Game of Thrones: Jon and Arya had the ultimate team up and you missed it
During the Battle of Winterfell, there was an ultimate team up that you missed. Did you see how Jon helped Arya in Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3?
Caution: There are spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve watched the Game of Thrones episode from Sunday multiple times, breaking down the events that happened and analyzing every decision made. In an episode that was (intentionally) difficult to see due to darkness, there were moments you would have missed.
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Most of these moments were throwbacks to the past seasons. Edd’s death was similar to Pip’s during “Watchers on the Wall,” while Arya dropping her dagger to her other hand was a callback to her sparring with Brienne. However, there’s a moment that wasn’t a callback and more about an excellent team up with Jon willing to make an ultimate sacrifice.
As the piano music played and the Night King killed Theon, we now know that Arya was sneaking up on the group of the dead. We didn’t know it at the time, but someone else did – and it wasn’t just Melisandre. Jon knew.
If you look and listen carefully, you can see the moment Jon offers himself up as a sacrifice. When he rushes behind a rock while Viserion blocks his way to get to the Godswood, he looks around. Suddenly, he decides to stand up and face the undead dragon. At first, it sounds like he’s screaming out in frustration but he’s actually shouting “Go!”
He saw Arya sneaking through. His sacrifice was to distract Viserion long enough to get Arya past him. The “Go! Go! Go!” was a call to Arya to head straight past and don’t look back.
While we all thought Jon had nothing to do with the Night King’s death, he actually had everything to do with it. As Bran has said to everyone, each person needed to be where they were. If Theon hadn’t had taken Winterfell, he wouldn’t have been through the journey that got him to protecting Bran. Had Arya not been at King’s Landing when Ned Stark was executed, she wouldn’t have been on the journey to become an assassin.
Had Jon not been at the rock in that moment in time, he wouldn’t have been able to help Arya sneak past the undead dragon. He didn’t care who killed the Night King, as long as the Night King was killed. That’s all that mattered in that moment in time and he was willing to die if it meant his cousin (or are we still calling her his half-sister?) was able to get to the Night King and kill him.
Arya would have known Jon’s intentions. She couldn’t fail. Not only would it have meant the living would forever be gone but it would have negated Jon’s willingness to sacrifice himself. No pressure!
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What did you think of “The Long Night?” Did you see Jon’s sacrifice to make sure the Night King died? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Game of Thrones continues on Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.