That’s what you get when you let an assassin grow on guild hand-outs and then power level with a high level unspecialized fighter. So hard to set up challenging campaigns when you have no practical experience with how that character will play when you give her a +3 Holy Avenger dagger and the dice actually come out. Game is over before the root beer is even warm.
Anybody could have killed Littlefinger. He was at the mercy of the court. I don’t recall Arya having beaten the Hound.
I agree that she’s overpowered, but anybody who can look like anybody automatically has a strong advantage.
I like how this episode portrayed her as not quite a superhero (up until that amazing leap). She crowdsurfed down the stairs on the heads of the undead and landed with a graceful… ummm… broke her fall with her face. Then she almost fell off the roof. Then, after the library scene, she was forced to run run run until backup arrived.
I also expected that there would be more to it than a “grand good vs evil struggle”. I had expected during the whole series that it would be more subtle than that.
I’ve been reading recaps and discussion of the episode on various sites and the website for Cosmopolitan magazine (of all places) pointed out that Jon Snow seemed to be helping Arya by distracting the wight dragon as she was approaching the Night King. The point seemed to be that he wasn’t completely useless in defeating the Night King, even if he didn’t deliver the killing blow.
This is part of it too. It feels like something as simple as a good guys vs monsters story wasn’t going to ultimately be core to the resolution of this story, so it felt like there would be some clever twist that would subvert our expectations or give us a new perspective on what the army of the dead represented. It was disappointing that no, indeed, it was just a generic set of monsters.
Nah, they are just reaching. They very obviously wanted Arya’s last second save to be a complete shock to everyone, the white walker looking while some wind blows past him is only a hint in retrospect. If they wanted Jon to distract the dragon for Arya there would have at least been some eye contact between them, and it would have completely given away the surprise.
I like Arya enough, but I have had a hard time buying into enough time passing for her to become as cool as she is.
How much time has passed in their world since Ned got executed? How much assassin/ninja/face-changing training did she actually get?
You tell me she trained like Batman in Batman Begins, I kind of get that she is the face-changing-Batgirl of their world. I just don’t see the time.
[RANDOM THOUGHTS]
I don’t remember her beating The Hound in any version of the story and Littlefinger was technically beaten by Sansa, Arya just acted as executioner, but it was an excellent demonstration…She killed Meryn and the Frey’s with her brain more than fighting skill (if you discount her magic medieval ninja skills)…She HAS magic medieval ninja skills…She tied Brienne in combat…I don’t believe for a second she really killed The Waif but she did make a decent showing…
[/RANDOM THOUGHTS]
Fuck me, she really is OP. I guess I’m just ok with that. I mean, at least one of the Starks had to turn out to be a pure bad ass, right? Jon, Bran and Sansa have just been so disappointing that she needs to represent for her squad.
It’s not over until it’s over. The threat of the Night King might be gone, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get any more info about him over the next three episodes. I would hope that info gives us a more nuanced perspective on what he and the White Walkers were all about.
I re-watched today and it is clear to me editing is telling us Bran was helping him or guiding him or at least hinting to him what to do.
Now, that could be because “Dr. Strange style” Bran saw the 1 in a million path to defeat him(Lead him to himself, have Theon run at him, Arya hides and kills him). Or…Bran is the Night King or is actively helping him for some complicated reason we have yet to learn.
If nothing about this is mentioned or revealed, it’s a bunch of crap. The show was barely hiding that he was helping at this point; we are so close to a reveal.
It is also clear the Red Lady knew Arya would kill NK. She said, “You have closed many eyes…brown…green…and blue.” Come on.
I believe it’s assumed that one year of real time is more or less one year in the show too. So, about 7-8 years since Ned execution, and 2 years of assassin training (she reaches Braavos at the beginning of season 5, and leaves the faceless men at the end of season 6).
By the way checking this last episode, I noticed that Jaqen smiles when she announces that she’s going home.
This is what I think as well. There are three episodes left at around 1 hour, 20 minutes each. That’s plenty of time to do more than deal with Cersei.
After her sex scene, the showrunners mentioned that Arya was 11 when the show started and 20 years old now. (The actress is two years older, so 13-22.) Which is about one year per season plus the year that GoT didn’t air.
I’d say her Faceless Man training was probably a year, possibly two.
Sansa and Arya went from this to thisand this.
Of course the actors have aged eight years, so their characters have too. But I think that’s consistent with the time assumed in the show.
She spent almost all of seasons 5 and 6 in Braavos. Before that she spent 2 seasons as the Hound’s captive.
I agree that having Arya be dead all these years is a ludicrous notion. If they actually reveal this, it will be the sharkiest of shark jumps. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen: even two of my favorite shows, “The Americans” and “Breaking Bad”, made one such misstep each.
I agree 100% with all of this. I think the objection that too few characters died is odd; and I am very, very glad to have the NK off the board so we can get on with the “Game of Thrones”. Think of how much more interesting a villain Cersei is than the mute, just-out-to-destroy-everything NK. And Arya’s assassin move was cool.
But the whole battle that made up the middle of the episode was awful. I intend to do a rewatch of the whole series at some point, but I can’t imagine I’ll sit through that again.
“Quite clearly” is a considerable overstatement. Until reading your post just now, it never occurred to me that it was anything but a coincidence, just something that happened to occur. Even after reading your post, I’m far from struck by a thunderbolt (“Of course–it makes perfect sense and can’t be anything else!”). I would chalk it up as “an interesting and unproven theory”, no more.
I do like your suggestion for Tyrion and the dragonglass though.
I clearly want something different out of the show than you do, because I sincerely hope we are done with the NK and the WW, other than at most a couple minutes of debriefing.
I liked the episode and didn’t really have a problem following the action on screen. Maybe my friend just has an awesome TV.
The terrible strategy did bother me. I’m hoping to see a deleted scene:
Bran: Send the Dothraki out first, have them attack the wights.
Everyone else: What!? We should hold them in reserve. Even my Squire knows that.
Bran: Yes, but it will look great for the viewers at home. Ominous and foreboding.
EE: the what now?
Bran: I AM THE THREE EYED RAVEN! NONE OF THIS IS REAL!
Yeah.
I guess I am mis-remembering and conflating it a bit when she tells the Hound to his face and with no doubt in her voice that she will kill him.
I have a co-worker who keeps pushing an “Arya is dead, the Waif took her place” theory.
I am not buying it at all.
When Arya kills Walder Frey she first kills his sons and cooks them into a meatpie for Walder to eat. No way the Waif would have bothered with all of that. Not to mention the satisfaction on Arya’s face when she kills Walder. The Waif would have been businesslike about it all and only killed her target.
Further, the Faceless Men are all about a life for a life and no way the Waif would go to kill Walder unless someone paid a fortune for the assassination. Killing his sons she would not do unless they were also on the hit list. Poison the whole Frey clan? Just no…not happening. That was all Arya getting revenge.
Yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about the resolution of the White Walker story line. The past two episodes were pretty good as a standalone “Siege of Winterfell”. But in the context of the larger story, the White Walkers were something that’s been looming in the background for the past seven seasons as something much larger and scarier than the petty quest for the Iron Throne. Now that they’ve been neatly dispatched*, it’s back to fighting over the big chair.
*Unless…
Maybe the Night King isn’t really dead, and we are in for an even longer night at King’s Landing? Probably not.