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I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows and Arya is at the house of black and white. She's having real trouble letting go of her list. It's been a while since I read the earlier books though. This question details the people on the list and who's still alive but I'd like to know how each person earned a place on the list.

I know that some were directly involved in Ned Stark's

Death

And others were present at Harrenhal. But what what specifically did each person do to earn a place on Arya's list?

2 Answers 2

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I'll try to be brief :)

  • King Joffrey: for being responsible for the murder of Mycah, the butcher's son (on their way to King's Landing), and for giving the order to kill her father;
  • The Hound: for killing Mycah;
  • Queen Cersei: she ordered the Hound to kill Mycah and also convinced Robert to sentence Arya's direwolf, Nymeria, to death (as Nymeria had fled, it was Lady, Sansa's direwolf, who got killed). I believe that Arya also credits her for being involved in her father's death;
  • Ser Amory Lorch: for killing Yoren when they were traveling to the Wall;
  • Illyn Payne: for killing her father;
  • Meryn Trant: for killing Syrio Forel, her teacher on how to use a sword;
  • Polliver: Steals Needle from her;
  • The Tickler: for torturing, killing and stealing people in the Riverlands;
  • Raff the Sweetling: for killing Lommy Greenhands, one of her companions in her journey to the Wall;
  • Dunsen: things are not clear on this one, but we can speculate the reason is that he's among the group that captures the group (Arya, Lommy Greenhands, Hot Pie and Gendry) and takes them to Harrenhal.
  • Ser Gregor: he's the leader of the group formed by the last four members of this list, that's why she added him. She also hears him boast about raping a woman in an inn, this leads her to hate Gregor even more;
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  • Dunsen is in Ser Gregor's group, but that is not why he is on the list. He went on the list for 1) stealing Gendry's helmet and 2) bragging about raping a tavern owner's daughter and laughing about it. It was decision of the moment, after he told his "funny story" and laughed about it, that she ordered his death.
    – jo1storm
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 16:56
  • @jo1storm I don't recall that the reason why she added Dunsen was that he stole Gendry's bull helmet. I'll check on that and edit my answer if it's the case. About Gregor I'll have to check that as well, all of my answers were taken from memory and right now I don't have access to the books. Thanks for pointing that out anyway :) Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 17:04
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    You're correct. He stole Gendry's helmet, but she didn't kill him. Chiswyck was killed for telling a rape story.
    – jo1storm
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 17:06
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The key here, for most of the people, is Arya's prayer in Arya VI, ACOK.

Arya watched and listened and polished her hates the way Gendry had once polished his horned helm. Dunsen wore those bull’s horns now, and she hated him for it. She hated Polliver for Needle, and she hated old Chiswyck who thought he was funny. And Raff the Sweetling, who’d driven his spear through Lommy’s throat, she hated even more. She hated Ser Amory Lorch for Yoren, and she hated Ser Meryn Trant for Syrio, the Hound for killing the butcher’s boy Mycah, and Ser Ilyn and Prince Joffrey and the queen for the sake of her father and Fat Tom and Desmond and the rest, and even for Lady, Sansa’s wolf. The Tickler was almost too scary to hate. At times she could almost forget he was still with them; when he was not asking questions, he was just another soldier, quieter than most, with a face like a thousand other men.

Every night Arya would say their names. “Ser Gregor,” she’d whisper to her stone pillow. “Dunsen, Polliver, Chiswyck, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.”
ACOK - Arya VI

Joffrey I Baratheon

He got a spot because of the execution of Eddard Stark along with murder of Winterfell retinue that came to King's Landing with Eddard and Lady's execution due to Cersei's insistence and Joffrey's lies.

Chiswyck

The Wiki says Arya added him to his list when she heard him joke about a gangrape they committed in an inn. That is wrong. Arya did not learn about that until she overheard him ACOK Arya VII. Not to mention, Arya was not Weese's charge till Arya VII (or more precisely VI's end).

Weese saw that they were well supplied with drink. “They always have a good thirst, that lot,” he grumbled. “Weasel, go up and ask if they’ve got any clothes that need mending, I’ll have the women see to it.” Arya ran up her well-scrubbed steps. No one paid her any mind when she entered. Chiswyck was seated by the fire with a horn of ale to hand, telling one of his funny stories. She dared not interrupt, unless she wanted a bloody lip.

“After the Hand’s tourney, it were, before the war come,” Chiswyck was saying. “We were on our ways back west, seven of us with Ser Gregor. Raff was with me, and young Joss Stilwood, he’d squired for Ser in the lists. Well, we come on this pisswater river, running high on account there’d been rains. No way to ford, but there’s an alehouse near, so there we repair. Ser rousts the brewer and tells him to keep our horns full till the waters fall, and you should see the man’s pig eyes shine at the sight o’ silver. So he’s fetching us ale, him and his daughter, and poor thin stuff it is, no more’n brown piss, which don’t make me any happier, nor Ser neither. And all the time this brewer’s saying how glad he is to have us, custom being slow on account o’ them rains. The fool won’t shut his yap, not him, though Ser is saying not a word, just brooding on the Knight o’ Pansies and that bugger’s trick he played. You can see how tight his mouth sits, so me and the other lads we know better’n to say a squeak to him, but this brewer he’s got to talk, he even asks how m’lord fared in the jousting. Ser just gave him this look.” Chiswyck cackled, quaffed his ale, and wiped the foam away with the back of his hand. “Meanwhile, this daughter of his has been fetching and pouring, a fat little thing, eighteen or so-”

“Thirteen, more like,” Raff the Sweetling drawled.

“Well, be that as it may, she’s not much to look at, but Eggon’s been drinking and gets to touching her, and might be I did a little touching meself, and Raff’s telling young Stilwood that he ought to drag the girl upstairs and make hisself a man, giving the lad courage as it were. Finally Joss reaches up under her skirt, and she shrieks and drops her flagon and goes running off to the kitchen. Well, it would have ended right there, only what does the old fool do but he goes to Ser and asks him to make us leave the girl alone, him being an anointed knight and all such.

“Ser Gregor, he wasn’t paying no mind to none of our fun, but now he looks, you know how he does, and he commands that the girl be brought before him. Now the old man has to drag her out of the kitchen, and no one to blame but hisself. Ser looks her over and says, ‘So this is the whore you’re so concerned for’ and this besotted old fool says, ‘My Layna’s no whore, ser’ right to Gregor’s face. Ser, he never blinks, just says, ‘She is now’ tosses the old man another silver, rips the dress off the wench, and takes her right there on the table in front of her da, her flopping and wiggling like a rabbit and making these noises. The look on the old man’s face, I laughed so hard ale was coming out me nose. Then this boy hears the noise, the son I figure, and comes rushing up from the cellar, so Raff has to stick a dirk in his belly. By then Ser’s done, so he goes back to his drinking and we all have a turn. Tobbot, you know how he is, he flops her over and goes in the back way. The girl was done fighting by the time I had her, maybe she’d decided she liked it after all, though to tell the truth I wouldn’t have minded a little wiggling. And now here’s the best bit... when it’s all done, Ser tells the old man that he wants his change. The girl wasn’t worth a silver, he says... and damned if that old man didn’t fetch a fistful of coppers, beg mlord’s pardon, and thank him for the custom!” The men all roared, none louder than Chiswyck himself, who laughed so hard at his own story that snot dribbled from his nose down into his scraggy grey beard.
ACOK - Arya VII

In Arya VI, she had already added him to her list as evident by the key quotation above.

The reason she gave was that she hated his attempts at humour without explicitly describing exactly what sort of jokes was he making. My guess is it was some jokes he made about torture of the villagers by the Tickler.

“Tickler makes them howl so hard they piss themselves,” old stoop- shoulder Chiswyck told them. [...] she hated old Chiswyck who thought he was funny
ACOK - Arya VI

Ser Gregor Clegane

The wiki says it was because he captured Arya and her friends. But I can't find any reference for this. She never explicitly mentions it. An educated guess would be that it was presumably because he chose the victims to be tortured and killed people indiscriminately. He gave her plenty of reasons to be added to the list.

The Mountain would come into the storehouse after he had broken his fast and pick one of the prisoners for questioning. The village folk would never look at him. Maybe they thought that if they did not notice him, he would not notice them... but he saw them anyway and picked whom he liked. There was no place to hide, no tricks to play, no way to be safe.

One girl shared a soldier’s bed three nights running; the Mountain picked her on the fourth day, and the soldier said nothing.

A smiley old man mended their clothing and babbled about his son, off serving in the gold cloaks at King’s Landing. “A king’s man, he is,” he would say, “a good king’s man like me, all for Joffrey.” He said it so often the other captives began to call him All-for-Joffrey whenever the guards weren’t listening. All-for-Joffrey was picked on the fifth day. A young mother with a pox-scarred face offered to freely tell them all she knew if they’d promise not to hurt her daughter. The Mountain heard her out; the next morning he picked her daughter, to be certain she’d held nothing back.

The ones chosen were questioned in full view of the other captives, so they could see the fate of rebels and traitors.

[...]

One girl, prettier than the others, was made to go with four or five different men every night, until finally she hit one with a rock. Ser Gregor made everyone watch while he took off her head with a sweep of his massive two-handed greatsword. “Leave the body for the wolves,” he commanded when the deed was done, handing the sword to his squire to be cleaned.
ACOK - Arya VI

So it could be either one or a mixture of all these events that landed him on the list.

Sandor Clegane

That one is simple. It's because he killed Mycah, the butcher boy died because of Joffrey's lies.

Dunsen

He stole Gendry's helmet, an almost negligible crime compared to what the rest of them did.

Cersei

Same reasons as her son's.

Amory Lorch

He killed Yoren.

Ilyn Payne

Same reasons as Cersei and Joffrey.

Polliver

For stealing needle. Another comparatively negligible offense.

Raff the Sweetling

For murdering Lommy.

Ser Meryn Trant

For killing Syrio Forel.

Weese

Similar case to Gregor's. He abused Arya and the other captives on a number of occasions, starting from the day she was assigned to his workforce.

In his own small strutting way, Weese was nearly as scary as Ser Gregor. The Mountain swatted men like flies, but most of the time he did not even seem to know the fly was there. Weese always knew you were there, and what you were doing, and sometimes what you were thinking. He would hit at the slightest provocation, and he had a dog who was near as bad as he was, an ugly spotted bitch that smelled worse than any dog Arya had ever known. Once she saw him set the dog on a latrine boy who’d annoyed him. She tore a big chunk out of the boy’s calf while Weese laughed.

It took him only three days to earn the place of honor in her nightly prayers. “Weese,” she would whisper, first of all. “Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.”
ACOK - Arya VII

The Tickler

Presumably because he tortured the prisoners brutally.

Members of House Frey

She doesn't exactly know the names of the Freys involved in Red Wedding, which is why she didn't formally add them to her list. She does however intend to kill them all.

Each night before sleep, she murmured her prayer into her pillow. “Ser Gregor,” it went. “Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei.” She would have whispered the names of the Freys of the Crossing too, if she had known them. One day I’ll know, she told herself, and then I’ll kill them all.
AFFC - Arya II

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