Why Arya Stark should win ‘Game of Thrones’

A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell and she’s going to win the Iron Throne.

Throughout the course of “Game of Thrones,” Arya (played by Maisie Williams) has shown zero interest in ruling Westeros or the games people play in the name of gaining political power. Instead, her focus has been on survival and training to expand her killing skills in order to avenge her murdered family and friends.

But the greatest revenge for all of the injustices the Starks have suffered would be for one of them to sit atop the Iron Throne, the true cause for all of the family’s suffering — then destroy it.

And Arya is the best suited of the siblings to pull it off.

The second daughter of Lord Eddard Stark and his Lady Catelyn, Arya was never meant to live the life expected of a “proper” noblewoman. Her first appearance involved showing off how she is far more skilled at archery than needlework.

From the beginning, Arya’s had a very low tolerance for liars and injustice, whether from kings, family members or complete strangers.

After her father was executed, Arya had to figure out how to survive the brutal world of Westeros on her own. Her journey has involved giving up her identity, being captured and going blind. The one thing that kept her going through everything was focusing on the list of names of those she planned on killing as payback.

Every night before going to sleep, she recited these names: Joffrey, Cersei, Walder Frey, Meryn Trant, Tywin Lannister, the Red Woman, Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Ilyn Payne, the Mountain and the Hound.

Now a skilled, ruthless assassin thanks to her training with the Faceless Men, Arya showed us exactly what she is capable of when she killed Walder Frey, who betrayed her family at the infamous Red Wedding. After feeding him a pie filled with the body parts of his sons she had already killed, she killed Walder, took his face to assume his identity, and killed the rest of his house.

Since being reunited with her siblings in Winterfell, Arya has proved she is an accomplished fighter, able to hold her own sparring with against Brienne of Tarth. She’s also teamed up with Sansa in order to confront Petyr Baelish about his part in the wrongs committed against the Starks and executed him.

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Among those who are still alive on Arya’s “to kill” list is Cersei Lannister, the current queen of the Seven Kingdoms. And it’s just not likely that anyone, including the Night King himself, is going to get in the way of Arya getting a chance to go after the queen.

But why just kill Cersei if you could also take the one thing the woman has left now that the only people she loved are dead or gone?

Arya is the only Stark who has the skill and the proper constitution to pull off taking out Cersei and claiming the Iron Throne. And because her motivation is revenge and not any true desire to rule Westeros, she will destroy the throne and end the game that has taken so much from her family.

tracy.brown@latimes.com

Twitter: @tracycbrown