#needleheartwinter

needleheart winter → songs and stories: the winter rose

"now as it happened the winter roses had only then come into bloom, and no flower is so rare nor precious. so the stark sent to his glass gardens and commanded that the most beautiful o' the winter roses be plucked for the singer's payment. and so it was done. but when morning come, the singer had vanished . . . and so had lord brandon's maiden daughter. her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."

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you told the world you burned the king-beyond-the-wall. instead you sent him to winterfell to steal my bride from me.

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needleheart winter → brides and marriage

she wondered if he would still call her "little sister." i’m not so little anymore. he’d have to call me something else.

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NEEDLEHEART WINTER | A Game of Thrones (Parallels)

“You have juice on your face, Your Grace,” Arya said.

It was running down her nose and stinging her eyes. Sansa wiped it away with a napkin. When she saw what the fruit in her lap had done to her beautiful ivory silk dress, she shrieked again. “You’re horrible,” she screamed at her sister. “They should have killed you instead of Lady!” (AGOT, Sansa III)

-

“Jon,” she said. […]

Jon remembered something his father had said once. A wall is only as strong as the men who stand behind it.

A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them, or send them forth to die.

“The map is not the land, my father often said.

“My lord father said he never ate half so well as when visiting the clans.”

“My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn.”

“My lord father used to say a man should never draw his sword unless he means to use it.”

He might have known them anyway, just by the way they stood. A good lord must know his men, his father had once told him and Robb, back at Winterfell.  - Jon, ASoIaF

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I should kill them myself. Whenever her father had condemned a man to death, he did the deed himself with Ice, his greatsword. “If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look him in the face and hear his last words,” she’d heard him tell Robb and Jon once.

Tell me what to do, you gods,” she prayed.

Then, so faintly, it seemed as if she heard her father’s voice. “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives,” he said.

Last night she’d had a bad dream, a terrible dream. She couldn’t remember what she’d dreamed of now, but the feeling had lingered all day. If anything, it had only gotten stronger. Fear cuts deeper than swords. She had to be strong now, the way her father told her.

Her father used to say that a lord needed to eat with his men, if he hoped to keep them. “Know the men who follow you,” she heard him tell Robb once, “and let them know you. Don’t ask your men to die for a stranger.” - Arya, ASoIaF

It’s Jon and Arya who idealize Ned Stark the man, who measure their actions against their father’s and often times come up short.

“Jon did not know that he could tell honor from shame anymore, or right from wrong. Father forgive me.”   - Jon, ASoS

Arya told of Yoren and their escape from King’s Landing as well, and much that had happened since, but she left out the stableboy she’d stabbed with Needle, and the guard whose throat she’d cut to get out of Harrenhal. Telling Harwin would be almost like telling her father, and there were some things that she could not bear having her father know. Arya, ASoS

It’s Ned who gives Arya courage and strength when she falters, who tells her “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.” Words she follows as she tries to find her pack. It’s Ned’s teaching and advice that Jon uses to plan Stannis’ campaign in the North.

Arya’s relationship with her mother is more complicated by Catelyn’s desire for her to be a fundamentally different person. Jon does not have a mother figure in the story, however, it’s interesting that growing up the only positive female influence in his life is Arya Stark (Well, apart from Old Nan - though I doubt Old Nan did much parenting apart from storytime!).

This is subconsciously reflected in the girls he admires, befriends and loves (He compares Ygritte physically to Arya, he compares Ygritte and Alys’ personality to Arya’s) as much as his contempt for Catelyn is reflected in the disdain he shows for what he considers to be the typical Westerosi lady who hold high regard for propriety and societal norms.

A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her. - Jon, ADwD

GRRM seems to be playing around with an Oedipal Complex for Jon Snow in that he keeps comparing the girls he is attracted towards and admires with Arya and Arya is a mini Lyanna according to the characters who know both Arya and Lyanna. Jon and Arya are close because Arya is like Lyanna in terms of personality and looks. Jon of course does not know this, however, he is more or less getting to know his mother through his relationship with Arya. This is the GRRM approved world book art for Lyanna and Arya:

Arya Stark in KL                                   Lyanna Stark at Harrenhal

“Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.” - Arya, AGoT

It’s Lyanna’s son who admires Arya for who she is, Lyanna’s son who defies his father, secretly arms Arya and gifts her a sword - Needle, symbolic of the bond between them.

As an aside, Arya (A Lyanna look alike) has the closest bond with Rhaegar’s son, Jon Snow and also has a friendship and something brewing with Robert’s son Gendry Waters while on the run, a point to note when one considers what happened with Lyanna, Robert and Rhaegar.

❄️Needleheart Winter❄️

~ Stick them with the pointy end ~

All she could think of was the lesson Jon had given her. “Stick them with the pointy end,” she blurted out. -Arya, A Game of Thrones

“I says, come.” He grabbed her arm, hard. Everything Syrio Forel had ever taught her vanished in a heartbeat. In that instant of sudden terror, the only lesson Arya could remember was the one Jon Snow had given her, the very first. She stuck him with the pointy end, driving the blade upward with a wild, hysterical strength. -Arya, A Game of Thrones.

“The pointy end.” Jon had told his little sister something like that once, he remembered. -Jon, A Storm of Swords

Would she still have that little sword he’d had Mikken forge for her? Stick them with the pointy end, he’d told her. -Jon, A Dance with Dragons

Needleheart Winter

needle (stick them with pointy end)

Arya seemed puzzled at first. Then it came to her. She was that quick. They said it together:

"Needle!"

The memory of her laughter warmed him on the long ride north. Jon II, AGoT

… and Needle. She'd been lying on top of Needle, or else it would have been gone too; it was worth more than all the rest together. Arya V, AGoT

Jon Snow had given her Needle. Maybe she had to let them call her Lumpyhead, but she wasn't going to let them call Jon a thief. Arya I, ACoK

Needle was too small to be a proper sword, it was hardly more than a toy. She'd been a stupid little girl when Jon had it made for her. "It's just a sword," she said, aloud this time . . .

. . . but it wasn't.

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon, her mother and her father, even Sansa. Needle was Winterfell's grey walls, and the laughter of its people. Needle was the summer snows, Old Nan's stories, the heart tree with its red leaves and scary face, the warm earthy smell of the glass gardens, the sound of the north wind rattling the shutters of her room. Needle was Jon Snow's smile. He used to mess my hair and call me "little sister," she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

Polliver had stolen the sword from her when the Mountain's men took her captive, but when she and the Hound walked into the inn at the crossroads, there it was. The gods wanted me to have it. Not the Seven, nor Him of Many Faces, but her father's gods, the old gods of the north. The Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can't have this. AFfC, Arya II

The kennelmaster once told her that an animal takes after its master. (Sansa I, AGoT)

--

He had known what Snow was the moment he saw that great white direwolf stalking silent at his side. One skinchanger can always sense another. Mance should have let me take the direwolf. There would be a second life worthy of a king. (Prologue, ADwD)

--

Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea. That had been a great scandal too. (Arya I, AGoT)

--

"Some will tell you that they are demons. They say the pack is led by a monstrous she-wolf, a stalking shadow grim and grey and huge. They will tell you that she has been known to bring aurochs down all by herself, that no trap nor snare can hold her, that she fears neither steel nor fire, slays any wolf that tries to mount her, and devours no other flesh but man." (Brienne V, AFfC)

--

He was watching the action, so absorbed that he seemed unaware of her approach until his white wolf moved to meet them. Nymeria stalked closer on wary feet. Ghost, already larger than his litter mates, smelled her, gave her ear a careful nip, and settled back down.

...

He messed up her hair again and walked away from her, Ghost moving silently beside him. Nymeria started to follow too, then stopped and came back when she saw that Arya was not coming. (Arya I, AGoT)

--

Arya was in her room, packing a polished ironwood chest that was bigger than she was. Nymeria was helping. Arya would only have to point, and the wolf would bound across the room, snatch up some wisp of silk in her jaws, and fetch it back. But when she smelled Ghost, she sat down on her haunches and yelped at them. (Jon II, AGoT)

He sat on his haunches and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow. (Jon VII, ACoK)

--

And then, far far off, beyond the godswood and the haunted towers and the immense stone walls of Harrenhal, from somewhere out in the world, came the long lonely howl of a wolf. (Arya X, ACoK)