Aryastarkmonth2022 - Tumblr Posts
ARYA STARK APPRECIATION MONTH || Day 2: Nymeria ↳ The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after its master.– Sansa I, AGOT
Arya Stark Month 2022 - Day 2(Nymeria)
Nymeria and Arya and their foreshadow to leadership.
“You are Arya of Winterfell, daughter of the North. You told me you could be strong. You have the wolf blood in you.”
“That was the best part, the dreaming. She dreamed of wolves most every night. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. She was bigger than any of them, stronger, swifter, faster. She could outrun horses and outfight lions. When she bared her teeth even men would run from her, her belly was never empty long, and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold. And her brothers and sisters were with her, many and more of them, fierce and terrible and hers. They would never leave her.”
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 2 - Nymeria
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 19 - Intelligence, Skills, and Learning
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 26 - Lyanna Stark
ARYA STARK APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 25: Family
“It’s just a sword,” she said, aloud this time…
…but it wasn’t.
Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell’s grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan’s stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow’s smile. He used to mess my hair and call me “little sister,” she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 7 - Personality Traits and Underrated Qualities
ARYA STARK APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 28: Parallels with other characters
In another place, his little sister lifted her head to sing to the moon, and a hundred small grey cousins broke off their hunt to sing with her.
***
A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness… . mother of dragons, bride of fire …
***
“I would like to see a dragon,” Mercy said wistfully.
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 9 - Smallfolk
Arya Stark Appreciation Month Day 21 - Bravest moments
Day 16: Skinchanging
As a Stark child (unless of course you’re Sansa) Arya has the magical ability to warg into animals. Like the other Starks, she primarily wargs into her direwolf Nymeria. When she sleeps she goes into Nymeria’s mind and basically becomes Nymeria, seeing the world through her eyes. “She was no little girl in the dream; she was a wolf, huge and powerful, and when she emerged from beneath the trees in front of them and bared her teeth in a low rumbling growl, she could smell the rank stench of fear from horse and man alike. The Lyseni's mount reared and screamed in terror, and the others shouted at one another in mantalk, but before they could act the other wolves came hurtling from the darkness and the rain, a great pack of them, gaunt and wet and silent.” It goes to show that despite being forced to drive Nymeria off to protect her from the Lannisters, their bond is still powerful. Like Jon said Ghost is a part of him, Nymeria is a part of Arya. But Arya’s abilities are not limited to Nymeria. When Arya goes blind she begins warging into a black cat which still allows her to see what is going on. It is significant because the only other Stark who can warg into something other than his direwolf is Bran. This perhaps makes Arya the second most powerful warg of the Stark children after Bran. Imagine what she could do if she learned to control her magical power. And perhaps she could reunite sooner with her favorite person in the world if Ghost and Nymeria reunite first. Jon and Arya can see each other by warging into their wolves if that happens.
Arya Month Day 2: Nymeria
Arya’s beloved direwolf Nymeria. Nymeria is named after a warrior queen whom Arya very much admired. Nymeria and Arya’s bond is immensely powerful. When Arya was in danger by the psychopathic Joffrey, instead of doing nothing but shouting and crying like Sansa, Nymeria leaped to Arya’s defense and gave that little shit what he deserved (hopefully it was painful). Sadly, knowing Nymeria would be killed for hurting Joffrey, Arya sends Nymeria away. Now Nymeria, having grown extremely large as she’s a direwolf, runs in the Riverlands with a massive pack of wolves. But Arya frequently thinks about her beloved wolf and has dreams of her. But they aren’t just dreams. Arya is a Warg like her siblings and can get inside Nymeria’s mind. Even from very long distances. A symbol of the immensely powerful bond they share. Hopefully one day Arya can reunite one day with her beloved direwolf and Nymeria’s pack could be a great asset to the living in the war against the Others.
And here’s one line highlighting how much Arya trusts her wolf.
“He grabbed the little girl by the hand and pulled her close. "What if the wolves come?""Yield," Arya suggested.”
Arya Month 2022 || Day 26: Lyanna Stark – Lyanna Lives and Is very close with her niece Arya.
What has always been true is that the Arya/Lyanna parallels work both ways. It’s extremely meaningful to Lyanna to be paralleled with Arya in order to shed light on Lyanna’s inner world, in preparation for the reveal of a long held secret.
How it works is like this: because Arya defends Mycah against Joffrey, we can understand Lyanna’s defense of Howland. Because Arya never once strays from wanting justice for her brutally murdered friend, we can imagine what drove Lyanna to masquerade as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. And because Arya doesn’t think twice about any of this, we can understand Lyanna's convictions.
Because Arya loves exploring and discovering new plants she’s never seen before, because she brings flowers to Ned out of love, we can understand Lyanna being "fond of flowers" as part of a curious and affectionate nature.
Because Arya is never impressed with Joffrey, we can understand Lyanna's immediate assessment of Robert. Because her siblings react to news of Arya's betrothals to unsuitable partners with "Arya won't like that one bit" & "she never will, not Arya" & "[i]f he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him," we can understand the gulf that opened between Lyanna and her family after her betrothal. Because amiable Elmar Frey looked down on Nan the serving girl and Arya resented him for it, we can see Lyanna judging Robert based on how he treats Mya/Mya's mother.
Because Bran thinks Arya "wasn't scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy," because he first assumes Lyanna & Benjen fighting are him & Arya, we can imagine Lyanna & Benjen's relationship.
Because Arya is wolf-blooded and we see that written out, we can understand Lyanna as well.
That isn't to say it isn't meaningful to Arya, having Lyanna scattered through her story. Arya's complex relationship with mentor figures is a post to itself, but in brief: legacies are passed down by people, to people, who then use them as a starting/turning point. Daenerys Targaryen understands the duality of her family's legacy through the fragments of Viserys as her brother, king, and abuser; when he dies, she is the last, and she births dragons. Jon Snow is groomed for command in the Night's Watch just like his uncle and ancestors before him, charged with protecting his homeland in the shadow of an eight thousand year old Stark dynasty. Tyrion is Tywin writ small. The last greenseer waited generations just to haunt Brandon Stark's dreams.
Arya doesn't have that. She has a direwolf, she's a warg, and she has the North in her face. Wolf child, blood child; scattered yet meaningful pieces of a puzzle. By connecting her to Lyanna who came before her, it's a lineage. It's no longer an accident. Arya isn't Lyanna any more than Daenerys is Aegon the Conqueror, or Jon Snow is any of his predecessors, or Tyrion is Tywin, or Bran is Bloodraven, or Edric Dayne is Arthur, or Arianne is Nymeria. These parallels to (pre-series) characters represent a benchmark to be surpassed, whether or not the characters realize it themselves, and in Arya's case is no less.
Intentional parallels like this ask us: what if you were part of something - maybe even the culmination of something - that's been brewing for a very long while now? What if who & what you are is so important, so necessary, that time would fold in on itself for you?
Every Arya & Lyanna parallel: → beauty
LYANNA
— “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.
— The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled
ARYA
— Best you have a new face as well. A pretty one this time, I think. As pretty as your own. Who are you, child?“
— Or would you sooner be a courtesan, and have songs sung of your beauty?
— "I’m sorry I tore the acorn dress too. It was pretty.”
“Yes, child. And so are you. Be brave.”
ARYA STARK APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 26: Lyanna Stark
Her father sighed. “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ’The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”
“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.
“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”
Arya wanting to explore nature and her love for the elements is reflected in a few other female characters. It’s a character trait that demonstrates her desire for knowledge, her inquisitiveness, her love of all things wild and real and good.
There is Arya and Sarella Sand (Or Alleras) and their need to understand the world around them:
Then to Sansa she said, “When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion.”
Sansa shuddered. They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.
None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. - Sansa, AGoT
My uncle brought me here, with Tyene and Sarella.” The memory made Arianne smile. “He caught some vipers and showed Tyene the safest way to milk them for their venom. Sarella turned over rocks, brushed sand off the mosaics, and wanted to know everything there was to know about the people who had lived here.” - The Queenmaker, AFfC
There is Arya and Ygitte’s love of the water and being fantastic swimmers:
“Do I need a trick for that now?” he teased. “Or is that you can’t swim a stroke?” Jon was a strong swimmer himself, having learned the art as a boy in Winterfell’s great moat.
Ygritte punched his arm. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. I’m half a fish, I’ll have you know.” - Jon, ASoS
If I jumped over the side, the river would wash me away before the Hound even knew that I was gone. She looked back over a shoulder, and saw Sandor Clegane struggling with his frightened horse, trying to calm him. She would never have a better chance to get away from him. I might drown, though. Jon used to say that she swam like a fish, but even a fish might have trouble in this river. Still, drowning might be better than King’s Landing. She thought about Joffrey and crept up to the prow. The river was murky brown with mud and lashed by rain, looking more like soup than water. Arya wondered how cold it would be. I couldn’t get much wetter than I am now. She put a hand on the rail. - Arya, ASoS
Arya and Lyanna being one with the horses:
“You ride like a northman, milady,” Harwin said when he’d drawn them to a halt. “Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember.” - Arya, ASoS
Not even Lord Rickard’s daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself.
He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. - Theon, ADwD
Arya, Daenerys and their love of the earth and soil and scents:
She made for the godswood. She liked the sharp smell of the pines and sentinels, the feel of grass and dirt between her toes, and the sound the wind made in the leaves. Arya, ACoK
The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany’s sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. - Daenerys, AGoT
It’s a motif and a character trait that highlights similarities between these young, ambitious, brave girls who have a keen liking for the world around them.
