OOC INFO;
Player Name: Lauren
Contact Info: laverinth
Current Character: n/a

IC INFO;
Character Name: Arya Stark
Canon: Game of Thrones
Canon Information: wiki page
Canon Point: End of season 7 (to be updated later).
Age: 17
God Houses: Honir - Though Arya returns to the pack in season 7, for the most part she's something of a lone wolf. She doesn't belong holed up in a stone castle, and when she has nothing she needs to fight for at the end of the last season she will basically sail off into the sunset. Njord - She's an assassin, trained like a rogue. Fancy words aren't really her thing, but she does have her own manner of secrets. Her poetry is in her movements.

Personality: Like many characters in this series, the Stark children in particular, Arya starts off her journey innocent and full of wonder only to have everything around her slowly crumble, hardening her into the person she is as of the current season. The Arya of now is someone who can kill without remorse, her childhood desire to fight like the men having become the need to avenge them. She doesn't hesitate in her task, and she can wear the face of another to accomplish it. She also doesn't hold back, often trying to give her victims exactly what she thinks they deserve, even if that means feeding them bits of their own children in a pie.

Arya is fiercely determined and headstrong. This hasn't changed. If she wants to accomplish something then she'll do everything she can to see it done, even though this doesn't always work out. Years of being told she needed to be more ladylike didn't stop her from training with a bow on her own, and she didn't give up her desire to become one of the Faceless Men even though it was supposed to mean giving up her identity.

She has a realistic take on things, never having had quite the same level of naivete as her sister when it came to what she would do with her life. She's still capable of trusting others, but she won't be quick to do it. Her overall regard for life has dwindled, though she's not beyond showing mercy. She's grown cold, more world weary than others her age.

While she doesn't worship the many faced god of the Faceless Men, she does seem to share the same belief as her "dancing instructor" Syrio - that Death is the only god. She has a morbid habit of listing off the names of those she wants dead to herself before she goes to sleep each night. (In the books she began this on her own, but in the show she picked it up from the Night Watchman Yoren.)

There's a lot she's picked up from those she's traveled with, and the events that transpired along the way. Loss became commonplace for her, and adding more names to her list didn't return her friends and loved ones. Before she'd left King's Landing she'd seen her father die and made her first kill. On top of that, she had to masquerade as someone and something she wasn't. She learned the value of a good lie in the right situation, as well as the means to survive on her own when there was no guarantee anyone would be around to help her. She gained a couple friends and allies, but ultimately her task is her own. She lost her family, and she may or may not be able to get it back. For that, the ones responsible need to face a similar fate.

Arya's relationship with her family is a complicated one, as she's been separated from them since their father was killed. She idolized her father, who would talk about how she'd live as a lady of Winterfell while at the same time allowing her to train in ways that weren't befitting of a lady at all. That image of him was frozen forever in her mind after his death, never to be further tarnished by time. When she finally returns to Winterfell we see that she's taken to emulating many things about him, including his hair and manner of dressing. Her love for him is so deep that it made her potential betrayal of Sansa believable once she thought her older sister might have had a hand in Eddard's death.

As far as her sister is concerned, she and Arya weren't on the best of terms in the past. Their personalities are too different, their dreams and goals nothing alike. Arya's lack of desire to be ladylike embarrassed Sansa to no end and in return Arya thought some of her older sister's obsessions were ridiculous. There had been little resolved between them upon their separation and one can only imagine the regrets both much have felt later - though perhaps more in Sansa's case than Arya's. Now that they're reunited things are still awkward between them, but there's a layer of respect brought about by the various hardships they got through to get back where they are. At the end of the day, they're sisters first and foremost, and the pack needs to support each other.

Of her brothers, only Bran and her half brother Jon remain. (And she's unaware of certain spoilers involving the latter.) She loves Bran, though things between him and everyone are strange right now. Jon, on the other hand, is the clear favorite. He was the one who supported her the most as a child, as well as the one who had her sword Needle made for her. She never thought anything poorly of him for being a bastard. It was news of his return to Winterfell in particular that was able to pull her away from her mission to kill Cersei. It could be argued that just hearing about Sansa alone might not have had the same effect.

There's another man who had a fair amount of influence over Arya's current outlook on life, and that's Sandor Clegane - the Hound. She and the Hound traveled for some while together on her journeys so it would be impossible for her not to have been influenced by him. He's blunt, irreverent, and generally unpleasant to anyone he comes across. Yet he was willing enough to look out for her, which she can't just overlook. His world was that of harsh realism, that sometimes there is no good answer to a solution and that even if there is it might not be the best one to take for the sake of survival. Not all of his lessons are good ones, nor does she take them all completely to heart, but there's no doubt that she was affected by his cynicism and it comes across in her own attitude today.

The most powerful ability in Arya's repertoire was earned through her time with the Faceless Men. This group serves the Many Faced God and basically act as assassins. In order to become one, a person must give up their identity. What gave Arya trouble was that her goals rely too strongly on who she is as a person, so it's impossible for her to give that up. She says she has, but they always see through that to the truth - even if she doesn't. In a sense, she'd had to give up her identity to the world a long time ago. AS far as anyone else was considered, Arya Stark was dead. But she always held on tight to who she was deep in her heart. When she defeats the Waif and finally claims the ability for herself, she also reclaims her identity. However, the remark from the Faceless Man that now she is truly No One may have darker connotations than simply being an acknowledgement of her achievements.

A younger Arya might have been completely deceived by Littlefinger's attempts to drive her and Sansa further apart, but while there were certainly unresolved issues between them I don't believe it took knowledge from Bran to turn the tables. Both she and her sister have been through enough to know better than to allow for such obvious manipulation, their own feelings be damned. They can have misgivings about each other and still be family, and with all Arya has done to avenge those she's lost it wouldn't be reasonable at this point for her to kill a member of her family herself.

Arya is obviously physically capable, and her small size is more help than hindrance. She's always been braver than most and strong-willed. She's determined, and she perseveres through hardships. She won't be turned away from a task because of the doubts of others. She wants to challenge herself, as seen when she asked Brienne of Tarth to spar with her. To her, there's little point in practicing with someone who's skill is far below hers. Returning to Winterfell means the fact that she's alive may soon become known to a lot more people, and she needs to be stronger now than ever.

Her successes have led her to be somewhat overly sure of herself in the face your average individual. She doesn't have any magic aside from that learned from the Faceless Men, and she's a mortal human being. She's aware of her lack of knowledge in regards to the technology available on their ship and that will bother her until she's able to learn more about it.

She's stubborn, and this has gotten her into trouble in more than one occasion. If she wants to get something done she'll hang the rules and deal with the consequences. Sometimes this works in her favor, but often it doesn't.

In the show, when given the choice between going to King's Landing to kill the queen, or reuniting with her family at Winterfell, she chose the latter. Family is what's driven her so far and it's still what means the most to her. Other lives are less consequential. Being in this new world, she'll be confused about what to do with herself now that everything's been turned on its head. She'll want to do what she can to keep her enemies dead, at bay, or at least make their lives miserable. She'll want to protect what's left of her world that she cares about, and she'll be looking to learn new things that can help her in that.

Writing Sample: TDM threads