the moment that RUINED Arya in Game of Thrones

[@mylittlethoughttree]

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[@ericessington7307]

I just really dislike how they made her some badass killing machine in the show. When what she really is a broken and lost little girl. For gods sake she joined, and impressed, a death cult at the age of 11. Her character is supossed to be pitied not admired.

[@nikkydalby7126]

And magically she was trained in all kinds of weapons?! We saw her with a staff during the Faceless Men time…. Now she can throw knives like a champ? And her swordsmanship is on par with Brienne?!?! Ugh

[@FreeOfFantasy]

@@nikkydalby7126 She did train with that sword master her father got her in kings landing. There is also the fact that Brienne doesn't want to hurt her too badly.

[@ohauss]

I'd posit the problem is more with your admiration of badass killing machines. Maybe that's not the proper reaction?

[@monicad99]

that fight with brienne where she had a long sword and cut have cut through arya countless times over, yet she was panting from the effort required to face arya was…. ridiculous.@@FreeOfFantasy

[@patrickthomas2119]

⁠​⁠@@monicad99yeah they overpowered Brienne in the show. She struggled with a malnourished and chained Jaime in the books. She was freakishly strong but was not some Swordsmanship master. The fight with the hound was ridiculous, Sandor would basically have to be delirious with fever before losing a fight to Brienne but at least Brienne had a backstory of training for at least a decade before the story starts. Arya clocked in what, maybe 3 inconsistent years? She wasn’t sword fighting training in Bravos she was learning how to be a faceless assassin. Assassins aren’t the best swords fighters. They avoid sword fights. There is no reason for her to be even trying to spar with Brienne. It was an extremely cheap girl boss moment. Is anyone even taken in by this kind of mindless pandering? They don’t do it because they respect women. They do it because they think women are fools that are easy to appease and exploit.

[@irondragonmaiden]

They completely misunderstand Arya's character. Her ENTIRE storyline is an Odysseus story: she wants to go back home and the universe keeps on thwarting her. Instead of a pissy Poseidon who wants revenge keeping her from getting back home, the world she lives in throws buckets of shit at her. She even is, functionally, a slave when she's stuck in Harrenhal and experiences the injustices the smallfolk go through. The parallels between her and Queen Nymeria as someone who brings her people to a home and gets them to safety are strong. Her story will have something to do with refugees and bringing them to a safe home. Hell, she gets flashbacks about Ned telling Robb to always eat with his men and know what they want and need, which is what she did as a kid to the point that her father's men knew her as "Arya Underfoot." And this is what she still does, she gets to know her people on the ground level and learns about their lives, wants, needs, and what needs to be fixed. THAT is her story and what her ending will have to do: her story as the Queen who cares for her people, from the most humble, and get them home safe and sound

[@evulpes]

That would be amazing and really something book arya would do. I love how she interacts with the lower class and sees them as people. In contrary to many other highborn characters.

[@aahana4931]

like grrm literally has a fake arya in Westeros while she's doing her thing in braavos, she's on every Northern lord's mind by proxy and they threw the whole plotline. We all have different ideas as to what she'll do but we can all agree that she's not gonna be a knight, and she's definitely not winning a swordfight against Brienne

[@sorsocksfake]

I would note that she's multi-dimensional. She yearns for a lost home, and loses herself in finding new homes, but she's also very capable in that (and deathly). She has a major talent for blending in and a knack for leadership, so there's a tension in what direction she could go. The one certainty: she's not a fighter, and it's unclear why d&d wanted her to be. Swordfighting is a very low skill for an assassin... if you actually get into a fight, then you were doing it wrong. Even most of her training as shown, is about listening, observing, understanding, while hiding in plain sight. There's plenty to suggest her becoming a pack leader in some fashion. The question is how, and I'm sure GRRM has better ideas than I could. It certainly makes sense for her to end up leading the BWB in some manner - be it for the FM or her own purposes, or both... just as Nym leads a pack of dangerous wild wolves. Perhaps the FM will want LSH dead for religious reasons, which would be one hell of a character moment. As it stands though, firstly she's less likely to lead them to a promised land... and more likely to lead them to murder. Nym also shows that side.

[@tiabeaniesemotionalsupportdmon]

@@sorsocksfake Also, Lady Stoneheart is on a revenge quest and ends up leading the BWB. Arya seems to definitely be absorbing much of LS’s plot points.

[@ohauss]

Oh dear. You seriously believe GRRM didn't tell them what he had in mind for Arya?

[@darure]

I might not have been watching with as deep insight as you, but to me, the moment that ruined Arya was when she returned to Winterfell and started picking a fight with Sansa. Like really, that's your priority? Antagonizing your own family when you're finally home together. In the books, when she's in Braavos, I recall her thinking of Sansa warmly as well.

[@kaddy2]

You mistook the fight then... It was a show for little finger. The two never were opposed. They simply realized who was the reason for their families demise and worked together to expose little finger. Sansa was always to end up as the head of the family, little finger thought he'd stand with her as her husband or advisor. And she well let him think he was the advisor to the next king or queen of the north... Especially once Arya came home. If they didn't play little finger, he would have slithered off to the next power and tried to slip on in there. He thought he had Sansa right where he wanted her and would rule the north via her. Married or not. Soon as that's outta the way, there's no more tension. There's sure the whole opposite view points based of Sansa being stuck in court and Arya with the people essentially, but they are absolutely not opposed, not fighting and both have a very clear sense of who should rule the north which for their family and Sansa especially, is the crux of their families situation then and there, which ever Arya wants to protect. They even expose their fight after little finger dies, as nothing more then subterfuge designed to ensure they caught little finger in their trap to be executed.

[@thecriticalmaester9702]

@@kaddy2 I would agree with you if they were only fighting in the presence of Littlefinger. However, they were even bickering when Littlefinger wasn't around, and Sansa only starts to reconcile with Arya after she visits Bran and Bran tells her about Littlefinger's plots. That was a deleted scene on the show, but Isaac Wright spoke about it.

[@tytybaby06]

@@thecriticalmaester9702exactly the whole scene with Arya telling Sansa about letter proves it was legit on top of all you said. It’s sad how people literally make up stuff to try to make D&D deeper & smarter than they actually are

[@Gunleaver]

Not to mention, the fight was over stupid stuff. Like the letter she threatens to use to expose Sansa: Robb & Catelyn both read the letter and never had a bad word to say about Sansa because of it. As soon as she got the letter, Catelyn knew that Cersei was the real author and Sansa was not responsible. Hell, she wrote the letter because she was told it was the best way to save Ned! The Lannisters gained zero advantage over the Starks because of it. Also Sansa was wearing a pretty dress on the day of Ned's execution? Gee, maybe it was because she (and all but 3 or 4 other people present, including Cersei, Pycelle & Varys) thought the occasion was to be Ned's ceremonial pardon!

[@darure]

@@Gunleaver Yeah you're absolutely right, about Sansa's motivations as well as the consequences to writing that letter. The Lannisters' intention was to prevent the rebellion and to bring Robb to King's Landing, and Robb essentially ignored that letter, so it didn't even end up doing shit.

[@GregMcNeish]

Book reader here (I watched season 1 and loved it, but I refused to go further without more books) and from as far back as A Clash of Kings, I've felt that THE big emotional moment of the many Stark arcs will be the reunion of Sansa & Arya. They were the only two Stark children that didn't get along, and theirs are the lives that have been most shattered by the central events of Westeros. Their childhood conflict came from being on polar opposites of the same misconception about the world: that social graces were what they appeared to be on their face. Sansa reveled in those graces, believing them to be all that mattered, while Arya raged against them as stupid and pointless. Their journeys since the death of King Robert have been coming from those opposite extremes to what is essentially the same conclusion: that if you can appear to be exactly what people expect you to be, then you can exact power and influence over them. Arya does this by taking on her many identities, fitting into whatever societal role is expected, and using it to create openings for herself. Sansa, meanwhile, learns to weaponize her graces as skillfully as the masters we're introduced to in King's Landing. Something that I have always picked up on in reflective moments of both characters, when they reminisce of home, is that they will list off some things that they miss and then with some measure of shock and disgust say "even Arya" or "even Sansa". They're separately, individually learning of their affection for each other. I simply cannot wait for their reunion. That's the moment I can see them both dropping their masks for the very first time since their father was arrested. My fan fiction fantasy is for Sansa to somehow cross paths with Nymeria (Arya's direwolf) who has been leading a pack throughout the Riverlands. I have no idea how such a thing would come to be, but I cannot get over how magical a moment it would be for Sansa & Nymeria to be a split second away from a deadly encounter of some kind, then to recognize each other as belonging to the same pack. I have no idea how such a thing could serve the story at all. I just want it.

[@brasswirebrush]

I'd never really considered it until you said it, but now there's nothing I want more than a Sansa and Nymeria reunion.

[@gracehaven5459]

@@brasswirebrush same!!

[@schwertunddonner3953]

That sansa nymeria idea maybe one of the few fanfic ideas that do not sound cringe or bad. I like that and would have never thought of it myself

[@kaddy2]

For me, I always wanted it to be Sansa not just reuniting with Ny, but for Arya to be warging into Ny at the time, and to do something to save/hide Sansa. Regardless of IF Sansa realizes that dire wolf was Ny/her sisters or not so later on, it comes up between them whatever that incident was, for Arya to tell Sansa her warged version of it and make the point, she saved her sister life because she is her family, her blood, her pack. Not for a sense of morality, but mortality. That's my family and I will not let yet another die, like my brother did at the red wedding. I think that could have be absolutely exceptional between Sansa and Arya. There's a whole lotta broken feeling between the two, but when it matter, when needed, Arya was there for her sister and did everything she could to save her.

[@phil8821]

To me, it was when she got stabbed 5 times in the stomach and brushed it aside as if she was stabbed by a lightsaber or a bee.

[@TamarMebonia]

"as if she was stabbed by a lightsaber or a bee" - I see what you did there and I support your sentiment 🙌

[@cos0]

Caught that too 😂

[@asarishepard8171]

Ikr ive had surgery for my stomach . It leaves you weak, I had to have two nurses half carry me to the restroom everytime. I dont know why they didn't put a catheter in me 😂

[@shadowlazers]

Yes only quigon mysteriously died due to implement by lsaber..its rather common and weird he didnt survive..but I agree it was wavering..but that stab moment..and her being stupid enough to be standing alone at midday start the downward spiral

[@WhitneyAllisonGG]

I called when I first saw it the Wolverine factor whereas Arya had a mutant healing factor.

[@izziemoss8262]

They chose for Arya to kill the night king because they were trapped in the we need to subvert expectations and she wasn’t the obvious one to kill him… I swear that’s the only reason

[@RodrickMarsMoon]

And to think that the series gave all the clues and opportunities to pull a "the Night King didn't die, he just transferred himself into Arya" and make all the ending more captivating and memorable...

[@uglahboi6074]

I personally think that the also didn’t want Jon having too many plot altering scenes. They already knew he was going to kill Danny, so they felt obliged to give the kill of the NK to someone else. A stupid decision as well as one that could’ve been avoided if they properly paced the final saga

[@asarishepard8171]

Thats why we hate it. They straight up admit they essentially pulled a name out of the hat who wasn't jon.

[@RodrickMarsMoon]

@@asarishepard8171 Aaand D&D had THE opportunity on their hands to turn this around in a most badass way on the last two episodes, but they just dropped the ball. Like, imagine that: Arya listens to the Hound's speech about letting the past go... Then she stabs him in the neck, he dies with a shocked look at his face, Arya touches his face and go away without showing her face... Then she finds Jaime and Cersei, stabs him first, turns her face to Cersei... To show her eyes blue, pale face and little shards of ice appearing in her head! Think with me: the Night King had to touch the baby to turn him into a white walker, and Bran to turn off the magic that pushed him away from the Three-Eyed Crow... And what did he do before die? Touched Arya's neck! Yep, the Night King getting back as Arya, killing Cersei, whispering "all men must die" in the white walkers' language. It could've been badass as heeeeell to see this "Night Princess" continuing the Long Night in King's Landing, just secretly recreating her army of wights until Daenerys finishes her breakdown to attack the rest of the people on the ground while they're sleeping, and, boom, The Long Night 2.0 on the South 😵!!!

[@vehnashur2771]

For a couple of years, "subverting expectations" was the thing. What's wrong with actually meeting expectations? What I believe could be called the "payoff" for sticking with a series.

[@Ellsbellsxoxo]

I actually think they ruined Arya from her very first scene. In the books she is upset that she is bad at embroidery and Jon finds her crying. There's a conflict in her about who she wants to be and who she is expected to be. The show has her sneering at Sansa but not being that affected by it. They leant into the "not like other girls" internalised misogyny and that carried on throughout the show. Her more feminine traits were decimated and this meant they didn't allow her to be vulnerable and as a result she was much less nuanced. It's also kind of the same problem they had with Dany where the focus on being a strong female character meant their stories went a little bit off the rails.

[@fauxhound5061]

"Internalized misogyny", brainwashed idiot lol

[@Yvanehtnioj2000]

Facts

[@mgp1203]

100% D&D just didn't know how to write women in general. a lot of moments they played off as "uplifting" and female dominant were always cheap.

[@AlexIsModded]

I didn't mind Arya being different from other wealthy girls from the get-go. I think they presented it gently, by her little comments and actions that showed she was not a pushover or a girly girl. There were times Ned would try to talk her into being a typical lady, and I loved her response "That's not me", because Maisie's delivery as an actor was so genuine and realistic. The way Ned would fondly smile at her, and it was hard to believe these were actors on a show and not actually father and daughter. When Jon gives her Needle, we know right from that scene how close she is with him. It's lovely given that they are both out of place in their own family, even if for different reasons. It wasn't until Arya goes to Braavos that they start getting caught up in plot armor and it's at this point that we see they really wanted her to be the hero of the story. Therefore no matter what she couldn't die. The multiple stab wounds in her stomach should have killed her. Her just leaving the face of the waif in the hall of faces and Hagar being totally okay with her leaving, him being this master assassin, was ridiculous. Arya never should've survived. It's the lucky hero trope used in a piss-poor way. Following this, the way they presented her relationship to Jon in season 7 was just awful. Their reunion had zero emotion, which was weird when compared to Jon's reunion with Sansa. Jon and Sansa never appeared that close in the beginning so why would he be happier to see her over Arya? Whole thing was dumb. I was honestly cool with Arya being the one to kill the Night King, I just wish the way they had led up to it in the story would've been better. It should've been her and Jon fighting the Night King together, but Arya delivering the final blow.

[@raraavis7782]

Jupp. Even tomboyish girls want approval from their parents and older siblings They're still kids! For me, her character was a little too stereotypical, right from the start. I mean, she was fun and likeable, of course, at that point. But a little more nuance wouldn't have hurt.

[@thanatoswaker2778]

Its so sad that they actually did justice to her character with the interactions with Tywin, that are not in the books and yet feel like they belong in the book, and then they proceed to make her an edgy batman wannabe taken outright from a punisher fanfic...

[@dwc1964]

+++

[@dwc1964]

Arya & Tywin talking were some of my favorite moments in the show, even if they didn't belong (and might have had a detrimental effect on the bigger story) Arya's time in Bravos felt like such a waste; the only interesting moment for her character (to me) during that whole time was when she spoke up for Cercei being an angry badass - calling back (in my mind) to Tywin noting the temperamental resemblance between them

[@oliviawilliams6204]

I don’t think that scene do much justice to her book character. Book Arya is probably with Brienne one of the least misogynistic character in the books. While she’s a tomboy and doesn’t like the gender role expected to her, she actually respect women, she just recognize she’s not good in that role. In Bravos for example she make friends with theatre women and whores without judging them. In the show, in the Tywin scene she say. « Most women are stupid » that isn’t Arya

[@thanatoswaker2778]

@@oliviawilliams6204 i agree, that was a very D&d scene. But the rest of it expands in a very human way an "evil" character like Tywin in a way that feels written by George, which it kind of was , since he did help write the episodes kn the first 4 seasons...before everything went to shit.

[@dwc1964]

of course I'll watch _anything_ with Charles Dance - he's one of those people who classes up any joint just by walking in the door - and he & Maisie Williams are really good together, he's such a granddad in those scenes, it's charming (even if he _is_ a monster)

[@Zyth01]

What makes you think Melisandre talking to Arya is foreshadowing? It's a retcon. They even changed the quote later on to make it fit the situation. None of it was planned past Season 4 and it really shows. David and Dan are on record saying they wanted to do this show to get the pop culture reaction to the Red Wedding. Everything after that is no effort put in at all.

[@mylittlethoughttree]

Yeah, I could see it being a retcon. I think it was more leaving it as a vague possibility. Something that could be a hint about it being Arya, if they decided that was the direction to go, but also so very loose that it could just mean "Arya is going to kill a load of people"

[@Zyth01]

That's a fair take. My bitterness about the last few seasons of the show leave me with very little faith in D&D. I appreciate and respect your positivity.

[@elizabethstarke9390]

@@Zyth01it’s not just your bitterness idiotic David and Dan literally said it was all just bc they weren’t thinking it should be Arya so they made it her to subvert the audience lol

[@omarbey3868]

D&D said they decided in 2014 Arya was going to kill the Night King. The problem is, the scene where Melisandre tell Arya the color of the eyes of the people she will kill was aired in 2013, which means the idea for this scene most likely happened in 2011 or 2012. I can only guess they forgot when that scene was shown. Well they did forget a lot. I suppose they wanted to subvert expectations by having have Arya do the deed. No one would guess it. They used this scene as a way to say they planned it years before season 8. It's not the case. At the end of the day, D&D wanted to do Star Wars movies. And the only way they could do that is to end GOT as fast as possible. To do that, they had to dumb down the story and all the characters. If they were smart, they would have transferred the production of the show to someone else. As GRRM said "They don't have to end it. It could go for 13 seasons."

[@fran3ro]

@@omarbey3868If they had done the last movie of Star Wars trilogy then Poe Dameron would have killed Palpatine (or whoever was the last bad guy).

[@LicoriceLain]

One thing I disliked about Arya's arc pre-NK nonsense was that she got to utilize the faceless men's abilities after cutting ties with them. There should have been a consequence to her turning her back on her training, like being unable to disguise herself as other people.

[@betelgeux6010]

im near 100 % sure that the moment daenerys makes landfall in westeros, arya will have a wakeup-call and ditch the scene. she will have to give the faceless a life in exchange for her leave tho. could imagine she puts down lady stoneheart to settle the debt

[@tetsuosoprano7382]

That’s my biggest gripe with Arya. There are absolutely zero repercussions to her actions.

[@inelouw]

I mean, they COULD have made her arc about family and found family and protecting Winterfell from this massive threat of the Night King. That could have been her motivation, finally getting home only to find it corrupted from within (Littlefinger) and threatened from without (Night King). But it didn't really come across that way at all.

[@MusikCassette]

When Aria did not kill the hound I did not read that as mercy. Quite the opposite. He bagged for the relive of death and she maliciasly withhold it from him.

[@mylittlethoughttree]

It's initially quite ambiguous. I think she leaves him consciously for that reason, however season 5 is then quite explicit that she didn't hate him or want him to die. Several times it comes up in conversations with Jaqen or the Waif

[@Yvanehtnioj2000]

⁠@@mylittlethoughttreeArya hated the Hound since season 1 and he was on her kill list she even tried to kill him in his sleep wth are you talking about if she didn’t hate him or want him to die she wouldn’t have left him there dying in agonizing pain

[@mylittlethoughttree]

@@Yvanehtnioj2000 yes, initially she wants him to die, then her character develops. The Hound challenges that idea Consciously, she thinks she's leaving him for an agonizing death, that's definitely part of it....but the show is very explicit in seasons 5 and 6 that she didn't want him to die. It comes up several times

[@dannieandrews]

Thing is, she doesn't even use her stealthy assassin training to kill the night king. She screams as she leaps towards him. Like ??? I also have to disagree about the foreshadowing from Mel being proof they always were going to have her kill the night king, because if it was, Mel would've said blue eyes at the end of her speech. 'Brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes.' But Mel actually says, 'brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes.' That's just Mel seeing that Arya is on a dark path towards killing people. I think it was some-time after season 5 that they decided to give the kill of the night king to Arya and used that quote as justification. I think they saw everyone discussing Jon vs the Night King post Hardhome and decided they couldn't possibly follow through because they'd be just writing what everyone expected and they wanted everyone to be shocked like they were when Ned died or when the Red Wedding happened. What they failed to understand was that those things mattered because of character beats, they were all in-world, in-character choices. They were the repercussions for a character's morals and choices. Ned's death is a direct result of his own honour, and Rob's is similar (in the books at least). I think David and Dan just got too caught up in their own... not necessarily hype? but I think they were too focused on writing something to be shocking and surprsing to the audience that they forgot to couch it in any character beat. It's why they didn't have a build-up to the Mad Queen Dany story, because they wanted her flying on Drogon and burning King's Landing to be a shock (when actually the possibility of it happening is all there in the books, they just turned all her questionable choices and rage into Girl Boss moments). It's why they butchered Jaime's character by having him go back to Cersei rather than kill her, because they wanted Jon to kill Dany instead. And it's why they then gave Arya the Night King kill because she was - to them - the next logical, but twist person, to kill him. Even though there's actually a long-ass list of various other characters that would've made narrative sense ahead of Arya to kill the Night King, because as you said, none of her storyline really has any baring on the Wall/North of the Wall at all. Hell, I could've maybe understood it if perhaps the NK had killed Gendry? But even then it's weak. As I said in your community post, I think the biggest problem for Arya's story was cutting out Lady Stoneheart. Stoneheart killing the Frey's with the brotherhood, having her ultimate revenge at a wedding feast (probably), and slaughtering them all, regardless of them being a man, woman or child, is going to be Arya's big eye opener. She's going to see what her mother has become through revenge and decide that that's not what she wants to be. I think she'll give the gift of mercy to her mother before heading back home to Winterfell. Because as it stands in the show, Arya becomes this psychopathic mass murderer comitting a form of genocide and we're meant to view that as a bad-ass moment? It's the Girl Boss-ification of the female characters yet again. It's a truly awful thing that she does and it never gets brought up again (except to play it for laughs by telling Hot Pie she baked a pie (WITH PEOPLE IN IT)). How is she supposed to be a normal person after that? She's not. But damn do they try and make her one because I think they realised having a fan-favourite character become a psychopathic mass murderer wasn't quite the goal they were shooting for. This is a lot longer than I thought it would be. Apologies. I apparently still have a lot of feelings regarding Arya and the show as a whole.

[@annalwhore]

You summarized it quite well. And the mention of them cutting Stoneheart out of the show is an excellent point. Or rather than cutting her out, they merged her with Arya. Considering the batshit, vindictive, murderous rampage Stoneheart is undertaking in the mood, mixing her plot beats with Arya's, a 14-16 year old girl, is a recipe for disaster. Mix in some sexist character tropes, such as Arya mistrusting other women for no goddamn reason. And portraying her as a strong female character by cutting her off from any emotion.

[@k8tina]

Very well-written and well-spoken!! I couldn't have explained it any better 💯

[@ohauss]

Your tactical understanding isn't quite sound. She screams as she leaps towards the Night King for a very good reason - to take his attention and focus away from Bran. Had she not done that, the moment might have been enough for him to kill Bran.

[@valtr__]

I love how in the books the kindly man gives her the option to start a new life and leave the cult so many times, but she refuses them cause she thinks it means that they are trying to abandon her.

[@RobertBenda]

The show never mentioning the Freys again is a great example of them dropping story for plot and 'cool' moments. We have the same problem with Cersei blowing up The Great Sept. In either case you would think these events would be HUGE in world. That people would care. Especially with Cersei there should be people who want revenge or are outraged. When the show cribs from the books it does a good job of connecting plot points together. You can go back and see what leads to the Red Wedding and, just as importantly, how the Red Wedding leads to other moments and motivations. The show got bad when it stopped caring about connecting story and plot.

[@NoCryinRyan]

Arya definitely does not have a strong sense of self; she’s cycled identities a lot since Ned died (another example of Benioff and Weiss refusing to engage with the character as they were written). She desperately wants a place to belong but everyone keeps leaving her, forcing her to change identities to survive and adapt to her new surroundings. Revenge is part of her story, it shouldn’t be the only one; empathy could’ve been something she learned from the play, forcing her again to abandon her identity and start anew (sparring the actress playing Cersei because Arya now understands her grief). But Dave and Dan used it as mouthpieces for the show (directors being dictators, actors scorned for writing their own scenes, criticism of the graphic nature of the show). And now the Night King…What if Jon came back as the Night King? That could’ve been a pivotal reason why Arya would and should get the kill, but because D&D wanted to keep their paycheck while changing as little of the status quo as possible, we got a big moment that satisfies none of the buildup. Jon is the crux of Arya’s identity as a Stark; he gave her Needle and she’s closer to him than she is with her other siblings.

[@PistachioDean]

There's such a big part of ASOIAF that is religion and cults, and how they impact society. I think it would have been interesting if they really showed how cults prey on the weak. Even if Arya is seemingly strong, she's lost so much, and it would be easy for the House of Black and White to manipulate her like that.

[@hockeygrrlmuse]

I don't think Arya killing the Night King *could* matter in a character way, because they wanted so badly to surprise people with the ending. If they'd given anyone reasons or foreshadowing to kill the Night King, then someone on Reddit would have predicted it and they would've just switched it to someone else. On the bright side I think lots and lots of brilliant creative people learned that it just isn't worth sacrificing character for the sake of shock value.

[@jennycomelately]

Thank god for a video essay that doesn’t water Arya down to “hur dur she’s a psychotic murderer who is destined to be utterly consumed by vengeance, die or become Sansa’s attack dog1!!1!1” Also as for a character driven reason for Arya killing the Night King, I thought it might have been interesting if internalizing the lessons of the faceless men was the reason she might have found the undead particularly abhorrent ie, “all men must die” and here are these abominations defying death. Perhaps the Facless men somehow found out about them and started grooming her and fast tracking her through training to be a weapon against them. That’s just off the top of my head. And obviously that’s not canon.

[@TimothyDonaghue]

Fantastic point

[@saraa.4295]

I assume in the books, she will have a run in with lady stoneheart. And she will then choose her family over revenge (and stick to the decision)

[@christopherlindsay9546]

She is and has always been meant to be who she truly is. In order to do this, she is put on a path. Her path is guided by many factors and mentors that lead to her final self. She is told she is ready to become someone. To become someone, she has to become no one, she is not training to become no one, the god of death is training her and giving her abilities to become someone, who happens to be her true self, a girl named Arya Stark. They really could have had a great spinoff with her character. She is basically on her way to finding "America" so to speak. An undiscovered land with endless possibilities.

[@saraa.4295]

@@christopherlindsay9546 that's a very poetic way to describe a traumatised orphan joining a religious death cult ;) But i kinda agree, she will find a way to be part of a pack without sacrificing her main characteristics. I personally still believe she will warg into nymeria in the end.

[@christopherlindsay9546]

@saraa.4295 the show totally bypassed her actual horrors at harrenhall.

[@saraa.4295]

@@christopherlindsay9546 if they had shown ALL the horrors of harrenhall the show would have been banned i think...

[@abadyr_]

This was also the worst way Arya could have killed the night king. Her assassin training ended up being useless.

[@Chrissykat24]

Agreed, she does a whole screaming leap toward him. Had the Knight King instantly just snapped her neck as soon as he had her it would have gone down far differently.

[@abadyr_]

@@Chrissykat24 And how did she even get that close with all the wights and white walkers around? (D&D didn't know either...)

[@comfortcrossroads]

The last few seasons with her and the house of black and white really confused me, I always felt that Jaqen had greater plans for Arya and that the show was leading to she and Jaqen leaving the house after her training and going on their own adventures. This would give her a pack of sorts as you said, and the opportunity for new plots and character growth for her. It felt like the writers had a whole plan for both of them that got dropped along the way, and they had to cram something random in for Arya to do instead, so they landed on killing Cersei and the Night King.

[@Chessheromusic]

Exactly, it always bothered me that all her traumas in her life don’t change her. From telling her father that being a lady and a mother isn’t her. I feel like going after revenge and violence would make her long to want a family and the peaceful life she loved. That when gendry offers this that maybe some growth happened where she just wants to make a new family with Gendry. It would have been a natural growth for her character

[@heavengriffin4866]

I really wish they had gone in this direction. Sansa goes from wanting to be a noble lady and have a family, to rejecting that and stepping into her power, ruling in her own right. Arya realizes that her pack is the most important thing and rejects revenge in favor of love and family and putting down roots. But we wouldn't get that #girlboss moment when Arya murks the Night King and runs off forever, learning exactly nothing after 8 seasons. GOT cool girls have to reject anything even remotely feminine. The ultimate character development is becoming as masculine and badass as possible and not worrying about silly girly things like having babies or being nice to other people. So much potential was lost because of this.

[@Chrissykat24]

@@heavengriffin4866 Exactly, that''s not to say they can't have girl boss moments but it feels kinda like they are cheating them out of also having a family

[@GigglingKat]

I agree, it falls flat because of the execution and that it could have possibly worked? One way they could have made it more character driven for Arya was to have made some sort of connection- which they do earlier and kind of drop - between the Faceless Men believing death is a gift, the repeated “what do we say to Death?” and the Night King never dying. The Night King is both Death and in most need of The Gift. If they had made her just appear, or even have Bran use magic (remember when Bran being able to do magic was important?) to give her his face to wear. So Bran is safe, and now there is “no one” for the Night King to confront maybe? Having her say “not today” or “receive this gift” to the Night King as she drove the dagger home would have at least made the attempt at character.

[@thehermitman822]

"Save the Broken Boy, Save the North."

[@aahana4931]

there's also a moment in the books where Arya thinks to herself that Joffery death doesn't fill up the hole in her chest because Joffery's death won't bring Arya back.

[@user-op6kt8pg9y]

I think one of the main problems of tha later seasons was the show trying to play into meme culture and play up to the memes outside of the show, it made the show go from realistic fantasy world to sitcom trying to make the audience smile and laugh by going "you know that meme well here it is" it stopped being a show about the character and their journeys and became a show about the audience and getting reactions on the internet, the same happened to beloved characters like Arya they became "flanderised" into the memes they had of them Arya became the memes that were created about her because Dan and Dave thought that is what the audience would like to see and for the most part it worked when you ask casual viewers what their favourite part of Aryas story was they'll all say the end even through that's when Arya is barely a character anymore just there to provide memes for the casual viewers

[@Requise7904]

The problem is David and Dan set up Jon to kill the Night King way better then they did with Arya. The Prophecy Melisandra talks about which she called "The Prince that was promised" was known by herself and also the Targeryans in the prequel show (House of the Dragon) to be about a warrior weilding a burning sword that beats back the long night. That literally fits Jon better than anybody else. For one Melisandra said Jon was the prince that was promised, Also Jon weilds a burning sword, he was also the first to battle the night kings army, and a second time he leads the army against the Night King and the long night. Even in the first battle that ended in Jons army fleeing there was one last stare down between the Night King and Jon where the Night King puts his arms up signaling to Jon that " This is whats coming to Westeros" so based on all these things they set up we knew that there was gonna be a final battle between Jon and the Night King. Yet they had Arya kill the Night King, even though Arya had the worst and weakest set up to kill the Night King which only comes from a loose forshadow from only one piece of weird Dialouge said by Melisandra that isnt even very direct. There was just so much more writing and foreshadowing setting up Jon killing the Night King that its just ridiculous for someone like Arya to do it even though she had only one piece of dialouge connecting her and the Night king other than that she had no connection to the Night King and the set up was terrible, it just shouldve been Jon. (P.S this long asl my fault)

[@fran3ro]

Jon, the secret son of Raegar, was brought back to life to bend the knee and scream at a zombie dragon.

[@fightingmedialounge519]

I wouldn't sight that as the main problem. Although it didn't help matters.

[@Requise7904]

@@fightingmedialounge519For me it was the biggest and most noticeable problem. Aryas set up was terrible and didnt even make much sense. Replace Arya with Jon and the poor writing is literally replaced with a great set up and a linear and well built up story between Jon and the Night King.

[@fightingmedialounge519]

@@Requise7904 not really. Replacing her with jon just replaces one problem for the other, and does nothing to fix the multitude of problems that the episode has.

[@Requise7904]

@@fightingmedialounge519 Well one of Aryas biggest flaws in her character is killing the Night King with little to no set up. Its one of the most awkward and poor writing choice moments for her character and has little to no set up. It serves more to take her character down instead of build it up and just makes the fans like her even less.

[@orlandorolon7338]

Jaqen’s importance to Arya in my opinion, at least as far as the books are concerned is to show her revenge isn’t enough. She had the opportunity to change the course of the war and she screwed up by choosing vengeance rather than helping Robb and the Northmen

[@jmac9877]

the fact that sansa never rolled her eyes and said, "oh, so you're cersei if she'd been trained to fight? good for you" when arya was acting like a like a emotionless killing machine, or jon snapping back at her about loving death too much after everything he'd been through is dead silly. like, the midwesterner in me gets that they were focused on surviving "winter" so they packed all their feelings down in order to focus on the task at hand, but HELLO

[@brienneoftarth7361]

I think that in the books, Arya will never again be allowed to be a Stark. Different from the show, the House of Black and White from the books will NEVER let her leave like it happened in Game of Thrones, they are a high secret society even rumored to cause the downfall of the Old Valyria. They won't let her go with a pat on the back and "Yeah, yeah go back to Westeros to be Arya Stark", hell nah!! She spent so much time being other people, using different names, even to the point of stealing one of the faces in the Hall of the Faceless Men that when she decided to go back (or be sent on a mission in Westeros), they would look at her and say "Ha, nice try! You will never be free of us". I think she will find Lady Stoneheart, her siblings but the Faceless Men will always be breathing on her neck, she will live just like she thought once about "Wenda the White Fawn", she will be alive to the very end but always hiding, always scared and never allowed to publicly be Arya Stark.

[@broughttoyoubyaguynamedste6144]

If one of her motivations was finding family and security after losing everything then Arya’s motive for killing the night king could’ve easily been to protect the little of her family that she had left or even to act in line with the judge and executioner philosophy of her father where she could’ve learned about the night king’s ruthless violence against the people of the north and deciding to end his life to bring him to justice while also stopping his reign of terror. Hell, it could’ve been a moment where the night has cornered one of her surviving siblings and she decides to end him to protect someone she loves. There were lots of ways they could’ve added reasons for her to kill the night king that could’ve been set up quickly with a few scenes, I don’t know what their reasons were for not adding any of those sorts of scenes.

[@fightingmedialounge519]

Technically it was a moment where the night king cornered one of her surviving siblings. It just wasn't focused on.

[@_CrissoN]

Melisandre talking to Arya is a retcon, an obvious one at that. She even changes the order of the eyes in season 8 to emphasize on "Blue Eyes", which she didn't do in the earlier seasons

[@dallasthornley]

If Arya could have been developed better, I have two potential character reasons for killing the Night King: 1. It is an angry finishing of what took her brother away. 2. It is a huge reprieve from the stress and anger that started with "Winter is coming." Killing him is like a major defense of her family, even after they have died.

[@SantosAl]

Those reasonings aren't specifik to Arya, they can be used for all the Starks. Which once again highlights how there was no specific development in Aryas character arc to kill the Night King, especially not like that.

[@dallasthornley]

@SantosAl Hm. I disagree. Arya was a firecracker from jump street. Revenge can easily be developed from that desperate need for action that we see from episode 1. But it wasn't. So, here we are. Sansa, Bran, etc. don't show that spunk whatsoever. They're passive. She isn't.

[@wintorz01]

I think something that was missed is that Arya was a sort of representation of wide eyed Adventurer. She wanted to explore and be wild and find out what life was beyond what th surrounding society expected of highborn girl. And that spark and innocence in her was subverted by revenge and the grim reality of Westeros. The show ends with her setting sail into the unknown, no longer naive, but capable of pursuing the life of adventure, which is probably a fitting conclusion. But, as you say, its the development and resolution of that conflict, leading into the end, that was missing.

[@JonHylands]

I think Arya's real motive in killing the night king was because of what Mel said - not the "blue eyes" prophecy/quote, what she said after that. The defining philosophy that Arya had ever since she met Syrio Forel back in season one - "There is only one god, and his name is death, and there is only one thing we say to death - not today". At that point in the battle, they were all overwhelmed, they were all going to die. "Not today" was her push to end this, the only way she could say "not today" to death was to kill the night king. It had nothing to do with her faceless training, and everything to do with her personal life philosophy.

[@MeleysRQ]

They totally added the Melissandre line for a different reason and later found out they can use it as an excuse for her to kill the NK, like she was going to be an assasin, that was the foreshadow/phropecy about, Mel didn't made special ephasis in blue eyes or thousand of blue eyes,

[@BertoPlease]

Smooth brain Dan really be like "yeah this sword means a lot to her bc this is how shes gonna get her revenge, itll be filled with the blood of her enemy" Yeah THIS is why she cries at the thought of abandonding it (possibly for the only time in the show?), NOT because it reminds her of her home, her now dead family, of Jon, nope

[@robchuk4136]

The House of Black and White was such an exciting story thread, that just ended up frustrating me.

[@asarishepard8171]

I cussed out the tv when jaqen pretty much agreed with the antithesis of the bloody house. Book jaqen would've beat arya bloody not let her walk away with their secrets

[@Sourtrollii]

I will never understand why they didn’t take the opportunity to have Arya find out about Jon and Sansa while she was with the traveling actors/lady crane. They clearly had knowledge of what was going on in Westeros!!!

[@Tawleyn]

22:20 I'm sorry but no. That was not foreshadowing for Arya killing the Night King. It was a cop out for them to point at and say "Oh hey look, the tiniest, most inconsequential line can serve the purpose of backing up our terrible choice!" What would have been better foreshadowing is if she looked into Arya's eyes and listed off the colors, then got to "blue" and became fearful. Not terrified, but clearly worried. Maybe she even asks the brotherhood what they plan on doing with Arya, specifically, and make it seem like she might take her along with Gendry. This is a perfect example of what GRRM talked about in an interview about changing the murderer in a whodunnit because someone on Reddit figured out who was responsible. You can't just cut off the end of a thread that has been slowly created with individual strands all meeting and intertwining at different points in the story. You end up doing things like this - going back and scrambling to retcon scenes as "actually, no that was not important at all!" and then trying to pass off unrelated plot points as "foreshadowing". That's why Arya killing the NK is so very unsatisfying, because there were no clues or hints sprinkled throughout the show, and this is the single weakest attempt at passing off a throwaway line as important.

[@jasonL287]

I believe Arya’s motivation for killing the Night King was to protect her siblings and Winterfell. She couldn’t save her parents or Robb and Rickon. Protecting Jon, Sansa and Bran gave her a purpose other than revenge.

[@jinxx9515]

My biggest problem with arya killing the night kings is why the fuck did we not get a Jon Snow vs Night King fight?! We lead up to from early on in the first season when Jon gets sent to the wall and there is no fucking pay off. You could of even still had arya get the kill, just give us the damn fight. Hell, have the Night King get the upper hand, about to land a killing blow on Jon, then bam! You have arya jump out and do the dagger scene.

[@TiphAndSmaug]

Well, the way I see it, she needed to have this thirst for revenge to be able to reach her true destiny "killing the Night King". If she wasn't consumed by revenge she would have never tolerated the training. She wanted to learn how to become a Faceless as to be able to murder anybody. ALso, by becoming a Faceless, the night king and his white walkers couldn't hear her coming, as shown during the episode, he only notices the "wind" and turns when it's too late. She can only achieve that because she is no one at that moment. Jagar let her go because she can achieve it and he knows it. The whole training was made for this reason only, he met her for this reason only. That's why he smiled when she said "I am Arya Stark and I am going home" meaning she can finally reach her destiny and still be no one when needed. thing is in order to achieve their destiny the protagonist must not know about it beforehand. That occurs for everyone. Daenerys, Jon Snow, Arya. The 3 main protagonists against the white walkers. Then again, based on the show. Who knows what happens in the books. The only thing that didn't make sense for me is for Arya to go back to Kings Landing to kill Cersei. But yeah she is too far gone in her revenge quest I guess.There is some speculation that the Lord of Light and The god of the Faceless are the same God which explains her role too in it.

[@ericlayton8888]

I think Arya telling Jacquen "I'm going home" refers to Westeros rather than Winterfell. At this point she's been on the run for years and clearly believes she's the last Stark alive: "Leave *one* Wolf alive and the sheep are never safe." As far as she knows at this point in time, the Freys and Boltons murdered her remaining family and seized Winterfell, it's not her home anymore so her only home is where she.can find revenge I also think the only reason she sought out her estranged extended family is because the Hound made her, she wasn't on her way to find Lysa or the Tullys before he caught her and set off to find them for a ransom. I thought it was pretty clear that she never intended to become on of the Faceless Men, just that she wanted to learn as much as she could from them in order to get revenge once she decided her family really was all dead

[@tonicardanini1863]

I always thought of needle more of a reminder of home and family - the last thing she had from Winterfell. She wanted revenge, but also justice, as she was use to her father handing out justice as warden of the north. Justice was a very large part of her upbringing,.

[@ginster458]

the only way I would’ve been okay with Arya killing the Night King would’ve been if she somehow had been in a situation where she’d have to actively decide against a kill on her list and instead go for the NK in the heat of battle. Have her choose fighting for the future and forsake avenging the past. Better yet, have Jon fight the NK and very nearly lose against him, Arya comes in, actually uses her assassin training and she sets up the kill. Like, Jon is pinned down by NK, but manages to tilt his burning sword up, Arya sneaks up jumps on the NK‘s back and spears him on Jons sword. After, they hug like they did when saying goodbye in S1. Don’t get me wrong, still unsatisfying for Jon‘s arc, but imo at least better than what we got, since at least Jon would’ve been involved and the prophecy would’ve somewhat been fullfilled

[@stevem2323]

At least Jon would get something.

[@ALunarLight]

I feel Arya suffered because they cut out lady stone heart. You can imagine her planning to go back to winterfield to find out that it's destroyed then hearing of a woman that sounds like her mother in the river lands. My guess would be uncat was killing all the freys Aria ends up having to face un cat. Whether this ghost of revenge is her mother or the person that she wants to be..

[@JenksAnro]

Idk if the Melisande foreshadowing is anything to do with the Night King, I think that was basically a retcon, I think that was foreshadowing her becoming an assassin

[@cheergiver]

Did Arya even know who the Night King was before she arrived back to Winterfell? I always thought Sam or Jon would kill him, not her. And then I hated that she wanted to leave as soon as the fight was over. That didn’t fit her character at all; she wanted to be at home with her family, her pack, as you mentioned.

[@phoebehill953]

Arya killing to earn her (dead) father’s approval has a parallel in Joffrey killing the pregnant cat in hopes of earning HIS father’s approval.

[@aaronlatham9194]

I don't even hate her getting the Night King kill if it had been executed better: Jon is fighting to defend Bran surrounded by others. Nobody can reach him. Arya climbs the walls, remembering Bran do it, sneaks over the trees until she's above them. Jon falls to one knee wounded. Arya drops down saves the one member of her pack who was always there for her. Even more impactful if she had got her hands on Dark Sister from Meera Reed rather than the dagger.

[@SantosAl]

Or if it was possible, morph into Bran (using the NKs obsession with Bran to get close to him) and stab the Night king when he had his back to him/her when he is in the process of finishing off Jon. Maybe have Jon decapitate the NK after he is stabbed in the heart by Arya for some added oomph for Jons arc.

[@jvin248]

Don't overthink the failings of Arya to be the dagger to the Night King, the directors had their new contract for a Star Wars series penned and they needed to exit GOT as fast as possible. They just threw the last season together as they hurriedly packed their bags. Of course, the shambles they left in their wake cast doubt with their new overlords and they were sacrificed to the politics going on over at Disney.

[@bitzibaerlie]

Another thing about Needle in my opinion is that it never got a conclusion. Basically, there was the arc of revenge for Lommy. I am not sure she used it to kill anyone with it afterwards. They teased her using it in the sparring with Brienne. That is another reason the Night King and Wrights and Walkers feel like such a mismatch for her. My fan fiction ending would be her turning back after Sandor sends her away. She decides against revenge and they have this beautiful moment but she decides that she can rescue him as well, like he did for her, both in action as in soul. She dragging him out of the fire would be quite a badass moment and a far better payoff than we got. And she would have a chance to use Needle against Gregor.

[@fightingmedialounge519]

I would say the issues with her character are summed up by the last conversation she had with the hound. In which he warns her against becoming someone like him, despite her actions in the last season making them comparatively compromised as far as morals go. It speaks to how selective the writers are when it comes to acknowledging her humanity, both the good and bad aspects of it, making her character come across as rather flat.

[@schizoidahole]

Lol, just finished reading a chapter in ASOS and I open KZbin to see this. It’s meant to be.

[@zun-viik]

Show Arya got the same kind of treatment as movie hermione, it was clear that it was the favorite character. I don't dislike Arya as a character, but I do hate the Mary Sue/MC syndrome they placed in her.

[@awsome182]

I think you're on point with this comparison. Both are suffering from girlboss/Mary Sue syndrome.

[@helenrose5383]

They could have easily made Arya's arc into 'saving her family'. For most of Arya's story she survives incredible ordeals but is forced to standby and witness death of her family- Ned, Catelyn, Robb, and people she care about- Mycah, Syrio, Yoren, Lommy. Arya cheats death by hiding and assuming fake identities. In Braavos, she should learn that some of her family is alive she should feel motivated to protect them. And in the final battle, for narrative purposes the Night King should duel thirteen, seven or three warriors (maybe thirteen warriors should get reduced to seven and then final three). Also Night King shouldn't battle alone, he should have the white walkers fighting sideby, protecting him. Bran should warg into ravens and their beaks should break on the Night King's icy skin. And Night King is about to kill Jon, Arya intervenes because she can't just standby and watch her family die infront of her again. And she should definitely die for it, because she only get to cheat death if she hid. Only one or two characters should survive the duel.

[@jimspetdragons3737]

I could be wrong, but I saw Arya's killing of the Night King as protecting what was left of her family which she couldn't do before when she lost her father specifically. Someone was threatening her family (Night King) and she couldn't have that which is consistent w/ her character, but was not as obvious this time (rushed like everything else in S8). The revenge part was reserved for Cersei later in the season (potentially, as it didn't happen). But that's just my impression.

[@witchyvirgo]

In the sense of resolving her character arc, I think if they left her decision to kill the Night King to the very end of her arc, it could have worked. Throughout her story, Arya struggles with themes of revenge, but if the ending resolved with her eventually letting go of her revenge quest and finding peace in fighting for a more significant cause with her family (the North vs the whites), then AT LEAST there would have been some sense behind her character arc. Instead, Arya kills the Night King for seemingly no reason and continues her revenge. Like what?????

[@dejahdanger]

I never felt Arya couldn’t kill Sandor. I felt she left him to die slowly of his wounds. And that if he didn’t it wasn’t his day after all. What do we say to the god of death?

[@PistachioDean]

I think colours play a lot in the inner machinations of characters in ASOIAF. I wonder if Arya's drawn to the House of Black and White, because those are the colours of House Stark..

[@TheTragedyMachine]

House Stark's colors are white and grey.

[@12SickOne34]

Well, often the actual answer to a question is the most obvious one: the writers simply weren't very good at what they did. And since every question and inconsistency can be answered with this simple answer, I take it as a given. Writing good characters is hard. Too difficult for many

[@marknelson55]

Having just finished A Storm of Swords, Needle there seems to represent a symbol of agency and safety. It was given to her when she lived in relatively great safety, under the protection of house Stark and its banner men, in a time and land where few would wish her harm, as Eddard was so well liked. And yet, as seen when on the king's road, she was given a great deal of freedom then, and took advantage of it to train with needle. Later, in King's Landing, Arya's primary focus is having the autonomy to perform her "needlework" with Syrio Forrel. In this period, she is relatively safe, protected from the dangers of King's Landing by Eddard and his guards. When the Starks in King's Landing are crushed, she looses that safety, but seems to regain it under Yoren, who promises to take her home to Winterfell. Not much time passes between Yoren's death and the loss of needle, even less in the show. From then on, she is a captive of the enemy, an especially cruel and dangerous enemy. Fear replaces needle as her greatest possession, and she is robbed of her autonomy. She is able to become the ghost of Harrenhal, giving her the impression of safety and autonomy, but only until the three names are done. She is able to escape, but is dragged down by Gendry, Hot Pie, and Lommy, and they are pursued by the Bloody Mummers. She is again made a prisoner by the Brotherhood without Banners, where she seems mostly safe, but lacks autonomy. As soon as she runs from them, she is captured by the Hound, with whom she seems very unsafe, and again, lacks autonomy. Gradually, the Hound allows her greater autonomy; she could leave if she wanted to, she gets her own horse. Shortly after reclaiming needle, she leaves the Hound, and after being dragged all over the Riverlands for most of two books by other people deciding where she will go or what she will do, she finally decides for herself where she will go, and what she will do.

[@twelvesam]

Just discovered your channel, and I didn’t know how much I needed. I’m on my own mental wellness journey and your professional observations on situations both different and comparable to my own are so helpful because I actually have familiarity with these other situations through pop culture. How helpful is that for building a more fulsome understanding of these concepts?!? Thank you!!!

[@gea257]

Great video! Lots of insight. I'm sorry I missed your community post regarding "what character reasons are there for Arya to kill the Night King?" because there are easy answers to that. For starters, power and religion motivate pretty much everybody. At Harrenhall, Arya and the other prisoners live in fear of being arbitrarily picked to be tortured to death. They're powerless to stop this. When Jaqen offers to let her speak three names, he's giving her the power to decide who lives and dies. Later when she leaves the House of Black and White it's because they've started telling her who to kill and who not to kill. The Night King decided to kill everyone Arya knows. Arya doesn't want that and has the power to stop it. That's enough motivation, if only DnD had decided to tell that story instead of "because Mel told her to." Second: religion. I'm in the minority of viewers who think the House of Black and White is more than just a cult. It's hard to depict religious belief in a TV adaptation, since we don't hear people's thoughts, so none of the fictitious religions are fully explored. But what if the god of death really does offer a warm embrace to people entering the afterlife? What if he really does feel cheated when people who are supposed to be dead don't die? The army of the dead comprises 100,000 souls trapped in decaying bodies, unable to move on. As a humble servant of the god of death, Arya could see it as her duty to deliver them to the afterlife. I can understand DnD not telling this story, but I think it's a better story. I think you made the point that plot should not be confused with story, and that "Arya kills the Night King" would have been a perfectly good plot point if there had been a good story around it. I agree, and I think there are lots of good stories DnD could have told. The two ideas above are just a start.

[@LizCreator]

Aryas arc is messed up even in the books. It has no clear direction because in the books for example Cersei is to be killed by prophecy by her younger brother. So is this all training for what? The rest of the characters are not even worth all of this training. They didn’t know what to do with Arya so they put her to kill the night king, stealing johns arc and partially Danny’s. Arya season 8 I didn’t understand a thing. What was all that plot with Sansa? What was her point wandering kings landing like a dragon sets fire on the red keep they are all going to be killed😂😂😂. At the end she was not loveable anymore. There was something off with her. Well with all the characters.

[@thelateescapist8266]

Great content as always, but I have to say that I think trying to rationalize the flaws of the latter seasons of GOT through narrative logic is a zero sum game. Because it's based in the assumption of genuine motivations on the part of individuals who were simply disingenuous. The awful truth about Beniof & Weiss is that they were neither incompetent nor stupid. They just didn't care. The actions of the characters in the latter seasons had little to do with in universe motivations, and practically everything to do with the showrunners just wanting to wrap things up so they could move on to new projects. Such as Star Wars and Netflix.

[@mylittlethoughttree]

Oh I don't disagree that they were looking for the quickest way to end it, but they still had to try and work in some rational reason for that ending, and I think having Arya mirror their lazy solution with Jaime and Sandor was the hashed solution they fell upon

[@thelateescapist8266]

@@mylittlethoughttree I greatly appreciate your work and value your insights, but I think you give these guys more credit than they deserve. Beniof once said in an interview that "Themes are for high school book reports." I recognize that they often fall back on similar tropes, but I don't attribute any thematic significance to them, as they have already stated their disdain for such considerations. I think that as Maya Angelou said "when someone shows you who they really are [you should] believe them the first time." And these guys spent several years showing all of us who they really are.

[@williamsteveling8321]

The Night King was coming for Winterfell. Her home. Her family. Even her revenge motive was driven by that. Sorry, but her taking on that fight was a natural consequence of who/what she still cared about.

[@TheTragedyMachine]

God the near interalized misogyny Arya has and the little gripes she has with Sansa that becomes just huge really fucking bothers me. Like, I was okay with her character. But then Season 7 happened and I just was never able to like her again. Like, one of Arya's biggest things is that she views people pretty equally. She doesn't think feminine ladies are lesser and if Arya gets to monologue about the pretty dress and pretty hairstyle Sansa has when Ned dies shouldn't she also be talking about, idk, Sansa screaming for them to stop, her fighting to get to her father, and her ultimately passing out when she watches her father beheaded? Or even that Joffrey even says Sansa asked for mercy for Ned? Like that makes no sense. To me anyway.

[@strangefire2024]

Arya in Harrenhal was the most interesting arc of hers IMHO. Her interaction with Tywin and jaqen h'ghar was among the best scenes in the entire series. It was her in the House of Black and White that i found most tedious.

[@sierratill5429]

I feel like the fight with he knight king would have been so much better if they had included the fam. Ex: Arya is in the thick of the fighting alongside Jon while Sansa is charged with guarding Bran. At some point the safe space (not the crypt of potential reanimated enemies) is infiltrated and Sansa is left with no other choice but to run through the weirwood grove to get her and Bran to safety. Jon and Arya spot this, and Jon goes to protect them directly while Arya handles the outskirts, mirroring their respective positions through the books. Arya is always on the outskirts, Bran and Sansa are always running to safety or in danger, while Jon is always in the thick of fighting. The Night King finds them and goes straight for Bran, recognizing him as the new Raven. Something happens and Bran is tumbled out and now sprawled in the snow while Sansa tries to help him up. Jon fights but is overpowered, leaving Bran to warg into him to try and help but ultimately doing worse and scarring them both for later on. Sansa takes up the sword but, due to zero training, is hopeless in this fight but is now refusing to back down. Rather than relying on a rescue or playing it safe, she risks her life to protect what she cares for. (Later she'll get to show off her political skills and the political master she's become, it just doesn't translate to swordfighting but the bravery can). Bran learns his lesson again that warging into people is wrong and he can't be the only one doing things, while Jon also learns this lesson and strengthens his own powers by fighting Bran and remembering he can't split his focus or be overconfident as he had been. As the Night King is about to Strike down Sansa, Bran and Jon comatose on the ground in a battle of minds, His eyes go wide and he lets out a silent cry before falling to the ground. Arya is clinging to his back, stabbing him repeatedly with an obsidian dagger and crying out. When he is assuredly dead she looks up to her family, crying, and runs to hug Sansa in relief before they both drag Bran and Jon to safety while the men come too. For once Arya was able to avert disaster and save her family. After being so close but failing to save their parents and once thinking she failed her younger siblings, she has managed to save her family and keep what she has alive. Her pack is safe because it stayed together. The pack survived the Night.

[@lizcollinson2692]

A simple change could be switch the killings. John, the night king and Ayra, Deny. It would give a more concrete reason for Ayra to have to leave Westeros after. The goodbyes would have more tension. John is the one with greater investment in the death of the night king being his primary opponent.

[@soxpeewee]

I feel like Dave and dad didn't even get the cliff notes version of the books and stopped after the second book or so. They are good writers but they had no idea what they're writing about.

[@daniel8181]

Thinking needle was just a reminder of revenge is so incredibly cringe and after grrm requiring them to "figure out" who Jon is to get the job its hilarious that they couldnt make it but a few seasons in before proving that was just a fan theory they found online, and not something they figured for themselves.

[@diannebdee]

My overall issue with show Arya is that she keeps telling us she trained, trained, trained. What we got was a bunch of stick fighting scenes that, well to be honest, looked like stick fighting and bad stick fighting. We never saw her actually training. For me it has to be that we see these things instead of being told she's all these things. I never saw her as being as bad ass as others saw her. I always saw her arc in the show, at least later seasons, as being fan service and social justice service. She was what women/girls wanted to be personified in a very bad way. Unlike Brienne of Tarth, who was bad ass and tough, strong, noble...we got none of that from this child. Arya is stunted emotionally and mentally due to what happened to Ned in Westeros, and instead of that introspection we got from say Jaime, all we get is this list and the promise of something that was quite frankly, ludicrous for the character. And Maisie Williams' monotone delivery was laughable, if not camp. I never believed she was a bad ass. Which is why I believe giving her the Night King kill was anti-climactic and plainly insulting to Jon's arc.

[@jeremyadrian233]

It wasn't, and I do not believe they thought of this, but Channel Bridge4 was the only one I know who predicted Arya would kill the knights' king,. His theory was that the faceless men serve the god of death and what does the god of death say to the one who raises the dead, "oh hell no", so the god of death needs a faceless man, but not a bravosi, a first man, a warg to be the Assassin that kills the knight's king. Even then I had problems with this theory- just killing the knight king is not enough, as Jon said "You don't understand", as in NO ONE cheats death.

[@TheCreepyLantern]

honeestly Arya had exactly the same motivation to kill the Night King as "Random background character with no name and zero importance." of bad guy invadin my country oh no.

[@aerieleah533]

My favorite revenge story is one they should have taken a few pointers for: Vinland Saga, especially since they half asses went that direction anyways. Btw spoilers, but not past season 1. Basically, the main character Thorfinn spends most of season 1 trying to get revenge for his father's murder. It happens in front of him. But he wants to do it in a way that isn't cowardly. He is really young when his father died. So he tags along with his father's murderer, Askelaad. Askelaad makes a deal with him. Each time he distinguishes himself in combat, Askelaad will duel him. Cutting off an enemy general's head. Saving Askelaad. It's something that leads Thorfinn to so some pretty terrible things. He also comes to have a definite psuedo parental relationship with the man. For added complexity, it's debatable just how responsible Askelaad is for the murder. Thorfinn's father gave himself up to spare his men and son. It was an exchange to get out of an impossible situation, and Askelaad even kept his word, letting the soldiers go. Not only that, but Askelaad was a hired hitman. Someone else wanted Thors dead, so Thorfinn is blaming someone with a little more blame than the arrows which killed Thors. To be clear, refusing to kill the man for Askelaad would have not only meant his payment was forfeit but made an enemy out of a guy who controls a powerful military force. Ultimately, Askelaad is killed by someone else. In front of Thorfinn again, with Thorfinn never successfully winning despite a few distinct chances. That's how you do a revenge story like the one D&D were trying to with Arya. Make them do awful things to see how far they'd go for it, then rip it away. Then they have to live with themselves. For Arya, they tried both approaches to a revenge story. Reveling in it and also coming to that peace where revenge isn't essential.

[@tiabeaniesemotionalsupportdmon]

I always assumed that Dan and Dave had her do this so that she could sort of absorb some of the Lady Stoneheart revenge plot points. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@Sinewmire]

They could easily have given her motive for the NK, too. Why D&D decided The White Walkers, aren Death and made so much of it, I'm not sure, as they're explicitly not. They're the unnatural continuation of life. They're *undeath*. Arya could easily have had some discussions with Bran about trapped souls and unnatural torment of life-in-death and Arya could have talked about the Faceless men's founding, the gift of death to a suffering slave as a mercy and blessed relief.

[@EmberAlexander-x5h]

I actually think that most of the stuff she was "supposed" to be did come through in the show, I only ever read the first book but I still got the impression that she wasn't all about revenge, she was looking for a family and looking for love, even going through the whole faceless man training, she maybe wasn't looking for love or family anymore but at least acceptance from the man who saved her life.....and then once she had it she realized actually she didn't want that, she wanted her real family back again. Her revenge quest was part of that, she made her "list" not even based on people who wronged her but people who wronged people she cared about, and she did seem to struggle with identity and that's why she /had/ to cling to this gift that reminded her who she really was. It was all there and easily understandable.....and then David and Dan go and make the comments about how Needle symbolizes revenge when her mentor literally just told her point blank it symbolized her own identity she didn't want to let go of. (Corroborated by the book but obvious even without reading it). Like they don't understand their own writing. Your analysis actually makes sense as to why so many character arcs just completely fell apart at the end though. I didn't understand the motivation behind undoing Jaime or Sandor's development (besides memes in Sandor's case) but put them all together like that I'm like "huh, yeah, it does fit with this aggressively cynical fantasy (I mean....realistic fantasy) the message that people ultimately can't change and will always fall back on their old shitty aspects of their personality but. I mean that's why the whole game of thrones brand of "realistic fantasy" annoys me. People being able to move on is not unrealistic. Aggressive cynicism is just as "unrealistic" as aggressive idealism. A fucked up world doesn't mean you can never give any of your characters a good thing and that's why people lose interest after awhile. In a /real war/ people survive by sticking with the people they love otherwise they run out of motivation to fight at all as soon as it gets hard. But I mean, I guess it's a little better to see all the botched character arcs as actually going for something, even if it's something I don't agree with, than randomly picking memes out of a hat so there's that.

[@jayt9608]

I can explain how Arya could kill the Night King, but in doind so it will destroy everything about the ending of the show. I only know what I know from listening to reviewers and KZbinrs who have discussed these things extensively. However, to the best of my knowledge, the following scenario is entirely my own. The battle has commenced, and the Night King has landed and approaches Bran's chair. Bran orders his bodyguards to fall back as this confrontation with is his to fight and win. Arya sprints forward, hoping to strike down her brother's foe, willing to die in the process. She is knocked aside and loses her dagger, which disappears in the night, and she lands just to the side of Bran's chair. Bran attempts to warg into the Night King, just as his enemy does the same. The Night King stumbles forward and touces Bran's face. Bran begins to scream. Theon suddenly appears holding the dagger, but he is too far away as Bran starts screaming for someone to kill him because the Night King is taking control of his body and he can fight no longer. Bran's eyes turn the same blue as the Knight King, and his skin turns ashen. Theon thows the dagger to Arya, who in turn stabs Bran in the back, through the heart. Suddenly there is a terrible silence as the dead stand still. Then with a clatter of arms, they begin to fall, returned to lifeless corpses. A warm breeze rises without warning, and both Bran's body and the Night King's begin to steam, and before long, Bran is a lifeless husk and the Night King is no more. Arya kneels beside the chair weeping as Theon, Jon, and Sansa approach her to grieve together. My idea, for all that it is of an inferior quality, would allow for her training to both be useful, allow her to kill the Night King, and provide her a reason for doing so. I also allowed her to remain human while doing so. Theon throws the dagger to Arya, who plunges the dagger

[@Charleemanderz]

I know bringing up season 8 is just low hanging fruit, but the dialogue where Arya says to Jon “I know a killer when I see one” AFTER Daeny burned down kings landing? Like what were they thinking LOL

[@saraa.4295]

Uuh, that would be a nice rewrite: Have Arya kill the freys and then return to winterfell, choosing family over revenge. Have Jon kill the night king, reveal he is a targaryen and then someone suggest to daenaerys that jon should die. And Arya then kills daenaerys to protect jon!

[@LadyGamerLoon]

The show loses the parallel between dyrewolves and the starks. There is a scene in the books where aria sees nimeria and her new pack/progeny and that basically is telling us that aria finding her pack/where she fit, was a possibility and such. Her whole arc in the books is about not fitting in after all. But it's not the only thing honestly, it's like sweeping under the rug that John Snow is a warg like Bran and therefor, when he was stabbed to death he survived through Ghost for then getting back into his body once they had seemed it back together; but of course D&D had to go with what they went with. Oh yeah, and the whole confrontation between aria and Sansa makes no sense whatsoever, since after ALL the both went through, who they were in the past would look so trivial at that point and, no matter how jaded you are, it's your family, the family you thought you had lost, I would have gotten that moment to have aria open up again and FEEL around her siblings, no matter the differences and having her actually understand that their differences is what kept them alive

[@Maehedrose]

It was complete bullshit that Arya, after a couple years of training, could defeat Brienne of fucking Tarth, the greatest swordsman in the seven kingdoms. Not to mention, there's no way she could have parried Brienne's sword with needle. Arya ceases to be a character after she goes to learn under the faceless men, which would have made sense if she were there for a decade but not after a few months.

[@atlas956]

i love Brienne so much. the show really didn‘t do her justice, in the end it was all very one-note

[@Gunleaver]

The ruination of Arya happened before this. First of all, the misunderstanding of the meaning of Needle is just in the interview, it's not in the episode itself. But the point when Arya was completely misunderstood was during her chats with Tywin in Harrenhal (which also utterly broke Tywin from his book character), when she said that most girls are stupid. In the books, in Winterfell, she and Jon are watching their brothers spar with the princes, and Jon notes that Joffrey is overemphasizing his mother's family symbol in his clothing and heraldry, making it equal to his "father's" royal sigil. Arya immediately pushes back at her favorite brother's criticism of a prince she hates, saying "The *woman is important* too!" Arya is a defender of women. She does not hate her sex, she feels bad about falling short of the standards of conventional femininity. This is one way in which she is like Brienne, who also on the show defends women and cares for children, and completely buys into all the stories and songs of chivalry, even if she has had enough experience of knights to know they don't all live up to the standards. But Brienne's big badass moment is stepping out alone to face down numbers she cannot beat, to protect an orphanage. In the show, she's just a killing machine. In the books, she is kind to Pod and encourages him and in her mind, compliments his work ethic and his willingness to keep trying, despite his weakness and clumsiness. On the show, she is rude, snotty and dismissive of him and just beats him and calls it sparring practice. When Jaime has lost his hand, and with it, his will to live, she jolts him out of his apathy by insulting him. In the books, she calls Jaime a craven, but on the show, she calls him a woman. Throughout the series, Arya makes friends with women and is kindly to children. The kill that causes her teachers to temporarily blind her is when she murders a deserter from the Nights Watch who abandoned Sam & Gilly and her baby and Maester Aemon, alone in a strange city with no resources, and only the deserter's skills to provide for them. It is a part of her training as a Faceless Man to live among the people of the city, to learn their language and customs and to observe and report news back to her teachers, not to wander around with the world's dumbest hairdo, staring psychotically at her targets and being snotty to women. She is good at her job, because she is so friendly and nice and likes people. When a sailor asks her to recommend a prostitute, Arya suggests one who isn't as pretty or sexy as her colleagues, because she is nicer. Yes, Arya does cool badass stuff, but she is beloved, because she is no nice and tries to hold onto the memories of her family, and is just generally positive, that makes us really glad when she does something cool and badass. Arya is easy to root for, it's not just that she's really competent.

[@sdmcdaniel2255]

I never thought Arya was bent on revenge. I always thought she was bent on justice. In my mind, Arya didn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps. She always remembered her father's words, about the one exacting justice should wield the sword. She originally wanted adventure, to be like Nymeria. She did what she thought Nymeria would, even to the point of going to the House of Black and White and learning to become an assassin. That's the impression I always had of Arya. She had her list, but that list was all about people that she felt needed the hand of justice, and yes, Circie and Jamie Lannister would be on that list, for what they did to her brother, Brand. I mean, they did try to kill him, and left him a cripple for the rest of his life. Joffrey and the Lannisters had her father unjustly executed. All of the people on her list had done injustices against her or her family, and no one was willing to stand up to them. She did. When she said she was going home, I didn't think she meant Winterfell. I thought she meant Westeros. She was going home to mete out the justice she knew no one else would. Once that was complete, she moved onto the goal she truly wanted, which was to be an explorer, and adventurer, just like Nymeria.

[@AlexisTheBookworm]

Like how cool would it have been if in the night Jon and the Night King had a massive fight . The Night King get John against the ropes and we all think he is about to die, and then John smirks and says "The funny part is that you think I am John." Then the real John Snow comes from behind landing the final blow. Faux John pulls off his face and it is Aria. Who played the distraction because she was capible of holding her own, and helps her sibling defeat the main BBG.

[@thelateescapist8266]

Beniof & Weiss even admitted that the decision to have Arya kill NK instead of Jon was because they thought Jon doing it was too predictable. In short, once they started phoning it in so they could rush to the finish line they assumed they could get by with substituting shocking reversals for character based resolution of story lines. Which to me demonstrates a glibness that borders on contempt for the audience. Which is why I don't believe anyone should be concerned with "fairness" when analyzing their failures as storytellers.

[@thehermitman822]

Really a shame iirc that they got the job because they made the right prediction while talking to GRRM.

[@thelateescapist8266]

@@thehermitman822 Yeah, R+L=J. Which they could've gotten from Reddit for all anyone knows. Which demonstrates the downside of GRRM's romanticism. If he'd have used a more professional vetting process to choose the writers who'd adapt his magnum opus, i.e. a show Bible & pilot script or treatment, he might've had an idea of their actual vision for the series before handing them the keys to the kingdom. A vision in their own words which was based around removing as many of the fantasy elements as possible in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator of the potential audience. Once again demonstrating their unspoken disdain for the kind of fans who made the property viable in the first place.

[@witec83]

If I were feeling generous, I would say that killing the Night King was her defeating an aspect of the Many-Faced-God. Unfortunately, they didn't set any of that up, so I really don't think that's what they were trying to do.

[@booknerdlover3675]

I feel like the only reason D&D wrote great Arya scenes is because they still had book material. As soon as they ran out of book material, they just had absolutely no clue what to do with her. They liked the books, but didn’t fully understand at least some (probably all) of the characters. Arya killing the NK makes no sense, plot-wise. None. I know the NK isn’t in the books. The fact that Jon had all of these scenes with the NK, staring him down and besting one of his generals, etc - and then they gave his destruction to a completely different character who had absolutely no interaction with him was Ludacris. There was no payoff at all. They only did it to shock people. And it didn’t work. Well sort of. It worked, but instead of being shocked in a good way, I was shocked, thinking, “what the hell did they just do?” Nearly every character they ended up fumbling. Even characters that didn’t have much time page-wise in the books, like Bronn & Talisa (Jane Westerling in the books & totally 180° difference), they ended up not knowing what to do with.

[@GrahamAstles]

This is a good analysis and raises some important questions about the show. Don't get me wrong here, the show was very enjoyable, it just went adrift in the final seasons. The fact is that Dan and Dave, while evidently intelligent people as you stated, were not competent to finish the writing of George's story - I heard somewhere they normally write soap operas, and it shows. The blame lies fairly on George Martin's shoulders for being so slow in finishing the novels - how could Dan and Dave possibly hope to match his standards? That coupled with their stated desire to minimise any religious, magical or cultic elements (which are so integral to the story) diminishes the final seasons of the show and causes certain characters and story arcs to become one-dimensional or missed out altogether (eg Lady Stoneheart). Now, of course, George faces the unenviable task of fixing the mess and repairing the damage with original storylines, while not overtly throwing Dan and Dave under the bus (which I think he will, and rightly so). It is rather sad - this is a great story, but George's inability to get on with the job and concentrate on this one thing rather than being distracted other projects has ruined what could have been a fine legacy for him and diminished it into some unfinished work that is simply a source of frustration for fans. "Winds" may appear sometime, but "Summer" has little chance of coming to pass - but maybe he does not care....

[@graphthis2249]

Jon should have killed the night king. Arya should have killed Dany.

[@davidlewis5312]

you know I am surprised you didn't touch on the missed opportunity to make her revenge mission make sense with the young Lannister boys. Despite these kids being her enemy, she breaks bread with them, sympathizes with them. And seems to come to a realization that only one person has to die to end this. One person's death can stop all these boys from being marched off to war against her family (and a dragon queen). Cersei. She has a purpose beyond her hate. She can save all these lives with one thrust of a dagger, one poison mulled wine, one faceless act. This is putting aside that they shot a scene where Arya got over her issues. The play. As she watches Joffrey die, poisoned at his wedding and feels the glimmer of satisfaction. But then... she sees a mother, who happens to be a person she hates, holding her first born son, in her arms as he dies... and she wonders 'what is she cheering?' This is all facial ques, but look at that scene and tell me that is not the score. Arya feels sympathy... for Cersei. I have always felt Arya is the Little 'Brother'. But that her killing Cersei will not be the cathartic revenge we expect. No. She will find her crying over Tomman and give her 'mercy' the quick death poison of the Faceless. But before then, she will take Cersei's name, who does Cersei want punished for her son's death. I still think this might play out in the book.

[@proroller1921]

As much as having her kill the Night King in show made no sense . I admit I felt the same way until I realized Arya is very early on said to be a spitting image of her aunt. It’s clear she is closest with John, which happens to be his aunts son. Her aunt was a badass and commanded so much respect that she earned herself a statue in the Stark crypt. Her aunt secretly marries because of the prophecy, hiding away and allowing a war to be fought over a false story. A war that sees her family killed, the man she had made peace marrying to live on as a broken man, her lover was killed and chaos rained while she was hidden away essentially on honey moon phase *3. What she did and allowed to happen based off a vague prophecy made by a man who used his prophecy to make himself king, a prophecy that many before her time thought applied to them. To be approached by a man from a family who’s known for being mad and forsaking the most important thing to her house (honor) in the very slim chances it applied to her… makes for an interesting look at Arya who is a mini her. Then she gives the ultimate sacrifice by giving her life and holding on long enough to make sure her honorable brother saves her child and reputation. We see Arya acting wild like her aunt. Her actions from the onset of the story (being out spoken, questioning and disagreeing with the idea of the time that high born ladies were political chips meant for making deals and having children and her closer relationship with John) would have been viewed by most at that time as bringing shame or dishonor to her family. We don’t see the parallel because Ned happens to encourage her (I think due to her reminding him of his sister) and after Ned she sheds her identity and stays safe by acting like the common folk and a boy, both males and low born girls lived lives very different to high born ladies. Her trials allow her to become that wild wolf girl her aunt probably would have become had she not been in the spotlight and having to ultimately submit to the expectations of her. Arya never got old enough before things went south (or large enough where she could justify being that one in a million highborn lady who becomes a knight) that would have seen Ned and others apply pressure to do her duty as a Stark female. Her and John’s relationship makes way more sense under this context. Sansa was kept away from John and came to view him as her mother did. Arya in theory would have been around her mother and sister more often, so their tight bond shouldn’t have formed. We know the books are written methodically with hidden meanings and Easter eggs. Why else make it a point in multiple instances to include information such as “the stark children all looked more of their mother than their father, other than Arya who was the spitting image of her aunt”, references by people who knew her aunt to draw a comparison and even Bran sees his aunt and uncle as children play sword fighting and believing he was seeing him and Arya, only to realize they hadn’t ever played on that spot, thus due to Arya being her aunts twin he was able to identify who he was seeing? That and her and John’s very unusual close relationship (male and female siblings, the age gap, John being a bastard.. thus lower than a Stark except Arya never see’s him as a bastard half-brother, etc) has to be because unknown to anyone when reading or viewing at this point.. their connection comes from Arya being Liliana reincarnated basically. The roles are reversed now though. John is always careful to know his place so he never refers to himself as a Stark or Ned’s legit children’s sibling… except Arya who recounts John calling her his sister. Needle came from John, the classes to teach her came from Ned, both let her be her and Arya has the most affection for her father (brother from Lyanna’s perspective) and John who treated her as Ned did thus being like a father to her (son from Lyanna’s perspective). The books make clear prophecy’s are real but play out differently thus symbolism is important. The show and books hype John up as the promised one. It also gives slight hints he may have to die to beat the Night King, thus like his mother scarifying his life. John’s story lines up with his mothers given her dishonorable act of getting with the prince while John had to break his vows and honor by shacking up with the enemy and betraying his family’s (Knights Watch) by allowing the free folk in like his mother let the mad kings son in. I could go on for days. If Arya is Lyanna reincarnated basically, her character being that of Ice is given a sword by Fire to break the mold and uses a blade made of Fire (one of two things that requires the dragon fire to make) protects her brother (son) from sacrificing himself… again. While also saving her brother who mistook his aunt for her (Easter egg in that vision) and revealed John’s true identity. Given how the books are full of symbolism and magic, it makes total sense for Arya to kill him. If she is basically her aunt, who needed to have John to give needle to Arya and represent the true Targaryen first in line of succession. Him being King of the North then giving it up to reunite the realm that he had the strongest claim to. Had he not bent the knee, the second he became king of the north, the realm was technically reunited because he was the true king of the realm. His kneeling to the “breaker of chains” was also a repeat in that House Stark was the only major family not bend the knee without being forced to by losing a fight. Lastly Daenerys (in the show) essentially becomes the mad King. John’s father met his aunt because his father knew his father was mad and encouraged him to attend the joust to show the people he was mad. He met John’s mother there while trying in his own way to put an end to his father’s evil by letting the people see he was mad / getting him to leave the capital which he rarely did due to his paranoia of being killed. So John killing her in the story followed in his father’s footsteps.

[@raylast3873]

One thing about Arya is that she‘s pretty much the only one in her family who isn’t playing the Game of Thrones*. And that‘s important because it means her choices and motivations are very much still her own. They‘re personal, not political. Arya can largely do what she wants, without worrying about the wider consequences because by and large there are none. She‘s just herself, not a player in the big game. *I guess there‘s Rickon, but he‘s barely even a character, especially in the show.

[@katiesteiman7953]

Her training was crucial for her being able to kill the big bad. They specifically show her at The House of B&W learning that move with dropping the knife to the lower hand. Without that move she would have been dead. As for why she killed him, this was showing she still had a tie to her family, and wanted them to appreciate what she has become. Also, why wouldn’t she? She’s smart enough to see that he is a huge threat to the entire continent, including herself and her family. She has the skill and weapon to stop Armageddon, so she does. There’s also the fact that he could take out the people on her list before she gets to them.

[@Chrissykat24]

The only issue with that is that she really doesn't use the training when she comes at the Knight King, screaming at the top of her lungs. Not an assassin move. Had he not hesitated when he had her and just snapped her neck that little knife trick would have meant nothing.

[@dwc1964]

the only _personal_ motivation for Arya to kill the Night King _at that moment_ was that the Night King was fixing to kill Bran I'm not saying it's a good one I'm saying it's the _only_ one