What do you think about that, in Arya list of names, everyone is a killer, torturer, or have done something really bad against her family directly (Cersei, Joffrey)... and then Dunsen, only for taking Gendry's helmet.
Dunsen worked for Gregor Clegane and participated in many of the atrocities that we know of. He’s a killer and torturer, too. He serves under Gregor in the Battle of the Fords, but he’s also stationed at Harrenhal after Gregor takes the place again- you remember this part:
“So Gregor took Harrenhal?” Sandor said.
“Didn’t require much taking,” said Polliver. “The sellswords fled as soon as they knew we werecoming, all but a few. One of the cooks opened a postern gate for us, to get back at Hoat for cutting off his foot.” He chuckled. “We kept him to cook for us, a couple wenches to warm ourbeds, and put all the rest to the sword.”
“All the rest?” Arya blurted out.“Well, Ser kept Hoat to pass the time.” Arya, ASoS
Dunsen was part of this almost certainly. After all, he’s shown to work with Polliver and the rest in Arya’s ACoK POV, that’s how he’s introduced. And we know he works for Gregor. They work so closely that Gendry’s helmet ends up in Polliver’s hands even though we see Dunsen takes it. They obviously interact a lot.
The “almost” comes only because we don’t have textual confirmation he was there (there’s a vague chance that he could have been sick or had some other reason to be uninvolved,) but even if that’s true, he’s committed similar acts multiple times. Dunsen actively participates in holding Arya and the rest captive (and taking them) in ACoK and keeping them captive when the Tickler tortures on the way to Harrenhal.
Make no mistake, Dunsen is a killer and a torturer. It’s just he’s a really minor character that isn’t on page much at all.
The thing is Westeros has so many killers/torturers that if Arya tried to list them all she’d quickly lose track of names.
Not only that, but as has been repeatedly established, Arya doesn’t list people because they’re bad or do bad things (once again, that would make her list so incredibly and impractically long,) she lists them because it’s her coping mechanism.
Every name on the list represents an injustice (a personal one) that Arya witnessed before her eyes while she was powerless to stop it from happening. Look at the origins of it:
Their captors permitted no chatter. A broken lip taught Arya to hold her tongue. Others neverlearned at all. One boy of three would not stop calling for his father, so they smashed his face inwith a spiked mace. Then the boy’s mother started screaming and Raff the Sweetling killed heras well.Arya watched them die and did nothing. What good did it do you to be brave?…
Arya watched and listened and polished her hates the way Gendry had once polished his hornedhelm. Dunsen wore those bull’s horns now, and she hated him for it. She hated Polliver forNeedle, and she hated old Chiswyck who thought he was funny. And Raff the Sweetling, who’ddriven his spear through Lommy’s throat, she hated even more. She hated Ser Amory Lorch forYoren, and she hated Ser Meryn Trant for Syrio, the Hound for killing the butcher’s boy Mycah,and Ser Ilyn and Prince Joffrey and the queen for the sake of her father and Fat Tom andDesmond and the rest, and even for Lady, Sansa’s wolf. The Tickler was almost too scary tohate. At times she could almost forget he was still with them; when he was not asking questions,he was just another soldier, quieter than most, with a face like a thousand other men.
Every night Arya would say their names. “Ser Gregor,” she’d whisper to her stone pillow.“Dunsen, Polliver, Chiswyck, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Amory, SerIlyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” Back in Winterfell, Arya had prayed with hermother in the sept and with her father in the godswood, but there were no gods on the road toHarrenhal, and her names were the only prayer she cared to remember. Arya, ACoK
The entire list functions as a coping mechanism for Arya. She’s completely helpless in her circumstances as she watches horrific and inhumane acts be done in front of her. But, as she herself notes, she has no power to do anything. She’s completely out of control of her own life. This lack of control continues as she is enslaved in Harrenhal not long after that.
So what does a 10 year old with a firm sense of justice and an inability to protect the weak, which is always what she tries for, do?
She creates a promise to reassure herself that while she’s powerless now, someday these people will pay for what they did. That way they’re not actually getting away with it and she’s not actually allowing for it to happen.
I say allowing for it because that’s what every name on this list has in common, Arya blames herself for not being able to stop the terrible acts. That’s why Jaime Lannister isn’t on the list despite the fact he killed Jory and others Arya loves.
Dunesen makes the list because he’s one of the people who captures Arya, Hot Pie, and Gendry and him wearing Gendry’s helmet makes it all the more personal. Arya watched him take them and steal their stuff and did nothing, she blames herself for doing nothing. That’s why he’s on the list.
The list is just a manifestation of fear and powerlessness that Arya doesn’t know how to handle. These experiences would be traumatic and disturbing enough, but when you remember that Arya had such greater control of her life months ago, it’s jarring to even think about how much and how quickly that changed. She had to adjust immediately or die.
Two pages before the list’s conception, the chapter opens with this line:
Fear cuts deeper than swords, Arya would tell herself, but that did not make the fear goaway. It was as much a part of her days as stale bread and the blisters on her toes after a long dayof walking the hard, rutted road.
She’s living in terror desperately searching for a coping mechanism to be able to survive it all.
So it’s about far more than Dunsen taking Gendry’s helmet. That becomes symbolic of the countless injustices Dunsen and others are committing to Arya, her friends, and innocents all around her that Arya can’t do anything about. It’s a manifestation of what’s been taken from them while they were all powerless to stop it, Arya especially.
