Crooked Stitches - Arya I

Arya I

This is Arya’s first POV chapter, and basically serves to illustrate the contrast between her wildness and Sansa’s proper ladylike behavior.

The chapter begins with Arya, Jeyne Poole, Beth Cassel, Sansa and Princess Myrcella practicing the womanly art of needlework overseen by Septa Mordane. Arya isn’t very interested in her work, possibly because she once overheard the Septa telling her mother that she had the hands of a blacksmith. Instead, she glances around the room thinking about how beautiful Sansa’s work is because “everyone says so.” The rest of the girls giggle, gossip and gush about Joffrey and how he’s going to marry Sansa. The talking attracts the attention of the Septa, and Arya’s lack of needle talents is announced publicly, to her embarrassment. Arya storms out of the room and out of any possible opportunity to lead a prissy proper ladylike life. When asked where she is going by the Septa, she responds with quick wit saying “I have to go shoe a horse.”

This makes me wonder if Arya had any real chance to be a “proper lady” or whether she was born with the wild wolf-blood. Everyone seemed to be too busy cooing over Sansa’s beauty and talents. She seemed to be trying her best at needlework, and we know how well she gets at sword play with Syrio with practice, but perhaps when she overheard the Septa telling her mother that she has the hands of a blacksmith, it activated some type of stereotype threat or self-fulfilling prophecy which made her unable to perform well or get better. She’s also two years younger than Sansa, so the expectations of the Septa may have even been unrealistic. Telling the Septa that she was going to shoe a horse was a rejection of the gender norms. It’s also interesting with her later friendship with Gendry.

After she leaves, she looks for some place to watch Joffrey get knocked on his backside by Robb. At this point, there isn’t much reason to dislike him, besides the fact that Jon said he looks like a girl. Perhaps this could be the earliest glimmer of Arya’s dark side. She also says that she would have taken Nymeria to needlework seemingly to intimidate Septa Mordane. She is only 9 years old though, and is embarrassed and hurt by her sister’s friends giggling at her failure to fit in and do girly things. It isn’t unreasonable to feel this way.

She finds a spot to watch the fighting and Jon is already there. She’s disappointed to see that it’s only the younger boys fighting instead of Robb and Joffrey. Jon messes up her hair as she says she can perform better than Bran who’s fighting plump Prince Tommen. They remark on the arms on Joffrey’s coat. It’s interesting that they are looking at Joffrey’s arms and not Tommen’s because the arms are divided between the crowned stag and the lion of Lannister. This is possible early symbolism of Joffrey’s  incestual parentage and also the proudness of house Lannister.

The fighting ends with Robb and Joffrey arguing since Joffrey doesn’t really want to go another bout with Robb, and the Lannister men laughing at Joffrey’s lame jokes.  Arya heads back to her room where the Septa and her mother were waiting for her.

A couple of other important things that were mentioned in the chapter:

Arya discussing appearances. She says “Jon had their father’s face, as she did. They were the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair. When Arya had been little, she had been afraid that meant that she was a bastard too. It had been Jon she had gone to in her fear, and Jon who had reassured her.”

Possibly subtle evidence of R + L = J. She’s discussing similar features that she shares with Jon, and later on in her second chapter, Ned says she looks like Lyanna. It’s just a small connection.

“Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.” “Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya. “She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

As a little sidenote, she says “everyone said so” again in regards to someone’s appearance. She doesn’t think much of herself because of the fact that she’s called Arya Horseface even though she’s probably actually pretty (in the books at least). The last line of that quote is pretty dark and foreboding, especially given what Jon tells Arya at the end of the chapter I reviewed,

“You’ll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers.”

Combine this quote with what the Ghost of High Heart sees, and I’m a bit on edge about the future of Arya.