Thanks!.
This is fiction, where stabbing/shooting someone in the stomach is serious enough to let you know that it’s life threatening, but still survivable should the plot demand it. As opposed to real life where it more often than not results in a slow painful death from massive internal infection.
Maybe a better question is why the Waif sucked so bad at killing Arya. She had the drop on her, so are we to belief this master assassin opted to stab Arya at least twice someplace other than a vital organ using a non-poisoned blade?
The way this season is going, it will be Syrio Forel riding on top of Nymaria the Direwolf with Gendry acting as his squire.
I think The Hound is the sort of guy people recognize having never actually seen him before. Unless there is some other giant ill-tempered man in Westeros with a burnt head.
Well every time one of the Crows (or Tyrion, for that matter) has mentioned the wights to a southerner they got dismissive laughter about believing in “ghosts and grumpkins”. I reckon most people would be as shocked to learn that the bogeyman they dismissed as obvious bullshit was real all along as people from our world would if tomorrow we learned that there really were no-shit werewolves or vampires - even if they were explained by science rather than magic.
“It’s a boy, and young like Lord Karstark likes them” or something along those lines was how Umber presented Rickon - but Karstark seemed to chafe at the implication that he liked young boys.
While technically a Northerner, being a house aligned with the Starks, little Lady Mormont seemed curious and not dismissive about the army of undead. And even though she was of the North, didn’t seem 100% certain that such a thing actually exists.
I think the southrons, if they received some news of those supernatural happenings in the north, have simply refuse to believe them. Yeah sure, dead men come back to life, yes, yes, I’ll take note of it with my invisible plume in this invisible scroll…
As smart as Tywin was, he didn’t seem to teach Jaime and Cersei much, other than how to be entitled. I don’t know if it was purposeful, so he could try to control them more, or just wasn’t thinking that he would ever die and they’d be on their own. Tyrion learned from him, but not because Tywin was trying to teach him. I do like Jaime since he’s a charming bastard, and the actor plays him well, but it seems like it’s been a while since we’ve seen him be smart, so I’m not sure what he’s going to do. He seemed to learn and grow when he was with Brienne, and then has somewhat settled back into his old ways since being back in Kings Landing. That was a gorgeous suit of armor though, and the whole Lannister army looked much more impressive than the poor Frey army.
If I heard reports of werewolf attacks in Canada, I’d dismiss the stories as urban legends. If I kept hearing reports of werewolf attacks, and that tons of wild dangerous people were streaming over the border into the US to escape from the werewolves, I still not might believe that werewolves existed, but I’d be concerned that obviously something weird is going on. At the very least it means that something weird is happening causing people to believe in crazy things, and that there are more dangerous people in the country who don’t have a home and I don’t know what they’re going to do.
I can understand if the rest of Westeros isn’t worried about the wights and white walkers yet, but if Castle Black is sending out updates on what is going on, and if anyone has sent out ravens saying that a lot of wildlings have come over, you’d think that at the very least more people would be concerned about the wildlings and that it sounds like the Nights Watch have lost their minds. Since a lot of criminals and dregs of society are apparently sent to be in the Nights Watch, if a bunch of criminals have gone crazy that should be somewhat scary. Not the biggest concern since there’s a lot of other stuff going on and Castle Black is far away, but I would still think it’d at least be discussed.
Why did Arya leave herself so vulnerable?
Where was Needle?
Where did she get the money for transport to Westeros?
Could Jacquen been posing as Arya?
Maybe her blind begging gig was more lucrative than it appeared.
Starting to think it makes sense that Arya allowed herself to get stabbed because she knew the Faceless men and women would never stop until they caught her. Now they feel satisfied and will stop looking for her.
Being dead is better than being on the run?
Someone upthread already pointed out that Brienne is heading straight for Jaime now. I think that’s going to be a major decision point in Jamie’s arc. He was an unrepentant, selfish asshole up until he met Brienne. Could be that Brienne reminds him of who he was while he was with her, and who he could be if he keeps working at it. However, I think it’s more likely that when forced to choose between Brienne and Cersei, he will choose Cersei, because he values her more than anyone else in the world. I’m expecting Jamie’s arc to be a tragic one of unrealized potential; he’ll go down with Cersei’s ship.
While the ravens are a vastly superior intelligence network than anything available when we were at a similar tech level, they are still just that: an intelligence network. They aren’t a news network, so most information probably slowly trickles down through trade routes, with lots of adjustments. Most people in Westoros probably only know that the traitorous Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch evacuated thousands of wildlings from Hardhome and allowed them safe passage through The Wall. Any reports of White Walkers are likely dismissed as superstition. Most people who have seen them in action are either dead, wildlings, or otherwise not considered credible.
Aside from unreliable transmission of information, plenty of people are probably employing Occam’s Razor. A bastard who develops a soft spot for the wildlings, then lets them through The Wall after being made Lord Commander is a much easier story to swallow than the truth about the zombie army.
Littlefinger is playing the long game like always. He already convinced Robin to lead the army of the Vale to help Sansa take Winterfell. However, he didn’t tell Sansa that, only about the BlackFish retaking Riverrun. He had to know that Riverrun would be beseiged and the Blackfish would not be able to help. He let Sansa have some time to realize just how meaningless the Stark name actually is and now she is desperate and he is her only hope.
Sansa was definitely writing him. After they retake Winterfell he will have puppets in charge of the North and the Vale, he has information about the Tyrells that prevents them from opposing him right now, and he still has the backing of the Lannisters. Once he finds a way to take the Riverlands he will be nearly unstoppable.
Except they didn’t get proof of death.
And in fact, she was seen by hundreds of people walking away from the attack, so they have pretty good reason to think that she is still alive.
My guess is that she will be dramatically rescued from the FM at the last minute, something that has happened far too often this season.
I still want to be a fly on the wall when that commander of the Knights of the Vale consoles Sansa over her kidnapping by the Boltons.
I agree with the guesses that it’s not actually her, or that she was purposely drawing out the Waif, though I’m struggling to come up with a scenario where they’ll actually be able to make sense of it either way. She was very clearly not acting like Arya leading up to the stabbing.
There are a list of several good theories at a link I’ll put in a spoiler since some people may not want to read it.
[spoiler]
Theories mentioned at this link:
[ol]
[li]It was Jaqen stabbed and he was testing the Waif[/li][li]The Waif and Arya are the same person[/li][li]It was someone else stabbed (not Arya or Jaqen)[/li][/ol]https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/06/read-this-theory-if-you-want-to-feel-way-better-ab.html[/spoiler]
I don’t know what to think of the Arya scene, She was not acting much like herself while dealing with the ships captain. She was acting like a high born though. I could easily see this being a test of the Waif instead of it actually being Arya, but the question then becomes “why does anyone give a crap about the Waifs story?”
Right, she’s hardly a character, she’s more just an obstacle to Arya. If they had done more with her story, I could see this being a test for the Waif, but I don’t see the point of that now.
“Knowing” that Arya will probably survive the stabbing and knife twisting in the gut I got a distinct “Castle” feel i.e. “You know how I got shot in the heart with a high-powered rifle shot? Those off-screen doctors were great!”
I don’t think we need an excuse for Arya’s behavior other than that the director/writers were showing us that Arya is a changed person - her time with the faceless men has matured her and given her new skills, and now she’s ready to go back to being Arya Stark. She’s shed her acolyte/child skin, and now she’s confident, competent, and ready to assert her place in the world. Or she was… The look of astonishment on her face when she was stabbed might clue her in that things are not going to be so easy for her.
Arya’s character arc:
- Impetuous tom-boy child.
- Teenager in a King’s court, learning to be a lady (unsuccessfully) and how to sword fight (successfully)
- A teenager on the run, dependent on others for survival, but learning how to take care of herself and survive without her family.
- A kidnapped royal, being hauled in for ransom by the Hound, but learning valuable skills along the way.
- an acolyte of the faceless men, learning even more skills for killing and blending in to a crowd.
- A young adult Stark, equipped with many skills, ready to go back to Westeros and kill her enemies and perhaps help re-establish the Stark name.
I think her confident behavior, her high-born clothes and sacks of unexplained money were just plot devices to get us to understand that the scared child, the acolyte, and the tempestuous teenager are gone. We’re now seeing the ‘real’ Arya Stark - the person she was destined to be. Training is over. Before, she was buffeted by events beyond her control. Now, she’s going to be the freaking storm. Or something like that. Of course, stabbings have a way of changing things…