Does she not want to go home?

July 21, 2009 11:32 AM

[Spoilers for Song of Ice and Fire books] Why is that Arya Stark...

In a clash of kings, When Arya is at harrenhall and Roose Bolton takes over the Place from Vargo Hoat, why doesn't Arya reveal herself to him and ask him to take her home? She couldn't have known that Roose was gonna betray her brother. She should have known that Roose was her brother's man, right?

This has been bugging me

posted by tylerfulltilt to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Arya's got a good head on her shoulder. With the amount of double-crossing and scheming that'd been going on in the series since then, it's not uncharacteristic for her to be mistrustful of anyone but her own family (and even then...)
posted by Phire at 11:56 AM on July 21, 2009

Yeah, what Phire said. Arya is the sharp one...Sansa wouldn't have had the smarts to do that, but Arya? Sure.
posted by mcstayinskool at 12:23 PM on July 21, 2009

I think I remember wondering that, too, and then thinking that if she had, it would have gone badly for her. She was being cautious, which turned out to pay off. Her father went down because of the people he trusted.
posted by davextreme at 2:24 PM on July 21, 2009

Think of meeting a dude like Roose Bolton in real life. Would you trust that motherfucker? Constantly whispering, flays other dudes alive, loves to get sucked on by leeches, shows absolutely no compunction about hiring the worst human beings on earth to get things done for him, conked out on opium all the time (doesn't he habitually drink 'milk of the poppy'? can't remember).

An adult, or older child, might have been blinded by Bolton's position in society, and his professed oath of loyalty to her brother, but as a young child, Arya saw what was right in front of her: BAD GUY.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 2:38 PM on July 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't think she trusts *anyone* outside of her immediate circle of orphans and family. She's just seen her father executed and gone through the trauma of the journey north. Arya has also by this stage internalized the lessons of Syrio Forel to acutely observe what is going on around her, and she's seen enough to be very wary by this point.
posted by arha at 2:50 PM on July 21, 2009

More to the point, the Boltons were known to the Starks as having a somewhat... tenuous grasp of feudal obligations. The Boltons were notorious for their cruelty and ambition, so even if she had been more aware of the political situation, she would have been well-advised to keep her mouth shut. That, combined with the aforementioned atmosphere of treachery in which Arya lived at the time, would have been sufficient motivation to keep her identity to herself.
posted by valkyryn at 2:58 PM on July 21, 2009

Arya considers revealing her identity to one of the others that arrived with Roose (?forget who) because she knows him personally. However he leaves on some expedition before she decides, and she isn't willing to trust anyone else just because they're 'on her side'. I thought the book did give a little of her internal thoughts on this.
posted by jacalata at 7:10 PM on July 21, 2009