Season Six finally saw the return of Arya Stark to Westeros, after her time studying abroad with the mysterious and murderous Faceless Men. Once back in the Seven Kingdoms, Arya got right into applying her murder and mystery skills, stopping by Walder Frey’s strategically important Riverlands castle to exact some Titus Andronicus-style vengeance on the lands’ most-frequently eligible bachelor. And on his sons. Season Seven picked up on Arya’s story with her heading south through the Riverlands with the stated goal of visiting King’s Landing and killing Queen Cersei. But a reunion with her old pal and former-traveling companion Hot Pie had her re-evaluate her immediate destination. Turning northwards, she spanned the leagues and leagues of snowy Kingsroad to return to her old home, the ancient castle of Winterfell. There she had the pleasure of executing the devilish ne’er-do-well schemer Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish.
Had she continued south through the lands of her mother’s birth and on towards the capital of King’s Landing, she would have soon passed by a different ancient castle, where she’d previously had interactions with a different type of diabolical character. Interactions in the ruined and haunted stronghold of Harrenhal.
Harrenhal has all of the hallmarks of a classic haunted house. Built to match the hubris of an Ironborn king terrorizing the Riverlands, its massive walls could not protect King Harren the Black or his sons from the flames of Balerion the Dread. Aegon the Conqueror’s dragon melted the stone towers and killed the king and his line.
Arya: I would have just used poison and spared the real-estate.
From then on, the ruins were considered cursed and were rumored to be inhabited by the ghost of dead Harren.
There might have been something to these rumors: although the rich lands around Harrenhal made the tainted structure valuable, no lord seemed to thrive there for long.
It’s not a surprise that the Tourney of the False Spring, the tournament where Rhaegar Targaryen showed a preference for Lyanna Stark over his wife, took place at the ill-fated castle.
With its bad reputation and it being an operating base for torture-employing Lannister goons, Harrenhal’s shattered and shadowed halls would be the kind of place you’d expect to encounter ghouls and demons looking to prey on the unwary.
Harrenhal Ruins by GrendelGrack
Which is why it’s so fitting that Arya Stark encountered the somewhat malevolent Jaqen H’ghar there.
Harrenhal and Homicide
To be clear, Arya first encountered Jaqen while he was in chains, being transported with the dangerous criminals Rorge and Biter from the black cells of King’s Landing to serve at Castle Black. But it’s at Harrenhal that Jaqen forced a bargain on Arya.
When the Night’s Watch convoy taking Arya came under attack by Lannister forces, the little Stark girl saved Jaqen and his two associates from burning to death. Reunited with Arya at gloomy Harrenhal, Jaqen H’ghar had piously explained that the Red God had been cheated out of three lives, and must be appeased with three deaths. Deaths that Arya was required to specify. Jaqen was a bit insistent and creepy about that.
The prospect of the offer frightened Arya, and with good reason. She’d heard many scary tales from Old Nan and her current situation sounded like it could have been from one of Nan’s fables, featuring wizards and grumkins.
Yoren found Jaqen in a black cell, the same as Rorge and Biter, she remembered. Jaqen did something horrible and Yoren knew, that’s why he kept him in chains. If the Lorathi was a wizard, Rorge and Biter could be demons he called up from some hell, not men at all.
Jaqen still owed her one death. In Old Nan’s stories about men who were given magic wishes by a grumkin, you had to be especially careful with the third wish, because it was the last.
— A Clash of Kings, Arya IX
After using two of the wishes, or rather naming the two names that resulted in swift deaths, Arya in both A Clash of Kings and the show had need of more than just one murder. (In the books, Arya needed Jaqen to kill the guards watching over a large captive group of King Robb’s men (well, Freys…) and on the show Arya just needed Jaqen to kill enough Lannisters so she could escape.
In either media, Jaqen was not initially willing to assist beyond the killing of a solitary person. He’d only do the minimum that would free him of the self-enforced obligation of three deaths for three lives.
So Arya went for a loophole:
Jaqen H’ghar: Give a name, any name.
Arya: And you’ll kill them? Anybody?
Jaqen: By the Seven New Gods and the Old Gods beyond counting, I swear it.
Arya: Alright. Jaqen H’ghar.
Jaqen: A girl gives a man his own name?
Arya: That’s right.
Jaqen: Gods are not mocked. This is no joking thing.
Arya: I’m not joking. A man can go kill himself.
Jaqen: Unname me.
Arya: No.
Jaqen: Please?
Faced with Arya’s insistence, Jaqen complies and kills more than his fair share. On departing from Arya, he hands her an iron coin of the Faceless Men, and suggests that if she wants to seek him out, she should hand the coin to any man from Braavos and say “Valar Morghulis.”
The particular enticement of the offer is implied in the books, but more explicitly stated on the show.
Jaqen: The girl has many names on her lips – “Joffrey, Cersei, Tywin Lannister, Ilyn Payne, the Hound” – names to offer up to the Red God. She could offer them all. One by one.
Arya eventually takes Jaqen up on his offer, travels to Braavos and passes the entrance exam into the murder college known as the House of Black and White. But it seemed like there would be complications in her being able to eliminate any of the names on her list.
Braavos and No Bad Students, Only Bad Teachers
Part of the process of becoming a Faceless Man is a rejection of self. A Faceless Man assassin should be No One. Arya was instructed to throw away her possessions, and that would include not only her physical property but also abstract things.
Arya Stark had a list of names to be killed. No One should not have a list that belonged to Arya Stark.
“Is that why you have come to us?” the kindly man went on. “To learn our arts, so you may kill these men you hate?”
Arya did not know how to answer that. “Maybe.”
“Then you have come to the wrong place. It is not for you to say who shall live and who shall die. That gift belongs to Him of Many Faces. We are but his servants, sworn to do his will.”
— A Feast for Crows, Arya II
This seems to be in sharp contrast to what Jaqen H’ghar had offered to Arya when he gave her the iron coin. He even referenced her list of names when making his pitch to Arya. But in Braavos, it appeared Arya would have to choose to forgo any plans on getting vengeance if she was going to obtain the skills to enable her to get that vengeance.
There are interpretations of the text that would make Arya scratching off names from her list even more complicated. There is a theory that Faceless Men can only kill you if they don’t know you.
When Arya is leaving the boat that takes her to Braavos, the crew goes out of their way to make sure that Arya, carrying a coin of the Faceless Men, knows their names. Presumably so she’d never kill them. Or never be able to kill them.
This interpretation is hinted at twice in the books during Faceless Men business meetings.
The priests used the language of Braavos, though once for several minutes three spoke heatedly in High Valyrian. The girl understood the words, mostly, but they spoke in soft voices, and she could not always hear. “I know this man,” she did hear a priest with the face of a plague victim say. “I know this man,” the fat fellow echoed, as she was pouring for him. But the handsome man said, “I will give this man the gift, I know him not.” Later the squinter said the same thing, of someone else.
— A Dance With Dragons, The Ugly Little Girl
“Give a certain man a certain gift. Can you do that?”
“What man?”
“No one that you know.”
“I don’t know a lot of people.”
“He is one of them. A stranger. No one you love, no one you hate, no one you have ever known. Will you kill him?”
“Yes.”
— A Dance With Dragons, The Ugly Little Girl
This interpretation is intriguing and would certainly be an extra-level impediment to Arya being able to kill those who have wronged her and her family. But strictly speaking, the people that Jaqen H’ghar killed for Arya at Harrenhal were not necessarily strangers to him. And Jaqen didn’t make any reference to such a restriction on whom he could kill.
She thought for a moment. “The name . . . can I name anyone? And you’ll kill him?”
Jaqen H’ghar inclined his head. “A man has said.”
“Anyone?” she repeated. “A man, a woman, a little baby, or Lord Tywin, or the High Septon, or your father?”
“A man’s sire is long dead, but did he live, and did you know his name, he would die at your command.”
— A Clash of Kings, Arya IX
Although the question of can Faceless Men kill people known to them or not is still debatable (one might argue that Jaqen could kill his father if he was No One in that moment, just a Faceless Man who had no father) – even if the theory is wrong it still seems highly unlikely that Arya would be allowed to act on her list of names once she’d graduated from the Senior Death Dealing Development program in Braavos.
The bigger question would be: why did Jaqen H’ghar at Harrenhal even offer Arya the option to join the Faceless Men, if it would end up short circuiting something very important to her and the reason she was joining?
Arya seems to consider Jaqen a friend and ally. When she goes to the House of Black and White, she specifically asks for him. When a man wearing Jaqen’s face drinks poison, Arya freaks out.
Arya: You don’t die! Don’t die!
The Waif: Why are you crying?
Arya: He was my friend!
But was he her friend? The question has more than one meaning, since that particular person wearing the face of Jaqen H’ghar might not have been the same Faceless Man that Arya had made her deals with in Harrenhal. And the original Jaqen H’ghar that Arya dealt with might not have been all that amicably-inclined towards her even after she unnamed him and commuted the death sentence that she herself had passed.
Magical extortion isn’t necessarily the best way to make friends, even if it’s an efficient way to influence people.
The Waif: Why are you crying?
Arya: He was my friend!
The Waif: No he wasn’t.
People don’t necessarily enjoy Arya’s Braavos storyline from the show, but there might be some hidden book-canonical truth in what’s presented. Although the inhabitant of the House of Black and White who is most often featured wearing the face of Jaqen H’ghar seems to hold no particular animus towards Arya, the Waif definitely has a distinctly anti-Arya attitude from the start.
This bias is one that is hard to explain if we consider the otherwise zen Faceless Men.
Unless the Waif did have a reason to not be zen in regards to Arya. For example: an earlier encounter with Arya when the Waif might have been wearing a different face. An encounter that did not go well for the Waif.
“Now?” She had never thought he would act so quickly.
“A man hears the whisper of sand in a glass. A man will not sleep until a girl unsays a certain name. Now, evil child.”
I’m not an evil child, she thought, I am a direwolf, and the ghost in Harrenhal.
— A Clash of Kings, Arya IX
Arya naming Jaqen for death is a big deal. He responded to her request with an uncharacteristic urgency, in contrast to the previous names Arya had tasked him with. This was a serious situation for Jaqen and there’s no reason to believe that he’d lightly shrug off what Arya had done, even after she unnamed him.
Could that Faceless Man have eventually returned to Braavos, and waited for a certain scrappy girl to blunder into the House of Black and White, where this Faceless Man had the home court advantage? (And was presenting a new identity?)
The Waif not only seemed to have a grudge against Arya, she seemed to know a lot about the Stark girl. And possibly used that against her in arranging the assassination of Lady Crane. Crane was performing in a play about Arya’s family, which could have been a calculated move to remind Arya of who she was, messing up her training even if she’d gone through with the hit.
Regardless if the Waif on the show is also the Jaqen H’ghar from the earlier seasons, his sending Arya to Braavos and the House of Black and White was setting Arya up for failure, either in her not being able to follow the Faceless Men dogma or in Arya losing her linchpin character motivation. Which in itself is a bit of revenge.
Maybe Jaqen did that as retribution for Arya putting him in danger, but maybe it was simply because Arya mocked the gods by twisting the arrangement Jaqen had offered her to appease those gods.
He looked down at her pitilessly. “Three lives were snatched from a god. Three lives must be repaid. The gods are not mocked.” His voice was silk and steel.
— A Clash of Kings, Arya IX
Three Lives Were Snatched From a God, Three Lives Must Be Repaid
It’s interesting to consider what Jaqen H’ghar’s motivations were in offering Arya admission into the House of Black and White, but maybe they’re not all that important. From a big picture perspective, twice Arya Stark has managed to interact with the Faceless Men and has exited the bargain with more benefit than she was due.
Her exercising an unfair advantage over Jaqen and the last name has already been well covered, and although Arya in the books is still in Braavos and it’s doubtful that the next book will closely follow Arya’s show-storyline, it’s highly likely that Arya will return to Westeros with enhanced assassination techniques at her disposal and her list of names still in play. She’ll not be No One, she’ll still be Arya Stark. But armed with trickster death-skills.
Playing with fire twice and not getting burned is noteworthy since it begins to establish a pattern, but three is a much more significant number in tales, particularly ones involving magic.
- Grumkins and three wishes
- The third time’s the charm
- Three horn blasts means White Walkers
- The Dragon has three heads
- Three names to be repaid
Arya has twice made bargains with the Faceless Men, and has done well for herself. The first time it was a Faceless Man that came to Arya, and she really had no choice but to play along. It’s to her credit that she turned that situation to her advantage.
The second time, Arya went to the Faceless Men willingly so her eventual exit with their secret knowledge is quite honestly another example of mocking the gods. Or at least the odds.
If we consider that the Waif might have been the Jaqen H’ghar from Harrenhal, Arya’s killing of the Waif is a natural consequence of her naming him in the first place. Be careful what you wish for, Jaqen.
If there is to be a third interaction between Arya and the Faceless Men, it makes sense that this one will be the final meeting, one way or another. But the odds should likely to continue to be Arya’s favor, and not necessarily reflect the Faceless Men coming back from behind.
Arya: I am a direwolf, and the ghost in Harrenhal.
Maybe it wasn’t Arya making a deal with a devil in Harrenhal when Jaqen offered her three names to balance things.
Maybe this Faceless Man was the one out of his depth, making a bargain that he and his organization would come to regret.
Arya Stark was granted a direwolf, and if Ned Stark’s instincts are true, that direwolf came as a gift from the Old Gods. Jaqen repaid Arya’s philanthropic actions in saving him and his two unsavory companions and subverted that into a requirement to sacrifice lives to foreign gods. He was essentially bargaining with supernatural forces beyond his control, talking about death with an agent of the Old Gods in ruined and rotting Harrenhal.
And then he inadvertently invited a trickster blessed by the Old Gods to come to Braavos and steal secrets from his Many-Faced God.
The Old Gods are not mocked. This is no joking thing.
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