Game of Thrones: Maisie Williams on a Humbled Arya in Season 6 

Game of Thrones: Maisie Williams on a Humbled Arya in Season 6

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The star of Game of Thrones breaks down why Season 6 is so important for Arya.

Game of Thrones fans only got a small tease of Arya Stark’s storyline in the series’ Season 6 premiere. She’s still in Braavos, still blind and generally back to square one in terms of her helplessness, unable to protect herself in a fight with the Waif or do much of anything without someone else’s help.

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For a character who has grown harder and more confident the stronger she’s gotten over the years, this is a humbling moment. In fact, actress Maisie Williams believes it might be one of the most important things to ever happen to her character.

“This year is a growing year for Arya, and it’s an important year,” she explained to me during a recent interview. “Though right now it’s not the Arya that we want to see and are used to, in the future we might look back and be like, ‘Hey, she needed that.’”

In Season 6, Arya will be “learning a lot,” said Williams. “She has to rely on a lot of other people, because she can no longer see.”

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“That has been the main thing that has kind of been her weapon without even realizing, without knowing she depended solely on her eye sight,” Williams continued. “Now she has to rely on a lot of other people and trust them in order to help her, which is not a position that she’s usually in. It’s kind of like she’s being blackmailed. She has to trust people that she can’t even see, and rely on them to help her. That’s really, really difficult for her, but ultimately a very, very strong season. She learns a lot of very valuable lessons that she ultimately uses against her teachers.”

That was already teased in the recent Game of Thrones trailer, which showed an epic fight between Arya and the Waif. “There is far more of that,” Williams teased.

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This setback for Arya is something that Williams is willingly sinking her teeth into. She appreciates that her character is going through peaks and valleys over the course of this series instead of just being a badass all the time.

“That’s not the way that humans are. Things can’t go right for you all the time,” Williams said. “There is going to be massive troughs in your life. Coming into this [season] is definitely where we see that, and it’s going to be interesting to see whether [viewers] stick by her through that.”

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO.

Terri Schwartz is Entertainment Editor at IGN. Talk to her on Twitter at @Terri_Schwartz.

Game of Thrones First Aired Apr. 2011

Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5, Season 6,

Season 6 Differences, Season 5 Differences, Season 4 Differences, Season 3 Differences, Season 2 Differences, Season 1 Differences,

House Stark, House Tully, House Lannister, House Baratheon, House Targaryen, House Greyjoy,