Thank you, Arya Stark: A Love Letter from a fellow 5’1 Girl

By NATASHA ROY ‘19

SPOILER WARNING

When Game of Thrones’ series finale aired last month, it ushered in the end of a cultural movement of considerable magnitude. You already knew that, though. However, you may not have known (and definitely never asked to know) that when the final credits played, I wept—not because I had to say goodbye to the show, but because I had to say goodbye to my short girl icon, Arya Stark.

Arya Stark—or rather, Maisie Williams, the actress who plays her—is 5 foot, 1 inch tall: my height exactly. The deadliest person in Westeros, Arya makes me feel powerful because of my diminutive height, instead of in spite of it. Being 5’1 and loud comes with a lot of baggage—silly, first-world baggage, but baggage nonetheless. I have to crane my neck if I want to converse with pretty much anyone around me, and I have never had a good view at a concert. I usually tell people I like being short because it’s who I am, and the best any of us can do is love the bodies we have. Still, every now and then, when I get used as an armrest for the eighth time in a day, I resent my height. I feel like I have to work that much harder to assert myself as a petite woman. Over the years, I’ve almost developed something of a Napoleon complex.

Arya Stark uses these very insecurities to her advantage. Needle, the sword she’s wielded since the first season of Thrones, becomes a symbol of her personality. Like Needle, Arya’s tiny. She’s easy to underestimate and so little you could almost miss her. She’s deadly, using her size and consequent stealth to sneak up on and kill the Night King while Jon Snow has a staring contest with a dragon. Arya’s meager size isn’t an impediment—it’s the source of her strength.

Thank you, Arya Stark. You’re no one; you’re the Hero of Winterfell; you’re woke Christopher Columbus; you’re a skinny legend. Most importantly, you’re a short girl icon. You make me proud to be small.

Love,

Natasha Roy
5’1 (5’2 on a good day!)