Entertainment

Arya & Gendry’s Relationship Is FINALLY Getting Somewhere On 'Game Of Thrones'

by Rebecca Patton
Helen Sloan/HBO

Arya Stark doesn't crack under pressure, and flirting with a cute blacksmith is no exception. Arya and Robert Baratheon's illegitimate son shared a coy moment in the April 21 episode of Game of Thrones, and Twitter was all over it. In fact, tweets about Arya and Gendry's Season 8 hook up reveal just how much fans wanted the two characters to get together. After all, if winter is coming, why not get it on?

If audiences will recall, the two have a history dating back to Season 1. After her father's execution, a Night's Watch recruiter named Yoren cut Arya's hair and helped her join a caravan of Night's Watch recruits headed for the wall. Posing as a boy, she met both Hot Pie and Gendry on the Kingsroad. And while everyone else was fooled by her disguise, Baratheon's son could tell Arya was a girl, even helping to protect her. The two traveled together for quite some time, eventually getting captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners, who sold Gendry to Melisandre.

But while Arya was a young girl when she and Gendry first met, she's a bona fide woman this time around. And not only did sparks fly in the forge while they shamelessly flirted with each other over blades (he was making a special weapon for her, if you'll recall), but they had sex later in the episode.

Naturally, Twitter couldn't handle it.

That said, the responses were mixed on the two characters doing it. Since Arya was a literal child when Game of Thrones began, some audiences were naturally weirded out that she's now sexually active, while others were ecstatic that Arya was finally getting some.

But whatever camp fans landed it, it was certainly interesting to see the Stark have her first romantic interest of the entire show. And when she finally propositioned Gendry, it was with her signature style of confidence. Not only did she candidly ask him how many sexual partners she'd had, but she said matter-of-factly, "We're probably going to die soon. I want to know what it's like before that happens."

And she's right: It seems like every other character in all of Westeros has done the dirty except her, so why shouldn't she get to experience sex on what could very well be her last night alive? What's more, it's obvious that the two are genuinely attracted to each other.

But wherever audiences landed on the Arya and Gendry front, it seems pretty clear that this was her last hurrah and is fully prepared to die for the good of Westeros. Hopefully it won't come down to that, but Season 8's death toll is bound to be astronomical, so it's better safe than sorry.

While Gendry is the late Robert Baratheon's son, he doesn't have a very firm claim on the Iron Throne — right now, at least. But if both Jon and Dany die, perhaps he'll end up forging himself a crown before it's all said and done. Whatever the case, it was quite poetic that it was a blacksmith who finally stuck Arya with the pointy end.