Why is Arya Stark so misunderstood? | Killer of House Stark | Game of Thrones

Sansa is probably my least favorite character. EVERYTHING that's happened to her family is her fault…other than Bran being pushed

I think Arya is one of the most interesting if not the character. Arya and Cersei are my favorites, but sometimes, I hate Cersei. Cersei is amazing because I can’t see her having a redemption story arc like Jamie, but I still have love and empathy for her.

Jon and Arya are my favorite characters

I think she is the strongest character as well. She's become this way to survive.
One of my favs! Hands down!💪

She's the strongest person in ASOIAF imo. Look at the fact she Has survived at all. She is probably my favorite of all. Definitely my favorite Stark! I even got an Arya tat. I just can't even imagine anyone not liking her 😁

Just because it's entirely understandable why she became a sociopath doesn't change the fact that she is a sociopath.

Thank you for this analysis. This my favourite character as well. She is a product of a violent and unforgiving environment. The fact that she manages to still love is her remaining humanity. Warrior and queen

you read it beautifully. I'm crying.

Arya is my favorite. Whoever misunderstands her clearly does not know what it means and can never empathize what happens to a child when the environment clearly shapes their lives. Children don't know any better. It is only when that child becomes an adult can you decide: "hmmmm this is not a good person". She has one thing on her mind and that is her family. It's understandable considering she was ripped away during her formative and educational years. Arya "freakin'" Stark will always be my ultimate hero!

Arya will be redeemed. Her path may not be the brightest one, but I do not think she is doomed to some violent end, like many people say. I believe this will begin to happen when her and Jon reunite. I do not think Jon will happy to see a cold, ruthless version of his little sister. He will try to steer her straight again and I think he will be able to reach her, and rescue her. Because her soul is pure and beautiful. And she belongs at Winterfell, with her family and her dire wolf. Not as a boring, proper lady, but as a warrior. Like Brienne, Lyanna Mormont, Ygritte.

She is my favorite.

I love Arya. She is an amazing character. I am not a Sansa fan.

Funny how people can't find Arya relatable and sympathetic…but everyone fucks with Logan and Frank Castle so heavy tho. They got 5 figure body counts for reasons that aren't any better than hers.

I love arya.. very dynamic character

This is my favorite . Thank you

Well done! I think Arya is awesome. I was practically giddy when she killed Walder Frey. I thought at first when reading the books that she might become a Joan of Arc type character. I like the assassin angle better.

Do Cersei next. She's a evil bitch but look at what she's been thru. She's basically Tina Turner… married to a powerful monster of a husband who beats, rapes and publicly shames her.

That section from aFFC about Needle makes me cry every damn time

I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL SO MUCH! instantly addicted. so so so wonderful. Literately- I am in a serious state of awe and wonder here watching your videos. Thank you for making such bad-ass content! woo! keep it up!

Really? When on earth Arya is so misunderstood? It's even hard to find someone's favorite female character whose name isn't Arya. If you must do a vid like this pick Catelyn or Sansa or Daenerys. Arya is too overrated by now, no need to buff her any further.

Arya is a survivor in a cruel dangerous world.

Do an episode on Bran, a lot of people seem to hate him. He's my favorite character.

Arya was always my favorite too! I’m looking forward to seeing her reunite with The Hound!

really good vid… maybe one of your best!

Happy Thanksgiving, Gray, and Thanks for that feast! That was one of my fave videos by anyone on YT. Your passion and sense of injustice came through. I feel the same way. I've spent almost 2 years defending her, mostly with quotes and callbacks of scenes. How soon fans forget her good deeds, her talents, her traumas, her longing for home and family repeatedly pummeled by fate (GRRM). You did great, aided by one thing everyone can grasp: visual proof. If I could use video, I'd have convinced more people that Arya was really pursuing LF throughout the WF plot.
There are two more key aspects of Arya's being misunderstood. One is that she's not merely vengeful, but fighting injustice. In S1E2 she stares daggers at Cersei once Cersei orders Lady killed–it's out of an outraged sense of justice. It's probably also the start of what later became her List. As she grew older, she added AND deleted names, and she began punishing people based on how they had treated young, innocent, or defenseless vicims. As I told wingolf22 below, vengeance came from her weakness, but justice came from her strength. Her taking two weeks to identify "every Frey who means a damn thing", who had helped Walder "slaughter the Starks at the Red Wedding" shows she only wanted to punish the clearly guilty. She never punishes anyone unless she knows they're guilty. I assume that's why she didn't kill the evil Littlefinger–she could not pin a crime on him…until he planned her murder under false pretenses.
The other aspect of her being misunderstood is that after Season 4 she's not as entertaining, though she is much more fascinating… IF you watch her carefully. Lacking a Tywin or Sandor to banter with, the funny, ballsy badass Arya disappeared. The Faceless Men beat her into controlling that free spirit and becoming stealthy so she could instead survive and succeed. Arya also repressed her vivacious self to imitate Jaqen in walk, stance, and modulated voice, making her seem phony. And she had learned how to strategize. Probably 90% of GoT fans found the whole FM arc confusing and inconsistent, having not looked deeply enough to see that she had planned every aspect of luring, trapping and killing the Waif, except for the Waif being fast enough to wound her badly. They think she was stupid or out of character, but actually she attained her goals: killing the Waif and being released from the FM. And with Winterfell Arya got pounded for being stupid, inconsistent and mean to Sansa. I'm pretty sure she was protecting Bran, Sansa and indirectly Jon from Littlefinger. From 7.4 when she showed her skill with LF's dagger and then gave him the 'death glare' (while her HoB&W music played), they were both at war, furtively trying to kill each other by influencing Sansa. Arya's FM-style ruse had her pretending hostility to Sansa so LF would become increasingly worried and eventually incriminate himself. Again, her plan worked. Arya finally handing LF's dagger to Sansa right after explaining the Game of Faces (lie-detection), armed Sansa to finally see through LF when he tried to persuade her to kill her sister using a false pretext. BTW, I was thrilled Arya left the punishment aspect to the Winterfell justice system. To me it proves that in the end she wanted Justice to destroy Littlefinger, not her own vague suspicions or vengeance. Sansa called her "the strongest person I know". She is also the most misunderstood main character on Game of Thrones…and YOU said it first.
BTW, I agree with several commenters: Sandor would be a great subject and so would Jaime.

I love Arya

Arya is perhaps, in my mind, the most complex characters. Yes she is a trained killer, the key word being TRAINED, and trained to a degree far beyond many from Westeros, so there is discipline and focus. We also need to take into account the experiences that you've mentioned, which will not doubt leave their psychological scars in the form of PTSD, and we need to ask the question "When her list is empty, what will drive her to great each new day?"

Personally I can't see her going down the traditional "Happy Ever After" route (she has admitted as much herself), nor do I see her becoming the "Dark Grumpy" type like the hound, there is still light within her and her meeting with Nymeria tells us she can accept what she can't change with grace. The truth may lie somewhere between, perhaps becoming the next Spider with her own Little Birds of Sands and Snows after the War to Come, becoming their parent and mentor. Assuming she survives.

ASOIAF Arya is not misunderstood. HBO GOT Arya sucks, Dumb&Dumbler to be blamed

This made me dislike her even more

I agree with you GrayArea. I really like Arya's character. She embodies all that the Starks are. She is strong. Honorable. Loyal. And she remembers. She never fully became a faceless-man, because she did not give up all (Needle) that she was.
Great character. Like Job (of the Bible, in the belly of a whale) she has all taken away, but does not lose faith. She waivers but regains her footing.

After seeing so much of what little Arya;s (I've gotta stop calling her "little") been through I think real reason she's "misunderstood is just plain sexism. Had it been Bran or either of her younger brothers those same viewers would have been cheering them own for their spunk and quickness to grasp the reality of their situation, but a girl with like choices? Now she represents a threat because she didn't wait for Prince Ex Machina to rescue her just in time. How about doing a piece on Sweet Robin Arryn? Talk about a defenseless child!

This was really beautiful

Arya is one of the most interesting character in the entire series. Arya is a child who had to grow up in such a cruel world. She’s seen so much shit and yet, you have tons of moments where Arya focuses on the small folk.

She takes matters of justice where no justice would be given. She has compassion where she didn’t even have to be told too. She should be a murderous monster. But she isn’t. She’s vengeful and she’s trying to figure it out all by herself. No one ever seems to take into consideration how much trauma she’s been through.

I bet Kyle's Fookin Chicken would want you to do the Hound for your misunderstood characters of game of thrones

Ramsay is the best character tho

I wish I could like this over and over again! I have kids Arya's age. I can't imagine them being able to make it out of the castle after all that shock of death, let alone make it all the way to Bravos. Arya's amazing strength doesn't cancel out the fact that she is just a child! The equivalent of a third grader at the start! She's not a monster! Yeah in the show the kids are all aged up, but that's because of the reality of actors hitting puberty and 7 years passing. In the books, she's the same age as a 5th grader. She is a resilient but deeply traumatized CHILD! Of course there is still hope for her. And of course she enjoys crossing names off her list. If everything and everyone you knew and loved was killed, practically all at once, wouldn't you find some satisfaction in making those responsible pay? I don't get why people write her off. I love this video so much.

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you. 🙂

I️ like how Arya was not sexualised or raped; especially considering how she was around men mainly.

The Stark family is my favorite and Arya is my favorite character, then follows Lady Brianne of Tarth! Love them both very dearly!