When Arya Stark stood on a bridge in Braavos in Game of Thrones season 6 episode 7 and stared wistfully at the horizon, leaving herself hopelessly vulnerable to attack, many hoped there was some secret plan at work.

Then, in episode 8, after she miraculously recovered from her five stab wounds overnight, there was talk of her perhaps intentionally leaving a blood trail to lure the Waif.

“Was this her plan all along, going back to the previous episode when she was hiring passage back to Westeros and standing on the bridge?” the Wall Street Journal asked the director for both episodes, Mark Mylod.

“Personally, I don’t think so,” he replied, crushing fans’ hopes that it was more than just bad writing.

“You could certainly read into that. My choice is no. My choice is, in episode 7, the character has made her decision to leave the city, and really makes a mistake. She lets her guard down. We forget how young this kid is, and she makes a mistake. This is in my head, at least.

“Having booked passage with the captain, she has a moment of reverie where she’s looking over Braavos and particularly looking forward to making a move toward home to a new adventure. She’s not going to be this assassin, and she lets her guard down and nearly pays for it with her life. I think that, subsequently, she knows once she’s recovering at Lady Crane’s apartment that the Waif will come after her. She knows it’s inevitable.”

Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 9 Preview

WSJ also asked Mylod whether the tumbling oranges on the steps in the chase scene were a reference to The Godfather’s repeated oranges motif, but no, they were just there to add some colour.