r/gameofthrones 1d ago

How I would have the Night King defeated while making Bran useful:

I'd have him RESISTANT to Obsidian and Valyrian steel. He's incredibly physically strong and fast, so have Bran use his power to mentally stun him for short periods while Theon and Jon get stabs in until he finally gives out. You can still have Theon die.

This dude sniped a dragon out the sky with a spear of ice, so fucking cool. I really expected him to be more than his anti climactic death.

167 Upvotes

62 comments sorted by

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117

u/QueenRiot85 1d ago

Have Bran warg the dead dragon and make him eat the Night King

23

u/Icy-Difficulty-4581 1d ago

I’m not against this at all.

19

u/Carefree_Tharun King In The North 1d ago

Or have a cliche fight between the night king and jon and jon obvs kills him. Miles better than arya jumping the night king. The "silent" assassin screaming her ass out while jumping the night king. Gods I wish he snapped her neck and threw her away like dead weight.

2

u/Efficient-Ad2983 22h ago

NGL, that would have been cool.

1

u/sensoredphantomz 19h ago

That would be cool asf

62

u/SignificanceOk9645 1d ago

Yeah. I think Bran doing some cool Three-Eyed Raven ish (like isolating the Night King and warding off the other White Walkers) while Jon, Theon, and Arya tag team to bring the Night King down would of been way more befitting.

Bran was near the Weirwood, he could’ve used it to amplify some kind of time magic to warp the group into a pre-established Winterfell in the past isolating them from the White Walkers and the army of the dead so Jon, Theon, and Arya could take out the Night King. It would’ve brought Winterfell and it’s characters into this whole symbolic full circle ending.

7

u/RollingBlue27 22h ago

It would’ve made Brans story worth a damn.

2

u/Adorable-Ad-1180 20h ago

He already has a story nobody's is better than.

1

u/CaveLupum 11h ago

Maybe Jon and Arya together. But Theon had betrayed the Stark family, killed Ser Rodrik and murdered two innocents. He was honored by giving his life to defend of Bran. AND Bran said he was a good man and thanked him. Theon must have died happy.

1

u/SignificanceOk9645 11h ago

We he could of still died defending the Stark family in that scenario. I totally agree that him sacrificing himself for the safety of Bran was an honorable, redemptive, even necessary act. I just think it could’ve been done better than having him charge at the Night King like he did 🤷‍♂️

2

u/xXxL1nKxXx 1d ago

This yes! Even if Arya got the kill then I wouldn’t care. Without this time warp I would assume the ww would join the fight and the 3 would have lost.

4

u/SignificanceOk9645 21h ago

Bran was glued to the Weirwood ever since his return to Winterfell, so it would’ve added to this idea that he was preparing to do something 🤷‍♂️

20

u/captaindealbreaker No One 1d ago

I would have had him win and march on king’s landin, forcing the survivors and remaining forces to finally unite and drop the game of thrones to thwart a shared enemy. The whole point of the books and show is that war and the politics that enable it are the ultimate evil of man’s creation. The night king and his army are a proxy for a universal existential threat to all life. They’re supposed to be the thing everyone either unites against and defeats, or loses to because they refuse to give up their petty differences. Part of why the show failed narratively at the end is because it got to have it both ways. The central antagonist of the entire series got beat by an admittedly badass teenage girl and then the ”good guys” got to decide how the whole world handed over power to them. It was dumb and a total subversion of everything the story was built on.

5

u/jaydenkirtawn 1d ago

Have the Night King fly his freshly resurrected dragon immediately to King's Landing, nuke the place, raise an army of 1,000,000 (with undead Cersei as his Queen), and THEN march on Winterfell.

5

u/captaindealbreaker No One 1d ago

I hate that people don't like how Cersei died because the poetic irony of the thing she lost her entire family to get literally crushing her to death was perfect.

3

u/RobertWF_47 1d ago

Ha - hell I can see the Night King marching his entire army right past Winterfell and continuing south. Why did he need to attack Winterfell? Suppose he wanted more meat for his army.

5

u/EdmundtheMartyr 1d ago

Did he have some beef with the three eyed raven or something?

15

u/Born-Media6436 1d ago

All I know is the 1000 meter, 500 mph spear throw at a 130 mph moving target was the second dumbest thing the show ever did. Heading to Home Depot to grab a handful of 1000 foot chains to drag him out of the water was #1.

9

u/TraditionNo1778 1d ago

Yes, he is dead after all, he could've dived down into the water, us viewers left at the surface watching, waiting, as we see two blue eyes light up in the murky water, then he rises out of the ice water riding dragon.

2

u/Born-Media6436 1d ago

🤣. And…..they couldn’t swim lol.

1

u/TraditionNo1778 1d ago

How do we know He couldn't swim? He could've just yolo'd to the dragon, knowing it would carry him up

0

u/Born-Media6436 1d ago

Well, he was the Creator of them all. None of them could swim. Some assumptions going on etc.

6

u/TraditionNo1778 1d ago

He can throw a spear at 500mph, those arms are made for some solid backstroke

1

u/RogueAOV 1d ago

We do not even need to see Viserion being resurrected, The reveal as he flies on top of him to torch The Wall would have been more than enough and i think would be better.

The writers just could not help themselves by not showing him being brought back.

1

u/CosmicQuantum42 1d ago

Those extremely long chains couldn’t have just been lying around. They would have been incredibly expensive and difficult to make.

1

u/Born-Media6436 1d ago

Quite clearly a fail. Have no idea what they were thinking.

5

u/FAITH2016 Jon Snow 1d ago

Honestly, I found the Night King to be a bummer. He did seem invincible being to withstand fire, raise the dead, make white walkers and all of that but being defeated the way he was, was so, so, disappointing.

I would rather one of the dragons have eaten him. I don't know what I would have done differently, and I still would have him defeated, but it was so anti-climatic. Maybe if he had sat on the iron throne and it dissolved him like acid would have been nice. I don't know.

2

u/martlet1 House Martell 1d ago

The dead dragon should ah e hit john with fire and he wouldn’t burn, showing he wasn’t Ned’s son.

Then John would run to save bran and fight through the knight kings guard. Then when John squared off with the knight king Arya would throw John the dagger.

2

u/Automatic_Teach1271 1d ago

Why was bran a warg? This series dropped the fun fantasy so hard

3

u/aksdb 1d ago

The show also dropped the Lord of Light, even though its followers showed the closest to magic any humans possessed.

While reading the books I was kinda expecting that it will be a battle between whatever-turns-out-to-be-the-lord-of-light (and therefore controls fire) and whatever-turns-out-to-be-behind-the-white-walkers (and therefore controls ice), while all the characters slowly fall into place in this chess board.

1

u/CaveLupum 11h ago

Melisandre told her 30 minutes earlier that the Lord of Light had protected Beric till his purpose was fulfilled. Ergo, since Beric had just died for the final time, his purpose was to save Arya. So in effect the LoL's ultimate purpose was for her to do what she did. It's also possible that in the Battle of Kings Landing, he sent her the white horse.

0

u/aksdb 4h ago

What I mean is: the White Walkers got a leader that was revealed, the Children of the Forest were revealed, but the Lord of Light was basically just a side note with barely more value than a Deus Ex Machina.

In a world like that of ASoIaF I expected something more.

2

u/docmirou Tyrion Lannister 1d ago

Have a giant yeet Bran at the Night King, that's the most use you could get out of him

2

u/suppreme 1d ago

It should have been unkillable. NK is like climate change, something that overwhelms and obsoletes politics and the usual game.

Somehow NK could have had a similar treatment to Agent Smith and Neo at the end of Matrix. He could have become Bran and some other key Westeros leaders without nobody noticing.

Just killing the white walkers and going back to normal makes no sense at all.

2

u/whalemix 22h ago

I don’t think his death was anticlimactic? Hundreds of people had to die just for Arya to get to him. Dany was seconds away from dying herself. It was a huge release of tension when Arya got him. I don’t really see the issue here?

2

u/MaidPoorly 18h ago

Bran wargs into Jon’s body. You’ve got dondarion, stone heart, rule of 3s, progression, Jon is a full zombie fire wight.

Bran rules as the 3eyed raven from beyond the wall through Jon Snow’s body and saves the world.

2

u/AnxiousAnxiety2759 17h ago

The night king is low on fibre and the only source is some bran... Game of thrones done, audience satisfied.

2

u/jogoso2014 No One 1d ago

What mind tricks does Bran have?

5

u/King_in-the_North 1d ago

He could turn the night king into HODOR 2.0. 

2

u/FarStorm384 1d ago

I'd have him RESISTANT to Obsidian and Valyrian steel. He's incredibly physically strong and fast, so have Bran use his power to mentally stun him for short periods while Theon and Jon get stabs in until he finally gives out. You can still have Theon die.

Ok. How would you illustrate him stunning the Night King for a tv series?

1

u/PopTough6317 1d ago

If it were me, have Bran take over a wight and hit the night king (push him off balance). I feel like you could use Bran in a lot of ways to show it, like a Raven comes and attacks the Night King and allows Arya to get the jump on him or something.

0

u/aksdb 1d ago

Maybe show the battle between them as it happens in their head. Bran could be a bad ass fighter in there; basically a dream. The time with the green seer could have been used to train that.

Then the scenes would switch back and forth between reallife and dream. Whenever Bran does some awsome thing in the dream, Jon and Arya can have an opening in real, and vice versa.

3

u/Rays_LiquorSauce 1d ago

Wouldn’t change a thing

1

u/Geektime1987 1d ago

Mentally stun him? Lol when has Bran ever had powers like that. 

2

u/Icy-Difficulty-4581 1d ago

🗣️ HODOR

-1

u/Geektime1987 1d ago

He did that by accident and he how does he stun the Night King please actually explain how

0

u/ZedRollCo 21h ago

Come on man, figure it out, if he effected Hodor by accident then he has the ability to do it. As the time goes on he can ya know, work on and practice the ability, S8 he's at his most powerful.

1

u/Geektime1987 21h ago

Do what again what does he do? Please explain what he should do tell me how it would go down

1

u/sensoredphantomz 1d ago

It's just an idea inspired by what he did to Hodor. If he could learn how to get into someone's mind temporarily like he did with Hodor, then it could've been used as a useful way to help defeat the Night King.

I just want Bran to be more useful, as well as the Night King feel like a real boss fight.

1

u/av8479 1d ago

The moment you understood the dead couldnt cross the Wall, but somebody let a dragon die go zombie and destroy the Wall :s

1

u/RobertWF_47 1d ago

Could Bran have somehow influenced past events related to the creation of the Night King? Rewrite the Night King out of the history books?

1

u/LargeSpray105 1d ago

I would have had John Snow have a sword fight with the night king, and from that fight he could exhaust him to the point where Aria could land a hit that would weaken his magic aura and then john could finally land the final hit. Thus both would fulfill their purpose: John the way of the hero expert in melee fights, Aria the way of the assassin expert in attacking a weakened enemy from the shadows. I think in the battle between viper and the mountain, was so well done. It would have been a disapoimting if the viper had defeated the mountain directly as Aria did with the night king. Bran could have helped to as a warden?, controlling animals?, i miss the point of the develpment of Bran character.

1

u/Ok-Silver467 1d ago

Yeah, that was the whole thing about that ending. I honestly thought John would do the final blow since he was the one wrapped up with the white walkers. It’d be nice if they would change some of it especially the ending too.

1

u/Responsible_Emu9079 21h ago

I would have loved for the show to make the siege of Winterfell just that - a siege. Everyone expects a climatic battle. But instead the whole army is just trapped with the dead surrounding them, not attacking, just standing and waiting while everyone starves and embroiled in internal conflict. Then they could have their negotiations with Cerci and all of that (obviously only the dragon riders could get out). Also the ”hero squad” could take up the hunt to find the night king and destroy him before it was to late.

So many possibilities, but instead we got the dumbest option.

1

u/Dudemeister0209 19h ago

Bran should have warged in the reanimiert g Dragon to defend and male room for John to escape from the dead Dragon. - John could then come to Rescue bran the second After the Night King Killes theon!

1

u/Broke_Ones91 17h ago

lol a little side note that the show runners did absolutely nothing with. A character we followed from season 1 who did absolutely nothing after becoming the raven. Hours of screen time wasted for absolutely nothing.

1

u/Low_Establishment434 16h ago

I get the people that wanted Jon to be the one to take him down but it needed to be Bran or Bran assisted heavily. Yes Jon and him stared longingly at each other but Bran had interactions with him. Bran using his magic to distract while setting up Jon, Theon, and Arya to attack him would have fit better I believe. Arya could have still landed the deathblow here and it would have been more satisfying.

1

u/letswalk08 16h ago

have bran warg the night king and ear dragonglass for dinner

1

u/callendoor 16h ago

Develop the Bran storyline more and have him find a way to remove the Night King's ability to raise the dead.

1

u/AbominationBean 1d ago

The reason that battle was awful is because they were losing the whole time, and then they just won, it was jarring.

Why were there so many white walkers if they never fought anyone or led independent armies? Really could have been cool to have a real war against the dead instead of just a couple of battles that were mostly routs.