Game of Thrones season 6: Free Arya Stark of her boring storyline

A girl has spent too long in Braavos

Arya Stark has been in Braavos for 13 episodes now. 13.

While she was once one of the Game of Thrones' most interesting characters - her journey with The Hound being one of the highlights to date - lately she’s been mired in the most protracted and sluggish storyline in the Seven Kingdoms, to the point where, when the flickering candles of The House of Black and White hit the screen, it’s pretty much a signal for a bathroom break.

I get it, they need to get across the extent of the toil and hardship involved in her assassin training, but damn is it repetitive.

A scene I feel like I’ve witnessed 28 times:

*Waif knocks Arya down with a staff*

Waif: ‘Get up.’

*Arya wipes away blood, fares slightly better second time around*

[Jaqen H'ghar enters stage left]

Jaqen: ‘A girl is not ready.’

Arya: ‘A girl is ready.’

Jaqen: ‘A girl must cast aside her list.’

Arya: ‘A girl has no list.’

~ END SCENE ~

Arya’s taken more time going through these motions than some characters have arriving and dying in the show. I don’t feel like I really know anything about the Many-Faced God and the order of the Faceless Men and the way Jaqen can suddenly blind and un-blind people unexplained is as annoying as Jon Snow’s very swift and perfunctory resurrection. For all the training sequences, she doesn’t even seem to have learned many new skills.

A Girl’s departure from Braavos mercifully can’t be far off now, but her multi-season-straddling time there may not even ultimately prove worth it. Given that the show is centred around House Stark, she will surely be pulled back into Jon and Sansa’s world, making her essentially a failed Faceless Man with incomplete training.

I hope I’m proven wrong and she becomes interesting again. Most crucial to this will be leaving Essos, the land where engrossing storylines go to die.