R+L = Arya as Jonâs de facto therapist
Weâre sure to see a callback to this moment when Jon learns of his parentage. Arya has ways been Jonâs most important figure and a linchpin of his identity. GRRM repeatedly has her interact with cues to Jonâs parentage, and ties her to Jonâs unresolved identity issues.
From her learning of Wylla and Jonâs birth in Dorne, and an allusion to her own aunt through Ashara, to her likely hearing the song of Bael the Bars and the Stark Maiden, another allusion to Jonâs parentage and Rhaegar and Lyannaâs story, and deciding that the lady should avenge her prince. Jon is the bastard prince whom Arya will want to avenge.
Taken together, such narrative associations suggest that Arya is positioned to play an important role in Jonâs eventual reconciliation with his parentage and identity. Arya never distinguishes between Jon the brother, Jon the bastard, and Jon the man of the Watch. To her, he is simply jon, her best friend, and the one person who will always accept her for who she is, a sentiment she is to return in kind. Long before the question of Jonâs birth comes play, Aryaâs love exists outside of conditions of legitimacy, inheritance, or blood. When Jon dreams of the crypts that allude to his mother, Arya is one of the people he calls for; a representation of belonging inerrant kinship.
When he mulls over his identity as a Stark, brother of the Watch, a wilding, a bastard, it is the veracity of his relationship to arya as a sister that he specifically calls to question, and the erasure of that bond that disjoins him from the Starks. Arya has always been his closest, but if even she canât be his sister, could he truthfully say he was ever part of the Starks at all? Arya is the pack chosen and the person who he will always have an affinity with despite adversity. When R+L=J dissolves every category jon has identified with, would it not be the one Jon whose love predates and survives the concept of category be the one to help him hold onto himself? So long as his bond with Arya is sustained, Jon will always have a place to belong. When you remove everything else, their love for each other remains.
âHeâll have to call me something elseâ is a blatant indication of a future redefinition and evolution of Jon and Aryaâs relationship, paired with their individual growth and the reveal of Jonâs parentage. When jon learns his truths, Arya is poised to be the one who helps affirm his identity as Jon Snow, the person beneath vows and blood; she can hold the answer to the question of who he is beyond names. After all, it is the image of his true tie to the North and the Starks she beholds.
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