Arya I - Tumblr Posts

“Arya had named her after the warrior queen of the Rhoyne, who had led her people across the narrow sea.”

I love that this is the first detail that we get about Nymeria from Arya’s perspective. The show made Arya’s icon Visenya, and while I’ll agree it was a good opportunity for a lore dump, I feel like Nymeria gets to the core of Arya’s character in a way Visenya just doesn’t. Yes, Nymeria was a warrior. Yes, she and her people eventually fought against Valyria, but the thing Nymeria is known for is her ten thousand ships:

“Legend tells us that Nymeria took ten thousand ships to sea, searching for a new phome for her people beyond the long reach of Valyria and its dragonlords. Beldecar argues that this number was vastly inflated, perhaps as much as tenfold. Other chroniclers offer other numbers, but in truth no true count was ever made. We can safely say there were a great many ships. Most were river craft, skiffs and poleboats, trading galleys, fishing boats, pleasure barges, even rafts, their decks and holds crammed full of women and children and old men. Only one in ten was remotely seaworthy.” -TWOIAF

This is the most blatant historical parallel of the pack mentality that Arya holds dear to in she entire story. It didn’t matter if the ships were seaworthy, it didn’t matter who was in them; the Roynar were her people and she was getting them out of there.

Like,

“Gendry and Hot Pie were city-born, and in the city smallfolk walked. Yoren had given them mounts when he took them from King's Landing, but sitting on a donkey and plodding up the kingsroad behind a wagon was one thing. Guiding a hunting horse through wild woods and burned fields was something else.

She would make much better time on her own, Arya knew, but she could not leave them. They were her pack, her friends, the only living friends that remained to her.”

Of course Nymeria is Arya’s hero!!

Yes, the name of Arya’s wolf does show her gender non-conformity and her rejection of a traditional “lady’s” role. However (and imo more importantly), it shows that, to Arya, “warrior” is synonymous with “protector.”