‘Game of Thrones’ Creators Reveal Their Decision Behind Arya’s Hookup With Gendry

The second episode of Game of Thrones‘ final season was all about how the main characters in Winterfell would spend the final night before the Night King brought his White Walkers upon the city. The most unexpected scene in the hour was Arya Stark’s hookup with Gendry, a moment showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss explained after the show aired.

In the scene, Arya (Maisie Williams) told Gendry (Joe Dempsie) she wanted to have sex before the battle. “We’re probably going to die soon,” she told him. “I want to know what it’s like before that happens.”

In the “Inside The Episode” video, Benioff explained that the point of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” was to show how the characters would spend what could be their last night together.

“For us, what was interesting about this episode was that this is our last night together, and I think everyone would face the end in different ways,” Benioff explained. “Some characters want to make love for the first time because they’ve never done it before, and other characters who are getting drunk and singing songs.”

In other scenes from the episode, Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) knighted Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) on their last night together, after a drunken conversation with Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), Davos (Liam Cunningham), Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) and Podrick (Daniel Portman).

“Everyone faces [the end of the world] in different ways, but they’re all facing it and that’s why this episode was so important to us because it’s all these characters that we’ve been following for so long and now they’re facing a common enemy,” Benioff said.

Williams understood the scene as a final moment to show Arya having an emotion viewers have not seen from her before. After all, Arya has been dead-set on exacting revenge and has not had time to embrace anything else until now.

“It was really interesting because it’s a very human relationship for Arya,” Williams explained to Entertainment Weekly. “This is something she’s stayed away from, an emotion we’ve never really seen her engage with. David and Dan were like, ‘It’s the end of the world, what else would you have her do?’”

She continued, “This may be is a moment where Arya accepts death tomorrow, which she never does — ‘Not Today.’ So it was that moment where she says, ‘We’re probably going to die tomorrow, I want to know what this feels like before that happens.’ It’s interesting to see Arya be a bit more human, speak more normally about things people are scared of.”

The next episode of Game of Thrones will feature the big Battle of Westeros. In one scene, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) says the Night King is coming.

“The dead are already here,” Daenerys Targeryen (Emilia Clarke) told him.

“Stand your ground!” Brienne is heard yelling in the final shot.

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. There are only four episodes left of the series.

Photo credit: HBO