In Game Of Thrones, Arya Stark is one of the major characters from its first episode to its very last. Of all the cast, Arya travels the furthest and does the most, with the audience getting to watch every step of her journey.
What makes her so compelling is the combination of the tropes that make up her character and the huge amount of development she undergoes. While she is a distinctive character with a unique story, there are characters in other media who bear a large amount of similarity to her - and video games are no exception.
10 Dimitri Takes A Very Dark Turn
One major part of Arya Stark is that, while she is always a sympathetic character, her development leads her down a dark path. Over the course of Game Of Thrones, she goes from a wide-eyed young girl who dreams of living like a warrior-queen to a merciless assassin who callously orchestrates the murder of an entire house without hesitation.
Although their methods are different, this resembles Dimitri's journey in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. As the game goes on, Dimitri's vengeance-fueled actions get increasingly darker, and it is only because the player sees him before he takes a dark turn that he remains a sympathetic character in the slightest.
9 Ezio Auditore Spends Years Getting Revenge For His Family
Revenge is by no means a rare motivation in fiction. A great many characters, both heroic and villainous, have been motivated by righting wrongs done to them or their loved ones. Arya is motivated almost entirely by revenge, desiring to hunt down those who have wronged her or her family.
In Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, these things motivate Ezio Auditore de Firenze. He spends twenty years in the second game unpicking the conspiracy behind his family's execution and murdering his way through it, and then wages war against the Papacy in the third game to avenge his uncle. Both Arya and Ezio are devoted to their surviving family members and even overcome the need for revenge. Revelations shows a wiser, calmer Ezio.
8 Clementine Is A Young Girl Who Suffers Extreme Trauma
Clementine is the protagonist of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead series, a young girl forced to survive the horrors of the zombie apocalypse. Clementine begins the first game as a sweet, innocent child, without malice for anyone and who relies on others to survive. As she loses loved ones and ages, however, her trauma turns her into a hardened, solitary person.
This same journey happens with Arya. Even after leaving King's Landing and surviving the purge there, Arya travels through the Riverlands with a shifting array of companions, all of whom leave her or are killed. Each time, she turns colder, becoming one of Game Of Thrones's darkest characters. She becomes so solitary that she chooses to leave the continent at the end of season 8.
7 Thane Krios Is A Highly Ritualized Assassin
Although she is a capable fighter and initially harbors dreams of being a great warrior, Arya is better-suited to being an assassin. Younger and smaller than many of Westeros' warriors, she achieves great things using stealth and trickery. Similarly, Thane Krios from Mass Effect 2 can hold his own in a fight but became prolific as an assassin rather than a soldier.
The two have great similarities in how they assassinate people. Thane is explicitly religious about it, offering prayers to three gods before each kill and operating within a code. Arya also has a ritual element to her kills, spending years saying a prayer that consists of people she wants dead before sleeping.
6 Zevran Is The Least Scrupulous Hero In The Game
Zevran Arainai is a companion in Dragon Age: Origins, a rogue who lives up to some of the worst notions of the class. While he is on the side of the heroes, and potentially deeply loyal to the Warden and his other companions, Zevran has even fewer scruples than some more overtly evil companions.
Always happy to suggest the use of poison or other dirty tactics, Zevran unsettles other companions with his pragmatism. Similarly, while Arya is on the side of good in Game Of Thrones, she is the most pragmatic of her siblings and even of the entire North-Targaryen alliance.
5 Lara Croft Develops Steel Over Time
A common trope in fiction is a character becoming harder and colder as a result of the trauma they've gone through. While the Lara Croft of the original Tomb Raider games is suggested to be a somewhat ruthless hero from the start, the rebooted series (beginning with 2013's Tomb Raider) shows the player what she's like before her shift into a morally-murky archaeologist.
Lara Croft begins fairly ordinary but the horrific circumstances of Tomb Raider and Rise Of The Tomb Raider turn her into a much darker person. By the time of Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Lara acts with far fewer moral concerns and is motivated to achieve her goals no matter what, mirroring Arya in later seasons of Game Of Thrones.
4 Mira Adopts A Ruthless Front Out Of Fear
A major theme of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is that things are often deeper than they appear, with many of the player's companions revealing a hidden side to them once they open up to the Exile. One of the bigger revelations comes from Mira, who for much of The Sith Lords appears to be a cold, pragmatic bounty hunter with only the slightest hints of a soft side.
If the player grows to know Mira, she reveals that her ruthless pragmatism is a front. In reality, she's an afraid orphan who grew up in criminal environments. This parallels Arya, who only adopts dangerous behavior after several terrifying encounters where she's helpless. In season 8, Arya is revealed to still not be above fear.
3 Jason Brody Sinks Deeper And Never Resurfaces
Arya's turn to ruthlessness is well-documented. Beginning with ordering assassinations for her own benefit, she goes as far as to kill Walder Frey's sons and feed them to him. She also threatens to kill and replace Sansa to keep up the appearance of a feud between the sisters.
There are parallels with Jason Brody in Far Cry 3. An ordinary student thrust into a terrifying life-or-death situation, Brody becomes more ruthless over time - even torturing his own brother to avoid blowing his cover. Unlike Arya who overcomes her darker side, Jason Brody never does. His game's better ending has him admit that he's a monster.
2 Atreus Is Talked Out Of His Coldness By A Father Figure
A complex relationship in Game Of Thrones is that between Arya Stark and Sandor Clegane, the Hound. Initially, Sandor is a prominent name on Arya's kill list, while he is only concerned with ransoming her to her relatives. They develop a rapport after several life-or-death scrapes, with Sandor finally admitting that he's her guardian.
When they reunite, the care is more obvious and Sandor talks Arya out of a suicidal vendetta. In God Of War (2018), Atreus has little relationship with Kratos due to years of distance. He takes a dark turn when he learns he is a god, torturing opponents and shooting his father. At a critical juncture, however, Kratos is able to talk his son down and change him for the better.
1 Ellie Williams Nearly Throws Everything Away For Revenge
The Last Of Us: Part 2 is a game themed around hate and revenge. After Abby Anderson kills Joel to avenge her father, Ellie sets out on a quest to hunt her down. This quest sees her suffer and results in many of her friends and loved ones dying and being hurt.
The game's third act is largely motivated by Ellie throwing away her peaceful life with Dina in the hopes of revenge, only for her to turn away at the last second. This also happens to Arya Stark in season 8, who journeys to King's Landing to kill Cersei instead of staying with her siblings. Ultimately, Arya leaves without throwing her life away in a futile revenge effort.