The Kingsroad

Williams appears as Arya Stark in the second episode of the first season of Game of Thrones, The Kingsroad. Arya is gifted a sword by her half-brother Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington. Traveling south with the royal party on the Kingsroad highway towards King’s Landing, Arya becomes involved in a dangerous confrontation with the teenage Prince Joffrey Baratheon, played by Jack Gleeson, and her older sister Sansa Stark, played by Sophie Turner. Joffrey threatens Arya with his sword and her direwolf intervenes, injuring Joffrey. She escapes into the forest and forces her direwolf to flee as she knows that it will be killed for hurting the prince. Found by men loyal to her father, Lord Eddard Stark, she is taken before King Robert Baratheon for judgement. Queen Cersei Lannister, played by Lena Headey, insists that a direwolf be punished for the injury to her son. As Arya’s direwolf cannot be found, Sansa’s direwolf is executed in its place.