Maisie Williams’ character on Game of Thrones, Arya Stark, has seen her fair share of highs and low, and now that she’s being punished by the Faceless Man for going off-book and assassinating Meryn Trant, she’s about as low as low can get: blind and begging in a strange land, and getting the crap kicked out of her by the Waif. Williams spoke to Vulture about Arya’s painful punishment, and what we can expect from her this season.
"This year is very difficult for her, because she’s being reminded, “You messed up.” She’s not getting off lightly. After our first episode, that’s a lot of what we’re going to be seeing this year, is Arya getting beat to shit."
Watching the Waif beat the heck out of Arya, one’s reminded of a master teaching a pupil a lesson, rather than a resentful student taking out her frustrations on the teacher’s pet. Williams agrees.
"Definitely! And skills that she’ll take with her, and use to her advantage. Having a skill is fantastic, but learning a skill is very, very difficult. So that whole journey you see her on this year is painful."
The actress also talked about everyone’s character being set up for the end game. According to her, certain characters will be choosing sides and teaming up for the final fight to come.
"It doesn’t mean it’s going to be positive for everyone, but it’s kind of like cutting away all the rubbish. Taking all that away is cutting down to the core people who are really there to fight for it, and there’s less of the bravado now."
As for her kill list, Cersei is still near the top, and Williams thinks that Arya would love to that down Melisandre. She thinks it would be a nice ending for the Red Priestess because she thinks Melisandre is evil. However, Arya doesn’t think she’s all that bad, “ut to everyone else?”
Before all this can happen, Arya’s got to serve out her punishment with the House of Black and White, and then finally be accepted among its followers. Hopefully we will see something like that happen this season, and maybe Arya can come back to Westeros to start working through that list of hers in earnest.
Williams was also among the cast members also spoke to Yahoo TV about their characters most important moments in Season 6. Naturally, everyone was very vague (“Most important scene? There are so many,” Williams said), but that just makes them them more intriguing. As for Williams, she advices fans to pay attention to the early stages of her Season 6 journey, as they’ll recur later on.
Sophie Turner (Sansa) dropped a particularly tantalizing tease:
"This season, she’s very much driven by the motive for revenge and taking back what is hers and giving people their comeuppance; the people that really hurt her years and years ago. There’s one scene in particular that she gets what she wants for the first time and it’s very exciting."
After a couple of seasons of being on the sidelines, Dean-Charles Chapman (Tommen) was excited to sink his teeth into Season 6 material.
"Tommen’s got quite a bit more to do this season…His mum’s been brought down a peg or two. His wife’s in a dungeon. So he’s there on his own; he definitely has a new objective."
Isaac Hempstead Wright is pretty sure fans will be impressed with some of the visions Bran has.
"Bran has got some pretty crucial visions and there are one or two scenes where he lets his teenage hubristic tendencies take over and he has to pay for those mistakes he makes."
I assume that this means that Bran will try to affect the past, but as the Three-Eyed Raven told him in that first teaser trailer, “The past is written. The ink is dry.”
Hannah Murray (Gilly) was coy, but still gave fans a little something to chew on:
"Leaving Castle Black and heading south, [Sam and Gilly are] in a really happy place at the start of Season 6. They’re starting on a high this year. Whether they’ll stay on it is another question."