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This chapter opens with Arya at dinner with her family and the house guards. Ned is arriving late and Arya can tell that he has been arguing with the other members of the council. While at dinner word of the tournament to celebrate the appointment of Ned as Hand of the King gets out. While Ned is not too pleased about it Sansa is excited and desperately wants to go. Initially her father doesn’t wish it, but Septa Mordane reminds Ned that as the other members of the court will be present, and as it is being held to honor Ned it would be wrong if the members of his house didn’t attend.
Ned agrees, much to Sansa’s delight, while Arya claims she doesn’t want to go. Sansa takes this opportunity to tell Arya that she won’t be missed if she doesn’t attend. So we see that there have been some bickering and some hard feelings between the two sisters from the events on the road to King’s Landing.
At this point Ned is sick of the two fighting and tells them enough is enough and that he wants them to behave and act like sisters, or else he will change his mind about. Both are quite after that.
Ned leaves and Arya is left feeling quite alone, even though she is among family and friends. Oddly this doesn’t doesn’t bother her. She likes listening to the men chat, tell tales and discussing the upcoming tourney. She also reflects that when they were back home in Winterfell that Ned would invite one of the men to dine with them every night as a way of getting to know them. So her enjoyment of good company really started back at home.
We also see that Arya quite hasn’t come to terms with what happened with Mycah on the road. She seems to be at odds with why nobody did anything about the whole situation and becomes upset. Rather than allowing anyone to see her cry she decides to leave. When Septa Mordane doesn’t excuse her from the table Arya flees to the only place in King’s Landing where she feels safe. Her bedroom.
Once there she closes and bolts the door, and then begins to cry. Arya also takes out her sword that Jon gave her and wishes that she was able to run away. While in her room we learn that not only her sister, Sansa blamed her for what happened, but also Sansa’s friend Jeyne Poole. This entire experience has left her dealing with feelings of guilt, sorrow, anger, frustration, loneliness, betrayal, sadness, and a sense of loss for both her friend Mycah as well as her direwolf Nymeria.
Neither Fat Tom nor Septa Mordane are able to convince Arya to open her door, and after a bit her father Ned knocks. This time she opens up. When her father comes in he notices she has her blade Needle in her hands. When he inspects the blade he realizes it was forged by his own blacksmith back in Winterfell. Arya doesn’t tell Ned who gave him the sword but when he asks her what she was doing with it she confides in him that she was trying to learn swordplay and asked Mycah to help her learn. This ultimately lead to the incident with Joffrey and Arya admits she feels the whole thing was her fault. She also tells her dad how much she hates the Lannisters and despises Joffrey and her sister for being a liars.
Ned takes the time here to explain to her that the blame rests squarely with the Hound and Cersei for the death of her friend. He also takes the time to sort out that Sansa has to take Joffrey’s side as they will one day be husband and wife.
Ned also lets Arya know he let her get away with lying about what happened to Nymeria. Arya at first thinks Jory told her father the truth about her direwolf, but Ned does let her know that he puzzled it out on his own and that Jory is a decent guy and kept his word. Here Arya reveals that she had to throw rocks at Nymeria to get her to run off, as she knew her wolf would be put down for what had happened.
Ned also delivers a pretty significant line in the book here:
“It was right,” her father said. “And even the lie was … not without honor.”
Ned then takes the time to explain the situation and that as times are getting tough and since King’s Landing is a far more dangerous place than Winterfell that they have to pull together for each other as a family. Arya promises her father that she will do better and at breakfast the next day seems to have taken her promise and her father's words to heart when she apologizes to Septa Mordane.
Ned allowed Arya to keep her blade Needle, and a few days after their discussion Arya is sent to the Small Hall and is introduced to her dancing master, Syrio Forel.
Syrio throws Arya a practice sword made of wood and Arya drops it. He tells her that tomorrow she will catch it. Syrio then begins to instruct Arya not in formal dancing but in what he calls the Braavos dance, the water dance with an emphasis on swift and sudden movements as opposed to the type of fighting done by the knights of Westeros that has a more of a focus on hacking and slashing.The chapter ends with Arya and Syrio practicing for hours until she is sore and bruised.
So an number of things to review in this chapter, first we will note that Ned can see that in certain circumstances deceptive acts like lying can be considered honorable. This is one of the reasons for support of the R+L=J theory.
In this situation it seems Ned is finding it an honorable act of deception in order to protect an innocent or a loved one. This is one of the themes that seem to constantly follow Ned in the tale, but the question does arise is how far can a deception be taken before it’s no longer honorable?
Another thing that Syrio noted is that Arya is left handed. Syrio even states it will give her an advantage against her opponents. I actually looked around to see if this is true and it turns out it is.
Apparently left handed people for whatever reason seem to enjoy an advantage in sports. Phil Mickelsn, Rafael Nadal and Oscar de la Hoya are all lefties and dominated in their sports. Author Rick Smits of the book “The Puzzle of Left-Handedness” believes that southpaw athletes have an advantage as they are fewer in number and thus right handed athletes are thrown off by them. Inversely as there are so many more right handed athletes the left handed competitors are just used to facing off against them.
So Arya being left handed may be throwing off the game of an opponent as they are more than likely not used to squaring off against someone who attacks from the other side, while she will not be disadvantaged as she will be used to facing right handed foes.
Aside from the sporting world there are a number of unusual things in regards to left handed people. One is that they may be more prone to negative emotions and this can lead to issues with processing them.. This certainly seems to be the case with Arya in this chapter as she was still struggling with what happened until her father spoke with her and helped her sort it out by assuring her that things weren’t her fault.
Some studies have even suggested that lefties are more talented in spatial awareness, mathematics, while the right handed counterparts seem more talented verbally.
This appears to be true of both Arya and her right handed sister Sansa. Sansa seems to be more courtly in her speech, while Arya is superior to her when it comes to numbers.
From Chapter 7 we have the following passage:
It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household. Sansa had never had much of a head for figures. If she did marry Prince Joff, Arya hoped for his sake that he had a good steward.
Finally we have Arya’s new instructor Syrio, who was the First Sword to the Sea Lord of Braavos. Essentially the First Sword is the champion and protector of the Sea Lord in a similar way to how the King’s Guard works for King Robert. Syrio held that title for nine years. Now we don’t know if Syrio failed, quit or if the Sealord he served died of old age.
But that he held the position for nine years is significant. and he should be considered one of the more elite swordsmen alive. His training of Arya is really the start of her character evolution into what she will become.
“The steel must be part of your arm,” the bald man told her. “Can you drop part of your arm? No. Nine years Syrio Forel was first sword to the Sealord of Braavos, he knows these things. Listen to him, boy.”
It was the third time he had called her “boy.” “I’m a girl,” Arya objected. “Boy, girl,” Syrio Forel said. “You are a sword, that is all.”
Ironically it seems that Syrio is trying to instil to Arya that gender is irrelevant when the steel comes out. Boy, girl, man, or woman it doesn’t matter anyone can kill you.
Syrio calling Arya “boy” may have not only a purpose for her training but also a literary purpose as well.
In her training he is trying to get her to forget the gender bias that exists in Westeros and also get her to understand that she is a sword and should focus on her craft. Taunting also can help focus her mind as an upset or angry foe may be prone to making mistakes that can be taken advantage of..
From the literary perspective it may be a subtle clue foreshadowing Arya traveling back North as well as the guards of the castle not recognizing her when she accidentally makes her way out of the Red Keep. But these are thing for future chapters and future blog posts.
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