#mycah (asoiaf)

[ladystoneboobs]

imo one of the biggest proofs of sansa's character growth post-agot (which seems to be overlooked) is this, where grrm makes sure we know how her perspective of the trident incident has indeed shifted. why else even say this? it's not what the tyrells wanted to know, they asked about joff's treatment of her in particular, and "he lied about the butcher's boy" means nothing without context (and even if she said the lannisters used that lie to justify killing mycah, i doubt olenna, at least, would care). but for sansa atp, joffrey's sins against mycah are worth remembering and reporting as his first crime (known to her), that incident is now recognized as evidence of joff's montrosity, the wrongs committed against mycah by joffrey personally (as in not even his death) are on par with sansa losing her wolf and being beaten by the kg. sure, she still has some classism remaining, but to say she cares nothing for the smallfolk, and is still the same girl disgusted by mycah's smellyness, who later repeated joffrey's lie about him weeks after the fact and blamed arya for lady's death more than joffrey, that's just demonstrably untrue.

[ai-manre]

Cant believe there are still people calling Arya unkind and implying she's somehow less moral and less heroic than other characters. When she is TEN years old and does this:

As they were running toward the barn, Arya spied the crying girl sitting in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by smoke and slaughter. She grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet as the others raced ahead. The girl wouldn't walk, even when slapped. Arya dragged her with her right hand while she held Needle in the left. Ahead, the night was a sullen red. The barn's on fire, she thought. Flames were licking up its sides from where a torch had fallen on straw, and she could hear the screaming of the animals trapped within. Hot Pie stepped out of the barn. "Arry, come on! Lommy's gone, leave her if she won't come!"

Stubbornly, Arya dragged all the harder, pulling the crying girl along. Hot Pie scuttled back inside, abandoning them . . . but Gendry came back, the fire shining so bright on his polished helm that the horns seemed to glow orange. He ran to them, and hoisted the crying girl up over his shoulder. "Run!"

Rushing through the barn doors was like running into a furnace. The air was swirling with smoke, the back wall a sheet of fire ground to roof. Their horses and donkeys were kicking and rearing and screaming. The poor animals, Arya thought. Then she saw the wagon, and the three men manacled to its bed. Biter was flinging himself against the chains, blood running down his arms from where the irons clasped his wrists. Rorge screamed curses, kicking at the wood. "Boy!" called Jaqen H'ghar. "Sweet boy!" [...]

Going back into that barn was the hardest thing she ever did. Smoke was pouring out the open door like a writhing black snake, and she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men. She chewed her lip, and darted through the doors, crouched low where the smoke wasn't quite so thick.

A donkey was caught in a ring of fire, shrieking in terror and pain. She could smell the stench of burning hair. The roof was gone up too, and things were falling down, pieces of flaming wood and bits of straw and hay. Arya put a hand over her mouth and nose. She couldn't see the wagon for the smoke, but she could still hear Biter screaming. She crawled toward the sound.

And then a wheel was looming over her. The wagon jumped and moved a half foot when Biter threw himself against his chains again. Jaqen saw her, but it was too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She threw the axe into the wagon. Rorge caught it and lifted it over his head, rivers of sooty sweat pouring down his noseless face.

Arya literally threw herself into a burning shed with falling roof, to rescue complete strangers. The worst she's risking here is not a beating or anything, she's risking her life and that too by making the active choice to go in and rescue people she does not know. Are you kidding me?? You see this and still Arya Stark isn't the kindest heroic character?

[catofoldstones]

I love how George creates the duality of being low-born v high-born in the asoiaf world. The juxtaposition of Catelyn calling all swords and seizing Tyrion at the unsuccessful attempt to kill her son v Mycah’s father being handed his son’s chopped up body, to the point he couldn’t even recognise that it was his son and not a pig, and still not being able to do anything about it but stay quiet. Chilling.

[agentrouka-blog]

"He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once."- Ned(AGOT).

Sansa pleading for Lady reminds Ned of Lyanna please to Ned to save her son's life from Robert's wrath.

"Bending, Ned pulled back the cloak, dreading the words he would have to find for Arya, but it was not Nymeria after all. It was the butcher's boy, Mycah, his body covered in dried blood."-Ned.

Sandor Clegane brutally killed Mycah an innocent child on orders of Lannisters. This is similar to Gregor and Amory killing Rhaenys and Aegon on Tywin's order.

It seems like history repeating itself in front of Ned at Trident. That Robert and Lannisters are not changed. That innocents are still murdered. That his daughters are in great danger as were Elia and Lyanna.

Indeed. And Ned placed them into that danger.

It's very telling that GRRM places the revelation of Mycah's fate just as Ned has murdered Lady. GRRM is absolutely eviscerating the idea that he did the right thing:

“Lady,” he said, tasting the name. He had never paid much attention to the names the children had picked, but looking at her now, he knew that Sansa had chosen well. She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur. Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. 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.” He was walking back to the tower to give himself up to sleep at last when Sandor Clegane and his riders came pounding through the castle gate, back from their hunt. There was something slung over the back of his destrier, a heavy shape wrapped in a bloody cloak. “No sign of your daughter, Hand,” the Hound rasped down, “but the day was not wholly wasted. We got her little pet.” He reached back and shoved the burden off, and it fell with a thump in front of Ned.

Her little pet. An innocent bystander.

A heavy shape, wrapped in a bloody cloak. They got that skin. Ned just killed who Sansa pleaded for, Sandor killed who Arya fought for. Is Ned better for sending the body away? Or is he looking into a mirror? A useful idiot serving people who would kill children?

[fromtheseventhhell]

Arya watched them die and did nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? One of the women picked for questioning had tried to be brave, but she had died screaming like all the rest. There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones. (Arya VI, ACOK)

--

The night she was caught, the Lannister men had been nameless strangers with faces as alike as their nasal helms, but she'd come to know them all. You had to know who was lazy and who was cruel, who was smart and who was stupid. You had to learn that even though the one they called Shitmouth had the foulest tongue she'd ever heard, he'd give you an extra piece of bread if you asked, while jolly old Chiswyck and soft-spoken Raff would just give you the back of their hand. (Arya VI, ACOK)

Arya: *restrains herself from acting out when captured by the Mountain and his men because she knows fighting back/being brave wouldn't accomplish anything*

Arya: *takes note of the temperments of several Lannister guards so that she can learn how to navigate around their behavior*

Fandom: Arya is a feral idiot with no self-control uwu 🤗

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Arya II

Arya went to the chest at the foot of her bed. She knelt, opened the lid, and began pulling her clothes out with both hands, grabbing handfuls of silk and satin and velvet and wool and tossing them on the floor.

It was there at the bottom of the chest, where she’d hidden it. Arya lifted it out almost tenderly and drew the slender blade from its sheath.

Needle.

She thought of Mycah again and her eyes filled with tears. Her fault, her fault, her fault. If she had never asked him to play at swords with her…

[lego-asoiaf-fan-minifigs]

All ASOIAF Characters as LEGO Minifigures, Part 13: AGOT Sansa 1

Ser Ilyn Payne; Mycah, the butcher's boy

Art used as reference (by alejandrokayart):

[rosaluxembae]

The point of Mycah's murder isn't just to say that certain characters don't care about ordinary people or even that Westerosi society doesn't care, although they are both important aspects too. It also point out how fantasy as a genre, and fiction in general, tends not to care about them either. It's an important moment in defining GRRM's attitude as the author towards death in contrast to other media.

[loonylooly]

Regularly fight with my best friend over what happened at Darry, she actively HATES Sansa because of it meanwhile I love sansa so much she's my favorite SHE DID NOTHING WRONG!! WHAT DID SHE DO WRONG??

[nymerias-heart]

Mycah lives AU

"Are you going to pick up your sword?"

Mycah shook his head. "It's only a stick, m'lord. It's not no sword, it's only a stick."

"And you're only a butcher's boy, and no knight." Joffrey lifted Lion's Tooth and laid its point on Mycah's cheek below the eye, as the butcher's boy stood trembling. "That was my lady's sister you were hitting, do you know that?"

[poorshadowspaintedqueens]

If Ned’s men had found Mycah before Sandor Clegane had gotten to him and taken the boy into their custody, do you think there is a chance he would have been allowed to go to the Wall and join the Night’s Watch?

Assuming that Mycah’s father is one of the butchers from Winterfell (as opposed to someone from the royal party who Arya happened to befriend) and Ned’s guards knew who he was, they would take him to Ned first. At that point, Mycah would almost certainly end up questioned by Robert along with Arya and Sansa regarding Joffrey’s injury.

The fact that Mycah didn’t touch Joffrey (which is something that Arya can confirm) would certainly help his case. The fact that there are multiple (if not necessarily reliable, e.g. intoxicated Sansa) witnesses to Joffrey having slashed Mycah’s cheek would also lend credence to the fact that Arya (and therefore Nymeria) had been provoked to violence by Joffrey. Now, Ned would need to stand firm against both Robert and Cersei, and Robert would need to actually listen to Ned and disciipline his kid, unlike in OTL. How likely is that? Sadly, not very.

But if all of these things fell into place? Yeah, Mycah might even manage to get away altogether and return to his position at Winterfell. The only way I see him getting sent to the Wall is if he somehow takes the fall for Arya and is “pardoned” by joining the Night’s Watch, which is not how I’d see this situation falling out.

[beyondmistland]

If Ned’s men had found Mycah before Sandor Clegane had gotten to him and taken the boy into their custody, do you think there is a chance he would have been allowed to go to the Wall and join the Night’s Watch?

Mycah would probably get whacked even if Ned did manage to both outmaneuver Cersei and convince Robert.

Thanks for the question, anon

[cynicalclassicist]

Interesting. From when we see the Hound here he looks like a standard villainous thug, laughing over killing someone. But then we see more the cynic, miserable at the falseness of the world.

why did the hound laugh after killing mycha?

Here's our quote, for reference:

"You rode him down," Ned said. The Hound's eyes seemed to glitter through the steel of that hideous dog's-head helm. "He ran." He looked at Ned's face and laughed. "But not very fast." Eddard II, AGoT

I don't think he's laughing at the idea of killing Mycah, precisely. Because a while later, we learn Sandor's backstory and his bitterness all in one:

"My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Arise, Ser Gregor.'" The rasping voice trailed off. He squatted silently before her, a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes. Sansa could hear his ragged breathing. Sansa II, AGoT

Sandor was abused and maimed, while the perpetrator suffered no consequences. The nobility gave Gregor his ser and recognition. Which has turned Sandor right off the idea that the high nobility of the Seven Kingdoms might ever have good intentions. From there he went further, coming to believe that nobody means well and nobody cares and nobody's suffering actually matters.

What Sandor's laughing at here isn't Mycah's death, it's Ned's horror. From Sandor's perspective, it's fuck that guy and his pompous face, he can't possibly be upset. Not over a nobody little boy.

From there, of course, Sandor's experiences with the Stark girls show him exactly how and why he's wrong - and how far he fell in the process.

[agentrouka-blog]

I get we all have different interpretations but I rolled my eyes so hard when reading the main tag & I saw someone call Eroeh a friend to Dany and that she's a mirror to Mycah for Arya.

Don't we all fondly recall when Arya slapped Mycah across the face after making him her personal servant, for suggesting that someone obviously dying was, in fact, dying?

I feel fuzzy and warm inside every time Arya recalls how much she fought to save Mycah from harm after first asking Joffrey to round up some peasants to kill for her personal advancement.

Good times.

Oh wait. That's not how it went.

There are parallels in these relationships that I have no intention of denying. Both characters represent a traumatic experience involving the cruel realities of their cultures, a source of guilt and an unanswered desire for justice. Both characters eventually fade in their importance - if perhaps temporarily.

But where Dany consistently thinks of Eroeh as "the girl she had tried to save", as opposed to acknowledging her own role in Eroeh's fate and her own cruelty, a tearful Arya needs to be talked down by Ned from taking on a guilt that was never hers and she tries to achieve true justice for Mycah - not vengeance.

They are mirrors, but not in a flattering way for Dany.

[fromtheseventhhell]

I think it's so funny that people treat Arya like she has no self-control because she *checks notes* stood up to Joffrey and defended her friend from being attacked

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Arya II

“Arya, sit down. I need to try and explain some things to you.”

She perched anxiously on the edge of her bed.

“You are too young to be burdened with all my cares,” he told her.

“But you are also a Stark of Winterfell. You know our words.”

“Winter is coming,” Arya whispered.

“The hard cruel times,” her father said.

“We tasted them on the Trident, and when Bran fell.

“You were born in the long summer, sweet one, you’ve never known anything else, but now the winter is truly coming.

“Remember the sigil of our House, Arya.”

“The direwolf,” she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees against her chest, suddenly afraid.

“Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.

“Summer is the time for squabbles.

“In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths.”