Maisie Williams has revealed she feared fans would “hate†seeing her character defeat the Night King in Game of Thrones, with her boyfriend claiming it should have been Jon Snow who dealt the final blow.
Williams’ character Arya Stark stabbed the leader of the White Walkers in an epic battle between the living and the dead which saw a handful of characters perish.
Arya used Littlefinger’s Valyrian steel dagger – a material which can kill White Walkers – to make the stealth move in a tense encounter which nearly saw her killed first after the Night King grabbed her in a chokehold.
Williams said she was worried fans wouldn’t like the surprise kill, with her boyfriend claiming Snow (Kit Harington) should have been the one to save the Seven Kingdoms.
“It was so unbelievably exciting,†she told Entertainment Weekly. “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.
“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 got to make it cool. And then I told my boyfriend and he was like, ‘Mmm, should be Jon though really, shouldn’t it?’â€
She continued: “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.’â€
Williams’ fears were soon put to bed after fans hailed her the “true queen†and suggested she should be the one to sit on the Iron Throne.
Harington agreed, telling Entertainment Weekly “it gives Arya’s training a purpose to have an end goalâ€.
The Battle of Winterfell took 55 night shoots to complete in Northern Ireland, something Williams described as “physically drainingâ€.
Game of Thrones is on Sky Atlantic, tonight at 9pm. It is also available on NOW TV.