Curtain Call: Faye Marsay

"“Better stupid. I will show you.” -The Waif, A Feast for Crows"

The Waif  is a character that confused many show-only fans, since her role was expanded and rewritten in order to cover several character in the House of Black and White that Arya interacts with in the novels. Unfortunately, by doing this, the character of the Waif wound up being one that seems to have a grudge against Arya with little to no explanation as to why.

This was not Faye Marsay’s fault, of course. In fact, Marsay is such a shapeshifter of a an actress, it feels at times like she’s actually a Faceless Man herself. She was in Doctor Who‘s Last Christmas a couple of years back, and it wasn’t until I wiki’d her that I even realized the pixie-faced girl with the working class accent was one and the same as the Waif.

The show attempted at least once to show that “the Waif” was just a face, and that whoever was behind her eyes was not, in fact, necessarily what Arya saw. But that’s a hard distinction to make to an audience, and Marsay’s casual delight in beating Arya at every turn, be it with a weapon or bare-handed, or just being in the right place at the right time to see her screw up, made everyone feel like there was an unspoken vendetta happening.

Part of this is due to Marsay’s magnetic performance. Whether she’s in a small cell with Arya trying to force her to let go of the layers of lies, in the squared circle teaching her to fight without eyesight, or shapeshifting herself into random assassins, it always felt like Marsay was walking off with the scene and that everyone else, including Maisie Williams, was racing to keep pace. Perhaps that’s why, when the Waif finally perished this week after Arya lured her into a dark tunnel for a final battle, there was an outcry that it happened off screen. Marsay may have only been on for two seasons, but the sense was that she deserved to go out fighting on screen before becoming yet another face in the Hall.