Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon!

[Miriel]

It seemed like Arya's plan was to lure stupid girl into the candle room and murder her the entire time. She couldn't do that if she wasn't walking around to get seen. The plan hit a serious snag when Arya was stabbed, but in the end it worked out well enough. It seemed fairly obvious to me that Arya was luring the girl to her dark room during the chase, intentionally leaving trails of blood to make sure she was found.

I think a lot of us WANT that to be the real explanation. Because otherwise, the show has become bafflingly stupid with her storyline. That was the immediate thought that I had with this whole thing, but try as I might, it just doesn't FIT.

It makes no sense that she would risk getting stabbed a bunch of times by a trained assassin. Before this week's episode aired I thought she had faked it. Like she had a fake blood pouch or something in there to simulate blood. But that would have been very very risky anyway, trying to figure out precisely where she would be stabbed.

But then it turns out that she really DID get stabbed in the gut. How the smurf did it not hit vital organs? Or her intestinal tract?? That kind of stab wound is serious business! And let's say she was planning a trap, even if she assumed that Waif wouldn't immediately give her killing blows, how the smurf could she have predicted that Waif would wait until Arya led her ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE CITY and to her little cave before finishing her?? That makes zero sense.

And she's running a marathon threw the city, bleeding the smurf all over the place, jumping through rivers and crashing down stairs. It's just too much. Way too much disbelief needed for any of this to make a lick of sense.

It's not nitpicking when the plot holes are smurfing GIGANTIC.

[Formalhaut]

The problem is examining a small clunk in the story by itself isn't so bad. How did Sansa and Theon survive that fall off of Winterfell's castle walls? Who knows, but it was the only 'clunk' that didn't seem to fit, so it is pretty easy to forgive and forget.

But with the last two episodes of Arya's story in Braavos, just so many different things clunked or didn't make sense in rather quick succession, before the gears of logic start to slow or even stop. As I mentioned previously - I actually can understand that she could in theory be stabbed multiple times and for those wounds not to be fatal. With the time skip of about a few days, I can about see that through adrenalin she would be able to make her flee the Waif and kill her (though she probably would need medical attention after leaving the House of Black and White).

That, in isolation, isn't so bad. It's just in unison with the inconsistencies and puzzling actions exhibited by Arya leading up to that stabbing, the entire scene doesn't work. I don't feel quite as strongly about this as Miriel, because Arya's story overall has been good thematically, but I do agree with her that there's enough 'clunks' in the previous two episodes for me to say that it simply doesn't work.

It isn't 'Dorne' levels of bad, but it is bad.

[Fox]

I'm happy to buy the theory that Arya's 50% smurfing lucky and 50% a good improviser, and Terminator Waif just got too cocky for her own good.

Nothing that happened from Arya's point of view bore any resemblance to anything approaching a plan more complex than "Oh damn I'm about to die let's run to the place I hid my sword at". And to be fair, a plan is only ever as good as the results it produces so... by that measure it was genius.

[Night Fury]

Adrenaline ain't going to help you though when septicaemia sets in from swimming through a river of literal trout water.

[Ayen]

I find it a little amusing that Arya is the only Stark in GoT history to survive certain death.

I'm going to laugh if T-1000 Waif return in Season Seven and tries to kill Arya again. I wouldn't even be surprised.

[Slothy]

I think a lot of us WANT that to be the real explanation. Because otherwise, the show has become bafflingly stupid with her storyline. That was the immediate thought that I had with this whole thing, but try as I might, it just doesn't FIT.

It makes no sense that she would risk getting stabbed a bunch of times by a trained assassin. Before this week's episode aired I thought she had faked it. Like she had a fake blood pouch or something in there to simulate blood. But that would have been very very risky anyway, trying to figure out precisely where she would be stabbed.

But then it turns out that she really DID get stabbed in the gut. How the smurf did it not hit vital organs? Or her intestinal tract?? That kind of stab wound is serious business! And let's say she was planning a trap, even if she assumed that Waif wouldn't immediately give her killing blows, how the smurf could she have predicted that Waif would wait until Arya led her ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE CITY and to her little cave before finishing her?? That makes zero sense.

And she's running a marathon threw the city, bleeding the smurf all over the place, jumping through rivers and crashing down stairs. It's just too much. Way too much disbelief needed for any of this to make a lick of sense.

It's not nitpicking when the plot holes are smurfing GIGANTIC.

If she was trying to lure her in, I'd imagine she didn't expect waif to attack her in the open like that and to try for some privacy. A bad bet as it turned out but not necessarily an unreasonable assumption. The problem is making assumptions at all can get you killed of course.

Aside from that, of everything else that happened to her, the only part that stretches believability a bit is how non-serious the writers think a stab to the intestinal tract would be, but they at least tried to address the injuries by having someone treat her and we're never given a reason to believe any repair to her intestines has ruptured in the chase (and from the angle of the blade it's unlikely any other organs would have been hit), and if we're all going to be totally honest, the majority of shows and movies don't portray wounds realistically anyway. Even this one sometimes.

So I have no problem ignoring this myself. Hell, I think calling it a plot hole is a pretty big stretch. Something being portrayed unrealistically and characters making bad decisions are not plot holes. We can certainly debate amongst ourselves whether we think the story works as a whole for any of these reasons, but it's still not plot holes.

And while we may go running to the antibiotics whenever we have such injuries these days Fury, it is entirely possible to be stabbed and go for a dive and not actually pick up an infection you can't fight off. Arya is absolutely probably the luckiest person in the show not named Sandor Clegane or Jon Snow right now, but it's not exactly unrealistic.

[Night Fury]

Clegane survived due to necromancy, and Jon was revived by the Red Woman. I just thought the whole thing was daft and terribly written, really.

EDIT: you meant other Clegane. He's had a long recovery time I would have assumed for his injuries and has been resting up and hasn't been performing parkour.

[Pheesh]

I find it a little amusing that Arya is the only Stark in GoT history to survive certain death.

I'm going to laugh if T-1000 Waif return in Season Seven and tries to kill Arya again. I wouldn't even be surprised.

As mentioned earlier, Bran's fall was just as, if not more, life threatening that Arya's stabbing.

[Night Fury]

Re Bran - there were consequences to his fall. He was in a coma and lost his ability to walk.

[Bri]

I am just glad that Arya is still alive and going home. I bet if she was killed off all of her fans would absolutely go berserk.

[Ayen]

I am just glad that Arya is still alive and going home. I bet if she was killed off all of her fans would absolutely go berserk.

Oh, I most certainly would. I'm not going to lie. And if the writing was good it'd be more frustrating because I could only be mad at the death itself. Like I was with Shireen last season. It's a double edged sword, really. I just tend to be more critical of shows and plotlines I like even if the reverse would work against me.

I'll likely forget about this whole thing by next week, but right now I'm enjoying the discussion.

[Bri]

I'm just hoping she will go back to hopefully help out the rest of her siblings! :-D

[Ayen]

Maybe she'll return to the Riverlands and reunite with Sandor before something calls the BWB up North to meet up with Jon and Sansa and we get a Stark family reunion on top of the Hound and Sansa reuniting, but that's probably asking for waaaaaaay too much.

I don't understand the whole 'West of Westeros' bit, but I can forgive that being a motivation since for all Arya knows the rest of her family is dead and she was always an explorer at heart. I can't see them isolating her in another part of the world when they want to wrap the series up in thirteen more episodes, though.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I think Cersei is too confident going into a potential trial by combat. Her attitude is "I've got the Mountain so checkmate" but I can't imagine the sparrows haven't kept that in mind.

Also WADDUP

[Pheesh]

In regards to Cersei's plotline, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw her killed off at this point. It would appear that is Margaery's chief goal, as I assume she hates Cersei for what she did to her and Loras, and it's certainly heading in that direction. Initially I thought Jaime would be the sacrificial Lannister this season but I'm starting to think he'll arrive back in King's Landing just in time to see her hung or something else equally dramatic.