Becoming No One: Rereading Arya II

[Lummel]

Ma'am, I find your so called happy thought leaves something to be desired :laugh:

[KittensRuleBeetsDrool]

I was wondering why Theon wasn't on Arya's hit list, but re-reading the last chapter of ACOK she knows that Bran and Rickon are dead, but not about the sack of Winterfell - just that Robb "lost the North." At this point I can't imagine any surviving Stark being too thrilled with Theon when/if they meet. If Arya had known who "killed" Bran and Rickon I'm sure Theon would be right up there in the litany of who is going to die.

The wolves devouring the fawn in the first chapter of ASOS could be foreshadowing of Jeyne Poole's (fake Arya's) fate - the poor girl was described as "trembling like a doe" on her wedding night.

[Blisscraft]

About that fawn - It's seems like a diminishment of one of the beginning metaphors of the book: the stag and the direwolf mom; each destroyed by the other. This new images seems to reflect a power shift. Three wolves to one fawn. Three adults to one child. The wolves, not direwolves mind you, obviously won this round.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

Arya is not aware about a lot of things. She doesn't know who killed her brothers and she still doesn't know about Bolton's role in the Red Wedding. If she knew, she would have added them to her list.

It is interesting to note that her death list doesn't contain all the people she hates. She hates the Bloody Mummers too and she would be glad to kill them, I think, but there must be a very personal reason to add one to the list, something she has witnessed and shocked her or harmed someone she really cares about.

Arya watched and listened and polished her hates the way Gendry had once polished his horned helm. Dunsen wore those bull's horns now, and she hated him for it. She hated Polliver for Needle, and she hated old Chiswyck who thought he was funny. And Raff the Sweetling, who'd driven his spear through Lommy's throat, she hated even more. She hated Ser Amory Lorch for Yoren, and she hated Ser Meryn Trant for Syrio, the Hound for killing the butcher's boy Mycah, and Ser Ilyn and Prince Joffrey and the queen for the sake of her father and Fat Tom and Desmond and the rest, and even for Lady, Sansa's wolf. The Tickler was almost too scary to hate. At times she could almost forget he was still with them; when he was not asking questions, he was just another soldier, quieter than most, with a face like a thousand other men.

After Weesy, she hasn't added anyone to the list and I don't think she will:

- she lacks information (not knowing events and names)

- she gradually loses everyone and everything she cares for

- there is practically no atrocity she hasn't witnessed so it's really dificult to be shocked anymore

- she is becoming ready to kill "on the spot", no reason to postpone it and put it in a "remember to do" list.

The flayed man is mentioned in the context of what will happen to them if they get caught.

If they catch us, he'll cut off our hands and feet, Arya thought, and then Roose Bolton will peel the skin off us. She was still dressed in her page's garb, and on the breast over her heart was sewn Lord Bolton's sigil, the flayed man of the Dreadfort.

The flaying of the enemies is supposed to belong to the legend, to Old Nan's stories. I think that the northern nobility didn't know and probably wouldn't believe that it's a practice still in use, before Ramsey came out of the closet.

Ironically, Arya giving more credit to Old Nan's stories because she's a child, is much closer to the truth than the grown ups.

[Lyanna Stark]

About that fawn - It's seems like a diminishment of one of the beginning metaphors of the book: the stag and the direwolf mom; each destroyed by the other. This new images seems to reflect a power shift. Three wolves to one fawn. Three adults to one child. The wolves, not direwolves mind you, obviously won this round.

Yes, the fawn is interesting. I am not really sure how to interpret it, but I rather like your power shift theory Blisscraft. :)

I was also thinking of three wolves devouring a fawn, could the fawn represent childhood and innocence? We also have the lean wolves stalking the shadows, while the fawn here is obviously prey.

The flaying of the enemies is supposed to belong to the legend, to Old Nan's stories. I think that the northern nobility didn't know and probably wouldn't believe that it's a practice still in use, before Ramsey came out of the closet.

Ironically, Arya giving more credit to Old Nan's stories because she's a child, is much closer to the truth than the grown ups.

Isn't the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction? In Westeros, in-world truth is often stranger, or as strange, as their fiction. Jon is amazed when seeing the giants and the mammoths, Tyrion on his way through Essos gets to see his fair share and then we also have "dead things in the water", various Rhollored half-zombies, the Others and what have you. And you know, dragons.

[Blisscraft]

Thank you, Lyanna. The fawn devoured by wolves is certainly a metaphor for not only a loss of innocence, but also the death of it.

[Lyanna Stark]

Thank you, Lyanna. The fawn devoured by wolves is certainly a metaphor for not only a loss of innocence, but also the death of it.

The death of innocence works really well, and it reflects strongly what has happened in the Stark children's arcs so far. I'm also reminded of Jon Snow's "kill the boy and let the man be born". All of them have had to kill their innocence and become something else. I suppose the lean wolves stalking the shadows. :)

[Uncat]

Ma'am, I find your so called happy thought leaves something to be desired

I'm no madam, Sir. I'm not thaaat old :)

Arya is not aware about a lot of things. She doesn't know who killed her brothers and she still doesn't know about Bolton's role in the Red Wedding. If she knew, she would have added them to her list.

I don't know about that. She was there outside the castle. She saw northmen kill northmen and she may have seen, that some of those atackers had the flayed man on their chest. Then, there is the Hound, an experienced warrior who would have an eye for such a thing. And don't they find a Piper man who tells them his tale? How much does Arya know would be one question to ask, once we get there.

It is interesting to note that her death list doesn't contain all the people she hates. She hates the Bloody Mummers too and she would be glad to kill them, I think, but there must be a very personal reason to add one to the list, something she has witnessed and shocked her or harmed someone she really cares about.

:agree:

[KittensRuleBeetsDrool]

The flayed man is mentioned in the context of what will happen to them if they get caught.

The flaying of the enemies is supposed to belong to the legend, to Old Nan's stories. I think that the northern nobility didn't know and probably wouldn't believe that it's a practice still in use, before Ramsey came out of the closet.

Ironically, Arya giving more credit to Old Nan's stories because she's a child, is much closer to the truth than the grown ups.

And when Arya got to know Roose Bolton up close and personal, and wear that flayed man badge, and realized that yes, he really did flay people, the alias she was using - was Nan. (I am sure that Arya did choose it deliberately because she knew Old Nan, but it is interesting that she chose that name when interacting with that particular person.)

Nan was a peasant woman and told the tales of the northern smallfolk and now Arya in her guise as "Nan" gets to see that the stories Old Nan told might well have had a basis in reality (because yes, the Boltons really do flay people, it was not just one of those scary stories).

Continuing from ACOK into this first part of ASOS is the view we get of the war's effect on the smallfolk of Westeros and in particular the Riverlands. By the time winter comes, will there be anyone left in the Riverlands at all?

[Lyanna Stark]

Continuing from ACOK into this first part of ASOS is the view we get of the war's effect on the smallfolk of Westeros and in particular the Riverlands. By the time winter comes, will there be anyone left in the Riverlands at all?

Don't want to get ahead of myself, but as I have cheekily read ahead and skimmed most of Arya's ASOS chapters, I believe this will be a point that can be brought up later once we get to the BWB parts. :) It's certainly something that could use some discussion, how the state of the Riverlands is described in ASOS and in what state of despair/ruin it is, and on the other hand if there is any hope, and in that case what.

[Uncat]

Lyanna, Blisscraft, the death or end of innocence. Seems to be a recurring theme in this chapter. Again, I would atribute the mushy apple to that, too. Arya has seen war, tortouring, rape and killing without meaning. She has killed herself and in this chapter the transformation of the fearsome child into the murderous girl is compleated. She accepts a world, where dead men hang in apple trees as the world, she now lives in and from here on she will be acting accordingly.

[Elba the Intoner]

Happy thought: Theon and Arya will end up together: The dead man walking and the girl who is anything short of the walking Death. :D

Well Theon and fake Arya look like they could be getting together anyway. I don't really see that happening with the real Arya though.

[Uncat]

Actually, I haven't got the slightest on who gets who. I love the theories in the forum but deep down, I can't see any of the Stark kids (and I would include the foster son Theon here) returning into an ordinary life, butt-warming some throne or lordly seat and popping children.

They are going trough terrible, traumatic experienses. That is one thing I love-hate about how LOTR ends. The way the heros are awarded a socialy fitting girl at the end is kind of anoying (though completly understandable from the writers point of view). But Frodo never really finding back into a normal life is nice touch.

Well, Arya, Bran, Sansa, Jon and Rickon and Theon don't have a ring of evil to bear. But appart from that, they are taking enormous blows and GRRM is the kind of writer who would take that into account.

But this thread is about Arya, so I'll stop here

[fantasmas]

Just popping in to say that this thread is wonderful. I went through each page, and all the analysis is so detailed. You guys spotted things I never would've seen before.

It's great to see Arya's arc explored with more depth since I rarely see her character's past be a topic of discussion.

Keep up the great work :)

I'm rereading AGOT right now, so hopefully I'll be able to have some opinions to share when I catch up.

[ladyinblack]

I was wondering why Theon wasn't on Arya's hit list, but re-reading the last chapter of ACOK she knows that Bran and Rickon are dead, but not about the sack of Winterfell - just that Robb "lost the North." At this point I can't imagine any surviving Stark being too thrilled with Theon when/if they meet. If Arya had known who "killed" Bran and Rickon I'm sure Theon would be right up there in the litany of who is going to die.

The wolves devouring the fawn in the first chapter of ASOS could be foreshadowing of Jeyne Poole's (fake Arya's) fate - the poor girl was described as "trembling like a doe" on her wedding night.

Have just caught up with everyone on this thread. Great re-read project. Have reread the whole series 3 times & each time, I see much & more that I missed. The Arya chapters are so compelling...to me..she does what she does to survive.

There is much that Arya and the other Stark children don't know about each other & the situation in Westeros; in fact little is known. Arya doesn't know about Theon.

and at this point Roose is fully aware of Ramsays' leading the sack of Winterfell. He is already plotting with the Lannisters.

Something I never am sure of....I think he knows who Arya is & means to keep her there for Ramsay. Though how the Bloody Mummers holding Harrenhal would bide by that, I don't know.

[Ragnorak]

Blisscraft, love the fawn scene as an inversion of the direwolf mother and the "one of these things is not like the other" Trident river names catch too.

I think Brash made the connection between the three black swans and the three black dogs on House Clegane's arms back when Arya is first captured. Any thoughts on how the fawn scene might tie in with the swans?

[Blisscraft]

Thank you, Ragnorak. I didn't really want to go here before because I am no expert on saints and their stories, although a little catholic schooling goes along way. However, since you seem interested. . . I'll proceed.

The tie in between the three's seems to relate to the hunter and hunted which spiritually are one in the same. I'll explain. There is a saint story, (Lummel could probably tell you his name, I can't remember this morning and I''ve had coffee) where in a man in his grief over the death of his wife and child goes to the forest to hunt to alleviate some of his tremedous sorrow. He begins with a hunting party, but he spies a beautiful large stag and goes after it. The stag leads the man, now alone and isolated from his companions, deeper and deeper into the forest. After a long and arduous stalk through thicker and thicker trees and underbrush, the beautiful stag stops and turns to face the hunter. In between the stag's antlers is a crucifix. At some point the seeker and the sought, the hunter and the hunted become one and the same.

The idea that the three dogs, wolves, swans, and other groups of three, presented as either hunter or hunted suggests this meaning. Three, being the Holy Trinity, at once seeking and being sought by the individual soul. (No mistake about the Trident as being sought here either by the three companions).

[Lummel]

oddly enough I do know who you mean: Saint Hubertus

The image of the stag with a crucifix between it's antlers is well known from the label of bottles of Jaegermeister and in some restaurants in Germany the saint is honoured by the Hubertus Platter - three different types of meat with your two vegetables and potatoes.

[Blisscraft]

Lummel - I adore you. :kiss: Thank you.

[Ragnorak]

Thank you, very interesting. Here is the wikipedia link to Saint Hubertus. Abandoning 'the hunt' and seeking religious guidance is what Arya will eventually do with Sandor and the Kindly Man even though her religious calling is essentially about hunting.