Game of Thrones viewers might not have been able to see most of the Battle of Winterfell, that apparently, as one fan aptly put it, was lit by one slender candle – however, there was one moment that nobody missed – Arya Stark ending the Night King like the badass trained assassin she is. Many were shocked by this “major plot twist” was not a twist for anyone who has tracked her steady training or remembers the multitude of foreshadowing in the previous season’s dialogue.
Major Game of Thrones Season 8 spoilers ahead
Game of Thrones fans have now become accustomed to epic plot twists that keep them on their toes
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And midway through the final season viewers were hit by Valyrian steel with another one
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The Night King was slain and it was nonother than Araya Stark who defeated him
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Turns out we hadn’t been tricked but the producers were setting up this plot reveal for some time
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Fans and castmates were shocked when they discovered who would be the one to take down the dreaded Night King but the producers revealed the plot had been in motion for several seasons. “For, god, I think it’s three years now we’ve known that it was gonna be Arya who delivers that fatal blow [to the Night King],” said executive producer and writer David during a post-show “Inside the Episode” breakdown.
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From the first time we met Arya, it was clear that she was a force to be reckoned with. While her brother Bran showed the first signs he was not going to be a great warrior, she came in with the sneak attack and hit the target
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Her archery skills continue to be highlighted at the moment in the godswood. The aim of the producers for season 8 was to bring elements around full circle, so in the Battle of Winterfell we see Arya yet again shooting her bow to kick things off
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Taking it back to Season 1, Episode 2 Arya is bestowed with her first weapon, Needle, by Jon – and Arya lets him know she can be quick
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She is trained by many masters throughout the series but her first lesson is given by Jon
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Whose words she brings back in this episode
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Many have critiqued the story choice of Arya killing the Night King, yet her entire arc has focused on her training to be the deadliest opponent. Her first teacher after Jon was Syrio Forel, who taught her to be even quicker – like a cat – and what to say to the god of death, “not today”
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Arya’s role in the story gives new meaning to the other characters, like her father Ned Stark, who have sacrificed themselves to save her
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Season 3 is when the producers say they came to the decision that Arya would be the one to end the Night King, which makes this prediction from Melisandre peak foreshadowing
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Fans might not have realized it at the time but the Blue Eyes remark held the key
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Despite the disdain Arya holds for the Hound, he was another one of her teachers and taught her to find weak spots in armor
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As well as how to stab someone in the heart
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The Hound is another piece of the character puzzle whose purpose is revealed later on. Ser Beric Dondarrion – who had been brought back – hinted at this
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As it’s revealed their purpose was to keep Arya safe so that she could fulfill her destiny to save everyone
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Weapons have also proved to be important characters on Game of Thrones. In Season 1 we are introduced to the catspaw dagger that was used to try to kill Bran, which he gives to Arya
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And is ultimately used to prevent the Night King from killing him
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The dagger isn’t the only callback clue in the Night King death, Arya’s hand-switch trick she uses to kill him is seen during a fight with Brienne in Season 7
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Her surprise attack on the Night King is also made more believable as it is carried out in the same spot where she snuck up on Jon in the Season 8 premiere
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That’s right there have been little eggs placed throughout the series that led to this moment
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And when you think about it, it makes sense that this trained assassin would be the one to save us all
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Maisie Williams, who plays Arya told Entertainment Weekly, her heroic defeat had been kept secret even from her, “I was like, ‘Are we fighting the wights? Does The Night King die? So who kills him? What happens?’ And no one would say anything. Why is no one saying it? This is crazy.”
“It was so unbelievably exciting,” she says. “But I immediately thought that everybody would hate it; that Arya doesn’t deserve it. The hardest thing is in any series is when you build up a villain that’s so impossible to defeat and then you defeat them. It has to be intelligently done because otherwise people are like, ‘Well, [the villain] couldn’t have been that bad when some 100-pound girl comes in and stabs him.’ You gotta make it cool. And then I told my boyfriend and he was like, ‘Mmm, should be Jon though really, shouldn’t it?” Apparently, her boyfriend wasn’t her only naysayer.
As it turns out people – men- were not happy that Arya was the chosen one
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But were quickly shut down – “not today”
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Check out these GoT Facts That you Probably Didn’t Know!
This entire story, which started off as books, has been very pro-female the entire way through. It makes perfect sense that Arya defeats the night king, thanks to her training she can control her emotions. Something Jon CAN'T do even if he wanted too. Since she can control her emotions the night king never noticed her coming. It was perfect!
Jon is defintely an eternal ball of doubt and angst. Love him, but he's so full of emotion.
Why does EVERYTHING have to be about gender/race/sexual orientation? It doesn't matter that she is a woman. The more you make it a point that she's a she, the more the toxic idiots in the world will push back against it. Can't we just marvel at the fact it was a great scene and a nice surprise?
"As it turns out people – men- were not happy that Arya was the chosen one". Yeah, all of 3 men, one who is complaining about it not being set up in the episode enough (I disagree). Just took a look, and found plenty of women complaining about Arya being the one to do it, most of whom wanted either Jon Snow or Dany to be the killer. Please stop in trying to create a Sexism issue where none exists.
My husband has been a fan of Arya since he read the books (as they were coming out, way before the TV series), so he was VERY pleased to see her kill the Night King. The people who are complaining about Arya being the one aren't considering how she's been training all these years and how absolutely EVERYONE had an important role to play during the battle of Winterfell. We saw that dragonfire wouldn't defeat the Night King, so that was out. What other option was there? A one-on-one with Jon? I'm not sure how that would have turned out... But everyone fighting helped buy time for Arya to get Melisandre's message and be at the right place at the right time.
I do not find that the case. I'm on Reddit and on YouTube (like altshiftx) and it is mostly men. Like easily 80/90%. Perhaps this is different on Twitter and or Facebook.... And without a dragon how would Dany be able to kill the NK, she could barely defend herself, maybe Jon could've. But I have not seen Jon training for 6 seasons to be the Smartest fighter, I did see Arya do a lot of training. I think Dany and Jon (and Tyrion) will be more important against Cersei.
The night it was airing, live on Twitter, a lot of male handles were complaining about that the scene and it was a little disheartening honestly. It was built up so much, that when it actually happened... I was floored! My father-in-law and I were cheering because she did the one thing that seemed impossible! I mean, it was literally built up for seasons... but because they're wasn't any "OK, so here's what I'm gonna do" coming from Arya to spoon feed the audience, people are crying foul? Bollocks. She is a rogue, true and true. It was golden.
Sexism is not only connected with men, but women will also be sexist to keep an existing order. Women don't vote for a female politician, because they are taught they are weaker, women in India will be against disobeying castes rules. For me, I like character or not, but I enjoy where I can watch both sexes, not only the boys club.
Somehow they should turn the attention away from the 30 million people who are complaining because they only saw a f#&@ing black screen from this episode.
It's cause your monitor sucks. Those with a good screen could see everything. Don't hate the show - hate your tech
Olesia Kovalenko: Maybe because I watched it on my TV.
I personally don't mind that Arya was the one doing it - I'm not satisfied with the way it was set up, as the tweeter William mentions above said. It's fine with regards to the entire series (with the Easter eggs described in the post), but not on the episode level. It felt very anticlimactic, not well thought out and quite a bit rushed that she could easily sneak up on the entire officer corps of the White Walker army without anyone stopping her and just kill their leader. Maybe we'll be told or shown how she did it in the next episode and that'd set this discrepancy right, but this scene kind of undermined the arc of the episode.
Plus, on top of that... she was trained to be fast in Season 01, and probably trained to be faster with the faceless men... there was so much backstory into making this moment possible that needing to be spoon fed an explanation on HOW she did it is needless... because we have been given 7 seasons of HOW she COULD do it. Oh all the main characters, her training was the most extensive, most brutal, and the most varied. She literally became the God of Death lol.
To be fair: in S08Ep01, they did give a big of an Easter egg with her ability to be quiet AF when she snuck up on Jon as discussed in this post. When I saw that 2 weeks or so ago, I thought... that's gonna be relevant surely... because she mad no indication to HOW she was able to do it... I only assume due to her training with the faceless men. A lot of previous incidents in her story arc show that she was capable of doing this. You could even see in one of the NK generals reacting to the sudden gust of wind flowing past him just as she is flying past him toward the NK. It was all seemingly lightning fast and no one was able to react to it. They are undead, but they're not the Flash lol.
Can people just give it a rest with the attempts to find a battle of the sexes in fucking everything nowadays?? Rey is a Mary Sue, no charisma, unexplained brilliance at everything. Arya is the complete opposite. We've watched her grow up, win, lose, train, and train, and train......and she's awesome...........almost as awesome as Lyanna Mormont!
This entire story, which started off as books, has been very pro-female the entire way through. It makes perfect sense that Arya defeats the night king, thanks to her training she can control her emotions. Something Jon CAN'T do even if he wanted too. Since she can control her emotions the night king never noticed her coming. It was perfect!
Jon is defintely an eternal ball of doubt and angst. Love him, but he's so full of emotion.
Why does EVERYTHING have to be about gender/race/sexual orientation? It doesn't matter that she is a woman. The more you make it a point that she's a she, the more the toxic idiots in the world will push back against it. Can't we just marvel at the fact it was a great scene and a nice surprise?
"As it turns out people – men- were not happy that Arya was the chosen one". Yeah, all of 3 men, one who is complaining about it not being set up in the episode enough (I disagree). Just took a look, and found plenty of women complaining about Arya being the one to do it, most of whom wanted either Jon Snow or Dany to be the killer. Please stop in trying to create a Sexism issue where none exists.
My husband has been a fan of Arya since he read the books (as they were coming out, way before the TV series), so he was VERY pleased to see her kill the Night King. The people who are complaining about Arya being the one aren't considering how she's been training all these years and how absolutely EVERYONE had an important role to play during the battle of Winterfell. We saw that dragonfire wouldn't defeat the Night King, so that was out. What other option was there? A one-on-one with Jon? I'm not sure how that would have turned out... But everyone fighting helped buy time for Arya to get Melisandre's message and be at the right place at the right time.
I do not find that the case. I'm on Reddit and on YouTube (like altshiftx) and it is mostly men. Like easily 80/90%. Perhaps this is different on Twitter and or Facebook.... And without a dragon how would Dany be able to kill the NK, she could barely defend herself, maybe Jon could've. But I have not seen Jon training for 6 seasons to be the Smartest fighter, I did see Arya do a lot of training. I think Dany and Jon (and Tyrion) will be more important against Cersei.
The night it was airing, live on Twitter, a lot of male handles were complaining about that the scene and it was a little disheartening honestly. It was built up so much, that when it actually happened... I was floored! My father-in-law and I were cheering because she did the one thing that seemed impossible! I mean, it was literally built up for seasons... but because they're wasn't any "OK, so here's what I'm gonna do" coming from Arya to spoon feed the audience, people are crying foul? Bollocks. She is a rogue, true and true. It was golden.
Sexism is not only connected with men, but women will also be sexist to keep an existing order. Women don't vote for a female politician, because they are taught they are weaker, women in India will be against disobeying castes rules. For me, I like character or not, but I enjoy where I can watch both sexes, not only the boys club.
Somehow they should turn the attention away from the 30 million people who are complaining because they only saw a f#&@ing black screen from this episode.
It's cause your monitor sucks. Those with a good screen could see everything. Don't hate the show - hate your tech
Olesia Kovalenko: Maybe because I watched it on my TV.
I personally don't mind that Arya was the one doing it - I'm not satisfied with the way it was set up, as the tweeter William mentions above said. It's fine with regards to the entire series (with the Easter eggs described in the post), but not on the episode level. It felt very anticlimactic, not well thought out and quite a bit rushed that she could easily sneak up on the entire officer corps of the White Walker army without anyone stopping her and just kill their leader. Maybe we'll be told or shown how she did it in the next episode and that'd set this discrepancy right, but this scene kind of undermined the arc of the episode.
Plus, on top of that... she was trained to be fast in Season 01, and probably trained to be faster with the faceless men... there was so much backstory into making this moment possible that needing to be spoon fed an explanation on HOW she did it is needless... because we have been given 7 seasons of HOW she COULD do it. Oh all the main characters, her training was the most extensive, most brutal, and the most varied. She literally became the God of Death lol.
To be fair: in S08Ep01, they did give a big of an Easter egg with her ability to be quiet AF when she snuck up on Jon as discussed in this post. When I saw that 2 weeks or so ago, I thought... that's gonna be relevant surely... because she mad no indication to HOW she was able to do it... I only assume due to her training with the faceless men. A lot of previous incidents in her story arc show that she was capable of doing this. You could even see in one of the NK generals reacting to the sudden gust of wind flowing past him just as she is flying past him toward the NK. It was all seemingly lightning fast and no one was able to react to it. They are undead, but they're not the Flash lol.
Can people just give it a rest with the attempts to find a battle of the sexes in fucking everything nowadays?? Rey is a Mary Sue, no charisma, unexplained brilliance at everything. Arya is the complete opposite. We've watched her grow up, win, lose, train, and train, and train......and she's awesome...........almost as awesome as Lyanna Mormont!