Warning: Contains spoilers for Game Of Thrones.
Game Of Thrones delivered a dramatic and surprising episode as the White Walkers clashed at Winterfell, but there was one moment which particularly went against expectations.
In The Long Night, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) emerged as the person to kill The Night King while defending her brother Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), wiping out the White Walker army in one swoop.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have since explained why they chose Arya to kill the Night King over the expected hero Jon Snow (Kit Harington), saying how they had this plan in place for three years.
Speaking in a behind-the-scenes video of the episode, Benioff said: ‘We hoped to kind of avoid the expected.
‘Jon Snow has always been the hero, the one that’s the saviour but it just didn’t seem right to us for this moment.’
Weiss added: ‘She seems like the best candidate provided we weren’t thinking about in that moment.
‘One of the great things about having this many people you care about in a sequence together it can pull people’s attention and focus to people they care about a lot, like Jon and Dany, Theon and Bran, Tyrion and Sansa, so you’re going all over the place with people you’re desperately worried for, and hopefully you forget about the fact that Arya Sytark ran out of the castle with the battle drums playing and going towards some purpose.’
The twist came as a surprise to many of the cast members too, with Kit Harington recently saying how he believed it was going to be him.
A trailer has been released for the next episode, which looks to turn attention toward the battle for the Iron Throne against Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey).
Game Of Thrones continues Sunday on HBO and Sky Atlantic. Seasons one to seven are available on NOW TV.
