The Internet's Trying To Credit Jon Snow For Arya's Big Win

People couldn’t handle Arya getting the big win, so they found a theory that puts Jon Snow front and center

After Arya Stark’s game-changing moment at the end of The Battle of Winterfell, many Game of Thrones fans celebrated her huge win against the army of the dead, and an overall amazing episode of the best show on earth, don’t @ me. Naturally, some (COUGH men COUGH) just couldn’t sit with the idea that a teenage girl, who also happens to be an insanely well-trained assassin who’s spent her entire life preparing for her destiny, was the one to bring a close to the Night King’s reign.

That’s why there’s fans twisting themselves into pretzels in an attempt to give Jon Snow credit for Arya’s heroic leap-and-stab move that turned the Night King and his army into shards of ice.

Because we can’t have anything nice. Not even one single thing.

So as we already pointed out, men didn’t handle it all that well when Arya Stark, First of Her Name, Queen of the North, Slayer of the Night King, Walder Frey, Ser Meryn Trant, and Our Hearts, was the one to stop the endless night that the Night King was trying to bring about. She had the big moment and it was completely glorious, but of course, masculinity be fragile AF, so not everyone was ok with it, like this Reddit poster who made their case for Jon Snow’s role in Arya’s badass move:

The Redditor writes, “Jon screamed at the undead dragon to distract it so Arya can run past and kill the Night King. The undead dragon was protecting the entrance to the Godswood. Watch it again, you can actually hear him scream “GOOOOO – GO – GO”. 10 seconds later the scene you can see the hair of a White Walker flying up when Arya sprints past the group of White Walkers. Jon once again was ready to sacrifice himself to kill the Night King. Prove me wrong.”

And you know what? This person very well might be right. You can watch for yourself and decide.

However, whether they’re right or wrong isn’t really the point. It’s not that it’s unusual for fans of cult shows like GoT to come up with theories, analyze, and discuss to death every aspect of every episode. It’s just that I’m feeling pretty certain no one would be doing a series of mental cartwheels trying to credit a female character alongside Jon Snow, had he been the one to deliver the Night King’s death blow.

All this “Mary Sue” chatter about how much Arya didn’t deserve her moment alongside theories like this makes rage boil inside me. A woman finally gets the most-talked-about moment and all some bros can do is make sure a man can be given at least partial credit. It’s nauseating.

And as a fan, let me be clear — I don’t at all hate the idea of Jon doing whatever he could to help and protect his little sister. Their relationship, in my opinion, is one of the best and most genuine on the show and them working as a team for this huge ending is pretty amazing and extremely full circle.

But can we relax with doing everything possible to harsh the Arya buzz? It’s not often us girls get to see one of our own take all. Let us have this. Let Arya have this — girlfriend’s more than earned it.

Whatever some fans think, it’s incredibly gratifying to see GoT showrunners giving female characters so many opportunities to be badasses (hello, Ser Brienne) and save the day (Melisandre, we see you). The angry dudes of the internet might not like it, but it’s so long overdue.