Game of Thrones season 8: Maisie Williams thought fans would hate Arya's Night King moment in episode 3
'I thought everybody would think she didn't deserve it'
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Maisie Williams has revealed she had reservations about the outcome of the Night King battle in the latest Game of Thrones episode.
The 22-year-old was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly after the broadcast of the latest instalment, which saw the death of several characters as the undead arrived at Winterfell.
*Major spoilers below – you have been warned*
It was Arya who ended up saving Westeros by defeating the Night King. Using the valyrian steel weapon given to her last season – and given a prophetic nudge by Melisandre – Arya ensured the universe lived to fight another day. Williams, though, was unsure whether fans would accept it was her character who got to kill the show’s most fearsome villain.
“It was so unbelievably exciting,” she said, adding: “But I immediately thought that everybody would hate it; that Arya doesn’t deserve it. The hardest thing is in any series is when you build up a villain that’s so impossible to defeat and then you defeat them.”
She continued: “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?’”
Williams said that she came around to the idea after being reminded of her conversation with Melisandre in season three – a moment that predicted Arya would be the one to kill the Night King all the way back in 2014.
“When we did the whole bit with Melisandre, I realised the whole scene with [the Red Woman] brings it back to everything I’ve been working for over these past six seasons — four if you think about it since [Arya] got to the House of Black and White. It all comes down to this one very moment. It’s also unexpected and that’s what this show does. So then I was like, ‘’F*** you Jon, I get it.’”
It's been a big few weeks for Williams. Last week, she revealed that she thought her character's first ever sex scene was a prank being played on her by showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss.
The intense trailer for next week’s episode sees everyone turn their attentions to the Iron Throne and the fate of Cersei Lannister.
The final season of Game of Thrones continues every Sunday.
Our extensive ranking of every character in the series – from worst to best – is below.
The show will be available on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in the UK.
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