Episode 112: A CLASH OF KINGS, ARYA VIII: "The Second Wish" SHOW NOTES!

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 twelfth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “The Second Wish: An Analysis of ACOK, Arya VIII,” in which Tywin “The Lion Loser” Lannister marches west and Arya whispers another name to Jaqen H’ghar, only to regret it far too late. 

Introduces Michal 

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Micah: Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Hedrigal, Captain of the Air Ship Arrogance
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
• The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
• Lady Stephanie
• Lord Anonymous
• Lord Carlos
• Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
• The King's Cook, Nolly (No-lee) Olly (Oh-lee), Master of Cannoli
• Ser Sourcedelica 
• Prince Matthew of House Targaryen - Proud Soy Boy of Summerhall, Defender of the 5th Book and Swing Dancer with Dragons
• Ser K.W. Dent, Elsie of the Blackwood Guard, and Batman of the Seven Kingdoms
• Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
• Queer Alex, Rainbow Commander of the They-des and Gentle-thems (ladies and gentlemen)
• Lord Clint, Esq., Master of Absolutely, Positively NOT Serving As A Spy for Several Unnamed High Lords and Ladies In Order to Further the Secret Blackfyre-Style Conspiracy to Overthrow The Oppressive Small Council
• Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
• A-a-ron Damphair Prophet of the Forsaken and High Priest of Euron Crows Eye
• Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
• Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints and Maker of Drawings
• Seanwell the Slayer
• Lord Adam T
• Lady Alexandra of Tarth
• Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
• Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
• Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
• Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
• Lord Peter
• Lady Ashley
• Lady Raj, Mistress of Horse
• The Dead Sheppard Reborn, Preacher of the Poor Fellows
• Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
• And our newest members of the small council:
  • Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
  • Hedrigal Captain of the Airship Arrogance who rejoins the small council after a voyage across the Narrow Sea to find himself 
  • And finally: "Lord George... uhm, sorry... sorry, I just have to get this off my chest, and I fear that if I don't just come out and say it now, I'll chicken out again. So, here goes: I actually find Quaithe to be a wonderful character, and Qarth is probably my favorite location in the whole series. I've just been too afraid to admit it out of fear of what my co-host would think of me. There, I feel relieved to finally admit it... Anyway, where was I... Oh yeah, Lord George R.R. Michael"

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

Question

Ser Michael Mertyns, a high lord, asks:

My question was about how men like Gregor and his crew find each other. Does such evil find each other, do they change one another, is it rotting from the top down?

So, thank you Ser Michael for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you’re welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher patron at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can find show notes, access to our NotASlack at our two highest levels and 9 bonus Fevre Dream episodes and 27 monthly ASOIAF bonus episodes!

Yes! Like part 1 of our 4-part series on TWOW, The Forsaken which is coming to all our Poor Fellow and above patrons in the last week of May. So check us out!

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Arya, she’d been put to work in Harrenhal, had listened to a hilarious story by Chiswyck and then sicced Jaqen H’ghar on him for it. Let’s find out what happens to Arya in this horror-show of a synopsis of ACOK, Arya VIII!

Synopsis

We’re welcomed back to Harrenhal with Tywin Lannister and his army of war criminals who deserve tribunal justice preparing to depart. All the combat service support elements for Tywin’s army get the army ready to go with preventative maintenance checks and services, inventorying the property books and submitting them in G-ARMY and conducting motor stables on Tywin’s rolling stock. About 10 of you understood the references, and this makes me more happy than you’ll ever know.

The noise was a swelling tide: horses blowing and whickering, lords shouting commands, men-at-arms trading curses, camp followers squabbling. Lord Tywin Lannister was marching at last.

The first element to SP FOB Harrenhal was Ser Ginger Fabio AKA Addam Marbrand, Tywin’s trusted reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition squadron commander. Ser Fabio rolls out atop his red horse with his long red hair streaming in the breeze. He was one of Tywin’s best horseman and swordsman, as Weese explains to Arya.

I hope he dies, Arya thought as she watched him ride out the gate, his men streaming after him in a double column. I hope they all die.

I love it hahaha. Arya knew that these guys were off to fight Robb who had won a smashing victory out in the west — though what that victory was isn’t precisely known by the grunts in Harrenhal. They only knew that Robb had done something big, and now Tywin’s goons were getting ready to march. 

As for Arya, Weese has her running messages all over the castle of Harrenhal. Arya feels tempted to escape until Weese tells her and all of his charges that he’ll turn them over to Vargo Hoat to have their limbs cut off. As for those messages, Weese probably thought Arya couldn’t read; so, he sends the missives off with Arya unsealed. And like a good spy, Arya reads every letter. Sadly, there’s no real information of interest, just logistics work. Though one letter was a demand for a knight to pay his gambling debt back to Weese. The knight couldn’t read the letter (I know how you feel buddy) and tells Arya to read the letter for him. She does, and the knight attempts to hit Arya. She ducks away from the blow, steals a silver-banded drinking horn from the knight’s horse and runs away before being caught.

When she gave the horn to Weese, he told her that a smart little Weasel like her deserved a reward. “I’ve got my eye on a plump crisp capon to sup on tonight. We’ll share it, me and you. You’ll like that.” 

Oh yum. I can’t wait for Arya to enjoy some capon later in this chapter! <beat>

As Arya trapses all over Harrenhal delivering Weese’s letters, she tries to find Jaqen H’ghar. She wants to give him another name, but she can’t find him due to all the chaos. Finally, she asks a soldier about it, and he reports that Amory Lorch and his men are staying put at Harrenhal. And congratulations are in order. Ser Amory is being promoted in order to become the castellan of Harrenhal! Hooray for Ser Amory! But also, Vargo Hoat was sticking around Harrenhal too, and Amory and Vargo hated each other. So, they’ll probably try to kill each other. 

Otherwise, the Mountain and his boys were leaving Harrenhal too. So, Arya would have to act fast in order to Jaqen him or one of his boys. But then Weese orders Arya to head over to the armory to let Lucan the Armorer know that Ser Lyonel needed a new sword. (P.S. Ser Lyonel may be Ser Lyonel Frey: one of Genna Lannister’s sons. Just a bit of trivia for you). Weese gives her Lyonel’s mark, and she heads off to the armory, finding a bunch of shirtless, burly bros hammering and sweating in the heat. 

When she spied Gendry, his bare chest was slick with sweat, but the blue eyes under the heavy black hair had the stubborn look she remembered. Arya didn’t know that she even wanted to talk to him. It was his fault they’d all been caught.

She asks Gendry about getting a new sword for Lyonel and where she can find Lucan, but Gendry pulls her aside and tells her that Hot Pie asked whether Arya had yelled “Winterfell!” during the battle by the God’s Eye. Arya denies it, but Gendry knows the truth. He had covered for Arya with Hot Pie by telling pie boy that Arya had shouted “Go to hell”, and Arya needs to remember this if Hot Pie asks him about it.

“I will,” she said, even though she thought go to hell was a stupid thing to yell. She didn’t dare tell Hot Pie who she really was. Maybe I should say Hot Pie’s name to Jaqen.

Well, that’s a little disturbing. 

But then Gendry goes and gets Lucan. Lucan gives Arya a new long sword which Arya carries across the yard, liking the weight and balance of the sword — even if it wasn’t like Needle. Still, she’s starting to recover some of herself as she thinks that she’s feeling less like a mouse these days.

Arya sees the open gate and wonders about whether she might just slip out of Harrenhal, claiming that she needed a new horse for Ser Lyonel. The stableboys wouldn’t be able to read the letter. She’d take the horse, the sword and roll out. And she’d have the piece of paper with her. She would tell them she was just going to Ser Lyonel if they caught her. But then the thought of what Weese would do cuts in. She thinks she rather likes having feet. 

But then a squad of archers walks past, talking about the Starks and how monstrous and evil they are. They also take turns bragging and fretting about facing the Starks in battle. Arya thinks they should all run away, and that includes Tywin, Ser Gregor and everyone going out to face her brother in battle.

All of you better run or my brother will kill you, he’s a Stark, he’s more wolf than man, and so am I. 

But then Weese is there. He grabs the sword from Arya and backhands her for being so slow to complete her errand. Arya becomes a mouse again for a moment, tasting blood from Weese’s blow. She hates him now more than ever. Arya looks at Weese murderously, and Weese threatens her with another blow and then orders her to accomplish more errands. And she’s going to have to double-time it if she wants to eat. Somehow, if you can believe it, Weese has forgotten his promise to Arya of the capon. I was really looking forward to Arya eating that chicken. But no. 

Weese threatens that if Arya gets lost again, he’ll beat her blood, but Arya knows better. She knows that he’ll never threaten her again. Arya feels the old gods guiding her steps as she steps to in Harrenhal. She passes under and archway and immediately runs into two heroes of ASOIAF. No, wait. Not heroes. It’s Rorge and Biter. Not heroes at all. They speak lots of really interesting words to Arya about whether Yoren kept her around, because of her anatomy. Look, all I’m saying is that if characters on page can make me blush and flinch away, then they might be bad.

Anyways, now that Rorge and Biter are here, maybe they’ll take sexual advantage of Arya, right? Not really. She wants to know where she can find Jaqen.

Rorge halted. Something in his eyes... could it be that he was scared of Jaqen H’ghar? “The bathhouse. Get out of my way.”

So, Arya heads to the bathhouse and finds Jaqen in the tub for a soak with a serving girl pouring hot water over his head. The narrative is communicating here that Faceless Men fuck. How about that?

Arya tries creep-creeping on up to Jaqen, but he stops her and tells her she’s big-footing her way over to him. Surprised, Arya wonders how he knew that, but Jaqen states that the noise of leather on the floor is loud to someone like him — someone who fucks. Anyways, why are you here, Arya? She has a message. And what’s that message?

“I have a message.” Arya eyed the serving girl uncertainly. When she did not seem likely to go away, she leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his ear. “Weese,” she whispered.

Jaqen H’ghar closed his eyes again, floating languid, half -asleep. “Tell his lordship a man shall attend him at his leisure.” His hand moved suddenly, splashing hot water at her, and Arya had to leap back to keep from getting drenched. 

Jaqen playful? He’s so weird!

Anyways, Arya heads down to the brewer to tell him what Weese told her to tell him. He gets cursed for her trouble, but the brewer promises to deliver the barrels of ale so long as Weese provides the manpower to roll them out. Day in the life of Arya Weasel.

But that night, Arya does get to eat. She gets a stew. Not great. A girl who Weese was sleeping with gets a piece of blue cheese and a wing from the capon Weese had promised Arya. But Weese eats everything else besides a few bites. Arya thinks that maybe Weese is saving them for her, but nope. He orders her over, grabs her throat and backhands her twice for apparently looking at him. He then finishes off the last bites and tosses the bones to his dog.

“Weese,” Arya whispered that night as she bent over the tear in her shift. “Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling,” she said, calling a name every time she pushed the bone needle through the undyed wool. “The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” She wondered how much longer she would have to include Weese in her prayer, and drifted off to sleep dreaming that on the morrow, when she woke, he’d be dead. 

Unfortunately, it’s Weese who wakes her up with a kick the next morning. 

It was the day that Tywin Lannister himself was riding away from Harrenhal, and Weese warns that the work (and beatings) will continue even with Tywin gone. Plus, it’ll be twice as hard as there’ll be fewer hands to help out. Weese will see to that. Sure thing bud, Arya thinks before heading up to a tower to watch Tywin leave.

From her tower window, Arya looks down on Tywin in his amazing finery of a horse, clothing and armor. Fellow war criminal Kevan Lannister rides next to Tywin. Four standard-bearers advanced ahead of the Lannister bros, and all the men of Tywin’s host with their red ox, golden mountain, purple unicorn, bantam rooster (it’s Harys Swyft’s famous blue cock sigil), brindled boar, badger, silver ferret and a juggler in motley, stars and sunbursts, peacock and panther, chevron and dagger, black hood and blue beetle and green arrow sigils stand behind Tywin. Last of all was Gregor Clegane with a horned-helmet wearing Polliver (this being the helmet he stole from Gendry) next to him.

A shiver crept up Arya’s spine as she watched them pass under the great iron portcullis of Harrenhal. Suddenly she knew that she had made a terrible mistake. I’m so stupid, she thought. Weese did not matter, no more than Chiswyck had. These were the men who mattered, the ones she ought to have killed. Last night she could have whispered any of them dead, if only she hadn’t been so mad at Weese for hitting her and lying about the capon. Lord Tywin, why didn’t I say Lord Tywin? 

But maybe it’s not too late. She needed to find Jaqen before Weese died. 

So, Arya runs down the stairs and through the courtyard of Harrenhal as the gate closes as Tywin’s army runs off, and then she hears another sound: a scream filled with pain and fear.

A dozen people got there before her, though none was coming any too close. Arya squirmed between them. Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh out of the dead man’s face. 

Someone takes a crossbow and kills the dog lapping at the blood flowing from Weese’s throat. It was Weese’s dog who did the deed. Everyone mutters about Harrenhal being cursed and Harren’s ghost killing Weese. Goodwife Amabel declares that she’s not going to sleep here anymore. No ser!

Arya lifted her gaze from the dead man and his dead dog. Jaqen H’ghar was leaning up against the side of the Wailing Tower. When he saw her looking, he lifted a hand to his face and laid two fingers casually against his cheek. 

And that is ACOK, Arya VIII! Now that we’re up to Arya’s eighth chapter in ACOK, I can almost forget that Arya’s arc started at a slow, somewhat boring pace. We’re in the shit now, and I love it! What’d you two think of this chapter? 

Depth

Arya VIII might not have a devastating showstopper sequence like Chiswyck’s story in Arya VII, but it more than makes up for it with its own unique strengths, particularly in how it showcases George’s mastery of atmosphere. He can move on a dime between the chaotic tableaux of an army in motion with which the chapter starts to a scene of quiet mysterious intimacy like Arya and Jaqen in the bathhouse. All of it comes together as the context in which Arya makes her next big choice, her next interjection into the domain of death. While the choice to kill Weese and not, say, Tywin is rooted in her personal internal struggles (conveyed so vividly and fiercely in this chapter), it takes place against the backdrop of the age of wonder and terror, the political and magical expansions that naturally come together at Harrenhal, where Black Harren climbed the fiery ladder to find Aegon the Conqueror and his dreadful black shadow waiting for him. 

These twin forms of power, separated at birth, are careening out of control and laying waste to all we (mere mortals caught between them) hold dear. In the wake of righteously taking down Chiswyck in her last chapter, Arya seizes onto Jaqen’s seemingly limitless ability to kill at will as her way to control the brutal chaos all around her. But as the chapter ends, she feels as adrift and powerless as anyone else, lost in both a fairytale maze and the game of thrones.

Michal opening thoughts

Okay, so. One of the reasons I love this chapter is because, in the zoomed-out macro view of A Song of Ice and Fire, pretty much nothing happens. The most important thing that COULD have happened, Arya using her wish in a politically effective way and offing high-ranking Lannisters, does not happen. The second most important thing, Arya escaping from Harrenhal given multiple opportunities, does not happen. Tywin’s departure is by far the most story-significant part of the tale, and apart from her role as a teeny, tiny cog in this massive war machine, Arya influences that a grand total of zero percent. The parts of this chapter that are significant to Arya -- most notably, the murderdeath of Weese -- literally do not mean ANYTHING to the greater story. Arya VIII doesn’t even really advance George’s thesis of the smallfolk suffering. The pain in this chapter is all inflicted within the social structure, and it’s all Arya’s.

That’s perfect, because as you guys titled the episode, this is Arya’s Second Wish. In pretty much any fairytale, the second wish is the boring wish. The second wish has to happen for this magical triad to function, but of itself, it is usually pretty forgettable.

And the brilliant thing about this chapter is that Arya falls right into that trap of the mundane wish, and she only understands this when the jaws literally close and it’s just too late. This is a petty chapter, with outcomes that are tragic BECAUSE they are petty, and while it’s easy to overlook in the grand scheme of Arya’s story, I think it’s pretty masterful. 

During our chill session at the end of our Fevre Dream livecast this past Thursday, we were talking about how acts of small violence and horror sometimes shock and get under our skin when over-the-top depictions of violence don’t. So, here, I was musing to myself why that moment in the chapter where Weese grabs Arya’s throat and backhands her feels so much more visceral than Weese’s dog tearing off chunks of Weese’s face and drinking his blood. On one level, we care about Arya and feel that catharsis that such an overt villain got his. On another level, there’s a feeling of intimacy about being choked and backhanded that gets me at least. It resonates with some of my experiences growing up. Sadly, it probably does for a lot of our listeners too. George does a wonderful job of showing both sides of the violence. But for me, George really hits home in depicting the sickening dread of a beating to come and  common-place violence when it comes. 

• The Army of the West on the move
  • Arya VIII opens on pure cacophony, a trumpet blast of images and sounds as thousands of people and all their stuff spring into action at once
  • It’s very cinematic--a hard cut to a blast of noise to get the audience’s attention, waking them up like the shrieking cockatoo in Citizen Kane
  • George cuts in from the master shot to inserts of smiths, squires, seamstresses, but they all swirl together into a single crowded portrait of an army in motion
  • As George puts it, the true ruler of the castle is neither Tywin Lannister nor Black Harren’s ghost. It is confusion and clangor that rule Harrenhal now
  • This wonderfully expresses the mundane side of Harrenhal that contrasts with the supernatural side, as we talked about in Arya VI and VII
  • No one really knows what they’re doing. Everyone is confused and running around and yelling at each other. Tasks are being accomplished bit by bit, but the overall impression is one of a “swelling tide of noise” crowding out thought, a perfect microcosm of how societies are always rising and falling at the same time
  • All because “Lord Tywin Lannister was marching at last.” Why is he marching? It’s not to defend Joffrey from Stannis. It’s because in his little cat-and-mouse, lion-and-fawn game with Robb Stark, he turned out to be the fawn all along
    • I’m so glad you used those specific words, because this chapter relies so heavily and beautifully on animal imagery. 
    • Those are important ideas in Arya’s chapters since the beginning (“Arya Horseface,” her emotional reliance on the idea of a pack, her eventual literal warg-transformation into a cat. 
    • But in this chapter, the animal imagery also serves the role of representing why Arya makes the mistakes she does, why a character who is often maybe a little bit too clever is driven by petty instinct.
    • In this chapter, Arya is, more than most other occasions, possessed of an animal motivation. She acts on instincts of survival -- hunger and pain, and the possible relief of those things. There’s no calculation; it’s strict reward/punishment conditioning.
    • Arya VIII is the story of the food chain, a hungry creature moving up the links in power but not motivation.
    • Which, if you think about it, is sort of the opposite of what Tywin is doing -- trying to stop himself and his family from sinking down the great political food chain, while refusing to view the situation from anything but the lion’s perch at the top.
  • Tywin’s plan up until now in ACOK, to sap Robb’s strength before luring him out to defeat so Tywin could focus on the Baratheon bros, has totally fallen apart
  • Robb rode off in the other direction, subverting Lannister defenses at the Golden Tooth, killing Tywin’s cousin, destroying the army that was supposed to help Tywin defeat Robb, running roughshod over the lands of Tywin’s vassals, and even threatening Lannisport and the Rock itself (as far as Tywin knows, that is)
  • This is the Lannister low-water mark in the war. Enemies in every direction but the southeast in King’s Landing and Stannis just days away from Storm’s End.
  • We talk a lot about how George has done a lot of research on politics, history, religion, pop culture, movies, etc to make his stories feel organic, but what this reminds me of more than anything is a board game.
  • The pieces are moving, the board gets reshuffled and suddenly, the faction that started the game off in the strongest position is suddenly weak. Classic board game shit!
  • GRRM himself is famous for his love of board games, licensing ASOIAF for several board games. He once commented:
    • I was a comic book fanboy… one of the ORIGINAL comic book fanboys, thank you very much, the ones who started comics fandom. And the comic book fanboy thinks that games and cards and miniatures and all that stuff is hot shit. - GRRM, Notablog, 3/17/2007
  • The important takeaway for your writin’ nerds out there is to take the things you love in your leisure time and make them a part of your universe.
  • The important takeaway for the story, though, is if this was the game of Risk, Tywin Lannister has lost Australia and now he has enemies all around his last continent: Europe. He will be willing to sacrifice his North African territories if he has to — even if most of his family is there (You’ll know what I mean if you’ve played Risk)
    • NERDS
    • (I don’t play bordgames)
    • (you wouldn’t either if you saw the sharklike gleam in my sister’s eye as she amassed every stalk of wheat on Catan)
    • (some things are better not to know)
    • (I don’t have to say all this on the podcast lol)
  • Tywin has to make his move now or lose it all, but it’s not just geopolitics that’s motivating Tywin to march out from Harrenhal now.
  • All of this has the cumulative effect of making Tywin look like a fool, threatening the reputation of competence and danger Tywin cares about more than anything because it’s the foundation of the power he wants to hand on to his grandkids
  • Once again, as at King’s Landing in Sansa III and Winterfell in Bran V, we are seeing the Battle of Oxcross as a shadow on a wall. We see it not directly through the eyes of those who fought, but indirectly, through the eyes of the political communities that transform its meaning with their fears and desires
  • For Sansa, Oxcross is a glorious victory that nonetheless compounds her suffering. For Bran, Oxcross is nice and all, but it doesn’t win the war, which would bring Robb home, which is all he and Rickon really care about
  • Specifically, Bran doesn’t take much heart from Oxcross because it wasn’t Tywin who was defeated...but now Tywin himself is rejoining the fray personally, because for him, Oxcross means he must march west or risk losing his army
  • I say “risk” because Tywin’s personal history, reputation, and relationships with these lords generally serve to keep them in line even in dangerous situations
  • But as I said, that reputation has now taken some serious hits from the very man they’re marching to fight, who is occupying more of their home territory every day
  • Tywin’s personal shadow on a wall is starting to look shaky! His power exists because his men believe power resides with him. What happens if they don’t?
  • The tides are starting to turn, not only among his lords, but the common men:
    • "...giants I tell you, he's got giants twenty foot tall come down from beyond the Wall, follow him like dogs..."
      
      "...not natural, coming on them so fast, in the night and all. He's more wolf than man, all them Starks are..."
      
      "...shit on your wolves and giants, the boy'd piss his pants if he knew we was coming. He wasn't man enough to march on Harrenhal, was he? Ran t'other way, didn't he? He'd run now if he knew what was best for him."
      
      "So you say, but might be the boy knows something we don't, maybe it's us ought to be run..."
  • Here we see the power of rumor and propaganda to shape reputation, and in turn, the power of reputation to shape reality even when it’s built on lies
  • The irony is that while the wild exaggeration of Robb’s sorcery was used by Lancel in Sansa III to excuse the Lannisters for their incompetence in defeat, that same rumor mill works against Lannister morale here by making Robb so scary!
  • Yet Tywin must still march west in order to show his lords he will defend their lands from Robb Stark. If he doesn’t, if he sticks around at Harrenhal in order to stay close enough to King’s Landing to defend it when Stannis marches, it is entirely possible that some or even most lords will desert him for their own lands
  • It’s the same reason Renly had to ride for Storm’s End when Stannis threatened it, the same reason Robb has to try and get home when the Ironborn invade
  • If you can’t defend home and hearth, you are nothing. Fear of Tywin can still keep this army together in the face of that crisis, but not for long if he stays here
  • When Tywin, Renly and eventually Stannis die, the causes die with them. The armies melt away, the lords find someone else to serve.
  • Oh sure, the westermen aren’t precisely going to desert en masse after Tywin’s death in ASOS, but they fade. Jaime from AFFC:
    • As for the Lannister host, two thousand seasoned veterans remained encamped outside the city walls, awaiting the arrival of Paxter Redwyne's fleet to carry them across Blackwater Bay to Dragonstone.
  • Remember that Tywin’s host at Harrenhal is some 12-15K. 2000 head off to Dragonstone with half of them dying there. Some Lannister redcloaks trade their red cloak for a gold one under Ser Addam Marbrand’s command. Daven has the remnants of his father’s westermen around Riverrun. About 900 or so accompany Jaime to Riverrun and 200 escort Tywin’s body back to the Westerlands.
  • But there’s at least ¾ of the Lannister army that’s unaccounted for, and I don’t think that casualties from the War of the Five Kings explains where they went.
  • I think that the fear that was Tywin Lannister is removed, and most of them went home, unconcerned that they'd face consequences.
  • Recall, too, that during the mad rush to reach the ruby ford back in AGOT had Tywin abandoning wounded Lannister soldiers on the side of the road to die.
  • I just read the part of Dune where Gurney Halleck utters the Atreides military slogan: "We care for our own!” This doesn’t seem to be the Lannister way. 
  • Who genuinely wants to take up arms on behalf of a cause that’s willing to let you die if they think you’re an inconvenience to them?
  • And that says nothing about the type of war that the Lannisters conduct during the War of the Five Kings. It sucks at the soul.
  • Yeah, when it all boils down, everyone involved in the Lannister war effort is basically trying to convince THEMSELVES that they are at the top of the food chain. 
  • Especially Tywin, who has that really bad habit of binding his own perceived worth to the standing of his house. Not being at the top of the heap is, for him, basically the equivalent of being Arya -- bullied, powerless, at the whim of others. And that’s unacceptable.
  • So we see over and over again throughout the story that power becomes its own justification. It doesn’t even matter if it’s real or not -- as long as Tywin acts like it is, and subsequently cleanses his actions with that power, 
  • I wonder if that might be what the Lannister forces are currently relying on -- in place of Tywin’s loyalty, they rely on his “natural strength.” Which will, eventually, collapse like an overused metaphor. 
  • But at the moment, we’re all safe in Harrenhal and grand and golden, and some unnatural northern enemy or red god won’t have a chance against you.
  • I think it’s worth looking at the overblown way the Lannister men refer to Robb. Their fear makes him more powerful, but also less human. His victories have challenged their perception of the typical order of destruction, where the lion devours all things. 
  • So they have to put him outside of that, recontextualize him into something supernatural to be able to comprehend what’s going on.
  • And the language is, not unusually, beastial
    • Giants who follow Robb like dogs! 
    • Robb is “more wolf than man”
  • And while the language used to describe and understand Robb by his enemies doesn’t materially influence his power, this kind of language DOES, very much, influence Arya. 
• Arya at ground level
  • The camera pans down from all the chaos at the adult level to find Arya Underfoot dashing around on the ground, running errands and soaking it all in
  • Her tiny child muscles render her unfit for most of the tasks involved here, so Weese has her running messages: information, lighter than air, but still powerful
  • Arya’s Underfoot status, her role as the mouse scurrying around the huge halls of Harrenhal, determines her access to that information, for better and worse
  • On one hand, all she hears about Oxcross is bits and pieces, scraps of half-heard gossip bandied about by adults who themselves don’t know the truth
  • This is a pointed contrast to the full breakdown of the battle received by our POVs in King’s Landing and Winterfell, who are close enough to the heart of power to learn all the details about what went down in the Westerlands
  • In Sansa III, we saw the crafting of propaganda at the very top with Lancel’s story about Robb’s sorcery. Here in Arya VIII, we see how that trickles down the social pyramid until it becomes competing strands of wild gossip among the smallfolk
  • The lords get the facts, the peasants get the rumors. At Arya’s level, Oxcross feels more like Renly’s death, which actually did involve sorcery, and so is shrouded by mystery for those at the top as much as those at the bottom
  • When the high lords play their game of thrones, the masses only get incomplete fragments of what’s happening in their country and must puzzle out the rest
  • That’s a real-world modern-day phenomenon despite how much our media has changed. What does Epstein’s death mean? We’ll never know, but we can guess
    • The narration finally concludes “Something had happened, that much was certain,” and I felt that viscerally. 
  • The fun turn that George integrates often into the narrative is that the rumors that the smallfolk pass between each other conveys truths that the high lords are unaware of.
  • Like how in the Lazy Eel at White Harbor, Davos overhears the smallfolk telling actual facts and information that not even Varys knows about. 
  • What I love best is that bit of gossip she overhears from the Lannister men. 
  • They’re sort-of wrong. Robb hasn’t brought giants down, and he’s not more wolf than man.
  • But they’re sorta right too! Robb has brought the Umbers down from the North 
  • All Arya knows, all the people around her know, is something has happened. Whatever that something is, it’s uprooted their whole world, they get no say in any of it, and they have to keep following orders, working themselves to the bone
  • On the other hand, Arya’s Underfoot status guarantees that she goes overlooked and undervalued by the adults around her, which is an advantage in its own way
  • Remember what Dontos tells Sansa later in this book:
    • “I hear all sorts of things as a fool that I never heard when I was a knight. They talk as though I am not there…”
  • By that same token, Weese never imagines that Arya can read--something that separates her from the people around her, hinting at her true identity
  • As such, Weese doesn’t seal the messages he sends around, allowing Arya access to the information contained within
  • Most of it is useless to her, a recurring theme in George’s work where the quest for knowledge is the point, rather than the knowledge itself; this came up in our most recent episode on Fevre Dream, with Abner searching Joshua’s cabin
  • Arya doesn’t learn some wild revelation like R+L=J from her ability to read these messages. All she learns is that one knight has a gambling debt...which he doesn’t know, because he can’t read! In the topsy-turvy world of Harrenhal, the knights can’t read and the “peasant girl” carrying their messages can
  • When she tells the knight about his debt, he tries to shoot the messenger, reaching out to hit Arya. The ability to read has hindered her in this situation--her true identity, as someone who can read, could potentially lead to pain
  • But instead, Arya steals a drinking horn and gives it to Weese, proving her worth to him. He is pleased, and promises to share his dinner with her that night
    • Let’s also be clear, this promise is part of Arya’s conditioning, and it works. 
    • You can almost feel the weight in this chapter of Arya’s fear of the man at the top of her personal food chain. She doesn’t run away out of terror of his retribution, she -- a girl who has literally contracted a magical assassin -- imbues WEESE with the almost magical powers to hurt and control her.
    • Arya calls herself a mouse and a wolf, she’s called Weasel. But in this chapter, she is essentially another one of Weese’s dogs. And like Weese’s dog, she turns out to have a set of teeth that he doesn’t see coming. 
  • So for the moment, it appears that Arya’s ability to read, something kept intact from her old life, is helping her survive...but Weese won’t keep his promise
  • More on that later. Throughout Arya’s busy day, George keeps reminding both her and us what she’s missing while shut up in Harrenhal: the home and family to which Yoren was trying to return her. Will she ever get them back? How?
  • In Arya VII, the temptation to escape and make it back home was represented by Lord Cerwyn, a Northman known to Arya Stark of Winterfell...but then he died
  • In Arya VIII, the temptation is evolving to escaping on her own, because she got radicalized by Chiswyck’s story and no longer can count on adults to save her
  • Weese’s messages often take her outside the castle. She’s tempted to just jump on a wagon and escape, counting on anonymity and chaos to make her invisible
  • But the threat of Weese holds her back. Specifically, he threatens any runaway with punishment by the Bloody Mummers. Here we see how the power structures of Westeros at war work on the bottom: the peasants, enslaved for their labor, are kept in line by threat of violence committed by the lords’ disavowable assets
  • Even the idea of home seems dangerous to Arya, because Weese acts like he can read your thoughts. Gendry also tells her that the idea of home is dangerous
  • He pulls her aside to tell her that Hot Pie heard her yelling “Winterfell!” at the battle by the Gods Eye. 
    • I hope you don’t mind, but I just HAVE to shout out perhaps the greatest single moment of adaptation on all of Game of Thrones -- the scene in season 2, episode 5, when Gendry is at his forge all bare-chested and sooty and sweaty and Arya is just glancing at him from under her hair… perfect. Chef’s kiss. A+ appointment viewing peak TV.
    • My attempted body double. WHAT’S YOUR ROUTINE, JOE DEMPSIE?
  • This may seem like a curious irrelevant detail for George to include. It’s not like anything ever comes of this! Why mention it at all?
  • Because it ties so perfectly into this chapter’s focus on how to preserve one’s identity in a chaotic, violent situation. Arya spends this whole book pretending to be someone else; for one moment, in the middle of battle, in the middle of hell, she stopped pretending and fought on behalf of her real self, family, and home
  • What was the outcome? Suspicion and alienation, a worry that people might find out who you really are, and you’ll suffer for it. This is George doing his best kind of deconstruction. The battle cry in fantasy is supposed to be the ultimate expression of self in the face of death, a thrilling moment for the audience
  • “GONDOR!” our heroes cry as they charge into battle, and we cry it out with them. But crying “WINTERFELL!” was a mistake for Arya. It threatens her now
  • What if Weese should find out who she is? She’d never be able to escape then! So it’s this beautiful contradiction wherein Arya must negate her Stark identity in order to preserve the hope of escaping Harrenhal to resume that Stark identity
  • And so Arya begins to think about killing Weese...but with the goal of escaping. That’s not going to be her ultimate motivation for killing him, and George is very focused on that transition and how it plays out because it’s thematically important
  • She also briefly considers killing Hot Pie, which is hilarious, but also representative of where Arya’s head is. Threats emerge from every corner. In Harrenhal, everything is zero sum; no relationships can be counted on for long
    • In a gross kind of irony, Arya finds herself falling into this dog-eat-dog mentality less when she is a fortuitously un-slaughtered lamb on the lam or the road in the lawless Riverlands, than when she integrates to an “ordered” human society. Out on the road, there was no pretense of even barest humanity, among the various peasants. They were a barely distinguished mass. but it’s now that Arya has adjusted somewhat to the rules of Harrenhal that she becomes part of its hierarchy. 
• Weese’s slap and the second wish
  • Arya pays for this one moment when she allowed herself to be Arya instead of Weasel. Harrenhal is the domain of petty tyrants who bootstomp humanity
  • Arya stops dead, staring into space, imagining running off with a horse and sword. She could use the power of text and literacy I was talking about earlier in her favor, knowing that the stableboys can’t read the paper
  • She hears the soldiers talk about Robb, and she glories in imagining his victory. They are wolves, strong and fierce; if they run together, no one can hurt them...
  • ...but then Weese shatters her daydream and drags her back to the harsh realities of Harrenhal, his voice cracking like a whip--a significant comparison
  • He takes the sword away and slaps her. The promise of extra food, so significant for Arya given how many calories she’s been denied, falls away in an instant
  • This is life under occupation. You have no rights, no dignity, no security, no personhood. Your basic needs of survival depend on the whims of the cruel
  • The wolf is gone. The pack is gone. The connection provided to her old life by hearing about Robb’s victory and fearsome reputation--Weese took it all away
    • And the awful reality is, he CAN take it away. Arya imbues him with that power, because she has been sublimated into his sad little kingdom, where she is a creature who is satisfied or not, in pain or not, at Weese’s whim.
  • Structurally, this moment is the equivalent of Chiswyck’s story in Arya VII. I say “structurally” because it motivates the decision to kill, not because they are anything close to the same thing in terms of impact or sheer baroque sadism
  • In isolation, a slap and a lost meal are not on the same order as rape or murder. But as I said in our Arya VII episode, none of this is happening in isolation
  • Just as in Arya VII, George does such careful effective work, on a sentence-by-sentence basis, to establish Arya’s mindset and motives
  • First of all, this is happening to her, rather than a story being told around her. There are personal qualities at play--not only physical pain, but shock, embarrassment, self-loathing, powerlessness, everyone pain invites to the party
  • Secondly, Weese was already a fearsome figure in her life, threatening her constantly, hemming in her escape; she was already considering killing him!
  • But thirdly, Weese just seemed to have softened a bit, giving her a reward, allowing her to think that maybe, maybe she has some control over her life
  • Maybe she isn’t completely alienated from her labor. Maybe she’s more than a mouse, a slave, a leaf caught up on the wind of winter. Maybe there’s still a way for her to relate to her environment other than her kill list, brought to life by Jaqen
  • And then Weese slams that door shut, unknowingly sealing his own doom, not only by being cruel, but by taking back his brief kindness. Arya can’t handle that
  • It hurts too much, inside as well as out, especially because Weese made clear to her without even realizing it that she might not ever get home to her family
  • You were talking before about how the class structures work to violently oppress the peasants in Harrenhal, and I emphatically agree.
  • To add onto that, what I see with Weese and the goodwives in this chapter is how they attempt to replicate the class structure against their fellow smallfolk
  • Worse still, this is far from a benign class structure (if such a thing can exist). 
  • What Weese does in his conduct with Arya in this chapter (and Arya VII) is recreate the horrors of the march north to Harrenhal.
  • We have all the same types of archetypes: We have peasants brutalized for annoying the Mountain’s Men
  • We have a women who attempt to survive the horror by sleeping with their oppressors
  • Then there’s Arya’s fear that Weese can read her secret thoughts — which functions similarly to the Tickler’s questions and attempts to find out the secrets of the smallfolk.
  • Remember Gregor Clegane telling Arya and the smallfolk that they weren’t allowed to look the highborn in the eye? Weese grabs Arya’s throat and backhands here twice for daring to look him in the eye.
    • I think those are all really good points, but it struck me on this read how petty all this is. This entire scene is so emotionally significant to Arya, but it’s so… nothing! The master was cruel and the pet didn’t get the treat it was promised. A few bites of meat. I’m sure Arya left as much if not more food on her plate at Winterfell.
    • But like you were saying, this doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Arya has been acculturated to this system, while retaining just enough unexpected agency and power to push back on those who have done her wrong.  
  • All of this compounds together to make Weese the avatar of Arya’s woes, as Renly became the stand-in for everything Robert did to Stannis, and like Stannis, Arya responds by whispering her target’s name in a sorcerous killer’s ear
  • George emphasizes the weight of this decision by briefly reintroducing Rorge, who makes Weese look positively humane by comparison
  • Unlike Jaqen, Rorge does not believe he owes Arya anything for saving his life. Quite the opposite: Rorge intends to rape her now that he knows she’s a girl
  • What an abyss of humanity that is, to look at your savior and decide to brutalize her. It does not get any worse than Rorge. And he is terrified of Jaqen H’ghar.
  • What does that say about Jaqen? Not that he’s even worse than Rorge, that’s clearly not the case. It says that he belongs to a different category altogether
  • He’s frightening not because he’s a uniquely monstrous person, but because he’s barely a person at all. Will Arya, in her pursuit of vengeance, become like him?
    • I do think that Jaqen’s separateness is appealing to Arya. He exists completely outside the food chain of Harrenhal and Westeros in general. He’s miraculous in that alone, even if he weren’t promising and delivering bloody miracles.
    • But of course, Arya’s refusal to unhook her heart from her family and history is a huge point in her story, even as she goes to Braavos and adopts so much of the Faceless Man’s way of life.
    • It does remain to be seen how [something something smart something]
  • And so Arya steps inside the bathhouse to find Jaqen, a scene that stands out from the rest of the chapter, like Jaqen visually stands out from his environment
  • Everyone else is running around, getting all their possessions together, covered in dust and sweat and scowls; Jaqen soaks in water and steam, taking it easy
  • This bathhouse, of course, is where Jaime gets literally and metaphorically naked in ASOS, floating in “heat and memory” until he unburdens himself to Brienne
  • But when you peel back the layers of Jaqen’s onion, there’s nothing there. He’s no one. So this bathhouse scene feels like it hovers outside of time and space, rather than bearing the burden of backstory. It’s an abstract space to test Arya
  • At a literal level, it’s bizarre that a simple soldier is allowed to take it easy while the rest of the castle prepares for the long march. It fits the aura of magic and mystery that surrounds Jaqen. While the rest of the castle and the rest of the army is in service to the game of thrones, the political side of the series, Jaqen and his little pocket universe represent the magic, the age of wonder and terror
  • Arya has crossed the threshold, figuratively as well as literally. In all this smoke and water, Jaqen could be anyone; she could be anyone; anyone could die
  • She picks Weese. The shadow on a wall takes shape, the bridge between the worlds is born and baptized in blood; she flees back to the old world, changed
  • In a narrow, parallel sense to Arya VII, it’s understandable why Arya siccs her murder genie on Weese.
  • Now, Weese is not nearly so bad as Chiswyck, but he has a ruder strain of evil about him — a common evil and willingness to inflict violence on defenseless innocents.
  • It’s fascinating that Arya’s intersection with a magical killer comes at the behest of a cosmic idea: vengeance.
  • Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand so says the author of Deuteronomy.
  • That idea of vengeance as something cosmic and tied up in the supernatural is something we see in the very curse of a place called Harrenhal.
  • But Arya is taking vengeance into her own hands here in tapping into the supernatural element present in Harrenhal.
  • It feels satisfying in the moment to strike back against another bad dude, another oppressor.
  • But that initial satisfaction in getting vengeance, in utilizing the supernatural will fade ... almost immediately.
• The regret
  • Arya comes to regret her decision to order Weese killed, and this regret is the emotional and philosophical heart of the chapter
  • This is key to the fairytale three-wish structure George is employing in Harrenhal. The first wish is uncomplicated, used to legitimize the genie’s power. Not only was Chiswyck personally vile, he was raising young men to behave like him
  • George changes things up with the second wish, in order to force both Arya and the audience to how best to wield the power of violence in this unjust world
  • I love how George paces Arya’s change of mind. First, he dangles the possibility of Weese’s better angels re-emerging. He calls her over at dinner. She thinks he’s remembered his promise of extra meat; she regrets her order to kill
  • But then Weese slaps her again, once more dangling the possibility of a better life before snatching it away. 
    • Just to pull out my English Writing Major and do some close readingin this scene: 
    • Arya is eating “a thin stew of barley, onion and carrots, with a wedge of stale brown bread.” A meal you could find in any vegetarian restaurant.
    • It’s Weese and the women he favors who get animal protein -- blue cheese and the capon. 
    • It’s a literal gustatory hierarchy, much like the one going on in Kings Landing at the moment.
    • And just one more detail that adds to this -- After Weese slaps Arya, he threatens to spoon out one of her eyes and feed it to his dog. 
    • And after he shoves Arya, he tosses the chicken bone to that dog. Who is now officially higher on the food chain than Weasel.
    • This is all intensely personal, and I think it makes the regret she feels stand out even more “stark”ly when it crashes in on her.
  • This is the author making sure we understand that Arya’s regret is not about Weese himself--it’s not about the question of whether or not he deserves it, because he is not interested in his own redemption
  • Arya’s regret is driven by a growth in political consciousness, a maturation in her understanding of who is responsible for the suffering she has seen and felt
  • She wants Weese dead because he made her feel like an ant, not a person, and that is valid. But Weese is an ant next to Gregor, who is an ant next to Tywin
  • While Weese’s actions matter very much to Arya as an individual, Arya is also a person who cares about what has happened and is still happening to others
  • In that framework, Weese matters far less than Gregor, because Gregor inflicts himself on hundreds and thousands, not dozens. And even Gregor matters less than Tywin, as Bran and Big Walder know, because Tywin commands them all
  • This, again, has real-world implications. Part of growing up is realizing the links between the suffering in your own life and the injustice of the world at large
  • This is not to say you should ignore your own suffering, but that it is impossible to even conceptualize justice without putting suffering in some kind of larger context
  • Arya clarifies this complex idea in direct, childish terms: Tywin and Gregor matter, in a way that Weese does not. They matter in context. They matter in the big picture. They matter in terms of why any of this is being allowed to happen
  • Arya doesn’t just want the catharsis of a man who hurt her getting his. She wants things to get better. She wants a change in how power works in Westeros
  • Killing Weese is not going to make that happen, and so she feels all at once that she’s wasted a wish, her most sacred resource, her one power in a world at war
  • She runs off to stop Jaqen, but it’s too late. He’s turned Weese’s dog against him; eventually, someone goes ahead and kills the dog. It’s wretched and awful
  • It’s also terrifying, because before we know about the basilisk blood from ADWD, it looks like Jaqen has bewitched the dog into attacking its owner
  • Magic has intervened in the political hierarchies of Harrenhal, reshaping the world just like it did at Storm’s End...but it wasn’t a king who died this time
  • It was someone on a far lower rung of the ladder, and Arya realized too late she should’ve been aiming higher if she wanted to change the world
  • Personal fears and desires always animate political and magical power, and so Tywin rides away, golden lions shining, while Weese bleeds out in the dirt
  • Nothing is quite as simple as it seemed in Arya VII, and that’s the story in microcosm: that which you think will fix everything won’t, and the stories failed to warn you. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.
  • And I think here, in Arya’s case, she hasn’t just fallen. She’s fallen BACK.
  • The language George uses is distinctly traplike -- after all of the knights and lords, including the golden lion and Gregor Clegane in his horned helmet (hello, repeated beast imagery) Arya hears “the rattle of chains as the portcullis was slowly lowered, its spikes sinking deep into the ground.”
  • Arya’s choice here means that exactly as the jaws close around Weese, Arya is just as trapped, almost devoured by Harrenhal

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Vargo Hoat’s hatred for Amory Lorch pays off big time in Arya’s next chapter, when Vargo turns cloak to Roose Bolton and helps him take Harrenhal, leading to Amory’s death by bear

Just as Weese threatens his charges with mutilation by Vargo if they disobey him, Arya will invent a threat from Vargo to get Gendry on her side in her next chapter

Vargo Hoat cutting off the limbs of people who run away gets a plot repeat beat with the Tattered Prince and the Windblown in ADWD when Quentyn hears that deserters from the Windblown who are caught get their feet cut off to prevent them from fleeing again.

Rorge being afraid of Jaqen explains why he and Biter go along with Jaqen’s plan in Arya IX

A fun one. Three of the houses mentioned as marching out of Harrenhal are references to comic book characters. I’ll let the Westeros.org Citadel site pick up the tale:

”... black hood, blue beetle, and green arrow”: A reference to comic books, specifically the Archie comics superhero the Black Hood and the DC Comics heroes Blue Beetle and Green Arrow. A variation on this appeared where the black hood was replaced by thunderbolts, which has been speculated to be a reference to the DC Characters the Flash (who is, with the Blue Beetle and Green Arrow, a member of the Justice League of America) and/or Johnny Thunderbolt of the Justice Society of America. Martin has been a comic book fan from early in life.

Arya wondering if she should kill Hotpie for possibly cottoning on to her identity… yikes

Theory/Discussion

Who should Arya have used her second wish on? (This one might be better)

Also: Why doesn’t the fandom get on Arya’s blatant misstep here, when characters like Catelyn and Sansa get dragged through the mud for their mistakes I’m not bitter

Conclusion

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