#Arya meta

[laurellerual]

Do you think adult Arya would grow her hair out or keep it short?? I can see her doing both TBH

My art speaks for me. I think she would grow her hair out.

Arya is forced to have her hair cut numerous times during the course of the story. The first to do it is Yoren, and it's a traumatic experience where she thinks he's going to kill her. Then it happens again in Harrenhal where she is shorn like an animal because of fleas. Then it's the Hound's turn after the red weddings and then the House of black and white. Every time the hair is cut it is because of someone else and corresponds to an external change, a violation, a loss of identity.

The only time we see her shave herself is at the beginning of the Mercy chapter, after she accepted her new role as "no one" (at least in words because if you've read the chapter you know how it ends). So once again a loss of identity, self-imposed this time.

For me, an Arya who can finally afford to let her hair grow is an Arya who is once again free to bear her name and not have to give up any part of herself, and this is what I hope for her future.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

There is something truly sad in the miscommunication between Catelyn and Arya. The latter doubts that her mother will want her back, while the former failed to communicate to her daughter that her love for her is unconditional.

Make no mistake, Catelyn's love for Arya - as well as for the rest of her children- is without restrictions. But she failed to convey that to her younger daughter, since she often reprimanded her and negatively compared her to her older daughter, Sansa.

When Arya is captured by the Brotherhood without Banners, she even doubts that her mother would want to ransom her

"What if my brother doesn't want to ransom me?"

"Why would you think that?" asked Lord Beric.

"Well," Arya said, "my hair's messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard." Robb wouldn't care about that, probably, but her mother would. Lady Catelyn always wanted her to be like Sansa, to sing and dance and sew and mind her courtesies.

I can only imagine how much rejected by her mother Arya feels in order to think like that.

What makes it even sadder is that Catelyn was also once a kid who enjoyed outdoor activities that could be considered "unladylike" by westerosi narrow minded society.

Here is a description of Catelyn's childhood:

She remembered the godwood, dropping branches heavy with moisture, and the sound of her brother's laughter as he chased her through the piles of damp leaves. She remembered making mud pies with Lysa, the weight of them, the mud slick and brown between her fingers.

What happened to that kid who enjoyed messy play? Because grown up Catelyn is proper Lady to the bone. Did she eventually outgrown her childish games and decided to be more ladylike? Did some adult made her to stop these games because they found them inproper? We can only speculate.

It is sad though that while Catelyn reminisces with fondness her childhood memories, she doesn't approve of her daughter making similar kind of memories.

[winterprince601]

catelyn seeing arya in the warrior and then proving where arya gets that from in the same chapter.

[ladystoneboobs]

the younger starklings about robb (robb the strong and brave big brother, the perfect heir, the fierce and unbeatable young wolf):

arya

bran

sansa

meanwhile, actual robb (robb the lord and then robb the kitn):

before arya ever promised to be strong by using robb as her benchmark, the definition of stark strength, ned had to remind robb to be strong as the ruling stark in winterfell. (strong for bran and rickon, the brothers he thought he failed by sending their would-be killer away, leading to his great moment of weakness in jeyne westerling's bed.) as his siblings' faith in his ultimate triumph held strong, even after the loss of the north, robb himself was struggling with despair.

as grenn once told sam, maybe everyone is just pretending to be brave, maybe that's how people become brave. robb was faking it to make it too, imitating his father's lordly attitude as bran later tried to imitate robb's. as his younger siblings remembered him as their shining example, robb was trying to live up to his father's example. not the ned who'd been in his circumstances, a teenager unexpectedly turned into a lord and fighting a war to save his family. no, ofc, he never knew that young ned. the ned he knew as his father, the standard to measure himself against, was an adult man in his mid-30s who'd ruled the north for ~15 years. but was that standard for a 15/16yo any more fair and valid an expectation than 8/9yo bran believing he was almost a man grown and holding himself to the standard of 15/16yo robb as robb's heir?

and the only person left close enough to see robb as the boy he still was died with him.

[insomniarama]

#this is one of the biggest points for me #bc yeah grrm couldve very easily had her become increasingly anti social and withdrawn #and affc/adwd wouldve been the time to do it #but he doesnt lol #despite everything #she is still consistently able to form friendships #her sociability actually recovers in braavos bc its not a warzone #thats what she values cat of the canals so much #and ''mourned'' the loss of her #it makes zero sense that she will return to WF #and be unable to connect with people #she was able to be an active member in a community on another continent where she barely spoke the language ffs #her arc is defined by strong social ties #it gets treated as a general house stark quote but #the pack survives is HER mantra for a reason (tags vis @gendrie​)

I think one of the reasons why the theory that Arya will go away at the end of the story because she’s too far gone to assimilate back into society is so unconvincing is because she literally spends the latest two books (AFFC and ADWD) doing that very thing! Like her training hasn’t been about her being a reclusive murderous hermit. She literally spends the two books talking to people, making friends, integrating into new cultures. She’s around people all the damn time! And even if we bring up her ACOK and ASOS arcs which were rather dark in nature, she’s still around people interacting with them, still being a part of society (even if she’s quite low on the totem pole in those books).

Arya is a character who feels so strongly and whose arc is often dictated by how she interacts with the people around her. So to take that away from her is not only a bad understanding of her character arc (not to be condescending or anything), but it’s also not very satisfying as far as character/narrative progression goes. Because if the narrative has proven so far that even in her darkest moments, Arya can laugh and love and be such a passionate member of society, how then does it make sense for her to go away and be on her own?? How does that make sense when AFFC and ADWD prove that she still loves being around people?

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

If there is one line I like to over-analyze in the ASoIAF books it is a rather famous thought that goes inside Cat's head before her death. As the steel is close to her throat Cat thinks "No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair." And this line and her entire inner monologue is absolutely heart-breaking but one thing I fixate on is the actual sentence itself.

"Ned loves my hair."

Anyone who has read the books knows that Cat holds contempt for the fact that except for Arya, she has failed to give Ned children who look like him. It is also one of the reasons she dislikes Jon so much, because the mother of Jon (who she assumes to be Ned's bastard son) has managed to give Ned a child that looks just like him while she, his lawfully wedded wife gave birth to five of his children only for four of them to come out looking exactly like her. Red hair, blue eyes. Unlike Jon (and Arya) who share Ned's dark hair and dark eyes.

And knowing that it is so interesting to me that Cat's last thought about Ned (and her last thought ever) was that Ned loves her hair.

Because Ned loved her, he loved her hair, he loved her the way she was. And every time he looked at Robb, Sansa, Bran and Rickon he saw the reflection of the woman he loved, while Cat was so upset that they weren't all reflections of the man she loved.

Every time Ned ran his fingers through their hair, he ran his fingers through the hair of the woman he loved. He never resented Cat for the fact that four of his children didn't look like him, he loved that they looked like their mother, again, the woman he loved so much. He loved that they had the same hair he loved on Cat, and judging by it being her last thought Cat also knew that Ned loved her hair (and the way she looked), whether she ever came to the realization that Ned was perfectly happy with the way their children looked at all, or if she realized after he was dead and it was too late, it is unclear. But all those years she beat herself up over nothing.

Ned loved her the way she was, Ned loved his children the way they were, when they looked like him and when they didn't. Because when they didn't look like him, they looked like the love of his life, his darling wife.

And if the books decide to go with R+L=J it also adds another layer to Cat and Ned's relationship. Because Jon's mother was always a woman she didn't know but was still competing with in her mind for Ned's love for all these years. Turns out she didn't even exist. Turns out she didn't need to feel inferior to the woman Ned loved enough to not even talk about with her, no need to feel bad about the fact that she was able to give Ned a child that looked like him while Cat "failed".

At the end of the day, all the voices in her head making her feel insecure in her marriage never needed to be there, because everything she thought of as a problem with her were not problems at all for Ned. He was perfectly happy with her and their children.

[sare11aa11eras]

So like. The Riverlands, or at least Harrenhal, have like a gravitational pull. Which is why Catelyn, Jaime, Brienne, and Arya can’t ever escape there. Even in death, Catelyn can’t leave. Her memory and her body are bound together and to her homeland once more. And Jaime and Brienne spend all their time in ASOS in the Riverlands, and you think they’ll escape back to civilization and King’s Landing, and they do, but a) they are changed irrevocably from the people who started out so like did they really leave? and b) King’s Landing turns out to be a brief respite only. They must return once more, and they may even die there. And then Arya spends like two whole books there, wandering and traveling and never getting to where she needs to go. And even when she leaves, even with the whole Narrow Sea between her and those forests and streams, her consciousness and her soul still reside there, and she returns there every night, renewing her connection. Okay? They are stuck. They’re trapped. It’s just endless forest and rivers and the occasional band of outlaws or travelers or abandoned castles. Which, none of them can leave, either. Gendry and the Brotherhood are still there, even when their original purpose is lost and their leader dies. Jeyne, the orphans at the inn, Ravella Smallwood, the Freys, the Brackens and Blackwoods, the Bloody Mummers, the bear from the Harrenhal Bear Pit— they are all trapped. Okay?

[babybells123]

(ASOS, Sansa II)

(ASOS, Jon XII)

[dreamfaerye]

Tags from @jackoshadows

Arya being masculinized, adultified, and having her trauma ignored because people think she's "too strong" to be a victim is such a core experience for young girls of color

[laurellerual]

Arya Lady of Harrenhal during the Long Night

At the bottom of my inbox there's an anonymous message from months ago that says “could you do Arya with Nymeria during the long night? Fighting together?”. I haven't replied yet and the reason is that when I think about this scene, the image of GOT 8x03 pops up in my mind. Will Arya fight through the Long Night, sword in hand? I'm not that sure.

Then the other day I came up with this idea that I proposed to you in a survey: “Winterfell falls, the northeners have to escape South, Harrenhal is the main citadel, Arya as lady of Harrenhal during the Long Night”. And I must say I'm surprised with the result. It won "I see where you are coming from, and I like it" with 33% of the votes.

But many, rightly so, have chosen "I'll wait for you to elaborate", so here we are.

A role

So Jon and Dany are the ones with the army and the dragons, Tyrion is the smart one with the experience and Bran is the one with the magical powers (sorry I'm simplifying, just to summarize). It's not hard to imagine that they'll find their place in the White Walkers storyline.

And Arya? Use the valyrian steel sword she doesn't have to slay the undead? Will Jon allow her to be on the front lines? Is Arya really stupid enough to think she can do it?

She will be at most 12/13 years old and the only sword lessons she has received are those of Syrio, she is not a great swordswoman, especially if she has to face adults on a battlefield. The things that the FMs are teaching her don't seem suitable for this kind of situations. I guess she could contribute by warging Nymeria and leading her pack, but if that is the case it wouldn't be necessary for her to be physically there.

Whatever this role is it must be relevant 'cause Martin counted her among the five key characters, one of the first to be created and then decided to waste a lot of ink by telling us about her.

Harrenhal

I start with the assumtion that the Battle for the Dawn will take place in the Riverlands, that it will not be possible to stop the White Walkers at Winterfell and consequently there will be an exodus of people from the North to the South. If you don't agree or you want an explanation about it, you can read my last post: Harrenhal during the Long Night.

And which of the main characters has a strong relationship with Harrenhal?

Thematic connections

The girl has a long and complex relationship with her mother's native land and a strong thematic connection with water that you surely have read about in other metas. Most of the major events in Arya's life take place here.

Not only the Red wedding, meeting Jaqen, the Weasel soup, the separation from Nymeria, but also Mycah's death in which she realizes for the first time that her father is not as powerful as she thinks, that the injustice of the world is deeper than she thought and that especially for the nobles the suffering of the smallfolk is totally irrelevant.

Harrenhal is the castle of which she becomes the ghost. And she really is the ghost of Harrenhal, standing in front of that Heart tree, probably like her late aunt years before, as she hears a voice from the trees reminding her of her real name.

Useful knowledge

Arya knows these lands directly, crosses them, lives them, knows their inhabitants, their opinions and sides in the war. It isn't a theoretical knowledge but a practical one. As Jon Snow recalls "The map is not the land, my father often said".

But it's even more intimate than that because Arya dreams of those lands every night, she sees them through Nymeria's eyes. The wolf is currently the only undisputed ruler in that lawless place. Do you remember the image of Harrenhal tormented by the tremendous howl of the wind and wolves outside the walls?

Arya also knows Harrenhal on all its levels. She physically scrubbed the floors of every floor of every tower and she scoured all the walls in search of an unguarded gate.

She has experienced the classes and roles that exist within the castle and its management. She had to deal with armigers, cooks and blacksmiths. She has worked her way up the chain of command from the humblest of servants to cupbearer and lord's messenger.

Skills and leadership

In the books we see her many times in positions where she is the person who has to make decisions, lead a group, organize little plans.

One of the main themes of her journey is justice, mercy, power and its abuse.

Then there are more or less direct parallels such as the one between Arya and Aegon the unlikely or the list of things that would make Aegon/young Griff a good ruler according to Varys.

Let's see some quotes in the books that tell us about these aspects of the character:

The one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household.

His father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know t

he men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don't ask your men to die for a stranger."

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms.

Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his great sword. “If you would take a man 's life, you owe it to him go look him in the face and hear his last words di lui,” she 'd heard him tell Robb and Jon once.

Can I be lord of a holdfast?

And here I stop because there are many others. If you are interested in this, there are meta only on this topic around tumblr.

An interesting that that connects Ned's teachings and those of the FMs is the concept that power and service are closely related.

Now let's see what FM training consists of: the ability to blend in with people, listen, gather information, learn many languages. We can add her natural ability to make friends and allies of all kinds.

This seems like the perfect package to manage a castle full of frightened people from all over the world (there will be people arriving with Dany as well), from every social class, every side of the war, who have nothing in common but the hope to survive.

Disconnected thoughts and possible parallels

This would be a very poetic situation that completes the parallel with historical Nymeria by placing Arya at the head of a group of refugees fleeing their destroyed home. In addition to giving her the possibility and the power to carry out the reflection on justice in a place that has seen so much injustice.

It's also funny how Lady Whent is introduced with great expectation right into Arya's chapters, where she thinks she can ask for her help. Yet she will never meet the Lady of Harrenhal.

And isn't it funny how she decided to name her direwolf after "some old witch queen in the songs"?

From the Alys Rivers wiki page: In 132 AC during the regency of Aegon III, a number of broken men and predatory outlaws began to gather at Harrenhal under the rule of a sorcerous witch queen. Mmmh interesting… this sound familiar, the Brotherhood without banners?

There is also Sharra, another witch queen of the Riverlands from the Age of Heroes.

Conclusions

In this place where Shagwell the Fool sang about Weasel soup maybe in the future there will be songs about Arya and the ten thousand wolves.

Thanks for reading. Mine doesn't want to be a theory that speaks of the character's endgame, but of its role during the Long Night. Let me know if I've given you something to think about, if I've convinced you, if you have other ideas on what this role might be. Or if you want to write a fanfiction with this plot.

Edit: I just discovered an old thread with a similar topic. I haven't read it yet, but I'll leave it here for the record.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

I've seen some people hold Arya responsible over what happened to her friend Mycah at the Trident incident because according to them "she should have known her place in society and the power a lady holds over commoners". I disagree with this notion on so many levels.

First of all, Arya is only nine years old during that incident . Even if you believe that she shouldn't befriend commoners (which in my opinion she's totally allowed to, and I'll express my thoughts on it later on) shouldn't you be less harsh on the judgement of such a little kid? Even if according to you "she doesn't know her place in society", she still have plenty of years before she reaches adulthood to find the so called place she is supposed to occupy as a lady in Westerosi society.

As I said earlier on, I do believe that Arya is totally justified in befriending people who belong in a different social class from her. That's isn't only my own personal belief as someone who is anti - classism and lives in 21st century, but this is also supported by the text.

From her first introduction we know that Arya likes to befriend all sort of people.

Arya had loved nothing better than to sit at her father's table and listen to them talk. She had loved listening to the men on the benches too; to freeriders tough as leather, courtly knights and bold young squires, grizzled old men-at-arms. She used to throw snowballs at them and help them steal pies from the kitchen. Their wives gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children. Fat Tom used to call her "Arya Underfoot," because he said that was where she always was. She'd liked that a lot better than "Arya Horseface."

The above passage is from the second chapter of hers, before she left Winterfell. She loves Winterfell's small folk and is loved by them in return. She is even given the nickname " Arya Underfoot" because of that behavior of hers. So, it's no secret that she associates with commoners. It's impossible for her mother and her father not to know. And yet she's never scolded for that, and Arya is scolded over plenty things by her mother and the Septa but never about the people she chooses as her companions.

It makes sense that she's allowed to associate with these people, since Bran in his own POV also expresses fondness for people who belong to a lower class (and he's also never forbidden to associate with these people) and Ned, the Winterfell's own Lord, is known to dine with people who belong to a lower class. So, it's totally okay for Arya - and for any other child of his- to follow his example.

Also, post the Trident incident, Ned has a long and serious talk with Arya. If he believed that his daughter shouldn't befriend a boy from a below class, he would express this opinion of his to Arya. But he didn't, because he didn't find anything wrong with it

The only people who find wrong Arya associating with small folk are Sansa and the Lannisters/Baratheon. The first is the only person who actually shares her distaste for Arya's company in her own POV:

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. Just the sight of him was enough to make Sansa feel sick, but Arya seemed to prefer his company to hers.

But we shouldn't take Sansa's view as the norm for westerosi society and especially not for Winterfell's household since her own father is okay with associating with people that belong to a lower class than theirs.

I believe that since Sansa is introduced to us as a proper little lady, some people take her views as the absolute truth when it comes to westerosi etiquette But they forget that Sansa is also a little kid who doesn't fully understand or see eye to eye with her little sister and therefore it makes sense that she views Arya's actions in a more negative light than other characters do.

As for the Lannister-Baratheon loyal family, Cersei and Joffrey have a strong distain for small folk and believe in their own superiority - but they also believe in their superiority over their fellow noble people. I guess we could say that both suffer from superiority complex and have a distorted idea of the world, so I wouldn't hold their own views as the norm, either.

I'm not saying that there aren't other nobles who believe in their own superiority over commoners and would never befriend people from a lower class, because the books contain plenty of these type of characters. I'm just saying that this isn't the absolute truth to every single noble character, aside from Arya. The kids in Winterfell are allowed to befriend people from lower classes and so are the Martell kids in the Water Gardens.

And not every monarch values so little the life of their people that they would order a little boy to be killed just because their child and crown prince, threw a fit. Ask yourself the question: if Ned Stark was the King and Robb had terrorised a little boy who played with Arya/any other little noble kid, would Ned order Mycah's death? Or would he have a long talk with his heir on how he shouldn't treat his people as objects? Just because Cersei and Joffrey don't give a fuck for small folk ( and Robert could not be bothered to interfere) it doesn't mean that every monarch would react the same way they did.

Mycah died because of Cersei and Joffrey cruelty and Robert's indifference. Not because Arya befriended him.

[inwinterhell]

“Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea.”

I love that this is the first detail that we get about Nymeria from Arya’s perspective. The show made Arya’s icon Visenya, and while I’ll agree it was a good opportunity for a lore dump, I feel like Nymeria gets to the core of Arya’s character in a way Visenya just doesn’t. Yes, Nymeria was a warrior. Yes, she and her people eventually fought against Valyria, but the thing Nymeria is known for is her ten thousand ships:

“Legend tells us that Nymeria took ten thousand ships to sea, searching for a new phome for her people beyond the long reach of Valyria and its dragonlords. Beldecar argues that this number was vastly inflated, perhaps as much as tenfold. Other chroniclers offer other numbers, but in truth no true count was ever made. We can safely say there were a great many ships. Most were river craft, skiffs and poleboats, trading galleys, fishing boats, pleasure barges, even rafts, their decks and holds crammed full of women and children and old men. Only one in ten was remotely seaworthy.” -TWOIAF

This is the most blatant historical parallel of the pack mentality that Arya holds dear to in she entire story. It didn’t matter if the ships were seaworthy, it didn’t matter who was in them; the Roynar were her people and she was getting them out of there.

Like,

“Gendry and Hot Pie were city-born, and in the city smallfolk walked. Yoren had given them mounts when he took them from King's Landing, but sitting on a donkey and plodding up the kingsroad behind a wagon was one thing. Guiding a hunting horse through wild woods and burned fields was something else.

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.”

Of course Nymeria is Arya’s hero!!

Yes, the name of Arya’s wolf does show her gender non-conformity and her rejection of a traditional “lady’s” role. However (and imo more importantly), it shows that, to Arya, “warrior” is synonymous with “protector.”

[thaliajoy-blog]

Honestly becoming a bit obsessed with the secondary animal association of some ASOIAF girls this Brienne symbolism has made me spiral...

Like level one you've got Sansa who's associated to several bird species - she's a little bird (evoking a sparrow or a dove), she's compared to an exotic talking bird (so a parrot or a parakeet), her false father Littlefinger has a mockingbird as a symbol, & she takes refuge in the Vale, home of the Arryn falcon. Bran wishes he was associated to so many birds...

Then you've got Brienne, who is associated to the bear and to the lion indirectly with Jaime. From there there's the whole maiden & the wild beasts dynamic to consider, this magical connection virgin women have to nature & wild animals (like the unicorn for one), how they "tame" them with their innocence and purity. Brienne "tames" Jaime physically, same with the bear, but she also most importantly does with her purity of heart & dedication to knightly values (and once "tamed" he fights to protect her). You could say Brienne has to deal with a lot of human beasts - like Vargo Hoat, "the Goat", or Rorge & Biter, who are each acting or described as animalistic men, & she fights or kill most of them.

And then you've got Arya - I found it interesting that outside of her wolf self she's associated with either much smaller & tamer animals. She's a grey mouse in Harrenhal, or a weasel & a squirrel... she's also a horse as Arya Horseface (plus association to her aunt Lyanna, the "centaur"), and a cat as Cat of the Cannals.

[daenerysstormreborn]

Something that I think gets overlooked about Arya as a result of fandom flanderization is that she didn’t set out with the desire to become an assassin. She loves swordplay, yes, and she has her list. But when she escaped king’s landing, she just wanted to get to family. She wanted to get to safety. She wanted to get to Jon. When she left for Essos, her intention had been to go to the wall, to find Jon. She only went to Braavos because she didn’t know what else to do. Arya has a strong sense of justice, yes. But her primary motivation hasn’t been revenge. She’s not the only character who, imo, is on a specific path because they don’t know what else to do. But that’ll have to wait for another post

[winterprince601]

"he was never unfaithful to robert, was he?" - jaime, acok

ha. ha ha ha. the irony of this line is incredible. what's so striking to me is how one dimensional the realm's understanding of eddard stark as an honourable man is - honour itself is an incredibly complicated and unattainable ideal in asoiaf and i think ned as the stereotypical emblem of it encompasses many of the reasons why. because whilst he absolutely does consider acting in a conventionally honourable way important, he always prioritises those he loves. he defended cat's actions as his own without a second thought when she arrested tyrion. his main priority in king's landing is to see his daughters safe, not to secure the succession. lyanna is the prime example: jon's existence is not the result of the lapse of honourable ned stark, it was honourable ned stark choosing his love for his sister over his duty to his king. that and his personal ethical belief that the political murder of a child is never morally acceptable.

no one in the realm has the insight into his personality we get in the first book. none of his children, vitally, understand that he would always prioritise their safety over any honourable scruples. all of the starklings question what their honourable father would think of their actions - killing in self-defence, marrying jeyne westerling, sleeping with ygritte to name a few examples - without recognising that ned's true first priority was always his family's safety.

in fact, he betrayed robert far more than he ever betrayed cat and he would have betrayed honour for his family's safety every time.

[fromtheseventhhell]

"I've never seen such anger in a girl" and it's literally just a nine-year-old being quiet after an upsetting event, Arya really experiencing the universal girlhood experience of having your emotions policed for not responding in the "right" way