#my horse my hound- my playlist about having a body and being the thing inside that body

[arabian-bloodstream]

Gendrya Confirmation, Bitches!

OK, so technically, no, it's not confirmed, but I'm taking this bit of detective work on my part as confirmation, damnit! (Not that I didn't already 100% believe that Gendrya was happening and have been pretty darn firm in that belief all along.) So before I jump to that, I need to set it up and so I shall...

Alrighty then, I wrote a post full of happy-happy-joy-joy, entitled: "Oh, my precious babies! So endgame!" a few weeks ago. I wrote this after the episode when most of the Gendrya fanbase was not very happy. You know, that would be episode 04, yeah, the one when Gendry dropped to his knee and proposed and Arya was all, 'Nah, I'm good' and went back to her target practice while his little heart crumpled to a million pieces before our very eyes. Yeah, that one.

Meanwhile, I was all "YES!" at the end of episode because my precious babies were clearly endgame in my eyes! True story, look at the date on that linked post. So the main reason why I felt so positive about Arya and Gendry after episode 04 was because of the first scene with the Hound and the final scene with the Hound. As I wrote in that post:

In the first scene, Gendry and the Hound were at the feast celebrating the North’s victory over the undead–Arya’s victory. And, of course, Arya was nowhere to be found.

  Gendry: Have you seen Arya?   The Hound: You can still smell the burning bodies and that’s where your head is at?   Gendry: I just want to thank her–   The Hound: I’m sure you do.   Gendry: Look, it’s not about that.   The Hound: Of course it’s about that, you twat. Why shouldn’t it be? The dead are dead. You’re not.

The Hound made it pretty clear he was well aware that Gendry wanted to *be* with Arya and when Gendry tried to deny it, the Hound called him on it and, surprisingly, pointed out that it was exactly what he should be doing. Now, let’s make this clear. Gendry wanted to celebrate LIFE with *Arya* and the Hound flat-out told him that such was exactly the thing he should be doing.

Contrast this with the final conversation the Hound has in the episode.

    Arya: You’re heading to King’s Landing.     The Hound: I have some unfinished business.     Arya: Me too.     The Hound: I don’t plan on coming back.     Arya: Neither do I.

So we have the show using The Hound to illustrate that *Gendry* is life as Gendry wanted to celebrate life with Arya–who you remember was “celebrating” by shooting arrows at a target–and on the opposite spectrum, that Arya has indeed once more chosen a life of death. Now, at the end of that discussion, he also asked that if he needs her to kill him, will she just leave him to not die again and she said probably… which means, that they probably will wind up in a situation like that, but this time she will give him mercy. However, before she does, he’ll tell her to choose life. Something like: Go get that blacksmith cunt that’s always mooning over you and have lots of black-haired babies with him. Don’t be like me. Don’t chase death your whole life. Live.

I later expounded exclusively on that theme in greater detail here in a post (not surprisingly) titled: Arya's Choice. In that one, I discussed the entangling of the Hound and Gendry in Arya's storyline throughout season 08 going back to their reunions with her taking place together. In this meta, I wrote:

The reason that Arya’s first scene with Gendry and the Hound was done TOGETHER [...] is because they represent opposite choices of her life going forth.

The Hound is death.

Gendry is life.

It’s all tied up together. Gendry (life) chose to walk away from her all those years away, and then Arya ran away and was captured by the Hound (death). Now Gendry (life) offered himself to her, but she chose to walk away and met up with the Hound (death). It’s eventually going to come down to Arya making the choice herself to walk away from death–which I believe that the Hound will push her to do–and choose life, choose Gendry.

As noted above, I even gave him some dialogue when I did think that Arya would give him mercy. (Although to be fair, I thought that Arya would do so because everyone around me kept saying she would do so. I hadn't really thought that would happen before it kept getting pushed at me. :shrugs:) But the main thing is that I thought he would give her the push to live comparing his life to hers. No, he didn't mention anything about Gendry--nor (and I can't believe I'm saying this because I'm not particularly fond of the word, but coming from Sandor Clegane it was always hilariously used) did a 'cunt' come from him all season long. He died without uttering it even once. Sad.

Anyhoo. Comparing part of my "something like this" dialogue for his parting words to Arya with what he actually said? I think I nailed it pretty closely.

My words: Don’t be like me. Don’t chase death your whole life. Live. His words: You think you've wanted revenge a long time? I've been after it all my life. It's all I care about and look at me. LOOK AT ME! You want to be like me? You come with me, you die here.

Same point getting across there. And this is what David Benioff said about the scene itself "Inside the Episode” that was on Youtube right after the show aired.

It's a small scene, but it's also, for us, one of the most important scenes in the whole episode because it's the culmination of their story together. The road to vengeance always ends in one place. Which is what the Hound is saying to her here. "I've made my choice a long time ago, and this can only end in one possible way for me. But for you, you have so many other options.

The Hound has genuinely come to have affection for Arya. I think he loves her, as much as he's capable of loving someone. And he knows that if she comes with him at this point, she's not gonna make it out of there.

So, yeah... Nailed it! And if the Hound is death... then doesn't that then make Gendry life considering how they’ve so closely entangled the two characters with Arya this season? Especially with the contrasts? Not only the conversations in episode 04, but Arya choosing to not spend her final hours with the miserable old shits (The Hound, and yes, Beric, but the Hound was the key one there) but instead having sex with Gendry. And sex well, its main purpose is to, you know, create life. And then there’s the first time she saw them both this season in episode 01, “Winterfell,” Arya spied the Hound and then Gendry arrive. The Hound rode in upon a black horse. Gendry? A white horse.

After she turned down Gendry's proposal--in my analysis, rejecting life--and joined the Hound on the road to King's Landing to commit regicide, expecting to not come out of it alive--accepting death--she rode a black horse.

After listening to Sandor's words, after choosing to let Cersei die by a means other than her hand, running through the streets of death and chaos, fighting to live, fighting to try and help others live, surviving because the God of Death declared that no, my former pupil, death was not happening, not today, Arya Stark stood amidst all of that death and she stood in the light. The sun shone upon her and she saw a way out of that darkness, away from all of that death, back to life. She saw a white horse.

And she rode on that white horse away from death. To life? To Gendry? I think so.

Now, taking all of that into account, the Arya and the tangling of Gendry and the Hound--which just had to definitively be deliberate--here's where my little detective work brought me to my final definitive GENDRYA CONFIRMATION, BITCHES! moment.  In early Spring, D.B. Weiss and Daniel Benioff helped create a new Spotify playlist: Game of Thrones: The End Is Coming. Upon doing so, they told For the Record in an email, “The answer to the ending is one hundred percent hidden in the playlist choices. No one will believe us, but it’s true.”

Well, a friend of mine and I have been going through each song to try and guess which songs apply to which characters and situations as we're heading into the final inning. And then I got to one particular song and I literally said: "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! GENDRYA CONFIMRATION, BITCHES!" And this is why.

This is from the official Game of Thrones Youtube channel: It is titled: Game of Thrones | Season 8 Episode 5 | The Hound's Gift (HBO).  The description of the video is: Maisie Williams explains Arya's choice. Yeah, you read that right. Uh huh, please do make note that my post written a week or so ago about the Hound = Death and Gendry = Life, and that Arya will choose life (thus Gendry) was titled "Arya's Choice" and I done wrote that on May 06, 2019! I'm just saying. Ahem, anyhoo. So, the video has Maisie talking about the "gift" that the Hound gives Arya.

This is a really important moment, the Hound realizing that "I don't think this kid knows what she's gonna get into." And turning around and giving her this incredible gift, which is the second ticket to a new life.

He's wanted revenge his entire life, and do you wanna be like him? "Is that what you want?" Just a moment in Arya where all those emotions that she’s been trying to suppress and trying to ignore and trying to focus on the task at hand all bubble up again, and this man who she cares so much about and has learned so much from and admires so much turned around and says ‘You don’t want this. You—you go.' She realizes there is another way. There is another life that she could have.

We tell real stories about real people and in this season, Arya decides against being that character that people love, and she decides to, to take her life into her own hands and take control of what she wants.

Let's break what she says down a bit first. Obviously, all of this lines completely up with where I've seen this going. Arya steps away from the whole list-friendly, death-first Arya-'assassin' that "people love." And it makes me sad that Maisie does know that so many people do love that iteration of Arya. It makes me so sad because Arya is so, so much more. *sigh*

The reaction to the idea of Arya having sex, showing interest in *that* kind of relationship--because no, it wasn't all just about the fact that it was watching a girl we watched grow up, there was definitely a lot of... but that's not Arya!, she's an assassin-baby!--shows that she definitely has a point. Still, what she says here makes it quite clear that, yes, Arya IS going to step away from that. Having Sandor basically say to her that she doesn't want to be a miserable old shit like him was a real wake-up call.

Her first "ticket" to life was obviously the coin from Jaqen Hagar. This is her second, and getting that from the Hound who has seen and been through so much shit with Arya, plus seeing the devastating horror of rampant death and destruction all around her has brought that message home loud and clear. She does not want that life, his life. Which is death. She is choosing now to take what she wants. And what does she want? Well, that brings me (finally!) to that OMG! moment.

Remember what I said above about the Game of Thrones spotify list and those clues that D&D talked about. Well, while going through the songs, and having watched this particular video clip the day before, I was pretty damn shook when I got to the end of "No One Knows" By Queens of the Stone Age. Here are the complete lyrics. However, what I want to focus on is the chorus and the outro as we close out the song.

[Chorus] And I realize you're mine Indeed a fool am I And I realize you're mine Indeed a fool am I Ahh

[Outro] Heaven smiles above me What a gift here below But no one knows A gift that you give to me No one knows

That's right.

"What a gift here below, but no one knows. A gift that you give to me. No one knows."

The Hound gave Arya a gift. Arya was No One.

Thus my "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! GENDRYA CONFIMRATION, BITCHES!"

Yeah. They are the ship that is promised. BOOYAH!

(Plus, yeah, all of the other reasons I’ve talked about ad nauseum over the last month!)

#arya x gendry #gendrya #game of thrones #maisie williams #sandor clegane #the hound #arya and the hound #david benioff #arya stark