Ik people aren’t going to like this but play!Lyanna is far more book!Sansa coded than book!Arya coded.
Running off with a prince despite him being married and a father bc you’re just so in love with him (even though a political marriage to a man who wouldn’t keep to one bed was a deal breaker for you but you have no problem taking someone else’s husband…🤨), then his family kills half of your family but that just makes you double down and beg this man to knock you up…Arya would never, Sansa however it could be argued imo. (But even she knew well enough to dislike the Lannister’s after they killed her father she didn’t her brother dead yet too and they didn’t all need to actively participate for her to hate/distrust
When the Lannister’s murdered Arya’s father and brother she wanted revenge on them all.
When the Targaryen’s murdered Lyanna’s father and brother she wanted to have a baby with one of them…
I personally don’t understand what Ned sees in Arya that reminds him that much of Lyanna. Or at least not the Lyanna in the play. Maybe he’s thinking of a younger like pre-teen and below Lyanna, before she became all prophecy-pilled. A Lyanna we would literally never be able to know if she truly existed or if she’s just an idealized version of his sister in his head, from when Lyanna was likely around Arya’s age, that he just projects onto the daughter who looks like her and acts like she did at that age, before she went off the deep end.
Something about her loosing her ability to warg and skinchange makes me believe this is true and that version of Lyanna did truly exist at one point. The more she changed the more the skinchanging rejected her for it.
I think the true answer is that Arya and Lyanna are very alike in looks and personality, but they exist within different circumstances. It makes sense that their actions don't match up 1-to-1 when they're on different journeys and we're observing them at different ages. As for Arya not wanting to run off with a married man and father, I think that's a totally fair take. The thing is, between the two it's much more likely for Arya to do that than Sansa. Sansa is all about being the perfect lady and acting in the proper way; there's no way she's running off with a married man to be his mistress. You can argue whether or not she'd wanted to have his baby after the death of her family, but I'd argue they wouldn't even get to that point. Since you're making objective statements like "Arya would never", I think it's fair to say we know what Sansa would've done in Lyanna's place...which is choose Robert, like she chose Joffrey. Lyanna refused Robert even though he was princely and handsome because "love is sweet but it cannot change a man's nature". Sansa spent AGoT ignoring Joffrey's red flags and trying to convince herself that their romance would be like the one in the songs.
It's also very easy to see why Ned believed Lyanna and Arya are similar: they look alike, are both non-conforming and wilder than women are expected to be, they're both talented horse-riders, are both interested in sword-play, and even share speaking patterns. In the vision we see in Bran's POV the only reason he realizes that Lyanna isn't Arya is that the boy she's playing with isn't him. Seriously. The Arya/Lyanna parallels aren't just something that Arya fans made up; they come directly from the books. This play also confirms Lyanna as the knight of the laughing tree, so I have to say I'm equally as confused about you believing it shows that Lyanna is more like Sansa. Lyanna dresses up as a knight to join a tourney...what about that screams Sansa? The reason takes like this are so contentious is that they feel more about downplaying Arya's character and connections than anything else. This post could've just been about you comparing the similarities you saw between Sansa and Lyanna. Instead your main point seems to be that Arya and Lyanna aren't alike at all, as though that defaults to meaning Sansa is more like Lyanna when it doesn't. It's also claiming that Ned is an unreliable narrator when he isn't our only source of comparisons between Lyanna and Arya (see Bran and Harwin).
I never said anyone was wrong??? Just that I think they are thinking of younger Lyanna. It’s just my opinion on the characterization, Lyanna obviously isn’t a one-to-one of either stark sister but she just made more Sansa like chooses a good amount of the time to me, not always but more than I would have thought. Obviously tkotlt stuff is more Arya coded that’s clearly not what I meant, I feel you know that and are being obtuse.
Also I did address the prophecy, I said that I think the younger version of Lyanna that could warg was more similar to Arya and as she grew and prophecy took over she became more and more different. This wasn’t some attack on Lyanna or Arya or even Sansa.
Also literally anything in this fandom starts discourse I could have said they’re 100% alike and someone would have said ‘I thought the play would put this to rest finally but oh well’ bc people have different opinions!!
Once again I was just stating an option idk how that’s shallow but I’m sorry it seemed to bother you???
I mean, you said Ned was an unreliable narrator and that he was projecting onto Arya? Idk that feels like saying he's wrong to me. And I'm sorry you were so upset about me saying it was shallow to disregard the opinions of three different characters (not the post itself) because I genuinely didn't mean this to be an attack. You made this post and put it in the main character tag so it seemed like it was open for discussion. I was expecting you to respond with more details about the similarities you saw between Sansa and Lyanna. Of course you're entitled to your opinion about which Stark sister is more like Lyanna but this post is more about why Arya isn't like Lyanna than it is about Sansa being similar to her. You made a single point about Sansa potentially making the same choice as Lyanna, immediately undercut it with her thoughts from the book, and then proceeded to talk about how shallow the connection between Arya and Lyanna is. That might not have been your intent but that was the post you ended up making so I wanted to comment with my opinion 🤷🏾♀️
I said MAYBE he’s an unreliable narrator, I never said it was definitive.
I hope you do realize it is objectively weird to say someone’s shallow over an opinion on fictional characters, especially when it’s such a mild opinion tbh. It didn’t make me mad bc once again I don’t know you dude it’s just a weird thing to say and reminds me how absolutely cooked this fandom is. If I’m shallow then what are you??
It was more about the difference of Arya and Lyanna than the similarities between Sansa and Lyanna, that’s why it was tagged Arya and Lyanna so yeah congratulations for pricing that together a win for literally levels for sure.
Also I never said there are zero parallel, there are some but I see more foils and parallels. Once again just my opinion. You’re welcome to discuss it, that is the point but don’t call me shallow for an opinion because that just makes you seem… well frankly it makes you seem a bit immature, that’s not a discussion that’s just getting personal over fiction and I’m not going to do that.
I didn't say you were shallow though? I said it's shallow to assume that three different characters are wrong about comparing Arya to Lyanna. It wasn't a judgment of your character, literally all I said was that it would be shallow to ignore that specific connection. You're acting like me responding to you is somehow saying you're not allowed to have an opinion when all I did was respond with mine. Idk why you're latching on to me saying shallow like it's a slur but if anything shows how cooked this fandom is, it's you flipping out because I wanted to have a discussion about what's written in the books instead of judging things based on vibes.
“It just feels so shallow to decide that Ned Hawin and Abram are wrong because you don’t personally see the connections”… if you didn’t mean I was shallow there was a billion different ways to say it. To me it truly does just feel like you wanted to be rude bc I said Lyanna in the play made more of, what I feel like are, Sansa-like choices. If that genuinely wasn’t the case them sorry for the misunderstanding but perhaps be more mindful of how you’re wording things since it’s more than easy to misinterpret especially when you say it’s something I was personally doing that you were referring to.
Also does it ever specify that the age of Lyanna that Ned or Bran or Harwin are referring to being the Lyanna we get at Harrenhall or after bc I don’t think it is. Harwin likely knew Lyanna before that, the Lyanna Bran saw was almost definitely before that, and the Lyanna Ned likely knew well was the one that was younger since he was sent to the Vale as a kid.
Once again I’m not saying that Lyanna was never like Arya I just thought play!Lyanna was more like Sansa than Arya, I never mentioned book!Lyanna bc there’s honestly not much to mention about book!lyanna. I specifically I think the Lyanna they’re comparing her to was likely a younger Lyanna and not the one we see in the play. Because I was in fact talking about play!Lyanna not book!Lyanna.
Also no one’s treating it like a slur and I’m not flipping out but I did think it was an odd and weird thing to say to someone especially when I’m not even sure you’re fully understanding what I’m trying to say.
So to reiterate one last time I’m saying I think the Lyanna being compared to Arya is a younger Lyanna than the one we see in the play, and when I’m saying Arya and Lyanna aren’t super similar to me, I’m talking about play!Lyanna, book!Lyanna is hardly even a character and never one we get to meet. Not saying they were never alike, just saying I don’t think play!Lyanna is the stage in Lyanna’s life that makes people think of Arya. It’s just an opinion and could fully be wrong but it’s not a shallow thing to think, I think you misunderstood to be totally honest with you…
Okay this actually made me laugh, that was a good one!
