Entertainment

Arya Stark's Got A Murderous Mentor This Season

by Alanna Bennett

Arya and The Hound's Excellent Adventure? Sometimes you just need a cheery headcanon to better bask in your denial when you immerse yourself in the intenseness of the Game Of Thrones world. This is true no matter where you look in the HBO series — no one's exactly having a rolicking good time unless it's Joffrey getting way too much enjoyment out of the maudlin and terrible — and that includes over the way of young Arya Stark, played by Maisie Williams and currently traversing Westeros with The Hound.

In Game Of Thrones' third season finale we (very obvious spoiler alert) left Arya not long after she'd arrived at her destination only to find that her mother and brother were being brutally slaughtered inside. A girl who already have some strong urges for violence against those who ripped apart her family back in season one — the Starks really do have the worst luck — Arya's quest for vengeance was born anew. And apparently her new traveling companion, whom she doesn't always get along with, will help her along in that capacity. Cause who doesn't want a traveling companion with leading characteristics of helping goad you into murder?

They're coming to an uneasy truce where they're not deliberately trying to make it unpleasant for each other. Instead, they're trying to get along and get by. It's an interesting relationship that we saw change a little bit after episode nine, where we see the Hound accept Arya a little bit and Arya realise that the Hound is not all bad and maybe a pretty good person to be with in this world.

And it gets more murdery:

I think she's maybe starting to listen to [the Hound] and learn from him because he's kind of got it right. As much as she is loyal to the stuff she learned from Syrio and the right way of killing people and effective way of killing people, she is realizing at the end of the day you have to get the job done and that's what he is good at.

Yay?

Image: HBO