Now that the Stark family reunion is out of the way, it’s time for all the Starks at Winterfell to get down to business and figure out how to fight in the wars to come in Game of Thrones. While Jon is busy pacing back and forth in the crypt, and Sansa is busy planning her next strategic move, and Bran is doing whatever the hell he’s doing (besides being weird), it’s Arya who really steps up and shows us, once again, that she might be the fiercest Stark out of all of them.
While Arya has had her sword Needle since the very first episode of the series, it’s time for a weapons upgrade. While she acquired a new dagger last season — one made of Valyrian steel, no less — Arya has a new weapon in mind, and she brings the mock-up to Gendry to make for her.
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Pause to freak out for a few seconds that Arya and Gendry have their own reunion, and she’s sassy AF to him, and he calls her “m’lady.” But honestly, we don’t have time to dwell on Arya and Gendry’s will-they-won’t-they relationship, because the army of the undead is coming, and it’s clear that Arya is heading into battle.
The weapon Arya shows Gendry appears to be a two-part dagger-spear-staff hybrid. It’s got a pointy end (and we all know Arya knows how to use that), but then it’s also got a detachable bottom that can be removed for... something. From the quick look we get at it, it’s either so Arya can use it in close quarters for hand-to-hand combat, or so it can be put on some sort of longer spear so she can fight people from far away. It should also be noted that the blade appears to be shaded in black and labeled as dragonglass (screengrab here) which could point to it being the only necessity that Arya's current arsenal is missing.
The new weapon, especially if it’s a long bow, very much resembles what Arya was using to fight with during her time with the Faceless Men. Since leaving Bravos, she’s gone back to mostly relying on Needle, but she’s going to need to use every weapon in her arsenal to fight the army of the dead. And also, more than likely, the Night King.
Someone (if not multiple people) is going to try and kill him before Game of Thrones finishes off its run. While John Snow has had the most interaction with him to date, he’s busy juggling Daenerys’s requests with his duties as King of the North, and also riding dragons. He can’t do it all. While she might seem like an unlikely candidate to take him down, her weapons training — including the fact that she was trained as an assassin — might actually make her the best one for the job.
Also consider the fact that Arya’s favorite saying is to tell death, “not today.” The Night King literally represents everything about death, so it would be incredibly fitting for Arya to be the one to actually tell him, “not today.”
We’re of course going to get a closer look in the coming episodes as just what this weapon is for, and who it’s going to be used to take down for the end of the series. Let’s hope that it really ends up being Arya, with her new dragonglass spear, at Winterfell, taking down the Night King.