Selasa, 30 April 2019

A post-action analysis of GoT's Battle of Winterfell—through a glass, darkly - Ars Technica

Halfway through the last season of Game of Thrones, we put together an after-action analysis of the major military engagements driving the plot of the series in the season's two central episodes—"The Queen's Justice," in which the forces allied against Queen Cersei got seriously pasted, and "The Spoils of War," in which Daenerys Targaryen, her dragons, and her Dothraki rapid response force swept down on the Lannister army's wagon train and turned it into a macabre cookout.

Now we're halfway through the final season of the series, and we're at a similar pivot point. The second episode of the season—"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms"—laid out the somewhat awful strategic position of the combined allied forces under the command of Daenerys Targaryen and her Warden of the North, lover and likely nephew Jon Snow. And in the most recent episode—"The Long Night"—that situation reached its climax and conclusion in what could set the record for the least number of photons registered in a film or video production of its length ever.

As we were writing this, we were beaten to the punch by one of our favorite military Twitterati and bloggers, Angry Staff Officer, a master of fictional tactical interpretation, in his excellent but perhaps slightly misguided analysis for our sister publication, Wired. It's definitely worth reading, and you should do so right after you read this—unless you have not seen the episode and are averse to spoilers. In that case, come back and read both once you're ready.

Situational awareness

At first (like the first two minutes), it seems we have a steady human set of hands at the wheel...
Enlarge / At first (like the first two minutes), it seems we have a steady human set of hands at the wheel...
HBO

Dany's Dothraki and Unsullied forces, Jon's army of the North, the remaining Night's Watch, the remnants of the Brotherhood Without Banners, and a sundry assortment of other good guys face a dire strategic situation to start. The Night King and his mega-army of risen dead people have them outnumbered; he can challenge their air superiority with his own undead dragon and proven anti-aircraft spear; and instead of getting reinforcements from the double-dealing Queen Cersei, they get a one-handed man famous for pushing a kid out a window and siring kids with his sister.

At their command post in Winterfell, the collected leaders looked at the bleak situation and laid out their battle strategy: hold out as best as possible while luring the Night King into a single combat situation using warg raven/drone operator and cryptic intelligence provider Bran Stark (that kid who got pushed out the window) as the bait. Then they mostly get drunk and wait for the onslaught, until forward scouts signal that the enemy is near. But other than toots on a horn, Dany's leadership has absolutely no battlefield situational awareness. It's like they don't have any sort of flying thing that could do reconnaissance or something.

While scouts have given a rough estimate of force composition and the order of battle is pretty well-known, there's pretty much no operational picture—and pretty much no television picture, either, as the director of photography chooses to present the first half of the episode mostly in various shades of black. As the battle approaches, flame priestess and general portent of doom Melisandre wanders up and provides some much needed lighting—giving the Dothraki cavalry some flaming swords to swing. Meanwhile, non-combatants are withdrawn to the super-safe crypt, surrounded by dead people who could be raised by the Night King. Nobody seems to think twice about this, not even Dany's supposedly savvy advisors Tyrion and spymaster Varys—but we've seen them fall flat on their faces before in the foresight department, so that's not a shocker.

Dany and Jon watch from a mountaintop vantage point, awaiting their cue to deliver air support. They can't see much of anything. But somebody eventually does, as the Dothraki charge the unseen White Walker line.

Leeroy Jenkins time

This will totally work.
Enlarge / This will totally work.

There has been a lot of criticism of the Dothraki cavalry charge. But we are here to say that the criticism should be focused on the lack of close air support. In "The Spoils of War," the Dothraki served as a "fixing force" to line the Lannisters up for mass destruction from the air. Here, the Dothraki are literally lighting the way to the enemy, and all they have is some artillery support in the form of catapulted flaming tarballs.

Had this illumination been used for, say, some timely dragon strafing by Dany while Jon flew combat air patrol above, the Dothraki sacrifice may have been considerably smaller. Instead, we just get to see their flaming swords extinguished by the advancing line of we don’t know what.

The primary failure of the Dothrakis' use as a shock force was that they ran into an enemy (literally) that could not be shocked. Hopefully there are enough of them left to play a role in the next engagement.

The Dothraki charge was just another example of how utterly unimaginative Dany's supporting staff have been in the face of new challenges. As the returning Dothraki retreat back to Winterfell, we get a good look at another major failure of imagination—the defensive works around the castle, which are, to be honest, embarrassing even from a medieval tactical perspective. While the defenses may have been rushed a bit, it's hard to believe nobody remembered that the enemy's main body was a relentless, berserker undead infantry. Winterfell's outer defensive works were:

  • A line of chevaux-de-frise—spiked anti-cavalry fortifications akin to tank traps
  • A trench filled with stuff that burns

That's it. There were no other engineering efforts made. There was no effort to use the moving mass of the Walkers against them, using stake walls or other defensive structures. There could have been concentric trenches. Nope. And the Unsullied and Dothraki and everyone else on the field before Winterfell had to retreat through the defenses, causing higher losses.

Sure, all of this would have taken time and resources. But even a little more effort could have bought more time. Unfortunately, this bit of tactical and strategic fail is often reflected in reality, where commanders go into battles thinking the enemy will just fight them by the rules they already know.

Combined arms… and legs

When in doubt, have a witch light a bunch of trenches on fire.
Enlarge / When in doubt, have a witch light a bunch of trenches on fire.

Command, control, and communication is essential on the battlefield. But the Night King essentially jammed Winterfell's C3 efforts by bringing on a literal fog of war—masking the battlefield with Winter itself. Davos Seaworth waves those flaming sticks to signal to Dany to dragon-flame the trenches alight, but she can't see anything through the low deck. Fortunately (?), Melisandre goes out and does her thing one more time, setting the trench alight.

And then everybody just stands there and watches each other. All the catapults are outside the walls and the trenches. All the archers sit on their hands as the Walkers pause at the wall of flame. Another opportunity to thin the (easily replenished) ranks of the dead.

Meanwhile, Dany and Jon get tangled up in an air-to-air engagement with the Night King, astride his zombie, blue-fire spitting dragon. The Night King has failed to master the use of air power: he could have ignored Jon and Dany and just leveled Winterfell's walls with airstrikes like he did to that Other Wall, but nah. He obviously has no understanding of air-to-air tactics and attempts an attack from below—only to end up entangled with one of his targets. Both the Night King and Jon end up un-dragoned, their reptilian aircraft left to their own devices.

But this is not an apparent problem for the Night King, who has psychic C3 over his minions—and is able to raise all the dead around him as reinforcements. Dany tries to toast the Night King with dragon fire, but it's super-ineffective.

The Night King directs his dead troops to breach the burning barrier in a style reminiscent of World War I trench warfare (or, as Angry Staff Officer put it, "Soviet style")—by throwing their bodies down as a bridge over the obstacle. Suddenly, the lines are not so static. The walls are breached World War Z style by the masses of White Walkers. As the battle rages inside the walls, the Night King strolls into Winterfell with his squad of frozen bros.

The plan… works?

Then, there is a lot of dying. Jon finds himself tied down by zombie dragon fire. Dany is defended to the death by Jorah Mormont after her dragon gets weighed down by White Walkers. Theon Greyjoy and a band of archers defend Bran at the bait-point to the end, before Theon is dispatched with his own spear by the Night King. It looks like this is the end… until Game of Thrones' ultimate special warfare operator, Arya Stark, arrives and dispatches the Night King with some really slick Valyrian steel dagger work. The King crumbles, and his minions all collapse. It's like a proton torpedo down the exhaust port. The end.

It's a win, at huge costs—one that considerably weakens Dany's fighting force for the coming battle with Cersei's mercenary reinforcements and fleet. But the win shows that the basic underlying strategy mapped out by the leadership was correct—even if the execution left much to be desired.

In the end, we believe that the Battle of Winterfell played out much as most military conflict does. Success in combat often hinges upon the determination, imagination and ability to adapt and overcome in the face of situations that soldiers haven't trained for. The enemy will not always conform to your tactical paradigm. And fortune favors the bold.

If you want the show's writers to justify the action of team human, HBO's latest behind the episode video does just that.

Listing image by HBO

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https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/a-post-action-analysis-of-gots-battle-of-winterfell-through-a-glass-darkly/

2019-04-30 16:05:00Z
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What You Didn't See When Arya Stark Saved the Day on GoT - E! NEWS

"F—king hell! Sorry guys!" That's what Maisie Williams said, more than once, while filming her big Game of Thrones battle.

"I think I probably hold the record for the most apologies on set," Williams said when discussing her long battle with White Walkers inside the Winterfell castle.

In the behind-the-scenes video below, Williams and the Game of Thrones crew detailed all the work that went into Arya's heroic day at Winterfell. Williams said she was told to start training a year before it happened.

"Maisie does almost all of this stuff on her own," co-creator David Benioff said about Williams' fight scenes. "She has an excellent stuntwoman for the dangerous stuff, but most of it is actually Maisie."

William's stunt double Kristina Baskett praised the actress. "Her coordination, and she's really quick, can make changes on the spot and it actually—she's really easy to work with," Baskett said over images of Williams training.

Arya's big episode culminated with the young woman taking down the big bad, the Night King.

"Just when you think that it's all over, and just when you think that Jon Snow is going to be the hero—again—we realize that Arya appears through the mist," Williams said.

In the video above Emilia Clarke, Daenerys Targaryen, gave her honest reaction to Arya's big kill and it must be watched, it's pointless to describe.

"In the read-through when Maisie was doing it, we are all just whooping and cheering," Clarke said.

Kit Harington joked he was pissed it wasn't Jon Snow who took out the big bad. "I would've given you, like—I'd have bet you thousands, before we read the finals, I was like, ‘Yeah, it's definitely me,'" Harington said.

Benioff said they've known for three years it was going to be Arya. "It just didn't seem right to us for this moment," he said about using Jon Snow as the hero.

For the show, director Miguel Sapochnik said, "Dan and David let me break all the Game of Thrones rules."

"The majority of it is shot 96 frames a second, it's all super-slow motion, it's all heightened reality, which is not what they usually do. It was a surreal nightmare," Sapochnik said.

To make the moment even more intense, Sapochnik said they kept cutting to "it's f—ked" shots of characters not going to make it to Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and the Night King.

In the video above, the cast and crew break down the wire right set up for Arya's big jump out of nowhere.

"Shooting that was tedious, but so great to be able to perform all these different beats within, maybe like, two seconds of footage," William said.

"It's exactly what you need…Out of the air she takes him down, it's so good. It's so good. It's perfect," Clarke said.

"Reading what I get to achieve and Arya's whole purpose in this world and everything she's trained for comes down to this one episode, it's just amazing. And it's beautiful, it's poetry," William said. "And I'm grateful it was me and not Kit."

Game of Thrones airs Sundays 9 p.m. on HBO.

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https://www.eonline.com/news/1036775/maisie-williams-reveals-what-you-didn-t-see-when-arya-stark-saved-the-day-on-game-of-thrones

2019-04-30 13:56:00Z
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‘Avengers: Endgame’ Manic Moola Monday: 3rd Best With $37M+; Russo Brothers Pic Flying Past $400M Today In Record Time - Deadline

Early morning estimates show that Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame clocked $37.6M, which makes it the third best Monday ever as we were expecting last night. Disney will file their official number later this morning.

Endgame ranks behind Black Panther‘s all-time record of $40.15M (which was Presidents Day) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ ($40.1M) first Monday. Endgame‘s Monday was -58% from Sunday.

Yesterday also repped the best Monday that April ever posted, exceeding Avengers: Infinity War‘s $24.7M Monday by 52%. This brings the domestic total for the Russo Brothers directed sequel to $394.7M. Endgame will fly past $400M today, becoming the fastest movie to do so in five days, beating Force Awakens’ eight-day pace to that milestone.

Currently, Force Awakens’ first Tuesday holds that day’s all-time high with $37.3M. Last year Infinity War‘s first Tuesday grossed $23.4M, -5% from Monday.

Industry estimates expect Avengers: Endgame to clock over $180M in its second weekend, maybe even more, on its way to the best second weekend of all-time for a pic, a record currently owned by Force Awakens ($149.2M). Consider the fact that Force Awakens made that money during the Christmas weekend of Dec. 25-27, when many were off on their holiday breaks. Endgame is doing this monster biz on a non-holiday weekend, which is an ecstatic delight for exhibition and again speaks to the continued power of theatrical, as well as the movie and its gravitational pull not just on fanboys, but non-moviegoers as well. Even if Endgame falls below $180M, it’s still a winner. Avengers: Infinity War eased -56% in its second weekend for a $114.8M take.

After Endgame owned 89% of last weekend’s business, with ten of the 11 titles doing single digit business, do any of the wide entries even have a shot at making money? Those include STXfilms’ long-in-the-making animated feature UglyDolls, based on the toyline, Screen Gems’ Deon Taylor-directed thriller The Intruder, and Lionsgate’s Charlize Theron-Seth Rogen screwball comedy Long Shot. It will be interesting to see if their tracking goes out of the window even though they’re counter-programming. Right now we hear UglyDolls is at $14M, Intruder at $14M and Long Shot possibly $10M.

No. 2 yesterday by stretch? Disney’s Captain Marvel with $718K, -67% from Sunday for a running $414.55M stateside total.

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https://deadline.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame-monday-box-office-400-million-milestone-1202604508/

2019-04-30 13:13:00Z
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Woodstock 50 not canceled, organizer insists: 'It's going to be a blast' - syracuse.com

Is Woodstock 50 canceled? The 2019 festival’s principal investor said the three-day event in Watkins Glen, N.Y., has been called off and the county is set to “move on,” but Woodstock co-founder and 50th anniversary organizer Michael Lang insists the show will go on.

“We are committed to ensuring that the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock is marked with a festival deserving of its iconic name and place in American history and culture," Lang said in a statement via Woodstock Ventures. "Although our financial partner is withdrawing, we will of course be continuing with the planning of the festival and intend to bring on new partners. We would like to acknowledge the State of New York and Schuyler County for all of their hard work and support.

"The bottom line is, there is going to be a Woodstock 50th Anniversary Festival, as there must be, and it’s going to be a blast.”

Woodstock 50 was scheduled for Aug. 16-18 at Watkins Glen International raceway with a lineup that included Jay-Z, Santana, Miley Cyrus, The Killers, Chance the Rapper, John Fogerty, Janelle Monae, Dead & Company, Imagine Dragons, and Halsey. Financial backing company Dentsu Aegis Network announced Monday that the three-day 50th anniversary event had been canceled.

“...Despite our tremendous investment of time, effort and commitment, we don’t believe the production of the festival can be executed as an event worthy of the Woodstock Brand name while also ensuring the health and safety of the artists, partners and attendees,” Dentsu reps said in a statement.

But Lang told The New York Times on Monday afternoon that "They (Dentsu) do not have the right to unilaterally cancel the festival.” Lang said all the acts have already been paid in full and plans to continue with another investor.

Billboard reports more than $30 million has already been spent on the festival lineup. Last week, a representative reportedly reached out to Live Nation and AEG for a $20 million investment to save the event, but both concert booking agencies declined. It’s unclear what other investors Lang might seek.

Woodstock Music Festival co-producer Micael Lang attends a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock at the at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC on August 13, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Getty Images

Woodstock Music Festival co-producer Micael Lang attends a celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock at the at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC on August 13, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

While the future of Woodstock’s 50th anniversary festival is uncertain, no refunds are required as tickets still hadn’t gone on sale (though some hotels and B&Bs in the area had already been booked). Cancellation rumors first emerged earlier this month when the ticket on-sale date was pushed back due to a late submission for a mass gathering permit.

Further concerns were raised when Lang said tickets would be $450 for three-day passes and reduced the expected attendance from 100,000 to 75,000. One headliner, The Black Keys, even dropped out due to an unspecified “scheduling conflict."

Still, the New York State Department of Health said it was “surprised” by the cancellation announcement, just 109 days before Woodstock 50 was scheduled to take place. A rep for the DOH told syracuse.com Monday that the cancellation was not related to the state permit application pending for the event.

Schuyler County Administrator Tim O’Hearn confirmed Monday that Woodstock 50 had been cancelled. Watkins Glen is located in Schuyler County, about 80 miles southwest of Syracuse and 150 miles northwest of the original Woodstock site in Bethel, N.Y.

“We have been in contact with the Chamber of Commerce, who has been trying to salvage something from the fallout of this decision,” O’Hearn said Monday, according to Spectrum News. “This was an opportunity for us to showcase our great natural environment... We will lick our wounds and move on.”

But if you’re not ready to move on, you can hold out hope for Lang to pull a rabbit out of his hat. The original Woodstock Music and Art Fair lost its venue in Wallkill, N.Y., in July 1969, but Lang reached an agreement days later at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, near White Lake.

More than 400,000 people attended the first Woodstock festival, held Aug. 15-18, 1969, at Yasgur’s farm in the Catskill Mountains. Performers included Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Arlo Guthrie, Santana, Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

The iconic concert was revisited in 1994 with a modern lineup of artists like Nine Inch Nails, Sheryl Crow, Metallica, Cypress Hill and Red Hot Chili Peppers in Saugerties, but Woodstock ’99 -- held at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y. -- was marred by riots, fires and allegations of sexual assault. Lang helped organize both anniversary events.

In the meantime, the original Woodstock site is still scheduled to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Bethel, N.Y. The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts scrapped plans for a weekend-long festival, but will have four days of events: A free concert by Arlo Guthrie and a screening of the “Woodstock” documentary on the field Thursday, Aug. 15; Ringo Starr, Guthrie, and The Edgar Winter Band on the pavilion stage Friday, Aug. 16; Santana with the Doobie Brothers on Saturday, Aug. 17; and John Fogerty on Sunday, Aug. 18. Guthrie, Winter, Santana and Fogerty all performed at the original Woodstock festival.

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https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/2019/04/woodstock-50-not-canceled-organizer-insists-its-going-to-be-a-blast.html

2019-04-30 11:13:00Z
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'Game of Thrones': The meaning behind Arya's Valyrian dagger, explained - Mashable

Bran was all like "just in case in comes in handy!"
Bran was all like "just in case in comes in handy!"
Image: hbo

As unexpected as the big twist that ended Game of Thrones' "Long Night" was, the set up for Arya's Great War-ending dagger move traces all the way back to Season 1.

Digging into the Valyrian dagger's history on the show only adds layer upon layer of thematic meaning to Arya's clutch moment of  glory. And it also might even foreshadow Arya's next target: Cersei Lannister.

Image: hbo

In the Inside the Episode, David Benioff said they've known for about three years that Arya would be the one to deliver the final blow to the Night King. And its clear now they planted a lot of seeds during that time.

The Catspaw Dagger (as fans came to call it) was first introduced in Episode 2, Season 1 during the assassination attempt on a comatose Bran after his near-fatal fall from the tower. Luckily, both Summer and Catelyn were still around back then to save the future Three-Eyed Raven from getting Night Kinged. But it's one of Game of Thrones classic, full circle callbacks to have the weapon that almost killed Bran return several seasons later only to save him — and the entire world.

It's the perfect way to honor Catelyn, too, who would be so proud to know her daughter took up the the mantle of protecting the Stark kids from all threats, no matter the cost.

Later in Season 1, the dagger went on to become the key piece of evidence Catelyn used to accuse and arrest Tyrion for the attempt on Bran's life. That's because Littlefinger told her that the rare dagger was his once, before he lost it in a bet to the imp. We don't know if Littlefinger was lying there, since at the time he'd been scheming to stir up trouble war between the Lannisters and Starks. But we do know that Tyrion was not behind it (the assassination attempt was actually probably Joffrey's doing.)

Catelyn lives on in Arya now

Catelyn lives on in Arya now

Image: hbo

What matter most, though, is that the dagger that launched the first major war on the show — the Starks versus Lannister conflict that lead to the War of the Five Kings — was then eventually used to end the Great War.

But it goes even deeper than that. When next we saw the dagger, Littlefinger was giving it back to Bran in Season 7 while trying to ingratiate himself to the Stark kids who were suspicious of him. 

The dagger that launched the first major war on the show... was then eventually used to end the Great War.

"In a way that dagger made you what you are today," Littlefinger told Bran. "Forced from your home. Driven out to the wilds Beyond the Wall... To go through all that and return home only to find such chaos in the world, I can only imagine—"

"Chaos is a ladder," Bran said, cutting him off with a callback to the reasoning Littlefinger gave Sansa for his plots to destabilize Westerosi politics. Indeed, it seems as though Bran used the chaos of the Battle at Winterfell (like Theon charging the Night King) as a distraction to give Arya the ladder she needed to pull off her wild sneak attack.

Weirdly, Littlefinger turned out to be right, though: This dagger did cause a domino effect that lead Bran to become the Three-Eyed Raven, just like his fall from the tower. And that's also true for Arya. The dagger played a large role in making the War of the Five Kings happen, which lead to the Red Wedding. And the Red Wedding is what motivated Arya to go down the path to becoming an unstoppable assassin who could kill the Night King.

Brienne helped prepare Arya for the most important moment of her life

Brienne helped prepare Arya for the most important moment of her life

Image: hbo

Later in Season 7, Bran pointedly gives the dagger to Arya with a suspicious lack of explanation. Now we know it's because he saw what she'd do with it. And we also know why the show took the time to have Arya duel Brienne, when she wins by pulling out the dagger with her left hand in exactly the same way she did with the Night King in Season 8. 

That's even more impressive when you consider that, despite being right-handed in real life, Maisie Williams made a point to depict Arya as left-handed. And looking back, we can assume that she probably committed to this small detail so that there was precedent for the left-handed trick shot that saves the world.

But the foreshadowing to Arya's sneak attack carried over into Season 8, too. And not just because of the prophecy Melisandre reminds Arya of earlier in Episode 3

When Jon and Arya reunited in the Godswood in Episode 1, he's surprised by her sudden appearance. "How'd you sneak up on me?" he asks her. Well, she'll sneak up on a different King of Winter in the exact same spot two episodes later.

Arya's masterclass sneaking saved the entire world

Arya's masterclass sneaking saved the entire world

Image: hbo

This all goes to show that on Game of Thrones, hindsight is always 20/20. Someone could have pieced all the hints together to predict this unpredictable twist, but the the foreshadowing only really becomes clear after the fact. And the exchange between Bran and Arya when he gives her the dagger in Season 7 might've foreshadowed yet another twist that flew over our heads at the time.

"I saw you at the crossroads... I thought you'd go to King's Landing," Bran tells Ayra after their reunion.

"So did I," she says. And when Sansa asks why Arya would go there, Bran explains, "Cersei's on her list of names."

At this point, we should take all of Bran's inexplicable actions, reactions, and creepy stares as hints at what's to come. So now we can't help but read this exchange as foreshadowing that Arya will go to King's Landing in the three remaining episodes to finally strike Cersei off her list. 

Because at the time, Bran said that his visions were all a jumbled, fragmented mess. He seems to have gotten a better grasp on them in Season 8. But back then it's entirely possible he confused a vision of Arya killing Cersei in King's Landing in Season 8 with her Season 7 choice to go to Winterfell instead of King's Landing first.

Arya and her daggar can wipe that smirk right off Cersei's face

Arya and her daggar can wipe that smirk right off Cersei's face

Image: hbo

What's true is that — like the poetic justice of Littlefinger getting executed by Arya with the very weapon he tried to use to manipulate Bran — the Catspaw Dagger has become a symbol of Arya as the avenging angel of death for House Starks. Since its reintroduction in Season 7, she's now slain two of her family's most major enemies with it. 

And as we saw in the previews for the upcoming Episode 4, the show is not only going back to King's Landing but also seemingly returning to the Stark versus Lannister feud that started everything. It's also notable that in Melisandre's prophecy, she says that Arya will shut many eyes forever, "brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes." Walder Frey had brown eyes. The Night King had blue. And Cersei has green eyes.

Arya killing Cersei with the dagger might ruin the popular theory of Jaime as the valonqar. But don't forget that Arya can wear anyone's face, including Cersei's "little brother" Tyrion or Jaime.

Ultimately, though, Arya doesn't need to kill Cersei in order to complete the character arc that her list of names represents. Because to cope with the deaths in her family, Arya clung onto that list like her life depended on it. But after staring into the many faces of death with the Faceless Men and coming back home, she has chosen life, love, and family instead of revenge again and again.

The last enemy was death. And Arya conquered death without even needing her list.

Uploads%252fvideo uploaders%252fdistribution thumb%252fimage%252f91267%252f9c089d7c ad04 4468 bd2d 43fc719f40c4.jpg%252foriginal.jpg?signature=gou 6ul3yxzzi07ufczln4feogq=&source=https%3a%2f%2fblueprint api production.s3.amazonaws

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https://mashable.com/article/game-of-thrones-arya-valyrian-dagger-night-king-explained/

2019-04-30 10:38:00Z
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Night King actor "Game of Thrones": This is what the actor who played the Night King on "Game of Thrones" looks like in real life - CBS News

Inside "Game of Thrones"

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

While many characters were killed during Sunday's episode of "Game of Thrones," the demise of the Night King at the hand of Arya Stark, and the disintegration of his army of wights and White Walkers, were likely the only ones met with thunderous cheers from fans. While the Night King may be dead after the Battle of Winterfell, the actor who played him is still very much alive.

The Night King has been played by 48-year-old actor and stunt man Vladimír Furdík since season six of the show, taking over for actor Richard Brakereports Entertainment Weekly (EW). The Slovakian performer may have blue eyes, but the rest of his look is all prosthetics, makeup and television magic

The actor regularly posts photos and videos of himself, his fellow actors and his everyday life on Instagram, revealing the man beneath the mask. 

He even posts behind-the-scenes images and videos from the show. He shared an image in March that showed the process of becoming the Night King, with his neck fully covered in prosthetics and his face in makeup. 

The actor said he was a part of the hit drama before he got the Night King role but made a star turn after his performance as the White Walker who battled -- and was killed by -- Jon Snow in season five's "Hardhome." Afterward, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss asked if he would take over the role of the Night king for seasons six through eight, he told EW in March. "I never asked why," Furdík said. "Maybe they were happy with what I did in season five."

He also explained what his character wanted to get out of all of the destruction and death. "He never wanted to be the Night King,"said Furdík."I think he wants revenge. Everybody in this story has two sides — a bad side and a good side. The Night King only has one side, a bad side."

In addition to "Game of Thrones," Furdík has worked on stunts for a number of high profile projects including "Thor: The Dark World," the James Bond film "Skyfall" and as Channing Tatum's stunt double in "The Eagle," according to his IMDb page.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/night-king-actor-game-of-thrones-this-is-what-the-actor-who-played-the-night-king-on-game-of-thrones-looks-like-in-real-life/

2019-04-30 09:27:00Z
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Maisie Williams responds to THAT huge 'Game of Thrones' moment with the perfect Instagram video - Mashable

Go, Arya, GO!
Go, Arya, GO!
Image: hbo

Warning: Contains ice-shattering spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 3.

All men must die.

We know this. But we also know that it's possible — if you're well equipped with some ninja fighting skills and a pointy dagger — to delay the inevitable for a little bit.

Following Arya Stark's triumphant, world-saving act of heroism in episode three, Maisie Williams shared her reaction on Instagram.

It came in the form of a video of her co-star and BFF Sophie Turner singing "Crank That" by Soulja Boy, coupled with a photo of the Night King himself (swipe right).

"How am feeling after that episode," wrote Williams. "Not today bby."

Legend.

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https://mashable.com/article/maisie-williams-season-8-episode-3-instagram-reaction/

2019-04-30 09:19:00Z
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