#it is CRYSTAL CLEAR his arc is about arya

[malyen0retsev]

Gendry’s arc this season isn’t about being a Lord. It’s about Arya.

I fully realise this week has aged us all by about a hundred years, so sanity went out the window for a few days, BUT, now we’ve all calmed down somewhat I would just like to point something out. 

Gendry’s rejection has a lot of people saying the only reason he was brought back was to make him a Lord, and that’s his arc this season. But that’s just wilfully choosing to ignore the actual way Gendry has been presented to us this season and is another reason why Gendrya is far from over yet. 

Every single one of Gendry’s scenes thus far in S8 are either shared with Arya or about Arya - the exception to this is literally just the Battle for Winterfell, where, interestingly, he is placed side by side with Sandor, who consistently keeps showing up next to these two characters. I ELABORATE.

GENDRY’S SCENES THIS SEASON:

1) Gendry arriving alongside Jon and Dany and the royal parade. Who’s perspective are we seeing his arrival from? Arya’s. What does Arya do upon seeing him again? Smiles happily. 

2) Gendry in the forges, scene opens with him giving Sandor an axe he’s made for him. Sandor being presented as this interesting ‘Light vs Dark’ juxtaposition against Gendry for Arya that we keep seeing. Sandor leaves, and this leads into his reunion with Arya, where jokes are made referencing their previous dynamic as children, she requests a weapon, and a flirtation and attraction is established.

3) Arya seeking Gendry out in the forges. She is eyeing him up, and he is flirting back with her. Asks him about her weapon, “It’s strong enough” flirtation. But alongside the flirtation is Gendry being the first one to actually show genuine care for Arya, knowing she’s not afraid, but wanting her to be safe. She responds by throwing the knives at the wall, and Gendry at this point is clearly very very attracted to her, staring at her in awe. 

4) Gendry seeks out Arya to give her the weapon she asked him to make for her. Stands in the shadows somewhat in awe of her archery skills now (as obviously he knew her when she was still learning with Anguy) before revealing himself. They have a conversation where Gendry reveals he’s Robert’s bastard, says what happened with Melisandre (a site of trauma for him), and opens up about how many sexual partners he’s had. All personal stuff.

5) Arya and Gendry sleep together, and it’s very obvious from the way Gendry looks up at her that this physical attraction he now has for her, blended with the trust and care they had established as kids, has turned into him being very very much in love with her now.

6) Gendry appears at the front lines of the Battle, arriving late - ha - with Sandor. The juxtaposition of Sandor with these characters continues. We then have the rest of the Battle of Winterfell. 

7) Gendry is looking around the Dinner Hall trying to spot Arya. Is sat with Sandor, again (for someone who claims to dislike Gendry so much, Sandor doesn’t half enjoy turning up around him all the time) and Gendry awkwardly takes a drink and asks Sandor if he’s seen Arya. Sandor looks at him with borderline despair-judgement, sees through this facade immediately “That’s where your head’s at” “I just want to thank her -” “I’M SURE YOU DO.” implying he knows something’s going on with them; and he lowkey approves of it.

8) Gendry gets up to start to actively look for Arya - and en route is accidentally legitimised. Yes, that’s a sentence we can actually say. ‘Accidentally legitimised’. This legitimisation finally gives him a sense of place. But the legitimisation itself isn’t what is important, it’s what he immediately does after.

9) Gendry frantically charging around the courtyard, pushing people aside. He was already off to go and find Arya, and now he needs to find her.

10) Gendry finds Arya, tells her he has been legitimised and kisses her. He then tells her she’s beautiful, and he loves her, and proposes marriage to her. He hasn’t grown up in the higher classes. He doesn’t understand what the term ‘Lady’ means. He has never viewed Arya as anything lesser than him - if anything, he views his Lordship as finally making the two of them equal. And Arya knows this, but has unfinished business, the system still scares her, and so she rejects the proposal; but kisses him as gently as she can, as reassuringly as she can. She doesn’t reject him, she rejects the structure he’s asking her to marry into.

Every. Single. Scene. Has been about or with Arya.

That to me is not an arc finished, and it’s also not an arc to me that shouts ‘THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS IS GENDRY BECOMING A LORD’. It’s an arc about two people who haven’t seen each other in years, have reconnected, and are in the process of falling in love with one another. Gendry is in the next two episodes. Arya’s with Sandor right now, who has been presented as somewhat of a contrast mediator in this dynamic. This arc is not over yet. Because if it was, it would render Gendry in the final two episodes entirely useless. This is a new arc which began this season. If it wasn’t important they wouldn’t have made his entire storyline be about it.

Oh and additionally - Joe literally said that Gendry’s storyline this season is very much about reconnecting with Arya, and that the only thing about the Lordship that matters is the place on hierarchy it finally gives him. Those comments are very in line with Gendry’s arc not being tied up with the Lordship, but being tied up with Arya.

[laboratorioautoral]

Since you are one of the most faithful jonrya that still active right now i would like to ask a question why the hell do you think dumb&dumber let arya sleep with gendry if they know she wasn't going to stay with him anyway because that cringy ass sex scene was so lame it remind me of boatsex it i hope none of that shit happen in the books

The show and the books are two different beasts and I guess this is the first thing we must keep in mind.

Martin has to please no one but himself while writing a book. At best, when he started, he had to convince editors that his work was economically viable and now, as long as the story is coherent, he can write whatever he wants.

The show, on the other hand, is affected by a number of factors, including HBO’s board interference, budget, and ultimately D&D’s creative choices. Both Jon*rys and Ge*drya are very popular ships. You just had to check tumblr/reddit or any other platform for this type of content to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if these choices were based on pools and researches from the marketing department to maximize the appeal of the show.

I’m not Jon*rys fan, but I know where the appeal of this ship comes from. It’s cliché. It’s what we - as costumers and consumers of pop culture -  were told to be the “right course of things”. It’s a narrative comfort zone of sorts. Can’t really say that it’s absurd to think of these characters as a thing, because this is what 99% of shows would do and GOT is no exception to it.

It’s better playing safe and secure that the maximum of viewers will keep coming for the next season. It was probably the poorest development of a relationship I’ve ever seen. It was cringy and weird most of the time, mostly because it didn’t sound organic in the narrative. They simply threw two characters that had never seen each other in the same place and had at least one side character at every episode saying how they seemed to be in love. There was no time to develop the couple in a way that felt satisfying, but they did it anyway and I think the main reason was to cause a huge commotion among the fans and leave everyone waiting for the final season to see their two favorites being the ultimate power couple (if only they knew what was coming in season 8...).

Arya is a completely different story. It’s crystal clear that D&D simply didn’t think of her as good enough to be at the center of anything, or simply didn’t know how to work with a female character described as “plain/ugly/not beautiful in a conventional way and that wasn’t the most feminine girl around. She went from one of the 5 key players to a side character. If it wasn’t for her killing the Night King, they could have cut her off the script and it would make no difference.

This is NOT BOOK CANON. Arya is a major player and one of Martin’s favorite characters. Her arc is meant to give her one of the most complete and versatile skills set in the books. She is the only character to have a pov chapter in every book. D&D made a deliberate decision to take Arya’s importance away and give it all to another character we all know. The only problem was that D&D simply didn’t manage to make Arya a boring character, despite their best efforts. Arya is still a very popular character all over the fandom and no matter how much they tried to prompt up Sandra, it still didn’t work in the way they wanted.

Since Arya still had a special place in the fandom’s heart, they needed to wave at these share of the fandom as well, so they did the obvious (again). They picked Arya’s most popular possible romantic interest and did a pointless fan service with that sex scene that ultimately led to nothing. Ultimately, the picked the most relevant relationship that Arya has in her arc, which is Jon, and made every interaction between them about Sandra.

The moral of this story is: let us wave and please the largest number of fans possible, then we will destroy what we built, or make this fan services void, for shock value and be edgy, but SANDRA MUST HAVE A HAPPY ENDING NO MATTER WHAT. 

[cometsweepandleonidsfly]

“It's not a bad thing that Game of Thrones had to end; every show has a natural expiration point and shouldn't be stretched past it. But by compressing the final leg of the Westeros journey in weird, messy ways that warped the tale — and by turning the show, over the years, into a contraption designed to unleash "big twists" and expensive set pieces — Benioff and Weiss undercut their own assertion. Yes, stories do matter and can last centuries. They can change the world — if they're so well-made and affecting that they're undeniable. They have to hit people where they live, not just overwhelm them with shock and awe.

Game of Thrones has always had its share of powerful moments and scenes. But it has always been a wildly inconsistent beast, a problem that only intensified as it matured. All in all, late-stage Game of Thrones is not nearly as good as the cast members (and production designers, costume designers and CG artists, etc.) who did their damnedest to bring these people and their worlds to life.

Here and there, in its last few seasons, Game of Thrones reverted to being a more or less character-driven drama, as it did in "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms." And the one big Season 8 shocker that undeniably worked was Arya's execution of the Night King. But otherwise, it's hard not to wonder what the series finale could have been had the show not sprinted toward the finish line in such a slapdash, mechanical fashion.

If Game of Thrones had wanted me to care about Jon Snow's final scenes, it shouldn't have made him so dithering and ineffective for so long (although, at least he petted Ghost — small victories!). If it wanted me to be moved by the sight of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) weeping over his dead siblings, it shouldn't have blithely wrecked the storytelling for Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). It shouldn't have turned Cersei (Lena Headey) into a one-dimensional villain and then left her standing around in King's Landing as an afterthought.

But Daenerys' (Emilia Clark) major character turn in the last few episodes was the biggest disaster outside the state of the Red Keep's roofs. And yes, random person yelling at me on the Internet, I know she's always exhibited signs of cruelty and authoritarian tendencies. But for years and years she tried to use violence only on her political enemies, and the show spent a long time showing her at least considering the lives and the fates of the powerless. Until she didn't. And if you think the show led up to that massive switch adequately, we are never going to agree.

And I submit that one sign a pivot hasn't worked is the fact that the show's architects had to try to explain it in a "behind the episode" interview. Also reeking of flop sweat: An on-screen character (Tyrion) spending a chunk of the finale retroactively re-framing Dany's history and motivations. Monologue as retcon; that's fun. The fact is, Game of Thrones did a lot of tap-dancing to sell something that should have been crystal clear, dramatically earned, and fully supported in the moment, and for a lot of the audience, myself including, it didn't work. But hey, the dragonfire sequences in "The Bells" looked good, didn't they? Isn't that all that matters?

Before you yell at me about how "The Iron Throne" contains the ending George R.R. Martin apparently told Benioff and Weiss he wanted, well, I don't dispute that. What will be forever disappointing is the way the show has been prioritizing "shocks" and "huge moments" over the work it takes to earn those surprises and revelations. Give me a reason to care about the people experiencing these turning points and I won't need the writers' on-screen avatars to keep explaining them. A longer, better-paced season might have made the finale seem more like a fitting ending and less like a rushed set of defensive, reactive maneuvers, but... eh. Whatever.

...

By the time the series finale rolled around, Game of Thrones was a puzzle with some missing pieces, and that state of affairs existed because Benioff and Weiss had flattened the characters and their relationships so much that the show had largely become a series of bumpy contrivances. Honestly, I wasn't angered by the finale as much as I was overwhelmed by a feeling of anticlimactic lethargy. Yes, the shot of Dany with Drogon's wings stretched out behind her was cool. But for a while now, many of the drama's best visuals have been divorced from anything else that matters. Pretty pictures do not make for an involving story unless that story is meticulously and effectively told. 

...

t's a bummer that many themes, arcs, and storylines were compressed and depleted so that the drama could hastily arrive at pre-ordained plot turns. Just one example: In order to make it "reasonable" to kill Varys (Conleth Hill), they had to strip him of the intelligence that served him so well for decades. "Why did this thing happen? Because the plot required it it." There was a lot of that going around this season.

The final sequence involving Jon, Sansa and Arya was shot and put together well. But it was hard not to feel more exhausted than anything as the finale finally faded to black. And yet Game of Thrones will probably win a big pile of Emmys this fall. Not because it's the best TV, but because it's the most TV, and there's nothing Emmy voters love more than a huge expenditure of coin from a prestige network.

...

The first rule of storytelling is show, don't tell. The finale told me, again and again, that the story worked. Tyrion, and to a lesser degree, Sam (John Bradley) and Bran, spent time of late not just explaining why stories matter but trying to make the case that they themselves were in a deserving and worthy tale. Sometimes they were. But if you have to work that hard to justify something...

Eh. Whatever.”

[kittykatknits]

Hi! So I came across (several) posts stating how Sansa is "removed" from everything Northern and how Lady's death means she's less of a Stark and that she doesn't fit in the North arc as her arc is completely different from her siblings (which is magical),the Northerners won't accept her,SR destroying snow castle means she'll never return to WF etc. My question: Do you think Sansa will return North? Do you think she'll ever reunite w/ her siblings and stay in WF? Thanks

Oh yes, to both questions. Easily. I’d also say Sansa will be the first Stark to cross the gates into Winterfell and it’s quite possible she’ll serve as a focal or rallying point for her siblings.

As for the rest, Sansa suffers from a negative POV bias in the first book, and honestly, I’m often left with the feeling that the old adage is true, first impressions matter. I’m not going to get into the narrative structure of Sansa’s chapters or character in this but we can tackle the rest of it.

I’ll go through those comments, point by point, below. This is long because I don’t know how to shut up.

(1)First, Sansa isn’t removed from everything Northern. She happens to be the only Starkling born in winter, and as we know, winter is a time for wolves. Not only that, much of her story line is about her ties to the north, it’s why she’s being used for her claim. It’s also important to note Sansa’s claim is not just over Winterfell, it’s about her name. Sansa is a Stark, she’s descended from a line going back several thousand years. That matters a lot in Westerosi politics, where name and status mean so much. The girl has power and her story is very much about her learning to wield it.

Her strongest desire is to go home, back to Winterfell, back to the north, to the place her family has lived in and ruled over since Bran the Builder. She also has the distinction of featuring snow and winter imagery in her chapters. In fact, the prominence of both only increases as the books go on. I’d say of the Starklings, she shares it with Jon the most. Here are a few lines from aFfC below:

So lovely. The snow-clad summit of the Giant’s Lance loomed above her, an immensity of stone and ice that dwarfed the castle perched upon its shoulder.

The small diamond-shaped panes of the window were obscured by frost. Alayne rubbed at one with the heel of her hand, enough to glimpse a brilliant blue sky and a blaze of white from the mountainside. The Eyrie was wrapped in an icy mantle, the Giant’s Lance above buried in waist-deep snows.

Old snow cloaked the courtyard, and icicles hung down like crystal spears from the terraces and towers. The Eyrie was built of fine white stone, and winter’s mantle made it whiter still.

Shards of ice and snow rained down on them, and the oak creaked and strained. Robert gave a gasp and clung to her, burying his face between her breasts.

There are lots more I could mention but let’s focus on that last one. Shards of ice and snow are raining down on them. Literally, winter is falling in that quote and Sansa is the one leading Sweetrobin down the mountain. Remember what she said in SoS? She’s stronger within the walls of Winterfell. She’s stronger when winter falls. If that isn’t Northern, I don’t know what is.

Beyond that, this girl is a wolf, or more accurately, she can sometimes be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. However, Sansa never forgets who she is and she lets her fangs show at times:

A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, “Maybe my brother will give me your head.”

She would name them Eddard and Brandon and Rickon, and raise them all to be as valiant as Ser Loras. And to hate Lannisters,

When Sansa had first beheld the Great Sept with its marble walls and seven crystal towers, she’d thought it was the most beautiful building in the world, but that had been before Joffrey beheaded her father on its steps. “I want it burned.”

Let his sword break and his shield shatter, Sansa thought coldly as she shoved out through the doors, let his courage fail him and every man desert him.

We also get one of my favorite exchanges in the series:

“…Harrenhal has withered every hand to touch it.“

“Then give it to Lord Frey.”

-Alayne I, aFfC

None of the above are words or thoughts from a character that should be perceived as meek or passive. Sansa is one the most empathetic characters in the series and one of the kindest but she can be fierce too.

Now, as to Lady, the discourse tends to focus so much on whether Sansa got her wolf killed, even though the entire answer isn’t so simple. What happens after often gets overlooked:

When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.”

“All that way?” Jory said, astonished.

“All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.”

- Eddard III, GoT

So, if the wolves are representations of the Stark children, then Sansa is currently the only Stark to have a piece of her soul within the grounds of Winterfell, none of the rest can make that claim. More than that, let’s look at what Ned is saying here, it’s foreshadowing. The Lannisters tried to lay claim to Lady but, ultimately, they failed. It’s the same with Sansa, they had her as a prisoner but they never got her skin. Ned also says that Lady will be taken north, all that way, with four men to act as an honor guard. Sansa is going to go north, with an army of men, and she will be able to do it, in part, because of the relationships her father built so long ago. Lady connects Sansa to the north.

(2)I’m really not sure what to make of her arc as being different from her siblings because of the lack of magic. For starters it’s horribly reductive, for all of them, not just Sansa. Jon’s arc is just as much about politics, negotiation, diplomacy, and leadership. Heck, part of his story in Dance is to count hams. Where’s the magic in that? It’s the same with Arya. Her arc also includes themes of leadership, identity, and justice v. vengeance. All of that matters as much as the magic.

Sansa is also a warg, just like her siblings. She’s mentioned by the Ghost of HH which connects her to magic. She has magical stories being told of her. And you’ll rip my Sansa is an empath theory out of my cold, undead, wightified hands. I’ll grant that magic is not as prevalent in her story line but completely devoid? Nope.

She also happens to have very similar story lines to both Bran and Arya. They start the series secure, are held prisoner, forced to hide behind false identities, have taken up with mentors that all have…well…dubious motives. All three are moving towards a point where they will somehow outsmart their teachers, reclaim their identity, and make their way home.

(3) I’m not going to break down the entire snow castle scene, its been done many times before and I don’t have much new to add at this point. However, as it relates to her, it’s the symbolism that matters.The giant managed to knock over a couple of tower roofs and part of a wall. The giant didn’t destroy WF, Sansa stopped him. Even more, the snow castle scene gives us this line:

She wondered where this courage had come from, to speak to him so frankly. From Winterfell, she thought. I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell.

Not only that, we get this gem later:”You were bold enough in the snow.“

Lysa says that to Sansa just before trying to shove her out the moon door but it’s a heck of a line. Snow makes Sansa bold, she’s stronger where winter falls.

(4) The northerners are fighting to save The Ned’s little girl, so not sure why this would not also apply to Sansa? The challenge with her is that no one knows where she is or how to get to her. The whereabouts and “identity” of Jeyne Poole are well known.

Sansa was forced to marry, just as Jeyne was. If Sansa and Tyrion returned north, under similar circumstances, it would only be a matter of time until Sansa was made a widow. Not only that, it’s made explicitly clear why northerners are fighting:

"Ned’s girl,” said Morgan Liddle. He was the second of three sons, so the other wolves called him Middle Liddle, though not often in his hearing. It was Morgan who had almost slain Asha in the fight by Deepwood Motte. He had come to her later, on the march, to beg her pardon … for calling her cunt in his battle lust, not for trying to split her head open with an axe.“Ned’s girl,” echoed Big Bucket Wull. “And we should have had her and the castle both if you prancing southron jackanapes didn’t piss your satin breeches at a little snow.”

..and later (in one of my favorite passages in the entire series)…

That seemed to amuse the northman. “I want to live forever in a land where summer lasts a thousand years. I want a castle in the clouds where I can look down over the world. I want to be six-and-twenty again. When I was six-and-twenty I could fight all day and fuck all night. What men want does not matter."Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue.”“Aye!” shouted Morgan Liddle. “Blood and battle!” Then all the hillmen were shouting, banging their cups and drinking horns on the table, filling the king’s tent with the clangor.

-The King’s Prize, aDwD (bold emphasis mine)

What about the above would lead the reader to believe they would not care about Sansa? They are fighting for Ned’s girl and House Stark, they don’t care about a crown or the Iron Throne.

Let’s switch gears to Manderly now:

“The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer’s farce is almost done. My son is home.”  

-Davos IV, aDwD

Manderly got his son back and now he’s honoring his promise, because he remembers. He wants his liege lord back and he’s at Winterfell, making it pretty clear to us, the readers, that his mission is a suicide mission.

Also, let’s not forget the Umbers, they remember as well. Whoresbane is repeatedly described as old. Not only that, the Umber forces are divided so the green boys are with his brother while he has the old men. Whoresbane is planning to turn his cloak and go down fighting, exactly as described earlier.

With all of the above, I’d sooner think Sansa, the girl who is believed to have killed Joffrey, will be welcomed home.

Sansa is a Stark and a Wolf. She’s going home and she’s going home soon. If I’m wrong (and I’m not), I’ll eat my hat.