Please let us never return to Braavos.

I was briefly really excited about Arya dying in that episode.

This feels like a weird thing to say, but I just really wish that child had actually been murdered by that other, slightly older child that was borrowing an old woman’s face.

I like Arya. Or at least, I used to like Arya. She was once the most compelling character on a show full of them. For the first four seasons, culminating in that brilliant laugh when The Hound got told Lysa Arryn was dead, she was incredible to watch. A teenage girl with an literal kill list in a show where the killing is mostly done by angry men. She was driven by a fire that showed up her brothers obvious weaknesses - Jon's moping broodiness and Robb's indecisiveness ("I'm fighting a war," Robb says to Talisa, "and I don't know whether I should march south or north." Thanks, King in the North!)

dreamofspring.tumblr.com / HBO

At the end of the fourth season though, she left The Hound to die on a rock and went to Braavos. That was in 2014, two goddamn years ago now.

Arya went to Braavos because, um, there was a boat going that way. She was trying to go the Wall, found a cool coin in her pocket and decided on a whim to go to Braavos instead. Because there, she could train as an assassin and be better at taking care of her list.

HBO

Except the whole thing has been broken from the very beginning! Arya wanted to become an assassin to kill the remainder of her list. Except that to do that, she had to give up her previous name, life and motivations - such as the list.

And then she didn’t! She buried Needle under some fucking rocks. So we’ve been watching two years of Arya not becoming a Faceless Man, knowing that she could never, would never become a Faceless Man, and knowing that she didn’t even want to become a Faceless Man. It’s only now that she’s trying to leave that we’re seeing just how pointless it really was.

HBO

What's most aggravating about this is that Arya was fucking shit at being a Faceless Man.

She couldn't follow basic instructions, couldn't commit to the religion, didn't have any interest in the bit of being an assassin that involves, y'know, KILLING PEOPLE. She also couldn't seem to learn how to dodge a stick for some reason.

HBO

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