u/veritasss11 1,175 karma Edit Profile POSTS COMMENTS ABOUT Best [Spoilers extended] An unlikely candidate for Winterfell lordship? veritasss118m
I think Arya can rule Winterfell.BookArya is very different from ShowArya.There is some evidence in the books about that.

For example there is a quote from Varys about FAegon in the books and what is needed to be a good ruler. ”Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid.“

However all of this can be said for Arya as well. She has trained with Syrio Forel, has typical highborn education, learns to speaks several tongues, she is familiar with the Seven from her mother, the old gods from her father, with the Many-faced God from the faceless men. She has also strong sense of justice-even incognito in Braavos she still performed the ancestral duties of her House-she fed a man of the Night’s Watch (gave Sam her last two baked clams).It’s a nice callback to Robb offering Yoren shelter at Winterfell, and Ned offering Yoren whatever he needed in KL. It also foreshadows her execution of Dareon in the books as a NW deserter, slitting his throat just as Ned took Gared’s head for the same crime in the very first chapter.She has lived with the smallfolk and she cares for them, she has bind up the Hound’s wound, she has known what it’s like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid ever since she escaped Kings Landing.

You can read more proof why this can happen in the link. /r/asoiaf/comments/fcsqeh/spoilers_extendedaryas_ending_in_the_books/

Sansa does not need to die.She can be in the Vale.Her storyline in the Vale was erased in the show but it is different in the books. I think part of her role in the next books will be to take down Varys.There is a theory that Sansa will take down Littlefinger.Just like Sansa has been a student of Petyr Baelish and has some similarities that will help her take him down, Arya has been studying and has acquired some of Varys' skills that will help her expose him or/and take him down.

Let’s start with the more obvious, Varys is the Master of Whisperers, his official duty is knowing everything that goes on and he employes children to spy for him.

Arya has been spying from the shadows since AGOT, and GRRM had Varys and Illyrio as the first people she spied on.

Over time, spying became vital for her survival, especially in Harrenhal:

Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle. The wife of the gaoler was with child, but the real father was either Ser Alyn Stackspear or a singer called Whitesmile Wat. Lord Lefford made mock of ghosts at table, but always kept a candle burning by his bed. Ser Dunaver's squire Jodge could not hold his water when he slept. The cooks despised Ser Harys Swyft and spit in all his food. Once she even overheard Maester Tothmure's serving girl confiding to her brother about some message that said Joffrey was a bastard and not the rightful king at all. "Lord Tywin told him to burn the letter and never speak such filth again," the girl whispered. - Arya VII, ACOK

And the Kindly Man outright asks this of her in Braavos, he is training her in gathering intelligence:

“Learn three new things before you come back to us,” the kindly man had commanded Cat, when he sent her forth into the city. She always did. Sometimes it was no more than three new words of the Braavosi tongue. Sometimes she brought back sailor’s tales, of strange and wondrous happenings from the wide wet world beyond the isles of Braavos, wars and rains of toads and dragons hatching. Sometimes she learned three new japes or three new riddles, or tricks of this trade or the other. And every so often, she would learn some secret.

Braavos was a city made for secrets, a city of fogs and masks and whispers. - Cat of the Canals, AFFC

That’s what Varys does too. And remember what he called his spy network? Little mice. What did Arya call herself when she started spying in Harrenhal?

In this way, Arya parallels Sansa, who is learning to become like Littlefinger. Arya is learning to be like Varys, the other great master of the Game of Thrones. Varys began learning scheming when he had nothing, when he lived in the streets, when he did whatever he could to survive and he started first by understanding the value of information. That’s where Arya is now.

Arya will not be happy to meet Varys again. Last time she saw him, she overheard him plotting. For all she knows he is responsible for what she suffered, for the wars she lived through, for her family. She can use her skills and expose his plans.