Last night's episode of Game of Thrones was a bloody battle to the end. We saw many a heartwrenching death (God bless little Lyanna Mormont; you were crushed to death like a boss), but the most shocking of all was the defeat of the seemingly indestructible Night King and his army of the dead, ending their reign of terror on Westeros.
This is the moment that Arya's training paid off:However, because the Night King was defeated by Arya, when Maisie Williams first read the script, she was concerned that fans would be upset - hoping that his demise would come at the hand of someone more fearsome.
"It was so unbelievably exciting," she told EW. "But I immediately thought that everybody would hate it, that Arya doesn't deserve it. The hardest thing 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?'"
But despite being initially unsure of this development in the show's plot, Williams eventually came to understand that Arya was destined to kill the Night King.
"When we did the whole bit with Melisandre, I realized the whole scene with [the Red Woman] brings it back to everything I've been working for over these past six seasons - four if you think about it since [Arya] got to the House of Black and White," she said. "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*ck you, Jon, I get it.'"
This was Sophie Turner's incredibly relatable reaction to Arya killing the Night King:Williams wasn't the only person surprised that the Night King's death came at her hand, either. Kit Harington said that he thought it would be Jon Snow.
"I was surprised, I thought it was gonna be me!" he said. "But I like it. It gives Arya's training a purpose to have an end goal. It's much better how she does it the way she does it. I think it will frustrate some in the audience that Jon's hunting the Night King and you're expecting this epic fight and it never happens - that's kind of Thrones. But it's the right thing for the characters. There's also something about it not being the person you expect. The young lady sticks it to the man."
And despite Williams being unsure of Arya killing the Night King, it's clear from social media reactions to the episode that fans didn't have a problem with her orchestrating his demise.
These are some of the best Twitter reactions to last night's episode:
If you haven't seen it yet, this is preview trailer for episode four:Now, all that really remains to be seen is who will sit on the Iron Throne...
