habibi
6461
I don’t like the idea or Arya being No One. She’s here to learn assassin skills to take revenge. It’s more satisfying to see her ticking those people off her list. Also, don’t forget she had hid Needle somewhere which she could retrieve.
Nah. So far her list has been a flop. The only people that she had a hand in ending on her list were The Tickler and The Hound, and in both cases, she learned that she really didn’t want that. The Tickler was a waste of a slot in Jaquen’s offer, and while she did leave The Hound to die, it’s obvious that she ended up not hating him like she did before. She learned that her hate was an abstract child’s thing.
Anyone else on her list that’s died has been while she was nowhere near them.
I’m of the opposite opinion. Arya going ninja on their asses can be fun, but ultimately it doesn’t grow her character, nor it’s the best for her.
The “good end” for Arya is to become a No One, and truly accept the new Brotherhood, learn some selflessness, and have a new family, a new role in it. And their teaching are almost custom tailored to accept the deaths of her family and reach some kind of happiness. And more specifically give peace to a few undeads that roam the story.
The bad end she still going obsessed with vengeance that won’t amount to anything even if she kills a pair of her targets. Will that get her out of the streets? Reunite her with Jon? Resurrect his father?
Yup, Martin is subverting the standard revenge-hero trope. We’re seeing Arya’s origin story, and she (and much of the fanbase) is completely convinced it’s the origin story of a badass hero who refuses to be distracted from their quest for justice. But if you look at it from a distance, its really the origin story of someone who lets their life be completely consumed by vengeance, burning away all their other good qualities and keeping them from doing anything positive or useful with their life.
In other words, it’s the origin story for a villain.
Maybe… but that’s actually the standard arc for a revenge story, isn’t it? Even the Count of Monte Cristo (kind of the ur-revenge tale in modern times) cautions against the unintended consequences of revenge, the abyss looking back, etc.
GRRM subverting the trope would actually have her find happiness after bloodily massacring her foes, right?
But clearly GRRM knows you would think that, so to actually subvert the trope…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - GRRM isn’t in the trope-subverting business just for trope-subverting’s sake, and nor is he a moral nihilist.
What he’s actually concerned with is the unintended consequences of actions (good actions having bad unintended consequences, obviously; but also bad actions having good unintended consequences), and if showing that means subverting a trope, he’ll do it, but he isn’t going to do it just mechanistically for the sheer hell of it.
Teiman
6468
Maybe Arya will end as minister of war THEN asked to kill the king, something that she will absolutely do in the face of everyone, then disappear in thin air. This will give time for Arya to play the role of the Arya everyone expect but is not anymore, for fun and shits, and complete his arch by vanishing.
I like that take. The other important thing to remember about Martin is that he self-describes as a “gardener” and not an “architect.” As such, I don’t think his interest in the Arya arc is structural in that way. Rather he wants to see how someone would react in this very heightened scenario, in which holding onto your identity leads to bloody vengeance, whereas killing your old self may lead to some sort of peace. But there’s no family for Arya to find in the House of Black & White.
The bad end she still going obsessed with vengeance that won’t amount to anything even if she kills a pair of her targets. Will that get her out of the streets? Reunite her with Jon? Resurrect his father?
Arya has three brothers and a sister still in the world, waiting for her to come back. Considering how closely she’s kept her enemies to her heart, I doubt she’ll give up on them.
Seems inevitable to me that Arya will have an important role to play, but will ultimately be tragic. She will be very deadly, will probably get an opportunity to serve her family by offing a powerful opponent, but long before that will have given up her former self to the point where she can never really reunite with the surviving Starks in any meaningful way.
Pod
6471
Arya won’t have a single chance to kill any of the remaining people on her list. They’ll all be dead by the time she’s levelled up.
What then? Add more people she didn’t know about at the time? (e.g. Ramsay)
Teiman, that little arena you were laughing about is in fact, La plaza de toros de ozuna.
With Arya, what if her whole “rescue” and eventual training by the House of Black and White is all part of a long game being played by the Faceless Men under contract to the Iron Bank of Bravos. The story has many times taken pains to remind us that the kingdom of Westeros, no matter who sits the throne, owes the Iron Bank quite a bit of money. With a Westerosi born and Faceless Men trained noble as their pawn, the Iron Bank could manipulate things to their advantage under the guise of Arya getting her revenge and/or helping her family. It’s a stretch, but it does tie all of Arya’s storyline back into the main one with purpose.
Avtar
6474
Yeah, he’s been known to say something about the only story he’s interested in writing is the human heart in struggle against itself.
But she already has given up on them. That’s pretty much the point of where she is now in her story arc: she’s not only given up on her specific family,* but the idea of making/finding a family elsewhere. Her enemies are her world now.
The irony being, as Pod points out, that she’s not going to get a chance to get her revenge on her enemies. By the time she gets back they’re all either be dead or so neutralized that her only “revenge” will be a hollow one. Which will leave her lost, as reflected by the condition of her dire wolf. (Though perhaps that shows there’s more hope for her than Sansa: Nymera is merely lost and might be found again. But Lady …)
*For perfectly good reasons, mind you. The only one she knows is alive is Jon, and she wouldn’t be welcome at the Wall.
Agreed, but he’s often at his best when he is making light fun of fantasy tropes in the books.
One of my favorite scenes is the one in first book when Tyrion first encounters the clansmen in the outskirts of the Vale: For a split-second, GRRM makes him a traditional fantasy dwarf, complete with a double-bladed axe, shield and horned helmet. I was disappointed when they didn’t play that up in the TV show.
She buried it under some rocks by the water when she threw away all her other possessions and couldn’t manage to toss it in the sea as well.
edit: oh that was probably rhetorical
I think that on some level getting revenge by killing the people on her list represented Arya’s contribution to her family. Once events overtook her revenge scheme, and her targets started dying due to other causes, she was left with the realization there’s nothing she can do for her family. That’s why I think even if she meets up with Sansa again she’ll leave right away. Being an assassin is her new purpose in life. Maybe, just maybe, the last bit of Arya will be wiped away by her using Needle to kill one person. I’m thinking Walder Frey. That dude needs to die but he’s barricaded in his stronghold. It will take someone very resourceful to get to him. That’s as close to closure as she’ll ever get.
olaf
6480
Just like the books I am sure ‘No One’ will have a relapse into Arya. It will involve Needle.
