Tonight’s series finale of Game of Thrones saw major changes for many of the series’ beloved characters, but while some of them headed into more familiar roles and locations, Arya Stark embarked on a new and unknown journey, one that will take her to unfamiliar places. Fortunately for fans, George R.R. Martins’ books may just give some hint of what Arya will find in her new adventures.
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Spoilers for Game of Thrones‘ series finale below.
With the battle for the Iron Throne finally over and a new king — Bran — installed, Arya decides that it’s time for her to move on and she means that literally. Arya decides to explore whatever is west of Westeros, to go to the land beyond where the maps end and find what is out there as she turns her eyes westward on the Sunset Sea.
Now, this is a huge decision as both on the show and in the books, no one really knows what lies beyond. Ships that sail that far west don’t come back. However, in the latest of Martin’s books, Fire and Blood, readers get some clues into what lies beyond as well as a character whose own westward journey may serve as a hint at what Arya will find on her own adventures.
In Fire and Blood, which is a history of the House Targaryen, a young woman named Elissa Farman, daughter of a minor lord and friend of Princess Rhaena Targaryen, becomes fed up with life as she knows it in Westeros (this is 250 years before the events of Game of Thrones, mind you), steals three dragon eggs and sails away Braavos where she commissioned herself a ship, the Sun Chaser. She then returns to Westeros, gets two more lords for her voyage and then sails off in the Sunset Sea towards the unknown. Along the way they battle a kraken, find three islands, her companions turn back, and Elissa continues on. Elissa never returns, though those who turned back do and report her discovery of the islands.
Years later, another sailor from Westeros travelled to the port of Asshai by the Shadow and claimed he saw a Westerosi ship docked in the port. The ship could only possibly be the Sun Chaser and if so, it suggests that Elissa’s adventure took her sailing around the world to the other side of the continent, Essos.
Now that Arya is headed west into the unknown — and considering that both Arya and Elissa were both trying to get away from the life that had been expected of them in Westeros — it wouldn’t be much of a surprise that Arya may encounter similar adventures and, perhaps, even find a place to start a life for herself somewhere in the world beyond where the maps end as it seems Elissa may have.
What do you think about Arya’s next adventure? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.