Braavos

These cities fall without much fight, and soon their slave markets burn, their defenders scatter, and morale is lifted.

And not too far away is Braavos, a free city named for its opposition to slavery, and Daenerys flies out there to try and seek allies.

As she approaches the Titan of Braavos, Daenerys feels a flicker of hope.

The Braavosi champions of liberty should see her as a kindred spirit, but when she meets with the leaders of the Iron Bank, their reception is far colder than she imagined.

We admire your resolve, Queen Daenerys, but

Braavos will not join your war.

You oppose slavery, as do I.

Why would you stand against me?

Why suddenly hire sellsorts? Yes, that is true that Pentos is not a military power compared to her neighbors.

We have no standing army, but that is because of a treaty forced upon us by Braavos.

This war was already surprising, but Braavos permitted us to raise an army because we were fighting a defensive war, and our victory was even more surprising to them.

Many expected victory to come from Tyrosh, not us, and so we reaped a greater harvest than anticipated.

Now it is time to protect it, and some magisters have determined it is best to keep a sellsword company on standby."

So if Arya does exact some revenge on the Freys, expect it to be a bit more targeted than just all-male Freys.

But, of course, Arya is still in Braavos at the start of the Winds of Winter, and will need to go through a bit more plot before she leaves the Faceless Men.

So I do wonder if there is a better candidate for stark vengeance on the frays.

Someone already in the Riverlands who cares less about the morality of indiscriminate killing.

How poetic for revenge.

The Starks send their regards and all that.

As I hinted earlier, Arya is probably not the primary book candidate for exacting revenge, both because of her very Ned Stark-like commitment to only punishing the guilty, but because she is in Braavos at the start of the Winds of Winter, so we probably can't expect her in Westeros until partway into the book, and then she would obviously need time to plan anything, so although we can't rule her out, the better bet is Lady Stoneheart, who is already close by and desperate to kill Freys.

and she also has an inside man.

All men must die, but she came back.

Either way, might they choose to send Arya for her first outside-of-Braavos killing? She obviously already speaks the language and knows the culture, so she would be a good pick.

At which point, you may be thinking to yourself that that wouldn't happen, because the Faceless Men aren't sent to kill someone they know, presumably at least partly to ensure professional detachment.

But would the Faceless Men even know that this was Arya's mother? They'd have the name Lady Stoneheart, not Catelyn Stark.

Then it seems like a few days passed while they haggled with the captain.

And then they embarked on this massive journey, like a way longer one than the one we saw, the trip from the Wall to Braavos.

This is like actually one of the longest journeys we've seen in the series.

Only Dany crossing the Dothraki Sea in book one and Tyrion crossing a bunch of Essos in book five cover this kind of territory.

Gilly, a victim of circumstance at Craster's Keep, and Sam, a victim of norms that alienate him from the gendered Westerosi man.

Gilly is, of course, a victim and product of gendered sexual violence via Craster as well, and Sam represents the anti-Craster in everything from tenderness and care to Gilly and the Babe.

All of these factors, on top of the harrowing journeys that features White Walkers and Mance Rayder and Braavos and Seastorms, have brought Sam and Gilly together in a very intimate manner.

Also a contributing factor? Rum.

bank is in Bravos, isn't it?

Oh, and was it the first sword of Braavos teaches Arya how to fight or something as well? Yeah, maybe.

That guy was like, what do we say to the god of death?

Ah, not today.

Syrio something? Syrio, Syrio, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, Braavos is where Arya goes

to

Yeah, I mean, Kim, you're the expert there, but my experience has been essentially mixers only.

There was a Braavos made of tequila before they went under that I thought was the closest thing to, I could just drink this on the rocks, but...

There are some, most of them might say no.

Those that are replicating an alcoholic spirit, like a gin, a whiskey, you know, those to me are not appropriate to sit on their own.