Will Arya Stark's Brutality Take Her Past The Point Of Redeemability In A Song Of Ice And Fire?
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- Arya Stark's deep trauma has driven her to incredible brutality against those who do and do not deserve it. Could she ever go so far that she's past the point of redeemability?
Content Of This Video:
00:00 How Much Murder Is Too Much Murder?
02:53 How Arya Became A Killer
06:30 The Reinvention Of Arya Stark
08:53 Death Always Matters
14:55 Outro 
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It was always so painful to see and read people's reactions towards Arya. They see a badass assassin girl. She's a child :( She shouldn't be thinking of murder and making a list. I think if Ned and Catelyn could see how their children end up, they'd feel disappointed in themselves. Robb and Rickon are dead. Sansa may be queen, but she has become so jaded and no longer believes in fantasies and romance. Arya became an unapologetic murderer. Jon exiled. Bran a husk of himself. What David and Dan made was such a depressing story and not at all what George had in mind.
Yeah, I felt like they were kind of going down a path toward actually acknowledging that Arya is a horrifically traumatized kid, but in the later years it all went so left and literally every single female character was like "my trauma has enabled me to wear tight leather clothing and look pissed off all the time" with not much depth beyond that.
I whole heartedly agree with what you said. That being said, i think i enjoy arya because i feel like i was like her as a kid and how I experienced my trauma for a long time i wanted to become a trained and skilled deadly person. I think while d&d ruined her character in the show and detracted from the point, show arya definitely gave my inner child a wonderful sense of empowerment 😅arya in the last season fell so flat though, they even ruined her in that way for me too. I would have enjoyed more emotional reconciliation even if it wasnt great. Not to mention i really wanted her to finish her list.
But again, maybe grrm would give me what i want and need in the books if we get at least winds of winter.
Yeah, I've watched a lot of RUclips reactions to #GoT, and not a single one of the channels I follow ever questioned Ayra's use of violence. They always read it as badass, which is very disappointing. And even if that's all you were hungry for when it comes to Arya's character, the execution was awful IMO. No pun intended. I would have liked to see Ayra rescue Edmure, in order to see some humanity come out of her.
Yeah, Arya IS neither a Hero nor a ICE cold.murderer, she IS a traumatised child that IS about to Go down a very DARK path unless she finds a way to Support and good again.
One can Not judge her Like one does an adult since plain IS Not one, Kids brains are Not fully developed when IT comes to morality and being able to really understand the implications and consequences of their actions why many Kids that showed sociopathic or psychopathin behavior grow out of that and antisocial personality disorder does Not really get diagnosed in Kids.
This could absolutely BE a villain origin Story, but I think there IS a Lot more Nuance and grrm has different Plans for her
She's a brat
You must be one of the most empathetic RUclipsrs ever, I have never seen ASOIAF like this before
Wow, thank you! 💜
We always have to keep in mind that children take the role of the hobbits in this story, and while most of the secondary characters are adults, most of the main characters are children, and not even older teenagers, with Arya going from 9 to 11, Sansa from 11 to 13, Dany from 13 to 15, and Bran from 7 to 9 in the written story so far. It’s hard to call a child, especially younger than 16, put through great trauma like Dany’s marital rapes following years of physical and psychological abuse by her older brother or Arya’s desperate fight for survival, irredeemable.
And trying to say they are older in the show doesn’t solve the problem bc D&D mostly lifted scenes, decisions, and verbatim dialogue written exactly for the characters based on their book age and maturity. For example, every time I reread Sansa’s chapters I am struck by how she is written perfectly as an eleven-year old (which I can say with two 12-year olds). People were so unfair to her bc they saw a tall 15-year playing her and treated her like a 17 year-old rather than an 11-year-old when judging her compression and decision-making. The same thing goes doubly for 13-year Dany being played by a 24-year old.
Maisie at age 13 in season one was Dany’s age! and two years older than book Ssnsa, while four years older than the little girl she was playing.
Ah, they’re even younger than I remembered. 😮
Yeah I think it's easy to lose track of this too because the stuff that happens to these kids and what they wind up doing is NUTS, like the thought of an 11 year old running around a foreign city assassinating people is borderline unimaginable.
@@HillsAliveYT Give my 9 yr old niece a couple of years and some training, and I wouldn't put it past her...
EXACTLY. The image we *see* of the characters is very influential in how we perceive them and their choices.
This is one of my biggest gripes with the show adaptation. In S1, Sansa says she's 13, so they definitely DID age up characters. But for some reason, they all act the same as their book counterparts? ASOIAF should have just been an animated series rather than a live action adaptation.
My guess is that the bittersweet ending GRRM has planned to ASOIAF is "humanity survived, but at what cost?"
After your video on trigger-happy Dany & Lucifer Means Lightbringer's video on Jon being the new Night King, now you mention PTSD Arya, I do believe that GRRM is really afraid of publishing Winds, as pretty much all beloved characters may live long enough to be villains.
Let's not forget that George is a post-hippy who writes about how society is screwed up.
LOL I am absolutely a GRRM apologist when it comes to the unending delay of Winds, but I can't imagine that the horrendous backlash to GoT wouldn't be a wet blanket, especially when they whitewashed a lot of the characters so much and it still wasn't enough in the eyes of the audience.
@HillsAliveYT as an amateur writer who hasn't ended the last 1/3 of the story I've been working on, which wasn't touched in a year, I totally get GRRM.
However, I do believe that he is really afraid of his public. I remember when Preston Jacobs released his analysis of the 1000 Worlds series, where no hero looks like Jon Snow: a privileged, handsome, cis-het white male. There's no way the story's ending will follow the dreams of most of the fans. It will be a PR disaster, which very few people - you included - will have foreseen. Fans want a classic ending to a story that is anything but that.
You make a great point. That lines up with him saying the shows popularity has made it hard for him to finish.
I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re absolutely right
This is what I've been thinking all along, and is part of my personal theory. I kind of hope that George *has* finished Winds and Dream, exactly as he wants them to be, screw the readers' expectations, and has the manuscripts hidden away in a vault somewhere, not to be released until after his death. Yes, it would be an incredible troll move on his part, but considering how ungrateful a large segment of his fandom is for his hard work, and the fact that he has more than enough to live on comfortably for the rest of his life thanks to HBO, it's entirely possible. And since I'm fairly certain that I'll outlive GRRM (knock on wood), one day I'll read those finished books.
My theory:
Arya chooses to commit some mass act of murder, using the powers of the Faceless Men. And the Faceless Men decide to HUNT HER DOWN.
Take the mass murder of the Freys. That was the ultimate act of blasphemy against the Many-Faced God. The whole point is the Faceless Men don't choose who lives or dies. They give up their individuality to kill in his name. The fact that Arya used his gifts to fulfill her personal agenda would be the ultimate insult to the faith.
Maybe Arya sails off because she can never be a Stark again, and has to live in hiding.
Speaking of the scene when Arya feeds Walder Frey his own kin is the audience doesn't realise among the victims where children and babies, but because they aren't shown fans don't realise how horrifying the situation is.
I kinda felt show Arya was written to fill the place of Lady Stoneheart who wasn't on the show. She took on the whole vengeance mantel since that character wasn't included. They also made The Hound have a showdown with his brother when in the books his character arc does not seem headed that way?
The duality of Arya is one of the most compelling things about her character. She probably has the most unpredictable fate of any character in House Stark, and while I ultimately believe that she will choose the more righteous path, it's not totally unbelievable that she might go down a darker more malicious path. I much prefer her book counterpart to her live-action version. Maisie Williams is jewel, but I feel the creators got to wrapped up in the "Yo Go Girl, Badass Girl Boss" narrative to tell her tale properly. I'm praying and wishing for the best possible outcome her, hopefully something much more cathartic for her.
Yeah, Arya is an interesting character for me because I can't connect the dots between her GoT ending and her book character. Like, with everyone else, even if their endings felt like a flop, I can kind of see what broad strokes GRRM could use that would make sense to give them those conclusions, but with Arya I feel like the gaps are just too big to know for sure, so her book character could kinda go everywhere.
@@HillsAliveYT Correct, I can’t see Arya’s bookending mirroring her live-action version. Just seems so disconnected from her original motivations and end goals.
I have started to notice more magical things about the Stark girls on my rereads. I have started to wonder if Arya hears dead people bc there is this pattern with Syrio and Yoren and others where after they die, she hears their voices saying sentences in her inner ear that guide her at crucial moments. It’s so subtle it could just be how anyone remembers things they have been told. But it’s specific to her, and it keeps happening over and over. And in some of the cases it’s not clear who is the voice that’s talking to her. Sometimes we know it’s Syrio or Yoren bc it’s a quote of something they said to her earlier, but other times it’s not and it’s not clear who it is. She may have a magical connection to death through her magic or she maybe slowly becoming the many faced God or Stranger magically in some way.
A second thing I have noticed is that she seems to hear the thoughts of animals in her head. This is subtle too. But she will hear the animals in the burning barn screaming over and over again in fear, but I can’t anything on the internet that animals generally do that. A lot of animals get physically quiet when they are afraid, so she might be hearing their inner screams not sounds they are actually making. I am trying to reread more of her chapters to get a handle on this.
But some of the characters including Arya, Dany, and Sansa have more magic than people have caught on to,
Sansa clearly had telepathic powers she doesn’t understand yet. She remembers Sandor as having kissed her at a moment that he wanted to kiss her but we saw he didn’t do it. She is remembering his inner thoughts in her head.
Whenever Sansa is about to be raped or killed, she telepathically summons a rescuer. It’s Sandor in the riot. It’s Lothar Brune in Littlefinger’s tower who saves her from the bard raping her. It’s Littlefinger when Lysa is threatening to kill her. And eventually it will be Jon she calls all the way from the Wall or Winterfell to come to her rescue in the Vale when she needs it.
George has often said the ending of ASOIAF will be bittersweet. Arya's show ending was certainly that, but it's easy to see her taking on the voyage west as sort of an inverse of the Last Ship from the end of Lord of the Rings - Arya helped to save Westeros, but she cannot live in it. However, it's not a reward she's sailing west towards, but exile.
This is actually exactly why I think Arya will kill Dany in the books, because the exile aspect doesn't make sense for me without that as a plot point.
@@HillsAliveYTIt fits with the common belief that D&D swapped Arya and Jon's fates. Because, you know, they're buffoons.
Funny you should refer to the end of LOTR - I was reflecting on it in a different way. Arya needs to end up back home but broken like Frodo was at the end.
@@HillsAliveYTI thought she was going on a quest to find potatoes and save Westeros via super powered tubers.
Praying for Ayra and Dany's souls before they reach the end of their arc. 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿 On a serious note, you've hit the nail on the head, and I hope that the answer to the question in your title is no.
I hate seeing the fandom treat Arya as a GirlBoss! instead of what she is- a child soldier.
And I personally don’t view her as irredeemable because of that. She’s a child. The acts she commits are as a child. She’s, what, 13 at the oldest?
Then again, I hold Danaerys culpable, and she’s not much older, so maybe I need to think on this some more.
Yeah I feel the same conundrum and it's hard, because like, I can also objectively say that Joffrey Baratheon didn't deserve to be killed because he's a child, but it still "feels" right because he's so destructive that ending his life is for the greater good, even if a kid can't be fully responsible for what they've done. I feel the same about Dany, like her guilt or understanding of what she's doing is debatable, but if her actions wind up killing a thousand children, is it excusable because she herself is a child? LOL and I think GRRM makes this an intentionally challenging thought process.
@@HillsAliveYT There is punishing evil, but there is also preventing harm. At least the latter is clearly the case with killing Joffrey or Daenerys. Of course, if that is the only reason for killing someone it certainly shouldn't inflict unnecessary pain (Purple Wedding).
This is such a weird request for a video but please do a deep dive into Aegon II Targaryen's psychology and how not being heir in the world where that is the the standard affects him and his potential interactions with other houses who adhere to the male primogeniture rule?
I don't find that weird at all! It has to be weird growing up as the lone exception to the rule like that, and while Aegon is a shithead all on his own I don't doubt that this helped him become shittier.
Granted, she probably won't possess the same superhero powers in the book as she does in the show, but I thought it was pretty silly that there were no consequences for any of her actions in the latter seasons. Would the faceless men just allow a rogue ex-member to go around doing whatever she pleases with the skills she learned? Would the other lords of the realm just sit by and ignore Arya's actions? ASOIAF is often about consequences so it'll be interesting to see how George tackles this
For real, Arya was WILDING and it is so bizarre that nobody seemed to care or be concerned at all. Like are y'all really that confident that she won't decide that you gotta go too or what?
Great video. I really think GRRM likes the idea of ambiguity. At one point he said he was pleased people were debating the morality of Daenerys in a way they didn't debate the morality of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings. I think the faint moment of sympathy for Joffrey when he died was there to at least leave open the "poor messed-up kid" interpretation of him. (All this is me talking about other characters because you said everything I'd have to say about Arya on this topic and said it better.)
I'm kinda glad you brought up Joffery there, too! I think we as readers and show watchers just see a phyco entitled idiot kf a king who "needed to be put down"
Then we watched him die and most cheered, and I was left frozen with terror. Remembering that this was a Thirteen year old child. Choking and clawing his own throat out, trying to breathe and holding to his mom to save him.
Definitely adds a different perspective to EVERYTHING when we consider half the characters are younger than 16.
It's 5 am. where i live. I wanted to go to sleep, but now i need to watch this video first 😭
LMFAO well there's always 1.5 or higher speed! I watch so man RUclips videos at 1.75x speed that people talking at a normal pace sounds strange to me.
@HillsAliveYT I love your voice how it is. I can't speed it up
SAMMY! get your rest
One of the most disappointing things about the show was how they framed Arya as heroic throughout. She is a mass murderer. There's no way that doesn't take a toll on a person
Maisie Williams played the character as showing sadistic pleasure when killing Walter Frey and others. She is motivated by revenge. She even let the Hound to die slowly and painfully. As he stated: "You're a cold little bitch. I guess that's why you're still alive." Westros was as horrible as the Hound suggested it is. It required strength and courage, cunning and brutality to survive. And Arya learned to live in that world, alone. She never rose above it. But she did not sink in the horror show that Westros was. She chose adventure and, as another commentator suggested, exile. A Westros with Bran and Tyrion governing may have no place for Arya Stark -- or Jon Snow. Both wenf into exile because their capacity for violence had no place in the new Westros. Also gone were the Cleganes, the Targaryans, the Baratheons, the Boltons, Littlefinger, the Lannisters save for Tyrion, etc. All of the power hungry, blood thirsty types were dead, their houses destroyed. Westros might become peaceful -- but not so peaceful that external threats might believe they could conquer some or all of it.
Interestingly, your comment just reminded me of a line from Serenity, the Firefly movie, that feels weirdly appropriate here. Essentially, the villainous character explains that he's doing what he does to create a better world, but he's never going to live in that better world, because a better world wouldn't have a place for people like him.
@@HillsAliveYT That is a problem revolutionaries confront. The skills and temperament needed to successfully make a revolution are not often or ever the skills and temperament required to institute a new government, constitution, social relations and to govern the new polity the revolution brought into the world. The United States was believed by many to have avoided this problem. Has it? It can be said that America has yet to master its past. Slavery, the Constitution that incorporated it and the geopolitical reality of the country throughout its history reveal this lack of mastery. It follows that revolutions do not put an end to history. They too can end with societies that require reforms or replacement. Westros was lucky. All of those who wanted the throne for themselves were dead once Jon Snow murdered Dany. Westros was forced to begin anew. Houses remained, of course, but the key miscreants of what can be called the old Westros were gone. The War of the Five Kings, the Battle of the Bastards, the War against the Night King and the Dead and the Westrosi Civil War to remove the Lannisters amounted to a political revolution. To begin anew meant 'breaking the Wheel' by putting into its stead a new form of establishing sovereign power (elections by a confederal collection of houses) and a new form of political legitimacy (prior consent of the governed). Given these gains, which were novel in the Westros context, it was fortunate that Greyworm chose to accept the compromise solution offered to him. Had he pressed his demands, he would have undermined the gains achieved by this revolutionary outcome. It would have taken another successful war to regain the ground lost when Greyworm sought his 'justice.' I say 'his justice' because fighting and defeating the Unsullied would have reestablished the 'might makes right' principle that the political revolution replaced. Win or lose, a war with the Unsullied would replace the new Westros with a verson of the old. Removing the 'might makes right' principle was a key part of the wheel that had existed. Ironically, Dany's victory and eventual murder reflected the right makes right principle while preparing the way for the destruction of the wheel. It was the election of Bran, as proposed by Tyrion, that was the revolution. It's notable that the revolution was not violent even though the events that made the revolution possible were exceptionally violent. The revolution was democratic. Sam Tarlley even proposed giving the peoples of Westros a vote. That would take another revolution to achieve.
@@sdzielinski Hmm, I'm not sure I'd equate Jon Snow with Arya in this situation though. I don't think Jon's 'capacity for violence' as you put it was ever the same as Arya's thirst for revenge against her family's enemies. Jon always seems reluctant to spill blood. He does it because he has to. In the show, it's clear that he doesn't like fighting or killing, he even says that out loud. And he's definitely not power hungry, and nor is Arya. I don't know, Arya's fate in the show seems more likely to me than Jon's. I mean, if Jaime can kill Aerys and be forgiven, why wouldn't Jon be? Sorry, got off the subject a bit there...
@@sje8425 Jon's fate, as I conceived it, was a plot device that emphasized the outcome of the show, the emergence of a new Westros. That said, even with Bran's election, Jon would have remained available to Westros as the legitimate heir of the Iron Throne, the Victor of the Game of Thrones and thus a potential replacement for Bran. His exile was a symbol that reflected and reinforced the emergence of a new Westros. Perhaps, Jon Snow will help bring the Wildlings to a greater degree of social and political cohesion, as a frontier-people the existence of which extends the domain of the Northern Kingdom or as the presence of a new social and political system. Jon could unite a nomadic set of peoples into a unified people. He could acieve this because of the trust and prestige he had earned in the recent past. After all, his exile does not imply that he died. Nor does the conclusion of the enmity between the Wildlings and the Westrosi mean that all has been settled. More can be achieved. But his exile all but severed his political relationship as a Stark and Targaryan with the rump of Westros proper. The 'North by the Wall' became his new home. His exile gave him a future that did not carry with it a potential legitimation crisis for the new Westros and its king.
It always bothered me to see how other people reacted to Arya. Lots of "YAAAS badass!!" and "badass assassin" type things when in reality what we'r e seeing is a deeply deeply traumatized child. I don't think Arya is badass. I think she is tragic.
0:56 for me the most obvious example of this is the difference in which Cersei is treated compared to Tyrion and Jamie. Jamie pushed a boy from a window and then later threatens to catapult a newborn over a wall. Tyrion lusts after a child, sacrifices others for his own gain, and then kills a woman in cold blood. Cersei is nuts, but she isn’t worse than her brothers, yet everyone calls her the Mad Queen and assumes Jamie and Tyrion are on redemption arches. I hope Grr Martin subverts people’s expectations and in the end it’s Cersei who gets redeemed (but I doubt it).
Btw I do believe that main difference in public perception of these characters is 100% rooted in misogyny but I’m sure if I go there I will get trashed again.
i don’t think that cersei should be redeemded however yeah with everything else
No no go on about the misogyny. Sansa vs Aryas fan perceptions is also a good example. Both young girls, one embodying “dainty princess” at the beginning and one “tomboy learning swordsmanship” immediately got different treatment by fans. People often cite Sansa choosing Joffrey over Arya in that childhood fight as the reason they totally lost empathy for her character for the rest of the books and show. Plus the violence they experienced I think also speaks to this. Sansa experiences or comes close to a lot of sexual violence; the narrative even gives Tyrion props for not r*ping her as a child bride. Meanwhile Arya is traumatized mostly via physical violence and shielded from gendered violence by pretending to be a boy.
This bias against gendered violence (that I don’t think GRRM has but DnD definitely do) and the lack of fan empathy thereof is also carried through to almost all the other female characters besides Arya from Danaerys to Cersei to the innumerable female characters sacrificed in childbirth. You can name a dozen traumatized kids in GoT but ppl only care about that trauma if theyre boys or Arya. Otherwise the likes of Sansa and Dany are expected to make only rational adult choices
The … show event on Joffreys corpse that is instantly ignored narratively is really proof of that gendered bias. It doesn’t change the positive arc Jaime is on even tho he is the perpetrator - or really alter Cersei at all that her only protector and main lover has just done the opposite of protection. Mid-series we see something that should be considered as heinous as getting killed by a lover literally have no effect on the characters or their dynamics bc it’s just a s*x scene to DnD. Yaknow on top of their sons corpse
Never clicked so fast on a video
A bit of paraphrasing of a Gandalf quote but I imagine the sentiment remains the same.
“He may deserve to die as many do, yet many who deserve life have it taken from them. Can you give life as you give death?” Gandalf, on Sméagol.
Another great video queen. I think this show does definitely bring up some seriously important questions about restorative justice.
Yeah I wonder if restorative justice will ever become a significant thing in the books, because at some point the characters have to realize that the traditional concept of "justice" is just going to create more of the harm that they experienced themselves, and at some point they're going to have to reintegrate people who have committed serious harm into their society if they don't want to keep propagating the cycle.
@@HillsAliveYT a part of me says no, because Martin seems to have quite a cynical viewpoint regarding systems of justice and society as a whole.
I have a feeling that Arya’s character arc regarding vengeance will be influenced in the books by Lady Stoneheart. Because they cut her character out, I think they had Arya do some of LSH’s actions in the show and the themes of revenge and its cost transferred to her and the Hound’s relationship in the last season. I believe Arya and LSH will meet in the books and I have a feeling that seeing what this shade of her mother has become, how she is consumed with rage and violence will impact Arya. And possibly, Arya is the one to give Lady Stoneheart the gift of “mercy” or Lady Stoneheart sacrifices herself like Beric did in the show.
Yeah definitely agree, I think they gave whatever major story points LSH has to Arya, which again really makes Arya's character arc confusing because it seems like she's meant to ultimately be a foil to LSH.
I know George may not share my religious beliefs but I believe it always possible to be redeemed either through pity or through virtue.
Through grace we can bring out the best in others and help them become virtuous. But if someone doesn’t experience the grace they need to become good, god will take pity upon them and a miracle more beautiful and grand than all of the grand spectacle of the Old Testament takes place. Forgiveness by the grace of God for those brought too low to be reasonably expected to become a good person.
Excellent comment! As a believer too I also hope GRRM shares this belief.
Admitadly, Arya is one of my least favorite POV characters from the series, but I can't say that her journey isn't gut renching in good faith. A child shouldn't go though any of that.
That said, I can't see an ending more fitting for her than she dying and becoming Nymeria. Even if her romance with Gendry becomes a thing, her just settling down in some castle as some lord's wife or even as some advisor to any of her siblings that become lords or kings seems wildy out of character to the point that sounds like fanfiction. But at the same time she being away from her "pack" for self exile, discovering the west of Westeros, entering a Night's Watch that started to allow girls, staying with the House of Black and White or becoming part of the Bortherhood without banners to keep bringing justice kind of undermines her whole journey to come back to her family. And a middle term of the above paths seem unrealistic for the world of Westeros. But if she dies and wargs into Nymeria, as bitter as it is, fits her whole motif with death, reunites her with Nymeria at last, and she finally would have a pack that doesn't abandon her like she felt that so many people did.
If Darth Vader can be redeemed, I think it's safe to say anyone can 👀. The question is, does it make good narrative plot? Cause the last thing you want is for it to be like the Anime Fairytale where everyone and their mother finds redemption. Hell they even try to make you feel sorry for Acnologia(the final villain if you have never seen it) after he is killed.
Btw I have finally started reading he first book >:) gonna make a video when I am done and call it "LOTR fan reads ASOIAF for the first time".
Fun! AGOT is an adventure. LOL and Darth Vader is an interesting case, because like does the narrative imply that he's redeemed? Kinda. Is he really redeemed though? Because I lean toward no.
He had to die to be redeemed
@@HillsAliveYT I hope it is okay to jump into this exchange of thoughts because I think the Intention of the author is here really relevant. DID George Lucas try to redeem DV in the Eyes of his Inverse GFFA? Then the Answer is: NO, he didn't. He just wanted Luke to forgive his Father so that Luke could walk away from the Point that he reached in the last two Movies.
What I mean is: From SW to TESB Luke reached the Point: I want to be like my Father, Oh God What will happen when I become like my Father! During the Last Film, he needed to leave these Points behind himself: I am like my Father, I need to save him, to know that there is Hope for me! It's not very healthy in terms of your self-image when you compare yourself with a Person who killed a lot of Children in his Life. The Redemption of Darth Vader is important because Luke starts to reflect on himself: I am not like my Father, I am my own Person!
Darth Vader's redeeming act is important because it means for Luke: Even if I make mistakes, I can come back and do the right thing. So Lucas killed Vader because otherwise the reaction of his created Universe, would have been very bad against Vader and that could have had a bad consequence for Luke and his development. Many People forget, when it comes to Vader Redemption, that the Point was to teach the Protagonist of that Story a Lesson, Vaders Redemption was not important for Vader, it was important for Luke and his way forward in Life. Because Luke is the Protagonist in that part of the Story, not Vader. At least that is my Interpretation. Lucas never Redeemed Vader for Vader's sake, he redeemed him for Luke's Sake.
i agree. as usual with most of your videos.
you should expand beyond these books and show. there are many other shows and movies that can do with your clear sighted analysis. for example how about very well written and made, very morally grey and surprisingly revolutionary, star wars series andor.
Thanks! I definitely want to expand beyond ASOIAF at some point, I just need the energy to actually do it. I haven't seen Andor yet, but if I ever do reaction videos I'll put that on the list. And we'll see what happens, but Dune part 2 is coming out in a hot minute and I was and still am obsessed with part 1, and I know there is like a mountain of content related to the Dune-iverse so if it starts becoming a Facebook-official fixation then I might branch out into that.
@@HillsAliveYT dune is a good choice . with its, imo, false messiah/anti christ , taken as a real messiah story by probably most of audience, not just characters in the story, and perhaps even by movie makers( tough last is unclear at this point ).
I firmly believe that redemption is within reach for virtually everyone, barring perhaps those clinically identified as Sociopaths or Psychopaths.
To illustrate, let's consider the narrative arcs in "Prison Break." Paul Kellerman, initially portrayed as a remorseless hitman who subjected Sara to torture, ultimately seeks redemption. He voluntarily surrenders, confesses to his crimes-thereby clearing Sara-and plays a pivotal role in the group's survival, delivering SCYLLA to the United Nations and securing federal pardons for all involved.
Similarly, Alexander Mahone transitions from a Company operative, responsible for numerous reprehensible acts, to a redeemed character who integrates into the core team by the series' conclusion.
Gretchen Morgan, another character marked by extreme sadism and cruelty, eventually aids Sara's escape, sacrificing her own freedom in the process.
I must admit, I have not read the "A Song of Ice and Fire" books. However, from my understanding, Arya Stark, is still basically a child. The characters I've mentioned were adults in their late 20s or early 30s, showcasing that if they can find a path to redemption, the notion that a child, like Arya, cannot, simply doesn't hold water.
Yes, Arya is still a child which gives her some leeway in the serial killer department. Also Prison Break, what a throwback! The first season was unreal good and the rest were a fun ride, but holy shit like how did they go from co-prisoners to a squad of spies, wild.
LOL OMG GIRL i love you even more now, I LOVE meeting fellow prison break fans. Marry me please 😂@@HillsAliveYT
Great Video as always, thank you for your Work. In the case of who is, and who is not irredeemable ... I think the End Age also matters for some People: For example, I think Jon is redeemable, because his Actions although most of them are really questionable and sometimes unjustifiable and cruel, never comes from a place where he is cruel for the sake of Cruelty. Most of the Time his bad Actions prove that he is an Idiot. But some say that Jon is irredeemable because of his Actions.
Joffrey who is only a year Younger is cruel for the sake of Cruelty, he punishes Sansa for Robbs's Success because he wants to punish someone who is weak and under his Command and in his grasp (he can't punish his Grandfather or his Uncle Jaime, because both are out of his reach) And he doesn't act against Margaery, because EVERYONE tells him not to alienate the Tyrells (and IF the Tyrells are responsible for Joffreys Death we know that everyone was right to say so) so Joffrey, sometimes is Cruel because it amuses him to let People suffer, same as Ramsay and sometimes Daenerys.
And here is the point, Daenerys and Arya get the same "Excuse" from their Fans for their Actions: It happens to the Bad People. In Daenerys's Case, it happens to Slavers and in Arya's Case it happens to those who deserve Death because that is "justice". In both cases: NO! Killing People and letting People Suffer because they did bad Things is not justice! BUT both Daenerys and Arya are haunted by their Actions and reflect on them. Daenerys and Arya are foils in terms of their Reasoning when killing and torturing People. I think with Arya she will see what that means when she meets Lady Stoneheart in the Riverlands during the Lannister-Frey Wedding. In the end, she will travel the World because she will try to escape her haunting Memories and try to atone for her Crimes.
With Daenerys I think the opposite will happen because instead of her Revenge-driven and Merciless Mother, she will meet the Greyjoys ... well the traditional Greyjoys who want to keep their Ways of pillaging and plundering the 7 Kingdoms. So when Daenerys meets Victarion who is very much a Dothraki on Sea, the opposite will happen and Daenerys, who chose Fire and Blood in the last of her Chapters, will become a more cruel and merciless Character than before. She will choose Violence and Death, and Arya will choose the Living and Mercy. Are they irredeemable because of these Choices: In my Opinion: No! If you regret your violent and cruel Actions realize your mistakes and try to atone for them, I think everyone is redeemable. But that is not the hard part of redemption, the hard part is forgiveness. Many people today think that forgiveness must be earned, but that is wrong, forgiveness is not something you can earn, forgiveness is simply given.
If Arya can never forgive herself for the things she did already, she will never find peace again. Others might forgive her, like Sansa, Jon, Bran and Rikkon, simply because they love their little Sister and want her to find Peace and Happiness. But I doubt Arya will ever find that again. On the other side, I don't know if Daenerys will ever see the error of her Choices, but she will always find excuses, all to redeem herself in her own Eyes and forgive herself. This is important because unlike Arya she has no one who will easily forgive her, as Arya's Siblings will forgive her.
In a way her story mirrors Ned's, both killing night's watchmen "in the name of justice". Ironically, Ned was himself killed by the kind of justice he served.
Really good video--I am still thinking about it and adding more comments a day later! One of the biggest problems with the show was the Hollywood coding of characters by David Benioff. Whenever a movie or show does that, some of the audience follows along with the coding exactly as the writers want but some of the audience independently think about the circumstances and come to different conclusions and reactions.
Arya was coded as a spunky survivor who is becoming a strong female character. With this coding, according to a writer like David Benioff, you can do anything and it's right. We're not supposed to stop and think she poisoned dozens of people without trial, and some of the Freys supported the Starks (and were captured at the wedding by their relatives) and other Freys were away during the entire period and didn't know about or participate in the plot before returning home. The act of killing dozens of people without individual trials is sociopathy and legal murder, even if your brother was murdered by some or most of this group.
Dany by contrast, although only being four years older, was coded all along as sexy femme fatale. When you put a female character on screen early in the story showing her breasts and turning on men, she's a femme fatale. That was coding by David Benioff that she is going to turn evil some day, no matter how many good things she does in the interim or how compelling she initially appears as a victim. Now in fact she was exposed the first time being sexually abused by her brother, the second time being raped by Khal Drogo more than twice her age and twice her size. The third time she was being martially raped by this same man she was forced to marry against her will. And in a later season she is nude in a bath tube where Daario has snuck in on her past her guards and is creeping on her in a situation where he could kill her.
This is a character, Dany, who starts in a Cinderella situation, only it goes from bad to worse because her prince is her rapist. She manages to save herself and then free hundreds of thousands of chattel slaves. It's clear from George Martin's interviews on what heroism is and how he feels about slavery, that he considers Dany the most heroic character in the story. None of his characters, certainly not Ned or Robb or Jon are perfect. Most of them make bad decisions that cost thousands upon thousands of lives. But Dany is the biggest hero.
Yet the coding of her by David Benioff as a femme fatal from the beginning permanently caused a large minority of the community to approach her as an inevitable villain, which David Benioff wanted all along. He dropped the part of her prophecy about bearing a living, human child and ignored the letter by George Martin to his publishers that Dany was one of five characters who survived the story. He coded her to become the surprise villain in his version of the story all along. Given the 30% approval rating for the final season, most of the audience didn't go along with this. But it permanently split the fan community 1/3 vs 2/3 over the coding of the character by David Benioff versus the writing of the character by George Martin.
You did read the Books, correct? Why do you think Daenerys will survive? I am a big Arya fan, but I don't think her survival in the Books is guaranteed. Because George is a Gardener, when it fits the Narrative he will kill his Heros, without a doubt. Let's say Daenerys falls from Drogon during the Battle against the Others, that will most likely be her undoing and she will die. So I would not put all the Blame on Benioff that killed her because of her Hollywood coding. I would say Daenerys's Death was the result of Benioff's theory of what will happen to Daenerys in the Books and I think Benioff thinks she will die, most likely during Childbirth in the Books, but that is what Benioff most likely thinks about Daenerys's fate in the Books.
Wow, thanks! 💙 And while I don't necessarily agree with every interpretation here, I do think that D&D leaned too hard on classic tropes when it helped them but didn't adequately plan for the end of that road. I don't think they're necessarily entirely to blame here either, but TV production is a very dynamic process that incorporates fan reaction and feedback a lot, meaning if there was a really positive reaction to Arya Stark being a spunky survivor, then HBO would probably tell D&D "lean more into that because the audience likes it." This is a tough line to walk in any book adaptation too, but it's extra difficult when George intentionally made these characters subvert their own archetype.
I obviously tend to agree with the theory that Dany is a villain both in the TV show and books, and I cannot fathom a world in which D&D would have killed the show's most popular character unless it wasn't a plot point they were given from the books, but GoT whitewashed Dany and the characters around her to the point where it just doesn't make sense. I get casting Emilia because it'd be borderline impossible to have a literal child fill that role, but the people around Dany for her entire book story are SO GODDAMN CREEPY and the show really watered that down to an absurd degree. Even besides Drogo, they made characters like Jorah and Daario much more appealing, beyond the fact that they were no longer whole ass adult men preying on a child in the TV adaptation. Like, Daenerys ultimately being a villain would be much easier to grasp and swallow with the context that she is a tweenage girl surrounded by predatory scrubs who are constantly trying to exploit her and has basically had zero positive influence in her entire life, but if you take all that away and make her an adult with absolute power it doesn't translate as well.
@@HillsAliveYT Yes one of my more popular answers on Quora with more than 100 upvotes argued that Daario is really a literal Bluebeard from myth who is semi immortal and survives by killing beautiful women and bathing in their blood. I argue he is the Essos counterpart to Roose Bolton. My most popular Quora answer with 1,000 upvotes is a version of Bolton that Roose is modeled on Dracula and the hippocras he is drinking always is wine mixed with human or wolf blood, and that Theon being tortured by Ramsay is modeled on Renfield who Dracula tortures and who eats rats similar to Theon living on rats in the Dreadfort. All along Daario wants to marry Dany, like Bluebeard, then kill her and bathe in her blood. He has to get in line behind Euron who wants to do the same and Khal Drogo who planned to take her to Asshai on the advice of Illyrio and Jorah (where they were planning to sacrifice her in magical ritual which they believed would hatch dragons).
But I do think Dany will make it through evil advice by Tyrion and Jorah and evil plans by Euron and Daario and Drogo to come out the other end. She is in the end the three-fold triple feminine goddess who goes from maiden to mother to terrifying Kali Crone who defeats demons and tramples the male Gods and kings under her feat to save the world, but then her husband Shiva completely submits to her supremacy and lies down for her to dance on him. She is propitiated and calms down and turns back into the peaceful mother Goddess and has a child at the end.
Kali is a complete hero who saves the world but she is the ultimate pissed off raging mother who manifests from the peaceful, inspiring female Skakti and the majestic female Durga who rides a lion into a form where she slays the scariest warriors and unslayable demons to save everyone’s children and overthrow cosmic oppression. That’s Dany’s scary third of four forms but not her final form as the new mother.
Kali is the hero, but she is terrifying, black of skin, tongue lolling, blood spattered, wearing a necklace with the heads and hands of slain demons in human form, six armed, carrying a three pronged trident and a beggars bowl she uses to catch the blood of the demons she slays before it hits the ground and multiplies.
Kali bhaedra Kali kapalini
Oh Goddess Kali beyond time itself carrying your beggars bowl to catch the blood of demons…
And she’s the divine feminine justice that’s coming for the Others but also for Tywin and Robert Baratheon and Brandon Stark brother of Ned and all their paternalistic selfish sexual girl victimizing ways to completely destroy what they stand for. That’s the story we are reading.
@@HillsAliveYT p.s Why am I talking about Kali and the triple Goddess Maiden-Mother-Crone? Bc George Martin sometimes says that Robert Graves is his favorite author and he wrote a whole book, the White Goddess, about the triple goddess and the feminine form and her role inspiring writers and arguing that she was the original religion of human beings. Whether Graves is right as a matter of anthropology, George Martin loves his ideas. Now I haven’t actually read the White Goddess, but I own a yoga studio and have a masters in philosophy and chant in Sanskrit and I know all about Kali and the triple divine feminine from the Indian epic the Devi Magatmaya from having read it. Dany = triple goddess of the divine feminine reborn. You can take that to the bank. When the final two books actually come out, it will be more apparent.
The divine feminine in these traditions is supposed to be terrifying when she assumes her angry forms of Kali and Chandi to defeat demons. But she is most of the time the mother and the maiden. All this symbolism is woven into Dany’s story. She is a Goddess who is 1/3 maiden, 1/3 mother, and 1/3 avenging goddess like the Greek furies, reborn to remake the world.
To quote Euron, “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new God shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.” But it’s not himself he is describing as he thinks. It’s Dany.
Dany is the most divine and magical character, even more than Bran, but she's also the most human character. That's what I don't get from her critics, including you. She and Jon are the only two leaders that are constantly questioning if the decisions they have made were right and who are continually pained by the negative side effects of their choices. We all like Robb, but he always assumes he's right. In fact, he shouldn't have accepted being made king in the north to get revenge for his father. His father died, according to the king, for breaking the rules the same way that Ned executed the terrified man fleeing the night's watch. Both killings were wrong, although legally right. Technically Ned did commit treason. Technically, the man put into the Night's Watch for hunting for food for his family deserted after 40 years due to magic terror from encountering Others. The penalty for fleeing from the Night's Watch is death, regardless of the fact that this man should never have been sent there in the first place and regardless of the fact he needs a psychologist to help him handle encoutering the others, not a sword. The penalty for treason, like Ned did, is death. It's the same thing.
Only Robb turned it into a war where thousands upon thousands of Northerners, mostly poor boys not fully trained as fighters died. Winterfell fell and most of the people who took care of Robb growing up were killed. Women were raped. Children were slaughtered all over the north by the Iron Born and Freys. All because Robb wanted revenge for the death of his Dad who was killed just the same way that Ned killed the nights watch man and Lady and didn't quit his job over Robert killing Mycah.
Robb was a disastrous leader. But he is a man who never questions himself. Dany is constantly questioning herself. Drogo spent his whole life raiding innocent people and taking slaves. Dany was married to him against her will. As soon as he takes up the mantle of reclaiming Westeros for Dany, he continues doing what Drogo has always done. But Dany now immediately attributes what's happening to her cause (even though it is not happening because of her cause). So people say she is evil. No, but she is compassionate unlike someone like Robb. She weighs the costs and consequences of everything. Drogo would have raided the Lamb Men anyway. But because he did it in Dany's name, and she is compassionate and self-questioning, she started her crusade to protect women then and there. She changed how she operated going forward and became a liberator of slaves rather than a taker of slaves. In the next book, as soon as she gains control over the Dothraki, she is going to outlaw slavery forever.
It's crazy that people call Dany bad for constantly questioning everything and being led by compassion and trial and error. She tries to be merciful. When that tactic fails against the KKK / slavers, she tries by steps to get harsher. But whenever she can, she defaults back to being merciful. She can't bring herself to kill the children hostages even though the other side is breaking her rules. She is just so much more thoughtful and compassionate--and effective--as a leader than Robb Stark. She's a force for positive change. She isn't getting her country destroyed because someone treated Robb's Daddy the same way Robb's Daddy and Robert treat everyone else.
Giving Jaime and Breanne’s character arc of being forced to lead a second Red Wedding by Lady Stoneheart to Arya was ridiculous. In the books unlike the show she is also learning in the House of Black and White to value life and only kill when necessary and only targets where a very high price is paid for a good reason. She will I predict be put in dilemmas like being ordered to kill Arianne Martell and wear her face so the Faceless Men can control Dorne and minimize war. But this will be much more moving and explored than than what the show gave us. She is not going to kill a mass of Frey’s in the books I can guarantee bc that is not the Faceless Men and not how she is being trained and they would never just turn someone lose like the show they have trained.
lets be real, well never know.
I feel like Arya is going to interact with Lady Stoneheart at some point and see for herself what a life of nothing but vengeance turns you into. I think that'll be the catalyst to make Arya go home and want to be a Stark again.
Assuming we will never get to read Winds of Winter and A Song of Spring, Arya Stark has still not crossed that point of no redemption. The only real difference between her and other ASOIAF victims is she retained a say in exactly how far she was gonna play victim and more importantly, for how long.
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There is no way she should be alive or call herself a faceless man. The waif shouldn’t either be see all she had to do we slight Aryas throat and it was over. How does the waif getting have feeling and Arya doesn’t. That whole storyline really upset me.
Didn't she kill that one person who deserted the nights watch? The one that was sent there because he was falsey accused of rape?
I hope she's not a hero because heroes in A Song of Ice and Fire don't live very long.
Arya was a dead person walking in the last three seasons
A video about Lord Lyman Beesbury would be great, debating whether by supporting Rhaenyra he was a malicious man who sought to overthrow the Targaryens by putting Rhaenyra's disaster on the throne or he was simply a dangerously blind man.
Arya can kill as much as she wants. As a treat. XD
I feel this should also apply to myself because I love treats.
Who doesn't love treats?!
@@HillsAliveYT entering your Female Rage era I see... that's what happens when you interact with the HOTD fandom lol
If Arya can kill as a treat that sets a precedent, and then before long you've got Shagwell and Chiswyck types running around, saying "where is my treato"
In the end she never found Arya stark again in the show she decided to abandon her family again whit out looking back. She was traumatised more so than even Sansa. She saw the price at war and was traumatised again and again until she decided to run from the trauma her dead family and even her name
More than Sansa? Who was brutalized in the worst of ways? No.
The fact that she was so hostile to Daenerys in S8, simply made zero sense. Especially given her love for the female Targaryens and their dragons
I mean Jon is her favorite person on the planet, and Daenerys took his crown, a crown that her other brother died for. Arya has also pretty much solely experienced people who seize power abuse that power and hurt people with it. Add that onto the obvious fact that the Northerners didn't want to be under the southern crown anymore, and I'm honestly surprised that anyone went in with the expectations that anyone including Arya wouldn't be hostile toward her.
I stopped liking her a while ago
Arya has unironically done nothing wrong. It's a shame that the world she lives in forced someone so young into her position, but morally speaking she is squeaky-clean as far as I'm concerned.
Except multiple murders, yeah. Other than that little tidbit.
@@jostockton. All morally justified.
She will get with Jon Snow as he conquers the Seven Kingdoms--thus living up to his true namestake of "Aegon".
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Nope. She's good. The end.
Why are you giving yet more air time to white characters instead of deconstructing whitness?