Top 3 Things You Missed in Season 8 Episode 3 of Game of Thrones

What’s worse than a bloodthirsty Wight? A Giant Wight, that’s what! The prospect of facing an Ice Giant became an absolute certainty in the first episode of Season 7, and we finally saw the beast in action. The confrontation with the Zombie Giant mirrors the events of the Battle of the Bastards in more ways than one: in that battle, the Giant Wun Wun broke through the gate of Winterfell before being killed by an arrow through the eye courtesy of Ramsey Bolton. Just like Wun Wun, the Ice Giant breaks through the Winterfell gate, and in one of the most epic death scenes in the show’s history, young Lyanna Mormont, Lady of Bear Island, uses her dying breath to stab the beast in the eye with a piece of dragon glass. If Game of Thrones has taught us anything, it’s that you should always go for the eyes when fighting a Giant.

Theon’s redemption arc came to its logical conclusion during the Battle of Winterfell: after taking down countless Wights, Bran calls him a good man and thanks him for his protection. Coming from the boy he once claimed to have burned to death, this was the redemption Theon was looking for all along. It makes sense that he would give his life moments later. This scene is actually cleverly foreshadowed in the second episode of the show, and one of Theon’s earliest scenes. When Catelyn Stark meets with Rob, Maester Lewin, Ser Rodrik, and Theon in the Godswood to tell them that she believes Lannisters to be responsible for Bran’s fall, the prospect of war is mentioned: The Godswood has been a place of calm reflection throughout the series, and Maester Lewin would have been shocked to learn that it would become a battleground and the place where the Night King would fall.

Before we get to our top moment, here are some of the best lines from this week’s episode:

So, the Valyrian Steel knife that was once meant to kill Bran ended up the very thing that would save him. If you recognized the clever move that led to the Night King’s demise, it’s probably because Arya has demonstrated it before. Arya’s deadly move on the Night King is a callback to her sparring match with Brienne from Season 7. The Night King’s death is also a callback to his creation, as Arya stabs him in the same spot where the Children of the Forrest inserted the dragon glass to create him in the first place. Since Arya was the one to take down the Night King, does that mean she was the Princess Who Was Promised all along? Given what Melissandra says about Berrick being resurrected over and over again simply so we would survive to save Arya, it seems like she was. But with the White Walker threat gone, does the Prophesised Savior have another role to play in the wars to come? There are three episodes left, and we can’t wait to see where they go from here.