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Chapter 21: Tyrion
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
In King’s Landing, Arya storms off from dinner and locks herself in her room without touching her food. She misses her siblings, who are back home in Winterfell. And she hates King’s Landing. She can’t forgive those who were present for standing by while the Hound murdered her friend Mycah. After a while, her father knocks on her door and asks if he can come in. When Ned enters, he finds Arya’s sword, Needle. Arya thinks that her father might confiscate the sword, but he lets her keep it.
The simmering conflict between the Starks and the Lannisters impacts the Stark children as well, as Arya now has as much reason to despise the Lannisters as anyone else after they killed her friend Mycah. Ned’s reaction to Arya’s sword is similar to his response to Bran’s climbing. He thinks that he shouldn’t encourage her using it, but despite himself, he gently pushes his children to pursue what they are interested in.
Themes
Arya tells her father that her direwolf didn’t really run away—Arya had to chase Nymeria off so that she wouldn’t face Cersei’s wrath. Ned advises her that in winter, the lone wolf dies while the pack survives. He tells Arya that she needs to understand who her true enemies are and that she and Sansa need to stick together because they’re family. A few days later, Arya is told to go to a nearby room for a lesson. There, she finds a man named Syrio Forel, who begins to teach her sword fighting, which he calls dancing.
Ned’s advice that the lone wolf dies while the pack survives applies directly to Arya and Sansa but also applies to the situation facing Westeros in general. As the threat posed by the Others rises, those south of the Wall will have to band together as a pack, lest they all become lone wolves who won’t survive the catastrophic winter that the Others promise to bring.
Themes
