Fashion is Coming: Examining the costumes of “The Long Night”

Arya’s weapons

Let’s start with the real MVP of “The Long Night”: Arya Stark. Arya’s had already proven herself one of the most badass characters on the show, but most fans didn’t predict that she’d be the one to kill the Night King, even if there were many signs posted along the way.

While Arya’s fighting attire during the Battle of Winterfell isn’t anything new, her weapons definitely warrant discussion. Fans finally got to see the secret weapon Arya had Gendry make for her in the premiere, and that thing took down a lot of wights. From the sketch she shows Gendry, we know the weapon was a spear that breaks into two pieces. When the pieces are together, Arya wields it in a way reminiscent of when she used a quarterstaff at the House of Black and White, back when she was blind. It would makes sense for her to ask for a similar weapon knowing what’s coming. Between the battle of happening at night and the Night King’s frosty fog of war, visibility was bad, something she made work for her at a couple of key moments.

We’d also be remiss to ignore the meaning behind the Valyrian steel dagger Arya uses to kill the Night King, the very same dagger that once belonged to Littlefinger and was almost used to kill Bran during the first season of the show. That dagger has undergone its own journey on the show, creating conflicts and ending them. It’s poetic that it would come full circle, returning to Winterfell and saving the life of the boy it was once meant to kill.