'Game of Thrones' Season 6, Episode 8: 'No One' Spoilers and Theories—Does Arya Stark Live?

Game of Thrones 6x08 No One
"Game of Thrones" season six, episode eight, titled "No One." The Mountain will take part in another trial by combat at Cersei's request. Helen Sloan/HBO

Game of Thrones is hurtling towards the season six finish line and after Sunday's episode, "No One," viewers will finally get to see the Battle of the Bastards that's been teased throughout the season. But first there's a small matter of two lingering questions that will hopefully be answered this week: What happened to Arya Stark? And to whom did Sansa Stark write that secret letter?

In last week's episode, "The Broken Man", we saw the Waif stab Arya after she disobeyed the orders of Jaqen H'ghar and failed to kill actor Lady Crane. The episode ended with Arya bleeding out and stumbling through the streets of Braavos. Meanwhile, her sister Sansa, realizing she and Jon Snow need more troops to go into battle with psychopathic Ramsay Bolton, penned a letter to someone asking for more troops.

If it's answers we're looking for, well, the one place we won't find them is in HBO's ever vague episode descriptions. Teasing "No One," the network said: "While Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) weighs his options, Cersei (Lena Headey) answers a request. Tyrion's (Peter Dinklage) plans bear fruit. Arya (Maisie Williams) faces a new test."

Based on the above and the episode's title—"No One" clearly refers to the House of Black and White—we can deduce we will see some resolution to last week's Arya cliffhanger. In the days since the last episode, some interesting theories have been posited on Reddit and other Thrones discussion forums about the brave young Stark's predicament.

One of those theories is pretty cerebral, so bear with us: Reddit user catNamedStupidity suggests that what we saw take place in "The Broken Man"—Arya being stabbed by the Waif—may just be an illusion and that Arya and the Waif are one and the same. The theory suggests that the Waif is actually Arya's subconscious, with the fan noting that the Waif always seems to know what Arya is doing, where she is and when she is lying. The user also adds that Jaqen H'ghar only ever speaks to them individually, asking the Waif to leave the room when he speaks to Arya.

"Arya is suffering from some sort of dissociative identity disorder," catNamedStupidity posts. "A case can be made that when Arya came to the House of Black and White, the water that she drank induced this in her. In a way, The Waif is No One. Her only mission is to kill off Arya, the inner Arya, the one who can never be one of them."

If this does indeed happen, that would mean Arya has successfully become No One herself—the entire reason she sought out H'ghar in Braavos.

Another theory is that Arya has used the House of Black and White's own trick against them: she swapped her face for someone else, and thus the Waif killed an impostor, allowing Arya to make a getaway. Evidence for this theory comes from the suggestion that Arya was acting differently when attacked: earlier in "The Broken Man" she seemed on edge and was trying to get out of Braavos as quickly as possible. In this scene she appeared to be quite happily taking a stroll.

More compelling evidence can be seen in the episode itself. At one point Arya walked past another girl who was seen wearing a very similar outfit and hairstyle to her in earlier episodes this season:

Arya doppelganger in GoT 6x07
Look at the Arya doppelganger. Coincidence? We think not. HBO
Arya in costume
Arya sporting a very similar outfit and hairstyle earlier in season six. HBO

The problem with that theory, however, is that the House of Black and White are only able to perform their face-swapping trickery by excising the faces of dead bodies. Arya is very much alive and we doubt she'd willingly peel her own face off.

Away from Braavos, this week's other mystery—Sansa's secret letter —may have been solved already. As Newsweek reported Tuesday, it appears the increasingly confident elder Stark sister wrote the letter to Littlefinger asking him to pledge the Knights of the Vale to her and Jon Snow's cause.

The teaser clip for episode eight also shows that the tension in King's Landing, which has been simmering all season, will finally explode as Cersei Lannister tells Lancel, her cousin, who has become the High Sparrow's faithful follower, that she chooses violence over living under the Faith Militant's extremist leadership. Instead of enduring a trial for her purported crimes last season—including incest—she opts for a trial by combat, pitting the Mountain against members of the Faith Militant. Uh oh. We all know what happened the last time the Mountain was in a trial by combat—someone had their eyes gouged out.

And in Riverrun—we're giddy with excitement about this—Jaime Lannister and Brienne are back together at last. But this is one reunion that may not be so joyous as they are there for very opposing reasons: Jaime wants to get the Blackfish, aka Brynden Tully, Sansa and Arya's great uncle, to surrender Riverrun, which he reclaimed from Walder Frey (Frey was gifted it by the Lannisters after the Red Wedding). Brienne is there at Sansa's request to enlist Brynden to help her and Jon's army.

As Brienne tells her friend: "Should I fail to get the Blackfish to surrender and you attack the castle, honor compels me to fight you."

Brienne and Jaime are probably the most skilled warriors in Westeros so that battle would be pretty spectacular. Who would win, though?

In Focus

'Game of Thrones' Season 6, Episode 8: 'No One'

Stills from "Game of Thrones" season six, episode eight, titled "No One."
Launch Slideshow 5 PHOTOS

Game of Thrones airs Sunday at 9pm on HBO in the U.S. and Monday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic in the U.K.

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