So, with season 7 wrapped up, a lot of the subtle clues from earlier seasons are coming due for their payoff. I have a fairly good idea of how the ending and finale will play out - though I imagine I can always have guessed wrong.
But that still leaves the resolution of the individual character arcs still to be discovered and how they will resolve. For some people watching, that might ultimately be more important then the actual resolution of the main plot.
I had a thought about Arya's arc and how it could resolve last night. It started with rewatching this quote from Arya to Sansa...the 'Creepy Masks' speech:
We both wanted to be other people when we were younger. You wanted to be a queen, and sit next to a handsome young king on the Iron Throne. I wanted to be a knight to pick up a sword like father and go into battle. Neither of us got to be the other person did we? The world doesn’t let go and decide what we are going to be.
It made me realize that now that Arya is back home, of sorts, her capabilities are in "Stark" contrast to her status as a younger lady of House Stark. Assuming she survives the 2nd War for the Dawn, what would her social role actually be in the new world that would have to be put back together, and would she be content in it?
Thinking back to earlier seasons, Arya runs into Tywin Lannister and has a small discussion with him. In it, she discusses one of her favorite characters of history, Visenya Targaryen. (Thinking about it, Arya really is the history buff of the family...) I was arguing the other day on another thread that this is an indication that Arya would accept Jon's hidden parentage fairly well - given that she admires historical Targaryens in spite of the recent bad blood between their families.
But there is an interesting angle to Visenya and the creation of the Kingsguard, and how it might foreshadow Arya's eventual fate - she might well get her wish to be a Knight after all - an excerpt from A World of Ice and Fire:
On one occasion in 10 AC, Aegon and Visenya were both attacked in the streets of King's Landing, and if not for Visenya and Dark Sister, the king might not have survived. Despite this, the king still believed his guards were sufficient to his defense; Visenya convinced him otherwise. (It is recorded that when Aegon pointed out his guardsmen, Visenya drew Dark Sister and cut his cheek before his guards could react. "Your guards are slow and lazy," Visenya is reported to have said, and the king was forced to agree.)
It was Visenya, not Aegon who founded the Kingsguard. Given the Realm-shattering changes that have happened to the old order of things over the course of A Song of Ice and Fire & the show, I think it would be a very small thing to promote Arya to Captain of the Kingsguard, guarding Jon. Her loyalty could not be questioned and her skill is nearly unrivaled. It would fulfill an ambition she has wanted, against all odds, for most of her life. I'll be rooting for that to happen - assuming she survives.
Submitted September 27, 2017 at 09:41AM by Logistics515 http://ift.tt/2k2vEQB
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