To be perfectly fair, any single person who saw a dragon the size of a 747 flying around in real life would be pretty flabbergasted. So it’s pretty understandable that in the new footage from Game of Thrones Season Eight, which HBO revealed last night, shows Arya Stark looking pretty shocked when she sees dragons for the first time.
But like with everything Game of Thrones-related, there’s much more context to this simple reaction. As we know, Arya has been off in Braavos for the last few seasons, and has missed all the recent dragon activity. Now that she’s back in Winterfell, and soon to be reunited with dear cousin/brother Jon Snow, she’ll also come face-to-face with dragons for the first time—presumably the scene we see in the new footage.
If you’ll notice, everyone in the background is running scared, while Arya seems enthralled. That’s because she’s long had a fascination with dragons. In one memorable scene from Season Two, Arya talks with Tywin Lannister when she reveals her respect for the ancient female Targaryen dragon riders.
“Visenya Tagaryen was a great warrior,” Arya says in the scene. “She had a Valyrian steel sword she called Dark Sister.”
This comes up after Tywin notes what a brave and powerful warrior Aegon Targaryen was. That’s when Arya corrects him that there were equally brave women who fought at his sides.
Now, this is important to remember for a couple of reasons: This speaks to Arya’s core motives as a character, that she wants to fight alongside any man. She does not want to live the life expected of Westerosi noble women. Instead, she travels the world and becomes a trained assassin. But we also need to remember her respect for powerful women. And one might imagine that she’ll be pretty impressed with Daenerys riding into battle on the back of a dragon.
This will be key going into Game of Thrones Season Eight, when we don’t know how Arya or Sansa will react to Jon’s new Targaryen bride. We’ve already noted that there is likely to be friction between Sansa and Daenerys. But if Arya has respect for this powerful queen on the back of a dragon, she might be more likely to join Jon’s cause.
