Episode 162: A STORM OF SWORDS, ARYA I-III: "On the Road Again" 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 sixty-second episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “On the Road Again: An Analysis of ASOS, Arya I, II & III,” in which

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Question

True Hedge Knight, Ser Andrew Labradork of the Isle of Faeces, a Sworn Sword patron, asks:

I’ve been considering the Faceless Men’s religion of worshipping the Many Faced God, with the Gods of Death around planetos being considered different aspects or representations of that God. So far, so weird, but then your episodes on The Forsaken got me thinking about their relationship with Euron.

The link between the Faceless Men and Euron is mentioned only once (that I can think of, but it’s a significant moment in the full introduction to him in the narrative, the assassination of Balon. Euron’s motivations for using a Faceless Man to kill Balon are shrouded in mystery, but behind that I wonder if there is a lot more to the story.

Euron is clearly an architect and bringer of death and potentially apocalypse through His own action and potentially bringing The Others down on Westeros. But I wonder if he could be considered a kind of Messiah to the Faceless Men as a servant of the Great Other, should that entity exist? Has he tricked or manipulated them into serving his cause?

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Yes indeed. Our patreon and our patrons are fantastic people. But enough about patreon (patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF). When we last left Arya, she had escaped from Harrenhal, committing her first (but not last) murder. Let’s find out how Arya and her companions are doing out in the woods in this synopsis of ASOS, Arya I, II and III!

Synopsis

Arya I

The sky was as black as the walls of Harrenhal behind them, and the rain fell soft and steady, muffling the sound of their horses' hooves and running down their faces.

Well, well, well, naysayers, we did not forget about Arya Stark. Please submit your emails of apology to notacastasoiaf@gmail.com for accusing us of skipping Arya Stark’s ASOS chapters.

Arya and the boys move through the dark woods to the sound of wolves howling, knowing that Roose Bolton had probably sent men after them. Arya judges that the Boltons would know fairly soon who had killed that guardsman. Of course, Roose wouldn’t come himself. Steelshanks Walton might come or the Bloody Mummers. That would be bad. Arya knows the mummers would cut off her hands and feet for running. But so far, she hadn’t seen anyone.

The boys follow Arya’s direction as she had the map. The rain falls on and off as Arya feels like maybe she should be more afraid than she was? She’s only ten after all.

The rain had washed the guard's blood off her fingers, she wore a sword across her back, wolves were prowling through the dark like lean grey shadows, and Arya Stark was unafraid. Fear cuts deeper than swords, she whispered under her breath, the words that Syrio Forel had taught her, and Jaqen's words too, valar morghulis.

Arya moves them at a steady pace up and down rolling hills. Gendry’s horse loses its footing and dumps Gendry, but he’s not hurt. They come upon wolves feasting on a doe, and Arya tells everyone to back off slowly. They come up on a burned village, moving through the burned hovels and dead people. She repeats her prayer of the names she’s going to kill, ending with valar morghulis and touching Jaqen’s coin.

The next day is “a day without dawn” in that it’s just gray all around without sight of the sun. They eat some breakfast, and Gendry asks where they’re going. They’re going north. Does Arya know which way is north? She points in a direction. How does she know this? Because the moss is growing on one side of the trees. That is south. Why do they want to go north? Because they want to get to the Trident. They can follow the Trident up to Riverrun. Hot Pie looks at the map and asks which castle is Riverrun. Arya points it out, and Hot Pie is curious at Arya’s ability to read and why they’d want to go to Riverrun.

She nodded. "We'll be safe once we reach Riverrun."

"We will? Why?"

Because Riverrun is my grandfather's castle, and my brother Robb will be there, she wanted to say. She bit her lip and rolled up the map. "We just will. But only if we get there." She was the first one back in the saddle. It made her feel bad to hide the truth from Hot Pie, but she did not trust him with her secret. Gendry knew, but that was different. Gendry had his own secret, though even he didn't seem to know what it was.

Arya picks up the pace, galloping along the hilly terrain. Occasionally she sends Gendry and Arya ahead while she doubles back to try to confuse the trail. She thinks they’re moving too slow, and then she sees wolves. She ahooos them for a bit, and the big wolf howls back.

Hot Pie starts to complain about how sore his ass is and how tired he is.

Arya looked at Gendry. "If he falls off, who do you think will find him first, the wolves or the Mummers?"

"The wolves," said Gendry. "Better noses."

Hot Pie opened his mouth and closed it. He did not fall off his horse. The rain began again a short time later. They still had not seen so much as a glimpse of the sun. It was growing colder, and pale white mists were threading between the pines and blowing across the bare burned fields.

Gendry’s having a hard time too, but Arya knows he’s too stubborn to complain. Gendry and Hot Pie were city boys and didn’t grow up riding horses like Arya did. She knows she would be better off alone, but she won’t leave them. They’re her pack, and she won’t let Roose Bolton take her or her pack even if Roose was Robb’s bannerman. He frightens Arya.

They get to a river which Hot Pie thinks is the Trident. Arya doesn’t think so as this is a small river. They hadn’t come far enough to reach the Trident. But Hot Pie insists that this is the Trident given how far they’d ridden and how they hadn’t stopped. Gendry asks to see the map, and Arya unrolls it. She thinks they’re someplace closer to Harrenhal than the Trident. They have miles to go. They argue for a bit about where they are, but Arya makes the decision to cross this river and keep heading north. She’s not sure if they follow her until she hears them splashing behind her. They cross another shallower river which Arya insists isn’t the Trident to no one’s argument.

As the sun goes down, Hot Pie wants to stop to make a fire. NO! Arya and Gendry yell together. Okay, maybe they sleep? Hot Pie has blisters, you see. Nope. They move on. But even as they move on, Arya feels exhausted too. She needs sleep, but she’s afraid of finding Shagwell, Urswyck, Rorge, Biter and Septon Utt standing over them when she wakes. So, she rides on, but she finds her eyes drooping, and suddenly Gendry is waking her, telling her that her horse was riding in a circle. She needs to sleep. Gendry will take the first watch. She asks after Hot Pie, and Gendry points out that he’s already passed out with a wedge of cheese in his hand, probably falling asleep between bites.

So, Arya decides to stop arguing and get some rest. She lays down, takes her sword out to lay next to her and starts her prayer:

"Ser Gregor," she whispered, yawning. "Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and . . . the Tickler . . . the Hound . . . "

Her dreams were red and savage. The Mummers were in them, four at least, a pale Lyseni and a dark brutal axeman from Ib, the scarred Dothraki horse lord called Iggo and a Dornishman whose name she never knew. On and on they came, riding through the rain in rusting mail and wet leather, swords and axe clanking against their saddles. They thought they were hunting her, she knew with all the strange sharp certainty of dreams, but they were wrong. She was hunting them.

She dreams that she’s a wolf. Which wolf? I wonder. She can smell the fear in the horses and men. The Lyseni’s mount rears, and the mummers yell as the wolves descend on them in the dark and rain. The battle is short as fleeing Bloody Mummers die with wolves at their throats. The only who holds his ground is a Dothraki Bloody Mummer with bells in his hair.

Filled with rage, she leapt onto his back, knocking him head-first from his saddle. Her jaws locked on his arm as they fell, her teeth sinking through the leather and wool and soft flesh. When they landed she gave a savage jerk with her head and ripped the limb loose from his shoulder. Exulting, she shook it back and forth in her mouth, scattering the warm red droplets amidst the cold black rain.

ARYA II

Sometime later, Arya is in a garden, looking for vegetables when she hears singing. Arya hopes it’s not the Bloody Mummers or Boltons. It was unfair, too, because they had finally made it to the safety of the Trident.

Only why would the Mummers be singing?

The song came drifting up the river from somewhere beyond the little rise to the east. "Off to Gulltown to see the fair maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho . . . "

Arya and Hot Pie can hear the singing, but Gendry is asleep. The man continues to sing, and Arya hears a wood harp playing too. Arya tells Hot Pie to wake Gendry up as the man continues to sing. The voices get closer, and Arya tells Hot Pie that they need to hide. But where? Arya tells Gendry and Hot Pie to take the horses behind the cottage; she’s going up a tree. She’ll kill them if they come snooping.

Everyone goes to their hiding spots, and Arya prays that the old gods of the trees will hear her prayer. But then a horse whickers, and the man stops singing and asks if that was a horse. Then Arya hears a second voice. Another man replies that there’s something behind the wall. What might it be? A bear or a wolf or a lion? Anyways, the archer should be ready to shoot some shafts over the wall, and whatever’s hiding will come running. But what if it’s an honest man or woman?

"An honest man would come out and show us his face. Only an outlaw would skulk and hide."

"Aye, that's so. Go on and loose your shafts, then."

Arya sprang to her feet. "Don't!" She showed them her sword. There were three, she saw. Only three. Syrio could fight more than three, and she had Hot Pie and Gendry to stand with her, maybe. But they're boys, and these are men.

Arya sees that it’s three men: a fifty year old singer, a big soldier type with bad teeth and a young archer. The singer tells Arya to put up the sword as Anguy the Archer will put arrows through her quickly. Arya finds that assertion dubious and tells the men to head on down the road. She won’t kill them if they do as she says. The men laugh at Arya and tell her to put away the sword, and they’ll get Arya to some place safe. She’ll even get a hot meal. Can’t have girls out here by themselves. But she’s not by herself. Gendry and Hot Pie come springing out from behind the cottage. The singer comments that it’s now three. Where did they steal those horses from? Arya says they didn’t steal, but the singer then asks what the names are. Hot Pie immediately answers that he’s Hot Pie.

"Aye, and good for you." The man smiled. "It's not every day I meet a lad with such a tasty name. And what would your friends be called, Mutton Chop and Squab?"

Gendry scowled down from his saddle. "Why should I tell you my name? I haven't heard yours."

"Well, as to that, I'm Tom of Sevenstreams, but Tom Sevenstrings is what they call me, or Tom o' Sevens. This great lout with the brown teeth is Lem, short for Lemoncloak. It's yellow, you see, and Lem's a sour sort. And young fellow me lad over there is Anguy, or Archer as we like to call him."

Lem Lemoncloak then asks who they are, and Arya says she’s Squab. Gendry is “The Bull.” Interesting names. Anyways, did you escape from Lord Bolton’s kitchens? Arya is uneasy at this question and asks how they know that. Because Arya is wearing the Bolton badge under her cloak.

She had forgotten that for an instant. Beneath her cloak, she still wore her fine page's doublet, with the flayed man of the Dreadfort sewn on her breast. "Don't call me little one!"

"Why not?" said Lem. "You're little enough."

"I'm bigger than I was. I'm not a child." Children didn't kill people, and she had.

Hot Pie says they’re not a part of Team Bolton. They were at Harrenhal before Roose came. So, they’re Lannisters? Nope. They’re nobody’s men. Who are these jabronis?

Anguy the Archer said, "We're king's men."

Arya frowned. "Which king?"

"King Robert," said Lem, in his yellow cloak.

"That old drunk?" said Gendry scornfully. "He's dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows that."

"Aye, lad," said Tom Sevenstrings, "and more's the pity." He plucked a sad chord from his harp.

Arya has doubts that these are king’s men. They’re outlaws. King’s men have horses. But Hot Pie is less suspicious, stating that they’re on their way to Riverrun to Arya’s annoyance. It’s a long ride, Tom O’Sevens says. Maybe they want a hot meal at an inn before they get to Riverrun? Arya is sorely tempted by this, but she knows not to trust these guys. She asks how far the inn is. Two miles or maybe a league. They have friends at the inn. Friends? Yes. Friends. The innkeep named Sharna, Husband and a boy. All Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie need to do is bring their stolen vegetables from Old Pate’s garden to the inn for dinner.

Arya is outraged. She didn’t steal. Oh? Is the farm hers? Tom knew Old Pate. Here, Anguy, show Arya where he’s buried.

The archer's hand moved quicker than Arya would have believed. His shaft went hissing past her head within an inch of her ear and buried itself in the trunk of the willow behind her. By then the bowman had a second arrow notched and drawn. She'd thought she understood what Syrio meant by quick as a snake and smooth as summer silk, but now she knew she hadn't. The arrow thrummed behind her like a bee. "You missed," she said.

"More fool you if you think so," said Anguy. "They go where I send them."

"That they do," agreed Lem Lemoncloak.

Arya realizes she doesn’t have a chance of fighting them; so, she reluctantly tells them they’ll go to the inn. But the men need to walk in front of them. Sure, whatever. Tom tells Anguy to pick up the arrows. They won’t be needing them after all.

So, Arya sheathes her sword, tells Hot Pie to grab the cabbages and carrots, and they’re off to the inn. Tom O’Sevens sings the whole time they’re on their way to the inn. He asks if they know any songs as Anguy’s songs are marching songs a hundred verses long and tedious.

"Singing is stupid," said Arya. "Singing makes noise. We heard you a long way off. We could have killed you."

Tom's smile said he did not think so. "There are worse things than dying with a song on your lips."

"If there were wolves hereabouts, we'd know it," groused Lem. "Or lions. These are our woods."

"You never knew we were there," said Gendry.

"Now, lad, you shouldn't be so certain of that," said Tom. "Sometimes a man knows more than he says."

Hot Pie knows a song. The Bear and the Maiden Fair! Tom starts to play it on the harp, and Hot Pie sings, and Arya is shocked that Hot Pie can sing well. He never did anything well … besides bake.

They cross a stream, Anguy brings down a duck with an arrow, and Lem retrieves it, complaining about being in the muck and water. Maybe they can get the duck cooked with lemons? But they carry on with Hot Pie and Tom singing. The music makes the trip seem short, and they come upon the inn: a friendly inn! It has an arbor, apple trees, a garden, a dock and hey! A boat! Maybe they take the boat? Maybe. But Arya doesn’t know much about sailing. Neither does Gendry.

The party dismounts, and Arya notices no horses in the stable, but there is fresh manure. Gendry volunteers to guard the horses while Arya and Hot Pie eat. But Tom says they don’t need to do that. It’s not like they’re going to steal the horses. Uh-huh. Gendry is staying.

The painted sign above the door showed a picture of some old king on his knees. Inside was the common room, where a very tall ugly woman with a knobby chin stood with her hands on her hips, glaring. "Don't just stand there, boy," she snapped. "Or are you a girl? Either one, you're blocking my door. Get in or get out. Lem, what did I tell you about my floor? You're all mud."

Wait a second. This inn seems familiar somehow. Anyways, Anguy presents the duck to the woman, and the woman calls for Husband to come. Up the stairs comes a short man with a lumpy face and yellow skin. Sharna commands husband to prepare the duck for a future meal. Anguy asks if they have lemons, and Sharna is like, uh, this isn’t Dorne. They have no lemons or lemon trees to prepare the duck. Anyways, they’re not going to cook the duck now. They have rabbit. Either grilled if they want it quick or stewed if they are interested in the rabbit tasting good. Arya offers up the cabbages and carrots, and they are accepted eagerly.

Ale is then served as the water tastes like dead men. Tom sings a song about a plain innkeep’s wife to Lem’s annoyance who just wishes Tom would stfu instead of risk their dinner. Arya asks if Hot Pie can sail a boat, but Hot Pie is too enamored of the ale and rabbit to hear her. Anguy toasts the king, and Lem says “yeah, all twelve o’ them.” Husband comes through the front door to say that there are strange horses in the stable? Yep, three better horses than the ones Husband gave away.

Husband dropped the vegetables on a table, annoyed. "I never gave them away. I sold them for a good price, and got us a skiff as well. Anyways, you lot were supposed to get them back."

I knew they were outlaws, Arya thought, listening. Her hand went under the table to touch the hilt of her dagger, and make sure it was still there. If they try to rob us, they'll be sorry.

Lem says the three Husband told them they were coming never came their way. Besides, Husband could have taken them all, right? Not by himself with the boy. Sharna was off playing midwife to a woman that either Anguy or Tom impregnated.

But Arya smells food from the kitchen, and it makes her hungry. Bread is served, but it’s not very good: hard, thick and burned. Hot Pie says they over-kneaded the dough. But then Tom sits across from Arya and puts a piece of paper in front of Arya.

She looked at it suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Three golden dragons. We need to buy those horses."

Arya looked at him warily. "They're our horses."

"Meaning you stole them yourselves, is that it? No shame in that, girl. War makes thieves of many honest folk." Tom tapped the folded parchment with his finger. "I'm paying you a handsome price. More than any horse is worth, if truth be told."

Hot Pie says these aren’t gold dragons. Only writing. True, but it’s a coupon worth the gold. After the war is done, they can present this to the king, and he’ll repay them.

Arya pushed back from the table and got to her feet. "You're no king's men, you're robbers."

"If you'd ever met a true robber, you'd know they do not pay, not even in paper. It's not for us we take your horses, child, it's for the good of the realm, so we can get about more quickly and fight the fights that need fighting. The king's fights. Would you deny the king?"

Everyone watches Arya, and Arya knows they’ll take the horses regardless. So, she tries to barter. She’ll take the skiff instead of the paper in exchange for the horses. They just need to show her how to work it. Tom and Anguy laugh at this, and even though Arya wants to scream at them, she starts to smile.

But then Gendry shouts that riders are coming. A dozen soldiers. Hot Pie jumps up, but the men act nonchalant. There’s food coming. No reason to be spilling beer. They’re with the king’s men. Arya tries to grab her sword, but Lem catches her wrist.

Again! Arya thought. It's happening again, like it happened in the village, with Chiswyck and Raff and the Mountain That Rides. They were going to steal her sword and turn her back into a mouse. Her free hand closed around her tankard, and she swung it at Lem's face. The ale sloshed over the rim and splashed into his eyes, and she heard his nose break and saw the spurt of blood. When he roared his hands went to his face, and she was free. "Run!" she screamed, bolting.

Lem catches her quickly and pulls her off her feet and tells her stop. Gendry tries to help Arya, but Tom steps in front of him with a dagger in hand. It was too late anyways. The horses were outside, and then men come through the door. A Tyroshi with a green beard, two crossbowmen, a one-eyed man in a rusty pothelm, a spearman, an old man with a limp, a Braavosi sellsword and … wait, a second.

"Harwin?" Arya whispered. It was! Under the beard and the tangled hair was the face of Hullen's son, who used to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and Robb, and drink too much on feast days. He was thinner, harder somehow, and at Winterfell he had never worn a beard, but it was him-her father's man. "Harwin!" Squirming, she threw herself forward, trying to wrench free of Lem's iron grip. "It's me," she shouted, "Harwin, it's me, don't you know me, don't you?" The tears came, and she found herself weeping like a baby, just like some stupid little girl. "Harwin, it's me!"

Harwin looks at Arya and asks how Arya knows her. Did she serve Lord Bolton or something?

For a moment she did not know how to answer. She'd had so many names. Had she only dreamed Arya Stark? "I'm a girl," she sniffed. "I was Lord Bolton's cupbearer but he was going to leave me for the goat, so I ran off with Gendry and Hot Pie. You have to know me! You used to lead my pony, when I was little."

His eyes went wide. "Gods be good," he said in a choked voice. "Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her."

"She broke my nose." Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. "Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?"

"The Hand's daughter." Harwin went to one knee before her. "Arya Stark, of Winterfell."

Man, that passage always gets me emotionally. So great!

Arya III

Later, Arya and everyone are on the road, and Arya tells Gendry that they’re moving in the wrong direction of the moss on the trees. They’re going south, not north. Ah, well that’s because they’re following the road. But Arya knows that they’ve been going south all day today and all day yesterday. Maybe they’re lost? Doubtful. Lem and Tom have been here for years. But Arya insists that they’re going the wrong way, but Gendry remains stubborn. And Gendry was Arya’s only friend here now that Hot Pie was gone.

Wait. Hot Pie is gone. Yup. Sharna had taken him in, and he’d decided to stay on. Maybe Arya will come visit Hot Pie after the war is done?

Arya didn't know if the war would ever be done, but she had nodded. "I'm sorry I beat you that time," she said. Hot Pie was stupid and craven, but he'd been with her all the way from King's Landing and she'd gotten used to him. "I broke your nose."

"You broke Lem's too." Hot Pie grinned. "That was good."

"Lem didn't think so," Arya said glumly. Then it was time to go. When Hot Pie asked if he might kiss milady's hand, she punched his shoulder. "Don't call me that. You're Hot Pie, and I'm Arry."

"I'm not Hot Pie here. Sharna just calls me Boy. The same as she calls the other boy. It's going to be confusing."

Arya misses Hot Pie, but Harwin had made up for Hot Pie’s absence. Arya tells Harwin what happened down in King’s Landing: about how his dad Hullen had died by the stables, how Yoren had helped him escape from King’s Landing, how they fled Harrenhal. She did leave out the part of killing the guardsmen and also about Jaqen H’ghar and the three deaths he’d given her. She couldn’t tell Harwin that. It would be like telling her own father how far she’d fallen.

In response, Harwin told Arya about what happened to Ned’s men after they departed King’s Landing. There were only six Winterfell men still alive after Gregor Clegane ambushed them on Tywin’s orders. The weird thing is that Jaime wasn’t aware of Tywin’s orders and had acted alone against Ned and Jory back in King’s Landing. With Jory dead and Ned wounded, he sent Beric Dondarrion ahead with twenty Stark and twenty Dondarrion men along with twenty others. But Gregor Clegane was waiting for them at the Mummer’s Ford and ambushed them. Gregor killed Raymun Darry and others died all around them. They started with sixty men, but by the end of the battle, they only had twenty left, and Lord Beric was very badly wounded. Thoros of Myr helped to … heal Beric from his wounds. But afterwards, Beric had a new purpose: they were going to keep fighting. But against whom?

Robert died then, and then Cersei’s kid was king. Tywin became Hand. The whole world went topsy-turvy. Some wanted to yield, but Beric refused to surrender.

“We were still king's men, he said, and these were the king's people the lions were savaging. If we could not fight for Robert, we would fight for them, until every man of us was dead. And so we did, but as we fought something queer happened. For every man we lost, two showed up to take his place. A few were knights or squires, of gentle birth, but most were common men-fieldhands and fiddlers and innkeeps, servants and shoemakers, even two septons. Men of all sorts, and women too, children, dogs . . . "

Dogs joined up? Yup, mean dogs. Arya wishes she had a mean dog, one that would kill lions. She did have a direwolf one time. Could a direwolf kill a lion?

It rains that afternoon, but Arya and the outlaws find shelter everywhere: in abandoned villages that turned out not to be abandoned. They eat food and drink ale that the people store up for them. Arya hears from one of the villagers that men were hunting the Kingslayer. But he’s in Riverrun jail? Nope. Escaped. This freaks Arya out, and everyone argues about whether it’s true or not. Greenbeard says they should tell Thoros so he can look into the flames so the BWB can find Jaime and hang him. No, no. They wouldn’t hang him … not without a trial first. Everyone laughs and Tom O’Sevens decides it’s time to SING:

The brothers of the Kingswood,

they were an outlaw band.

The forest was their castle,

but they roamed across the land.

No man's gold was safe from them,

nor any maiden's hand.

Oh, the brothers of the Kingswood,

that fearsome outlaw band . . .

Aryas listens to the song, but then falls asleep. She dreams of Winterfell, but it’s not a nice dream. Instead, the walls were always ahead of her, receding from her and wolves were all around her. When she looks at them, she tastes blood.

The next day, they keep moving south, and Arya says they’re really heading in the wrong direction this time. She’s sure of it. It’s not the moss this time. It’s the sun. Arya pulls out her map and shows them that Riverrun is between two rivers. And they’re away from the Trident now. Wellllll … yeah. They’re not going to Riverrun Lem says. Despairing, Arya realizes what her dream was about and how she should have let them steal their horses. Tom says no hard feelings, right? They’re not going to hurt her. The word of a liar. But Lem insists the BWB didn’t lie. They didn’t promise anything.

Arya begs them to take her to Riverrun. They’ll be rewarded, but Greenbeard states they’re taking Arya to Beric Dondarrion. Tom says Beric will do right by Arya, but Arya isn’t sure. She asks why she needs to see Beric.

"We bring him all our highborn captives," said Anguy.

Captive. Arya took a breath to still her soul. Calm as still water. She glanced at the outlaws on their horses, and turned her horse's head. Now, quick as a snake, she thought, as she slammed her heels into the courser's flank. Right between Greenbeard and Jack-Be-Lucky she flew, and caught one glimpse of Gendry's startled face as his mare moved out of her way. And then she was in the open field, and running.

Arya rides hard without direction, knowing she can find the Trident again. But the outlaws pursue her fast. She yells at her horse to run as swift as a deer. And Arya and the horse dash across fields. She turns and sees Anguy and Harwin behind her, and she urges her mount to go as fast as she possibly can. She leaps over dead trees, rides up hills, but Harwin and Anguy stay with her. She keeps riding, crossing a stream, going up another hill, going deeper into the woods. The woods slow Arya, and she knows she needs to get into the clear to give her castle-bred horse the ability to speed away. She keeps riding through the woods, getting caught by branches and freed, getting surprised by forest animals, crossing another stream … or was it the same stream? But then there’s a field ahead, and she kicks her horse into a gallop.

Run, she thought, run for Riverrun, run for home. Had she lost them? She took one quick look, and there was Harwin six yards back and gaining. No, she thought, no, he can't, not him, it isn't fair.

Both horses were lathered and flagging by the time he came up beside her, reached over, and grabbed her bridle. Arya was breathing hard herself then. She knew the fight was done. "You ride like a northman, milady," Harwin said when he'd drawn them to a halt. "Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember."

The look she gave him was full of hurt. "I thought you were my father's man."

"Lord Eddard's dead, milady. I belong to the lightning lord now, and to my brothers."

Arya asks what brothers Harwin means, and Lem mentions Anguy, Lem, Tom, Jack and Greenbeard. They’re not anti-Robb Stark. But they’re not fighting for Robb. They’re fighting for the smallfolk now. Arya understands. Harwin isn’t Robb’s man. Arya was a captive. She realizes she should have stayed with Hot Pie.

We could have taken the little boat and sailed it up to Riverrun. She had been better off as Squab. No one would take Squab captive, or Nan, or Weasel, or Arry the orphan boy. I was a wolf, she thought, but now I'm just some stupid little lady again.

"Will you ride back peaceful now," Harwin asked her, "or must I tie you up and throw you across your horse?"

"I'll ride peaceful," she said sullenly. For now.

And that is the synopsis for ASOS, Arya I, II and III.

Depth

Heroic fuckn work doing all of those together, ser! We put these chapters together for the same reason we did Arya’s first three chapters together in ACOK: there’s only one episode’s worth of material here. George isn’t quite as good at travelogue chapters as Tolkien, whose love of the natural world in all its detail really comes through. In these Arya chapters, I feel like every description of every tree and stream goes on a paragraph longer than it should. I get that it’s there for contrast with the political chapters in King’s Landing, Riverrun, etc but it’s pretty clear that’s where George’s heart lies, and this feels rote by comparison.

That being said, there’s still great stuff here, particularly regarding Arya herself and how she relates to the people around her, first with Gendry and Hot Pie, then with the Brotherhood, especially her old friend Harwin. Arya’s caught in between wanting a family again, a pack of her own, and wanting to just be a lone wolf. She’s dealing with the same issues of freedom, identity, and trust as the other POVs in ASOS, but from the ground level, which fits the Brotherhood’s underfoot position relative to the noble houses. These chapters are a slow burn, but by the time Beric Dondarrion and Thoros of Myr show up, they become something truly special.

I’m struck by the contrast in quality when it comes to these Arya chapters. There is magnificence, and there are parts where I’m left kinda bored actually! Now, obviously, these are GRRM chapters; so, I am grading on a huge curve. God, what would they say about my chapters from my book in comparison? Arya’s story starts very slow here with walking horses through the woods. I think GRRM wants us to feel the tension of the pursuit, but I know that this is just the first Arya chapter in ASOS. And she’s a major character! We’ve been with Arya for two books. GRRM isn’t going to kill her in her first chapter. I think George knows this too; so, he moves away from the tension towards the atmosphere and nature. And yeah, GRRM tries hard, but it just didn’t strike me as grand prose that swept me away.

But then, BAM, Arya II. We start similarly where I’m sort-of bored by the BWB vs Arya/Gendry/Hot Pie, but then GRRM hits us with something we never expected: a reunion with Harwin, and man, that scene chokes me up so bad every time I read it. Such a well-earned emotional moment in the story, and it’s powerful. And then … we’re back to nature and the growth of the moss and a ride that goes on and on and on, and … sigh. I love Arya as a character. I love her chapters, but her movement through the early part of Storm is slow riding, but at least it’s punctuated by moments of extraordinary emotional release.

• Orphans on the run
  • Arya’s story picks up right where it left off: escaping Harrenhal with Gendry and Hot Pie. It’s about as dangerous a situation as I can imagine: three kids, running for their lives across a countryside in the middle of a war, pursued by Roose Bolton and the Bloody Mummers, whose cruelty we saw on full display in Harrenhal: murders, rapes, mutilations. On top of that, Arya killed a guard to escape the castle: her first premeditated killing
  • And yet, Arya thinks, she’s completely calm. No fear, no guilt. Part of this is just numbness, the same detachment from reality that allowed her to kill the guard in the first place
  • She’s seen and heard too much to process, and a certain survival instinct is kicking in: her body taking on what her brain no longer can
  • But at the same time Arya is letting go, she’s also taking control. It’s the culmination of everything she was taught by Syrio Forel and Jaqen H’ghar, both of whose mantras flash in her mind’s eye now. They both taught her to how to shut her brain up and trust herself: battle fever
  • I think George does a great job of capturing the moment in which the repetition of education translates into raw instinctive action
  • It feels primal, almost bestial: the wolves whose shadows she senses in the trees are her escorts, not her enemies. She’s starting to think like them
  • The rain washes the blood clean with no moral implication; all that matters is his sword is yours now, lashed across your back
  • Arya sees the world differently, and herself within it. She’s a predator now; one of the major tensions in her story is between what “predator” means in the natural sense and what it means in the human sense
  • Wolves hunt their food, and it wouldn’t make much difference to tell them not to. But Hot Pie is terrified of Arya now, and why wouldn’t he be? He just saw her kill a man and act like it was nothing at all
  • Arya did it to get out of Harrenhal along with her friends; she didn’t have to bring Hot Pie along. In her eyes, it’s an act of love--an act of family
  • As we’ll see, though, Hot Pie leaps at the first opportunity to get off the road, because he is not comfortable crossing the lines she has crossed
  • She’s accepted the reality he cannot: “there is death on all the roads.” She means it literally, but also figuratively. No matter what they choose, it all only ever ends one way. That’s what Syrio showed her in his last stand, and that’s what Jaqen H’ghar showed her over and over again
  • What you do so well is point out why characters beyond the POV character are acting the way they do.
  • It’s far too easy to take the perspective of Arya or other POV characters as the objective reality when a lot of signs point to how the POV characters is not doing so hot!
  • I’m going to argue that Arya is not doing so hot here! She’s not really reacting to killing someone the way a normal person (such as Hot Pie) would.
  • Instead, she feels no fear at going through an extraordinarily dangerous part of the world as a child.
  • Fearlessness seems like a virtue, but one of ASOIAF’s central themes is how the only time someone can be brave is if they’re afraid.
  • Think back, also, to Catelyn’s advice to Robb about who should lead the northern foot against Tywin Lannister. The fearless Greatjon was not the ideal candidate in that circumstance.
  • Or even Roose, later in ASOS, talks about how his son Ramsay is fearless.
  • Fearlessness is not a good trait for Arya to have going through the dark wood. Fear shapes people to respect danger.
  • Of course, caving into fear is not good either. Hence, where Ned’s bravery comes into narrative focus.
  • Arya is unbalanced, and it’s easy to understand why that’s the case: she’s seen a lot of shit.
  • I wouldn’t argue that Arya is sociopathic, but the emotional wounds of witnessing some of the worst atrocities of Westeros is showing up in Arya’s personality.
  • Fearlessness in the face of grave danger is the way that it’s exhibiting itself here in Arya’s first few chapters. By the end, it will manifest in more violent ways.
  • They run past wolves devouring a deer; they run through a burnt-out village, past the skeletons of those murdered
  • The distinction is starting to blur for Arya; this is just how the world works, predator and prey. On a literal level, this is warging--Arya’s thoughts are merging with her wolf, as we’ll see in her first full-on wolf dream. Nymeria is Arya’s id given form, her unchecked fears and desires
  • She’s rampaging across the countryside, in her element...only because Arya abandoned her, cutting her off from the pack
  • It’s a powerful temptation for Arya, all the more so at the end of the book when she’s lost all her friends and seemingly all her family forever
  • What if that’s the source of her power? What if she has to be cut off from the pack in order to flourish? She was the black sheep at Winterfell
  • Arya’s conscious mind has a goal: get to Riverrun, get back to family and safety and home, in contrast to her subconscious, which has no plan and just wants to hunt and kill
  • Her conscious mind is a highborn young lady who can read, an ability that seems as magical to Hot Pie as warging--George compares it to walking on water a la Jesus, literacy as messianic superpower (just ask Davos)
  • Through Nymeria’s eyes, Arya sees the world as sensory input, the thing in itself to which she intuitively responds
  • Through her own eyes, she sees words, maps, cardinal directions in the moss on the trees. Humans translate the natural world into approximations
  • For Arya, the word “Riverrun” on the map is an escape from both the war and the food chain--because beneath Arry and Weasel waits Arya Stark
  • She’ll spend the book trying and failing to get to Riverrun; as she thinks later in the book, it feels like she’s been headed there for years
  • As her hope of getting home withers, so does the identity she wanted to reclaim there. In this chapter, she thinks that if Roose’s soldiers caught up with them, maybe she could tell them who she is, maybe they would keep her safe and take her home...but maybe not
  • Arya doesn’t trust Roose Bolton, even though he’s Robb’s bannerman and Arya herself helped him take Harrenhal from the Lannisters
  • Like when Jaime & Co. found the hanged women with the “They Lay With Lions” sign around her neck, we’re seeing that the Northmen can easily become just as bad as the regime they’re fighting against
  • That’s part of Arya’s Stark identity, whether she likes it or not, so instead she thinks that her family, her pack, has become Gendry and Hot Pie. Gendry even says things along with her like Jon Snow used to do
  • Back in ACOK, we talked about how Arya spends a lot of time adopting different identities: Arry, Weasel, Mouse before finally settling on her identity as a wolf.
  • What George explores in Arya’s identity as a wolf is how it contains both the bad and the good.
  • It’s not simply just Arya sewing a sigil onto her cloak and thinking that she’s a wolf.
  • As a warg, Arya is living through Nymeria, experiencing a wolfish identity -- similar to her siblings and cousin.
  • Moreover, as we’ll explore in Varamyr’s POV in ADWD come a few years, there is a metamorphosis inherent in what warging does to the wolf and man, making the man more wolfish.
  • The bad side is the violent impulses that come with being a wolf, the killing and such.
  • One the good side, Arya has taken to heart the lone wolf dies, the pack survives as she considers Hot Pie and Gendry her pack now.
  • She protects and guides them, using her education as a Stark to help them navigate these woods.
  • But everything that goes with her Stark identity makes her different from them. She can ride easily, they can’t. She can read the map well enough to know how far they have to go; Hot Pie assumes the first stream they see is the Trident, like Sam seeing the Misty Mountains in LOTR
  • That naivete is part of what keeps Arya going--she feels responsible for them and has to keep them safe. But she’s naive when it comes to her own limits, stubbornly insisting on riding without sleep for so long that she passes out in the saddle. Gendry forces her to stop and sleep
  • So that keeps her little family together, despite the differences in background. We all need to eat, and shit, and sleep
  • In her dreams, though, the barriers between her and Nymeria fall completely. Arya becomes the wolf as Bran has before her
  • Nymeria, like Arya, leads her smaller brothers...and like Arya, she experiences loss. One of the Bloody Mummers in pursuit stands his ground and fights, killing two of Nymeria’s wolves
  • In her rage, she tears the dude to pieces. Back we go to the question of what kind of predator Arya is becoming. As Nymeria, she has just saved her own life as well as those of Gendry and Hot Pie
  • But in the process, she’s becoming someone who exults in killing, who parades the corpses of her enemies as trophies
  • What waits at the end of that road? Arya said it herself: there is death on all the roads. Like Jaqen H’ghar, she is in service to the god of death
  • Arya I is a weird chapter, because a lot of it is intentionally repetitive, and I think it’s intentionally trying to show what it means to travel in Westeros.
  • The problem is that it’s not very interesting until we come to the very end of the chapter.
  • This warging sequence is super metal, and I love it a lot.
  • The way the rain runs off the fur of the wolves, the darkness, the tactics of the wolves as they attack the Bloody Mummers and the Dothraki standing his ground as he’s brutally killed.
  • This shit is awesome -- so awesome that I wish that GRRM had simply scrapped most of the published version of Arya I and started with this dream sequence before going into events from Arya I.
  • Were I GRRM (and I am not) or were I GRRM’s editor (I am not Anne Groell either), I would have suggested that Arya’s ASOS story open with this warging sequence.
  • It’s similar to what we see in Arya’s first ADWD chapter with Arya warging Nymeria and killing the shepherd and his dogs before we get to what’s going on with Arya in Braavos.
    • Her nights were lit by distant stars and the shimmer of moonlight on snow, but every dawn she woke to darkness.
    • Gorgeous.
  • This method of chronicling Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie’s journey through the woods in detail is understandable, but it’s not my favorite bit of storytelling.
  • I think GRRM got too show-y in the show-don’t-tell formula in ramping up the detail to “11” on the journey.
  • That’s not necessarily bad, but there are ways to communicate the thematic and character points more effectively.
  • Having the chapter open in medias res to Nymeria’s battle with the Bloody Mummers before moving onto the farm would have communicated how Arya is being pursued, how she’s becoming more wolf-like and communicated the length of the journey so far.
• Introducing the Brotherhood
  • So how do you find a community again in this situation, when war, murder, and superpowers have cut you off from your fellow man?
  • That’s exactly the question Beric and his Brotherhood without Banners have been facing, which makes them perfect supporting characters for Arya in this book
  • She hears them coming as she gathers vegetables from a dead man’s garden. Life and death, coming together: the kids are only saved from starvation because the guy who planted this garden died before harvest
  • Arya didn’t kill Old Pate, but she’s benefiting from his death nonetheless, like Hot Pie and Gendry benefited from her killing the Mummers
  • War makes you hard or it makes you dead. It’s very difficult to survive as a good person; it’s hard enough to keep going at all
  • That’s why Arya’s so surprised to hear someone singing. She’s afraid it’s more of the Mummers, but why would they be singing? It’s so incongruous with the imagery of death and despair all around them
  • That’s the Brotherhood in a nutshell: singing in a graveyard, trying to bring some light back into a very dark world
  • But that doesn’t mean Arya can 100% trust them. Even before the Brotherhood take their horses and hold Arya for ransom, George introduces some ambiguity in the song itself. Like Mance’s song about the Dornishman’s wife, the song is about both romance and violence
  • I’ll go off to Gulltown to see a fair maid...and then I’ll steal a kiss with a point of my blade...make her my love in the shade...wait, is this a song about chivalry or rape? It’s both: chivalric romance can become rape, and as Thoros will say about his comrades, war makes monsters of us all
  • It makes me think about Sandor during the Blackwater, demanding a song from Sansa with a knife at her throat. George loves showing us a romantic image and then hinting at the realities lurking underneath
  • Arya jumps out to confront them, and we get our first look at the Brotherhood: three men, a mirror image of the three kids
  • Tom is like Hot Pie, who also loves to sing, it turns out. Lem is like Gendry, a sullen broad-chested bruiser. Anguy is like Arya: both cynical and naive
  • This is what it looks like when innocence comes into contact with experience, when characters out of the stories and songs have to survive as mortal men in the middle of a devastating civil war
  • Lem is wearing a bright yellow cloak that makes him look like Big Bird, but it’s got bloodstains on it. Anguy looks young, almost childish like them, but he’s got his arrows arranged like a fence, a barrier between them. Tom has his harp, but he’s also armed to the teeth like the other two
  • It’s like Arya’s looking through a filter. Half fantasy, half reality. Half child, half adult. They call her a boy; she says she’s a girl. It’s all in between
  • As her opening move, Arya naturally tells them to keep walking or she’ll kill them. They take that about as seriously as you might expect
  • We know her as a warg and a budding assassin; they see only a little girl playing with a sword that’s too big for her
  • Then again, Tom sees the Bolton sigil on Arya’s chest, and says they’re not really kids anymore. Not if they served the Leech Lord. Even without learning the details, Tom knows what we know: Arya is past innocence
  • “Have you forgotten what friends are?” Arya faces the same question at the end of ASOS, like a mirror image: “Remember where the heart is?”
  • This is a conversation about trust, as with Jaime and Brienne; as Tom asks, can they be honest with each other?
  • The war makes that hard. I had forgotten until this read that no one brings up Beric until Harwin, so the first time through, we have no clue who these guys are; we might not trust them any more than Arya does
  • Even as they offer the kids food, they also take note of the horses, the one advantage the kids have over them
  • They call themselves “king’s men,” but Arya’s pretty sure king’s men would have their own horses. She thinks they look more like outlaws…
  • ...but of course, they’re both, as Arya is half out of childhood, half into a wolfskin. The war has shaped them into a paradox as it did her
  • For all their witty banter, they are dangerous men, as Syrio and Jaqen were before them. Anguy proves it with an arrow past Arya’s ear
  • She thinks of her mentors in that moment, feeling that she hadn’t understood them after all--she can’t move that quick
  • But really this proves that she did learn from them, because all good mentors teach you how to learn, first and foremost
  • Syrio and Jaqen (in very different ways) advanced her critical thinking skills. Now she knows enough to know that she knows nothing
  • Arya concedes, we’ll come to your stupid inn, but you walk in front of us so we can kill you if you play us false! This immediately fails, as the men just walk so slowly that the kids on horseback catch up with them
  • George shows off such a strong command of tone here, lulling us out of the threat into something more idyllic. Hot Pie sings along with Tom; Arya’s astonished by it. She never knew Hot Pie had such a beautiful voice, for the same reason she was surprised to hear Tom singing: who goes around singing songs when you’re barely staying alive in a world at war?
  • Anguy shoots a duck and wonders wistfully if they can cook it with lemons, like the kind he ate in King’s Landing--before the war came
  • There’s that yearning for innocence that Arya is repressing, and that Hot Pie can’t--which is why he gives his name away immediately
  • Even Arya is enchanted by the inn, looking all homey and welcoming. Inside, everyone allows Sharna to bully them into action. She’s the maternal figure, treating everyone like her children, even her husband (who she just calls “husband”). The tone is whimsical and friendly; people relaxing, talking about the stuff of life: sex, songs, and gossip
  • Can we relax now? Arya can’t, she wants to steal that boat. We can’t either, because we know this place. This is the same inn from Jaime II! That’s the kneeling man sign out front, and that’s the boat Jaime & Co. sailed in out of Riverrun
  • I love how this plays out--neither Jaime nor Arya knows the full story. Only the reader has the information to put it all together
  • We know that when the NotAnInnkeep is talking to the Brotherhood about the horses they were supposed to take back, he’s talking about Jaime & Co., confirming that they were right not to trust him
  • They just barely dodged a bullet...and now Arya is here, and speaking of horses, Tom wants to take the three horses the kids took from Harrenhal
  • He pays three dragons for them, the same price Brienne paid for their horses...but Tom offers an IOU, not the coins themselves
  • This smells like a scam, literal highway robbery, and I get why Arya objects. You’re no king’s men at all, you’re just common thieves!
  • But Tom is also right when he points out that if they were really just thieves, they’d take the horses without even the pretense of payment
  • King’s men do that all the time, especially in war. Arya’s already seen that with the Mountain’s men, who are the inverse of the Brotherhood: they started the war as outlaws, but by the time they burned down that village and killed Yoren and most of his charges, they were the king’s men
  • Tom is telling the truth when he says that he and his comrades have a pressing need for those horses--they’re fighting for the people, for the realm. “Would you deny the king?” he asks, meaning less Robert as he was and more the idea of a king who enforces peace, protects the people
  • They’re fighting the men who put Arya in this position: the likes of Gregor and Vargo Hoat. But in the process, he robs Arya of a way to get home
  • What matters more, the overall cause or the individual? It’s the same tension as that Jaime chapter: is this inn a refuge or a trap?
  • It’s both, of course!
  • I love the end of Arya II, because it makes it comes across as yet another trap.
  • It’s like the village that Arya, Hot Pie, Lommy, Gendry and Weasel paused to scout after the Battle by the God’s Eye.
  • The village seemed so inviting. It even had a nice little trail of smoke coming from one of the chimneys.
  • So homey yet so deadly as Arya discovered that the village was occupied territory by the Mountain and his boys.
  • The inn is the inverse of that village in that Arya, Hot Pie and Gendry are already in the … inn, in the village, so to speak. And now danger comes from without.
  • This is a really effective way of enhancing the tension, because we’ve already seen what armed men are doing in the Riverlands.
  • Arya can’t know that the Mountain is down in King’s Landing getting ready to be deployed in ambush of Helman Tallhart and Robett Glover. Hell, readers won’t know that until the next Tyrion chapter.
  • Are these the Mountain’s Men riding up to the inn?
  • Of course, it isn’t the Mountain’s Men. It’s their sworn enemies: The BWB who have come and are using this inn as a haunt to launch raids and ambushes in support of the smallfolk.
    • And also to, y’know, rob people lured into traps that the innkeep who was not an innkeep sets up.
  • Still, as the men of the brotherhood come into the inn, it’s not clear which side they’re on.
  • There’s a green bearded Tyroshi - possibly the same Tyroshi who switched sides from Tywin to Robb after the Battle of the Camps from AGOT.
  • A wounded man, crossbowmen and … Harwin!
  • Boy, do I love this scene so much. Arya I has Arya acting very wolflike, fearlessly and having shed her childhood.
  • But the presence of a beloved, familiar figure for Arya banishes the wolf for a moment.
    • “Harwin, it’s me. You have to know me! You used to lead my pony, when I was little."
  • For a moment, a desperate moment, Arya doesn’t have to pretend to be a different person. She doesn’t have to pretend to be a mouse. She can let go of Nymeria and be Arya Stark.
  • That’s the power of George’s writing, how he dives deep into the identity of characters.
  • Who is the little girl in the inn? A wolf, a mouse, a weasel, a ghost?
  • Familiarity breaks all of those assumed identities away for a moment: Arya is Arya, and she can be Arya of Winterfell, the Hand’s daughter.
  • Harwin takes a knee in front of Arya, and it’s like the narrative is communicating that ultimately, we bow to our true self, and that Arya’s name, her identity has meaning. For a moment.
• Harwin’s backstory and Arya’s captivity
  • Even that comes at a cost. As she temporarily returns to her Stark identity, it means leaving behind Arry, orphan of the Riverlands--which means leaving behind Hot Pie. He wants nothing to do with Riverrun or the war
  • The Inn of the Kneeling Man may seem like a mere stopover to someone from Winterfell or Casterly Rock, but this is all Hot Pie has ever wanted: food, drink, a roof over his head, and a chance to practice his craft
  • Why would he keep going? Just to be a sidekick on Arya’s quest narrative? They’re friends, even family, but they want different things
  • That doesn’t make parting any easier. George tugs at our heartstrings without getting too sentimental--he shows us how Arya tamps down on her own feelings, thinking only that she’d gotten used to Hot Pie despite how much he annoyed her. Ultimately, she doesn’t think of him as baggage
  • To love is to lose; Arya only realizes Hot Pie meant something to her after he’s gone. Her only consolation is hanging out with Harwin again--the embodiment of her old life, the home that Hot Pie never had
  • He catches her and us up on what happened after Ned sent him out--I’ll turn the battle talk over to you, ser!
  • What happened was an ambush! The Starks and Beric got bushwhacked bad by Gregor Clegane and his boys.
  • Really, as the resident war-nerd, not an actual nerd, I’m kind-of pissed off at how badly Beric Dondarrion got got by the Mountain.
  • It’s a damn good thing that Beric Dondarrion can get resurrected and improve as a commander, because he sucks so bad at the start of this campaign.
  • Before we get to the battle, something that stands out here is how young and inexperienced this warband was. Beric is 22. Harwin is young. Really, the only guy who was a veteran was Thoros of Myr and maybe Raymun Darry who was not old enough for the Trident but may have been old enough to participate in the Greyjoy Rebellion.
  • That lack of experience is what precipitated disaster at the mummer’s ford.
  • So, let’s set the stage. They have 120 bros: Starks, Dondarrions and a smattering of others on this merry journey.
  • They ride north to confront Gregor Clegane, they reach the Mummer’s Ford, and they go splashing across like dipshits.
  • The group seemed to just ride forward from point A to point B without putting any outriders out to get a sense of the land.
  • And there’s no sense there was a rearguard either for defending the main column from attack from the rear.
  • So, they blundered into the Mummer’s Ford having no idea that the Mountain’s Men were waiting in ambush for them there.
  • The army is in the river when they encounter the Lannisters on the far side of the Mummer’s Ford. They fight, and then because they don’t have a copy of their ranger handbook with them, they try to retreat.
  • As every infantryman knows, the best way out of an ambush is through it, meaning that they should have charged the Lannister lines on the far side of the river instead of falling back.
  • They retreat but find that Gregor Clegane is waiting for them on the other side and cut off their escape from the river.
  • Beric’s army is stranded in the river, with many of them dying, including the lords Raymun Darry, Lothar Mallery and Gladden Wylde.
    • (Interesting side note that one of the Micah Minor Character Moment people mentioned here is Lord Gladden Wylde which may be a GRRM reference to Gladden Fields where Isildur was ambushed by Orcs from the Misty Mountains.)
  • Beric, himself, is very badly wounded by Gregor Clegane himself as he gets impaled by the Mountain and drops into the river.
  • We’ll later learn that Edric Dayne pulled Beric from the river and guarded his body.
  • And then Micah Minor Character moment #2, Alyn of Winterfell rallies the survivors for a charge out of harm’s way.
  • They charge out of the ambush but not before 80 of the 120 men are dead, and Beric Dondarrion very nearly dies from the lance that Gregor Clegane put into him.
  • So, very bad showing for Beric. In fact, I’d call Beric’s performance the Shitshow at Fuck Factory of leadership in battle.
  • The nice thing for Beric is that he has a get out of death free card on hand, and things start to improve tactically for the BWB as Beric learns more and more about how to win this type of war.
  • But the first ingredient needed for improvement on the battlefield isn’t military at all. Instead, it’s political.
  • Arguably the most critical part of this backstory isn’t even the battle--it’s what happened after they heard that Robert and Ned were dead and that Joffrey was sitting the Iron Throne
  • As Harwin said, this turned everything on its head. The changing politics of the realm transformed the legal meaning of their mission
  • Without doing anything differently, they went from king’s men to outlaws overnight, enemies of the government that put them together in the first place. Like Salladhor going semi-legitimate as the Lord of Blackwater Bay, this is a perfect illustration of how the lines between official and unofficial can blur, especially in a civil war
  • Power resides where we believe it resides, which cuts both ways. On one hand, Beric’s men could no longer count on joining up with a loyalist army to crush the Lannisters. Facing defeat, many wanted to surrender
  • But on the other hand, Robert’s death made him something potentially more powerful than a man: a martyr, a spark to light a fire. If Renly’s ghost can win a battle, why can’t Robert’s ghost inspire an uprising?
  • Beric’s leadership really comes to the fore here, as he uses his charisma and courage to build a collective legend before building his own
  • They fought on against the odds, and for every one of them that died, two more stepped up to take their place. It’s tremendously inspirational stuff
  • Like Seven Samurai, it reminds us of the power of the downtrodden sticking together against their oppressors: there are more of us than them
  • The people of the Riverlands needed something to believe in: a way to become more than the sum of their parts, giving them the will to resist all the armies plaguing their lands, despite the cost of doing so
  • That’s what Beric and the Brotherhood give them: a myth, an organizing principle for direct action. It’s not so different from Mance Rayder
  • The image of the romantic outlaw is, of course, on loan from Robin Hood, first and foremost; I’ll talk more about that when we get to Arya IV
  • But George is also working in modern resistance movements, especially from WWII--which we’ll talk more about in Arya V
  • In-universe, the most relevant reference point is the Kingswood Brotherhood--which Tom sings about, driving the connection home
  • That Brotherhood also had the local peasants on their side...until Arthur Dayne treated the smallfolk kindly, petitioning the Mad King on their behalf
  • But there are no Arthur Daynes working for the Lannister regime, so the people stick with Beric’s boys--hence the villagers in this chapter
  • The Brotherhood now seem like a new pack for Arya, bridging her old and new lives. But it doesn’t work out any more than it did with Hot Pie
  • Their interests just don’t line up. Even as Harwin is telling Arya about how they’ve brought people together to fight back, Arya uses her old trick with the moss to realize that they’re not taking her to Riverrun
  • Her subconscious knows what’s up as much as her conscious mind: she has a wolf dream in which Winterfell is no longer the solid secure stone, but a mirage made of smoke--as Theon and then Ramsay left it
  • For the outlaws, though, she’s not a wolf--she’s a squirrel, as Greenbeard says, a golden squirrel they must deliver to the lightning lord
  • This makes her feel small and powerless; that’s what Arya can’t stand. That’s how she felt as the Mountain’s prisoner, watching him torture people to death. She’d give anything for freedom; she tried to escape at the inn, breaking Lem’s nose in the process, and she tries again here
  • We were saying that the Brotherhood is the inverse of the Mountain’s men. What they have in common for Arya is captivity
  • It’s heartbreaking to read how hurt Arya is by Harwin hunting her down and leading her back. He was her friend. He knew who she was
  • And now that intimacy has been betrayed, because her name is precisely what makes her so valuable to them
  • She’s alone all over again. Harwin tries to explain: I served your father, but I don’t serve Robb. He has lords and armies; the smallfolk have only us
  • It’s an expansion on Tom’s argument about the horses. The demands of the war mean we can’t afford mercy; you are hard currency that we need
  • It’s a matter of faith for Harwin as well, a transformation: these are my brothers now. The spirituality reaches the surface when we see Beric
  • For Arya, though, it’s like she’s come crashing back down to earth. She doesn’t understand Harwin’s ideology; all she understands is that she is once again lacking a pack, with no way home
  • It certainly feels like a betrayal to Arya, but I wonder whether Harwin and the surviving Winterfell men don’t feel like they’ve been betrayed by the Starks first.
  • We’re sympathetic to Robb Stark, because he’s fighting for his dead dad, and because his enemies are the villains in the story (so far).
  • Robb himself is brave, leads from the front, and as we’ll see in just one week’s time, Robb is immensely sympathetic.
  • But what has Robb done for the smallfolk who have suffered the raids of Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch or the Bloody Mummers?
  • Robb has nominal command over the Bloody Mummers, and yet as we’ll find in several Arya chapters down the line, they’re still committing acts of atrocity under ostensible Stark command.
  • I’m not blaming Robb Stark for the Bloody Mummers exactly. And I have a feeling that Roose Bolton probably kept a lot of information from reaching Robb about what he was doing in the Riverlands.
  • At the same time, when we got news of Robb in the Westerlands, people under his direct command were raiding the farms and pastures of the smallfolk in the west.
  • So, that seems a betrayal of Ned Stark’s command to Harwin: to bring justice to the smallfolk.
  • Arya becomes the casualty of that breakdown of the social contract between the rulers and the ruled, a bargaining chip for Harwin to use in his own war.
  • Ultimately, though, the breaking of the bonds of love, friendship, loyalty and community is yet another consequence of what war is doing to Westeros as a whole.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

GRRM has said that we’ll see Hot Pie again in TWOW. Maybe when Arya returns to Westeros?

Harwin mentions that one of the Brotherhood keeps some mean dogs; that’s the Mad Huntsman, and we’ll meet him a couple Arya chapters from now.

The outlaws doubt that Jaime could’ve escaped from Riverrun, and they’re right; they’ll find out in Arya’s next chapter that he was set free.

Theory/Discussion

Is Lem Lemoncloak secretly Richard Lonmouth in disguise?

• All props to Lady Gwyn, this theory is her baby!
• Richard Lonmouth was one of Rhaegar’s squires. The other was Myles Mooton, killed by Robert at Stoney Sept; no mention of Richard Lonmouth’s fate
• He was the knight of skulls and kisses from the Tourney at Harrenhal, judging by the arms of House Lonmouth: lips and skulls
• Specifically, yellow skulls, and the lips are on a yellow background...and lo and behold, here’s Lem with his yellow cloak
• Lem tells the Ghost of High Heart he dreamt of kisses, and she later asks for a kiss from him, saying it’ll be nicer than a kiss from Beric, who tastes of bones
• Bones and kisses--that’s the Lonmouth sigil again!
• Lem has the look of a soldier, unlike many of the civilians in the Brotherhood, but he doesn’t seem to have been one of the men sent out with Beric by Ned
• What a joy to re-read one of the better new ASOIAF theories that have come out over recent years.
• As with any theory, I tend to judge it by three criteria: evidence from the books, whether the theory makes character sense and whether it has an impact on the narrative.
• This theory hits these waypoints, I think. That’s not to say that it’ll 100% be confirmed in TWOW, but I think there’s something to be said for it.
• But what I love about this theory is how it illuminates one of the larger themes of people who come out the other side of trauma as disappointed optimists.
• I also like about the theory ties backstory particularly with Jaime’s “vows and vows, they make you swear and swear” to present conflict.
• Richard Lonmouth was likely one of Rhaegar’s companions that rode with Rhaegar to retrieve Lyanna from the Riverlands.
• One compelling sub-theory that’s come out in recent years is that Aerys may have figured out that Lyanna was the KotLT, and Rhaegar raced to rescue her from Aerys’ goons, bringing his best buds with him.
• As Rhaegar’s squire, Lonmouth may have thought he was doing a good deed, rescuing an innocent maiden from a tyrant. And he was cited in TWOIAF as being anti-Aerys.
• However, when Rhaegar later helped out his dad, Lonmouth may have ended up deciding that Rhaegar was only interested in defending maidens who he wanted to have very much sex with, rather than safeguard innocents from a monster.
• So, he may have ended up turning cloak to Robert -- a person who he was quite friendly with at the Tourney of Harrenhal and would definitely bring down Aerys.
• And then the Battle of the Trident arrives, and Richard Lonmouth ends up fighting on the side of Robert, falling into the river and coming out a changed, broken man, embittered by his beliefs that Rhaegar was really an agent of change.
• Come 16 years later, we run into Lonmouth again, but this time, he’s a shadow of himself, sad, angry.
• More than that, he’s assumed a new identity: one ostensibly still loyal to Robert but fighting for a different, noble cause.
• At the same time, as a failed optimist, he chose to live as a smallfolk, rather than return to the Stormlands to live out a life of nobility.
• Maybe the life of nobility that Richard saw was too much for him, maybe he saw the hypocrisy and bullshit and decided to forego that.
• And then maybe he saw the opportunity to fight in a good war again, helping the people and fighting against tyranny.
• And yet he’s wearing the Hound’s helm by the end of AFFC, resembling the noble oppressors.
• I don’t know. I’m just riffing here. I love this theory.

Conclusion

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