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But it was never supposed to be the climax. It resulted in one of the most epic 82 minute episodes of television I've ever witnessed. It brought many divergent plot threads together. None so terrifying as an army of the dead, but the army of the dead was never the point. She and Qyburn and zombie-Mountain and the Golden Company and Euron Greyjoy. "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die," Cersei Lannister once told Ned Stark, not long before he played the game very poorly, indeed.Īnd now Cersei will come back to the fore. That's why I hoped that tonight we would resolve the epic fantasy half of this story, that we would put to rest all this Azor Ahai business and defeat the Night King and move back to what the real beating heart of this story is-and that isn't a story about wights and dragons, but about the game of thrones. In another sense, it's a story about knights and kings and peasants, petty betrayals and castrations both real and metaphorical. In one sense, it's an epic fantasy filled with magic and villains out of legend and magical swords. That's the funny thing about this piece of Game of Thrones, and of Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire. She was the one who, in the end (and not all on her own), brought down this mythical foe.īut that isn't the whole story. Not just Beric, but also Brienne and Jaime and Bran and Jon and all the rest. Not with a recap of events, but with the stunning finale, with the revelation of who exactly Arya is and what her purpose was all this time, and the purpose of those around her. You can tell my priorities, I suppose, from how I started this post off. They could have been much more helpful burning the ranks of the dead than playing chase with the Night King. Sure, they blasted some wights with their dragon flame, but most of the episode they were lured into one fruitless confrontation with the Night King after another.īoth Jon and Dany's dragon were taken out of commission and-perhaps one of my only complaints about this episode-woefully underutilized in the actual battle. Their dragon-riding, fire-breathing antics did very little to stem the tide of the dead. I love that I didn't see that coming until the moment before it happened (and I'm still a little giddy that I saw it coming just in time) and I'm overjoyed that both Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen were, in the end, sidelined in a way. I did not, however, see Arya Stark as the perfect assassin who would, in the end, kill our epic fantasy villain.

And I said that our heroes would win and defeat the Night King in this episode before turning to face Cersei (Lena Headey) in the final three, and I was right. I said that the dead would rise up in the crypts and attack the living-not fight for them- and I was right. I said that the fan theory about the Night King heading to King's Landing instead of Winterfell was poppycock, and I was right. But I did make a couple this week that I'm happy about. I am not particularly good at predictions. The night is always darkest before the dawn.

Just when all seems lost, when the odds become impossible and the dead keep rising and rising and the night is blackest-the army of the dead falls. And just like Bran hoped, when he falls so does his army.

Arya catches the dagger in her other hand and plunges it into the Night King. The Night King turns, grabs her by the throat, she drops the dagger-the dagger Littlefinger sent with an assassin to kill Bran Stark, lo these many years ago the Valyrian steel dagger that he later told Catelyn Stark was Tyrion Lannister's, leading to her arresting the Imp, which in turn led to Jaime attacking Ned Stark in the streets of King's Landing the dagger, in other words, that helped start this entire war, intended for the throat of young Bran, whose Direwolf saved him. Azor Ahai, the princess that was promised, leaping through the dark. The Night King reaches for his blade, but Bran doesn't mind.