Arya Stark has been a fan favorite from the moment she appeared on screen in the first episode of Game of Thrones. Why? Because at her heart, the character is all about taking control of her own destiny, choosing who she wants to become rather than letting other people decide her fate.
Well, in the second episode of Game of Thrones season 8, Arya made one of her boldest choices yet, and the whole internet is buzzing over it.
With the Night King’s army of the dead bearing down on Winterfell, the men and women awaiting their fate carefully chose how to spend what might be their final hours.
Jaime Lannister knighted Brienne of Tarth in a scene that left nary a dry eye in any house. The Hound sat out in the snow with Beric Dondarrion, who bit his tongue when the Hound asked him not to ramble on about the Lord of Light. Tyrion Lannister drank wine and sat by the fire with Jaime, Brienne, Ser Davos Seaworth, Podrick, and Tormund; Ser Jorah Mormont tried and failed to persuade little Lyanna to sit out the fight with the dead and stay in the crypts; and Jon Snow let the direwolf out of the bag when he told Daenerys Targaryen that he’s her nephew, and the true heir to the Iron Throne.
But it was Arya who made arguably the biggest decision of all when she turned the spark between her and her childhood friend Gendry into something more… much more.
“We’re probably going to die soon. I want to know what it’s like before that happens.”
Well, now they both know!
Game of Thrones co-creator and showrunner David Benioff explained the surprise romance scene on HBO’s Inside the Episode.
“For us, what was interesting about this episode was always that it’s our last night together, and everyone I think would face the end in different ways… Some characters want to make love for the first time because they’ve never done it before.”
He added,
“Everyone faces [the end of the world] in different ways, but they’re all facing it and that’s why this episode was so important to us, because it’s all these characters that we’ve been following for so long and now they’re facing a common enemy.”
Arya actress Maisie Williams opened up about the steamy scene with Entertainment Weekly, sharing that she initially didn’t believe the moment was real. After being clued in to the steamy s** scene by co-star Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, Williams laughed it off as a joke. She thought that Benioff and Thrones co-creator Dan Weiss were messing with her, just as they had done with Jon Snow actor Kit Harington during season 1 when they gave him a script featuring a fake scene in which the former brother of the Night’s Watch has his hair “burnt down to the scalp” and his face permanently disfigured by fire.
“At first, I thought it was a prank. I was like, ‘Yo, good one.’ And [the showrunners were] like, ‘No, we haven’t done that this year.’ Oh f—!”
It wasn’t until the cast sat down for the table read that Williams accepted that Benioff and Weiss weren’t pranking her.
“I got to the read-through and I’m reading the scene and thought, ‘Oh, we’re actually going to do this. When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym.'”
Game of Thrones being a series that isn’t shy about nudity and with many of its stars appearing in their birthday suits throughout past seasons, the question of whether Arya would strip down on camera needed addressing. Williams, now 22 years old, explained that she was in control of the decision:
“David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want.’ So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show.”
The actress also offered her interpretation of the scene, noting that she feels this represents a moment in time where Arya finally embraces emotion again after rejecting it while training to be an assassin.
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