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Dracarys.
As is the norm with all things related to Game of Thrones, consider this to be your spoiler alert warning.
It has been a few days since we last saw the ashes of Melisandre float away on a Northern breeze and as The Red Woman departed, we said Valar Morghulis to some beloved Game of Thrones characters.
Granted, the Kingslayer: V2.0 has grabbed all of the headlines – that’s Arya because technically, as per the show’s terminology, she did kill a King – but as fans rewatch the Battle of Winterfell for the umpteenth time, we still have so many questions.
Again, we thoroughly enjoyed the episode but (deep breath): why were the Dothraki horde so recklessly sent to their death? Why did they build trenches behind the first wave of soldiers? How did Sam survive when he spent the majority of the episode being attacked on the floor, cowering and crying?
What was Bran doing while warging – just checking out the battle for the purposes of documenting it? Why couldn’t any of the Night King’s generals detect Arya before she got the drop on their leader? Arya is an incredibly-stealthy assassin, why did she scream before attacking the Night King thus alerted him to her presence? Was Jon yelling at the dragon just to distract the beast while Arya made her way into the Godswood?
Again, we’re very aware that this is a show with dragons, the undead, and incest, so we’re not going to be too analytical, but in terms of a tight narrative, the Battle of Winterfell wasn’t as coherent as Battle of the Bastards, Hardhome, Blackwater, or the Wildlings attack on Castle Black.
However, it did have some breathtaking moments and we’re not going to be overly critical.
This being said, in terms of lingering questions, it’s arguable that the death of the Night King is the area of most contention in the episode. Now that the show appears to be moving into its endgame, it’s likely that the supernatural threat of the Night King has been put to one side – we’re not going to even start with the theories about the Night King still being alive, an ‘evil’ Bran, and Azor Ahai (maybe another time).
Granted, the showrunners might have another twist in store with regards to the leader of the White Walkers, but if this is his end, there are still so many questions that have to be answered because he’s such a mysterious villain.
Throughout the course of the show, we learned about his creation and motivation for attacking the Seven Kingdoms, but we can’t help but shake the feeling that there’s so much more to be told.
During the episode, there’s a memorable moment when Daenerys is on Drogon and she has the Night King in her sight. After raining fire on the leader of the White Walkers, he emerges from the flames and gives Dany a ‘nice try’ look.
Of course, fans of the show will remember that the Night King once walked through a ring of flames when he attacked the cave that the old Three-Eyed Raven (Max Von Sydow) was dwelling in with Bran and the Children on the Forrest. He also walked through flames when Jon and his suicide squad went beyond The Wall to capture a wight.
Dragonfire has been known to kill wights, but how did the leader of the White Walkers?
Why didn’t he perish? A few weeks ago, the showrunners said that “only Targaryens can ride dragons” which added fore (pardon the pun) to the theory that the Night King is a Targaryen – something that we didn’t really buy.
Here’s what D.B Weiss had to say on that scene: “We thought it was important that whatever the plan was it doesn’t just work out because that would be kind of dull. While there’s no reason to know for certain that the fire wouldn’t kill or destroy the Night King, there’s also no particular reason to believe that it would.
“Then a few moments after this happens, the Night King brings them a whole larger undead problem by taking all of their own who have been killed in the course of this battle and turning them into the enemy.”
Ultimately, Arya got the job done with the Valyrian steel dagger but if this is the last we see of the Night King, we’d like to remember him in his finest moment.
Killing thousands of people and threatening to enslave every man, woman, and child in the Seven Kingdoms.
Clip via GameofThrones
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