I would more or less agree that the Night King side of this confrontation was generic and lazy. But the Arya side of it was not generic or lazy in the slightest.

Its simply not true that DEM has to be unexpected.

Also you can expect someone to kill someone, e.g. be the killer of said person, but they can still kill them in an unexpected way.

If knowing Arya is slated to kill the NK excludes all DEM, then presumably you would be fine with her putting on a ballet dress, waltzing up the NK and revealing that the whole time she has had a magic tiara that kills white walkers.

Knowing Arya is going to kill the NK obviously does not make her immune to DEM in how she kills him.

No one is making you go into bat so hard for team not DEM. If you dont think its important why engage so much with it?

You have basically kept it alive as a topic over the last few pages.

thought it was implied that we knew she'd do it using abilities from several seasons worth of her character development

in this world she can remove people's faces to turn into them but now the line is drawn over whether she can also jump off a roof a bit farther than expected

o/u on # of amateur mythbusters type videos about this on youtube?

Once again, foreshadowing does not mean that it's not DEM.

Also just because Arya has one skill doesn't mean she can completely alter reality.





Anyways I think my favorite part of the episode was the brief respite everyone in WF got after the trenches got lit. The scene itself was cool, although I wish they'd done with the fake suspense that they wouldn't get lit. It was cool having the two armies at a standstill for a moment then watching as the wights threw themselves onto the fire. I thought that was really well done.

The second to last time we see Arya in the episode, Melisandre obliquely reminds her of her Season 1 training and basically tells her she's going to kill the Night King. Then Arya's like "OK, go it" and we see her run up to the top of the castle.

We then don't see Arya for a while, but the time we see her, she leaps out from somewhere and kills the Night King.

I thought it was very well structured to be both emotionally surprising but entirely intellectually convincing, while ultimately paying off her entire story line, being true to her character, and also maintaining the perspective of the characters we were focused on in the moment. They showed the exact right amount to achieve this balance.

For me it was a total failure. Arya's training occurred in crowded cities, castles, taverns and narrow halls. She was trained to kill through cunning and guile, using poisoned coins and food, or stabbing people who thought she was a defenseless girl, and of course using the masks of dead people. Making a 300 foot leap of faith in the middle of an open wood is the total opposite of that. There was no subtlety, it had nothing to do with her training, and it was far-fetched at best. I don't care if since S1 it was predicted that she would kill the NK, the manner in which she did it was a disappointment.

I do not care as much as others, it certainly didn't ruin the episode, but it was a let down.

The creators and even the actors seems to be caught up in some weird group psychology for the last 6 episodes. I read where the actors were all high-fiving each other when they went through the scene where Arya leaps through the air and kills the NK. The creators say that the Mormount girl was supposed to be a one scene appearance, "but they just had to give her more lines/plot" because she was so likeable. Then becuase she was so popular, they felt she needed a heroic death. They keep talking about the characters that "everyone cares about" - which they assume is like 15 characters. There's no talk of good storytelling or compelling plot lines - just more of a celebration of all the great characters. Just seems like they really couldn't come up with a good plot, so it's more like a tribute to all the main characters.

Somebody needs to tell the directors that slow motion screaming and charging doesn't look as cool as they think it does.

I believe the term is "fan service"

You're 100% correct businessdude. It went from things like Ros's boobs being nice so she got some extra scenes in S1 and then the character was well received so she received more in S2 when it fit the plot, to trying to fit the plot around the audience's favorite characters.

For those who are claiming the way Arya killed the NK is not believable, how is “using the masks of dead people” believable?? We never actually see her carve the face off a dead person or how she puts it on, and nothing in our actual science suggests this should be possible. Isn’t this “DEM” every time she does it??

I want to know where all these soldiers are pooping.

Hopefully in your mouth.

Here's something I wrote about Star Wars which addresses this:

Exactly this. Good post.

grunching - who is "this clown"? A lot of posts today have thrown the conversation all over the place.

here's the cinematographer getting in on the defense of the show, accepting no criticism. These guys are in their own little world.

Again she might jump from a tower to gain into a wooded enclosure full of zombies with super hearing without said zombies noticing in anyway, but she does not jump from the tower onto the night king, if you watch the shot its clear she is not leaping from above but from behind.

She has teh powers is a just a very lazy cop out, its the one the writers used and am surprised to see so many who are on board with the general consensus that the writing has gone down hill white knighting for this sterling example of said decline.

Good writing sets outs limits of powers and is consistent with application of those powers, Arya getting her arse kicked initially then just breezing her way to within leaping distance of the NK is not an example of such writing.

+1.

For the record, I thought Arya owning Brienne in a sword fight last season was way more obnoxious writing than her showing up to shove a knife into the Night King. She's a ****ing kid and Brienne is twice her size. If you're looking for the point where Arya officially got turned into a superhero, I'd date it to then.

Also the massive problem with Arya got powers, course she could get the NK get got is that now the whole story and plot line of GOT is utterly irrelevant.

Need to kill Cersei, no problems got Arya. LOL Who needs dragons.

Her being able to just waltz down to KL and kill Cersei would be completely consistent with the level of ability to so effortlessly kill the NK.

They have basically elevated someone to a level of power that most problems facing said charachter become irrelevant.

The essence of drama is the hero over coming problems, not simply making them irrelevant.

That is unless there is some plot save whereby when grabbing Arya by the throat the NK marks/changes her in some way.

Putting his essence into her in some way would the coolest outcome, but not holding out hope for that one.

Yea, its reasonably hard to believe she beat Brienne but harder to believe than she just effortlessly infiltrated a courtyard full of undead super ears and then caught an ancient super being on the hop?

Naah cmon. Being able to beat a bigger human is still quite a limited power, its not that god like, being able to just no big deal the NK shows a much larger almost limitless capacity of power.

Also would have put the duel with Brienne as closer to a draw that owning.

Arya was either the white walker that twitched, or, she sneaked past that white walker causing him to twitch, or, they just thought it would be fun to show a white walker twitching.

No tower jumping here.

All they should be showing in Ep 4 preview is Danny and John packing Aryas backpack for her trip to KL.

Obviously wont show the trip, episode should just be surprise! staby staby: cut to credits.

If the writers are even aware of the problem they have created for themselves, surely they have to kill Arya off?