The scenes of Arya in E3

[Kajjo]

FIGHTING WITH HER NEW WEAPON

Interesting scenes, nicely done, but quite short. I don't really understand all these interviews about "creating such a special weapon" by the weapons' artist when in fact she is fighting with a stave with dragon glass points. Many people fight with dragon glass spears, daggers, arrow heads. And yes, her stave can be disassembled into a sort of dagger for close combat. Nice weapon, interesting fighting scenes, but all this build-up in E1 and E2 for this stave was a little bit over the top, wasn't it?

On the other hand, they used the scenes double: Building up to her affair with Gendry and for creating the special weapon. So after all it's fine for me.

THE WALKING DEAD

The library scene with Arya silently creeping around the shelves reminded me very much of "The Walking Dead". Do you feel so, too? The sounds the wights make when she throws the book are exactly like Walking Dead, different than in the prior Northern scenes. Also this "not detecting silent Arya" was creepy, because it was different than before and more like The Walking Dead mechanics, wasn't it? It reminded me so strongly of that. What do you think about this issue?

MELISANDRE

I liked the reference to "brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you shall kill." from S3E6 repeated in similar form and showing Arya she is supposed to kill the Night King. This prophecy re-encourages her to do the deed. 

I like that even Arya has come to a point of exhaustion, of being close to defeated, of needing some encouragement. I also like that she show empathy and dolefulness about Beric Dondarrion dying. 

KILLING THE NIGHTKING

The scene was well done. No spectacular fighting scene like Oberyn, but quite a lot more believable simply sticking him with the important Valyrian dagger. For me this fulfilled all expectations and all the foreshadowing.

+ Valyrian dagger to kill the "boss enemy" / This is what we thought quite a long time now. It is a nice "closing the circle" to S1.

+ Killing by dropping the dagger from left hand to right hand references the sparring scene with Brienne and many of us thought this as foreshadowing of one of her important kills to come. So it did. I like it.

+ The Night King just being a "common White Walker" who can be killed with Valyrian steel is fine for me. We have been showed that WW die by Valyrian steel and so it did. Nice foreshadowing and no unwanted surprises here. I liked that he was immune to dragon fire, even if it is somehow weird, but that death would have been too simple.

After all, I like it very much that Aray killed the Night King. What an arc from sweet tomboy to saving the world. Our top heroine.

SILENT SCENE WITH BRAN

I am not a fan of Bran (neither the storyline nor the actor) and again this felt ambivalent. I liked the silence, the two exchanging glances, understanding each other by eye contact. But I don't like that Bran does not at all exhibit signs of being relieved or happy or thankful or a bit of emotional. The Bloodraven showed emotions and facial expressions. Why not Bran? This could have been the moment for Arya and Bran to have some sort of emotional together. 

What do you think?

[Kajjo]

Does the library scene remind you, too, of "The Walking Dead". The wights behave untypically and sounded untypically.

[Greenmonsterff]

I think, or hope, that many of our questions are not just left unanswered in the next three episodes. What was Bran up to during the battle? Why don’t they speak? What was that look and head tilt form the Night King about? Who is the prince that was promised? I know there are plenty more. But, I think the writers will have the characters discuss these things. There are still four hours left of storytelling. It won’t take that long for the Cleganebowl and the Valonquor. 

[Stark_in_Winterfell]

I don't watch the walking dead so I am unable to compare. Zombies are everywhere it seems. I thought she was going to set the Winterfell library on fire to kill the wights and was actually relived that the books didn't have to be burned.

 

I am still stunned that Arya is the one to kill the NK. I love it but now have to review all the clues.

[Red Dragon10]

Yes I absolutely felt the library scene was super TWD-ish.  But I think GoT borrows from a lot of things (LotR for one) quite frequently, so it didn't surprise me. 

[Wagshell]

I may be wrong, but I believe the singular is"staff" and the plural is "staves", so I don't think you can have a stave.

Arya uses a staff.

Gandalf and Arya use staves.

English is a mixed up mess of a language though, so "a stave" may be an acceptable variant.

[SansaJonRule]

7 hours ago, Wagshell said:

I may be wrong, but I believe the singular is"staff" and the plural is "staves", so I don't think you can have a stave.

Why does it matter here? We all know what he meant.

I think it was an awesome weapon and I loved to watch her wield it! One end was a spear end for stabbing, but the other was more like a knife, for slicing. It one piece it can also serve as a quarterstaff, and in two pieces she can use it for close up combat. I think it was the perfect weapon for her, as the length makes up for her short reach, but she is able to be very quick and nimble with it, a couple of her best skills.

I don't like zombie anything, but I was focused on the way Arya moved soundlessly.

I loved Melisandre's comment about blue eyes. I wondered about that the first time I watched but it didn't totally sink in until after Arya killed the NK. I knew Arya wouldn't die when Mel asked her what do we say to the god of death?. Great foreshadowing, I thought.

And when was the last time we saw Arya scared? It made her feel much more human again.

7 hours ago, Greenmonsterff said:

I think, or hope, that many of our questions are not just left unanswered in the next three episodes.

Well, Bran's still alive so I'm hoping so. Unless he dies from injuries he sustained, Sam is still alive too. He is going to be a maester. Perhaps he will write the story of the Battle of the Long Night, and we'll learn the answers to our questions as he tells them to Sam. I doubt it will go down that way, but I think it would be great because Sam will no longer be just reading about the deeds of greater men. That will be one of his great deeds.

Oh, and the way she killed the NK? Epic! I loved it! My heart almost stopped when she dropped the dagger and then I realized she dropped it on purpose.

[Nerevanin]

I liked Arya's fighting scenes, that was bad ass. Killing the NK was quite good too because there weren't any extra gimmicks, she just stabbed him (thanks for the valyrian steel dagger, Littlefinger! Who would think that the NK would be defeated partly thanks to LF?). I'm not sure out of where she jumped out. Was she behind the tree, or in the branches of the tree, or where?

I really have to rewatch this episode because I was confused as hell by the library scene. A minute ago she was mass killing wights in the courtyard and suddenly she was more or less hiding in a library. Why? Why was she hiding from the wights and didn't kill them? Did she lose her staff along the way? And then she sneaked away but she closed the door to get the wights' attention. Idk, this whole part was kinda wierd imo.

But I liked that it seemed that Arya finally realizes again that she isn't really a Faceless ninja and that she is afraid of death, so she goes a bit to humanity again.

[Kimbono]

13 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

I really have to rewatch this episode because I was confused as hell by the library scene. A minute ago she was mass killing wights in the courtyard and suddenly she was more or less hiding in a library. Why? Why was she hiding from the wights and didn't kill them? Did she lose her staff along the way? And then she sneaked away but she closed the door to get the wights' attention. Idk, this whole part was kinda wierd imo.

In the "Inside the Epsiode" they called about how having them fight for 1 hour straight would fast become "boring" / exhausting. So having a scene in the library was primarily to have a change in speed in the Episode I guess.

On the other Hand one could say that the Wights are just "stupid" Zombies who act like "every other" Zombie acts unless the Nightking commands them otherwise:
1. We see the Nightking giving his "Hangsignal" down to his army before they start piling up on the fire to make a bridge, showing us that they don't think on their own.

2. The library scene , we see them walking around killing everything that "lives", probably the manta of the NK. Important here is that Arya makes literally no Sound. Not even her Cape when it rushes over the floor. Showing her "Assasins-Skill" and the Skill to move silent as a shadow.

3. NK with bran, we see the Wights not walking around or running onto the living Theon/Bran, so we can assume they have a order from the NK not to move. (Since we see in 2. how they act when they are not ordered). Therefore Arya "only" has to outsmart the Nightking and maybe the other White Walker.

[paulh_85]

dont really understand the whole foreshadowing about the "brown eyes green eyes blue eyes" thing. the writers hadnt at that time decided she would kill the NK so any "foreshadowing" is purely a coincidence

[Kajjo]

12 hours ago, Wagshell said:

I may be wrong, but I believe the singular is"staff" and the plural is "staves", so I don't think you can have a stave.

I am a non-native so I am thankful for every language hint. However, this issue is just a British-American thing. In British English it is "one stave, two staves", both pronounced with [eɪ] sound like in "say". In American English it is usually "one staff, two staves". See here Collins Dictionary. I learned English in London, so I mostly use British variants, but not purely so.  But I accept that "staff" appears to be the more popular singular nowadays, maybe even in contemporary British English. Native British speakers are welcome to comment on this. Staff in the sense of "stick used as weapon", not as "group of employees".

5 hours ago, SansaJonRule said:

And when was the last time we saw Arya scared? It made her feel much more human again.

Yes, I fully agree. Very nice scenes. The fight brought Arya to her boundaries and Mel re-encouraged her.

[Wagshell]

34 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

I am a non-native so I am thankful for every language hint. However, this issue is just a British-American thing. In British English it is "one stave, two staves", both pronounced with [eɪ] sound like in "say". In American English it is usually "one staff, two staves". See here Collins Dictionary. I learned English in London, so I mostly use British variants, but not purely so.  But I accept that "staff" appears to be the more popular singular nowadays, maybe even in contemporary British English. Native British speakers are welcome to comment on this. Staff in the sense of "stick used as weapon", not as "group of employees".

Yes, I fully agree. Very nice scenes. The fight brought Arya to her boundaries and Mel re-encouraged her.

I am actually British and an English teacher, haha. I guess that's why I was interested in the language, but also aware that rules on acceptable versions can be wide. 

[Kajjo]

8 minutes ago, Wagshell said:

I am actually British and an English teacher, haha. I guess that's why I was interested in the language, but also aware that rules on acceptable versions can be wide. 

So more clearly you say that Collins dictionary should mark "stave" as outdated? You say British people use predominantly "staff" to mean a stick as weapon? Most of them or is there a certain distribution?

Collins usually provides comments on spelling variants (feoff > fief) or outdated words (ere)

I love language acquisition and you are welcome to comment.

[Timm]

1 hour ago, Kajjo said:

I am a non-native so I am thankful for every language hint. However, this issue is just a British-American thing. In British English it is "one stave, two staves", both pronounced with [eɪ] sound like in "say". In American English it is usually "one staff, two staves". See here Collins Dictionary. I learned English in London, so I mostly use British variants, but not purely so.  But I accept that "staff" appears to be the more popular singular nowadays, maybe even in contemporary British English. Native British speakers are welcome to comment on this. Staff in the sense of "stick used as weapon", not as "group of employees".

Yes, I fully agree. Very nice scenes. The fight brought Arya to her boundaries and Mel re-encouraged her.

I think in English usage, particularly those over 40, there is a subtle difference, in that a staff is a stick that could be used for bashing things or parting waters or whatnot, but a stave is a stick that is expected to be used for bashing things.

That is to say, Gandalf would have a staff, but a rioter would have a stave.

EDIT: I just looked up the etymology and I am wrong. A staff is a stick. Staves was the plural, then used for the staves of a barrel. So if you wanted to run around bashing people with a stave, you would need to stave in a barrel first to get one!

[Kajjo]

5 minutes ago, Timm said:

I think in English usage, particularly those over 40, there is a subtle difference, in that a staff is a stick that could be used for bashing things or parting waters or whatnot, but a stave is a stick that is expected to be used for bashing things.

Yes, thanks for this comment. A stave is a weapon, a staff can be simply a stick which could also be used as a weapon if necessary.

[Wagshell]

We also use the word stave as a verb, as in to "stave off" something, meaning to hold it away. I am no expert in weaponry, so I can't tell you if stave is a more correct word when a staff is predominantly a blunt weapon.

It's hard to make any solid claims about correct language in this context. I am certain that if I announced that staff was the preferred original word in English, someone would find a reference to stave as predating it by three hundred years, then if I used their evidence, someone else would find an earlier reference to staff. I'll happily accept stave as a correct word in the singular.

[Wagshell]

Oxford says this is the origin:

Middle English: back-formation from staves, archaic plural of staff. Current senses of the verb date from the early 17th century.

but that now it is used as a pole or stick used as a weapon.

 

So it was indeed that it was one staff, two staves, but that the language has evolved to include one stave.

[Kajjo]

2 hours ago, Wagshell said:

I'll happily accept stave as a correct word in the singular.

Thanks for your explanations (same etymology you explained also here). So you would still recommend to use "staff" after all? To cause less attention? I used intentionally "stave" for the weapon, but of course I am fine with both.

Interestingly, I would always use "staff" [stɑːf] for "group of employees". Never heard "stave" [steɪv] for that meaning, but Collins lists it nonetheless.

[AryaNymeriaVisenya]

I just realised. She was the Last Hero left to fight the Night King. Everyone else was boned. Not only that, her weapon broke or was lost.

Also the framing a few seasons back of Arya in the shadow of the Titan of Braavos adds a little to my book theory that The Titan is a cultural memory of the Last Hero, like all the other names in Essos. Only being so close to the North they are very close with the broken sword, bronze armour and green hair. Those are the colours of the First Men. Rhaegal is also those colours.

[Pwyll41]

IIRC- Arya didn't kill NK with Littlefingers dagger.  Didn't she give that to Sansa on the wall and told her to stick them with the pointy end?