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.
