Tony Black counts down to the Game of Thrones season 7 premiere…
Can a girl be no one and yet still avenge the brutal destruction of her entire family? Of all the journeys in Game of Thrones, that of Arya Stark is among the bleakest, harshest and most mythic. The fall of a young Lady of Winterfell to the rise of a deadly, merciless assassin, tooled in the trade of ancient and mystical forces, is as compelling as it is fascinating.
Arya begins her journey as a girl out of place. One of the two daughters of Lord Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, she is an impish troublemaker; a tomboy who clashes with her regal, self-obsessed sister Sansa (very much a ‘Princess’) and enjoys being an agent of mischief around Winterfell, while also looking up to her elder brother Jon & doting over her direwolf, Nymeria. When her father Ned makes for capital King’s Landing in order to become Hand of the King, Arya manages to accompany him alongside Sansa and soon falls foul of cruel Prince Joffrey Baratheon, watching her friend Mycah the butcher’s boy be savagely cut down by Sandor ‘the Hound’ Clegane after the fey, embarrassed Joffrey is hurt in a duel. Afraid Nymeria may be killed too, Arya shouts her wolf away, disappearing seemingly forever into the forests of Westeros.
In retrospect, this is the true beginning of Arya’s journey.
As political events befall King’s Landing and her father Ned, and while Sansa prepares to hopefully become Joffrey’s Princess by marriage, Arya instead undertakes fencing training from Braavosi sword master Syrio Forel. Here she gains her sword, Needle, and learns the key elements of swordfighting before Syrio is killed by Kingsguard warrior Ser Meryn Trant, Arya taken by Lannister forces as Ned is imprisoned for growing too close to the conspiracy at the heart of the Crown. Arya watches on as Ned is beheaded by Ser Ilyn Payne, on the orders of Joffrey and his mother, Queen Cersei Lannister. Escaping her guards, through guile and cunning, Arya finds herself posing as a boy and sneaking out of the city with a Night’s Watch recruiter, Yoren, and making unexpected new friends in chubby bully Hot Pie and a hunky smith named Gendry. Now he’s a whole other story.
After some travelling North, Arya at this stage having every intention of finding her mother Catelyn Stark, she is forced to try and conceal her identity from the vicious Watch captives who try and get their hands on her, not least Lannister forces stalking the Riverlands in search of Ned Stark’s wayward daughter. Arya ends up at Harrenhall, the terrifying old, wrecked fortress which has now been converted essentially into a nightmarish workhouse for peasants ran by sadistic guards – until Tywin Lannister shows up to use it as a base during the War of Five Kings and turns it into a more productive place!
While at Harrenhall, two interesting things happen to Arya: firstly she ends up as Tywin’s cupbearer and develops an almost paternal dynamic with the Lannister patriarch. And secondly, most importantly, she saves the life of a man named Jaqen H’ghar, one of the Watch captives who claims as reward he will kill three men for her, whenever she wishes. Once Arya uses up her three variously during her stay, Jaqen reveals himself to be a mysterious Faceless Man–a literal man of many faces–and gives Arya a Braavosi coin that, if she ever needs them, she should show to a Braavosi with the words ‘valar morghulis’ aka ‘all men must die’.
Once she manages to escape Harrenhall after Tywin moves on, with Hot Pie & Gendry in tow, Arya continues her journey to find her family with the intention of reaching her mother and brother Robb Stark at Riverrun, her mother’s ancestral home. Though Hot Pie stays to work in a local tavern, Arya and Gendry don’t count on falling into the crosshairs of the Brotherhood of Banners, a group of former knights & peasants who have banded together to fight Lannister forces in the Riverlands after the indiscriminate slaughter of the countryside by Ser Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane.
Led by Beric Dondarrion, a knight supposedly resurrected repeatedly via red magic, the Brotherhood take in Arya & Gendry long enough for Arya to see one of the people on her kill list, a list she memorises every night before she goes to sleep – The Hound. Having given up his role as Joffrey’s ‘dog’ after a moment of epiphany on the Battle of the Blackwater, the Hound is captured by the Brotherhood and after conflict with Dondarrion is sentenced to death. After Gendry is taken by mysterious red goddess Melisandre (who promises to see Arya again), Arya is captured by the Hound – who intends to take her to Riverrun and collect his own financial reward for returning her to the Stark’s.
What they find at Riverrun is a bloodbath. Arya arrives in time for the ‘Red Wedding’ as Walder Frey slaughters Robb, Catelyn and most of the Stark/Tully forces, Arya seeing them pitch the head of Robb’s direwolf onto his body and parade it around. The Hound saves Arya from getting herself killed in the fray (not pun intended) and they form a brief, unlikely alliance travelling the Riverlands as a listless Arya continues learning to fight. The partnership comes to an end as The Hound is almost killed in battle by Brienne of Tarth, attempting to make good on an oath to Catelyn she would protect her daughters. After leaving the Hound to die, and evading Brienne, Arya makes her own fate – presenting the coin Jaqen gave her to a Braavosi sailor, Arya sails away from Westeros, perhaps for good.
Arya heads for the House of Black and a White in Braavos, where the Faceless Men train their recruits, and is allowed in by Jaqen–though she must get rid of Needle and any connection to her previous life. To be a Faceless Man, or Woman, she must become no one. Arya, quite often being tormented by a sadistic recruit called The Waif, undergoes a series of intense psychological tests to convince them she is ‘no one’ before being tasked a mission of assassination in the harbour, disguised as a fish seller. Complications arise when she sees Ser Meryn Trant, accompanying a Tyrell diplomatic mission with the Iron Bank, and takes it upon herself to viciously murder the next name on her list. As punishment for taking a life that “was not hers to take”, Arya loses her vision as she is outcast from the House of Black and White and left to beg on the streets of Braavos.
Again after being fought and tormented by the Waif, while blind, Arya attempts to convince the Faceless Men–she now aware Jaqen is not one but many faces–that she is still no one and worthy. They give her one chance – to assassinate Lady Crane, the actress in a travelling performance troupe who lampoon major political events in Westeros, who is wanted dead by her understudy. While watching events she witnessed sent up for comic effect, Arya ends up befriending Lady Crane and saves her from the poison she laced in her wine.
Jaqen orders the Waif to execute Arya, she having failed to prove she’s no one, and Arya is stabbed on the streets of Braavos as she prepares to head back to Westeros. Seeking help from Lady Crane, before she is murdered by the Waif, Arya is patched up enough to escape her killer and tell Jaqen she is going home, that she can never be no one. Returning to Westeros, on the eve of his successful capture of Riverrun after it was taken by the Blackfish, wearing a different face Arya assassinates Walder Frey after baking his sons into a pie – all the skills of a Faceless Man, but the heart of a Stark.
Now only three names remain on her list. The Hound – still alive and seeking redemption by helping the Brotherhood of Banners take their fight to the North. The Mountain – now undead and the hulking, loyal knight of her final target, Cersei Lannister – now Queen having destroyed her political rivals by blowing up the Sept of Baelor in Kings Landing. Which name will Arya cross off first?
Game of Thrones Season 7 begins on Sunday July 16th.
Tony Black
