Warning: Contains Spoilers
After years of empty catchphrases, this week, winter finally came. As did the ice man. As did Arya.
The prophecy finally came too, the ice man cometh! He cometh and he died-eth. While Jon Snow was pissing about playing hide and seek with a dragon, his little sister Arya was busy actually getting the job done.
It’s a good thing Jon has plot armour, otherwise that blue fire would’ve done him in.
It should go without saying, but there are major spoilers from here on in…
In the hours since The Long Night, we have naturally been treated to countless fan theories about what will happen next, why certain things happened the way they did, and how everything that’s gone before has been building to that climactic death.
One question that’s been plaguing a few fans ever since we saw the Night King shatter into a thousand ice cubes is – how did Arya do it? How did she run past countless wights and the Night King’s White Walker hombres and just jump straight at the head honcho without anyone noticing until the very last second?
I’m going to put it out there – she managed to do it because she’s been training for it since season one. ‘Stick them with the pointy end’ is basically the show’s motto, and Arya knows that better than anyone else.
Still, some fans are wondering if Arya had another trick up her sleeve.
As we know from previous seasons, the young Stark has the useful ability to wear other people’s faces so she can carry out her assassinations with ruthless efficiency.
So the question is – did she employ this technique to get closer to the Night King? Fans are wondering whether she wore the face of a White Walker to carry out her task, especially as one of them does a little double take just before the young Stark leaps at the Night King.
This is Game of Thrones, so it’s not impossible that this could’ve happened.
But it probably didn’t. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, when White Walkers die they shatter into a thousand pieces, so it’s unlikely Arya could’ve got a WW face in the first place. She could’ve fashioned one I suppose, but they would’ve sussed out the addition to their WW crew pretty quickly if she had.
Also, wasn’t there a whole scene in the library where the wights obeyed the library rules and hunted Arya in silence, while she displayed her amazing agility and ability to go undetected around the undead?
It’s an interesting one. And though it’s always been a useful tool for Arya to be able to wear other people’s faces, I’m not convinced it’s the case here. Happy to be proved wrong in later episodes though!
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.