Arya's Relationship with Death

[Faceless Man Friday]

This is a great thread and has fueled some speculation I have been thinking about. I have posted fragments of similar thoughts on other threads but the thoughts on this thread breath new life into it. (pun intended) It starts with the random thought that the word "Stark" can mean "Death-Like". Add to that the Dead Kings of Winter in the Crypts and all that has been said about keeping them in their place. Add Bran's chapters where the Children of the Forrest commune with the dead. Add the warging abilities of the Starks. Add the control the Others have over the dead. And top it off with all the death references to Arya aka Arya "Death-Like". And we cannot forget Jon because while Bran and Arya are embracing their supernatural abilities, Jon is still fighting them so we do not know what he truly brings to the table yet. My thoughts are that Arya, Bran and Jon are going to play a major role in the battle with the Others having to do with defeating their army of wrights; Be it by taking control of them away from the Others or leading their own army of the dead against them. Well, that's what I think about when I can't sleep at night. What do you think?

[KOM]

also, she was outside of The Twins right when the RW was happening. Coincidence? No. Death & Destruction follow her around like handmaidens. Arya's the worst.

[Elaena Targaryen]

She is a very powerful warg. Her connection with Nymeria is strong across thousands of leagues. When she prays before a Heart Tree she (unlike most folks) Arya hears an answer. She seems to pick up on the voices of the dead anywhere--without the need for a Heart Tree. Like all of her gifts it is a wild, powerful and unfocused force. I think she is on a path to gain control of her powers.

Bran is on a pathway to unlock his gifts. Arya is on another. Both involve having a connection/conversation with the dead.

T4p Dragon Roast, your post has renewed and strengthened my feelings with this subject. :)

The last part made me think; Bran is on his way to be a greenseer and Arya is on the way to be a wood dancer

AGoT Maester Luwin

...Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye. There they forged the Pact...

I used to post in the Heresy threads for around the first thirty or so and Black Crow (who started and hosts the threads) had always been particularly curious over the wood dancers. BC assumed the wood dancers were more of a CotF warrior and I agree... but ...it would be really helpful if the wood dancers could receive guidance from the dead - same as the greenseers, which the warrior aspect still fits with Arya. Maybe only wood dancers can talk to the greenseers for the benefit of the community or the wood dancers protect the community so they need the gift to talk to the trees - so to speak. I'm to tired to puzzle this out in a coherent way just now so I think I'll take my OP and your [Dragon Roast's] post to the Heresy threads to see what they think and to see if they have any new thoughts on this as well.

I can see several indirect connections for this off of the top of my head, like Arya running around in the trees like a squirrel, but I'll have to get to it later... maybe we'll get luckey and ARYa_Nym will show up to help out with this or even with more connections from her research which I always love. :)

[ARYa_Nym]

Sure. I'm glad you came back Elaena!

What I found earlier was :

"Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares."

Arya is supposed to be light as a feather-graceful and quick as a snake. Arya wanted to hunt and wanted to learn the bow and arrow. Brandon Snow in Bran's flashback wanted to use weirwood as a weapon against the dragons.

"Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidsts the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye. "

Arya and Nymeria were located near Gods Eye.

As for tree dancing:

She slashed at birch leaves till the splintery point of the broken broomstick was green and sticky…She spun and leapt and balanced on the balls of her feet, darting this way and that, knocking pinecones flying…Her arms and legs were dappled by sunlight and the shadow of leaves.

Whenever she had a free hour she stole away to work at the drills Syrio had taught her, moving barefoot over the fallen leaves, slashing at branches and whacking down leaves. Sometimes she even climbed the trees and danced among the upper branches, her toes gripping the limbs as she moved back and forth, teetering a little less every day as her balance returned to her. Night was the best time; no one ever bothered her at night. Arya climbed. Up in the kingdom of the leaves, she unsheathed and for a time forgot them all…losing herself in the feel of the rough wood beneath the soles of her feet and the swish of sword through air….

When her arm her arm grew weary, she sat with her legs over a high limb to catch her breath in the cool dark air, listening to the squeak of bats as they hunted…The light of the moon painted the limbs of the weirwood silvery white as she made her way toward it, but the five-pointed red leaves turned black by night. Arya stared at the face carved into its trunk. It was a terrible face, its mouth twisted, its eyes flaring and full of hate. Is that what a god looked like? Could gods be hurt, the same as people?

I remember some talk in the princess thread:

"Daemon Targaryen walked the cavernous halls of Harren's seat alone, with no companion but his dragon. Each night at dusk he slashed the heart tree in the godswood to mark the passing of another day. "

And:
"Singers say Ser Addam had flown from King's Landing to the Gods Eye, where he landed on the sacred Isle of Faces and took council with the Green Men."

I remember it being theorized that the Green Men are the wood dancers that are left.

"In place of mail, they wore long shirts of woven leaves and bound their legs in bark, so they seemed to melt into the wood. In place of swords, they carried blades of Obsidian."

Their clothes were made of leaves. There was a song sung to Arya in which maiden of the tree was wearing a gown of leaves and her hair was bound in grass.

It was for stealth purposes which the FM use. I remember Arya saying this once:

Jaqen H’ghar stood so still in the darkness that he seemed one of the trees.

As for being squirrel like both Bran and Arya were called squirrels. The giants used to refer to the COTF as squirrel people.

ETA: There's other stuff but in terms of the heresy I remember them thinking that the wood dancers could also be cotf who didn't agree with the pact and somehow turned into the Others.

I believe I may have already posted a quote about the Others in the prologue for AGoT that likened them to the FM/Arya.

[Lyse Stark]

I suddenly thought of something that came from another piece of media; FInal Fantasy XIII; in that series, the mythological figure of death, Etro, is portrayed as being full of sorrow, and that when she committed suicide, her blood become the first humans.

She is alone and isolated, and her action often have unforeseen harmful consequences. It is certainly possible that Arya's path might be on a similar trajectory, with similar results?

[evita mgfs]

:bowdown: :bowdown:Elaena Targaryen:

AWESOME THREAD. I am going to work on some ideas to contribute to your theory. I have posted a few things already, but I just sat and carefully read through the responses - not just skimming.

I was just blasted by another for equating Arya's face changes to a pre-quell of animating the dead. But since such is believed here, I will advance my thoughts further here. Besides, you have Arya Nym behind you! Can't get any better validation than she!

[Faceless Man Friday]

Since we are talking about animating the dead, maybe we have not seen the last of Ned and Rob? I keep going back to Ned's dream about the Tower of Joy where he was leading his friends to battle but they had no faces and appeared as wrights. Has anyone considered that, pro or con?

[Mithras]

Worms are almost always related to corpses and death in the series.

From up here, she could see a small wooded island off to the northeast. Thirty yards from shore, three black swans were gliding over the water, so serene… no one had told them that war had come, and they cared nothing for burning towns and butchered men. She stared at them with yearning. Part of her wanted to be a swan. The other part wanted to eat one. She had broken her fast on some acorn paste and a handful of bugs. Bugs weren’t so bad when you got used to them. Worms were worse, but still not as bad as the pain in your belly after days without food. Finding bugs was easy, all you had to do was kick over a rock. Arya had eaten a bug once when she was little, just to make Sansa screech, so she hadn’t been afraid to eat another. Weasel wasn’t either, but Hot Pie retched up the beetle he tried to swallow, and Lommy and Gendry wouldn’t even try.

“We’re all hungry,” said Arya.

“You’re not,” Lommy spat from the ground. “Worm breath.”

Arya could have kicked him in his wound. “I said I’d dig worms for you too, if you wanted.”

Arya had to rely on bugs and worms. She was called Arry for the time being. Worm breath is curious. Let us keep that in mind.

The work was hard, but no harder than walking miles every day. Weasel did not need to find worms and bugs to eat, as Arry had; there was bread every day, and barley stews with bits of carrot and turnip, and once a fortnight even a bite of meat.

In Harrenhal, Arya becomes Weasel, who no longer feeds on worms and bugs. That is not good because the more she eats worms and bugs, the more she stinks death. If she stops that process, she might not transform into a FM material. That does not work for Jaqen. Small wonder he shows up in Harrenhal and plays his game with Arya.

Jaqen tells her that she has three kills. This is only a ploy to show Arya how badass is Jaqen. She is currently a mouse in Harrenhal and such a power should be very attractive to her. Jaqen ignites her spirit, shows her the trademark trait of the FM, gives her a ticket to Braavos and proceeds to his mission in the Citadel.

“I bet we could escape, and Pinkeye wouldn’t even notice I was gone,” she told Hot Pie.

“I don’t want to escape. It’s better here than it was in them woods. I don’t want to eat no worms. Here, sprinkle some flour on the board.”

Arya wants to escape. Hot Pie resists and he says he does not want to eat worms again. That is interesting. Escape will push her more along the path of death.

Later they passed through a burned village, threading their way carefully between the shells of blackened hovels and past the bones of a dozen dead men hanging from a row of apple trees. When Hot Pie saw them he began to pray, a thin whispered plea for the Mother’s mercy, repeated over and over. Arya looked up at the fleshless dead in their wet rotting clothes and said her own prayer. Ser Gregor, it went, Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei. She ended it with valar morghulis, touched Jaqen’s coin where it nestled under her belt, and then reached up and plucked an apple from among the dead men as she rode beneath them. It was mushy and overripe, but she ate it worms and all.

She starts to eat worms again. Her prayers are altered by the inclusion of Jaqen.

“The Ember and the Lemon come to honor me again, and His Grace the Lord of Corpses.”

“An ill-omened name. I have asked you not to use it.”

“Aye, you have. But the stink of death is fresh on you, my lord.”

The dwarf woman studied her with dim red eyes. “I see you,” she whispered. “I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death . . .” She began to sob, her little body shaking. “You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!”

This is the most interesting scene.

The white tears and the red ones ran together until her face was torn and tattered, the face that Ned had loved. Catelyn Stark raised her hands and watched the blood run down her long fingers, over her wrists, beneath the sleeves of her gown. Slow red worms crawled along her arms and under her clothes. It tickles. That made her laugh until she screamed. “Mad,” someone said, “she’s lost her wits,” and someone else said, “Make an end,” and a hand grabbed her scalp just as she’d done with Jinglebell, and she thought, No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair. Then the steel was at her throat, and its bite was red and cold.

Cat’s death scene speaks of these strange worms too.

Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.

“So says Arya of House Stark, eater of grave worms.”

How does the KM know her previous diet with the worms? Because she has that supernatural smell.

“He’ll be down with the books. My old septon used to say that books are dead men talking. Dead men should keep quiet, is what I say. No one wants to hear a dead man’s yabber.” Dolorous Edd went off muttering of worms and spiders.

After all these stuff so far, this quote is very intriguing. No one wants to hear a dead man’s yabber. Arya is becoming no one. The spider makes me think of Varys. Sam is down with the books. Does that foreshadow he will visit that secret vaults of the Citadel too?

The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy. Grave worms have teeth.

Hodor saw them too. “Hodor,” he whimpered, reluctant to go on. But when the girl child stopped to let them catch her, the torchlight steadied, and Bran realized that the snakes were only white roots like the one he’d hit his head on. “It’s weirwood roots,” he said. “Remember the heart tree in the godswood, Hodor? The white tree with the red leaves? A tree can’t hurt you.”

Bran mistakes the weirwoods with giant grave worms. No matter what, that cave has a strong association with death (there was a room full of giant bat skeletons).

These are some other interesting references to worms.

“Worms will have your maidenhead. Your death is here tonight, little one. Can you smell her breath? She is very close.”

“The wench is dead,” the woman hissed. “Only worms may kiss her now.”

“Robert is the king of the worms now.”

“He’s feeding worms,”

She [Mel] clasped the bars of his cell with her slender white hands. The great ruby at her throat seemed to pulse with its own radiance. “So tell me, Ser Davos Seaworth, and tell me truly—does your heart burn with the shining light of R’hllor? Or is it black and cold and full of worms?”

The last one relates the worms with the servants of the Great Other.

Crackpot:

Arya has the stink of death on her. I am talking about a supernatural smell, which Jaqen recognized and later the Ghost of High Heart smelled it too. I think this is how the FM find new recruits, by following the stink of death.

I also think that a FM was involved in the Tragedy of Summerhal. Their methods look like normal deaths or accidents. The Ghost of High Heart recalled the smell of that FM when she saw Arya.

So who paid the price of the FM and what was the price? I think Varys is the infant son of Aerion Brightflame. He paid the price by offering his manhood. So he sacrificed his claim and his line for the deaths of Egg, Dunk and Egg’s family. That left a sickly king and his mad son in the succession.

Then Varys contacted with the remaining Blackfyres in the female line. They began their plotting since then.

We know that Egg tried to hatch dragon eggs at Summerhal. I think the FM sabotaged the ritual and the fire got out of control. So how did that FM know the nature of the ritual? That brings us to Jaqen and his mission in the secret vaults of the Citadel, which must surely contain the banned books about the dragons.

[Dragon Roast]

We know that Egg tried to hatch dragon eggs at Summerhal. I think the FM sabotaged the ritual and the fire got out of control. So how did that FM know the nature of the ritual? That brings us to Jaqen and his mission in the secret vaults of the Citadel, which must surely contain the banned books about the dragons.

NIce work on the worms.

As for Summerhall, we don't know that Egg was trying to hatch dragon eggs. All we know is that some men say that he was trying to hatch dragon eggs--which is different.

I think Egg and company were murdered and the hatching dragon eggs story is the cover to explain the needed fire to burn the evidence. I mean, who questions magic gone wrong in a Medieval society with real examples of magic?

I suspect that it was a political murder by young lordlings (a Lion and a Dragon) trying to move their way into power, but it could have been a FM hit as well--no magic required.

Still, I'm doubtful that Varys was involved. I just don't think the story is guided by such a super villian uberplot. But I stand to be corrected when the next book comes out.

Still, I think the use of worms is an interesting find about Arya's arc and her relationship with death. I'm just not sure what it means.

[Roddy the Ruin]

They are taking it slow

[ARYa_Nym]

Great job Lamprey. I think you're definitely right.

I found more:

"Joffrey is the black worm eating the heart of the realm! Darkness was his father, and death his mother~ Destroy him before he corrupts you all! Destroy them all, queen whore and king worm, vile dward and whispering spider, the false flowers."

Joffrey was called a black worm. Death was his mother and darkness his father. Death and darkness are themes in Arya's arc. Joffrey was said to be essentially "killing" the realm.

Another death and the maiden moment with the Ghost and the BWB:

"I was kissing this tavern wench I used to know. Are you going to pay me for that, old woman?” “The wench is dead,” the woman hissed. “Only worms may kiss her now.”

This one is interesting. It's from the D&E novels:

"Bloodraven is the root of all our woes, the white worm gnawing at the heart of the realm."

Fast forward to ADWD:

"…the white wooden worm that grey from the socket where one eye had been….In the dark he could pretend that it was the three-eyed crow who whispered to him and not some grisly talking corpse. One day I will be like him. The thought filled Bran with dread."

It's been mentioned elsewhere the similarities in Bran and Arya's arc. The KM and BR have similarities. Anyways, Bran is linked to death too in his Old Gods connection.

Arya eating worms can be another case of her eating death in a way.

"Robert is the king of the worms now. Is that why you’re down in the earth, to keep his court for him?” “The king is dead,” the scarecrow knight admitted."

It also can further link to rotting.

"But it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor. If Ser Gerold had been the worm in the apple, why would he have turned his sword upon Myrcella?"

Like when Arya said she was the bad kind of lady and threw an apple at Gendry. An apple having worms in it is a sign that it has gone bad.

[Mithras]

One of the heads of Trios devours the dying. It reminds me of the worms eating the flesh of the dead.

“Three-headed Trios has that tower with three turrets. The first head devours the dying, and the reborn emerge from the third. I don’t know what the middle head’s supposed to do.”

The left and right heads of the Trios obviously represent the natural cycle of death and life.

“Then one morning we heard that his body had been found at the Temple of Trios. Trios has three heads, and there’s a big statue of him beside the temple doors. The old man had been cut into three parts and pushed inside the threefold mouths of Trios. Only when the parts were sewn back together, his head was gone.”

The head of this dwarf was taken to KL. I think cutting him into three parts and feeding him into the threefold mouths of Trios is very interesting. Is this an Essossi thing? Euron did a similar thing too.

Nightflyer was seized, Lord Blacktyde delivered to the king in chains. Euron’s mutes and mongrels had cut him into seven parts, to feed the seven green land gods he worshiped.

Baelor Blacktyde was cut into seven pieces and fed to the seven.

The ironmen throw men into the mouth of the Drowned god. Moqorro said the Drowned god is a hungry demon.

The followers of Mel feed men to fires. Fire devours them.

When Brandon Ice Eyes Stark defeated the slavers in Wolf's Den, he gave them to the slaves and they hang their entrails on the heart tree as offerings.

Old Man of the River and Crab King fight for dominion of all life under the water of Rhoyne. The life under the water is death. Both Old Man of the River and Crab King are strong eaters of flesh.

By the way Tyrion have been to the afterlife when he fell to the river. Then he was pulled back by Griff who caught greyscale.

[jessiejcs]

I was rereading the part where Jon Snow is talking to Arya about sewing all winter and being frozen with a needle in her hand, and obviously this has significant meaning. But the thing that struck me more though was what happened AFTER he said that. Jon and Ghost walk away from Arya and Nymeria starts to follow them, but when she sees Arya is not coming she comes back and they reluctantly turn in the other direction.

When Arya gets to her room, "It was worse than Jon had thought. It wasn't Septa Mordane waiting in her room. It was Septa Mordane and her mother."

This made me immediately think Arya was going to die. She knows Septa Mordane is dead and is expecting it, but it's a surprise that her mother is there. However this thread has given me hope that maybe she can somehow communicate with the dead? Am I reading too much into this?

[Faceless Man Friday]

I was rereading the part where Jon Snow is talking to Arya about sewing all winter and being frozen with a needle in her hand, and obviously this has significant meaning. But the thing that struck me more though was what happened AFTER he said that. Jon and Ghost walk away from Arya and Nymeria starts to follow them, but when she sees Arya is not coming she comes back and they reluctantly turn in the other direction.

When Arya gets to her room, "It was worse than Jon had thought. It wasn't Septa Mordane waiting in her room. It was Septa Mordane and her mother."

This made me immediately think Arya was going to die. She knows Septa Mordane is dead and is expecting it, but it's a surprise that her mother is there. However this thread has given me hope that maybe she can somehow communicate with the dead? Am I reading too much into this?

Good pick up, especially what happened after her meeting with Jon. I think it means something but what I do not know either. What I do know is that Arya has such a close relationship with death that people are predicting all sorts of deaths for her supported by quotes from the book so it is hard to know if GRRM is predicting her death or something else relating death to Arya.

[Mithras]

Joffrey was called a black worm. Death was his mother and darkness his father. Death and darkness are themes in Arya's arc. Joffrey was said to be essentially "killing" the realm.

What do you think about the following quote?

“Never fear the darkness, Bran.” The lord’s words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

And it should be noted that both Bran and Hodor were freaked out by the giant white worms in the caves first. Then they realized they were only the roots of the weirwood trees, some of which feed the greenseers. And have a look at how BR was described:

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

[Shebara]

very interesting thread! I think Arya will be bound to the North/Wall in book 7 (if it ever comes out!)...I think it is no coincidence that Stannis sent an envoy to Braavos, Arya will hear from him what happened at the Wall and at Winterfell, to Jon, about the Fake Arya, about the Others and the White Walkers and she will be bound there to help Jon...and we will know what interaction will take place between Arya and White Walkers/Others. It will be interesting!

[Dragon Roast]

"Do you fear death?"

She bit her lip. "No."

"Let us see." The priest lowered his cowl. Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket. "Kiss me, child," he croaked, in a voice as dry and husky as a death rattle.

Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand.

The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was smiling down at her. "No one has ever tried to eat my worm before," he said. "Are you hungry, child?"

Yes, she thought, but not for food.

I wonder about this exchange and what it might mean. If worms represent death, then Arya tries to pluck death away from the KM and the FM. Is this exchange an indication that she will do that? I think it might be. I think Arya's hunger will never be filled by the FM. I think she is learning and one day will leave with death in hand.

[Faceless Man Friday]

I wonder about this exchange and what it might mean. If worms represent death, then Arya tries to pluck death away from the KM and the FM. Is this exchange an indication that she will do that? I think it might be. I think Arya's hunger will never be filled by the FM. I think she is learning and one day will leave with death in hand.

:agree:

[Mithras]

Arya hungers for blood. Blood of those who are in her death list for a start. The FM are trying hard to get her rid of such emotions. These feelings make her heart soft. A FM must have an iron heart, utterly free of any emotions. Arya will not be able to do that and be expelled from the House after she kills for her own purposes again. Following references clearly point this:

Each night before sleep, she murmured her prayer into her pillow. “Ser Gregor,” it went. “Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” She would have whispered the names of the Freys of the Crossing too, if she had known them. One day I’ll know, she told herself, and then I’ll kill them all.

No whisper was too faint to be heard in the House of Black and White. “Child,” said the kindly man one day, “what are those names you whisper of a night?”

“I don’t whisper any names,” she said.

“You lie,” he said. “All men lie when they are afraid. Some tell many lies, some but a few. Some have only one great lie they tell so often that they almost come to believe it... though some small part of them will always know that it is still a lie, and that will show upon their faces. Tell me of these names.”

She chewed her lip. “The names don’t matter.”

“They do,” the kindly man insisted. “Tell me, child.”

Tell me, or we will turn you out, she heard. “They’re people I hate. I want them to die.”

“We hear many such prayers in this House.”

“I know,” said Arya. Jaqen H’ghar had granted three of her prayers once. All I had to do was whisper...

“Is that why you have come to us?” the kindly man went on. “To learn our arts, so you may kill these men you hate?”

Arya did not know how to answer that. “Maybe.”

“Then you have come to the wrong place. It is not for you to say who shall live and who shall die. That gift belongs to Him of Many Faces. We are but his servants, sworn to do his will.”

“Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night’s Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots.”

“Good boots are hard to find.”

“Just so.” She tried to keep her face still.

“Who could have done this thing, I wonder?”

“Arya of House Stark.” She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw.

“That girl? I thought she had left Braavos. Who are you?”

“No one.”

“You lie.” He turned to the waif. “My throat is dry. Do me a kindness and bring a cup of wine for me and warm milk for our friend Arya, who has returned to us so unexpectedly.”

On her way across the city Arya had wondered what the kindly man would say when she told him about Dareon. Maybe he would be angry with her, or maybe he would be pleased that she had given the singer the gift of the Many-Faced God. She had played this talk out in her head half a hundred times, like a mummer in a show.

“Who are you?” plague face asked when they were alone.

“No one.”

“Not so. You are Arya of House Stark, who bites her lip and cannot tell a lie.”

“I was. I’m not now.”

“Why are you here, liar?”

“To serve. To learn. To change my face.”

“First change your heart. The gift of the Many-Faced God is not a child’s plaything. You would kill for your own purposes, for your own pleasures. Do you deny it?”

“I do deny it.”

“You lie. I can see the truth in your eyes. You have the eyes of a wolf and a taste for blood.”

Ser Gregor, she could not help but think. Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei. If she spoke, she would need to lie, and he would know. She kept silent.

[ARYa_Nym]

What do you think about the following quote?

“Never fear the darkness, Bran.” The lord’s words were accompanied by a faint rustling of wood and leaf, a slight twisting of his head. “The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

And it should be noted that both Bran and Hodor were freaked out by the giant white worms in the caves first. Then they realized they were only the roots of the weirwood trees, some of which feed the greenseers. And have a look at how BR was described:

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

Both Arya and Bran were told to embrace darkness by their mentors. Syrio said darkness can be her friend and the KM said that darkness must be as sweet to her as light is.

Anyways, I've already done Antigone. Now for Macbeth.

It's usually compared to Cersei and while I do agree that there are some areas where she is in likeness where Arya is not like political ambition, madness, rejecting her gender, and killing a king Arya still has a lot of elements of Macbeth in her story.

1. The sisters:

The witches bear a striking and obviously intentional resemblance to the Fates, female characters in both Norse and Greek mythology who weave the fabric of human lives and then cut the threads to end them. Some of their prophecies seem self-fulfilling. For example, it is doubtful that Macbeth would have murdered his king without the push given by the witches’ predictions.

The fates and Arya has already been discussed. The sisters also have associations with both genders. They are female but have beards. Macbeth notes this and Arya is often taken as both male and female.

The witches said, "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." Macbeth said, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." Arya said that Dareon was, "

He is fair of face and foul of heart, thought Arya, but she did not say it."

The stories deal with deception. What you see may not be reality. Syrio schools Arya on this and so does the KM. Look with your eyes.

The witches seem good but their prophecies actually bring about his end and death. Arya often does the same thing. Also, she did have a woods witch tell her her future.

Macbeth said:"False face must hide what the false heart doth know". Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth to "....look the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. "

The KM wants Arya to wear a mummer's mask to hide the truth. She learns to school her face and to tell lies from facial expressions.

2. Blood:

As Lady Macbeth plans to kill King Duncan, she calls upon the spirits of murder to "make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse" (1.5.43-44). Thin blood was considered wholesome, and it was thought that poison made blood thick. Lady Macbeth wants to poison her own soul, so that she can kill without remorse.

Being full of flood makes one remorseless. Arya was called blood child.

Macbeth looks at the blood on his hands and is horrified by it.

He asks himself if all the water in the world can wash away the blood: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?" And he answers his own question: "No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red" (2.2.57-60).

As stated in another thread Arya has a water theme in her arc.

Lady Macbeth thinks he cowardly for caring about the blood. She had more resolved as did Arya when she killed the Bolton guard.

"Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well. "Valar morghulies,"she whispered as he died...."You killed him!" Hot Pie gasped. "What did you think I would do?" Her fingers were sticky with blood, and the smell was making the mare skittish. It's no matter, she thought, swinging up the sadde. The rain will wash them clean again."

^The deed was done with a dagger and a throat was cut. The same thing happens in Macbeth.

"....Hot Pie seemed almost as terrified of her as of the men who might be coming after them. He had seen the guard she'd killed. It's better if he's scared of me, she told herself, That way he'll do like I say, instead of something stupid. She should be more frightened herself...Yet somehow she felt calmer than she ever had in Harrenhal. The rain had washed the guard's blood of her fingers, she wore a sword across her back, wolves were prowling through the dark like lean shadows, and Arya was unafraid."

She specifically thinks like Lady Macbeth that water will cleanse the blood/guilt.

"A little water clears us of this deed" (2.2.64)

Later, Lady Macbeth will be unable to wash the blood off. It had a theme of no bad deed goes unpunished. Macbeth said that "blood will have blood." The blood relatives of the victim will seek to avenge the murdered. Arya has done this.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?--Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? (5.1.35-40)

Macbeth can't sleep because of his guilt. He has terrible dreams at night. Arya:

"Sleep did not come easily that night...They have no eyes, but they can see me. She saw her father's face upon the wall. Beside him hung her lady mother, and below them her three brothers all in a row....Yet there was the black singer, there the stableboy she’d killed with Needle, there the pimply squire from the crossroads inn, and over there the guard whose throat she’d slashed to get them out of Harrenhal. The Tickler hung on the wall as well…”

4. Courage/Coward- Lady Macbeth thinks Macbeth has a heart that is too white. Arya has a dark heart so she able to easily kill the guard. Lady Macbeth calls him a coward.

Arya had named Craven, because Sandor said she’d likely run off from the Twins the same as them…She was a good enough horse, but Arya could not love a coward. Stranger would have fought…

Too much bravery can have fatal consequences which links back to Ned's warning Arya about Brandon.

Hecate tells the witches that she will prepare illusions that will make Macbeth "spurn fate, scorn death, and bear / His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear" (3.5.30-31), because, as they know, "security / Is mortals' chiefest enemy" (3.5.32-33). "Security" is a sense of safety. In short, the idea that we are bulletproof will kill us.

When Macbeth is about to commit murder:

"...now witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecatte's offerings; and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost...Hear not my steps, which way they walk for fear Thy very stone prate of my whereabout..."

Arya is very much a stealthy wolf in how she operates. As for moving like a ghost:

She had killed Chiswyck with a whisper, and she would kill two more before she was through. I'm the ghost in Harrenhal, she thought.

Syrio taught her to be quiet as a shadow and light as a feather.

From wiki:

Analysts see in the character of Lady Macbeth the conflict between femininity and masculinity, as they are impressed in cultural norms. Lady Macbeth suppresses her instincts toward compassion, motherhood, and fragility — associated with femininity — in favour of ambition, ruthlessness, and the singleminded pursuit of power. This conflict colours the entire drama, and sheds light on gender-based preconceptions from Shakespearean England to the present.

The fact that she conjures spirits likens her to a witch, and the act itself establishes a similarity in the way that both Lady Macbeth and the Weird Sisters from the play "use the metaphoric powers of language to call upon spiritual powers who in turn will influence physical events — in one case the workings of the state, in the other the workings of a woman's body." Like the witches, Lady Macbeth strives to make herself an instrument for bringing about the future^[6] She proves herself a defiant, empowered nonconformist, and an explicit threat to a patriarchal system of governance in that, through challenging his masculinity, she manipulates Macbeth into murdering King Duncan. Despite the fact that she calls him a coward, Macbeth remains reluctant, until she asks: "What beast wasn't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were a man; / And to be more than what you were, you would / Be so much more the man." Thus Lady Macbeth enforces a masculine conception of power, yet only after pleading to be unsexed, or defeminised. The Weird Sisters are also depicted as defeminised, androgynous figures. They are bearded (1.3.46), (which may also be associated with Lady Macbeth's amenorrhea). Witches were perceived as an extreme type of anti-mother, even considered capable of cooking and eating their own children.

On the first page I talked about Arya being an anti mother figure. Now Arya did not reject being female like Lady Macbeth or Cersei but we have the KM who tells her:

“It may be that the Many-Faced God has led you here to be His instrument, but when I look at you I see a child . . . and worse, a girl child. Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of death. No one can do both.”

She has always rejected motherhood and in choosing death she becomes an anti mother. As for witches also being antimothers Arya is associated with cats and she is learning about potions and poisons so in ways she can qualify as a witch.

In the books Lady Macbeth sees blood and darkness as being able to influence her to be cruel like men are. Arya is the Night Wolf and darkness is her friend.

At a banquet he sees the ghost of Banquo which shows his guilt. When Arya recalls Jon pretending to be a ghost in WF's crypts she thinks:

"The darkness held no more terrors for her. The stableboy was dead, she'd killed him, and if he jumped out at her she'd kill him again."

At first she feared the one she killed would reappear like a ghost.

More on Lady Macbeth:

Shakespeare, however, seems to use her, and the witches, to undercut Macbeth’s idea that “undaunted mettle should compose / Nothing but males” (1.7.73–74). These crafty women use female methods of achieving power—that is, manipulation—to further their supposedly male ambitions. Women, the play implies, can be as ambitious and cruel as men, yet social constraints deny them the means to pursue these ambitions on their own.

Lady Macbeth manipulates her husband with remarkable effectiveness, overriding all his objections; when he hesitates to murder, she repeatedly questions his manhood until he feels that he must commit murder to prove himself. Lady Macbeth’s remarkable strength of will persists through the murder of the king—it is she who steadies her husband’s nerves immediately after the crime has been perpetrated. Afterward, however, she begins a slow slide into madness—just as ambition affects her more strongly than Macbeth before the crime, so does guilt plague her more strongly afterward

www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/macbeth/canalysis.html

Arya is not channeling her gifts and desires towards politics but it still applies. Killing is associated with men in Westeros. The boys were allowed to witness the executions while the girls were not. They are the "gentler" sex. With Arya there is nothing gentle about her and she also shows that a female can be just as ruthless as a man and she uses manipulation as well.

All of this is to say that Lady Macbeth is portrayed as masculine and unnatural. It's pretty explicit: she asks the spirits to "unsex" her, stripping her of everything that makes her a reproductive woman. She wants her "passage to remorse" to be stopped up—i.e., her vagina. (What? Well, being a woman and a mother makes her compassionate, so she wants the "passage" of childbirth to be blocked.) She wants her blood to be make thick, meaning both the blood in her veins but also her menstrual blood, the "visitings of nature." Finally? She asks that her breast milk be exchanged for "gall," or poison.

In Lady Macbeth's mind, being a woman —especially a woman with the capacity to give birth and nurture children —interferes with her evil plans. Femininity means compassion and kindness, while masculinity is synonymous with "direst cruelty."

http://www.shmoop.com/macbeth/lady-macbeth.html

Back to blood:

Once he kills his friend Banquo, who returns as a ghost, Macbeth tells that "blood will have blood" (3.4). His image of wading in a river of blood sums up the lesson: you might just as well keep on going once you start, because that stuff is never going to wash out (3.4.24).

Jon said that she would be "sewing" or killing through winter. Arya has had a relationship with death since the first book. Death will not leave her.