Arya's sudden moral descent

[SilentSense]

After Arya leaves the Hound for dead, she finds a stable and wants to sell her horse to the owner, who tells her she has to accept the price she's offering because the horse is likely stolen. Then we have this:

"A half-dozen other Saltpan folks were around, going about their business, so Arya knew she couldn't kill the woman"

Was anyone else shocked by that? I understand how the hardships of survival can lead to a gradual moral decline - gradual being the key word. It was pretty gradual up that point, but then she seriously contemplates killing a woman because she refuses to pay more for Arya's stolen horse?

I raced through ASOS in a week so I may have missed something in Arya's development that can explain this scene?

[Gordias]

After Arya leaves the Hound for dead, she finds a stable and wants to sell her horse to the owner, who tells her she has to accept the price she's offering because the horse is likely stolen. Then we have this:

"A half-dozen other Saltpan folks were around, going about their business, so Arya knew she couldn't kill the woman"

Was anyone else shocked by that? I understand how the hardships of survival can lead to a gradual moral decline - gradual being the key word. It was pretty gradual up that point, but then she seriously contemplates killing a woman because she refuses to pay more for Arya's stolen horse?

I raced through ASOS in a week so I may have missed something in Arya's development that can explain this scene?

Think about it this way.

Arya's time in the Riverlands has taught her to trust no one. She trusted her father, "the lone wolf dies, while the pack survive"- but she is the lone wolf, her family dead and scattered, her father's men wrong about them being worth twice of any Southron sword. Then with Yoren she yearns for home, but he ends up dying too in a horrific and very disturbing slaughter that sends her off alone again to forage for herself. Her capture by Gregor and time at Harrenhal under Lorch and the Mummers has completely numbed her to people dying, and she's learned that she can only truly trust herself to survive. Her only mentor is an Assassin, who helps her kill a half dozen guards and who she later emulates when she kills a guard on the wall to escape.

THEN she's captured by rebels, where she's constantly afraid of being betrayed until she's abducted by the Hound, who brings her to the Red Wedding where some of the only remaining kin she has left (that she knows of) is brutally slaughtered.

All throughout the narrative up until that point, it has been Arya fighting two impulses; the wolfish impulse to survive at any cost, and the impulse of Arya- who has friends, a family and a heart. But after all this trauma and loss, I feel like the former takes precedence when she's looking out for herself; in the Saltpans, she's concerned for her own safety and trusts no one. Thinking about killing the woman comes easy to her, because of all the things she been through- at this point, Arya's view of humanity is imo pretty shitty and I imagine she would feel that the woman might want to kill her too for the same reasons.

There's a hole where Arya's heart had been :(

[Hound Dog]

Not at all shocking. I've already read all of the books, but lately I've been going back and am rereading all of the individual character chapters throughout the series. Right now I'm rereading Arya's chapters, and I'm going through her chapters in ASOS. And wow, it's incredible character development.

Look at everything she has gone through up until this point. She's seen her father and his loyal household slaughtered, she's seen the injustice of the rule in King's Landing, she's seen innocents tortured and the realm turning to shit. She's still a small girl. And she's bloody mad. She's alone. She's lost everything and she's plain had it with injustice and robbery and every other little thing that's wrong with the world.

I think this reaction perfectly suits Arya's character. In fact, when I watch the show on HBO, I find myself increasingly disappointed at Arya's character because she is just the opposite of the little angry girl who would think about killing a woman for something so "small". That little glimpse into her anger and feelings, to me, is a brilliant insight into just how cold the realm's made her.

[Independent George]

It's not sudden at all; re-read her chapters starting from COK, knowing where she ends up. It's all there from the beginning, you just never notice it because you're still thinking about who she was. The same is true of several other characters, for good or ill.

[Harrad]

As soon as she starts her name of lists...not to mention siccing Jarqen on them...she is no innocent little girl. Even further back she sticks a fatboy at KL. This is a believable character arc.

[David Selig]

Arya had already killed the Harrenhall guard at the end of ACOK, someone who was an ally at this point as far as she knew, and took it pretty much in stride, so I wouldn't say this moment here was a surprise to me.

[bullsfan78]

Just to add to the above replies: this woman, to whom she was trying to sell her horse, had half-threatened to take Arya to the castle in Saltpans because she figured that Arya had stolen the horse from a knight. So, in the context of this specific transaction, Arya's passing thought of killing the woman was in part a direct response to being threatened.

[FacelessFanDragon]

Arya is my favorite character. She has been well written and her character development is very believable. She has been witness to countless injustices from the start.(Mycah's slaughter, Ned's beheading , Sansa's betrayal, etc.) Her thought regrding the woman was totally justified, as arya's freedom/safety was threatened. Thankfully she controls her impulse. (since there are too many witnesses) As for the TV Arya, she does exhibit a little of her anger in the Hound's pre-trail scence from Ep4.

[WarofRoses]

Sudden? I highly disagree. Up until that point, Arya has had to overcome MUCH injustices. First, her friend Mycah was murdered. Then she watches her father get his head chopped off. And then she witnesses the horror that was the Red Wedding, losing her brother, her mother and her home in Winterfell. If anything, I think I felt the character development dragged, seeing as how it has taken Arya about 2.5 books to get to where she is.

Plus, by the time she meets the woman and sells the horse, she has killed four people, so you shouldn't be shocked.

[silentwanderer]

Arya had already killed the Harrenhall guard at the end of ACOK, someone who was an ally at this point as far as she knew, and took it pretty much in stride, so I wouldn't say this moment here was a surprise to me.

People tend to forget Arya is still being hunted - and had just watched her mother and brother die by the very people hunting her - at this point of the story. As far as she was concerned, the only man she could rely on is gone. And don't even get me started on the fact that, said man, was Sandor Clegane. It's a kill-or-be-killed scenario, and Arya can't trust on Boltons, Freys, Tullys or anybody else.