Episode 50: A GAME OF THRONES, ARYA IV, "Because That's What Heroes Do" 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 fiftieth episode of the Not A Cast entitled: “Because That’s What Heroes Do: An Analysis of AGOT, Arya IV,” in which poor Arya Stark has to run for her life, but not before seeing her mentor Syrio Forel go down like the badass he is. 

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: Hand of the King WolfmanZack, Grand Maester Timothy W, 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, Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch and Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes, Ragged Michael, Warden of the North, Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone, and Lord Gene, Master of Coin. Thank you councillors very much!

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

Lady Yvonne, a Sworn Sword had a comment about some of our past coverage of Septa Mordane worth highlighting:

Hi guys

I am fairly new to your podcast and I enjoy it immensely. I'm only now listening to Arya I and I thought about what you said about Septa Mordane. I think you misunderstand the consequences that her position als septa of two young ladies has and are therefore to harsh on her character.

It is a septa's job not only to oversee a lady's education but also to oversee her behavior and to guarantee her virginity and faithfulness to her (future) husband. If she fails in this, she will be severely punished by the faith as we can see with Margaery's septa after she is taken into custody by the faith.

For septa Mordane Arya's behavior is probably a harbinger of bad deeds in the future. When Arya plays with the smallfolk children she probably already sees an older Arya tumbling in the hay with a stableboy. Her position, her wellbeing, everything she is depends on how her charges behave and this is perhaps why she is so hard on Arya.

Synopsis

Syrio Forel slashes at Arya Stark towards her head, left, right, low, calling out each of the places he’ll strike at with his wooden sword before he takes a swing at Arya. When Syrio lunges at Arya, she sidesteps and almost, almost is able to land a hit on Syrio. They continue the water dance: left-high-left-right-left-low, and then left before Syrio’s wooden sword schwacks her from the right. 

Arya cries out in pain, but she thinks that this bruise, like all other ones, are lessons, and lessons make you better. 

You are dead now, Syrio says

Yeah? Only because you cheated, Arya angrily declares. You said left, and you went right. Yup, and Syrio ain’t sorry. Sure, he lied to Arya with his words, but his eyes and arms shouted the truth. When Arya protests that she was watching him closely, Syrio tells her that watching ain’t seein’. Regardless, Syrio needs to unload some critical backstory on Arya before he dies.

Syrio Forel was first sword to the Sealord of Braavos, and you are knowing how that came to pass? 

Well, you were probably a pretty good swordsman, right? Well, yeah, Syrio was the fucking shit, but he wasn’t the strongest, fastest or youngest sword-fighter. But what Syrio had instead was the ability to see things for how they truly were.

In Braavos, ships brought all sorts of strange animals to the sealord’s palace. When the first sword of Braavos had died, the sealord sent for Syrio along with many other bravos. When Syrio met the Sealord, he had a fat yellow cat in his lap, and the Sealord asked him if he’d ever seen a girl cat like that before. Syrio had replied that yeah, of course he had. He’d seen a thousand like that before. And so, the sealord named Syrio the first sword of Braavos.

Great story, dad, but it makes no fucking sense, Arya doesn’t quite say. So, Syrio explains it:

The cat was an ordinary cat, no more. The others expected a fabulous beast, so that is what they saw. How large it was, they said. It was no larger than any other cat, only fat from indolence, for the Sealord fed it from his own table. What curious small ears, they said. Its ears had been chewed away in kitten fights. And it was plainly a tomcat, yet the Sealord had said ‘her’, and that is what the others saw. Are you hearing?

Ah, well, maybe you could have put it in something other than goddamn riddle, Syrio. But Arya understands. Syrio saw what was there. Just so. Open your eyes, Arya. The heart lies, and the head plays tricks, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth.

Just so, Arya said grinning.

And then Syrio smiles and tells Arya that when they get back to … sigh … Winterfell, it’ll be time to use this so-called “Needle.” Oh, that’ll be so much fun, Arya says. Wait til she shows Jon.

The wooden door behind Arya crashes open, and in walks five Lannister red cloaks and Meryn Trant, a droopy-eyed shit-eater. He’s armored up from being a traitorous son of a bitch who deserves to die in the throne room, but his Lannister toadies are only wearing mail shirts and steel caps with lion crests like a bunch of fucking dopes about to get their asses kicked hard.

Meryn demands that Arya Stark come with them, and Arya chews her lip. What do you want? Meryn lies and says that her father wants to see her. Arya takes a step forward, but Syrio stops her.

And why is it that Lord Eddard is sending Lannister men in the place of his own? I am wondering.

Arya sees with her eyes. My father wouldn’t send you. She picks up her stick sword.The Lannisters laugh like morons about to die, and Meryn gets all huffy about being a knight of the kingsguard. So was the Kingslayer when he killed the old king. I don’t have to go with you if I don’t want, Arya throws back.

“Ser” Meryn, and it’s in quotation marks, because he’s no true knight, orders the Lannister men to take Arya prisoner, and three of them move towards Arya and Syrio. Arya is afraid, but then she remembers Syrio’s words. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Syrio steps out, a bit of a chance but no choice and starts tapping his wooden sword against his boot. 

You will be stopping there. Are you men or dogs that you would threaten a child.

The Lannister dead men tell him to get out of the way, but Syrio smacks the first one with his sword upside the head. Syrio tells those youngins to speak to him with respect, and the dude Syrio just smacked tries to loosen his sword from his scabbard, but Syrio hits him hard with his wooden sword, breaking his idiot hand. 

You are quick for a dancing master, Meryn says like a coward in full armor and behind his Lannister toadies.

You are slow for a knight, Syrio throws back.

The other four Lannister men unsheathe their swords and start circling the dancing master like vultures. Syrio tells Arya that they’re done dancing for the day. She needs to run to her father. Now. Arya didn’t want to roll out, but when Syrio spoke she obeyed. Swift as a deer, she says. She retreats a ways back, but she still watches what’s happening, and she suddenly realizes realizing that Syrio was only toying with Arya. Because Syrio Forel is about to bring an ungodly shitstorm of dancing ferocity down on these bozos.

Arya watches the Lannisters, noticing the vulnerabilities and spaces where they weren’t armored well or armored at all: their eye sockets, their legs, their hands. Syrio didn’t wait for them to reach him. He spins left, kicking and whirling his way about, cracking the faces and legs of the Lannisters. Syrio ducks under a sword swipe and brings his wooden sword up and through the eye of one of the redcloaks. All of the Lannisters are down, but a few of them try to get up. The man whose hand Syrio had broken tries to stab Syrio with a dagger, but Syrio rings his bell and then bashes his kneecap. The final red cloak curses, charges and hacks at Syrio, but Syrio ducks, dodges, dives and … dodges before bringing his wooden sword at the man’s neck and shoulder. The Lannister man tries to bring his longsword up, but Syrio crushes his windpipe, and the man dies, clutching at his neck.

Arya backs into a corner as five Lannister dudes are dead or dying in the room, but before she gets away, she sees Meryn Trant drawing his longsword.

Arya child, be gone now. Syrio says never taking his eyes off Meryn.

Arya knows that doom is approaching Syrio. She screams at Syrio to run, but would Syrio Forel, First Sword of Braavos run? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

The first sword of Braavos does not run.

Syrio dances away from Meryn’s cuts. He checks three of Meryn’s sword swings, but the fourth breaks Syrio’s wooden sword. Before Arya can see what happens, she runs sobbing from the room.

Arya runs through the kitchens, blind and panicky. She pushes through a baker’s boy holding loaves of fresh-baked bread. A butcher with his arms red to his elbows tries to block her, but she spins around him. She runs and run and runs, thinking of all the words that Syrio had taught her. 

Finally, she reaches a crossroads at the turret stair. Should she go up or down? Up would take her to the Tower of the Hand, down would take her on uncertain paths. Never do what they expect, she remembers Syrio once telling her. She heads down the stairs. Arya reaches a cellar with no exit. She sheathes her wooden sword and leaps atop the barrels until she finds a window. She pulls herself up (Nice upper body strength, Arya. Way to do your pull-ups in gym class). And finally, she’s in daylight.

Arya stands in the bailey of the Tower of the Hand, and Arya immediately sees that everything is terrible. The wooden door to the Tower of the Hand had been broken apart by axes, and there was a dead man facedown on the steps to the Tower of the Hand. Worse, the man is wearing gray wool: Stark colors. She doesn’t know the man is, but she’s terrified. 

No, she whispered. What was happening? Where was her father? Why had the red cloaks come for her? 

She thinks back to watching Varys and Illyrio down in the dungeons. If one Hand can die, why not a second? Arya begins crying, but she holds her breath and hears with her ears. She hears the sounds of battle: shouts, screams, steel on steel and it’s all coming from the Tower of the Hand. She couldn’t go back to the Tower. But what about dad?

She closes her eyes and tries to think despite the terror in her gut. They’d already killed Jory, Wyl and Heward. They could kill Ned too. And her? Yeah. They could kill her. Sure, she could play at being a water dancer, but that wouldn’t get her anywhere. Meryn had probably killed Syrio, and she was only a scared girl with a wooden sword: alone and afraid.

Arya gets out into a deserted castle yard, thinking that everyone is probably hiding from the fighting. She looks up to her bedchamber longingly for a moment before moving away from the Tower of the Hand. She stays in shadow, moving along the buildings, knowing that they’d kill her if they found her. A dozen gold cloaks come running, but Arya, smart as she is, doesn’t declare herself to them, not knowing what side they’re on.

She makes it to the stables and finds Hullen: her father’s stablemaster slumped over with dozens of stab wounds. She thinks he’s dead, but when she approaches, his eyes open.

Arya Underfoot. You must … warn you … your lord father.

He coughs up blood and dies. Within the stable itself are more dead bodies. A groom and three of her father’s guard were dead. They were probably protecting an abandoned wagon that was being loaded for the voyage home. Among the dead is Desmond, the Stark guardsman who had promised Arya that he’d protect her father and boasted that every northerner is worth ten of these southron swords.

Enraged, Arya kicks the body, accusing the dead man of lying to her. Pretty brutal emotional moment there all around.

Arya’s plan was to saddle a horse and ride like hell up the kingsroad back to Winterfell, and she does start to take a saddle and bridle off the wall to mount a horse, but then a chest catches her eye. It’s her chest: the one with her silks, velvets, and … Needle. She gets down into the dirt and start digging through everything, looking, looking, looking for Needle. But to no avail. Maybe someone had stolen it, but then her hands grasp the cold metal just in time.

There she is, a voice hisses close behind Arya.

Arya whirls about and comes face to face with a smirking stableboy, holding a pitchfork. She asks who he is. Well, he ain’t giving his name, but he sure as shit knows who Arya is. Arya asks him to help saddle a horse. He’ll get a reward from Ned if he helps. Ah, no. He ain’t about to do that. Ned’s dead. He’s going to take her to Cersei. He lunges for her, and Arya forgets all about the training that Syrio had given her. Instead, she remembers Jon Snow’s words. Stick ‘em with the pointy end.

Arya plunges Needle into the gut of the stable boy. He drops his pitchfork, gasping, sighing. Take it out, he moans as blood begins staining his tunic. Arya does, and the stable boy dies.

But now all of the horses are screaming, and Arya needs to GTFO from here quick fast and in a hurry. She begins saddling a horse herself, but then she realizes that the gates and doors of the Red Keep would be closed and locked. She thinks about how she could escape before she finally comes onto an idea: she’ll go through the tunnels below the Red Keep just like she did back in Arya III.

Arya wasn’t certain she knew the way exactly, but she had to try. She slips into some of her clothes and secures Needle. But to get to the entrance to the tunnels, she had to cross the castle courtyard in broad daylight. But she has no other choice. She peers out and sees gold cloaks on the walls. What would happen if they saw her running? Would they see her? Would they care? 

She decides to get going now. But instead of running, the voice of Syrio Forel whispers in her ear: Calm as still water, quiet as a shadow. Arya steps into the light and walks across the courtyard. It’s terrifying, and she knows that she’s being seen. But she also knows now that if she runs, she’ll get her ass captured. She walks and walks and walks and finally, she gets to the sept on the far side of the castle courtyard.

Arya crawls in and out of windows in the sept, and it takes her over an hour to find the same window that she had crawled through to escape Tommen, Myrcella and the Lannister guards a little while back. But finally, she’s through. She lights a candle and then she sees the monsters again: only this time, the monsters don’t scare her. They were almost like old friends. Dragons, she whispers at them as she draws Needle. Arya felt better holding Needle. 

As Arya makes her way through the tunnels, she remembers the stable boy slumped over dead. She has a sudden fear that the dead boy might reach out and grab her. She thinks about blowing her candle out, but then Syrio’s words Fear cuts deeper than swords come back to her. She remembers the crypts of Winterfell and how much more terrifying they were than the tunnels below the Red Keep. 

Back at Winterfell, Robb had taken Arya, Sansa, Bran and baby Bran down into the crypts. They saw the statues and direwolves staring at them. They passed Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna’s crypts. Old Nan had warned that there would be rats as big as hounds down here, but Robb had told them that wasn’t really what they needed to fear. This is where the dead walk. And then a low moaning noise had begun echoing off the walls.

A spirit stepped into the open, pale white and moaning for blood. Sansa had shrieked and run like a sane person (Look at me, again, being ever-so-fair to Sansa, guys). Bran grabbed Robb’s leg and bawled. But Arya? Arya stood her ground and punched the spirit. It was Jon, covered in flour. You stupid, Arya had told Jon. You scared the baby. But Robb and Jon had only lol’d at their “joke.” And soon, Arya and Bran were laughing too.

The memory makes Arya smile now deep inside the tunnels under the Red Keep. The dark wasn’t scary to her anymore. If the ghost of the stable boy jumped out at her, Arya would kill the boy all over again. She was done with this place. Done with this castle. Done with King’s Landing. She was going the fuck home to Winterfell.

Arya plunges forward into and through the darkness, unafraid.

And that is AGOT, Arya IV: a huge chapter both in terms of its actual size as a chapter but more so in terms of how it’s huge in Arya’s character and plot arcs. And much like Eddard XIV, this chapter very much feels like the climax to Arya’s AGOT arc with her final chapter serving as epilogue to her story. I love the Jesus out of this chapter.

What did you think, Emmett?

Depth

So I’ve been hyping this chapter relentlessly, and for good reason! This is my second favorite chapter in AGOT, behind only Sansa II, and it features my single favorite setpiece in the book. Even more than the Tower of Joy or the Whispering Wood or the birth of Dany’s dragons, Syrio Forel’s last stand is it for me. The most exciting, the most perfectly written, the most resonant in terms of theme and character...and it’s not even the only great thing about Arya IV! Arya is underfoot in AGOT; she has the fewest POV chapters and doesn’t really have a distinct arc unto herself. But everything comes together here, and so this is really where I got interested in Arya as a POV and where everything I love about her story in the books to come is established.

Love this as the culmination of her arc and how she uses different aspects of what her mentors, Jon, Ned, Syrio, taught her throughout AGOT. I had the chance to skim Arya’s AGOT chapters prior to coming on tonight, and I love how each of the major plot beats calls back to events and teachings that Arya received throughout AGOT!

• Suspense!!
  • The opening scene, all sports-coach dueling and mentoring, is feel-good on the surface but wears a veil of dread because it comes right on Eddard XIV’s heels
  • We’re watching play-fighting with the knowledge that the real thing is going down in the throne room, that the men Arya played with at Winterfell are dying
  • There’s an added layer of sadness in that we know that there’s probably no way in hell Arya and Sansa are getting on that ship now (even before we learn what Sansa did after breakfast), and so her anticipation withers on the vine. This hurts:
    • She would have a fresh bruise there by the time she went to sleep, somewhere out at sea.
  • ...though not nearly so bad as this does:
    • Syrio Forel allowed himself a smile. “I am thinking that when we are reaching this Winterfell of yours, it will be time to put this needle in your hand.”
      
      “Yes!” Arya said eagerly. “Wait till I show Jon—”
• See with your eyes
  • Before the hammer falls, Syrio imparts true wisdom to his charge
  • He doesn’t just lie to get her to pay attention to what he’s actually doing, he then sits her down and talks her through the wider implications; can you imagine Alliser Thorne ever being as effective an instructor? No, you cannot
  • And of course, those wider implications include what’s going on with Dad
  • Ned, too, marched into the hall of power and said plainly the truth about what was sitting in front of him, damn the consequences
  • He was asked to call Joffrey (a yellow cat, as in the Lannister lion) his king despite that being a lie, as many were asked to overpraise that darn cat
  • He was deceived as to where the blow was coming from, just like Arya
  • But Ned’s truth brought him low, the cost far more than a bruise 
  • That’s the transition from childhood to adulthood right there!
  • Syrio is telling Arya to see through the golden veil we talked about in Sansa II: know the truth about the world. Do not hide, do not flinch, know the thing in itself
• Don’t fear the reaper
  • And so then, Arya’s childhood comes crashing down, an endless fall that mirrors Bran’s and will persist through Ned’s execution and the Red Wedding
  • She unthinkingly trusts Meryn Trant and his gang at first, very Sansa-esque, but then Syrio reminds her to follow what he just taught her, and she hangs back
  • She specifically invokes Jaime to see through the institution and the white cloaks
  • Indeed, Meryn then proves himself “no true knight” by going after her in force
  • Syrio steps up to the plate in a manner that again recalls Ned: 
    • “You will be stopping there. Are you men or dogs that you would threaten a child?”
  • Once again, it’s mercy for the kids that animates our heroes, but while Ned’s story is all desperate tragedy, Syrio is a legend straight out of the songs:
    • “I am Syrio Forel, and you will now be speaking to me with more respect.”
  • He promptly goes full Obi-Wan/Master Po on the red cloaks, and Arya experiences that realization all genre fiction mentees face: 
    • Watching him now, she realized that Syrio had only been toying with her when they dueled. 
  • Once again, the emphasis is on childish beliefs falling away; Arya clings to the wooden sword, like the stick she’ll break when she declares she’s all grown up
  • But what really elevates this scene for me, and allows it to exemplify ASOIAF as a whole, is when Ser Meryn Trant steps in personally to take Syrio down
  • Arya looks, sees past the myths and the stories and the songs, and realizes that it is not going to matter that Syrio Forel is the Greatest Swordsman Alive and that Meryn Trant, despite his shiny white cloak, was never more than mediocre
  • Why? Because Meryn is armored from head to toe and is wielding castle-forged steel, and so Syrio may as well be naked with no weapon but his fists
  • But, as we’ve been saying with Ned, the takeaway is not that it’s foolish to believe in the legends and that “strong arms and steel swords rule this world” 
  • Because in this moment, with his final breaths, Syrio insists that being the First Sword of Braavos is not about being the quickest or the deadliest
  • Being the First Sword of Braavos means you do not run. It is not your abilities that make you who you are, Harry Potter. It is your choices. 
  • And he doesn’t say that or call it, no, he sings it! He sings his song and lives it, knowing himself perfectly in his final moments; how many of us get that?
  • He’s right to put his life on the line for Arya, just as Ned was for Cersei’s kids, Davos will be for Edric Storm, Brienne will be for the kids at the inn, etc.
  • We, too, are meant to see with our eyes and realize that this is what heroism truly looks like, even--especially--if it doesn’t save Syrio’s life
  • After all, Jaime didn’t personally defeat the bear in hand-to-hand combat, but our hearts still leap when he jumps in to save Brienne, because he made the choice
  • As I’ve said before, we see here the meeting point of romanticism and realism, and while the latter wins in the short term, the author’s heart is with the former
• On the run
  • Arya starts running here, and doesn’t really stop until Harrenhal...no, the House of Black and White...maybe she never stops running…
  • We get this nightmarish blur of images, from the butcher with his arms red to the elbow to the bloodshed at the Tower of the Hand to Hullen’s final moments
  • All of which emphasizes how destabilizing and frightening this all is, for us as well as Arya as we catch up on the ripple effects of Ned’s downfall
  • She kicks Desmond to express her fury, the only outlet available to her; much of Arya’s story going forward is about her angry attempts to control her environment
  • This violent imagery culminates with the death of the stableboy
  • Now, this first kill doesn’t make Arya a bloodthirsty monster
  • It’s in self-defense, she’s a panicking child, she feels hideous about it
  • But...it happens with Needle, her connection to Jon and Winterfell, to home
  • The horses screaming remind us of Silence of the Lambs and the general  association of screaming animals with the loss of youthful innocence
  • Her Watchmen smiley face has been bloodied, is what I’m saying
• “Darkness will make you strong”
  • And yet! Arya IV ends on a very optimistic note
  • Her teachings from Syrio get her across the yard despite the guardsmen, and the memory of home gets her outta the castle despite the dragon skulls
  • So the gauntlet is set down for Arya’s story, the pattern set: the memory of home and family will keep driving her on through the dark deadly places of the world
  • “Fear cuts deeper than swords,” and so as with Syrio’s fable, the focus shifts from what the world is doing to Arya to how she responds
  • It’s on this note that she becomes a much more central character in her own right, with twice as many chapters in ACOK, more than anyone but Tyrion

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Jon as a ghost in the crypts, eh…?

Will Arya become involved with live dragons at some point in her story? She’s in Essos, and her Faceless Men bosses seem to be after The Death of Dragons and may have received their very own dragon egg from Euron in payment for the assassination of big daddy Balon Greyjoy

Last week, we referred to Eddard XIV as Ned’s own Red Wedding, and indeed Arya will go through something very much like this chapter once more at the Twins in ASOS: rushing to her family’s men for safety, only to see them butchered and have to run for it

Syrio’s discussion of the menagerie and the Sealord’s palace as the house with the red door.

She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. (ACOK, Daenerys IV)

Theory/Discussion

The great thing about this chapter, Emmett, is that it’s a total fuckin’ fakeout. Yeah, we’re bummed and all, but that’s just because Martin, the trope-smasher, deceived us. He deceived everyone. Because.

Syrio is alive.

And he’s …

Quaithe.

One of the more famous/infamous tinfoil theories about ASOIAF is the notion that Syrio Forel did not actually die here. Some variations of these theories characterize Syrio as being in truth a Faceless Man, the very one who later interacts with Arya under the name of Jaqen H’ghar.

To give the bads their due day in court, as Stannis would wish of us, there are some points in favor: 

-We don’t actually see Syrio die

-GRRM is fond of the fakeout death--Bran, Davos, Sandor, Arya herself…

-Meryn Trant is, as mentioned, a mediocre fighter at best

-The Braavosi connection, as well as some themes in common between their mantras

-On two occasions (here and here) at conventions, GRRM has sidestepped the question on whether Syrio Forel is alive.

Now, to counter them! Oftentimes I think parallels between characters are seen as them literally being the same person when instead they are links in the same chain. Mance is not Rhaegar, he’s Jon’s training wheels for Rhaegar. Daario is not Euron, but he reveals the part of Dany that would be very much into the Crow’s Eye. Only when something glaring and inexplicable happens (like, say, “Ser Maynard Plumm” vanishing mysteriously right when Bloodraven turns up in The Mystery Knight) should we fall back on “X character is actually Y character.” 

In that light, I think Jaqen was meant to build on Syrio’s teachings, and twist them in strange and frightening ways. The Faceless Man is a considerably darker mentor than the First Sword, reflecting how Arya’s story gets darker when she has to cross the T.S. Eliot Waste Land that is the Riverlands at war. They’re different steps on the downward spiral stair, as are Yoren, Sandor, and the Brotherhood as a whole.

I’ve already talked about Meryn Trant being mediocre as the point--that this is where Syrio’s skills pointedly fail him, and so it becomes about his inner qualities. I think if you look at the series as a whole, romantic death fits more than sneaky escape; “Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought honorably, Rhaegar fought nobly. And Rhaegar died.” 

So while GRRM is fond of the fakeout death, it’s always with a character he has bigger plans for. Davos has to live to rescue Edric Storm and Stannis’ soul, Bran has to live to reach the Innermost Cave and complete his Hero’s Journey, and Sandor...well, we’ll see. Syrio Forel, though? The last stand is the point. I can’t cover this any better than Steven Attewell did in his essay on Arya IV: 

He gets to be the champion of right, and the beauty of his craft, and to save a child from imprisonment and possible death. He gets to go down swinging against impossible odds, with the chance to humiliate one of the Kingsguard. He gets to become in the mind of one girl and any man who comes out of that room alive, a legend. Survival means that one day, Syrio Forel’s feet will lose their nimbleness, his sword arm will forget its strength, and he will likely die of old age, alone and unremembered.

It reminds me of Big Bucket Wull’s War Monologue from ADWD, extolling the virtues of going down swinging to save the same girl (or so they think, anyway) from the monstrous Ramsay. Then again, that came only four chapters after Ellaria Sand’s Peace Monologue, equally beautifully written, equally moving albeit in the opposite direction. Finding the place where they can both be true is part of the project of ASOIAF, and thus part of the project of rereading it.

Conclusion

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