Maisie Williams seven most badass Game of Thrones moments

Maisie Williams seven most badass Game of Thrones moments

Posted on: 19 Jul 2017

To celebrate the outset of Game of Thrones' seventh season, we take a look at the coolest moments delivered by one of our own, the Bristol-born Maisie Williams who plays the youngest lady of Winterfell, Arya Stark.

 

***SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASONS 1-7***

Some of the scenes below are of an extremely violent nature, so viewer discretion is advised.

 

Arya Stark

Winter arrived in mid-July on Monday with the seventh series of Game of Thrones, HBO’s all-enthralling fantasy known for its gruesome brutality, gratuitous nudity and, erm, dragons. Taking place in the fictional peninsulas of Westeros and Essos, the show interweaves the narratives of several noble houses as they play a particularly gory game of musical chairs with the Iron Throne and overall rule of the Seven Kingdoms.

 

Though written (by serial wedding-spoiler George RR Martin) and produced in United States, the show has attracted a great deal of acting talent from this side of the Atlantic – some of which was sourced from particularly close to home. Having been born in Bristol, Maisie Williams spent the majority of her childhood in the surrounding area before she was snapped up by producers for the role of Arya Stark at the age of 13. Since then, she has proved herself to be amongst the finest acting talents that the city has produced.

 

 

Like the majority of children in Westeros, Arya grew up too fast, with her maturity accelerated by the murder of most of her family. The character, who grows from a talented tomboy to an dead-eyed avenger in the show’s span, shares the feminist sentiments so articulately espoused by the actress who plays her - and is, as such, one of the most important and entertaining leads in television today.

 

To celebrate the arrival of GOT’s seventh series, we present seven of Arya Stark’s most badass moments from the show. A girl is not no one.

 

 

  • Threading a bull’s eye: S1E1

 

 

In one of the show’s opening scenes (and one of the precious few that she spends at Winterfell), we see Arya abandon her sewing class in favour of Bran’s archery lesson, and hit a perfect bull’s eye before dropping a facetious curtsey – much to the chagrin of her brother. A telling indicator of Arya’s disdain for prescribed gender roles as well as her natural flair in combat, this instance is a succinct introduction to one of our favourite characters.

 

  • Joffrey slap: S1E2

 

 

There are few sweeter sights in the Game of Thones universe than Joffrey being knocked down a peg or two – and Arya delivers this soundly with a swift spin of her active moral compass. To stop the soon-to-be king from torturing the baker’s boy, with whom she had been sparring, Arya uses her stick to take a thwack at the head of the first-in-line; who subsequently justifies her behaviour by dropping a C-bomb and thrashing at her with his (very much metal) sword. Charming bloke.

 

  • Revenge kill: S4E1

 

 

Fast-forward to the outset of season four and Arya has seen her father beheaded by Joffrey, heard of her family’s murder at the Red Wedding and is just about ready for a bit of payback. Justice is rare in Westeros and rightful vengeance even more so, but here Arya is able to inflict a piece of symmetrical revenge on Polliver, a Lannister solider, by stabbing him in the neck with the newly-retrieved Needle – the same manner in which Polliver had previously murdered an unarmed boy. Cheerful stuff, this!

 

  • Laughing at the Hound: S4E8

 

 

The complex relationship Arya forms with The Hound (who is at the top of her frequently-recited kill-list) is one of the more intriguing presented in the course of Game of Thrones. Here the pair arrive at the Eyrie, the home of Catelyn Stark’s sister, Lisa Arryn, with whom The Hound intends to leave Arya. As the young Stark learns of her aunt’s recent death she lets out a gleeful laugh, a reaction polarised against the dropping face of The Hound, who realises he is yet bound to his companion. It is this realisation, and the resultant annoyance it causes him, which prompts the girl to laugh, quite literally, in the face of death.

 

  • Don’t release the Hound: S4E10

 

 

This curious companionship comes to a pertinent close soon after, when Arya leaves The Hound to succumb to the mortal wounds he sustains in fighting Brienne of Tarth. The Hound professes his pain and asks her to put an end to it, but is met only by Arya’s dead-eyed silence, which speaks for itself and of the commitment to her mission of vengeance.

 

  • Waifs and strays: S6E8

 

 

The culmination of her months of tedium (and screeching, “Oysters, clams and cockles!”) endured on Braavos, Arya escapes the House of Black and White pursued by The Waif, who has orders to exact her murder. Cornered and nursing a broken arm, she kills the candlelight and plunges the room into darkness, from whence she can draw on her previous experience of fighting without sight. With the playing field ingeniously tilted as such, there is only going to be one winner.

 

  • A-Frey-d not: S7E1

 

 

The big one. In what has been dubbed the best opening scene of any Game of Thrones episode, Arya does for the entire Frey family in one fell swoop, neatly avenging the bloodshed of the Red Wedding. Having just gone all Titus Andronicus by feeding a pie containing his two sons to Walder Frey and slitting his throat, Arya poses as him to call a feast for his entire family. Once they have all drained cups of poisoned wine and regurgitated their bloody contents, she removes his face to remind the remainder that, ‘The North remembers.’ I’d say that’s one-all. 


Article by:

Sam Mason-Jones

An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.