For Millennials. By Millennials.
HBO’s Game of Thrones was recently voted as the greatest TV show of the 21st Century. However, it’s final season is as controversial as humanly possible. Book fans are in disarray. Whereas show-watchers are divided about what to feel about season 8 of the show. Daenerys going crazy and the Night King’s death at the hands of Arya Stark still divides the fanbase. Now, Maisie Williams has revealed that it was indeed Jon Snow who was supposed to kill the Night King!
Despite the fight for the Iron Throne, it was the battle up North that mattered the most. Defeating the White Walkers and the Night King was the real conflict upon which the fate of Westeros relied. And since the very beginning of Game of Thrones, everyone was repping Jon Snow to kill the infamous Night King.
Jon Snow was Azor Ahai!
George R.R. Martin and the showrunners focused his entire character development around that idea. Starting off as the bastard son of Ned Stark, then becoming the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, he was one of the few people who understood the severity of the threat from up North.
Jon Snow was also a capable leader, as he had shown when he was the Lord Commander. And to top it off, he had the Valyrian Steel sword Longclaw. His Targaryen ancestry literally made him “The Song of Ice and Fire”. And he started off as a humble and ignored bastard son of the Warden of the North. In short, the stage was set for Jon to finally take on the Night King. But, that’s not what happened.
However, it was Arya Stark who ended up striking the final blow on the Night King. And understandably, that disappointed many fans. But, in a recent interview, Maisie Williams, the actress who played Arya, revealed that the showrunners had told Kit Harrington that Jon Snow was supposed to kill the Night King! She told The Hollywood Reporter:
“(Kit Harington) expected it to go (Jon Snow’s) way, too, and he even said, ‘It was going to go that way. Someone told me in season three that I was going to kill The Night King.’ And then, he read the script, and it was Arya the whole time. (Laughs.) Yeah, I think it would’ve been too obvious. I’m glad that it was Arya, honestly. I think I had the best storyline of the final season.”
And fans would have accepted this plot too, had the showrunners not destroyed Kit Harrington’s Jon Snow in the final two seasons.
How David Benioff & D.B. Weiss destroyed Snow
Ever since Game of Thrones went past George R.R. Martin’s books, Jon Snow became progressively worse. He had no role to play in the Battle of the Bastards, was no longer an effective leader, and eventually didn’t kill the Night King, which was pretty much his destiny. And fans were able to see how his character deteriorated for the worse. And though the showrunners did subvert expectations by letting Arya kill the Night King, it shouldn’t have come at the cost of Jon’s entire character development and purpose throughout the show.
Despite the bad writing, Kit Harrington still did a wonderful job portraying Jon Snow. And it saddens to see that the show brought Jon back to life only to kill off his very character and soul. What do you think? Would it have been better had Jon Snow killed the Night King? Let us know in the comments below.