless men were already mentioned (albeit in passing) when the small council discussed assassinating Dany the first time. Petyr

I don't mind the idea of a clan of assassins. But something in the way GRRm writes H'gar as an unstoppable ASOIAF Terminator makes it weird.

At least with the Dragons, the Direwolves even the Others - they had some limitations

I did not like how GRRM throws in magic super ninjas, and Melisandre magical uterus ... and I wish it had been written differently imho.

[Ser Barristan BadAss]

The discussion was about H'gar and Arya's relationship with the convenient killer assassin who seems freakishly unstoppable. It didn't have anything to do with Mel's magical uterus. Please keep up and stop making silly remarks.

Just because Dany gets a trio of dragons doesn't mean that everyone else should get their own killer apps.

I didn't particularly appreciate H'gar and the faceless men because of their superhuman strength of their killer abilities which begs the question - why aren't they a major force in the politics of the 7 Kingdoms and the eastern lands? And why do they simply allow random beggar girls from defeated Noble houses to wander into their institution?

Sorry, unless I've missed sosmething that's not happened in Clash of Kings, you could of used a spoiler there. Jaqen has no special abilities to make him an incredible super human murderer (apart from face changing) he's just a very good assassin. It's not like he takes to the air and flies around before dropping them to their deaths or he blows fire in their face, he just kills them like any assassin would.

[lyvyathan]

Opps sorry

[Roose Seal]

I understand your remark but you make it sound as if the Faceless Men have magic beyond their face changing abilities. As far as we know, they don't. They are simply very skilled assassins and have learned to be so through observation, learning the art of blending in, swiftness etc... Nothing in all of the Faceless men deaths we've seen so far suggest that they are in fact "super magic ninjas", they're just very good at what they do.

The face changing part is somewhat explained in DwD but (DwD spoilers)

the way Arya kills the man at the end of her final chapter implies that they just take advantage of the position their victims are in and cleverly use the circumstances to kill them, they don't have any superpower, just very good observational skills

.

Also, magic never comes free in this world. Melisandre's shadow babies seem to be having a serious toll on Stannis' health and it looks pretty painful to her, she doesn't just pop them out whenever she wants. It seems like there is much more to it than just that.

If Jon Snow could suddenly fly or Sansa could suddenly warg into humans that would be strange, but as is, I think all the supernatural elements in this series have been rather well introduced and handled, to the point where we, and the characters, wonder if magic actually does exist, or we are just seeing crazy coincidences. Notice that even in the world of the books, not many characters actually believe in magic and always try to find a rational explanation to the crazy stuff that happens or even writes the more supernatural elements (like the Others or the Dragons) as nothing more than rumours and tales to scare the children.

[Gurthnar]

I don't mind the idea of a clan of assassins. But something in the way GRRm writes H'gar as an unstoppable ASOIAF Terminator makes it weird.

At least with the Dragons, the Direwolves even the Others - they had some limitations

I did not like how GRRM throws in magic super ninjas, and Melisandre magical uterus ... and I wish it had been written differently imho.

As others already told, we did not see any magical ninja abilities from Jaqen. First kill was nearly nothing to him. I mean throwing someone off the wall (if I remember correctly)? Come on, show me the magic in THAT. It was only after the second kill, that I got to wondering "Man, that dude is good...". And that only thanks to remarks of some by-standers on how weird it is, that his dog feeds on him, and that they thought he would never do that. The third kill was actually no assassination at all, rather an unexpected brute force overwhelming assault.

As to:

She chose Cheswyck to see if Jaqen would really do it--(Though the story should have made her say The Mountain) , and Weese was impulsive. But I agree, she could have pretty much ended the war by saying: Tywin Lannister, Cersei Lannister, and Joffrey Lannister-Baratheon.

and

That depends. All of those kills could've very well taken years to accomplish.

I do not know about any of you, but I took it as a witty decision that she has chosen "small fish" rather than Cersei, Joffrey, and such. Actually while reading, I though "Come on girl, please just don't be such a fool to chose Cersei and Joffrey, he is going to trick you! You don't know anything about that man, rather choose someone small and see what he can really do." And then wow, that is just what she does. I believe it was a very mature decision, mainly if we take the "third kill" into account. That was some serious strategic move!

I mean, she chose to get herself rid of people, that actually annoy her, AND lower her chances of escape, rather than people which some random dude has no chance of killing, and also it will be impossible to check, if he just did not abandon the promise. We did not know that he is a faceless man, until he was leaving. If you did, man, I take my hat off for you.

And now some later SoS spoiler

As it turned out, it was very lucky, that Arya did not know about Jaqen's capabilities, because it is highly likely that she would choose to kill Joffrey, Hound and Cersei. From which the first gets his death early on, on his own, the second is dead for all we know (by the end of SoS), and the last could rid her of a chance of escaping Harrenhal and she could as well rot there until the end of time.

[Faceless Sam]

hah, i remember wanting to scream at arya's name on the pages and tell her to kill freaking tywin lannister, but all the stupid gal could think of where her petty little personal grudges.

with the hindsight of having read to the end of dwd, and getting a bigger picture, i have to say killing tywin then and there would have been rather petty.

whoever won the war of the five kings, it still would have been a nice feast for crows in the riverlands.

tywin got his "justice" later on, and everyone's going to die anyway, when winter comes :P

[Xtopher]

I think there´s an even better question regarding this...

Why in the hell didnt Arya tell the northmen who she was?!?!

those were northmen sworn to winterfell, the first thing i would´ve done is telling them i am their freaking lord or whatever.

Then after a few chapters she says something like "oh, i shouldve told those men who i was...well, they´re gone now so the hell with it"

WHAT!?

[Crown]

I think there´s an even better question regarding this...

Why in the hell didnt Arya tell the northmen who she was?!?!

those were northmen sworn to winterfell, the first thing i would´ve done is telling them i am their freaking lord or whatever.

Then after a few chapters she says something like "oh, i shouldve told those men who i was...well, they´re gone now so the hell with it"

WHAT!?

She had a feeling that she couldn't trust Roose Bolton.

[Roose Seal]

She had a feeling that she couldn't trust Roose Bolton.

And her intuition proved correct. We all know what happened to the Starks who trusted Roose eh?

[Crown]

And her intuition proved correct. We all know what happened to the Starks who trusted Roose eh?

You should've posted that within spoilers, for those who haven't read it yet.

[SI Monster]

Actually the ages are right around where they have to be at the start of the story. Dany and Sansa have to be young, due to the custom of marrying you daughters off when they come of age which was a custom of the middle ages.

Even though Robb is so young, he would be nothing like a 15 year old of today. He would have been being groomed to be the Head of House Stark from the day he was born. And if he didn't look like he was going to cut it he may very well be treated like Samwell was. Childhood in the middle ages cannot even be compared to the childhoods that our kids today are living. They trained to fight and kill and be leaders from a very young age.

Even with that said all the young people in the book make mistakes that show their youth. Robb marring Jeyne Westerling. An older man probably would have known better. Jon was ready to break his oath and run to war with Robb, which would have gotten him is head cutoff most likely. Dany trusting Mirri Maz Dur was an incredibly stupid mistake that probably wouldn't have been made by an older person.

I think this youngness is easily attributable to Arya's having nobody's like Chiswick and Weese killed. She makes hasty decisions partly due to Jaqen rushing her decision and partly due to thinking mostly about what benefits her right now as opposed to what would benefit the entire Stark House.

I fully agree with GRRM's treatment of people and thier ages. The concept of what childhood is in society varies to this day. A ten year old in a Trenton New Jersey is just an XBox playing school kid, while a kid the same age in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, walks around with an AK-47 and a couple of confirmed kills. Hell the youngest Medal of Honor recipient in American history was 13 years old, and that was as recent as the Civil War era. If you put a modern 2012 12 year old girl in Arya's position she would curl up into a catatonic state and die because she are still sensitized to a lot of the horrors of the world. Well, hopefully, anyway.

[Cat of the Commons]

I have noticed as this story progresses that Arya really isn't the smartest person around, in fact my early sympathy for her has pretty much evaporated. I think Sansa, to my surprise, has become the more interesting sympathetic character of the Stark girls.

i don't think Arya is unintelligent. I think one of the most clever moments in the series was when Arya named Jaqen as her third death in order to manipulate him into helping her.

[duncanthemedium]

Quoting from an Arya chapter:

" Arya thought about the people she wanted dead. She pretended she could see their faces on the steps, and scrubbed harder to wipe them away. The Starks were at war with the Lannisters and she was a Stark, so she should kill as many Lannisters as she could, that was what you did in wars. But she didn’t think she should trust Jaqen. I should kill them myself. Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his greatsword. “If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words,” she’d heard him tell Robb and Jon once. "

Arya isn't stupid at all. It is known..

[Xtopher]

It is known...

[Little Fanger]

She's only 9-10. AT 9-10 you DEFINITELY don't see the bigger picture. I think we all have tons of anecdotal evidence to support that. I must commend her on the fact that she eventually sees that she could ask to eliminate Tywin. However, I'm glad it didn't happen. That'd be a pretty shitty twist on GRRM's part.

I was thinking the same thing, but then I must remember that she's not even a teen yet. Hell, I watch my younger sibling (he's 8) make tons of decisions that cause me to Facepalm in real life.