'Game of Thrones' season 8 episode 5 recap: Arya Stark rises from the ashes, literally! What does this mean?
Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) is the G.O.A.T of the show! While we saw her great move that ended the Night King, it seems there is more where that came from. After the Battle of Winterfell, the Last War saw Arya what she does best - surprise us all!
Spoilers ahead for 'Game of Thrones' season 8 episode 5...
Arya rode to the Red Keep on a horse's back with the Hound. At the beginning of episode 5, the two are stopped and when she is asked what her business is, she says "I am going to kill Cersei (Lena Headey)." The two even manage to enter Red Keep before the gates close and reach the castle, but Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) has begun firing on the city with the help of Drogon. When the Hound realizes what the two are facing, he convinces Arya to give up on her revenge in favor of staying alive. One would have assumed that she would be hellbent on killing the woman who was one of the reasons behind her family's ruin. However, not only did she turn her back on revenge, she thanked Hound before leaving. That was her goodbye to Hound, who met his end in the following scenes.
Arya, headed out of the castle and joined the crowd of people who were trying to escape from the fiery dragon which was shooting fire everywhere. From then, till the end of the episode, there were multiple moments when I had to catch my breath because I had expected any minute to be her last. Would it be when she got trapped in a stampede? Then I saw a hand reach out for her, help her up and they ran for their lives. Was it when a huge building cracked and collapsed? Not really, because she hid behind another wall and braced for impact. At this point, I began to wonder if Arya was indestructible after all!
Then, I saw my screen go bright as Drogon shot fire, exactly at the same spot that Arya was standing just a few seconds ago. The woman who helped her and the child with her are burnt to crisp, but Arya rises from the ashes. The phoenix metaphor at this point seems too ordinary for this young woman. Then, the most surprising thing happened. Arya spotted a handsome white horse amid all the blood and gore and she went to it, whispered softly to calm the horse down and amid fire and smoke, she rode away from a scene that seemed straight out of the bowels of hell.
Since the moment she killed the Night King, 'Is she Azhor Ahai, or the princess who was promised?' is a question that fans have been asking. The fact that she is not Targaryen has been one of the reasons why she was never considered a likely candidate for the prophecy. However, when she escaped Drogon's flames unharmed while everything around her was burnt to the ground, made us wonder! What is Arya made of? Has Daenerys now made it to Arya's kill list? She is surely a likely candidate to die in her hands because - 'Green eyes' is one of the kinds that Arya will shut forever.
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