This article contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 3 of “Game of Thrones.”
With all the blades, projectiles, dragons and magic on hand to fight the Night King, it all came down to a single dagger.
Arya’s weapon of choice might have looked familiar, and it should have: Before it ended the Battle of Winterfell in Sunday night’s “Game of Thrones,” it appeared in several other important moments, starting way back at the very beginning.
Fuzzy on the history? Here’s the chain of custody for this key piece of evidence.
An Unnamed Catspaw
We first saw the dagger when a hired assassin attempted to kill a comatose Bran back in Season 1, Episode 2. “It’s a mercy,” the man said. “He’s dead already.” Both Bran’s mother, Catelyn Stark, who gripped the blade with her bare hands, and Bran’s direwolf, Summer, fought off the assassin, which is how the dagger ended up with .
Catelyn Stark
Bran’s mother started to suspect that Bran’s fall from the tower and the attempt on his life were connected. She started to investigate and convened a secret meeting of those she trusted — Robb Stark, Theon, Ser Rodrik Cassel, Maester Luwin — to discuss her findings, which is how the dagger ended up with …
The Stark’s master-at-arms pointed out that the weapon was “too fine” for a hired gun, being that the blade was Valryian steel, the handle dragonbone. “Someone gave it to him,” Cassel deduced. But who? The Starks assumed it was the Lannisters, and Theon offered to back up Robb. (“What, is there to be a battle in the godswood?” Maester Luwin quipped. Why, yes, and with this very dagger deciding the fight.) Not content to wait this one out, Catelyn set out for King’s Landing with Cassel to make further inquires, which is how the dagger ended up with …
Catelyn’s manipulative childhood friend Littlefinger, at least for a brief while, reclaimed custody of the dagger, which had once been his. He lost it, or so he claimed, betting during a tournament. (Littlefinger claimed he made a bet with Tyrion Lannister, in which he backed Jaime Lannister in a joust against Loras Tyrell, which Jaime lost.) This, of course, was a lie, but the Starks fell for the bait, as well as Littlefinger’s promise to help them get to the “truth,” which is how the dagger ended up with …
Ned, who was by then the hand of the king, kept the blade in his office, and put it on his desk during a pivotal conversation with Littlefinger about what to do regarding the line of succession after King Robert died. This did not go unnoticed, which is how the dagger ended up with …
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Petyr Baelish
Whether he swiped it off Ned’s desk or took it off Ned’s belt in the throne room, Littlefinger proved he had sticky fingers. He held the blade to Ned’s throat while gloating about how untrustworthy he is. Years later, in an attempt to prove that he was trustworthy, he inexplicably decided to present it as a gift, which is how the dagger ended up with …
Littlefinger claimed that the last man who wielded the blade was the assassin who attempted to take Bran’s life, and offered to do “anything” to help out the last surviving Stark male heir. Bran was nonplused. He didn’t seem to care about the gift, or its value, or Littlefinger’s empty promises, which is how the dagger ended up with …
Bran handed the blade to his sister, claiming he didn’t want it and that it was wasted on him. But perhaps he knew all along that she could use it to protect him. He knew about her kill list and presumably about the people she had killed, so he made sure that an assassin’s dagger was in the hands of someone who could put it to good use. And that she did, not least by slicing Littlefinger’s throat and by stabbing the Night King with one of the few weapons that could kill him.
For anyone still wondering who had the blade before the assassination attempt on Bran — a mystery not quite resolved on the show — the books provide an answer. Together, Tyrion and Jaime figure out that it was King Robert who bet on the joust and won the dagger from Littlefinger, and that Joffrey “borrowed” his dad’s newly-won weapon when he hired the catspaw. In Joffrey’s twisted thinking, he was trying to provide Bran a mercy killing. In so doing, he gave the Starks the means to defeat the Night King.
By Jennifer Vineyard
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