After finally indulging in the carnal pleasures of sin, Arya Stark had one hell of a moment on Game of Thrones last night: She takes a very special dagger, jumps into the air, and stabs the Night King to death during the Battle of Winterfell. Hiya! Take that, patriarchy! Maisie Williams, who portrays Arya, told EW that it was “unbelievably exciting” to be the one to slay the show’s icy baddie, even if some people in her life believe the honor should’ve gone to, well, only a man.
“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,” Williams explained. “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?’” (For what it’s worth, the show’s creators said they have known it was going to be Arya for about three years.) We’re not saying Vulture should open a Raya account for Williams and instruct her to dump this dude, but we’re not not saying that, you know?
