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game of thrones - Why did Jaqen H'ghar give Arya the iron coin?


Arya tricks/blackmails Jaqen H'ghar into helping her after she's used up her first two victims.


I can't imagine he'd be too pleased about killing more people than originally bargained; not to mention it goes against his religious beliefs of balancing the number of lives and deaths.



Why does he give her the coin and the words so that she can seek more help? Why would he want to help her even more? Aren't they even?



Answer




A man hears, a man sees... A man knows


Jaqen knows that Arry/Weasel/Nan is actually Arya of House Stark



“Some men have many names. Weasel. Arry. Arya.”
She backed away from him, until she was pressed against the heart tree. “Did Gendry tell?”
“A man knows,” he said again. “My lady of Stark.”




He has taken the time to figure out her story and offer her these three free kills in the first place1.


Totes Besties


He also considers himself a friend to her; he says as much when she names him as the third kill:



Arya put her lips to his ear. “It’s Jaqen H’ghar.”
Even in the burning barn, with walls of flame towering all around and him in chains, he had not seemed so distraught as he did now. “A girl... she makes a jest.”
“You swore. The gods heard you swear.”
“The gods did hear,” There was a knife in his hand suddenly, its blade thin as her little finger. Whether it was meant for her or him, Arya could not say. “A girl will weep. A girl will lose her only friend.”
“You’re not my friend. A friend would help me.” She stepped away from him, balanced on the balls of her feet in case he threw his knife. “I’d never kill a friend.”
Jaqen’s smile came and went. “A girl might... name another name then, if a friend did help?”

“A girl might,” she said. “If a friend did help.”
The knife vanished. “Come.”
-A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two - A Clash of Kings, Chapter Fourty-Seven (Arya IX). [emphasis mine]



Weasel Soup


They then go on to have this whirling adventure; freeing a group of captured Northmen, killing some guards with some soup whilst Electric Youth plays "The Best Thing" in the background2. An event which will forever be remembered as Weasel Soup.


See you later, alligator


Now, once outside, Jaqen tells Arya that he must now "die", and he proceeds to change his face, at which point, Arya becomes completely bewildered and asks him to teach her how:



“A god has his due. And now a man must die.” A strange smile touched the lips of Jaqen H’ghar.

“Die?” she said, confused. What did he mean? “But I unsaid the name. You don’t need to die now.”
“I do. My time is done.” Jaqen passed a hand down his face from forehead to chin, and where it went he changed. His cheeks grew fuller, his eyes closer; his nose hooked, a scar appeared on his right cheek where no scar had been before. And when he shook his head, his long straight hair, half red and half white, dissolved away to reveal a cap of tight black curls.
Arya’s mouth hung open. “Who are you?” she whispered, too astonished to be afraid. “How did you do that? Was it hard?”
He grinned, revealing a shiny gold tooth. “No harder than taking a new name, if you know the way.”
“Show me,” she blurted. “I want to do it too.”
“If you would learn, you must come with me.”
Arya grew hesitant. “Where?”
“Far and away, across the narrow sea.”
“I can’t. I have to go home. To Winterfell.”
“Then we must part,” he said, “for I have duties too.” He lifted her hand and pressed a small coin into her palm. “Here.”

“What is it?”
“A coin of great value.”
Arya bit it. It was so hard it could only be iron. “Is it worth enough to buy a horse?”
“It is not meant for the buying of horses.”
“Then what good is it?”
“As well ask what good is life, what good is death? If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to any man from Braavos, and say these words to him - valar morghulis.”
-A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two - A Clash of Kings, Chapter Fourty-Seven (Arya IX). [emphasis mine]



Arya then does just that later on.




1. He could easily have killed three random people to help his own cause or simply level the debt to the God of Death, but he chose to offer them to Arya and not take them for his own.

2. That's how it went down in my mind.

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