Game Of Thrones: Why THAT Death Was A Mistake (& How It'll Be Different In The Books)
Does George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire have something different in mind to GoT?
Game of Thrones just delivered its biggest episode ever, and with it came one of its most shocking deaths as well.
In The Long Night, the army of the living find themselves up against the army of the dead. The White Walkers and wights have arrived at Winterfell's gates, hell-bent on causing death and destruction to all who lie before them. It's a battle that has been years in the making: it goes back to the very first scene of the show, and the many teases of the White Walkers we've had throughout the series' run.
To defeat them, the Unsullied, Dothraki, Knights of the Vale, Houses of the North, and just about any other force not allied to Cersei came together as part of the epic battle, but in the end it all came down to a Stark, albeit not the one we expected. While it's long been believed that Jon Snow would take down the Night King, the honour instead falls to Arya Stark, who jumps onto the Night King and stabs him with her Valyrian steel dagger.
In an instant, the Night King, White Walkers, wights, and the entire plotline about the army of the dead shatters into a million pieces. It's a major surprise, a subversion of expectations, and also a mistake.
Read More: Game Of Thrones Season 8: 9 Ups And 2 Downs From 'The Long Night'
That's not to say Arya didn't deserve to be the one who did it, or that the scene itself, simply taken in isolation, isn't cool to watch. There's no denying it'll leave you saying 'holy s**t'. But that doesn't necessarily equate to it being the good thing. The issue with this is, really, how sudden it happens: we have had years building up the threat of the White Walkers, and the Night King in particular. And yet, the first time the living properly oppose them (in Hardhome and Beyond the Wall, they're ambushed), they win. Yes, there are losses, and it's a tough fight, but it still amounts to the NIght King being killed the first time he steps onto the battlefield himself.
It's hard not to view that as an anticlimax, especially as the story now reverts back to the game of thrones. Again, taken with a sense of isolation, that's not a completely bad thing, at least not from the point-of-view of the characters involved. Cersei is a far more interesting character than the Night King - she is arguably the most interesting on the whole show - but it's still a difficult transition, in terms of stakes, to go from fighting a seemingly unstoppable force who represent death and want to wipe out all of humanity, with limitless soldiers, to a human Queen with some 20,000 human soldiers.
Even then, though, the problem is less about the story than it is the telling of it. To always have the White Walkers in the background of The Great Game, with the overarching idea being that, ultimately, the political squabbling doesn't matter because the dead are coming, and the question of whether or not, and when, the humans can put aside those differences and band together to face them. That's particularly ramped up in the last few seasons, and has dominated this truncated season, and now it's done, with a complete 180 being made back to Cersei and co. That this story comes down to its human characters is a good thing. It's what should happen, and is happening, so what's the big deal? It's because of how they move to that story, and how quickly they do it - with so many parts of the White Walker/Night King mythology left unexplained - that stings.
The death of the Night King should've be one of the series' most epic moments (although the creation of the Night King himself is a part of the problem, in making this one supervillain to defeat). Instead, as the dagger enters him and he shatters, the Great War come and gone in the space of one (extra long, very impressive) episode, it's an anticlimax.
This comes as Thrones approaches its endgame, which is ostensibly going to be the same as George R.R. Martin's books (should they ever arrive). But is this really what GRRM has planned? In some ways, there might be similarities. And in others, it'll have to be COMPLETELY different.