Episode 145: A CLASH OF KINGS, ARYA X: "The Ghost of Harrenhal" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.

Welcome to the one hundred and forty-fifth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “The Ghost of Harrenhal: An Analysis of ACOK, Arya X,” in which Arya speeds through her internship with Roose Bolton before getting the hell out of Harrenhal with her little friends.

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Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

The Snark Knight, a Sworn Sword patron, asks:

Your Graces',

Do you think Jon Connington's arc will be changed at all by The Pandemic?

I don't think his destination changes (fire, and lots of it) but in the same way Natalia Tena's performance might influence Osha I wonder if JonCon's journey changes at all given current events.

I also figure any pandemic stuff George wants to work out of his system gets saved for Dareon II in F&B2.

So, thank you Snark Knight for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes for every episode, thirty-six bonus ASOIAF episodes, eighteen Fevre Dream episodes, free merch, and for our two highest tiers: access to the NotASlack, shout-outs every week and weekly minisodes!

Absolutely. And we’re pleased to announce that our next patreon-only episode for March is going to be about, drumroll please, Zack Snyder’s … Man of Steel! Wait, but what about that other Zack Snyder movie that’s coming out this month? Something about the Lustice Jeague? Ah, well, I know that Emmett is so eager to watch the movie that I suggested and he agreed (after I threatened him with watching the Joss Whedon version instead). So, we’re going to be doing that one as a livecast … or shall I say drunkcast on Monday, March 22.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Arya, she had made some tasty soup for Amory Lorch’s guards at Harrenhal, bid farewell to Jaqen H’ghar and witnessed the … liberation of Harrenhal by the … hero Roose Bolton who is, of course, the Lord of the ... Dreadfort. Hm. Let’s find out how Harrenhal and Arya are enjoying their newfound freedom in this synopsis of ACOK, Arya X!

Synopsis

The heads had been dipped in tar to slow the rot. Every morning when Arya went to the well to draw fresh water for Roose Bolton's basin, she had to pass beneath them. They faced outward, so she never saw their faces, but she liked to pretend that one of them was Joffrey's. She tried to picture how his pretty face would look dipped in tar. If I was a crow I could fly down and peck off his stupid fat pouty lips.

So, badly. Harrenhal and Arya are enjoying their freedom quite badly.

Those heads don’t sit there by lonesome though. Oh no. Crows come in screaming to peck at flesh. And sometimes the ravens from the rookery join in too. Wait, but don’t maesters feed their ravens? Well, in normal, happier circumstances, yes. But Maester Tothmure, the Harrenhal maester had gotten slightly beheaded for sending ravens to Casterly Rock and King’s Landing about the northmen taking the castle. Tothmure was not alone among those who had been crushed under by the new regime.

Tothmure had been sent to the axe for dispatching birds to Casterly Rock and King's Landing the night Harrenhal had fallen, Lucan the armorer for making weapons for the Lannisters, Goodwife Harra for telling Lady Whent's household to serve them, the steward for giving Lord Tywin the keys to the treasure vault. The cook was spared (some said because he'd made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who'd shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.

Arya walks through the yard and sees three Frey bannermen raping the women and laughing about it. She averts her gaze quickly, gets the water and turns to go to the Kingspyre tower, but then Goodwife Amabel grabs Arya’s arm, and war sloshes on Amabel. The woman screams that Arya did that on purpose. Arya demands to know what Amabel wants. As to that, Amabel points to Pia and the rest of the women and says that Arya is going to be in Pia’s place when the Lannisters come back to take Harrenhal.

"Let me go." She tried to wrench free, but Amabel only tightened her fingers.

"He will fall too, Harrenhal pulls them all down in the end. Lord Tywin's won now, he'll be marching back with all his power, and then it will be his turn to punish the disloyal. And don't think he won't know what you did!" The old woman laughed. "I may have a turn at you myself. Harra had an old broom, I'll save it for you. The handle's cracked and splintery-"

Arya swings the bucket she’s carrying. It doesn’t hit Amabel, but it does drench Amabel with water. Arya warns Amabel to never touch her again, or she’ll kill her. Amabel jabs a finger at the flayed man badge on Arya’s surcoat and says it won’t save her. The Lannisters will come for her.

Arya has to return to well though to get more water though as most of it was now on Amabel. As she heads back to the well, Arya wonders if she should snitch on Amabel to Roose the Noose, but she decides she won’t.

Arya sees the heads again, but then Gendry is there. He asks if she’s admiring what she did. Arya knows that Gendry is upset because Lucan had been killed, and Gendry liked Lucan. She claims it was Steelshanks Walton and the Bloody Mummers who were truly responsible.

"And who gave us all them? You and your weasel soup."

Arya punched his arm. "It was just hot broth. You hated Ser Amory too."

"I hate this lot worse. Ser Amory was fighting for his lord, but the Mummers are sellswords and turncloaks. Half of them can't even speak the Common Tongue. Septon Utt likes little boys, Qyburn does black magic, and your friend Biter eats people."

Arya knows Gendry is right. The Brave Companions were foraging for Roose now, looking for “Lannisters.” And how did they know the Lannisters from the not-Lannisters? Why by rolling into villages they had “foraged” from when they were employed by the Lannisters and returning to Harrenhal with more silver and baskets of heads. Shagwell even had a fun little riddle about all of the war crimes they were doing:

"A riddle!" Shagwell would shout gleefully. "If Lord Bolton's goat eats the men who fed Lord Lannister's goat, how many goats are there?"

"One," Arya said when he asked her.

"Now there's a weasel clever as a goat!" the fool tittered

Rorge and Biter were just as bad. Arya would see them when Roose would eat with his men. Or more accurately, she could smell Biter who was made to sit by himself while Rorge would hang out with Faithful Urswyck with his eyes crawling over her. Maybe it had been a bad idea not to go with Jaqen H’ghar. She still had his coin with her with all the strange writing on one side and a man’s head with its features rubbed off. Hm. Arya thinks the coin is worthless, and that Jaqen lied to her. So, she throws the coin away. But then she goes and finds it.

Arya thinks about that coin, but then a voice calls out to ask for her help. Whose voice? Why the voice of Elmar “the Fudd” Frey, of course. Fudd Frey was the same age as Arya, and he had been rolling a barrel of sand across the yard. Together, the two of them get the barrel upright. Elmar Fudd Frey pulls the lid open and pulls out a chainmail hauberk. He asks if it looks clean enough for Roose Bolton. Eh, maybe if Elmar wasn’t Roose Bolton’s squire. But he is. It’s a shit job, Fudd, Frey. Get the rust out.

"You do it." Elmar could be friendly when he needed help, but afterward he would always remember that he was a squire and she was only a serving girl, He liked to boast how he was the son of the Lord of the Crossing, not a nephew or a bastard or a grandson but a trueborn son, and on account of that he was going to marry a princess.

Huh, could Elmar Frey be a representation of House Frey as a whole? Probably not!

Arya doesn’t care about Elmar’s princess, and he doesn’t like him bossing her around. She needs to get the water to Roose for the leeches. And these aren’t the regular leeches. They’re the pale big ones. Elmar gets scared at this and tells Arya she’s too skinny to push a barrel. Oh yeah, well, Elmar the Fudd (okay, okay I’ll stop doing this) is too stupid according to Arya.

The lord's bedchamber was crowded when she entered. Qyburn was in attendance, and dour Walton in his mail shirt and greaves, plus a dozen Freys, all brothers, half brothers, and cousins. Roose Bolton lay abed, naked. Leeches clung to the inside of his arms and legs and dotted his pallid chest, long translucent things that turned a glistening pink as they fed. Bolton paid them no more mind than he did Arya.

Ah, the extremely normal re-introduction of Roose Bolton: naked with leeches covering his body and Frey men all around him. Very normal. Very healthy.

Ser Anus, er, I mean Aenys Frey says that he doesn’t want to be trapped at Harrenhal by Lord Tywin. Aenys had brought 1,500 swords with him to Harrenhal, but he was unable to command his brother Freys. Aenys says the castle is big, but it doesn’t have enough supplies and the countryside was in ruins. It’s not important to get into the whole “who-ruined-the-countryside” debate now though. They’re living on forage, and if they run out of that, they’ll be living Stannis at Storm’s End style on rats and shoe leather.

"I do not mean to be besieged here." Roose Bolton's voice was so soft that men had to strain to hear it, so his chambers were always strangely hushed.

"What, then?" demanded Ser Jared Frey, who was lean, balding, and pockmarked. "Is Edmure Tully so drunk on his victory that he thinks to give Lord Tywin battle in the open field?"

If he does he'll beat them, Arya thought. He'll beat them as he did on the Red Fork, you'll see. Unnoticed, she went to stand by Qyburn.

"Lord Tywin is many leagues from here," Bolton said calmly. "He has many matters yet to settle at King's Landing. He will not march on Harrenhal for some time."

Ser Aenys shook his head stubbornly. "You do not know the Lannisters as we do, my lord. King Stannis thought that Lord Tywin was a thousand leagues away as well, and it undid him."

The pale man in the bed smiled faintly as the leeches nursed of his blood. "I am not a man to be undone, ser."

Ser Aenys states that even if they come to full strength, they are hopelessly outmatched by the numbers the Lannisters and Tyrells now have. Roose has not forgotten this fact. Then up pipes Ser Hosteen, him of the future “Hey, does this lake look frozen enough to you?” fame, Frey who declares he doesn’t want to be a POW again. His cousin Ser Harys Haigh pipes up that Robb doesn’t stand a chance against Tywin since the Lion Lord beat Stannis. Hosteen, who will one day bravely ride his heavy horse across a frozen lake in the direction of a night lamp, has something to say:

"Someone must have the courage to say it," Ser Hosteen said. "The war is lost. King Robb must be made to see that."

Roose Bolton studied him with pale eyes. "His Grace has defeated the Lannisters every time he has faced them in battle."

"He has lost the north," insisted Hosteen Frey. "He has lost Winterfell! His brothers are dead . . . "

Arya stops breathing. Bran and Rickon were dead? What happened to Winterfell? Joffrey was nowhere near there. Robb wouldn’t let him. But then she remembers that Robb wasn’t at Winterfell. He was in the Westerlands. Bran was paralyzed and Rickon was four. Arya stays silent and still like Syrio taught her, but she feels the tears.

It's not true, it can't be true, it's just some Lannister lie.

"Had Stannis won, all might have been different," Ronel Rivers said wistfully. He was one of Lord Walder's bastards.

"Stannis lost," Ser Hosteen said bluntly. "Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so. King Robb must make his peace with the Lannisters. He must put off his crown and bend the knee, little as he may like it."

"And who will tell him so?" Roose Bolton smiled. "It is a fine thing to have so many valiant brothers in such troubled times. I shall think on all you've said."

Roose dismisses everyone but Qyburn, Steelshanks and Arya. He orders Arya or Nan as she’s named herself to remove the leeches, and she moves to obey immediately. She wants to ask about Winterfell, but she would never dare. She’ll ask Elmar instead. Arya starts to remove the leeches as Qyburn unrolls a letter, announcing it’s from his wife Walda Frey. As for Qyburn, well, get a load of this guy.

Though [Qyburn] wore maester's robes, there was no chain about his neck; it was whispered that he had lost it for dabbling in necromancy.

This dude fits glove-like into Harrenhal, doesn’t he?

Roose tells Qyburn to read the letter, and Qyburn reads the letter out loud, which … I’ll just read the letter:

The Lady Walda wrote from the Twins almost every day, but all the letters were the same. "I pray for you morn, noon, and night, my sweet lord," she wrote, "and count the days until you share my bed again. Return to me soon, and I will give you many trueborn sons to take the place of your dear Domeric and rule the Dreadfort after you." Arya pictured a plump pink baby in a cradle, covered with plump pink leeches.

Arya brings Roose, who remains very loose with a “soft hairless body” and is still naked, a washcloth. Roose says he’ll send a letter of his own but not to Lady Walda. To Helman Tallhart.

A rider from Ser Helman had come two days past. Tallhart men had taken the castle of the Darrys, accepting the surrender of its Lannister garrison after a brief siege.

"Tell him to put the captives to the sword and the castle to the torch, by command of the king. Then he is to join forces with Robett Glover and strike east toward Duskendale. Those are rich lands, and hardly touched by the fighting. It is time they had a taste. Glover has lost a castle, and Tallhart a son. Let them take their vengeance on Duskendale."

But wait, I thought the northmen were GOOD!?

Qyburn says he’ll prepare the message, and Arya gets a little dark, thinking it’ll be great that the Darrys get burned. That was where the shit went down in book one with Lady and Joffrey. She does think it’s too bad they marched before she decided whether she could trust them.

"I will hunt today," Roose Bolton announced as Qyburn helped him into a quilted jerkin.

"Is it safe, my lord?" Qyburn asked. "Only three days past, Septon Utt's men were attacked by wolves. They came right into his camp, not five yards from the fire, and killed two horses."

"It is wolves I mean to hunt. I can scarcely sleep at night for the howling." Bolton buckled on his belt, adjusting the hang of sword and dagger. "It's said that direwolves once roamed the north in great packs of a hundred or more, and feared neither man nor mammoth, but that was long ago and in another land. It is queer to see the common wolves of the south so bold."

"Terrible times breed terrible things, my lord."

Bolton showed his teeth in something that might have been a smile. "Are these times so terrible, Maester?"

"Summer is gone and there are four kings in the realm."

"One king may be terrible, but four?" He shrugged. "Nan, my fur cloak." She brought it to him. "My chambers will be clean and orderly upon my return," he told her as she fastened it. "And tend to Lady Walda's letter."

Arya stays behind as the two men leave. Wait. Two men? What happened to Steelshanks? Ah, well, I think George kind-of forgot about Steelshanks being in the room.

Anyways, Arya takes the letter and burns it in the fireplace. As the letter curls in flame, she cries wondering if this is her home now that Winterfell is gone. Is she Arya or will she be Nan for the rest of her life? She spends hours cleaning Roose Bolton’s chambers. But as she finishes, Arya notices a large sheepskin rolled up. She unfurls it and sees that it’s a map called “The Lands of the Trident.” She finds Harrenhal on the map, looks for Riverrun and finds it. It’s not so far away.

But now that she’s done, she finds it’s still early afternoon. So, she heads off to the godswood, thankful that her duties as a cupbearer were lighter than her previous duties. Plus, the hunt wouldn’t return for hours. She had time for needlework.

She slashed at birch leaves till the splintery point of the broken broomstick was green and sticky. "Ser Gregor," she breathed. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling." She spun and leapt and balanced on the balls of her feet, darting this way and that, knocking pinecones flying. "The Tickler," she called out one time, "the Hound," the next. "Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei." The bole of an oak loomed before her, and she lunged to drive her point through it, grunting "Joffrey, Joffrey, Joffrey." Her arms and legs were dappled by sunlight and the shadows of leaves. A sheen of sweat covered her skin by the time she paused. The heel of her right foot was bloody where she'd skinned it, so she stood one-legged before the heart tree and raised her sword in salute. "Valar morghulis," she told the old gods of the north. She liked how the words sounded when she said them.

Arya heads over to the bathhouse, sees a raven circling the maester’s tower and wonders what the message is. Maybe it’s from Robb saying the stuff about Bran and Rickon wasn’t true. She wishes she could be a bird and fly up to Winterfell herself. If it was true, she’d fly away from Westeros to see the world as described by Old Nan. And she might never come back.

Roose’s hunting party returns at nightfall with nine dead wolves. He orders the seven adult wolves to be skinned and their furs sewn into a blanket for himself. One of his men thinks the two wolf pups would serve as a pair of gloves.

Bolton glanced up at the banners waving above the gatehouse towers. "As the Starks are wont to remind us, winter is coming. Have it done." When he saw Arya looking on, he said, "Nan, I'll want a flagon of hot spice wine, I took a chill in the woods. See that it doesn't get cold. I'm of a mind to sup alone. Barley bread, butter, and boar."

"At once, my lord." That was always the best thing to say.

Arya finds Hot Pie in the kitchen making oatcakes. She gives Roose’s order to the cooks, and one of them fills a pot with red wine while Hot Pie crumbles spices into the pot. Arya tries to help, but Hot Pie tells her to get lost. Arya realizes that Hot Pie hates her or is scared of her. When the wine and food are done, Arya takes it across the way, with someone shouting at her whether it was weasel soup.

When Arya enters Roose’s chambers, he finds him reading a leatherbound book. He orders candles lit. So, Arya puts the foot next to him and lights some candles.

Bolton turned a few more pages with his finger, then closed the book and placed it carefully in the fire. He watched the flames consume it, pale eyes shining with reflected light. The old dry leather went up with a whoosh, and the yellow pages stirred as they burned, as if some ghost were reading them. "I will have no further need of you tonight," he said, never looking at her.

She should have gone, silent as a mouse, but something had hold of her. "My lord," she asked, "will you take me with you when you leave Harrenhal?"

He turned to stare at her, and from the look in his eyes it was as if his supper had just spoken to him. "Did I give you leave to question me, Nan?"

"No, my lord." She lowered her eyes.

"You should not have spoken, then. Should you?"

"No. My lord."

For a moment he looked amused. "I will answer you, just this once. I mean to give Harrenhal to Lord Vargo when I return to the north. You will remain here, with him."

"But I don't-" she started.

He cut her off. "I am not in the habit of being questioned by servants, Nan. Must I have your tongue out?"

Arya knows Roose would do it. So, she subsides, and Roose asks whether she’ll speak again. She won’t.

"Go, then. I shall forget this insolence."

Arya leaves Roose’s chambers, but she doesn’t head to her chambers. The guard tells her that a storm is coming. Instead, she heads over to the godswood. But on the way, she hears angry voices talking and arguing. She sees Elmar sitting alone and asks what’s wrong.

"My princess," he sobbed. "We've been dishonored, Aenys says. There was a bird from the Twins. My lord father says I'll need to marry someone else, or be a septon."

A stupid princess, she thought, that's nothing to cry over. "My brothers might be dead," she confided.

Elmar gave her a scornful look. "No one cares about a serving girl's brothers."

It was hard not to hit him when he said that. "I hope your princess dies " she said, and ran off before he could grab her.

Oh, Arya. If you only knew.

In the godswood, she gets her broomstick sword and carries it to the heart tree. She kneels and asks the gods what to do. For a while, she doesn’t hear anything beyond the normal sounds. But then she hears wolves off in the distance, and her gooseprickles rise on her skin.

Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father's voice. "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," he said.

"But there is no pack," she whispered to the weirwood. Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall. "I'm not even me now, I'm Nan."

"You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the north. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you."

"The wolf blood." Arya remembered now. "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Oh, fuck yeah. This is the good shit. This is how you do an awesome character climax and conclusion to an arc.

She lays down in her bed, waiting for the moon to rise, listening to her breath and the cries of the wolves. She thinks the wolves are calling her. She gets up and into her tunic and heads down the stairs. She bypasses the main door as it is guarded and hears the wind screaming through the Wailing Tower. She makes her way over to the forget and finds Gendry in the bed. She puts a hand over his mouth and whispers “Please” and points. Gendry stirs himself up and huddles with Arya in a corner. What does she want? A sword. No can do. The blades are locked up. Okay, then break the lock. Nope. They’ll break his hand if he does that or even kill him. No they won’t. Not if Gendry comes with her. And why would Gendry do that?

"Lord Bolton is giving Harrenhal to the Bloody Mummers, he told me so."

Gendry pushed black hair out of his eyes. "So?"

She looked right at him, fearless. "So when Vargo Hoat's the lord, he's going to cut off the feet of all the servants to keep them from running away. The smiths too."

Gendry thinks this is a story, but Arya lies and says she heard Vargo say as much. He’s going to cut the left foot off every servant. Arya tells Gendry to go get Hot Pie up to get some food together. They’ll meet by the Tower of the Ghosts.

"I know that gate. It's guarded, same as the rest."

"So? You won't forget the swords?"

"I never said I'd come."

"No. But if you do, you won't forget the swords?"

He frowned. "No," he said at last. "I guess I won't."

Arya re-enters Kingspye and heads up the stairs. She grabs some clothes from her room. She gets her shoes on, puts on the Bolton tunic and creeps down the stairs. She sneaks into Roose Bolton’s chambers and grabs the map and Roose’s dagger and then she heads to the stables.

There, she wakes one of the grooms up and tells him that Roose Bolton wants three horses saddled and bridled. Now. When the groom starts to protest, Arya reminds him that Roose Bolton is not in the habit of being questioned by servants. The boy sees Arya’s flayed man badge and gets to work getting three fast and surefoot horses.

Then Arya carefully leads the horses through the shadowed parts of the castle, making sure to stay out of the eyesight of anyone. The wind howls, and the air smells like rain. Arya’s not sure whether that’s good or bad for their escape. Along the way, she sees a cat, gray and white, and says she could catch the cat if she wanted, but she doesn’t have time. She’s outta here.

Arya reaches the Tower of Ghosts, a ruined and desolate tower, and waits for Hot Pie and Gendry. While she waits, the horses eat and she sharpens her knife with long, smooth strokes like Syrio taught her. Sharpening her knife calms her.

But then Hot Pie and Gendry arrive all loud and out of breath. Arya tells them to chill out and be quiet. Arya sees that Gendry has his blacksmith hammer across his back while Hot Pie has a sack of bread under one arm and a wheel of cheese around the other. Gendry warns that there’s a guard on the gate. Arya tells them to stay with the horses. She’ll take of this.

Gendry nodded. Hot Pie said, "Hoot like an owl when you want us to come."

"I'm not an owl," said Arya. "I'm a wolf. I'll howl."

Alone, she slid through the shadow of the Tower of Ghosts. She walked fast, to keep ahead of her fear, and it felt as though Syrio Forel walked beside her, and Yoren, and Jaqen H'ghar, and Jon Snow. She had not taken the sword Gendry had brought her, not yet. For this the dagger would be better. It was good and sharp.

Hm, whatever is Arya planning here?

The postern gate was the smallest gate in Harrenhal, thus it was only manned by one guard. Still, there would be people up in the tower above. She had to be quiet and quick. Rain begins to fall. And she walks confidently towards the door as if she’s here on official business. As she approaches, she sees that the guard is a northman, and that’s bad news. This jabroni had probably served Roose Bolton all his life, and he couldn’t be easily fooled like a Bloody Mummer or Frey. Maybe she should tell the guard that she’s Arya Stark of Winterfell, but probably not. This guy was a Bolton man.

She walks up, pushing back her cloak to reveal her Bolton sigil and tells the man that Lord Bolton sent her. The man is equally confused and suspicious. He asks why and why now at this late hour?

She could see the gleam of steel under the fur, and she did not know if she was strong enough to drive the point of the dagger through chainmail. His throat, it must be his throat, but he's too tall, I'll never reach it. For a moment she did not know what to say. For a moment she was a little girl again, and scared, and the rain on her face felt like tears.

"He told me to give all his guards a silver piece, for their good service." The words seemed to come out of nowhere.

"Silver, you say?" He did not believe her, but he wanted to; silver was silver, after all. "Give it over, then."

Arya reaches into her pocket and comes out with the coin Jaqen gave her. She holds it out but lets it drop to the ground. The man curses and goes to the ground digging around for the coin.

Arya slid her dagger out and drew it across his throat, as smooth as summer silk. His blood covered her hands in a hot gush and he tried to shout but there was blood in his mouth as well.

"Valar morghulis," she whispered as he died.

When the man stops twitching, she picks up the coin as a wolf howls long outside of the castle. She lifts the bar off the door, sets it down and opens the door. Hot Pie and Gendry come up then. Stunned, Hot Pie exclaims that Arya killed him.

"What did you think I would do?" [Arya’s] fingers were sticky with blood, and the smell was making her mare skittish. It's no matter, she thought, swinging up into the saddle. The rain will wash them clean again.

Wow. And that is the synopsis for ACOK, Arya X! This chapter is absolutely and darkly captivating, and is my favorite Arya ACOK chapter. What did you think, ser?

Depth

It’s been a while since we had an Arya chapter, but George more than makes up for it. The only problem with Arya X is that it’s too much of a good thing! George not only gets Arya and her sidekicks out of Harrenhal, not only wraps up her character arc in the book, but also shows us in detail how the Battle of Blackwater shook up the game board, ultimately leading to the Red Wedding. It’s an ambitious chapter, and also an intricate one; along with Sansa VIII next week, it perfectly sets up the story for ASOS.

You are absolutely right that this is a massive chapter with a lot going on. I do wonder whether at one point whether this was two chapters that George smooshed into one (something he talked about as always being part of his process in writing ASOIAF during one of his recent TWOW update posts). In this, Arya X feels very A Feast for Crows-y to me in being both a very long chapter and trying to accomplish a lot of overall thematic story work along with character work. In my estimation, George really nails both with all of the things Arya has experienced and witnessed culminating in one of the darker chapters in ASOIAF.

And hey, speaking of A Feast for Crows parallels, this chapter opens with crows and ravens eating the flesh, muscle and bone from the served heads of the people who had been caught in the gears of regime change.

• The new regime
  • In Arya’s last chapter, she rebelled against the Lannisters that had taken so much away from her and the people around her, helping Northmen take Harrenhal and execute Amory Lorch. This was her third and final wish
  • As this chapter begins, we see the fallout. Be careful what you wish for! Arya has not liberated Harrenhal; if anything, life somehow got worse
  • She’s staring up at heads dipped in tar to slow the rot. It’s a grisly warning that doubles as a symbol of guilt. They’re not rotting away; they’re sticking around to haunt Arya. As she goes about her new duties, she can’t avoid them. But at least they look outward, so she can’t see their faces
  • Arya can’t process the horror of the new regime. So she imagines that instead of innocent people up there, it’s Joffrey; she can safely hate him
  • Arya’s trying to hold on to the catharsis of vengeance, the justice she sought with Jaqen H’ghar and his three wishes. But it’s only a shadow
  • The bitter reality is that those heads belong to residents of Harrenhal executed by Roose Bolton upon taking possession of the castle
  • What was their crime? Having the gall, the nerve, to try and survive under Lannister occupation. Lucan made them weapons; Goodwife Harra served their household needs; the steward opened the treasure vault for them
  • Gone unspoken here is what would’ve happened to these people if they’d refused Tywin. They would’ve ended up on spikes on walls anyway
  • You can maybe make the case that Tothmure demonstrated Lannister loyalty by sending ravens to King’s Landing and the Rock as the castle fell
  • But otherwise, this is a clear miscarriage of justice, demonstrating that Roose is no better than Tywin and does not see these people as...people
  • He doesn’t care that they had no choice. All that matters to Roose is stamping his rule over every inch of Harrenhal
  • What I also see in these executions, murders, both is how George is subtly depicting Roose Bolton as the Dark!Ned and also Dark!Robb.
  • When we first meet Ned in A Game of Thrones, Bran I, he’s beheading Gared as a Night’s Watch deserter.
  • He does the deed to satiate a form of justice as he articulated to Bran
    • In truth, the man was an oathbreaker, a deserter from the Night's Watch. No man is more dangerous. The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile.
  • You can argue over the ethical construct Ned constructs around beheading Gared, but it largely flows from a position that killing deserters safeguards innocent life.
  • Not so the case with Roose Bolton.
  • There are heads aplenty here, but the crimes, as you so rightfully pointed out, are not actual crimes.
  • It’s Roose Bolton imposing his rule over Harrenhal and using the full-force of fear to do it.
  • And then there’s Roose Bolton’s relationship to his soldiers. As Arya will briefly mention later in the chapter, Roose Bolton sometimes takes his meals with his men. Yeah, I was surprised myself when I caught that on this re-read.
  • But these meals have Roose hanging out with his Brave Companions and also ensuring Biter stays away as he smells bad.
  • That’s similar to Ned inviting members of his staff and the mountain clansmen to join him at table at Winterfell and also encouraging Robb to know the men he leads
  • And that gets to the Dark!Robb side of Roose. We’ll unpack the council scene that Roose has with the Freys in-depth later on, but Roose holds council with his knights similar to what Robb was doing in AGOT.
  • However, Robb was seeking advice from all of his lords bannermen as Catelyn observed.
  • Ned and Robb attempted to get to know their men from the vantage point of honoring their service by knowing the soldiers who might one day give their lives below a Stark banner.
  • There’s something altogether darker about Roose being “a leader of soldiers.”
  • Roose Bolton is not below killing as we’ll find out at the Red Wedding, and he’s definitely not below rape as we’ll find out in ADWD, but he is not seen actively participating in these activities at Harrenhal AFAWK.
  • But he’s giving free reign for his men to do all of that, ordering the foraging parties and likely the executions too.
  • And that stand that’s been erected in the Harrenhal yard with the women in it: someone built that or ordered it built or who shrugged his shoulders and said “Fine by me.”
  • That person is Roose Bolton, and the darker “get to know your men” thing Roose has is one where he gets to know the beastial, evil desires of his men and allows them to take out their lusts for murder or rape, perhaps even encouraging it.
  • So, what’s the point of making Roose Bolton have some of the same characteristics as Ned and Robb?
  • Partially it’s to show Roose Bolton as a dark mirror to the Starks.
  • The other part is to give us conflicting feelings about Roose. He’s a northman; so, he’s a good guy, right? No.
  • He kind-of operates similar to Ned and Robb, two heroic-coded characters, but it’s in the appearances that he's similar, not in the actions.
  • It’s a way for George to make us feel queasy about this guy, even as we keep thinking that he may be cold, brutal and weird, he’s just a utilitarian, doing what needs to be done to win one for the Starks.
  • But that cold brutality is George playing straight with us. It’s our own minds and biases that try to excuse Roose, because the darkness goes way, way farther than simply killing a lot of people and stealing food from the smallfolk.
  • Roose cements his power via rape as well as murder. He had Pia and the other women who slept with Lannisters stripped and thrown into stocks
  • They are regularly raped by the common soldiers, extending the evil of the new regime well beyond Roose himself and the Bloody Mummers
  • As with “They Lay With Lions” in ASOS, these rapes reveal a callousness reserved for women who use sex to survive; as with the heads on the walls, no one acknowledges the coercion and desperation involved
  • Roose’s hideous policies extend well beyond the castle itself. He sends the Mummers back into the countryside to root out “Lannister traitors”
  • What that means in practice, of course, is that the Mummers are killing the very people who helped them out when they were working for Tywin
  • There is a cruel irony linking all these atrocities together, as Shagwell and Arya make plain to the audience
  • There is only one goat devouring the countryside. Who cares if he’s flying the lion or wolf banner as he does it? He leaves the same death and devastation in his wake. The Bloody Mummers link the sides of the war in the Riverlands together. Both are willing to work with these monsters
  • Time for caveats: Tywin is the overall Lannister commander. Roose is a theater commander. Robb has no idea any of this is happening, and would never give such orders himself. His cause is still more sympathetic…
  • ...but that is cold comfort to Lucan facing the axe, or Pia facing endless humiliation and deprivation and assault. Roose would never have had power over them if Robb had not put him in charge of his infantry
  • I always think of Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn anecdote: you break it, you bought it. Robb unleashed Roose, and owns what he has done
  • I also think of civilians in WWII living in areas occupied regularly by both sides, flying one flag then the other, fearing reprisals from both
  • It is devastating to read about these atrocities, one after the other, but George is rubbing our nose in the muck to make a vital point
  • We cannot rely on the Good Guys winning to heal Westeros. We cannot assume, as Arya did, that vengeance automatically produces justice
  • These war crimes are both raison d’etre and casus belli for the Brotherhood without Banners, which will name Roose right alongside Gregor and Vargo as the enemies of the people they’re sworn to fight
  • Radicalization is the inevitable result of this perpetual violence that makes mockery of any official means of redress
  • In this chapter, though, the Brotherhood are still a ways off. We’re left with Arya’s sense of disillusionment and despair. There’s no way to do the right thing as an individual, and nothing larger worth being a part of
  • I think George very openly borrowed from World War II even more openly as the specifics of what’s done to Pia and the rest of the women who “lay with Lannisters” borrows heavily from what happened after the Western Allies liberated France and the Netherlands.
  • After a French or Dutch town was liberated, women who had slept with German soldiers were ritually rounded up by their fellow citizens and had their heads shaved.
  • Why shave heads? From a 2009 Guardian Article about the practice:
    • There was a strong element of vicarious eroticism among the tondeurs and their crowd, even though the punishment they were about to inflict symbolised the desexualisation of their victim.
  • The crimes inflicted on Pia and these other women go beyond what occurred among French and Dutch civilians during WW2.
  • As the Soviet Red Army drove the German Wehrmacht back into Germany, many women (estimates range up to two million) were raped by Russian soldiers.
  • But this was not strictly a phenomenon of the Red Army. German historian Miriam Gebhardt calculated that up to 190,000 women were raped by U.S. servicemen between 1945 and 1955.
  • These are staggering statistics, and these atrocities were committed by the “good guys” in WW2.
  • So, you brought up caveats before, and I’ll add some here too: the Axis Powers were way worse, but I’m so fucking tired of the argument that “Yeah, but the Nazis and Imperial Japan were even worse.” Of course they were.
  • And of course, the Lannisters were way worse too. We need only remember Arya V (Arya witnesses Lannister atrocities in the village by the God’s Eye) and Arya VI (Arya witnesses Lannister atrocities on the road to Harrenhal) to see this in evidence.
  • I also agree with you that Robb Stark was unaware of what Roose Bolton was getting into at Harrenhal.
  • And yet, it wasn’t just evil Freys and Boltons doing shit at Harrenhal. Wylis Manderly, Robett Glover, Helman Tallhart, Cerwyns, Lockes, Burleys, Ryswells, Condons, Stouts are either at Harrenhal or Castle Darry and under Roose’s command.
  • We don’t hear any of them saying a goddamn word against the atrocities going on at Harrenhal or even doing the bare minimum and sending word to Edmure or Robb from Castle Darry letting the high command know that Roose was doing war crimes.
  • And we know that they know something of what’s happening at Harrenhal even if they’re in Darry. Glover or Tallhart riders brought messages announcing that they took Darry and asks Roose what to do next.
  • They had to have seen the heads or what’s happening in the Harrenhal courtyard. They had to take that information back to Helman Tallhart and Robett Glover.
  • That’s complicity in what’s happening at Harrenhal, and to me, I think it’s tacit approval of the gang rapes, murders, re-pillaging of the countryside, etc
  • The northmen, the rivermen: these are supposed to be the ‘good guys’ in the War of the Five Kings, the same sorts who shouted King in the North! at the end of AGOT.
  • But now amidst the smallfolk and unopposed by Lannisters, they become wolves savaging the sheep.
  • Most people would cite Jorah Mormont’s quote about the smallfolk here, but I think Septon Meribald better-speaks to the horrors the smallfolk face in Harrenhal:
    • It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones.
  • By what right does the wolf judge the lion, so asks Jaime in a very different context, but it fits the theme present in this chapter too insofar as what Roose does or allows to happen at Harrenhal.
• Arya the pariah
  • Even within the hellscape of Harrenhal, Arya is uniquely alienated, because now everyone hates her for her part in “weasel soup”
  • Amabel grabs Arya out of nowhere, telling her she’ll be next to be raped, gloating about torturing her. Amabel loved Harra, and holds Arya responsible for Harra’s death. She can’t wait until Tywin returns to retake Harrenhal with his new army, so she can take her vengeance on Arya
  • Everyone filters the twists and turns of the war through their personal desire to even the scales of justice. Arya did that with her three wishes, Amabel’s doing it now, the Freys will do that regarding Robb’s marriage
  • We’re seeing the cycle of violence play itself out, emblematic of the history of Harrenhal. As Amabel says, the castle brings them all down in the end
  • The sense of justice quickly fades as you realize that all you’ve done is keep the wheel turning. Even Arya’s friends reject her now
  • Gendry holds her responsible for the heads just like Amabel; in his case, he mourns Lucan. Gendry told Arya in her previous chapter that he just wanted to keep his head down and survive, that choosing one side or the other was asking for death. Now he seems to have been proven right
  • Arya points out that Gendry hated Amory Lorch. Why not be glad he’s dead and gone? Gendry says that Amory was fighting for his lord; the Mummers are worse because they’re turncloaks. I don’t entirely agree
  • Roose’s men, the ones who cut those heads off, are also fighting for their lord. Moreover, Amory was on the same side as the Mummers for a while
  • But I think it’s more important that Gendry calls Biter “your friend.” He feels personally betrayed by Arya. They are no longer both victims of these monsters. Instead, Arya joined them, the Dreadfort sigil over her heart. Hot Pie feels the same way, treating Arya like a pariah in the kitchens
  • And yet, it’s not as if Arya has been embraced by the new regime. Rorge stares at her with malign intent, and Elmar Frey treats her thoughtlessly
  • Speaking of Elmar Frey here, there’s a reason why he occupies such a large role in this chapter.
  • In her first encounter with Elmar Frey, Arya notes very briefly that Elmar was supposed to “wed a princess.”
  • Who is this princess?
  • For that, let’s turn back to AGOT, Catelyn IX and recall one of the terms of the Freys allying with the Starks:
    • "Also, if your sister Arya is returned to us safely, it is agreed that she will marry Lord Walder's youngest son, Elmar, when the two of them come of age."
  • This is one of the best-known #NiceCatches that people make when they realize that Arya is the princess that Elmar was supposed to marry.
  • Of course, this takes on a darker meaning later in this chapter when this gets brought up again, but we’ll get there!
  • Back in AGOT, Robb replied that Arya won’t like that much, and sure enough, here we are with Arya not liking Elmar Frey all that much.
  • Though, of course, that’s mostly due to Elmar being an arrogant weakling.
  • Imagine how Arya would have perceived him if she knew that she was going to marry this jabroni!
  • Even Jaqen H’ghar is gone. Arya keeps the coin he gave her: the image of a faceless man. It fits her story more than ever. She has another new identity, Harrenhal has switched sides, but what has changed?
  • Arya resists despair as best she can. She tells Gendry that it was only hot broth she brought; she never intended for things to end like this
  • “You did that on purpose,” Amabel yells at Arya, talking about spilled water, but also Harra’s death. She’s wrong. Does it matter, though?
  • Doesn’t she own the consequences of her three wishes, just as Robb owns the consequences of giving Roose his own command?
  • Arya’s left with the dead, in the worst of both worlds. She tried to restore her Northern community, and is now more alone than ever
  • Back in Arya IX, Arya framed her motivation in part as her duty to her house and family.
    • They're northmen. My father's men, and Robb's.
  • Weasel soup was, again, in part, a reflection of Arya’s familial/political loyalty, and it’s completely understandable why she did what she did.
  • The problem is that Arya did not reveal herself to be “Arya of House Stark” during or after the “liberation” of Harrenhal.
  • Instead, she tells Robett Glover that her name is Weasel, and then she later tells Roose Bolton at the end of Arya IX that the name her mother gave her was “Nan.”
  • In that context, what are the holdover survivors from the Lannister regime going to think about weasel soup?
  • I think they are going to see her as similarly opportunistic and bloodthirsty as the Bloody Mummers.
  • To them, she turned on Amory Lorch not for family loyalty, but because she wanted to improve her station in Harrenhal.
  • And hey look at Arya: she’s no longer working for the understeward in the Wailing Tower.
  • She’s the cupbearer for Roose Bolton now, and she notes that her duties are much lighter than they were previously.
  • That’s why the survivors look at her like a monster and hate her. Not only did Arya get the people that they loved or liked killed. She’s also personally benefiting from her evil.
  • How galling that must be to Goodwife Amabel that Arya got her love Harra killed, and now she’s Roose Bolton’s cupbearer, wearing that Bolton sigil.
  • In a way, how Arya appears to Goodwife Amabel is how Vargo Hoat turned his cloak: he didn’t do it for ideological reasons but to be on the winning side and also to eventually become Lord of Harrenhal.
  • But Arya in ACOK, Arya X appears similarly to a character we’re about to be re-introduced to: Roose Bolton who actually will betray his overlord/master to another overlord/master to gain greater station in Westeros by becoming Lord Paramount and Warden of the North.
• Roose’s strategy session
  • This chapter belongs to Roose Bolton, every bit as much as Arya. George gave us a teaser glimpse of one of his best villains at the end of Arya IX
  • Now he’s been in charge of Harrenhal long enough to establish his own reputation, and we see it at work here, equal parts subtle and sinister
  • Roose gets an unforgettable reintro in this chapter: naked in bed, covered in leeches. It’s a mixture of vulnerability and authority. Roose is forcing his subordinates into this intimate position whether they like it or not
  • It sends the message that he has nothing to hide--but his quiet words give so little away, and know as rereaders that he’s actually hiding quite a bit!
  • And that to me feels like Roose Bolton establishing dominance over who he considers to be his lessers.
  • The forced intimacy is another way that Roose can make everyone feel uncomfortable, because they have to be in a room with him in his naked body with leeches sucking his body.
  • It’s like an unsolicited dick pic -- except on a larger scale where it’s your boss, and he likes to flay people.
  • It’s uncomfortable and weird, yet people have to listen to him and heed him, because he’s in charge. And that feeds into Roose Bolton using a shall-we-say unorthodox method of showing himself to be separate, unique and in charge.
  • Further, I think this is emblematic of Roose Bolton as a whole: who he is and how he grows in power.
  • Tywin Lannister uses hard stares and few words to intimidate his bannermen.
  • Ned Stark used his long history of open-handedness and general nobility to win the support of their vassals.
  • Robb Stark uses his martial prowess and his reputation as never losing a battle to win the loyalty of his vassals.
  • But Roose isn’t playing that game. He plays the game of thrones differently, coming at the politics sideways.
  • Roose isn’t even trying to live up to the image of the martial impressive lord, all swords with jeweled hilts. He has a different archetype in mind. He’s embodying his own symbols: the flayed man and the leech
  • You could argue Roose is making himself look weak, all feeble flesh like Walder Frey. But if you think about it, Roose is letting everyone know that without those leeches, he’d be terrifying: a barely restrained beast
  • He speaks quietly...so that others have to lean in closely to hear. He speaks in bland opaque riddles...to make others reveal themselves
  • It’s all a coldly calculated strategy, with the leeches symbolically sucking away his passions and leaving only the will to kill or be killed
  • Roose is therefore a different kind of villain than the Freys, despite their alliance. We see the Freys at work in this scene: a bumbling hivemind
  • They have points to make--more on that in a second--but none make a strong individual impression. They’re like a self-loathing Greek chorus
  • As an aside, I love the moment where Hosteen Frey talks about how he doesn’t wish to enjoy Tywin Lannister’s hospitality again like how he was enduring horrific brutality like he was a smallfolk prisoner.
  • And yet I happened to re-read ACOK, Arya VII before this episode, and this was the horror of the Frey captivity at Harrenhal:
    • Four brothers took their exercise together every day, fighting with staves and wooden shields in the Flowstone Yard. Three of them were Freys of the Crossing, the fourth their bastard brother. They were only there a short time, though; one morning two other brothers arrived under a peace banner with a chest of gold, and ransomed them from the knights who'd captured them.
  • Oh man, that sounds like hell. How did Hosteen Frey ever survive being a prisoner of Tywin Lannister?
  • As always in these early moments before the Red Wedding, George drives at something with these small character moments: it speaks to how the Freys overblow any perceived slight or indignity and think it’s just the worst.
  • The Freys are recognizably human in this scene--petty, pedantic, talking over each other. Roose cuts through them like a cold knife through warm butter. He’s an alien presence in a room of squabbling humans
  • That dynamic fits perfectly with where they stand politically. The Freys are genuinely distraught, caught in a bad position with no good options
  • Roose, by contrast, has already lucked into a good option, which is why he can afford to operate at an icy remove while the Freys squabble
  • You can see why the Freys are so panicked. As Robb and the Blackfish will lay out to Edmure in ASOS, they were counting on Stannis winning
  • Even taking Stannis’ hardheadedness into account, making peace with the Baratheons would be much easier than making peace with the Lannisters
  • But now Stannis has been crushed, and Tywin has risen to power. The same Tywin who used to hold Harrenhal...and he’s known for vengeance
  • He’s got a massive army from the Reach at his back, and the Freys see a lose-lose scenario coming. Either they stay here, in which case they’ll be besieged and starved out, or they leave to give battle, in which case the odds are against them, even if they join forces with Robb and Edmure
  • Robb’s situation is getting grim, and that’s without taking into account the fall of Winterfell--which makes him look weak--and the apparent death of his brothers--which puts the Stark line of succession in jeopardy
  • How quickly fortunes can change in war! It wasn’t long ago that Robb won the Battle of Oxcross and Edmure won the Battle of the Fords; the Stark cause was riding high, and the Lannisters were on the brink of destruction
  • Now everything is reversed. The Freys want to get out while they still have a chance. They make it plain: the war is lost, and Robb must surrender
  • Ah, Roose says, but who will tell Robb? Who will convince the king whose father was executed by the Lannisters to bend the knee to them? It’s easy to bluster in this room, which is suspiciously free of any diehard Stark loyalists. And why is that, btw? Why did Roose only invite the Freys?
  • In truth, Roose has already committed himself to Tywin’s plan, and Tywin’s plan calls for Robb to suffer a worse fate than bending the knee
  • That’s why Roose says they won’t be besieged: he knows Tywin is not going to march against Robb, but instead work through Roose as a proxy
  • That’s also why he gives the order to send men to Duskendale. This is a huge red flag on reread, confirming that Roose has already sold Robb out
  • Roose is lying that these orders come from Robb; he will tell Robb in ASOS that Robett Glover and Helman Tallhart acted of their own accord
  • As we’ll see in ASOS, Duskendale is a trap. Gregor Clegane cuts off their retreat, kills Helman Tallhart, and wipes out most of the Northmen
  • Why is this significant? Because these are men unlikely to follow Roose’s lead at the Red Wedding. Same goes for those killed at the Ruby Ford
  • If those men survived, Stark loyalists would have a numerical edge. Now they don’t, especially after the Freys join with Tywin and Roose
  • Clearly Roose knew from Tywin that Gregor would be present. It’s a chilling deal he cut, betraying his own countrymen by the thousands
  • That deal is possible because Roose took Harrenhal, acquiring control of his own communications, allowing for messages to and from Tywin
  • Blink and you miss it, but I think we see one of Tywin’s birds arrive at Harrenhal in the very next scene from this chapter:
    • As Arya crossed the yard to the bathhouse, she spied a raven circling down toward the rookery, and wondered where it had come from and what message it carried. Might be it's from Robb, come to say it wasn't true about Bran and Rickon.
  • Later, Arya will prepare papers, quill and ink for Roose Bolton -- the paper, quill and ink that Roose will use to negotiate with Tywin Lannister to betray the Starks.
  • That’s the bitter irony of Arya’s role in “liberating” Harrenhal: she inadvertently created the circumstance by which Tywin’s ravens could reach Roose Bolton.
  • And now those birds are coming and going, and Arya is inadvertently assisting with the planning for the Red Wedding.
  • The Freys haven’t committed themselves to anything yet. Roose has, which is why he oh-so-symbolically goes hunting for wolves
  • As he tells Qyburn: one king may be terrible, but four? Four means men like Roose can play one side against the other, to their own advantage
  • Roose fits into the rogues’ gallery of Harrenhal perfectly. He could be Danelle Lothston bathing in blood; we know from ADWD that like Gargon the Guest, he makes use of the lord’s right to the first night
  • You can tell how much fun George is having writing Roose as a character: his sardonic asides, his terrible smiles. Pure supervillain energy
  • Having come off our most recent Fevre Dream episode which prominently features Damon Julian, you can’t help but see the same sort of creative energy George had when writing these supervillains.
  • The smiles, the sophisticated manners, the cold brutality, etc. It’s all there.
  • But Damon Julian needed Sourbilly Tipton to do the tasks beneath him. Is Qyburn occupying a similar character archetype here sending and receiving messages from the Red Keep?
  • I try to shy away from the tinfoil side of things, but you had brought up the wolf hunt as metaphor from earlier, and I wonder if Roose and Qyburn were speaking in code here with Roose tiring of the Starks and Qyburn cautioning Roose that it might not be safe to go after the Starks.
  • Even if it’s not code, it’s a potent metaphor for what Roose will do in hunting Starks and how that will ultimately prove his undoing come The Winds of Winter.
  • Regardless, I loved your point from earlier that Roose is using this strategy session as a sensing session for the Freys.
  • It’s like he’s feeling them out to see if they might be open to betrayal, but they haven’t committed to betraying Robb yet.
  • They know they want to be on the winning side, echoing the Late Lord Frey showing up at the Trident after the battle was decided.
  • But they aren’t there yet as they don’t have a good reason (in their minds) to openly betray Robb.
  • That reason, unfortunately, will arrive later in this chapter.
  • Here, it almost seems like Tywin and Roose are exchanging birds back and forth, and Roose Bolton has the Freys in this chamber, because Tywin and Roose had the idea of making the Freys a part of the betrayal.
  • Roose Bolton or Tywin Lannister thought maybe the Freys might be amenable to being cut into their deal, and here the Freys seem amenable.
  • That speaks to something else: if Robb Stark never dishonored the Freys by marrying Jeyne Westerling, would the Freys have gone ahead with the Red Wedding anyways?
  • It’s clear here that the Freys wanted Robb to surrender, but would Robb have actually surrendered to the Lannisters even with Stannis losing on the Blackwater?
  • As we’ll find out in the Blackwater, Robb has no plans to surrender. He’ll keep fighting -- if only to reclaim the North from the Ironborn
  • So, the sense I get from these dozen Freys is yes, they probably would have done the Red Wedding if Robb refused to give up.
  • The “dishonoring” then serves as a pretext to something they would have done anyways to avoid being on the losing side.
• Who are you? (Who, who?)
  • So where’s Arya herself in all this? As I said earlier, George has to wrap up her character arc in this book as well as trace the fallout from the capture of Harrenhal and the Battle of Blackwater
  • Arya, as she says, feels more sad than angry. All the furious will-to-power represented by Jaqen’s three wishes vanished when he did
  • He gave her mastery over death. She was the ghost of Harrenhal! Now, she can only wonder if the dead speak a language she can’t hear
  • Like you said earlier, her fortunes have improved, strictly speaking. But that brings her no relief. She could have Amabel killed for threatening her, she thinks. It’s an empty prospect. Violence is no longer cathartic for her
  • This sense of grief, Harrenhal as a perpetually refilled graveyard, only becomes harder to bear when Arya hears that Bran and Rickon are dead
  • The dramatic irony is perfect. We want to reach into the story to comfort Arya, to tell her that Theon is lying and her brothers live, but we can’t
  • Arya can’t even react to the news, lest she give her identity away. She has to stand there like a statue as the pain devastates her inside
  • She’s lost her family, again, and not for the last time. Her other brother Robb is the shining Stark standard in her head: he’ll beat the Lannisters, she thinks to herself, and he wouldn’t let anyone kill Bran and Rickon
  • But now she has to reckon with powerlessness: Robb is hundreds of miles away, and Bran and Rickon were defenseless. The cruel realities of war
  • The news reawakens Arya’s desire for fire and blood. She’s glad to hear Roose order the castle of Darry sacked and burned. After all, that’s where Mycah died, and where both Stark sisters lost their wolves
  • But it’s also the castle which has changed hands three times before Robett and Helman take the castle: Darry to Lannister, Lannister to Darry, Darry back to Lannister.
  • And recall what happened the last time when the castle was taken as Brynden Tully recounted to Catelyn in her first chapter:
    • “Darry men recaptured their lord's keep but held it less than a fortnight before Gregor Clegane descended on them and put the whole garrison to the sword, even their lord.”
  • And now it’s been taken again, and the garrison is all going to be executed  by the good guys of ASOIAF.
  • Castle Darry and Harrehal reflect two themes that George repeatedly punches at his reader:
    • Stark, Tully or Lannister banners don’t differentiate good or evil.
      • It’s the men underneath those banners, the ones giving the orders that make that distinction.
    • Secondly, that war makes beasts of us all.
  • “It deserves to burn.” Sansa thought the same thing about the Sept of Baelor where their father was executed. It’s the need to give our sorrow structure and meaning, to see our grief reflected on the landscape, that ends up creating more death, more sorrow, more grief, and around we go
  • What else is Arya supposed to feel? Who else is she supposed to be? She’s been wearing a mask for so long. Is this my home now, she wonders? Arya is like an undercover agent who’s been working too long
  • She wants Darry to burn to be rid of her grief, but Winterfell, the source of her love, seems to be lost to her, and with it her name: Arya Stark
  • Is she condemned to be Nan of Harrenhal forever? No family, no home? George gives us a paragraph of Arya hard at work, accepting this life
  • Then she spots a familiar word on a map. Riverrun. Her grandfather’s castle. She’s a Tully as well as a Stark, after all
  • Riverrun now replaces Winterfell as Arya’s destination. She will spend all of the next book trying and failing to get there
  • This newfound inspiration leads her to another symbol of home: the castle godswood, the one place Arya can be alone, and so, be herself
  • Here, she can practice the moves Syrio taught her. Here, she can recite her kill list: a keystone of her identity, memory filtered through vengeance
  • As she says their names, she reaffirms her own. Sunlight and shadow come together; she prays to the old gods with Jaqen H’ghar’s words
  • The old gods give answer, first with the howl of a wolf and then the ghostly voice of her father, as if Arya is Hamlet, facing her own indecision
  • It’s unclear whether this is a genuinely magical moment or a purely psychological one. Arya feeling dizzy could point in either direction
  • Regardless of where Ned’s voice is coming from, its message is clear. You will wither and die on your own. Only the family, the pack, survives winter
  • The war has alienated Arya from herself: “I’m not even me now.” The pack has been scattered to the winds. How can she find her way home?
  • Ned’s ghost tells Arya that she carries Winterfell with her everywhere she goes, in her blood, just like she carries him with her: the memory of love. She must live up to the pack from afar, being as brave as Robb
  • As Ned told Bran, it is only when you are afraid that your courage is truly tested. Arya must face her fears in order to grow up
  • And so Arya breaks her wooden sword. She is a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth; she must put aside childish things to forge her adult identity
  • Your point about whether it’s Ned’s voice in the weirwood or a psychological projection by Arya is very much George hitting his sweet spot of ambiguity building towards one of my favorite character moments in the series.
  • Though I love every scene with Roose Bolton in it, this is the scene that makes this chapter my favorite Arya chapter in the books, because it brings all the character beats in Arya’s ACOK arc together.
  • She’s been hearing the calling of the wolves since her earlier chapters. Recall in Arya III how she meets a wolf in the woods.
  • Then in Arya IV, the howling of the wolves and probably Arya’s warging of Nymeria wakes her and warns her that Amory Lorch is approaching the holdfast.
  • Then from Arya VI to VIII, she loses her wolfish identity becoming a mouse and then a ghost under the boot of the Lannisters.
  • Here, she’s reclaiming her wolfish/Stark identity and is done playing with wooden teeth and toys.
  • In a way, this reminds me of what Catelyn told Robb back in AGOT:
    • "Be certain," Catelyn told her son, "or go home and take up that wooden sword again.”
  • Time to put away childish things and take up steel again, time to stop being a kid and be an adult.
  • And yet this moment is fraught with the bitter as well as the sweet.
  • Arya is ten years old and is deciding to become an adult here. She’s leaving childhood behind while she’s still a child.
  • That’s quite bittersweet as Arya crosses the threshold of childhood to adulthood. The innocence of childhood fades and the reality of adulthood arises.
  • What makes it more bitter is war has made her an adult far before her time.
  • But there’s even more bittersweet found in Arya becoming a wolf.
  • We were having a conversation in the NotASlack recently about the titles of the books, and we were talking about the now-abandoned title of George’s final book in the series: A Time for Wolves.
  • That title invokes the sweet part of the Starks returning to the world after having been all-but-extinguished from it in the main books.
  • So, the Starks will ultimately triumph, but is a time for wolves a good thing?
  • We’ll see in Arya’s ADWD chapters how she wargs Nymeria and attacks and kills a shepherd, his dogs and his flock of sheep.
  • Deciding to shed her mouse and ghost identities to become a wolf and her desire to join her pack, her family are good.
  • And yet, wolves, by their nature, are dangerous predators, and they are man-eaters when necessity forces them to do so.
  • Arya’s embrace of her wolfish identity will coincide nicely with her growing power to warg Nymeria.
  • Her very next chapter (her first chapter in ASOS) closes with Arya warging Nymeria and slaughtering the Bloody Mummers pursuing her, Gendry and Hot Pie.
  • That seems a good thing, and yet in ADWD, Arya wargs Nymeria again as her and her pack kill a shepherd, his dogs and his flock.
  • I’m reminded of the closing lines to Sicario:
    • “You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now."
  • George wants us to feel that “fuck yeah” moment when Arya declares that she’s done with wooden teeth and also to interweave a gray ambiguity to the whole moment.
  • It’s among George’s best character work, but to really explore this dynamic in A Storm of Swords, Arya has to not be here.
• Escaping Harrenhal
  • In order to reclaim herself, Arya has to escape Harrenhal--not only because her family waits at Riverrun, but because Roose is moving on
  • I love the dialogue scene in which Roose confirms that he plans to give both Harrenhal and Arya over to Vargo Hoat when he marches back north
  • It communicates both Roose’s cruelty and Arya’s courage as the two probe each other. Arya has to overcome her fears to speak up at all
  • She wants to know if Roose will take her with him. If so, she doesn’t have to escape; Roose would inadvertently deliver her into her mother’s arms
  • But Roose won’t be doing that. He doesn’t care what happens to Nan, any more than he cared what happened to Lucan, or Harra, or Pia
  • It’s also Roose Bolton not caring what happens to his brand new disposable asset: the Bloody Mummers.
  • No one in Westeros or the fandom is going to shed a tear that these bumblefuck monsters are about to get got.
  • And yet, Roose Bolton gifting Harrenhal to Vargo Hoat reads similarly to Euron Greyjoy’s “poisoned gifts” that he doles out to Victarion’s captains and to Victarion himself.
  • It speaks to how Roose will shed every human being who stands in the way of his rise to the top: from the lowest smallfolk to a sellsword company to the King in the North.
  • As Arya says, Roose reacts to her speaking up as though his dinner is talking back to him. That’s how Roose sees the smallfolk: animals, prey
  • It never occurred to him that his cupbearer might want to know what’s going to happen to her, let alone that she’d have the nerve to ask him
  • It’s pure dehumanization, and you can imagine what it must be like for Roose’s servants at the Dreadfort, taught that they don’t matter
  • Both what Roose says--I’m leaving you to the Bloody Mummers--and how he says it--like he’ll brutalize her for asking--get across the same message
  • Arya can’t stay here as things get even worse. As she leaves Roose’s chambers, the guards tell her there’s a storm coming: a storm of swords
  • That dark wind has brought dark wings with dark words. Arya sees the message arrive and hears the Freys fighting. Elmar says they’ve been dishonored and he has to marry someone else. As rereaders, we know what’s up here: the Freys got word that Robb married Jeyne Westerling
  • George times this out carefully. The Freys were already spooked, but their goal was to convince Robb to bend the knee. Only now does the plan change to outright betrayal and murder; they cross the line to join Roose
  • As you were saying, there’s a terrific irony here in that neither Elmar nor Arya realize that they are betrothed to each other. When Arya says she hopes his princess dies, she’s talking about herself!
  • She lashes out in response to Elmar expressing the same bigotry as Roose: we are worth more than you. No one cares if a serving girl’s brothers die. Nan doesn’t matter, only Arya does. By the same token, no one up north would care about the miller’s boys, only Bran and Rickon
  • By wishing death upon Elmar’s princess, Arya is shedding the very Stark identity she is seeking to reclaim, but doing so in a way that demonstrates she’s not more important than anyone else just for being a Stark. Arya wants to get home because she loves her family, not to be a princess
  • You can read this line as similar to Arya’s feelings about Darry as you put so well.
  • Like Darry burning as a means of washing away her grief over Winterfell, she’s wishing death on Elmar’s princess to wash the grief of her dead brothers away.
  • How ironic that both Arya is the princess in question and that Bran and Rickon are very much alive.
  • Ironically, she has to use her new face as Roose Bolton’s cupbearer to get the job done. She has to use the info she obtained from Roose to convince Gendry and Hot Pie to leave with her, and she has to use her status in order to obtain horses and get through the gate
  • At every turn, her self-actualization is tied to violence. She knows they’ll kill the stableboy for helping her. She doesn’t directly kill this one like she did at King’s Landing, but he’ll die because of her all the same
  • She does directly kill the guard at the gate. This is a significant moment in Arya’s story, as she crosses the threshold in more ways than one
  • Arya killed the stableboy in King’s Landing and the Lannister soldiers at the village by the God’s Eye out of self-defense. She killed through Jaqen indirectly, out of a sense of justice. This is premeditated killing of a man who is not himself shown to be directly guilty of any particular crime
  • Arya’s not killing him out of bloodlust, of course. She’s trying to get away from violent powerful people. But she is a different person because of it
  • It’s no coincidence that Arya uses Jaqen’s coin to fool the guard, nor that she whispers “valar morghulis” as he dies. This is the product of his tutelage; she didn’t go with the assassin, but he made her more like him
  • It’s also no coincidence why Arya X occurs right after Dany V and the assassination attempt on Dany.
  • There, the Sorrowful Man told Dany “I am so sorry” as she opened the box with the manticore within.
  • An ancient order of assassins telling the person they try to kill or succeed in killing the mantra of their order is good structure (even as this slaps and the Sorrowful Man attempt feels like a dude)
  • But that coin that Arya holds: she describes it earlier in this chapter as having queer writing on one side of it and a “face with all its features rubbed off.”
  • Of course, the features aren’t actually rubbed off. That face doesn’t have any features.
  • But in another sense, the features of the person who becomes a Faceless Man are rubbed off.
  • As Arya will learn in AFFC, she must forget Arya Stark to become no one. Her Stark, wolfish identity she decides to fully reclaim at chapter’s end must be rubbed off.
  • That becomes the feature of Arya’s story as a Faceless Man: whether she’s Arya or No One.
  • But the origins of that story are found here in Harrenhal with her earlier thoughts about whether she was to remain Nan and stay at Harrenhal forever or rejoin her pack.
  • Same goes for the castle itself. Harrenhal is a black hole of evil, corrupting everyone in their pursuit of power, whether political, magical, or both
  • Arya was beaten down by that power, then reveled in claiming part of it for herself. Now she only leaves by feeding it more blood. Does she really escape Harrenhal? Does anyone? It remakes her in its image, a ghost
  • Arya is walking away from childhood, as with her wooden sword, as with the cat she refuses to chase like she did in the good old days
  • This chapter brings all of Arya’s selves together. She prays to the old gods with Jaqen’s words; she uses his coin to rejoin the pack; she holds onto some of Syrio’s lessons and discards the rest. That’s how maturation works. Arya wanders the Tower of Ghosts, trying to put her ghosts to rest
  • Hot Pie’s shock speaks to the weight of this moment. But as Arya says, to the reader as much as Hot Pie: what did you think she was going to do?
  • Her Stark self is intimately tied to death. She hears wolves calling her; she must kill a Northman in order to join them. The pack survives by hunting; all Arya can hope is that the rain, the storm of swords, washes her clean

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Given the context of Season 8, this line: If I had wings I could fly back to Winterfell and see for myself. And if it was true, I'd just fly away, fly up past the moon and the shining stars, and see all the things in Old Nan's stories, dragons and sea monsters and the Titan of Braavos, and maybe I wouldn't ever fly back unless I wanted to seems like foreshadowing for Arya’s Braavosi arc as well as her endgame in the series.

Arya was lying to Gendry about Vargo Hoat cutting off everyone’s limbs, but doesn’t know how right she’ll turn out to be. A cook lets in Gregor as revenge for losing his foot, and then Gregor wipes everyone out. Arya saved Gendry and Hot Pie after all!

George reuses the “Someone is dead talking through a weirwood” again in Theon’s penultimate chapter in ADWD when Theon thinks he sees Bran’s face in the weirwood and hears his voice -- except this time, this is actually magical. That almost certainly is Bran talking through the weirwood to Theon.

Theory/Discussion

What do we think was in that book Roose burned?

GRRM's been asked about this in the past. As I recall, his answer was that it was just a book, and the scene was there to show the sort of man Bolton was. If something wasn't useful to him, he'd be willing to destroy it just to deny it to anyone else. Even if it was old, or rare, or valuable. - Elio Garcia Jr, 2008

Conclusion

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• Join us next week for ACOK Sansa VIII, as Tywin and the Tyrells officially take over in King’s Landing.