Good observation. To my mind, that’s the most convincing evidence we’ve seen so far that “Arya” might not actually be Arya. I believe that Maisie Williams has been pretty consistent at playing Arya as left-handed, even though she is right-handed herself.
I think I have the solution to the question of why Margaery was not having sex with the King. As everyone knows Margaery is playing the long con. This was merely part of that.
She knows that if she starts to get too much influence on the king through Sex the High Sparrow may interfere before she has enough influence yet. By getting him to tell her to get it on he can’t complain later when she starts to gain influence through it. She can always tell him you told me to lay back and think of westeros.
You know, there’s one person who would definitely know how to deal with penetrating wounds…
The First Sword of Braavos
OK, probably not, but I live in hope…
Right in the bit that Moonlitherial quotes, she straight-up admits that she failed in trying to play Arya as left-handed, and has never been consistent about it. That blows that aspect having any weight as evidence right out of the water.
Nothing about Arya’s behavior in this episode is “strange” or “not like herself”. It’s exactly like herself - a self we haven’t fully seen for a few seasons, because she’s been trying to fit in with this group of Nobodies. She realizes now that she completely sucks at it, and has no reason to keep up the pretense anymore. Like someone said earlier, it’s a return to form, if anything. But not all that remarkable either way.
Fair enough.
I disagree. She never acted how she was acting in the streets before she was stabbed. One of the things about Arya is that she never acted like a highborn, or at least not how highborn women are portrayed on the show. She is the opposite of Sansa in terms of pretensions that go with being a noble. She was always skulking around trying to get into things that were, in the show universe, the opposite of what a highborn woman should do (fighting, getting dirty, fraternizing with those below her station, etc).
Perhaps because she’s no longer a 12 year old tomboy? Children do change as they grow up.
Does anyone not see a clear inconsistency between Arya at the end of episode 6 (afraid for her life, with Needle, in the dark) and Arya in episode 7 (no Needle, apparently carefree)?
I just hope that the inconsistency is explained by something in-story, as opposed to just bad writing or editing.
(Unfortunately, the out-of-character-stupidity with which some other characters have met their end this season, particularly Roose Bolton, but also Prince Doran and his bodyguard, have me worried.)
I agree with every part of this. The whole Dorne/Sand Snakes subplot was handled clumsily. That Roose Bolton let down his guard around Ramsay is more plausible; Ramsay had been able to impress him with his initiative and craftiness, and was clearly desperate for his father’s approval. I think Roose was aware of Ramsay’s nature and keeping an eye on him, but didn’t anticipate his turning on him so ruthlessly and quickly after the birth of his new son. If he had, he would kept Walda and then the baby in the Dreadfort surrounded by people of unshakable loyalty. I’ll admit that I’m willing to accept the development of Ramsay stabbing the life out of Roose partly out of my own pleasure at Roose dying in such a similar, karma-rific way to Robb Stark.
Depending on the next scene we see with Arya, I will either be impressed with the showrunners or roll my eyes in their general direction. Right now, we have the inconsistency that you pointed out and the subtle signs that Arya wasn’t quite acting like herself. Either the person we saw strolling around throwing bags of money around was Arya or she was not. If Arya, oof. That’s hard to swallow. If not, I don’t see any other possible explanation than that it was Jaqen testing how well the Waif followed his direction that Arya shouldn’t suffer.
But I suppose we’ll know for sure soon enough!
Most of her mannerisms and choices I was able to suspend disbelief for while watching. That is, they didn’t take me out of the moment. The one thing that did take me out of the moment was when she told the Westerosi men, “I want to go home.” Putting herself out into the world physically is one thing, but she has always played her mental cards close to her chest. Why wouldn’t she just say, “I want to book passage”?
Anyway, yeah, the rampant speculation (most of which my tinfoil hat is nowhere near thick enough for) is clear evidence that the whole sequence was odd.
This is the problem: I didn’t get the impression she was “afraid for her life, with Needle, in the dark”.
It seemed to me - and I watched it again after all this nonsense got going to confirm my first impression - that she was, as I said above, wary but not overly concerned. Yes, she knew that she was being tested. No, she did not know that the Faceless Folks have already given her a fail.
Watch the scene again - if you think she’s lying awake and clutching Needle in fear, you’re seeing a different scene to the one I saw.
Except that it would be idiotic of her NOT to be afraid of the faceless men. “A girl has been given a second chance. There will not be a third.” And another quote about how another face will be going up on the wall no matter what. It’s not like they mislead Arya into thinking they were totally cool with her leaving, and it’s only we the audience that have seen evidence otherwise.
It’s totally different not only from how she has been represented in previous episodes this season, but throughout the show. As has been said, at least since her escape from King’s Landing, she’s never been straightforward. She’s always been representing herself as something she is not. For her to be striding around in public drawing attention to herself when she knows she’s marked for death by the deadliest assassins in the world makes no sense whatsoever.
Here’s my Arya theory.
Our current impression that the FM are cynical murderers-for-hire, but this seems inconsistent with Jaqen’s character when Arya first met him. In fact, this murder-for-hire thing is a ruse, part of Arya’s training. In reality, the FM kill only for justice or cosmic balance. The purpose of Arya’s training has been to teach her to be willing to release her superficial external identity when necessary; but the test is too see whether she can still retain her moral sense. Thus, the apparent murder-for-hire of the actress was a ruse presented to Arya to test her. Arya passed the test by refusing to kill the actress.
So in fact, Arya is now a full-fledged FM, a bringer of death to restore cosmic balance. The FM are sending her back on an undercover mission to Westeros to kick ass. Jaqen posed as a loud highborn version of Arya paying for passage to get noticed. He then made a prominent show of dying in public. This is because some people do know Arya is alive, and this public death ensures that word gets back to Westeros that Arya is dead, facilitating her undercover mission.
The waif is not central to this. She has failed the FM test by showing no moral sense, and is simply a convenient tool for Jaqen to carry out the required ruse of faking Arya’s death.
…and it occurs to me that the older actress (the target) could be a FM - she talked to Arya and showed her that she was a good person who did not deserve death, in order to validate the test. In any event, the poison that Arya was given to use was not real, the actress was never in jeopardy.
On reflection, if the actress is a FM, it may be neater if she (rather than Jaqen) is posing as Arya for the public stabbing of Arya.
And again:
Except that it has not been established that she “knows she’s marked for death by the deadliest assassins in the world”.
And again, again:
The scene where she puts down Needle and blows out the light is not, despite many peoples’ apparent belief, the behaviour of a terrified person. It’s the behaviour of a mildly concerned person. Watch it again, without jumping to conclusions.
She should, or at least suspect it, though: after she fails to kill the insurance merchant, going after Meryn Trant instead, Jaqen seems to immediately know that something’s up. And she has explicitly been told she’d be tested; it’d be moronic not to assume that somebody was going to check the test’s outcome.
But way back when he gave her the coin, he told her that if she joined the FM, she would be able to kill all the people on her enemies list. So what was the problem with killing Trant?
He said (I just watched the episode the other day) that she could ‘offer up all those names to the Red God’; but when she was out to kill the insurance fraudster, it was his name that had been offered up. And plausibly, Jaqen wouldn’t have had a problem with her killing Trant, but with her acting against orders, and failing to kill the merchant. She’s after all just an apprentice—maybe you get to choose who to kill only after graduation. Lastly, it’s also possible that he lied to her, to recruit her talents for the many-faced god’s service.