-(WHIMPERS)
-MAN: Mind out!
Move.
We've been building
towards this for so long now.
You think back
to the very beginning
of the very first episode,
 and it's beyond the Wall where
the White Walkers are stalking.
 They're a group of rangers.
So, this is the culmination of
one of the key storylines
in-- in the whole show.
 And this is for everything.
We've been talking for
a long time,
 how Night King's forces
 have been growing in power,
 and most of the living
 have been kind of
openly disdainful of the threat,
and now there's no choice
but to fight it.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DAVID BENIOFF:
 I really love the way
 the first ten minutes or so
 plays out,
because there's so much tension
before there's any encounter
with the enemy.
BOY: Come on!
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
BENIOFF: You know, as much as
 they try to conceal it,
 people are terrified,
 because this is...
 this is death coming for them.
You know, so much of it is just
kind of, on one hand,
setting the mood
for the episode,
and the other hand, showing us
where these characters
are gonna be.
The entire episode takes place
in Winterfell.
And you have 19 or 20 characters
 all involved
 in a very chaotic situation,
that needs many, many locations
 to service it.
BENIOFF: Because it's such
 a long battle in this episode,
it's important that we feel
the ebb and flow.
And so, there are moments
when you think things
are going a little bit better
for the living.
Tell them to lift their swords.
We felt like it was important
to have that moment of hope,
when Mel comes in and lights up
 their arakh,
 and they all ride off
 into battle.
(SPEAKS VALYRIAN)
(SOLDIERS GASP)
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
D.B. WEISS: We wanted
 our characters to feel, like,
that this-- maybe this is
all gonna work out,
maybe things are all gonna
be okay.
We've seen how devastating
a Dothraki charge can be
just with their regular swords,
and now when they're galloping
into combat
 with, uh, flaming arakhs,
 it's-- it's--
 Uh... What could possibly
 stand against that?
(HORSE WHINNIES)
BENIOFF:
 What they see is just
 the end of the Dothraki,
 essentially.
WEISS: They have a plan,
 and it's important
to wait for the Night King
to reveal himself,
and then have two dragons
against one dragon,
and a really good chance
of-- of defeating him.
 One thing that
 they couldn't have foreseen
 was Daeny's reaction to seeing
 the Dothraki decimated.
 Jon is the person who
 wants to stick to the plan,
but the Dothraki are not Jon's;
 they're not loyal to Jon,
 they're loyal to Daeny,
and I think that Daeny
can't bring herself
to just watch them die,
and so the plan starts
to fall apart
the second she gets
on her dragon,
 so he does too,
and then we take it from there.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(SNARLING)
BENIOFF: We knew
 this episode was gonna be
 almost entirely battle,
and that can get really boring
really quickly.
You can watch it
for a certain number of minutes
 before the effect starts
 to dampen.
Part of it was making sure
that we really stayed focused
on the characters,
and so whether it's Arya's
storyline,
 or Sansa and Tyrion
 down the crypt,
 or Jon Snow and Daeny
 up on the dragons.
Kinda like all these separate
little battles within the...
within the greater battle.
-(SWORDS CLANKING)
-(SNARLING)
Lyanna Mormont was supposed
to be a one-scene character,
and then we met
Bella Ramsay,
and we realized that we would
not be doing our jobs
 if we kept her as
 a one-scene character.
My mother wasn't a great beauty
or any other kind of beauty.
She was a great warrior, though.
She died fighting
for your brother, Robb.
WEISS: We knew that
 you can't give a--
 a big death to everybody
 who dies in this battle,
 'cause it would've--
It just would've been too much,
but there--
Also, if she were to die,
there was no way to--
to not make a moment of it,
so...
 that's where the zombie giant
 comes in.
 It just did add a whole level
 of complexity
to that moment,
that I'm sure a lot of people
would've been okay with
not having there,
if we had demanded to cut it,
but I think they also
understood why we needed
to give one of the strongest
smaller people in the show
a chance to go out
taking down
one of the strongest
larger things we've, uh,
 we've ever seen in the show.
-(LYANNA SCREAMS)
-(ZOMBIE GIANT GROWLS)
(ARYA SHRIEKS)
WEISS: In any situation
 where people are fighting,
 Arya needs to play
 a central role,
 'cause she's one of
 the best at it,
 and she's one of the most fun
 to watch doing it.
-(ARYA GRUNTS)
-BENIOFF: Even for Arya,
 she can't take on a horde
 of wights by herself,
 and especially when her head
 gets smacked,
she's no longer at 100 percent.
It's just about survival
at that point.
WEISS: Otherwise,
 she's completely unstoppable,
 and she never loses her cool,
and it's amazing, and it's
a lot of fun to watch,
but it's also-- it's one note,
 so we decided that almost
 rewinding the clock
 on who Arya Stark is
 to back before she became
 this sort of magical figure
 that she's become
 would really be interesting,
and would also give us a chance
 to change up
 the nature of the story
 we were telling.
We talked about
Winterfell as kind of
the home for the show,
and, uh, one of the things
that always struck us
 as a horrific aspect of this
 is that these hallways
 and rooms where we spent
 a lot of good times
 and-- and quiet times
 with characters
 that we care about,
has now become a horror set,
 because it's been invaded by
 undead soldiers.
(SNARLS)
WEISS: Before that point,
there's sort of an agoraphobia
to the whole thing
where you have
this giant wide-open space
 and everywhere you look
 you-- there's something
 that could be coming
 to kill you.
Once you get inside Winterfell,
 everything contracts,
 and the-- the walls literally
 start to close in around you,
 and something is there
 in the dark with you,
 but you don't know exactly
 where it is.
And we thought that
the pace change
and the tonal change
was really important
to have that in this episode,
otherwise the episode
would start to feel...
would start to feel monotonous.
Dracarys.
WEISS: We thought it was
 important that,
 whatever the plan was,
 that it not just work out,
 'cause that would be
 kind of dull.
While there's no reason to know
for certain that
the fire wouldn't kill
or destroy the Night King,
there's also no particular
reason to believe
that it would.
 And then, a few moments after
 this happens,
 the Night King brings them
 a whole new,
 larger undead problem
 by taking all of their own
who have been killed
in the course of this battle,
and turning them into the enemy.
BENIOFF: I mean, we talked about
 various endings for Jorah
for a long time, but, you know,
 you think about Jorah,
from the very first time
we met him, he was with Daeny,
 and from that time,
 he's been mostly by her side.
Part of Jorah's tragedy is
that he was in love with a woman
who couldn't love him back,
but he's accepted that
for quite a long time,
 at the same time he was
 going to fight for her
as long as he could
and as well as he could.
There'd never been a moment
where she more needed someone
to fight to protect her
than this moment.
And if he could've chosen
a way to die,
 this is how he would've chosen
 to die.
 So, it was something
 we thought would be
 powerful to give him.
-(DAENERYS SOBS)
-(DRAGON EXHALES)
BENIOFF: The reason
 the Godswood was chosen
 is because it's such
 a source of power
for those who believe
in the old gods,
and for Bran in particular,
so we know the weirwood tree
and the three-eyed raven
have a very deep connection.
 That was always the location
 where Bran was going
 to be waiting
 for the Night King.
I just want you to know...
-the things I did--
-Everything you did
brought you where you are now.
Where you belong.
Home.
WEISS: It's not like the show
 is entirely about
 people redeeming themselves
 and then it's all over,
but if you-- if the canvas
is big enough,
 there are spaces for those
 redemptive moments.
I think what was
really important for Theon
at the end was hearing
that thank you from Bran,
 because Bran knows
 what's gonna happen.
BRAN: Theon.
You're a good man.
Thank you.
He knows he's dead,
he knows he's not gonna be able
to kill the Night King,
but I think what's really heroic
about his action is that
we're all gonna die,
and we know we're not gonna
be able to defeat death
at the end,
but, you know, it's-- it's how
you face those final moments,
and he chooses to run
straight at it,
 and I think he dies in a way
 that, um, makes us
 really proud of him and
 the journey he's gone through.
-(ARYA SCREAMS)
-BENIOFF:  For--
 God, I think it's probably
 three years now or something,
 we've known that it was
 gonna be Arya
 who delivers that--
 that fatal blow.
WEISS: She seemed like
 the best candidate,
 provided we weren't
 thinking about her
 in that moment.
 One of the great things
 about having this many people
 you care about
 in a sequence together
 is that it can kind of
 pull people's attention
 and focus to people that
 they care about a lot,
 like Jon, like Daeny,
 Theon, and Bran,
 not to mention Tyrion
 and Sansa in the crypt,
so you're going
all over the place
with people who you're
desperately worried for,
and, uh, hopefully
you forget about the fact that
 Arya Stark ran out of
 that castle
 with the battle drums playing,
going towards some purpose,
and we don't know what
until it happens.
BENIOFF: We hoped to kind of
 avoid the expected,
 and Jon Snow has
 always been the hero,
 the one who's been the savior,
but it just didn't seem right
to us, for this--
for this moment.
 We knew it had to be
 Valyrian steel,
 to the exact spot where
the child of the forest
put the dragonglass blade
to create the Night King,
and he is uncreated
by the Valyrian steel.
At the end of it, it's still--
It's a victory for the living,
but at great cost,
because some of our
favorite characters fall
along the way.
WEISS: We knew from
 the beginning,
once we'd handed the outline in,
what we were in for.
The director, Miguel Sapochnik,
 took what we were doing
 and defined this episode.
Miguel did
a tremendous amount of
heroic heavy lifting
on this front.
 He knew that if the planning
 wasn't there,
 we never would've ended up
 with the consistent excellence
 that he delivered.
It is to their immense credit
that--
not only that they endured it,
um,
but that they did
such a great job
the whole time they were there.
WEISS: It's a real testament
 to the entire Belfast crew
who gave us something that
no amount of money
could ever buy.
