Arya Stark is a character who’s gone by many names. As a little girl, they called her Arya
Horseface, making her believe she’s ugly even though the adults who knew better called her
pretty. She preferred the name Arya Underfoot, because that’s where she always was. After her
father’s death, Arya became a fugitive, and pretended to be a boy called Arry. But they
called her Lumpyhead, or Lumpyface. In Harrenhal, she named herself Weasel,
after the little orphan girl who she tried to protect. Throughout her arc in Westeros, Arya
became Nan as Roose Bolton’s cupbearer, Squab when she meets the Brotherhood Without Banners, and
the Ghost in Harrenhal for arranging the deaths of Chiswyck, Weese, and eight Lannister guards.
That name she proudly gives to herself. They called her Salty on the way to Braavos,
because they found her at the port town of Saltpans. As an acolyte of the House of Black
and White, she took the name Cat of the Canals (an homage to her mother, and to the stray cats
who she skinchanges). Then she becomes Blind Beth when the Kindly Man takes her eyes (an homage to
Beth Cassel, who had been the steward’s daughter back home in Winterfell. Although, she was Sansa’s
friend, not Arya’s). In her Winds of Winter preview chapter, she becomes a mummer called
Mercy, a word with a lot of meaning for Arya’s character. She thinks of herself as the Night
Wolf, because nearly every night, Arya dream-wargs across the Narrow Sea to her wolf, Nymeria.
“Meat was meat, and men were prey. She was the night wolf. But only when she dreamed.”
Arya is constantly trying to be someone she’s not, and it’ll never work because deep down, in her
heart of hearts, she’s Arya Stark of Winterfell, not Mercy or Beth or Cat. She stays with the
Faceless Men in Braavos because there’s nowhere else for her to go, and at least in the House of
Black and White, she could feel strong and brave, and have a belly full of food. “Arya turned her
face up to let the raindrops wash her cheeks, so happy she could dance. ‘Valar morghulis,’ she
said, ‘valar morghulis, valar morghulis.’” But Arya’s story, much like Dany’s,
is about the search for home, and for a pack she can belong to. Actually, there’s a lot of
similarities between Arya and Dany, which we’ll discuss later on. You’re watching the fourth
installment of my Winds of Winter predictions mega-videos. The first two focused on a lot of
characters in the north and south of Westeros, but Daenerys needed a video all to herself,
and Arya didn’t really fit in anywhere else - I guess that’s pretty true to her character.
I’ll discuss Arya’s journey thus far, as well as where she’s going in not just The Winds of Winter,
but beyond into the Dream of Spring. This is Arya: The Theory of Everything.
One of the main throughlines of Arya’s story is that she hates weakness. She hates it in others,
but she especially despises weakness in herself. And of course, Arya is a child,
growing from just nine to eleven years old at the current point of the series, so her
analysis of weakness isn’t exactly fair. She judges Desmond, one of Ned Stark’s guards
from Winterfell, as weak and a “liar” because once he told her that every Northman was worth
ten of these southron swords. But Arya found his corpse next to the lone Lannister man he
was able to take down with him. “"You liar!" she said, kicking his body in a sudden fury.”
She does the same with Yoren, the Night’s Watchman who found her near Baelor the Blessed
and promised to take her home to Winterfell. When he was killed by Amory Lorch’s men,
“Part of her wanted to cry. The other part wanted to kick him.” Yoren wasn’t strong
enough to keep his word, just like Desmond. And when she’s a captive called Weasel in Harrenhal,
Arya sees Lord Cerwyn, her father’s bannerman who taken there as a prisoner,
and she foolishly hopes he can save her. When Cerwyn dies of his wound,
Arya thinks “He could never have helped you anyway … He couldn't even help himself …” Arya puts her
childlike trust in these adults who are supposed to be capable and strong. They’ll know what to do,
they’ll protect her, but… they don’t. At the age of nine, Arya’s realizing something we all
learn when we become adults: adults aren’t as perfect as kids think they are.
Arya also hates stories of weak people. When Dareon sings the song about a lady who jumped
off a tower because someone killed her prince, Arya thinks the woman was weak and stupid. “The
lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince.” And when the Kindly Man tells her the
story of the first Faceless Man, who gave the gift of mercy to a desperate slave in Valyria,
Arya says, “‘He killed the slave?’ That did not sound right. ‘He should have
killed the masters!’” Daenerys moment. Arya’s life is this constant struggle between
feeling fearsome and brave versus feeling like a helpless little mouse. Her brother Jon Snow,
who Arya probably loves more than anyone in the world, gave her Needle. And with Needle,
Arya felt protected. “If I still had Needle, she wouldn't dare hit me, she thought sullenly.” After
Needle is stolen, Arya feels immense shame; that sword was her identity, a reminder of Winterfell
and of Jon, of Syrio who had taught her to use it. Without Needle, Arya feels like a beaten,
weak little mouse in the giant haunted castle of Harrenhal. She calls herself a mouse seven
times in a single chapter, but she slowly regains her confidence when Jaqen H’ghar
offers her three deaths with a whisper. When Arya, Gendry, and Hot Pie escape Harrenhal,
the sword Gendry had stolen made her feel strong again. “Maybe I'm not a water dancer yet,
but I'm not a mouse either. A mouse couldn't use a sword but I can.” Well, once again, Arya’s freedom
didn’t last long. The Brotherhood Without Banners found them, and Arya felt like “They were going to
steal her sword and turn her back into a mouse.” Instead of taking Arya straight to Riverrun to
her mother and her brother, they forcibly took her to see the Lightning Lord, Beric Dondarrion,
and Arya lost faith in another adult she thought she could trust: Harwin, one of Ned Stark’s guards
who played with Arya in Winterfell, who rode off with Beric Dondarrion to bring the King’s Justice
to Gregor Clegane, whose loyalty now resided with the Brotherhood instead of the Starks.
Harwin wouldn’t save her, just like Lord Cerwyn, and Yoren, and Desmond. Just like the Hound,
who, for all his cruelty and abusiveness, was trying to ransom Arya to her family.
No, Arya would have to save herself. At Saltpans Arya finds a ship,
and begs the captain to bring her north to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Jon Snow would protect
her. He was the only family she had left. But the captain was Braavosi, and the Titan’s Daughter
was sailing for Braavos. Once more, Arya is headed someplace she wasn’t trying to go. But she thinks,
“Braavos might not be so bad. Syrio was from Braavos, and Jaqen might be there as well. It was
Jaqen who had given her the iron coin. He hadn't truly been her friend, the way that Syrio had,
but what good had friends ever done her? I don't need any friends, so long as I have Needle.” But
Braavos is immense, and Arya worries that she’ll be a mouse again, the way she was
in Harrenhal. They drop her off right in front of the House of Black and White, so for lack of
any better option or a means to get there, Arya becomes a servant of the Faceless Men.
In Braavos, Arya has no friends and certainly no family. She isn’t really even supposed to
be herself anymore. The Kindly Man tells her there is no place for Arya Stark in the House
of Black and White. “Hers is too proud a name, and we have no room for pride. We are servants
here.”But Arya thinks, “I have a hole where my heart should be … and nowhere else to go.”
The Kindly Man offers to send her wherever she wishes, even back to Westeros, but Arya decides
to stay. She can be as strong as any of them. Arya is told that if she stays, “the Many-Faced
God will take your ears, your nose, your tongue. He will take your sad grey eyes that have seen so
much. He will take your hands, your feet, your arms and legs, your private parts. He will take
your hopes and dreams, your loves and hates. Those who enter His service must give up all that makes
them who they are. Can you do that?” She says yes, but she keeps Needle,
which belonged to Arya Stark. She kills Dareon the Night’s Watch deserter and Raff the Sweetling who
killed her friend, Lommy Greenhands. Those two were hated by Arya Stark, but she was supposed
to abandon her loves and her hates. Arya fails at being no one, probably because she doesn’t
actually want to give up her identity. She just needed a place to call home for a while.
In book one, Ned tells Arya that, “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies,
but the pack survives.” In book two, she thinks “But there is no pack … Bran and Rickon were dead,
the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall.” So in book four,
Arya realizes Ned had it backwards. “Arya, the lone wolf, still lived, but the wolves of the pack
had been taken and slain and skinned.” She tries to make her own pack. Arya feels
responsible for Hot Pie and Gendry, since it was her idea to escape Harrenhal. Only… they leave
her. Hot Pie becomes a baker at Sharna’s inn and Gendry becomes a blacksmith for the Brotherhood
Without Banners. Arya thinks, “She would have been better alone … they were never my pack. If
they had been, they wouldn't leave me.” Arya feels abandoned by a lot of people. Ned, Desmond, Syrio,
Yoren, and Lommy all died. Hot Pie, Gendry, Jaqen H’ghar, Beric Dondarrion, and Harwin all left her,
disappointed her, failed to protect her. For all the danger in the waking world, Arya finds
solace in her wolf dreams, where she repeatedly wargs into her direwolf Nymeria, who now leads a
pack of her own in the Riverlands. If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you may not know that
all of the Stark children are wargs in the books, according to George RR Martin. We see Jon warging
Ghost (and he may be inside Ghost’s body at this very moment after his human body was killed), and
of course Bran can skinchange his wolf, ravens, and even Hodor, although that one’s considered an
abomination. Arya wargs Nymeria in her sleep and she appears to skinchange the black cat who she
befriends in Braavos. We read that, “she was no one and she heard most every word. And for a time
it seemed that she could see them too, through the slitted yellow eyes of the tomcat purring in her
lap.” The cat followed her to the House of Black and White, and even though Arya was blind, she
skinchanged the cat after it had climbed up onto the rafters and Arya saw that it was the Kindly
Man who had been beating her with a stick. Let’s go back to Arya warging Nymeria,
though. In the year 2000, George Martin said, “I don't think this is necessarily a 'Stark' ability,
though all the children have it to one extent or another. They also realize it to one extent
or another. Arya doesn't realize she has it, she keeps thinking she has these weird dreams,
and of course Bran is much further along.” In one wolf dream, Arya-as-Nymeria comes across some
Bloody Companions, the sellswords who worked for the Lannisters in Harrenhal. As Nymeria
tore the flesh and ripped the arm off Iggo, Arya exulted. While Arya has wolf dreams in which she
wargs Nymeria in the present, Daenerys has dragon dreams in which she sees the future. George uses
similar language in the dragon dream where Dany bathes a bunch white walkers in dragonfire: “Some
small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant
to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.” So both Arya and Dany, psychically
linking to their respective bonded companions, exult in the destruction of their enemies.
In another dream, Arya feels “strong” and “fierce” as Nymeria, with her wolf pack behind her. And in
book one, Dany feels “strong” and “fierce” when she dreams of a great molten dragon searing off
her own flesh. So now we see that both Arya and Dany learn to feel confident in their
daily lives as they do in their dreams. The direwolf and the dragon are seeping
into their actual personalities. From a wolf dream many nights before,
Arya can still taste the blood in her mouth, even though it was Nymeria who tore off Iggo’s arm.
The same thing happens to Jon Snow - Ghost makes a kill, and Jon tastes the blood. Arya’s a lot like
Jon and Dany, perhaps most of all in her search for a pack, for an end to her loneliness. Jon has
Samwell Tarly, who he send away to Oldtown, he has Ygritte, who dies in his arms. He has Dolorous Edd
and Pyp and other friends who he disperses along the Wall, and at Castle Black he’s surrounded
by his enemies. “Jon Snow flexed the fingers of his sword hand, remembering all he'd lost. Sam,
you sweet fat fool, you played me a cruel jape when you made me lord commander. A lord commander
has no friends.” If a Lord Commander has no friends, neither does a Queen. Dany has only
supplicants and foe, even if little Missandei brings her joy and Daario Naharis brings her
pleasure and some R-rated friendship. “Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god,
living atop the highest mountain in the world. Do all gods feel so lonely?”
Arya is the same. Her family is dead or gone, her friends are dead or gone, and Arya left to
her own devices, left to become The Night Wolf. When Arya does remember her prayer,
her list of names to kill, she thinks, “I am no one. That is the night wolf's prayer. Someday she
will find them, hunt them, smell their fear, taste their blood. Someday.” This tells me two things:
Arya is not committed to becoming a Faceless Man forever, and Arya will reunite with Nymeria,
the Night Wolf and the direwolf. Arya loves Jon Snow more than anyone in the
world. In Winterfell, they were both outcasts; Jon the bastard son and Arya the lady who refused
to be a lady. Jon says, “Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not
the arms. I did not make the rules, little sister.” This quote show how Jon and Arya want
what the other has: Jon wants to be a Stark, to be the Lord of Winterfell with the grey direwolf
for his sigil; Arya wants to be a fighter, to wield a sword and kill her enemies. Jon gave
Arya her first sword and her first lesson: stick them with the pointy end. Years later,
across the Narrow Sea in Braavos, Arya who is supposed to be no one is unable to part with
Needle. She hides it under a big rock. Throughout her journey, Arya misses Jon most
of all. “She yearned to see her mother again, and Robb and Bran and Rickon . . . but it was
Jon Snow she thought of most. She wished somehow they could come to the Wall before Winterfell,
so Jon might muss up her hair and call her "little sister." She'd tell him,
"I missed you," and he'd say it too at the very same moment, the way they always used to say
things together. She would have liked that. She would have liked that better than anything.”
After Arya escapes Harrenhal, she considers going to Jon Snow on the Wall instead of her brother
King Robb and her mother Catelyn at Riverrun. Arya killed the stableboy in King’s Landing,
and the Bolton guard at Harrenhal. She worries that Robb might not even want her. “Jon wouldn't
care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair …” So when Arya is looking for a ship after leaving
the Hound for death, she decides to go north. But the Titan’s Daughter was sailing for Braavos,
not Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. “Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach.”
But actually, at least thematically, Braavos represents Jon Snow. The Kindly Man calls
Braavos the bastard child of Valyria, who ran away from the Dragonlord slavers. Who else is in Arya’s
life is a Valyrian bastard? Even though she can’t physically go live with Jon, Arya goes to live
with a different bastard, the Braavosi. Valyrian bastards make Arya feel at home… but she might be
leaving Braavos soon. What will happen when she learns of the Lord Commander’s death?
In January 2013, George Martin published a sample chapter from The Winds of Winter onto his website;
it was called Mercy. It’s Arya’s first chapter in Winds, showing us her new disguise for the House
of Black and White. She’s a pretty girl called Mercedene, and she works for a troupe of mummers
led by Izembaro. They’re doing a performance of The Bloody Hand, chronicling some recent events
in Westeros. Izembaro himself plays King Robert Baratheon, and Mercy plays a r*** victim. Yes,
Arya is still only eleven years old. Initially, this chapter was supposed to be
our re-introduction to Arya after the five-year gap, meaning Arya would be about 16 - an adult in
Westerosi culture. When Bobono, the actor playing Tyrion, grabs Arya’s chest and says, “You have no
titties. How can I r*** a girl with no titties?” it’s even more vile when you realize Arya is still
only eleven. At the end of the chapter, Arya uses her own sexuality to seduce Raff the Sweetling,
who’s come to Braavos as a guard for Ser Harys Swyft, who Cersei sent to deal with the Iron Bank.
In book two, Raff was one of Gregor Clegane’s men; he was the one who killed Lommy Greenhands, and he
was on Arya’s list of names. Arya tells Raff she’s a maiden, which is a lie - Arya is so young that
she hasn’t had her first period yet. Regardless, Raff says, “I’m Lord Rafford, sweetling, and I
know just what I want. Hike up those skirts now, and lean back against that wall.” Instead, Arya
takes him back to her apartment, where she has to first get past his erection, and then use her tiny
knife to slash his femoral artery. Afterwards, Arya dumps Raff into the canal and returns to
the play. Her chapters closes, “Mercy still had some lines to say, her first lines and her last,
and Izembaro would have her pretty little empty head if she were late for her own r***.”
It’s disturbing to see Arya so outwardly using her own sexuality to lure a man to his doom when
she’s just eleven years old. But the silver lining of this terribly bleak situation is that Arya is
able to overcome her abusive circumstances. No matter how much death, despair, and humiliation
life throws at her, Arya withstands it. She’s inspiring in similar ways to Daenerys.
Like Arya, Dany was sexualized as a young girl. She was 13 when her own brother made her strip
naked so he could grope her boobs, and even after he arranged Dany’s marriage to a foreign
warlord twice her age, Viserys tried to enter her bedroom and take her virginity before Drogo
could. It makes you wonder how many times in the past Viserys touched Dany. After she marries and
is repeatedly r***d by Khal Drogo, Dany is so depressed that she wants to kill herself,
but she doesn’t. The dragon dreams filled her with fire and made her strong, just like Arya’s wolf
dreams, and both girls found the courage to live and to overcome any trial life puts before them.
It’s what makes Dany and Arya heroes. Arya’s killing of Raff the Sweetling in The
Winds of Winter further proves that her loyalty does not reside with the Faceless Men. Faceless
Men aren’t supposed to kill anyone they wish for personal vendettas; they do not judge men
guilty nor do they act as anything but death’s instruments. I think Arya is simply using the
Faceless Men as something to do and someplace to be until she’s ready to return home.
The Kindly Man offers to send Arya anywhere she wishes. She could become a famous courtesan like
the Black Pearl, or the rich wife of some old man or seafarer - in other words, a far cushier
life than being an acolyte of the Faceless Men. He even offers to send Arya home to Westeros;
she could go straight to Eastwatch and be with Jon. But Arya says, “‘I only just came from
Westeros.’ Sometimes it seemed a thousand years since she had fled King’s Landing,
and sometimes it seemed like only yesterday, but she knew she could not go back. ‘I’ll go if you
don’t want me, but I won’t go there.’” But Arya has to go back to Westeros at some
point. That’s where the story is, the real story. So what will make Arya leave Braavos?
Mercy’s co-worker Daena knows that Mercy went to speak with Raff, and then when Raff disappears
and his corpse ends up in the canal, Mercy will be suspected. After she kills Raff, we read, “‘Mercy,
Mercy, Mercy,’ she sang sadly. A foolish, giddy girl she’d been, but good hearted. She would miss
her, and she would miss Daena and the Snapper and the rest, even Izembaro and Bobono. This would
make trouble for the Sealord and the envoy with the chicken on his chest, she did not doubt.”
So we learn that Arya knows she’ll have to stop being Mercy, an identity that
has now been exposed. And we learn that Raff’s disappearance will cause political strife between
Harys Swyft (the envoy who represents Westeros) and the Sealord of Braavos (Ferrego Antaryon),
as Swyft will suspect a Braavosi of murdering one of his men and, once Mercy disappears,
the Braavosi will suspect Swyft’s man of killing an innocent Braavosi girl.
But here’s my theory: when Arya killed Raff, she wasn’t acting out of pure impulse like when she
killed Dareon, the Night’s Watch deserter. I think Raff was actually her target, and the Faceless
Men knew she would kill him. Anyone with two eyes and half a brain can see that Arya isn’t actually
committed to becoming a Faceless Man; remember, she says that in her heart of hearts, she’s still
Arya Stark of Winterfell. So if I can figure this out, so too can the Kindly Man, the Waif,
Plagueface, and all the others who Arya serves. The House of Black and White cannot be outwitted,
and they know Arya will never be one of them. We also know that the Kindly Man knows about
Arya’s list of names. He literally asks her why she whispers a bunch of names every night before
going to bed. Raff the Sweetling is one of those names, so the plan becomes clear. The Faceless Men
were hired to cause turmoil between King’s Landing and Braavos. Perhaps the Iron Bank hired them,
as the Lannisters are refusing to pay back their loan. The Faceless Men also know that Arya needs
a reason to kill someone; in the past, she’s had two reasons: either she’s delivering justice (or
vengeance), or she’s doing what she needs to survive. The stableboy and the Harrenhal guard
were kills for survival, whereas Dareon and the Tickler were kills for justice. So when Arya sees
that the insurance guy is a cruel man who cheats sailors’ families out of their money, she has no
problem killing him because to her, it’s justice. The same thing is true for Raff the Sweetling,
who once killed her friend, Lommy Greenhands. So if I think Raff the Sweetling was Mercy’s
target, why is she surprised when she recognizes him? Well, the Faceless Men have a rule that
you’re not allowed to accept an assassination gig for a target you know personally. If they
told Arya to kill Raff, they’d be breaking that rule, and Arya would take them for hypocrites. So,
Arya was instructed to find the Westerosi lord with the chicken sigil on his chest, and to kill
the guard who is young and handsome. That’s Raff, since his partner is old, and the other two guards
are inside the box with Ser Harys Swyft. Another clue that Arya knows Raff was her
official target is this line at the beginning of the Mercy chapter. “Mercy, I’m Mercy,
and tonight I’ll be r***d and murdered.” At first glance, she’s just referring to her character in
the play, who we know gets assaulted by Bobono’s character. However, in the context of the play,
we never read that Arya will also be murdered. Bobono only talks about raping her. So Mercy’s
r*** will happen in the play, but her murder happens afterward, when Arya drops her disguise
and Mercy disappears. The narrative in Braavos will be that Mercy was murdered,
perhaps by one of Ser Harys Swyft’s men. Arya’s worked as a seafood salesman along the
ports. She’s been a blind beggar girl as well as a disfigured stalker assassin. She’s been a
mummer called Mercy, but what will she do next? More importantly, where can Arya go
to advance her story and efficiently get her closer to Westeros without sprouting
more loose plot threads all over the place? The solution is simple: let’s examine who’s about
to come into the city of Braavos. If you’ve seen my Chaos in the North video,
or if you follow me on Twitter, you know I have a strange micro-obsession with Ser Justin Massey.
He’s one of my favorite characters in the whole series, and he drops some bangers in the few
chapters he appears in. “"Have you lost your faith in red R'hllor?" "I have lost faith in
more than that," Massey said, his breath a pale mist in the air, "but I still believe
in supper. Will you join me, my ladies?"” Anywho, in a different Winds of Winter preview
chapter (Theon I), King Stannis orders Justin Massey to escort Tycho Nestoris
(the envoy from the Iron Bank) back to Braavos. First, he’s supposed to drop off
Arya Stark (who’s actually Jeyne Poole but no one except Theon knows) at Castle Black to be
protected by Jon Snow (who’s actually deceased but no one knows about that yet either).
I go into more depth in Chaos in the North, but basically, based on my calculations of
the timeline of events overlapping books five and six, Justin Massey will probably arrive at
Castle Black after Jon’s death. There’s not much he can do, since he has orders
from Stannis to go Braavos, but I theorize he’ll take Arya (aka Jeyne Poole) with him,
since Jon is no longer alive to protect her and Castle Black isn’t the safest place for women
probably. That means in the The Winds of Winter, there shall be two Arya Starks in Braavos.
The Iron Bank of Braavos is located here, a bit south of the Sealord’s Palace. This is where
Justin, Jeyne, and Tycho are likely headed. Here’s the House of Black and White, and here’s The Gate,
where Arya works for Izembaro as Mercy. But now that Arya’s killed Raff the Sweetling,
she can’t be Mercy anymore. Maybe her new gig will be in the Iron Bank.
Based on the fact that two separate envoys from two separate Westerosi kings are both in Braavos
to treat with the Iron Bank, it’s safe to assume the Iron Bank will feature more prominently in the
future, but George Martin said he won’t be adding any new point-of-view characters. Naturally,
I trust every word that Martin has So Spake, and the only logical option is that we see the Iron
Bank through Arya’s point-of-view. In Game of Thrones, King Stannis and Davos Seaworth
traveled there personally, but that’s just not a thing that can happen in the books right now.
Technically I guess Dany and Tyrion could stop in on their way west, but… why? Volantis, sure,
since we know the slaves are waiting for Dany to come liberate them. And probably Pentos,
since the Tattered Prince wants it and I want Dany to confront Illyrio Mopatis about being a weirdo
who sheltered her only known living family member behind her back. Braavos is where Dany lived until
the age of five, in the House with the Red Door, and it’s where some readers think Tyrion’s ex-wife
Tysha now lives, so while there is narrative purpose to them visiting Braavos, I don’t see
why they’d visit the Iron Bank specifically. For that, we can have Arya working as some sort of
novice or page, as she has a good education and she’s been learning a bunch of languages - she’s
actually a somewhat useful employee there. Justin Massey must escort Tycho Nestoris safely to the
Iron Bank, where he must also collect the gold the bank is loaning King Stannis so
he can hire a bunch of sellswords. So Arya will learn that a Westerosi knight
has arrived in the city with a girl called Arya Stark. Perhaps there will be a scuffle between
the two envoys - Massey and Swyft - I don’t know why, but I just think it’s funny that
they’re both there. Regardless, my hope is that Arya will reveal herself to Jeyne, and Jeyne,
grateful for finding someone who knows her, someone she doesn’t have to pretend to be
Arya Stark for, Jeyne will tell Arya about the abuses she suffered under Ramsay Bolton.
Recall that when the Kindly Man tells Arya the story about the first Faceless Man,
who instead of killing the slave master killed the wretched slave who begged an end to his suffering,
Arya thinks that story was backward. The master should die, not the innocent slave.
Arya fundamentally disagrees with the entire ethos of the Faceless Men. So instead of taking Jeyne,
who has been physically, mentally, and sexually tormented and who also appears to have frostbite,
to the House of Black and White where she can have a painless, merciful death,
Arya will take the opposite approach. Ramsay must die. The Boltons abused Jeyne under the guise of
her own name, the Boltons betrayed King Robb and killed her mother, and it was to save Arya
from the Boltons that Jon Snow was killed, who Arya loves more than anyone in the world.
Justin Massey, Jeyne Poole, and Tycho Nestoris will have just been at Castle Black,
and they’ll bring the news of Jon Snow’s death to Braavos. Jon’s death and Jeyne’s suffering
becomes the motivating factor to make Arya leave Braavos and go home to Westeros. For
justice. But how will Arya leave the House of Black and White? Probably by walking
out the front door and hopping on a boat. The Faceless Men aren’t the Night’s Watch - we’re
not told that it’s strictly forbidden for them to leave Braavos without permission,
and Arya isn’t even a Faceless Woman yet. She’s just an acolyte - a poor acolyte, as I’ve already
discussed how they don’t truly believe she can be no one. Whereas Arya had to make a dramatic,
cheesy escape from the House of Black and White in Game of Thrones, which gifted us one of the
worst scenes in that show’s history, there’s no real reason to believe the Kindly Man or the Waif
would try to stop her from leaving. Unless, perhaps, Arya tries to steal a bunch of faces
from the sanctum. In that case, it would be neat if Arya waited until the Uncloaking of Uthero,
an annual ten-day festival where the whole city wears masks and parties salaciously. On
the final day of the festival, everyone takes off their mask as the Titan of Braavos blares
its horn. A multi-day period where the whole city is in disguise would be a good chance for
Arya to escape with a bunch of faces from the Faceless Men, and it even works symbolically,
as she “unmasks” herself as truly being Arya Stark, instead of “no one”. However the Uncloaking
of Uthero is only mentioned once in passing during the main books, and is expanded on in
the lore book, but people don’t like when I try to turn little bits of inconsequential worldbuilding
into actual theories that affect the story. Anyways, let’s talk about Jon and Jeyne. Jon, I
think, represents the prince from that song Dareon sings about the lady who throws herself from a
tower because her prince was murdered. Back when Arya heard that song, she thought the lady was
weak; she should’ve taken revenge on her prince’s killers instead of committing suicide. And Arya
is still pretty much the same person; she’s not going to let Jon’s killers get away with it (nor
Robb’s killers, or Catelyn’s, or Ned’s). The thing is… who is Arya supposed to bring to
justice? As I explained in Chaos in the North, Jon’s murder was in public. The mutineers will
be apprehended almost immediately after that final Jon chapter ends,
once the onlookers and Val the Wildling Princess see what’s happened. In fact, this information
will probably travel with Justin Massey, Jeyne Poole, and Tycho Nestoris, but I don’t think
that’ll stop Arya. Even if Bowen Marsh and Wick Whittlestick are taken care of, Arya will be fed
up with her family getting murdered and she’ll go to Westeros anyway. More on that in a bit.
First, what will Arya do with Jeyne Poole? When Theon tells Jeyne she must continue pretending
to be Arya Stark, Jeyne weeps all the way from Winterfell to Stannis’s camp. If George wants
to put Jeyne out of her misery, then she’ll get to be Jeyne Poole again. Maybe she’ll stay in Braavos
and marry a seafarer, or an apprentice boy, the same offer Arya was given by the Kindly Man. But
if that’s not an option, Jeyne might really just want an end to her suffering. Mercy.
Instead of trying to find a ship that’s going to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, Arya will go to Saltpans,
the same port she came to Braavos from nearly a year ago. The Riverlands are a crucial first
step in Arya’s homecoming to Westeros. This is where Nymeria lives, roaming the country with
her pack of wolves. Arya’s bond with Nymeria never broke when they parted ways. In fact,
the two souls are closer than ever, as Arya’s been warging Nymeria in her sleep
from all the way across the Narrow Sea. The Brotherhood Without Banners is still around,
but they’ve got a different vibe now that Beric Dondarrion is dead. Led by Lady Stoneheart,
their purpose is consumed by vengeance for the Red Wedding, rather than using guerilla
warfare tactics to chip away at the Lannister armies. Assuming neither is dead yet, we also
have Brienne and Jaime. Some readers think they’ll help Lady Stoneheart attack the wedding between
Daven Lannister and his Frey bride, although I can’t really see Jaime killing Daven or Genna,
and regardless, that would probably happen before Arya makes it back to Westeros anyways.
Theorizing about Jaime’s future is very difficult for me, and I think it’s okay to
admit when you simply don’t know something. I do think Arya will come across the Brotherhood.
In fact, I think she’ll seek them out to see Gendry again, and to see if Beric would allow
her to join. She’ll then realize that Beric is dead; perhaps the reason he transferred the fire
of his life to Catelyn Stark was to atone for losing Arya. Thoros, Harwin, Lem Lemoncloak,
and the rest who still serve Lady Stoneheart are probably looking for Arya and Sansa too.
Not only does Lady Stoneheart still carry King Robb’s crown of winter, the brotherhood also
uses the Inn at the Crossroads as an outpost, protecting the orphanage there, likely hoping
that one day, Sansa or Arya will show up. In book 3, Arya found Catelyn’s corpse in the
river after the Red Wedding, except she was warging Nymeria, and didn’t recognize the
corpse as her mother. But Catelyn stays in Arya’s heart, as she takes the pseudonym Cat
for a while in Braavos. By the way, Sansa takes the pseudonym Alayne in the Vale, so if you put
both daughters together - Cat plus Alayne - you get their mother, Catelyn. When she meets Lady
Stoneheart in The Winds of Winter, perhaps Arya will put two and two together, and realize she
should’ve known this whole time that her mother was alive - or at least, a zombie. Many readers
predict that Arya will give the gift of mercy to her mother, as Catelyn can rest easy knowing
she’s found her daughter, that there’s another Stark to bring justice to their enemies.
I don’t hate that theory, but only on one condition: that Stoneheart requests mercy,
the way someone would who enters the House of Black and White. Although,
I do prefer the idea of Stoneheart being the Mad King Aerys to Brienne’s Jaime Lannister.
Rather than let Stoneheart massacre all the folks at Daven’s wedding, and rather than be forced to
kill Jaime, Brienne will instead kill Catelyn. Hopefully Arya gets there before this happens,
so that she can learn what happens to a person when vengeance consumes them. I think it’s an
opportunity for some character growth; Arya can forget her list of individual people to kill,
and focus instead on restoring Winterfell to House Stark and ensuring her remaining family is alive
and well. And if she can kill a few Boltons or Freys along the way, that’s just a bonus.
So I do think Arya will become the figurehead of the Brotherhood Without Banners. She,
along with Brienne, Jaime, and Nymeria’s wolfpack, will lead the Brotherhood north,
where she can reunite with a resurrected Jon Snow and help him take back Winterfell. Side note, I do
think it’s a little funny that both Arya’s mother and her favorite brother will be resurrected
zombies when she meets them. Although Jon’s throat wasn’t cut super deeply, and if he wargs Ghost
during his death, he may come back to life not quite as freaky as Lady Stoneheart. I dunno.
Arya can help restore the Brotherhood to their original purpose: defending the smallfolk. This
is something Arya has experience with, going all the way back to book one and her anguish
over Mycah’s death. Arya protected Weasel, the little orphan girl, when she was only a little
girl herself. Arya took charge of Gendry and Hot Pie, and organized their escape from Harrenhal.
She saved Jaqen, Rorge, and Biter from the fire, when it would’ve been safer to let them burn. Arya
gives water to the caged prisoners at Stoney Sept, showing them more respect and mercy than they
deserve. And in her dreams, Arya is at the head of a great pack of wolves. Her own wolf, Nymeria,
she named after a famous female leader who brought her people to safety. Arya is a natural leader,
a protector of the innocent. We also have a clue from George Martin
himself that Ramsay Bolton’s hounds will face off against a pack of Stark wolves. This comes from a
Game of Thrones Season 4 script that Martin was giving notes on. Specifically, he says,
“Stark direwolves,” which means at least two of Nymeria, Ghost, Summer, and Shaggydog. If Stannis
wins the Battle of Ice and takes Winterfell from the Boltons, there’s no time for any Stark
direwolves to join the fight. So another option is that Stannis wins the Battle of Ice versus Ramsay,
and sends Ramsay and his army north in retreat while Stannis faces off against Roose Bolton at
Winterfell proper. That way we can still have a battle between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton,
and since it will occur late in The Winds of Winter, or perhaps A Dream of Spring, even,
that gives us enough time for Ghost to be joined by another direwolf. I say, why not all four?
Davos is fetching Rickon and Shaggydog from Skagos, Bran and Summer are going to
leave Bloodraven’s cave at some point (after the Hodor scene), and if my fan-fiction is correct,
Arya and Nymeria will head north with the Brotherhood Without Banners, whose new mission
is to help House Stark defend humanity against the Others. Of course, they’ll only learn about
the Others once they help Jon defeat Ramsay. Unless Thoros, as a Red Priest, is getting
visions of them. Remember how during the Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones the Knights of
the Vale showed up in that epic yet nonsensical subversion of expectations? Well maybe in the
book version of the battle, they’ll be replaced by Arya and the Brotherhood, and while Jon pokes
Ramsay with Longclaw, Nymeria and the wolves will take care of Ramsay's hellhounds.
Even if it doesn’t go down exactly like that, Martin has said, “You know,
I don’t like to give things away [...] But you don’t hang a giant wolf pack on the wall
unless you intend to use it.” Nymeria’s wolfpack is a Chekov’s gun that is surely
going to be fired before the series is over. Another Chekov’s gun might be Robb’s crown. Lady
Stoneheart carries it with her as a symbol of her grief and her vengeance, but when she meets Arya,
perhaps Stoneheart will crown her daughter. I do like this theory, and I favor it to what I’m about
to say next. Catelyn was present (and strongly opposed) at Robb’s decision to name Jon Snow his
heir. Robb’s will exists somewhere, and I made this entire video about it a long time ago if
you’re interested, but there’s a non-zero chance that Stoneheart wants to fulfill Robb’s wish.
Maybe she’ll give the crown to Arya, and tell her to place it upon Jon Snow’s brow. Regardless, Jon
probably won’t accept. Robb made his will under the assumption his trueborn siblings were dead,
and Jon outright says that Winterfell belongs to Sansa. So on the off-chance Catelyn still
wants Jon to be crowned despite knowing Arya is alive, there’s an even offer-chance that Jon would
accept. Unless being murdered and living inside a direwolf and then being resurrected will awaken
Jon’s inner ambitions towards Winterfell… Briefly, let’s discuss Sansa. She’s down at the
Gates of the Moon for the winter, which borders the Riverlands and really isn’t that far from
Arya, assuming that’s where Arya goes. The last Arya hears of Sansa is from Polliver,
before the Hound kills him. Polliver says Sansa killed Joffrey with a spell, turned into a bat,
and flew away. Arya thinks, “If Sansa was gone too, there were no more Starks but her.”
And in Braavos, Arya assumes that Sansa is most likely dead. The last time Sansa thinks of Arya,
she remembers a snowball fight they’d had in Winterfell, how they laughed together.
I do think all the Stark kids will reunite in Winterfell at some point, and George Martin has
hinted at this, saying his goal was for all the Starks to be together at the beginning,
then fan out and have their own stories, and then come back together. We have foreshadowing
that the Knights of the Vale will back Sansa, and I think that happens separately, and we
won’t get the Sansa-Arya reunion until A Dream of Spring, or maybe the very end of Winds.
If you still thought the heartless assassin lady from Game of Thrones represents Arya in the books,
we have two great passages where Arya thinks about what home means for her. She doesn’t want
to become no one, she wants home. Winterfell and her siblings, the crypts and the godswood.
Nymeria’s fur. Needle represents home. Needle is Robb and Bran and Rickon, her parents, even Sansa.
Needle is Jon Snow’s smile, the earthy smell of Winterfell, the heart tree and the rattling
northern winds. This is what Arya wants. Once she is home and reunited with her family,
what will Arya’s role be during the Long Night? Is her purpose simply to supply the Brotherhood
Without Banners (including Jaime and Brienne) as well as Nymeria and her wolfpack to the
fight against the Others? Or will Arya fight them herself? Keep in mind that, barring any
time skips, Arya will be 12 or maybe 13 at the end of the series. Although, after he scrapped
the 5 year gap, George Martin sort of just said “fuck it.” “If a twelve-year old has to conquer
the world, then so be it,” he said in 2005. Arya’s not going to conquer the world - he was just being
hyperbolic here - but it does explain why she acts a little too grown up in the Mercy chapter,
and it likely proves that George has no qualms about Arya fighting the Others.
While there is no Night King in the books for Arya to stab (at least, not yet there isn’t)
I do think Arya will fight alongside Brienne and Gendry and all. However, I think Arya’s
main purpose will be civilian safety / evacuation. She’ll organize food banks, shelters, orphanages,
and barracks to help the smallfolk during the Long Night. Arya is a natural protector, like when she
looked out for Weasel in book two, or when she felt responsible for Hot Pie and Gendry.
In Game of Thrones, Arya’s story ended as a seafarer, abandoning her family to search
for whatever’s west of Westeros. There is absolutely zero foreshadowing about
this in the books (as far as I can tell) except for this one passage in book four,
as Arya is sailing to Braavos. She enjoys her time on the Titan’s Daughter and wishes she could stay
on board as an employee. Rather than this being a clue that Arya is destined to be a seafarer,
Arya is just anxious about not knowing what she’ll become in Braavos - remember, this is before they
drop her off at the House of Black and White. If Arya’s on a boat in A Dream for Spring,
I could see her evacuating refugees over to Braavos or maybe down to Dorne,
but I can’t see Arya leaving her family so she can have some international adventures on her own.
Arya doesn’t want to be a lone wolf, even though she currently feels like one. She’s constantly
thinking about Jon and her parents, her brothers, even Sansa. She wishes people like Gendry and Hot
Pie never left her. Ned’s famous quote about the pack surviving was told to Arya. It’s Arya
who thinks Ned was wrong after she’s left all alone. So it’ll be a satisfying, full-circle
moment when Arya realizes Ned was right, and she helps her pack survive the winter.
In 1993, George Martin wrote an outline for ASOIAF to explain the series to his editors. I was not
born yet, and the series was still going to be a trilogy at that point, however I will now take
his word as truth. In that outline, Martin listed Arya amongst five characters who would all make
it through the series. So yes, I’m assuming Arya will not die. We know that George’s wife has a
favorite character, and she threatened to leave George if he kills that character. We also know
that Maisie Williams told George, “If you want to stay with your wife, you've got to keep me alive!”
So that character is probably Arya. Another symptom of Game of Thrones-itis
is that lots of fans tend to view Arya as completely anti-femininity,
that she would never go in for all that falling in love, getting married, and having kids business.
But I disagree. Rejecting the traditional feminine standards of Westeros doesn’t mean rejecting love
or marriage entirely. It’s tough to speculate on, since, as I’ve said, Arya will be around
13 when the series ends, but creepy age-gap relationships haven’t deterred George in the
past. Please allow me to officially come out as a Gendrya. I think they’re very cute together,
I think Arya has a sort of “puppy love” attraction for him without knowing what it means yet, and I
like the idea of a Stark-Baratheon marriage in the new generation. After all, Gendry is Robert’s son,
and Arya is compared to Lyanna physically. I’m not interested in seeing a 16-year-old Gendry
perve on an 11-year-old Arya, but perhaps an admission of love at the end of the series,
or a formal betrothal, even, would be nice. George said he’s known the broad strokes of
the story since 1991, including who’s gonna get married and all that. So when Arya is
upset by the idea of Gendry ringing another girl’s bell, maybe George was
foreshadowing a Gendrya relationship. Sorry for ending this video by talking
about underage romance. At least I’m not advocating for underage incestuous romance,
like George was originally planning… Let me know down in the comments where you think
Arya’s story will go in the future of Ice & Fire. Thanks for watching and subscribing.
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