Though a great deal went wrong with Game of Thrones’ final season, one of its worst mistakes was killing its best villain three episodes before the series finale. Seven years later, it still beggars belief that Game of Thrones ended the way it did. While the show’s last, oddly compressed season included its fair share of “epic moments,” many of those moments didn’t make sense within the context of the larger story.
Shock value should never replace thoughtful storytelling. While Game of Thrones had, in previous seasons — notably, those still based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire source material — used unpredictable, often brutal twists to great effect, the show’s final season failed to deliver those same kinds of purposeful surprises. Most egregiously, the low-lit violence of season 8’s third episode, “The Long Night,” ended swiftly with a killing blow from an unlikely source, decimating Westeros’ biggest threat and the audience’s hopes for a solid series finale in one fell swoop.
Arya Stark being the one to kill the Night King was undoubtedly a surprising move, even though revisiting previous episodes did reveal a few very easily missed and not entirely believable hints of foreshadowing. This isn’t an argument about who should have killed the Night King, however (Jon Snow, probably? Daenerys Targaryen, maybe?). That wasn’t necessarily the episode’s biggest issue. The episode’s biggest issue was actually its placement within the season.
The Night King Should Have Died In Game Of Thrones’ Series Finale, Not 3 Episodes Earlier
Let’s set the scene: Winterfell. Terrible lighting. Little hope for survival. The wheel of power is of no consequence. Jon Snow’s entire life has led to this moment. All that matters is preventing the great and terrible Night King from bringing permanent winter to Westeros. Game of Thrones’ biggest existential threat has waited thousands of years for this opportunity; he has the power of death and resurrection and an ice dragon on his side. Sounds like the perfect recipe for an unforgettable series finale, doesn’t it?
Instead, the most important battle Westeros, even the world, had ever seen, was shoved unceremoniously smack-dab in the middle of Game of Thrones’ shortened, final, six-episode season. Not only should the battle have lasted longer than half of one episode — the previous Long Night that inspired the episode’s title was believed to have lasted for an entire generation — but it should also have been the show’s last battle, one that proved why Jon had been so singularly focused on the threat beyond the Wall for Game of Thrones’ entire run.
Using the Night King’s defeat as a midpoint in the final season made it feel like an easily forgotten footnote, as the show quickly returned to the familiar, well-worn political power struggles between King’s Landing, the North, and the Targaryen dynasty. With the fairy-tale threat dealt with, the struggle for the Iron Throne continued, though that didn’t provide a satisfying result for the story or the viewer, either. Bran? Really?
“The Long Night’s” placement in the season didn’t just make the final season feel disjointed, like two halves of a different story. The Battle of Winterfell also gave Game of Thrones’ now infamous showrunner duo a flimsy excuse to turn Daenerys Targaryen into a Mad Queen, the story spiraling even further out of control when she burned down an entire city for no good reason. The show still needed a villain, after all, and while Cersei Lannister was certainly up to the task, having her set innocent people on fire wouldn’t have been nearly as shocking.
Most of the final season’s issues can be traced back to the decision to kill the Night King and his entire army in the third episode of season 8; this is reflected in the latter half’s dismal IMDb scores, too. While episode 3 scored a respectable 7.5/10 (still a long way away from “The Battle of the Bastards'” 9.9), episodes 4, 5, and 6 never scored higher than a 5.9, with the finale scoring the lowest at 4.0. Everything was going quite well before the Night King’s untimely demise.
Game Of Thrones Completely Mishandled Its Night King Story
The issues with Game of Thrones’ Night King story didn’t start in the final season, however. They started long before. From the show’s very first scene, way back in 2011, the White Walkers were presented as the shadowy threat beyond the wall, a threat that steadily expanded its presence and its power across Game of Thrones’ 8-season run. The dead were the real danger in Westeros, not the living, giving Game of Thrones the fantasy element (alongside Dany’s dragons, of course) that helped the show gain its monumental cultural footprint.
The way the series handled the White Walkers’ presence, however, and more importantly, how it killed them, almost made it seem as though the showrunners and writers were ashamed of Westeros’ magical history. Season 8’s rapid tonal change after the Night King’s death proves this. Yes, the battle of wills for the Iron Throne was a crucial part of the story, but those petty struggles paled in comparison to what awaited Westeros should the Night King have prevailed.
Without the Walkers, Game of Thrones would be a historical drama; they’re crucial to the story’s entire setup. Dozens of mysteries surrounding the Night King and his Walkers were never answered on Game of Thrones. What was the King’s connection to Jon Snow? What made him want to decimate Westeros? What actually happened to Dany’s dragon Viserion when it was resurrected? None of the show’s magical mysteries, not even the true purpose of Bran’s powers or the world’s numerous prophecies, were ever satisfactorily resolved.
Filming a cool battle sequence with a few dragons tearing each other apart and hundreds of zombies running rampant across a wintry battlefield is all well and good. Treating it as a forced interlude rather than the main attraction, however, cheapened the story’s fantasy elements and the show overall. Why create the Night King as a character for the show at all, if he was destined to become irrelevant?
How The Night King Should Have Been Killed In Game Of Thrones
Game of Thrones began with the threat of the White Walkers, and it should have ended with it. That’s not to say the Night King should have ultimately won the war, or that the Houses of Westeros should have suddenly laid down their arms and joined hands in the wake of the Long Night. However, there was plenty more the show could have done with the Night King’s death to enrich the story and its themes.
For example, it would have been interesting if the Long Night had actually affected more than just Winterfell; what if the Night King and his army had won the first battle in episode 3, only to be felled when they later marched on King’s Landing? This would have shown the true darkness and power of the White Walkers and created more suspense overall. Anything could happen in Game of Thrones. What if the possibility of them winning was actually carried throughout the full final season, rather than just half of it?
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In that scenario, during a desperate final stand, Daenerys could still have had her “villain” moment, burning innocents in an attempt to curtail the Night King’s resurrected and ever-growing army, and Cersei could have faced the supernatural punishment her character arguably deserved. Perhaps more importantly, Jon could have had more of a hand in directly killing the Night King, therefore at least partially fulfilling the Azor Ahai prophecy. Arya’s unique skills could still have come in handy in this hypothetical version of events, too.
It’s interesting that the Others, the version of the White Walkers present in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books, don’t have an established leader like the Night King. They’re simply a stunning, supernatural force of nature. The Night King was created specifically for the show to give the characters and the audience a more tangible target. The Night King’s existence brought more visual focus to that storyline, but it also made the Walkers a less enduring threat.
Whether Arya or someone else ultimately killed the Night King, his death and the immediate disintegration of his army afterward made their power feel shallow. It might have been interesting to see the thousands of existing Walkers, including Viserion, survive the Night King’s demise instead. He wouldn’t have been around to create any new zombies, but the lingering tension would have made for a more satisfying final battle in Game of Thrones‘ divisive last season.
- Release Date
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2011 – 2019-00-00
- Showrunner
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David Benioff, D.B. Weiss
- Directors
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David Nutter, Alan Taylor, D.B. Weiss, David Benioff
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
