The Night King was added and ticked off Arya Stark’s list in the 3rd episode of season 8 and the fans were stunned after watching the twist! However, fans weren’t alone as even Masie Williams was surprised when she found out that it was Arya Stark who would finish the Night King. In a conversation with EW, Maisie revealed the cast’s and crew’s reaction to the story twist.
Just like her co-star Kit Harrington, Masie hadn’t read the scripts as she wanted to have a live rehearsal of the final season with her castmates, around a conference room table in Belfast. So obviously, she was yet to find out about the big climax in the ‘Battle of Winterfell’. When the cast finally reached the end of episode 3, it received a huge cheer from everyone. However, Maisie was worried thinking how fans would react to this twist.
“It was so unbelievably exciting,” Williams 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?”
Although, the Arya in Masie was up for the challenge (and with all due respect to Jon Snow, Arya killed it, literally!).
Remember Melisandre’s prophecy from season 3?
“brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes… eyes you’ll shut forever”, Melisandre reminds Arya before the ‘white’ wash. Trying to stop the Night King was Arya’s destiny.
“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 says, “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”.
In fact, this came as a shock to actor Kit Harrington too. “I was surprised, I thought it was gonna be me!”, he told EW.
“When the cast reached the end of episode 3 where Arya saves the Seven Kingdoms by sprinting into the action and stabbing the Night King with her Valyrian steel dagger, “it got a huge f—king cheer,” Harington recalls.
Masie William’s character Arya Stark was the one who had been training the most. Yet, surprisingly enough, Arya never fought any battle before. Good for everyone, GoT has its own way of surprising its audience and actors at the same time.
“No One” sees what’s coming until it really happens. And with such a satisfying end to ‘The Battle of Winterfell’, we couldn’t help but say, “Not today, God of Death”!
Tell us in the comments below how you liked the twist and what were you expecting.
