‘Game of Thrones’: See Kit Harington’s Reaction to Arya’s Winterfell Kill

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington recently reacted to Arya’s big Winterfell kill, and he says he was just as surprised as everyone else.

Warning! Major spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 3 lie ahead!

During the Sunday evening’s episode, the Night King was about to kill Bran Stark, and just as went for his sword, Arya emerged from the darkness and attacked him, eventually killing the icy villain.

While speaking to EW, Harington commented on the big moment and joked, “I was surprised, I thought it was gonna be me!”

“But I like it. It gives Arya’s training a purpose to have an end goal. It’s much better how she does it the way she does it,” he then added.

“I think it will frustrate some in the audience that Jon’s hunting The Night King and you’re expecting this epic fight and it never happens — that’s kind of Thrones,” Harington later said. “But it’s the right thing for the characters. There’s also something about it not being the person you expect. The young lady sticks it to the man.”

Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, spoke about the major moment as well, reveling that when she read the script, she thought it was “so unbelievably exciting,” but was worried about how fans would react.

“I immediately thought that everybody would hate it; that Arya doesn’t deserve it. The hardest thing is in any series is when you build up a villain that’s so impossible to defeat and then you defeat them,” she admitted.

“It has to be intelligently done because otherwise people are like, ‘Well, [the villain] couldn’t have been that bad when some 100-pound girl comes in and stabs him.’ You gotta make it cool,” Williams continued. “And then I told my boyfriend and he was like, ‘Mmm, should be Jon though really, shouldn’t it?’ “

Following her scene with Melisandre (Carice van Houten), however, she realized that having Arya kill the Night King was the right direction for both characters.

“I realized the whole scene with [the Red Woman] brings it back to everything I’ve been working for over these past six seasons — four if you think about it since [Arya] got to the House of Black and White,” she stated. “It all comes down to this one very moment. It’s also unexpected and that’s what this show does. So then I was like, ‘F—k you Jon, I get it.’ “

Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.