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thelustybraavosimaid · 1 year

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Needleheart Winter 2022: Protecting the Weak

JON

Thorne smiled. "The Bastard wishes to defend his lady love, so we shall make an exercise of it. Rat, Pimple, help our Stone Head here." Rast and Albett moved to join Halder. "Three of you ought to be sufficient to make Lady Piggy squeal. All you need do is get past the Bastard."

"Stay behind me," Jon said to the fat boy. Ser Alliser had often sent two foes against him, but never three. He knew he would likely go to sleep bruised and bloody tonight. He braced himself for the assault.

"Go inside the tent and stay with Dalla. It's not safe out here." It wouldn't be a great deal safer inside, but she didn't need to hear that.

"I need to find the midwife," Val said.

"You're the midwife. I'll stay here until Mance comes back." [...] A few of them gave Jon dark looks but Longclaw was in his hand, and no one troubled him. (Jon X, ASoS)

"I know what I swore." Jon said the words. "I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. Were those the same words you said when you took your vows?"

"They were. As the lord commander knows."

"Are you certain that I have not forgotten some? The ones about the king and his laws, and how we must defend every foot of his land and cling to each ruined castle? How does that part go?" Jon waited for an answer. None came. "I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord—what are these wildlings, if not men?" (Jon XI, ADwD)

ARYA

Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince's head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa's horrified eyes. Joffrey staggered and whirled around, roaring curses. Mycah ran for the trees as fast as his legs would take him. Arya swung at the prince again, but this time Joffrey caught the blow on Lion's Tooth and sent her broken stick flying from her hands. (Sansa I, AGoT)

"I'm sick of carrying him, and I'm sick of all his talk about yielding too. If he could stand up, I'd knock his teeth in. Lommy's no use to anyone. That crying girl's no use either."

"You leave Weasel alone, she's just scared and hungry is all." Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once. Hot Pie must have grabbed her, like Gendry had told him. (Arya V, ACoK)

"He has no coin," mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. "My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak."

"Don't do that either," said the barrow girl, "or else they'll ask for your boots next, and before long you'll be naked."

"Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals," warned the fair-haired bravo.

"Not if they have claws." And suddenly there was a knife in the girl's left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another.

"Thank you," Sam told the girl when they were gone. (Samwell III, AFfC)

#asoiaf #jon snow #arya stark #ramble #needleheart #needleheartwinter #i know there are more but these are my favourites

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lycorim · 2 years

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Frankly cannot believe I haven't drawn my chaos assassin child yet.

(Thank you for the request, @janeabramovich)

#Didn't know what to do with the background :\#arya stark #asoiaf #palette challenge #my art #game of thrones #fan art #valyrianscrolls #I love her and her little Braavosi cat friend in ADwD

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she-wolf-of-highgarden · 3 years

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I think I’ve seen this brought up before, but just to add on...I love that Martin makes Arya work for her skills. It would have been so easy for her to pick up a sword and just be amazing at it. That’s not the case, she works hard for the minimal skill she has.

“The wooden blade caught her high in the breast, a sudden stinging blow that hurt all the more because it came from the wrong side. "Ow," she cried out. She would have a fresh bruise there by the time she went to sleep, somewhere out at sea. A bruise is a lesson, she told herself, and each lesson makes us better.” - Arya IV, AGoT

Even with what skill she has, it’s pretty clear she isn’t amazing at it. No one is looking at her with wide eyed wonder at how good this little girl is with a sword. Most of what she can do with Needle is what Jon told her to do: Stick them with the pointy end (and at this point she hasn’t touched a sword since she’s been to Braavos).

And part of Arya’s story (one that gets overlooked a bit too often for my liking) is learning. The majority of what she does with the Faceless Men is information gathering. And there we see her having to try hard to learn something again. Arya is good at languages, but it took a lot of work. In fact she spends half of AFfC talking about learning Bravossi as both Arya Stark and Cat of the Canals and it takes time for her to work on her accent.

“Supper was for language lessons. The blind girl understood Braavosi and could speak it passably, she had even lost most of her barbaric accent, but the kindly man was not content. He was insisting that she improve her High Valyrian and learn the tongues of Lys and Pentos too.” - The Blind Girl, ADwD

It would have been so easy for her to just be good at these things. Make her the prodigy or something, but instead Martin shows us a young girl who works hard.

#Arya Stark #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #the kid is smart and works hard #and honestly kinda meh with a sword #let her be other things but a warrior #shes bad at being a warrior she doesnt even know how #cant really use a sword #too small for a bow #cant lift a war hammer or battle axe #the kid isnt cut out for the battle field #she a super spy okay #she would have been in the Kidz Nextdoor #or Totally Spies #or Harriet the Spy

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she-wolf-of-highgarden · 5 years

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Something i see again and again in the ASoIaF fandom is that people who love Arya do so because she rejects femininity. As someone who is feminine, i find this kind of annoying because honestly femininity has nothing to do with how i feel about her. So here are my top five reasons for loving Arya Stark:

1. Her empathy

“The bars were too narrow to pass a cup through, but Harwin and Gendry offered her a leg up. She planted a foot in Harwin's cupped hands, vaulted onto Gendry's shoulders, and grabbed the bars on top of the cage. The fat man turned his face up and pressed his cheek to the iron, and Arya poured the waterover him. He sucked at it eagerly and let it run down over his head and cheeks and hands, and then he licked the dampness off the bars. He would have licked Arya's fingers if she hadn't snatched them back. By the time she served the other two the same, a crowd had gathered to watch her. "The Mad Huntsman will hear of this," a man threatened. "He won't like it. No, he won't." - Arya V, ASoS

“ It was even worse than before; Lady Smallwood insisted that Arya take another bath, and cut and comb her hair besides; the dress she put her in this time was sort of lilac-colored, and decorated with little baby pearls. The only good thing about it was that it was so delicate that no one could expect her to ride in it. So the next morning as they broke their fast, Lady Smallwood gave her breeches, belt, and tunic to wear, and a brown doeskin jerkin dotted with iron studs. "They were my son's things," she said. "He died when he was seven.""I'm sorry, my lady." Arya suddenly felt bad for her, and ashamed. "I'm sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty." - Arya IV, ASoS

2. Her friendliness

“ Sansa knew all about the sorts of people Arya liked to talk to: squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth. Arya would make friends with anybody. This Mycah was the worst; a butcher's boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block.” - Sansa I, AGoT

“ Cat had made friends along the wharves; porters and mummers, ropemakers and sailmenders, taverners, brewers and bakers and beggars and whores. They bought clams and cockles from her, told her true tales of Braavos and lies about their lives, and laughed at the way she talked when she tried to speak Braavosi. She never let that trouble her. Instead, she showed them all the fig, and told them they were camel cunts, which made them roar with laughter. Gyloro Dothare taught her filthy songs, and his brother Gyleno told her the best places to catch eels. The mummers off the Ship showed her how a hero stands, and taught her speeches from The Song of the Rhoyne, The Conqueror's Two Wives, and The Merchant's Lusty Lady. Quill, the sad-eyed little man who made up all the bawdy farces for the Ship, offered to teach her how a woman kisses, but Tagganaro smacked him with a codfish and put an end to that. Cossomo the Conjurer instructed her in sleight of hand. He could swallow mice and pull them from her ears. "It's magic," he'd say. "It's not," Cat said. "The mouse was up your sleeve the whole time. I could see it moving." - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

3. Her childishness

"You don't even know what a brothel is." "I do so," she insisted. "It's like an inn, with girls." - Arya V, ASoS

“ You know the words, but you are too proud to serve. A servant must be humble and obedient." "I obey. I can be humbler than anyone." - The Ugly Little Girl, ADwD

4. Her leave-no-person-behind attitude

“He's going to die, and the sooner he does it, the better for the rest of us. We should just leave him, like he says. If it was you or me hurt, you know he'd leave us." They scrambled down a steep cut and up the other side, using roots for handholds. "I'm sick of carrying him, and I'm sick of all his talk about yielding too. If he could stand up, I'd knock his teeth in. Lommy's no use to anyone. That crying girl's no use either." "You leave Weasel alone, she's just scared and hungry is all." Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once. Hot Pie must have grabbed her, like Gendry had told him.” - Arya V, ACoK

“ She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her, and if not for her they would still be safe at Harrenhal, Gendry sweating at his forge and Hot Pie in the kitchens. If the Mummers catch us, I'll tell them that I'm Ned Stark's daughter and sister to the King in the North. I'll command them to take me to my brother, and to do no harm to Hot Pie and Gendry. They might not believe her, though, and even if they did . . . Lord Bolton was her brother's bannerman, but he frightened her all the same. I won't let them take us, she vowed silently, reaching back over her shoulder to touch the hilt of the sword that Gendry had stolen for her. I won't.” - Arya I, ASoS

5. Her bravery

“ Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand. When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. ” - Arya IV, AGoT

“ She should be more frightened herself, she knew. She was only ten, a skinny girl on a stolen horse with a dark forest ahead of her and men behind who would gladly cut off her feet. Yet somehow she felt calmer than she ever had in Harrenhal. The rain had washed the guard's blood off her fingers, she wore a swordacross her back, wolves were prowling through the dark like lean grey shadows, and Arya Stark was unafraid. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she whispered under her breath, the words that Syrio Forel had taught her, and Jaqen's words too, valar morghulis.” - Arya I, ASoS

#Arya Stark #long post #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf #leave her alone

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