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Originally Posted by ChrisV
Arya repeatedly got her ass kicked before somehow killing the Waif (offscreen, if I remember rightly). Then Ja'qen went "now a girl is truly no-one" which is probably the most nonsensical line uttered in the entire show. Like it's just "WELL THIS ARC IS OBVIOUSLY NOW CONCLUDED, AUDIENCE" when it manifestly isn't. It's like having a 4 year old try to lie to you about something that happened.
Then after that, Arya was a superhero. We're apparently supposed to assume that she became a total badass at the House of Black and White, but we were never actually shown that happening. She managed to beat the Waif by hiding in the dark, then next time we see her swordfight she's more than holding her own in broad daylight with one of the best fighters in Westeros. I'm not inclined to make tenuous arguments that maaaaaaayyyyyybe that makes sense if you stare at it for long enough just to justify blatantly obvious fan service.
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Originally Posted by 72off
lol, k
It's not my opinion that they write Arya as fan service btw, Weiss said in
this interview that this is what he considers Arya's character to be:
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Weiss: In a way, Sansa has to face harder choices. Arya always has a pretty clear path, like: “What’s a cool, badass thing to do and I’m going to do that thing.”
Arya was not ever "cool and badass", that's wholly an invention of D&D. She was stubborn and brave and had a keen sense of justice, but not badass. She was a scared little girl who became enmeshed in violence, horror and revenge fantasies.
All of the Starks have stories which invert traditional fairytale arcs. Ned holds fast to truth and honor and gets his head cut off. Robb commences a coming-of-age arc to revenge his father and gets slaughtered. Catelyn tries to be a protective mother, but dies alongside her son and (in the books) rises again as a vengeful spirit. Sansa is going to be a lady and a queen, and instead ends up as the pawn of political interests. Bran wants to be a knight in gleaming armor, and instead ends up a dark tree magician. And Arya, this puts it well:
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If Sansa’s narrative throughout the Song of Ice and Fire series is a deconstruction of the Disney Princess myth, arguably Arya’s narrative throughout the series is a deconstruction of the traditional fantasy protagonist. Consider the following: Arya is born into a noble household that is betrayed and overthrown, forcing her to assume a false identity as a commoner and often as a boy; gets not just one but two mentors who train her and hand on moral lessons before disappearing from the narrative; has a list of people to revenge herself against in rising order of importance; and is currently hanging out with a bunch of mystic assassins in their secret temple. And yet, the result isn’t so much an upward slope of competence and empowerment and self-understanding, but a conga line of psychological trauma, identity loss, and an inability to deal with problems outside of violence (even as many of her revenge targets die unrelated deaths).
Because D&D are such dullards, they instantly switched the arc back to the traditional fairytale one. Arya watches her family die, is driven into a life of desperation, initiated into committing horrific violence and finally ends up in the grips of a death cult, who... [D&D take over]... train her up to be a
total badass with a sword! And now she's serving up Frey Pies! YAAAAAS QUEEN!
The series is deeply skeptical of violence. It's not super awesome and cool that a young girl got trained up as a ****ing assassin of a death cult lol.