[QUOTE=brocks]
Duh, I forgot about that. And IMO that absolutely clinches it. Nobody in Yoren’s group but Arya would have had the slightest idea who Syrio was, so he would have risked nothing by telling her who he was, when he was about to burn to death.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Even if it was some sort of test or something he was putting Arya through it makes no sense at that point, since he’s going to die if she does nothing. That she does do something came as a surprise to all of them, and she basically tosses them the axe moments before they are all about to be burned to death and die horribly.
Personally, I’m holding out hope that Syrio does die, since they don’t say one way or the other. But I don’t think he is going to be Jaqen…I think he’s going to turn up in her path at some point and help her out or at least explain what happened after she left.
I think Martin writes “death” scenes ambiguously whenever he can — Theon, the Hound, Syrio, Benjen, etc. — so he can have the characters turn up again if he needs them. Probably even he doesn’t know for sure whether or not they ever will. If he did, it wouldn’t take him six years to write a damn book.
Have you read Feast for Crows? If you have, think of the training that Arya is currently undergoing. A great deal of it has to do with subsuming one’s identity, one’s very personality. And the master who teaches her spends a lot of time teaching that, as Faceless Men, they are simply carrying out God’s will about who lives and who dies. And, of course, valar morghulis. All men must die.
Jaqen cannot tell her he is Syrio, because he isn’t. Not anymore. He left that identity behind. To a Faceless Man, you are not merely changing your appearance, you are becoming another person. And if the consequence of becoming that person means that he dies in a fire, so be it. It is God’s will.
Because the Septa was a member of the Stark household..Syrio was just a guy who came by a couple times a week to give the girl some dancing lessons. Which of the Lannisters are going to care about him? He killed a couple guards? So?
Tyrion would have the attention to detail to have someone at least make an effort to get him. Cersei?Certainly not.
Only way I can see the Syrio/Jaquen angle is if said Faceless Man was Cersei’s backup plan in the event that Robert survived his boar hunt. Else why was a highly paid assassin hanging around the keep teaching a young girl fencing?
-Joe
People keep saying that Jaqen knew who Aria was; I haven’t read it in a while, can anyone detail how that might be? Why would he know that a northern lord’s daughter was a good fighter? It’s not like that would have been widely known; I think even Sansa really truly thinks Arya was taking dancing lessons.
While I’m still not seeing a Syrio/Jaqen connection, the fact that he seems to know her <again, I don’t recall why people think that; can you tell me what the book said about it, generally?> indicates he was likely busy in those circles, so now…who was he?
If not Syrio, anyway…
I don’t remember any parts where Jaqen seems to know who Arya is or was, but he’d know she was a fighter because she beats the crap out of several of the boys on their journey to the wall, sees her in the fight for the keep and he sees her doing other things as well. He probably sees the potential, anyway.
Yep, I figured that much, but it seems to be being said that he knew specifically WHO she was, and I’m not sure why he’d know that.
However, a wiki search turns up that Jaqen was in one of the black cells at King’s Landing, as well as his two companions; Yoren picked them up to take to the Wall. So…maybe he talked to Ned and got some hints? I’m still kinda unclear; it seems, to me, he’d have to be pretty close to the Stark family to assume that the girl who happens to be travelling with them is Arya and not some random runaway. Also, not sure why anyone would think Arya Stark is a good fighter, and would presume it was she based on the waif’s ability to prod buttock.
Besides Syrio, of course.
Wow, I’m talking myself right back out the corner I was in about there being no connection, huh?
I forgot that she’d gone by Arry in his presence, at which point it wouldnt’ have been a huge leap to ‘Arya’. Thanks! That helps. 'cause I do not want Syrio and Jaqen to be the same person. Even though it’d be an awesome arc and I would have been surprised <which I love> it still would have seemed cheap somehow.
Re Syrio: in the book, did he pick up a real sword along the way in that fight? What I really didn’t like about the scene is that he disables all those guards in a few seconds, but never grabs one of their swords to replace his, er, dull stick. That struck me as completely ridiculous for a guy supposedly fighting for his life.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
Re Syrio: in the book, did he pick up a real sword along the way in that fight?
[/QUOTE]
No, but then the stick practice sword hadn’t been broken when Arya bolted either. It was a lathe sword with a solid lead core, and IIRC he actually managed to kill a few of the guards and otherwise disable the others. The knight would have been a challenge, but it might not have been as one sided as one would suppose.
They were using different swords than what he was trained for (broadswords or bastard long swords verse a rapier or something similar)…and his stick had double the weight of a regular sword, since that’s pretty standard for a practice weapon. Having been hit with a lathe sword many times myself (and one’s without lead cores) I can tell you…it’s no joke getting smacked by one.
Besides which, the man was a sword master. Arrogant doesn’t even begin to describe those kinds of men. He probably looked on beating up a room full of guards AND a fully armored knight as a challenge.
No idea about weight or how the sword on TV differed from the one in the book, but the TV one was very rounded – no edges or point. He was playing a game, and the life of his student was the gamble. So IMO he was either an idiot, or there was something going on “off camera” so to speak that offered a better explanation of why he wasn’t willing to kill anyone. Some kind of collusion, maybe.
I’m not sure if they describe the practice swords in the series, but Arya is surprised the first time he tosses her the practice sword because it’s so heavy. He says something like ‘It’s as heavy as it has to be’. It wouldn’t have had an edge or sharp point, but getting hit by something like that would definitely hurt, and a master could kill you with even a light practice sword.
He wasn’t an idiot though. And there wasn’t any collusion going on, at least none that I ever detected in either the book or the series. He didn’t grab another sword because they weren’t using the type of swords he was trained to use, while the practice sword was very similar, if heavier to what he had trained with. A swords master really could defeat a bunch of guards using just a practice sword, especially since they were idiotic enough to take him lightly at first and only came at him singly before he had put several of them down (I think there were 6 in the book…not sure in the series). The knight would have been a challenge because of the armor, but he might have been able to spar with him for a bit then run away, unless more guards showed up. He’d be a bit hard to catch for a man wearing full plate.
It became clear that Arya was not some random runaway when she announced that she was the one the Queen’s men had chased for days. The fact that that they were actually after her best friend wouldn’t exactly remove all curiosity about her.
But Jaqen showed no sign of knowing who she was until he saw that the boy he knew as Arry was actually a girl. And as I said, even Gendry had figured it out by then.
As for some rule that prevents Faceless Men from even mentioning a previous identity — Jaqen did mention his old name, after he had transformed himself into a new person:
“Jaqen is as dead as Arry,” he said sadly, “and I have promises to keep…”
so he surely could have said that he had been Syrio in a previous life.
Different masters for different styles of fighting. Ned chose Syrio because the quick, light sword style suited Arya better. It’s not like she was going to grow up to be some hulking brute able to use a broadsword like the knights.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
Different masters for different styles of fighting. Ned chose Syrio because the quick, light sword style suited Arya better. It’s not like she was going to grow up to be some hulking brute able to use a broadsword like the knights.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Think of someone who fences (Epee) verse someone trained in cut and thrust with a shield style. Take away the cut and thrust masters broadsword and hand him a rapier and he’s going to be fairly awkward with that weapon…and vice versa if you take away the fencing masters blade and hand him a bastard long sword.
Ned chose Syrio because his style was better suited to her than would be someone teaching her to use a sword and shield. Like from the Belgariad, to paraphrase Queen Ce’Nedra: ‘In all the world is there going to be an armored warrior so small I could fight him??’
