25 reasons Arya should win the Iron Throne

6. She defies gender roles

From the minute we met her, we knew Arya was cut from a different kind of cloth. Her first appearance in Season 1’s “Winter is Coming” shows her perfectly landing a bullseye during her brother Bran’s target practice. No one tells her “that’s not a girly thing to do.” Instead, her brothers (and Jon) laugh it off, knowing they’ve got a huge ball of energy for a sister.

Arya never concerned herself with traditionally feminine things. She mostly left that for her sister Sansa to cover. Instead, Arya became the tomboy of the Stark household, and to her family’s credit, it was rarely discouraged. In fact, it was encouraged when Jon gave her Needle and Ned set up the water dancing lessons with Syrio we just mentioned. Arya’s nature was always encouraged without having to put a ‘female’ or ‘male’ label on it.

If anything, Arya can pull off the ‘genderless’ vibe when she needs to. Since she’s very self-aware, she’s able to pull out a purpose when it suits her. Sometimes that manifests itself in traditionally male roles (like sword-fighting) and female ones as well (when she and The Hound pretended to be father and daughter when speaking to the farmer in the Riverlands). She’s her own person as we mentioned before, and we’re very proud of her for that.