There’s a recurring motif throughout the books where an innocent man, woman or (really most often) child of low birth, with no other connections to the games of the noble houses, is passed off as a highborn lord or lady and then harmed and usually even killed in their place. This happens to the miller’s boys who Theon kills and presents as Bran and Rickon, to Penny’s brother and the many other dwarves whose corpses were presented to Cersei as Tyrion, to Gilly’s baby who is switched for Mance’s son, and the list goes on and on. In the series, it functions as a very poignant metaphor for how the fighting between the lords of Westeros ends up causing more damage and suffering for the smallfolk than it ever really does for those directly involved, those who actually are responsible.
However, there are two instances where this motif is inverted: when Theon saves Jeyne Poole and when Brienne saves the children at the Inn at the Crossroads. In ADWD, Jeyne is made to pose as Arya Stark and then forced to marry Ramsay Bolton so that he can use Arya’s claim to Winterfell. At the Inn at the Crossroads, Brienne first mistakes Gendry for Renly, but, notably, there’s also another little girl who she briefly thinks might actually be Arya. To me, it seems significant that in both cases the girl is mistaken for Arya, specifically. Moreover, the two events are even further linked, as in both instances it’s the color of the eyes that don’t match, referencing the highly important theme of learning to “see” through deceptions in Arya’s arc.
Usually, with this motif, the POV characters believe that the lives of these smallfolk people are worth less in the grand scheme of things compared to the highborns they are replacing. Often, we as the reader are tricked into believing this as well. We’re meant to be relieved when we learn that it wasn’t really Bran and Rickon who died, just two random boys we don’t even know. But when the motif is inverted, it directly challenges this notion. When Theon saves Jeyne, it signals that his road to redemption doesn’t start with making it up to the Starks, it starts with saving a girl from a situation so similar to that of the two lowborn boys he murdered. And when Brienne, after she’s spent the entirety of her arc in AFFC looking for Sansa and Arya, finally has her big, climactic hero moment, it’s not about saving the lost princesses, it’s about saving a group of innocent orphan smallfolk children because, in the end, they are worth just as much.
As I said, I doubt it’s a coincidence that both of these inversions are linked to Arya of all people. Firstly, it of course mirrors how she herself has spent most of the series posing as a lowborn child and experiencing the suffering of the smallfolk firsthand. But there’s also a lot of Arya’s story that’s signaling that she, in the future, likely will be taking on the role as a champion of sorts for the common people. And so I think it’s very fitting that she’s then also so closely connected to these events where the smallfolk, for once, are protected.
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