Warrior girl =/= Not wanting love
With the new trailer dropping, and promptly half of us going mad over our ships and their potential, I’m seeing a recurring trend when it comes to Arya and Brienne which has happened every season and can we just end this trend ASAP please. The trend being the idea that a tough warrior girl being in love will somehow reduce them as a warrior; that because they are a warrior, they don’t want love and affection.
Brienne’s wariness around men is not due to being uninterested in love or affection. It’s due to the fact she has previously been humiliated by men; men who view her size, stature, and interest in fighting as a complete joke, men who have only sought her out to humiliate her. She has not been alone for so long because she doesn’t want love. She has been alone for so long because she has never found anyone who doesn’t mock or shame her, who accepts her as both a warrior and a woman. Until Jaime Lannister came along.
Arya, meanwhile, has admittedly been shown as the tough cookie warrior girl for multiple seasons now - but that doesn’t mean she has shown zero interest in love or family. Love and family is what has always driven Arya; her list has been a crutch due to the absence of it (and it is why she turned tail as soon as she realised Jon was alive - because Jon and her love for him is far far more important than a list). Arya has also shown explicit interest in Gendry in Season 2 and 3, checking him out whilst he was making swords, breaking down in tears when she realised he was leaving her.
Both women are tough. Both women are strong. Both women are warriors.
But both women also have love interests who are tough. Their love interests are strong. Their love interests are absolutely warriors. And their love interests bring out the best in them; but ultimately, and most importantly, Jaime and Gendry are who Arya and Brienne want. They are people they have both fought and lied to protect, men who have brought out another side to them, men who would (and have, and do) jump into hell itself to protect them.
Being warriors doesn’t mean they don’t have those desires. They are perfectly capable of those desires, and they have those desires. Just because Brienne is a fighter, it does not mean she doesn’t love Jaime. Just because Arya is a fighter, it does not mean she doesn’t love Gendry.
It is more than possible to want love and be a warrior. Brienne and Arya both do these things. Please can we stop with this trope of saying being in love will take away from who they are as warriors. Because the two are completely unrelated.
