If you haven't watched last night's Game of Thrones yet, turn away now, for here be MAJOR SPOILERS! Since the very first episode of the HBO series, the threat of the White Walkers has been steadily growing, and it finally came to a head when the Night King and his Army of the Dead arrived at Winterfell, setting the stage for the action-packed third episode.
Still with me? Last night's episode, titled "The Long Night," brought an end to the Night King and his White Walkers when Arya (Maisie Williams) stabbed him with her Valyrian steel dagger, causing him to burst into ice. It was an ending which I certainly didn't see coming, and it was one which Maisie Williams didn't foresee either. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Williams revealed that while she was excited to be the one dealing the death blow, she was worried that fans would think that Arya didn't deserve it.
It was so unbelievably exciting. 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?’
Thankfully, Maisie Williams came around as filming got underway and she came to realize how Arya's arc had been preparing her for this moment all along. "When we did the whole bit with Melisandre, I realized the whole scene with [the Red Woman] brings it back to everything I’ve been working for over these past 6 seasons — 4 if you think about it since [Arya] got to the House of Black and White," Williams said. "It all comes down to this one very moment. It’s also unexpected and that’s what this show does. So then I was like, ‘F—k you Jon, I get it.'" Director Miguel Sapochnik said that his goal was to convince fans that it would be Jon Snow (Kit Harington) who was going to be the one to do the deed. "I thought, ‘Hmm, if I see Arya running then I know she’s going to do something.'" Sapochnik says. "So it’s about almost losing her from the story and then have her come in as a surprise and pinning all our hopes on Jon being the guy going to do it — because Jon’s always the guy. So we follow Jon in a continuous shot I want the audience to think: ‘Jon’s gonna do it, Jon’s gonna do it…’ and then he fails. He fails at the very last minute. So I’m hoping that’s a nice switch that no one sees coming." The reveal that Arya would kill the Night King came as a surprise to Kit Harington as well, but he's a fan of the twist.
I was surprised, I thought it was gonna be me! But I like it. It gives Arya’s training a purpose to have an end goal. It’s much better how she does it the way she does it. I think it will frustrate some in the audience that Jon’s hunting the Night King and you’re expecting this epic fight and it never happens — that’s kind of Thrones. But it’s the right thing for the characters. There’s also something about it not being the person you expect. The young lady sticks it to the man.
Game of Thrones returns to HBO next Sunday.