Arya broken, but unbowed
Maisie Williams’s character has faced ordeal after ordeal
LONDON — While surfing the Internet one afternoon, Maisie Williams found a beforeand-after picture from Game of Thrones’ first season.
The before image shows the Stark children, including her character Arya Stark, from the first episode, with Arya flicking a pigeon pie and her sister Sansa looking up at her hero, Joffrey Baratheon, with adoring eyes, “all in our cute Winterfell outfits.”
The after picture, f rom the first-season finale just three months later, shows Arya with short hair, trying to pass herself off as an anonymous boy after witnessing her father beheaded in the town square on the orders of the very same Joffrey, now the psychotic boy king. Sansa is shown staring in numb shock at a row of severed heads on wooden spikes. All that happened in just 10 episodes.
Arya has been through a lot over the past three seasons of Game of Thrones, enough to make you cry inside, Williams says softly. Life changes. And not always for the better.
Game of Thrones, in a virtual tie with The Sopranos as the most-watched drama in HBO history, returns Sunday with its fourth season, and Arya is about to be tested as she’s never been tested before.
Williams is just 15 — “I’ll be 16 in April,” she says brightly, little more than a week after Game of Thrones’ season première — and her life has changed irrevocably.
Williams is ebullient and playful where Arya is moody and single-minded, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t learned to appreciate Arya’s fate.
Arya’s heartache is enough to make a person cry, Williams says, her voice suddenly soft as a whisper. Arya has a startling, life-defining moment in Game of Thrones’ season opener, a moment destined to shake viewers to the core. Life may end well for Arya one day, but that day will be a long time coming if it does.
“Because what’s left of her family and friends are so far away, she’s given up trying to control her future,” Williams says of Arya.
Game of Thrones is a sprawling, complex tale of fire-breathing dragons, mythical ice creatures and pretenders to the Iron Throne. It’s renowned for its larger- than-life themes and dizzying parade of characters — 29 featured players in all — each with his and her detailed backstory.
At its heart, though, Thrones is a modern-day reimagining of the Children’s Crusade in the Middle Ages. Of Game of Thrones’ many stories, Arya’s struggle to survive long enough to be reunited with what’s left of her family, lies at the heart of the tale’s emotional core.
“What I love about her is that she doesn’t need the beautiful dresses and the tight-fitting clothes and the gorgeous hair and makeup and things,” Williams says. “People like her for who she is, and that’s really cool to play.”
Williams’ own future seems secure. She’s taking nothing for granted, though. She grew up in the small southwest England town of Somerset Norton — the heart of Midsomer Murders’ country — and attended primary and middle school there, before graduating to Bath Dance College. Acting is in her blood.
“I was quite weird in school,” she concedes, and laughs gently. “I think people were scared of me, because I was like really, really hyper. I had a few friends but I was never, like, the popular one, or the pretty girl.
“And then when Game of Thrones happened, my mom was like, ‘ Oh, be careful; watch out for false friends,’ and stuff like that.
“I actually went completely the other way. I still have the same friends I had back then. I lost a few along the way, unfortunately, but it happens. One of the reasons I love this show so much is because it’s about finding out about who your real friends are, and sometimes that takes a very long time to realize.