Seriously you gotta be some kind of shitbag to read these books and think “ah yes, obviously this disabled child is to blame for his father forcing him to rape another child.”
That, my friends, is what pedophile apology looks like. Blaming a kid for being forced into sex by an adult. But nobody calls Tywin a pedophile! I wonder why!
Because GRRM is so good at writing characters who put on this false image of themselves to cover up how shitty they are (see also Renly and the Tyrells) that many people swallow it. Tywin is so awful.
Then there’s the fact he is a straight white able bodied cis man. For all the pride many on this website has about being against society norms and hating abuse, they scurry like rats towards characters that society approves of no matter how obviously horrible they are.
the stoneheart storyline began with arya pulling catelyn’s desecrated corpse out of the river. after the freys made a mockery of the her houses customs
the only way this can end is by arya giving lady stoneheart mercy and returning her body to the river with the proper tully funeral rites.
nothing else will do
imagine.
arya hearing about this lady stoneheart and being like ??????? who the fuck is this person ?????
gendry telling arya who she is because somebody has to and it should be a friend
arya bravely approaching whats left of her mother.
“dead things did not frighten her”
stoneheart touching aryas face, saying her name, seeing ned’s eyes
arya cries! stoneheart cries! we all cries!
arya telling her mother that bran and rickon and sansa are still alive
arya finding out that her mother always wanted her back
(these two things will bring them both so much of peace of mind and heart!!!!)
arya: “ive got to save you.” lady stoneheart: “you already have.”
thats all arya wanted!!!! to save her mother!!!!!!
arya giving stoneheart mercy so her mother can finally be at rest – no longer tormented by her anger
arya preparing the body for the funeral herself
arya standing on the shore thinking that ned and robb are waiting for catelyn
arya in riverrun – the place where her mother grew up
arya being comforted by gendry
arya becoming the new leader of the brotherhood
arya realizing she doesnt need her list anymore. it won’t ease the pain of her losses. all she can do is move forward.
arya being reunited with nymeria after this heartbreaking mess and feeling whole because she’s with her other half again
arya heading north with her new crew ready to kick some white walker ass
girl pretending not to care that somebody else wants to ring her boy’s bells for him
girl always saying that boy is stupid although she actually listens to his opinions
the boy smiling and laughing only when he’s with girl
boy and girl wrestling!!!! (what more can i say)
being such a good team even at their young age
boy being grumpy after their argument while girl is like ?????? “why tf was he so angry???”
girl daydreaming about running away with boy and just living in the woods and being super cool like something from a song
girl thinking of boy even though she’s somewhere far away
boy being angry at the dude that separated them
and don’t forget:
shared trauma
child soldiers
found family
mutual respect and trust
food sharing
no man left behind (”the only thing that mattered was that they had gendry”)
history repeats (Robert/Lyanna, but gets it right this time)
girl likes to lead, boy’s cool with following
not afraid to call each other out tho
knight/lady trope subversion
HEIGHT DIFFERENCE
saying the same thing at the same time
“he reminds me?? of my favorite person????”
boy: *is insecure about being a bastard* girl: *doesn’t care because her other favorite person is a bastard*
boy: *is insecure about being poor* girl: *is literally nicknamed for how much she loves and respects commoners*
i.e. genuine but surmountable class angst
boy makes weapons, girl wields them
everyone else Knows (Lem, Tom)
girl: my rough hands are symbolic of my inability to fit society’s prescribed role for me and my guilt over the things i’ve done to survive boy: THOSE SOFT LITTLE THINGS (⊙‿⊙✿)???
i can’t reiterate enough the fact that grrm really sat down at his stone age computer and typed up an ENTIRE LOVE SONG for these two, specific to their dynamic and themes, and placed it at the end of a scene with him seeing her in a dress for the first time and them wrestling, basically saying:
This is for people who are in complete denial over their relationship and see it as “pedophiliac”, “wrong”, “impossible” or “disgusting” (and of course shippers like myself.) If you just don’t ship it, it’s your prerogative. But if you deny its romantic, wonderful, canon existence and label it as wrong, you, my friend, should read this.
How Arya and Gendry are portrayed as having a hinted-at-romantic relationship in the text:
Arya’s endgame is really up in the air in my opinion. From the beginning of the chaos that starts in AGoT, Arya becomes the ultimate wildcard.
“I mean to have Arya as well. I have men searching.” “Searching is not finding.” Cersei and Tyrion, ACoK
“Always,” said Jaime, with a last glance at the girl. He wondered if there was much resemblance. Not that it mattered. The real Arya Stark was buried in some unmarked grave in Flea Bottom in all likelihood. Jaime, ASoS
“What of Arya? By law, she comes after Sansa… your own sister, trueborn…”
“… and dead. No one has seen or heard of Arya since they cut Father’s head off. Why do you lie to yourself? Arya’s gone”Robb and Catelyn, ASoS
“He’s the one that’s got the Stark girl. The way I hear it, she was making for Riverrun, and he stole her. Damned dog.”
Riverrun, thought Brienne. She was making for Riverrun. For her uncles. “How do you know?” “Had it from one of Beric’s bunch. The lightning lord is looking for her too. He’s sent his men all up and down the Trident, sniffing after her.” Brienne, AFFC
“Arya Stark?” Brienne stared open-mouthed, astonished. “You know this? Lady Sansa’s sister is alive?”
“Then,” said the Elder Brother. “Now… I do not know. She may have been amongst the children slain at Saltpans.” Brienne, AFFC
But what if Arya was not there to be saved? What if Lady Melisandre’s flames had told it true? Could his sister truly have escaped such captors? How would she do that? Arya was always quick and clever, but in the end she’s just a little girl, and Roose Bolton is not the sort who would be careless with a prize of such great worth.
What if Bolton never had his sister? This wedding could well be just some ruse to lure Stannis into a trap. Jon, ADWD
In universe, no one knows what the hell happened to her. She’s the ultimate mystery, the quintessential wild card. Jon, Stannis, the Brotherhood and Lady Stoneheart, Brienne are all wondering where she went. Before that, Varys, Tyrion, Cersei, all the Lannister men were looking for her. No one knows what happened to her.
And out of universe, her fate went up in the air after Ned’s death. She has the least stability of any character. She’s been in Braavos for just two books, but it’s the most stable she’s been in years- and this is in a very questionable assassin’s guild that she fears will kick her out at any moment (which they might actually.)
I think that Arya’s fate is very open to discussion and theories, but I’ll give you my thoughts.
First, Arya’s going to leave the Faceless Men soon (almost certainly in the next book.) This will be due to one of the likely following reasons:
She hears of Jon’s “death” and that triggers her departure (maybe she wants revenge, more likely it just awakens her identity to the point where she just can’t hide anymore.) Plus, it would be very fitting if Arya’s the reason that Jon gets “killed” and Jon’s “death” is the reason Arya leaves.
She hears of something to do with her family. Unlikely that she’ll hear of Sansa, maybe she will though. More possible is that Rickon’s survival reaches her ears.
The wolf dreams become too frequent and powerful (there are hints of this already) and/or Arya realizes that it’s Nymeria she’s connected to and this solidifies her identity and desire to reunite with Nymeria, and symbolically her identity as a Stark since the direwolves represent the Stark identities.
She is given an assassination assignment that she can’t justify. Notably, she was given one assignment that she had to rationalize and justify to do. He was, by all accounts, a horrible person who cheated widows and fatherless children, stole money, and was rude/mean/uncourteous/angry/paranoid/all sorts of bad things. I think GRRM set this up so that Arya can easily justify her first assignment, but she’s so rigid in her sense of justice that a good person, someone she’ll deem unworthy of death, will ruin her chances of maintaining this “servant of the Many Faced God” facade.
They kick her out. The Kindly Man, the Plague Faced Priest, everyone can see that Arya hasn’t given up her identity. The KM and others have made several comments that she can’t be one of them (“you’re heart’s too soft”, “you’re too proud to serve”.) It may end up that the FM just kick her out- but not before she’s been trained extensively.
So Arya will leave- one way or the other- and then one of two things will happen. She’ll either join Dany (if only to get passage to Westeros, something she isn’t currently able to do.) Dany noticeably may hate the Starks, but she loves children. Arya’s will be 11/12 and likely won’t be recognized as a Stark. It is worth noting that Barristan has seen Arya (he’s present at Arya’s “trial” for the Mycah/Trident/Joffrey incident.) If she doesn’t join Dany, she’ll get passage somehow back to Westeros on her own immediately.
As to where she’ll land in Westeros, it’s one of two places. It’s either Eastwatch and the Wall or somewhere in the Riverlands (Saltpans, back the way she came, coming back the same path but as a different person, very fitting.)
The Wall is for obvious reasons. It’s been heavily foreshadowed that she’ll go there, Jon’s presumably there (or at least she’ll likely think that,) it’s where she’s wanted to go since book one, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to play a role in the battle against the Others.
The Riverlands because of a few reasons:
Lady Stoneheart is there. It’s possible that Arya will be the one to kill her permanently, to give her the “gift of mercy” as it is, and LS is very connected to Arya (after all, Arya as Nymeria saved her body.)
The Brotherhood is there. The Brotherhood have been looking for Arya since she was kidnapped. While I’d argue that the BWB were not all that kind to Arya in some ways (the fandom glorifies their treatment of her) and that some members didn’t really care for her, a great deal of them did. Harwin and Gendry are especially close with Arya, Anguy and Thoros showed her genuine affection, and a few others seemed to really care about her as well (like Tom.) We met the Brotherhood through Arya, they’re looking for her, she has lots of ties there, I can definitely see them meeting up again- in fact, I expect it.
Nymeria is there. Arya and Nymeria are definitely reuniting. There is zero doubt in my mind about this. While Nymeria could definitely meet Arya somewhere else, I believe Arya will go to Nymeria. In some ways, that’s symbolic- returning to get her Stark identity. Also, there’s the hundreds of wolves following Nymeria in the Riverlands, they’ve been referenced too many times for me to think they’ll just disappear.
Saltpans is one of the only ports Arya can return through. Eastwatch is less likely to even have a ship going to it. Saltpans, Oldtown, Duskendale, King’s Landing, and Gulltown are pretty much her main options. I suppose she could go to KL for Cersei or something and because she’s been there before, but I highly doubt it. Saltpans seems the logical choice.
Now, I’m pretty sure that where she ends up, she’ll be at the Wall for the final battle against the Others. A bunch of characters are likely going to unite there, but Arya will be one of them. She actually has combat skills, which makes her a likely choice for a character to reach the Wall and contribute. Characters like Cersei, Littlefinger, Sansa, Varys, the more politically inclined field are far less likely to be (in fact, I’m pretty sure they won’t be) there. Tyrion is debatable, but he’s been in combat and commanded an army- he’s a politician but also a commander and a fighter to some extent. I think he’ll be there as well, and he did go to the Wall early on. Likely he’ll be with Dany. But Arya has skills and is a fighter, so she’ll probably be there.
Before the battle with the Others, well, it’s debatable. I’m fairly positive that the fact that Nymeria, who is “a part of Arya”, is leading hundreds of wolves (what they call Stark men and North men in universe) means that there is a good likelihood that Arya will assume some sort of commanding role.
It is noticeable that of the four remaining Starks (Arya, Sansa, Bran, and Rickon,) Arya is the only one who could really lead people into battle. Sansa and Bran are non-combatants. Rickon is either four or five at the moment. Arya has had a fair amount of experience in participating and witnessing battles. She was there when the Brotherhood fought the Bloody Mummers, she fought with the Night’s Watch recruits against Armory Lorch and the goldcloaks, the Weasel Soup incident as well, she even was there at the Red Wedding. Arya also is the only one of her Stark siblings to be able to fight. She’s had some sword training, can handle knives, has had to fight blind, and is being trained as an assassin.
So I could see Nymeria’s status as leading and controlling a pack of hundreds of wolves being foreshadowing or symbolic of Arya later leading a pack of “wolves” (aka Stark men) for some purpose- even if that’s only to bring them to the Wall. After all, the Wall needs so many more men than it has.
But like I said, it’s all very up in air. But that’s what I think will happen.
I have to be honest, one of the most frustrating things I’ve seen in regards to Arya’s character is the constant dismissal and misinterpretation of Arya’s list of names. People seem to just write it off as Arya wanting to go on a revenge spree, being obsessed with vengeance, or whatever and completely miss what it really represents in Arya’s arc.
You only have to look at the conception and use of the list to see it’s implications and status as a coping mechanism.
Stressed, Depressed, and Story Obsessed 