More on Arya and Jaqen

[The Imp]

Jaqen seems to do everything possible to turn Arya into no one. He uses The Waif to break her will, and finally Arya says she is no one and seems to mean it. He offers her a cup that contains the liquid used to give people the gift. Arya hesitates, and he says " if a girl is truly no one, a girl has nothing to fear". She drinks from the cup and herbblindness is cured, so at that point, if we are to believe what he has been saying, she has really become no one.

But that's not what he really wanted. What does he do next? He sends Arya out to kill the person playing Cersei, knowing that watching the play will force her to relive her father's death again and she will go from being no one back to being Arya Stark. He sets her up to fail.

Her real Faceless Man test was whether or not she could defeat an older, stronger and better trained opponent, and while I hate how they handled it, she did defeat The Waif, took her face and added her to the hall of faces. Arya says to Jaqen "you told her to kill me" and he says "yes, but here you are, and there she is".He then says "finally a girl is no one". and she says "a girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell, and im going home". Jaqen gives her a little nod of approval, she walks away, and a small smile appears on his face.
Arya is going back to Westeros and she still has her list. I think you could make the argument that every time she recited her list she was praying to the Many Faced God, who has given her the ability along with the desire to kill off those people. I think this was the plan all along. She thinks that she has free will, but in reality, she has been manipulated from the very beginning.

I think that D&D butchered her story, but despite that they have ended up in the same place that Arya will end up in in the book, that is, returning home with many more skills than she had when she left.
This is the only explanation that allows us me to believe that all of her time spent in Braavos had any purpose. Since this was GRRM's idea, it's the only thing i can think of that makes sense.
Thoughts?

 

[Mister_Oy]

Sounds like you've pretty much nailed it there to me!

 

[The Imp]

Thank you Mr. Oy

Sounds like you've pretty much nailed it there to me!

Thanks.

Mr. Oy? Any relation to the billy bumbler?

 

[Mister_Oy]

Thank you Mr. Oy

Thanks.

Mr. Oy? Any relation to the billy bumbler?

The very same

 

[The Imp]

The very same

Loved Oy. Great choice of names.

 

[Judderman]

I agree though what did she learn to help her? Fighting in darkness and using a stick/pole to fight rather than her sword?
There is also the potential she will return to the temple in the future if she completes her list.

 

[The Imp]

I agree though what did she learn to help her? Fighting in darkness and using a stick/pole to fight rather than her sword?
There is also the potential she will return to the temple in the future if she completes her list.

She gained maturity and the ability to focus. Much more importantly, she learned the most important skill that a faceless man has Witch Is the ability to wear the face of another person. Between that and the ability to Warg, something which may let me introduced for her in the show, she could become a very aeadly assassin. Perhaps she already is.

I don't think we're done with the FM yet. Just a hunch.

 

[Dan Jones]

She gained maturity and the ability to focus. Much more importantly, she learned the most important skill that a faceless man has Witch Is the ability to wear the face of another person.

And how to fight in the dark. Pretty useful one, that.

I wonder if she trousered a bundle of faces in her back pocket before scarpering back to Westeros? Or will she perhaps use the faces of the people on her list as she works her way through them?

Good summation of her story, by the way, Imp. The writers did handle it sloppily though, and if Arya's wounds were as bad as they appeared to be at the end of Ep7, then I'm afraid my suspension of disbelief was stretched to near breaking point. if you'll excuse the pun, no-one could survive those wounds, or at least couldn't survive them just with a bandage and some milk of the poppy.

 

[The Imp]

And how to fight in the dark. Pretty useful one, that.

I wonder if she trousered a bundle of faces in her back pocket before scarpering back to Westeros? Or will she perhaps use the faces of the people on her list as she works her way through them?

Good summation of her story, by the way, Imp. The writers did handle it sloppily though, and if Arya's wounds were as bad as they appeared to be at the end of Ep7, then I'm afraid my suspension of disbelief was stretched to near breaking point. if you'll excuse the pun, no-one could survive those wounds, or at least couldn't survive them just with a bandage and some milk of the poppy.

Assuming she didn't bleed out, she would be guaranteed to due of a massive infecrion from being in the waterway, which is essentially an open sewer.

 

[Ste-Pe]

Her wounds might not be as bad as we (the audience) were led to believe.
She gets patched up by someone who is very skilled (by her own admission) at it. Perhaps we can assume at the point that Arya wakes up, an unspecified (but sufficient) amount of time has passed for Arya to be close to recovery.
The waif is killed in Arya's lair, in the dark, something Arya had prepared for. So, perhaps we can assume that her falls and clumsy landing in the parkour-chase were all part of Arya's plan to convince the waif that Arya was still a hopeless newbie-assassin.
So maybe, too, the blood is fake as well; Arya does a good job of splashing it about the walls for the waif to follow (welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the fly)

Agreed, handled very sloppily

Imp, if Jaqen's goal all along was to train Arya up so she could collect the names on her list, is there an argument to be made that Jaqen is syrio (or syrio is jaqen?) just completing his job?

 

[The Imp]

Her wounds might not be as bad as we (the audience) were led to believe.
She gets patched up by someone who is very skilled (by her own admission) at it. Perhaps we can assume at the point that Arya wakes up, an unspecified (but sufficient) amount of time has passed for Arya to be close to recovery.
The waif is killed in Arya's lair, in the dark, something Arya had prepared for. So, perhaps we can assume that her falls and clumsy landing in the parkour-chase were all part of Arya's plan to convince the waif that Arya was still a hopeless newbie-assassin.
So maybe, too, the blood is fake as well; Arya does a good job of splashing it about the walls for the waif to follow (welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the fly)

Agreed, handled very sloppily

Imp, if Jaqen's goal all along was to train Arya up so she could collect the names on her list, is there an argument to be made that Jaqen is syrio (or syrio is jaqen?) just completing his job?

I have always believed that Syrio is still alive and may very well be a FM. His "demise" and the appearance of Jaqen have always seemed to me to be too convenient, just as Syrio's initial appearnce always seemed a bit odd to me.

 

[svalbard]

One Arya Theory Still Makes Total Sense On 'Game Of Thrones'

Good theory on Arya's next appearance.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Did Arya ever show any awareness of how to Warg in the books? Simply that wouldn't it have been easier for her to kill her enemies using that power, instead of learning to become a Faceless Man?

 

[Keldaris]

Did Arya ever show any awareness of how to Warg in the books? Simply that wouldn't it have been easier for her to kill her enemies using that power, instead of learning to become a Faceless Man?

I seem to recall she has some awareness of her abilities, but she didn't know until after she had started training to be a Faceless Man.

Spoiler

After she's been blinded she wargs a cat to see through it's eyes . She also wargs into Nymeria sometimes in her sleep. At first she thinks it's just dreams, but I believe she is starting to understand what is actually happening

 

[LilyDraken]

Keldaris, you're spot on. It's part of why I'm so excited to see Arya's return to Westeros, especially since she's in the Riverlands.

 

[Dulahan]

I thought it was abundantly clear that Jaqen is Syrio, it was something I suspected from Jaqen's first appearance (tho, even that is assuming the Jaqen of Westeros and the Jaqen of "The House of Black and White" are the same person and not just wearing the same face)

I still thing Ayra being in Braavos was pointless, however. It went on far too long for what little was accomplished. There was a lot of fun in Ayra's Braavosi Adventures (the traveling stage act, the culture, the Faceless God lore) but all of that is pretty inconsequential to the over all story arch in my opinion.

Someone pointed out above that Ayra trained with sticks instead of needle. I suspect that Ayra has come to learn that Needle isn't very practical. One of my favorite scenes was between Hound and Ayra where she is provoked into stabbing Hound with Needle, Needle doesn't pierce Hound's armor, and he slaps here. Hound looks down at her and says, "Your friend is dead and Meryn Trant is not because Trant had armor and a big F***ing sword."

She is too small for heavy armor and a large sword, if she wants to be competitive she would need to be either stealthy or to fight with something that has reach like a stick. Two things she learned in Braavos --- Needle is impractical and irrelevant.

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[Judderman]

But Arya did retrieve Needle when she left the temple.

 

[Dulahan]

But Arya did retrieve Needle when she left the temple.

Totally, I just think that she will use what she's learned with Jaqun more than river dancing or whatever it was called. As the hound pointed out to her, that sword doesn't do anything against someone wearing Armor.

I have looked into a lot of medieval European martial arts, watched videos of practitioners and instructors. It's all very "blunt" and "forced" for lack of a better word. It relies heavily on trauma and leverage more-so than the fluidity and precision of other disciplines.

Ayra and Needle, with all the cartwheels and flash, wouldn't do much again The Mountian. Martell The Viper should have defeated the Moutian with his fluid style, but he was more so benifitted by the rear of his pole arm.

If Ayra wants to stand a chance against the threats of Westeros she needs reach and the ability to choose her battle ground (fighting in poor light for instance)

I would love to see something where she melted needle down and turn it into a pummel or edge for staff weapon.

 

[Judderman]

Good points though I expect her to make her kills with surprise attacks, as on Trant where she did use Needle. If she wants to take a Knight on in a battlefield I'm not sure she would have the strength with a blunt instrument anyway. But who knows.

 

[Mister_Oy]

Good points though I expect her to make her kills with surprise attacks, as on Trant where she did use Needle. If she wants to
take a Knight on in a battlefield I'm not sure she would have the strength with a blunt instrument anyway. But who knows.

I thought Needle was still hidden in the wall when she took out Trant?