Brave Arya Stark: A Song To Make Us Weep

Arry by Kris-Kamikakushi

The Meaning of Brave Danny Flint: A Song To Make You Weep.

In Winterfell, during the wedding banquet held in honor of Ramsay Bolton being wed to fake “Arya Stark” (fArya), Lord Wyman Manderly requested a specific song. No, actually. He requested two specific songs. But that was a lie like his pies.

Both songs are the one and the same. Both songs he asked for are two verses from the Song of Ice and Fire.

But one of them, is far worse than even possible meaning of The Dornishman’s Wife.  When you know what this song means, it will make you weep.

Here is Lord Manderly at the fArya fWedding:

It was true. The Lord of White Harbor was the very picture of the jolly fat man, laughing and smiling, japing with the other lords and slapping them on the back, calling out to the musicians for this tune or that tune. “Give us ‘The Night That Ended,’ singer,” he bellowed. “The bride will like that one, I know. Or sing to us of brave young Danny Flint and make us weep.”

Here is how Theon responded to Manderly’s statement:

To look at him, you would have thought that he was the one newly wed.

“He’s drunk,” said Theon. “Drowning his fears. He is craven to the bone, that one.”

Was he? Theon was not certain. His sons had been fat as well, but they had not shamed themselves in battle. “Ironborn will feast before a battle too. A last taste of life, should death await.”

– A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 37, The Prince of Winterfell

Here is what we know of the song of Brave Danny Flint.

The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan’s scariest stories. It was here that Night’s King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered.

– A Storm of Swords, Chapter 56, Bran IV

After the fWedding of fArya Stark, Jayne Pool, the girl impersonating Arya was brutally raped and tortured. This may have been terrible foreshadowing of something to come to real Arya.

“Did Mance ever sing of Brave Danny Flint?”

“Not as I recall. Who was he?”

“A girl who dressed up like a boy to take the black. Her song is sad and pretty. What happened to her wasn’t.” In some versions of the song, her ghost still walked the Nightfort.

– A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 58, Jon XII

Unfortunately we have already seen a girl dressed up as a boy to take the black. Yoren cut “his” hair. Arya is a boy.

Yoren to Arya:

“Shut your mouth and close your eyes, boy.”

“Look at me. Yes, that’s the way of it, at me.” Sour wine perfumed his breath. “Remember, boy?”

“I’m taking men and boys from the city,” Yoren growled as the sharp steel scraped at her head. “Now you hold still, boy.” By the time he had finished, her scalp was nothing but tufts and stubble.

Closing your eyes, the smell of sour wine on another mans breath,.. commands to hold still. They are not forshadowing good things.

And here is the most devastating quote from Yoren that all (to me) but confirms Arya is Brave Arya Stark:

Afterward he told her that from there to Winterfell she’d be Arry the orphan boy. “Gate shouldn’t be hard, but the road’s another matter. You got a long way to go in bad company. I got thirty this time, men and boys all bound for the Wall, and don’t be thinking they’re like that bastard brother o’ yours.” He shook her.

Don’t think unJon is like your bastard brother Arya. He isn’t. Nor was he ever your bastard brother.

“Lord Eddard gave me pick o’ the dungeons, and I didn’t find no little lordlings down there. This lot, half o’ them would turn you over to the queen quick as spit for a pardon and maybe a few silvers. The other half’d do the same, only they’d rape you first.So you keep to yourself and make your water in the woods, alone. That’ll be the hardest part, the pissing, so don’t drink no more’n you need.”

Pissing is how she will be discovered, brought to the queen and raped.  In A Dance with Dragons Epilogue he hear “Boros Blount went so far as to say he had never seen the man use the privy. Why should he? Dead men do not shit.” And the dead unMan Dareon doesn’t piss either (more on that soon).

The trauma of the death of Ned and Yoren for some reason bringing Ja’qen (was “Yoren” a Faceless Man too and working with Ja’qen?) this turned young Arya Stark, Arya Horseface, Arya Underfoot, the Princess of Winterfell:

Arya by billconan

And turned her into Arry:

Arya by Aleximv

And after Arry came many other identities, each with increasing darkness in them. She became Lumpyface, Lumpyhead, Weasel, Nymeria, Nan, Squab, Salty, Cat of the Canals, Beth, The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl, Mercedene and Mercythea. This is the road to becoming no one.

This is Arya’s road to becoming an angel of death. That is her prayer.

In the beginning of the series Arya set out to go north with Yoren, under the guise of joining the Nights Watch. But she never did. It just so happened, by sheer coincidence, not by any master plan for manipulation by The House of Black and White to usurp the incredible power of the Starks and their magic blood for their own purposes, that she meets no one named Jaqen H’ghar via Yoren and he takes her off the path of going north to The Wall. Or did he?

It is a long way north. And it will take us seven books and a good pair of boots for her to get there.

The journey to The Wall is made in a dead mans boots

(Hat tip: kissdbyfire)

Melissandre tells us that the strongest glamours are made of a dead man’s boots.

“The bones help,” said Melisandre. “The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man’s boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man’s shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer’s essence does not change, only his seeming.”

AFfC, Cat of the Canals

A wearers essence not changing, only “his” seeming sounds exactly like the Faceless Men.

Arya just so happens to have the boots of a certain dead man. A dead man of the Nights Watch.

By the time Cat returned to Brusco’s house, an evening fog was gathering above the small canal. She put away her barrow, found Brusco in his counting room, and thumped her purse down on the table in front of him. She thumped the boots down too. Brusco gave the purse a pat. “Good. But what’s this?” “Boots.”

“Good boots are hard to find,” said Brusco, “but these are too small for my feet.” He picked one up to squint at it. “The moon will be black tonight,” she reminded him. “Best you pray, then.” Brusco shoved the boots aside and poured out the coins to count them. “Valar dohaeris.”

Valar morghulis, she thought.

-A Feast for Crows – Cat Of The Canals

Valar morghulis, indeed.

The songs that will be sung for Brave Arya Stark, and the song Brave Danny Flint before it, is the song of a dead singer. But we weep not for him. We will weep for “no one.”

Arya took those “good boots” that will be her glamour to pose as the dead Dareon.

Here is Arya with the unKindly Man just before they took her eyesight, when she had to report three new things she learned:

“And the third thing?” This time she did not hesitate. “Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night’s Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots.”

“Good boots are hard to find.” “Just so.”

She tried to keep her face still. “Who could have done this thing, I wonder?” “Arya of House Stark.” She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw. “That girl? I thought she had left Braavos. Who are you?” “No one.” “You lie.”

Notice the exact same phrase, “good boots are hard to find” is used by both Brusco and the unKindly Man. That is a huge GRRM-tell that something is happening here.

Brusco didn’t take the boots, but someone else did. Arya underfoot of House Stark did. Arya will go “back” to The Wall in a Dareon glamour, possibly posing as (a dead) Dareon wight. She will leave the Faceless Men after realizing they work for the true enemy of humanity and she will go on one last Faceless assassination mission…. to the Nightfort.

At the Nightfort will be no one she once knew. Jon Snow will no longer be the brother she once knew loved. Nights King Aemon unTargaryen will have taken his place and will sit at the throne of the Nights King. Under the guise of unDareon she will attempt to kill unJon the unBrother she once knew and loved. How the details of mission will ultimately transpire, only GRRM knows.

We do know one thing, Brave Danny Flint was not just murdered. she was raped. And the story of how actual Dareon got to The Wall may hold a clue as to how that might turn out, namely unspeakable horror

“How did [Dareon] come here?” Sam asked.

“Lord Rowan of Goldengrove found him in bed with his daughter. The girl was two years older, and Dareon swears she helped him through her window, but under her father’s eye she named it rape, so here he is.

When Maester Aemon heard him sing, he said his voice was honey poured over thunder.“ Jon smiled.

-A Game of Thrones – Jon IV

Dareon with his voice of honey poured over thunder is just like Brave Danny Flint whose song was “song is sad and pretty.” If Arya becomes Dareon, she would become Sweet Darry Flint.

Could it be that under her brothers eye, that Nights King (unJon?) calls for rape under his eye? Or worse, she is raped under the eye of her brother who does it himself? GRRM worships far crueler gods than you or I. She might not be killed by her brothers of the Nights Watch either, but possibly her brothers of the Faceless Men who could be working with Nights King and Team Bloodraven/Team Children of The Forrest. I would rather not speculate anymore on this. It’s just too horrible.

Please make note of the window comment above as it may be important. In both Dareon’s story and Jon Snow’s last talk with Arya there is talk of the window and movement of a man surrounding it.

This is Jon’s response to Arya after giving her Needle in AGOT:

Jon watched them leave, and Arya watched Jon. His face had grown as still as the pool at the heart of the godswood

The pool is a reference to being an Other and The IceBrandon, the unmoving dead/still/sleeping ice dragon inside the black pool of Winterfell. It echos Bran’s vision flying as the IceBrandon: “finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.” All warmth includes both physical and metaphorical warmth.

Back to the scene above with Jon and Arya:

Finally [Jon] climbed down off the window.

“The show is done,” he said.

He bent to scratch Ghost behind the ears. The white wolf rose and rubbed against him. “You had best run back to your room, little sister. Septa Mordane will surely be lurking.

The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You’ll be sewing all through winter.

When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers.”
-A Game of Thrones – Arya I

Again, just as Dareon climbed a window, I believe the forthcoming scene with Brave Arya Stark will also include a window. perhaps that is how unJon undies, by being pushed out of a window, perhaps with the help of the shade of the original Danny Flint who will finally come to rest once Arya takes her place. I suspect Needle will play a big part in his demise as well. Could a kingly unnan unnamed unJon  fall through through a window at the Nightfort? Could it be due to a blow from Needle somehow?

Arya will be killed. She may be brutally raped. And after it all of this, she will finally become who she thought she wanted to become; no one.

This ghost of no one will stand vigil at the Nightfort, until the Long Night falls again in this wheel of time that repeats.

The song of Brave Danny Flint is the song of Brave Arya Stark. They are both verses is the Song of Ice and Fire. There were two songs that are one were both sung at fake Arya’s wedding. Brave Danny Flint made Manderly weep. The other verse in the song is sung is called The Night That Ended. 

Bave Arya Stark will sacrifice her life to end the Long Night. Thanks to Brave Arya Stark, men will live to see the light and sing once more.

Arya’s name means song and this is the stuff of songs.

Her’s is a song to make us weep.