Callbacks and Easter Eggs from “The Long Night”

Welcome back to out weekly dive into the things you may have missed in the latest episode of Game of Thrones. This week, we’re mining the 82-minute “The Long Night” for hidden treasure. Grab your spelunking tools and follow.

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First, there was a lot of noise about the intense darkness of this episode. If you wanted to see what the rush of dead people looked like in the light, this should give you some nightmare fuel:

"[SPOILERS] S08E03 First wave of the dead, brightness and contrast increased a bit from gameofthrones"

There were plenty of callbacks involving Arya in this episode, including her giving Sansa a knife and telling her to “stick them with the pointy end.”

That was a direct callback to the first season, when Jon gave Arya Needle. Pay it forward.

Another obvious one: Melisandre references the time she and Arya met back in season 3:

Arya will shut “brown eyes, green eyes, and blue eyes.” She changes the order from the first meeting, probably to pound the point home:

Anyone notice that Cersei has green eyes?

Let’s spend some time on Arya’s big moment. Believe it or not, some predicted something like this over a year ago:

"[MAIN SPOILERS] How the night king will die. from gameofthrones"

Man, they must feel smart right about now.

The Valyrian dagger was indeed more important than we knew. We’d even seen Arya do that trick where she switches hands. Watch out for it during her sparring match with Brienne in season 7:

Wondering how Arya darted past all those White Walker lieutenants in the godswood? Well, we’ve always known that Arya is swift and sneaky — they even reminded us of how quietly she moves in the library scene with the wights, and that’s without snow to cushion her footfalls and ambient outside noise. She even snuck up on Jon in the exact same place the Night King is standing in the season 8 premiere:

But the hints went back a lot longer than that. Syrio Forel’s lessons seem a lot more prescient than they did at first:

"[SPOILERS] "If you pierce them, the water will leak out and they die." – Syrio Forel. The first target she ever learned. from gameofthrones"

The show may have even foreshadowed this before Arya got to King’s Landing:

"[Spoilers] This scene in season 1 told us years ago what was going to happen. from gameofthrones"

This video strings together a bunch of the clues dropped throughout the series:

"Just made this. The clues were right in front of us this whole time. from freefolk"

In any case, by killing the Night King, Arya joins a very exclusive club:

"[SPOILERS] Let‘s give it up for the Kingslayers from gameofthrones"

Okay, let’s shift over to Sansa, and chronicle her weird relationship with Tyrion Lannister. He really is the best of them:

"[Spoilers] He truly was the best of them from gameofthrones"

Game of Thrones loves its cameos, and “The Long Night” had a few. Country artist Chris Stapleton, his bass player J.T. Cure, and his tour manager were all soldiers brought back to life as wights:

Jack Bevan and Jimmy Smith of UK rock band Foals also turned up:

Good to know!

Back to callbacks, this conversation in the godswood presaged important things for Theon in the distant future:

"[Spoilers] I loved this callback to S01E02. Theon kept his promise. from gameofthrones"

Season 1 or season 8, Theon is always shooting a bow while Bran watches:

"[SPOILERS] Noticed this neat Season 1 Bran and Theon foreshadowing scene from gameofthrones"

Okay, this isn’t really a callback or Easter Egg, but this well-edited video about Jorah’s devotion to Daenerys made me weepy:

Daenerys lost someone incredibly important to her in Jorah. It makes you think of who else that’s happened to:

"[SPOILERS] An amazing link I found when I stumbled upon this picture of Jorah and Dany today… from gameofthrones"

Looks like Tyrion is a bit of a prophet. Literally everyone in that room lived.

"[Spoilers] And nobody in the room ends up dying… from gameofthrones"

And finally, Jon Snow shows off his favorite fighting move:

"[SPOILERS] The Ballet Dancer That Was Promised from gameofthrones"

Any callbacks we missed? Let us know in the comments!

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