Game of Thrones fans, good news: it appears that Maisie Williams, the actress who plays everyone’s favorite teenage maybe-sociopathic assassin-to-be Arya Stark, has just as many fan theories about Thrones as you do. Bad news: she just definitively debunked a pretty popular one. While she hasn’t told us whether or not Jon Snow is alive or dead (or if he’s single), she did confirm the death of a character whose current status has been a hot topic of debate amongst the fan community since his passing.
Regarding Arya’s original sword instructor, Syrio, Williams said, “I was always like, ‘Oh, no, I feel like he’s still alive,'” she said, explaining that, much as many GoT fans have theorized, “I always had my own theory that he and Jacquen were the same person.” Jacquen, an assassin and one of the Faceless Men of Braavos, first encountered Arya during the show’s second season (after Syrio’s death) and is largely responsible for setting Arya on her current path in the show. The character has the ability to take on new faces (literally) and because of this, fans have long thought that Syrio may have just been one of the many faces the character has worn. Syrio and Jacquen share a common homeland in Braavos and are both expert swordsmen, so unlike some fan theories, this one didn’t seem like too much of a stretch.
Unfortunately, when Williams brought her theory to showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, they shot her down, telling her, “No, he is dead.” Now, listen: Do Benioff and Weiss seem like the kinds of showrunners who would lie about this sort of thing to their cast? Absolutely. That said, it may be time to, for lack of better phrasing, lay this one to rest (for now, at least). Syrio had a good run and went out like a champ. Still, Williams is holding out a bit of hope that the character will live on in a different medium.
“Maybe if it’s not in the show,” she said, “it will be in the books, and that will be great.” We hope so, Maisie. We hope so.
(Source: IGN)
