#But I am sitting here losing my mind because I looked up S8 images

[cantalwaysgetwhatyouwantbut]

He's holding an oreo but for a sec I thought it was a ring box.

Oreo... Ring... House asking to live the rest of their lives together. But Wilson needs to give them (his life, his treatment) a chance first.

[minmeemaw]

That was Rhaegar's dagger?It is confirmed?I hope so because that battle was weird

Hello Anon, Thanks for the ask & sorry for the delay in responding. I’ve been grappling with my disappointment with s8e3.

First of all, am a woman who isn’t misogynist and isn’t troubled by the fact that Arya Stark was the one to kill the Night King.

Her show avatar has proven herself to be very capable and I think the spar between her and Brienne in season 7 was meant to hint at it. Also, we’ve seen through various seasons in the show that every chance Arya got, she practiced her water-dancing moves. And then when she was in Bravos, she eventually learned stealth & moves that she exhibited during the fight. This book quote about her:

“Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water.”

isn’t unfounded and would perhaps be even more relevant to her character arc in the books. So yeah, she could well deliver the final blow to the Night King.

What troubled me the most are these questions:

1. What was the Night King about? Was he simply suicidal and wanted someone to just kill him? (I’m trying my best to not include sarcasm here but you can assume..)

2. What was Jon’s entire character arc about?

Is his destiny the Iron Throne? Yes, perhaps. But is that the most important thing about him? To gain political power & sit the Iron Throne? If so, the SHOW did a very bad job of proving him capable. They’ve shown him being a sad, unwilling person who is constantly thrust into positions of power and get killed or nearly get killed on various occasions. (I’ll stick to the show version due to REASONS)

3. Imagine what if Jon had remained dead?

- NO ONE WILL BE BOTHERED ABOUT THE ARMY OF THE DEAD.

- Daenerys will at some point return to Westeros and claim & win the Iron Throne.

- Winterfell will remain in the hands of Boltons’ and if by some miracle, the Starks win it back, they’ll bend the knee the moment they see 3 dragons and the six kingdoms marching on them. Cersei’s “no one can hold the North” was in light of the absence of dragons but Dany has 3 of them so… it’s just common sense really.

Sidenote: Dany, a monarch, is listening to snide remarks and taking so much bullshit only because of her respect(love) for Jon. She would not even be there if it weren’t for him. Also, normally, when the KING bends the knee, every twat with a tongue doesn’t get to go behind him and question the Queen whom the said King bent the knee to. I don’t know what the show is trying to convey.

- (Continuing from what if Jon wasn’t resurrected…) If Dany never went beyond the Wall, she won’t lose a dragon & it would have to be Bran’s crossing of the Wall that’ll be its downfall & not an undead dragon.

- Eventually, there would be a war and it might end up the same way. With Arya making the final kill right before everything is seemingly lost.

Also, I haven’t mentioned f(?)Aegon storyline here because even if he’s a Blackfyre, dragonseeds can ride a dragon & Dany might still find a 2nd dragon rider. Besides, I’m trying to think in the show-only-universe.

4. As for the dagger that killed the Night King, the showrunners explicitly stated that Arya hit him in the same place in his chest where the children embedded the dragonglass. First of all, how did she know where to stab him and why was there a gap in the armor (mind you, the Others’ armor has magic is not the regular steel thing, its Ice magic)? Did someone tell Arya where to hit him or was it coincidental?

Fluke of luck, I’d say!

6. Why did Theon have to die? Bran literally asked him to run to his certain death. Like… wtf?!!!

5. To top it all, D&D saying that they did it for shock value/unpredictability was a bit of a wtf moment for me. We’ve HAD 7 seasons and 2 episodes of unpredictability and now was the time for ANSWERS!!! If Bran had spoken SOMETHING instead of sitting and warging into ravens of the Raventree hill (dead tree reminded me of it lol), explained everyone’s role without giving away the ending perhaps but in a way that it would have made sense in the end, I’d be okay really. Something like, “Jon, you’re a watcher, you go watch! Arya, you be NO ONE.” I know, so lame but I didn’t get 2 years to write the scene!!!

For all these reasons and more (but that’s not the point of this ASK, I just realized), you have to forgive me for being critical of the WRITING for this episode.

Now, coming back to the actual ask - why I think the dagger was Rhaegar’s

We saw this image in s7:

The text reads:

When Aegon the conqueror forged his Seven Kingdoms, he and his descendants would often decorate their blades with dragonglass feeling a kinship with the stone. The royal fashion for dragonglass ornamentation soon spread throughout the Seven Kingdoms to those wealthy enough to afford it. Hilts and pommels were and are the most common decoration for dragonglass if too brittle to make a useful crossguard. Indeed, its very brittleness is what relegate it to the great houses and the most successful merchants.

The dagger is Valyrian steel with a dragonbone hilt (black colored) and a ruby embedded in it. Needless to say, it belonged to the Targaryens. We know of only one recent Targaryen who was all about rubies – Rhaegar Targaryen.

“Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name.”

In season 7, when Littlefinger(LF) gave the dagger to Bran, he confirmed it’s the same catspaw dagger that was sent to kill Bran and so Bran should have it. And Bran passed it on to Arya.

This catspaw dagger, as you must surely remember, was taken by Catelyn to King’s Landing where LF vouched that he owned it at one point but he had lost it to Tyrion when Tyrion lost a bet against Jaime.

In books, there’s a very famous Tyrion quote (which leads me to believe in Tyrion-traitor theories)

“Whatever you may believe of me, Lady Stark, I promise you this – I never bet against my family.”

Long story short, Tyrion tried convincing Catelyn of his innocence but she wouldn’t listen and took him hostage.

There’s another Jaime chapter in books where he’s trying to discuss with Cersei who would’ve sent the assassin after Bran and then said that it “used to be” in Littlefinger’s possession but he actually lost it in a bet to Robert Baratheon.

Now before I share my views about how Robert got his hands on that dagger, we have to think how Littlefinger got his hands on that precious heirloom of the Targaryen dynasty. He just took it from the armory.

Robert didn’t really care for gold - where it came from or how it was spent as long as he had enough to support his “lifestyle” (drinking & whoring). And I believe Littlefinger has not only been stealing coins or diverting funds from the Crown, but he was stealing other tangibles assets as well.

“His last letter mentions the rebels only briefly before beseeching me to ship him some old tapestries of Robert’s.”- Cersei: (ADWD)

Here, LF had sent her a request for Robert’s “old” tapestries. OLD? Robert just died, like less than 3 years ago and Baratheons still ruled the Seven Kingdoms even if it’s just in name.

Petyr laughed. “Perhaps I shall. Or better still, to our sweet Cersei. Though I should not speak harshly of her, she is sending me some splendid tapestries. Isn’t that kind of her?”

In this context, I think “old” really meant Targaryen era tapestries that can be found lying neglected in some basement underneath the Red Keep. Which implies, most of their relics are up for taking only if one knew where to look. So, in my opinion, Littlefinger took the catspaw dagger from the royal armory at some point and gave it back to Robert in a public setting where everyone could see it exchange hands & conclude that Petyr was NOT the owner.

Finally, I think that Rhaegar Targaryen possessed the dagger on his person when he rode into the battle at the Trident. I believe it was a combat necessity to carry both- a dagger and a sword. Surely Rhaegar, the Dragon Prince would have carried his Valyrian Steel dagger with him.

As for Robert, he took it from Rhaegar as a winner’s trophy when Rhaegar fell but due to his deep-rooted scorn for Targaryens, never really cared for it afterward.

I hope this makes sense because I’m not really the one for writing metas. I’ve tried to answer your question but I’m too impatient. Lol Lemme know if you have any follow-up questions.