Warning: The following piece includes heavy spoilers from Season 8 of Game of Thrones. It’s also a lengthy, mostly-unedited three-page rant about a TV show. Proceed with caution.

It’s Sunday afternoon, which means these are the last few hours I can reasonably continue to be concerned with last week’s episode of Game of Thrones. This episode, The Long Night, was a polarizing one with fans online, though I’d argue most people who watch the show enjoyed it, in all its shades of black. Among long-time watchers and book readers, though, a significant rift emerged regarding both the structure of the battle and the pivotal scene at the episode’s end. If you haven’t watched The Long Night, click out now before I spoil some shit.

The most easily-derided of the episode’s issues were the battle plans set up by the Army of the Living and the defenders of Winterfell. In the week since the episode first aired, a variety of publications have interviewed military and history experts and introduced detailed analyses of the structure of the battle. These outlets do a better job of deconstructing the battle than I’d hope to, but the central pieces are pretty clear. The positioning of soldiers is all wrong, with trebuchets left undefended, infantry placed in front of initial defenses rather than behind them, and the Dothraki cavalry sent forward to meet an unscouted, potentially endless enemy without additional support. Setting their arakh swords aflame will help against the army of the dead, but the beginning of the episode shows that Melisandre’s deus ex machina fire of god was an unexpected gift, leading us to believe the Dothraki had planned on charging the army of the dead with weapons that cannot kill them. What’s more, though the episode didn’t show any real offensive repercussion from the Dothraki charge, we have definite reason to believe that the Night King should be able to resurrect anyone his forces kill. This isn’t a suicide mission, it’s a gift.

That’s all I’m going to write about the battle. There’s something more important to attend to. Did y’all see what Arya did? For casual show watchers, this was nothing more than a super cool moment and the potential high point for Arya’s character. For readers and some long-time fans, it’s a pretty damn controversial moment. To take it apart, I think it’s important to first clarify that if you were a fan of the scene, you’re definitely not alone. I think the majority’s right there with you. The first time I watched the scene, I was there too. In the “making of” interview after the episode, the showrunners, David Benihoff and D.B. Weiss, put forth that the scene was written in the interest of subverting expectations, and subvert them it did. Did you see it coming? I definitely didn’t. Surprises make for some of the heartiest and best-received Game of Thrones moments. The Red Wedding, Stannis arriving at The Wall, Cersei destroying the Sept of Baelor; but while surprises make for good TV, they can detract from a story if not properly set-up beforehand.

Before the Red Wedding, we’re introduced to The Rains of Castamere as “The Lannister song”, a ballad about the ruthlessness of Tywin Lannister and the dark side of the promise that the Lannisters pay their debts. We’re reminded frequently that Walder Frey will read Robb’s breaking of his oath as an insult, and we’re shown both Tywin Lannister and Roose Bolton preparing for the eventual massacre, though we don’t know it yet.

Before Stannis arrives at Mance Rayder’s camp beyond the wall, we’re shown Ser Davos receiving the call for help from the Night’s Watch, and relaying it to Stannis and Melisandre, who agree they must offer aid. Stannis arriving is only a surprise in that the show leads us to forget about it and believe that the Night’s Watch is without hope. It sows the seeds and then lets them lie.

And before Cersei destroys the Great Sept of Baelor, we’re long-acquainted with Wildfire and the threat it poses to the city of King’s Landing. It’s already established that there’s a cache of it beneath the sept, and we’re given every necessary reason to believe that Cersei wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Throughout the season leading up to the point of destruction, Cersei makes multiple references to burning King’s Landing to the ground, and the show prepares us well for when she makes her move.

So that’s the core problem here. If Arya is the one to take out the Night King, the one to end the White Walker threat and destroy the Army of the Dead, her character arc should be set up for it. The writers seem to recognize this, as evidenced by the conversation between Arya and Melisandre within Winterfell. Melisandre revisits her brief encounter with Arya in the Riverlands in Season 3, where she claims to see a ‘darkness’ in Arya, alongside “green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, all of which you will shut forever”. This was long enough ago that a lot of fans forgot about it. I definitely did. When we’re reminded of the original quote, it’s easier to interpret it as some huge, prophetic callback, especially when Melisandre, this time, amends the quote to emphasize “blue eyes”. The first time it happened, though, she didn’t. This was Season 3, released six years before the most recent episode. For this hint to have occurred that far back would be impressive, but all indications point toward it being a fortunate coincidence. The showrunners claimed in that “behind the episode” interview that they’d known Arya would kill the Night King (their original character, not in the books) for about three years. Melisandre’s line would have written two or three years before that, making the intent to foreshadow all but impossible.

Arya killing the Night King is a big deal. The Night King being killed is a big deal. And while the scene is definitely, in the moment, exciting and impressive, the story ultimately fails to make it feel important. Moving past that we’ve learned next to nothing about the Night King, the White Walkers, their history, and their motivations, the story did nothing to set up Arya as the absolute hero, something it really should have done to punctuate the moment.

So here’s the final takeaway: Arya killed the Night King. That’s the end of the War for the Long Night that we got. That the “long night” lasted all of 82 minutes is more of a problem than who ended it, but not building Arya up to her big moment is a criminal moment in the show’s storytelling. As it was, Arya killing the Night King is like Bran killing Cersei. It’d be a character we like (maybe?) taking out one we root against, but why Bran? Before Season 8, Arya is barely acquainted with the idea of the White Walkers and the Army of the Dead. Three episodes in, she’s the hero that takes them down. It’s hard to analyze the episode without wondering what it could have been had some time in Seasons 6 or 7 been dedicated to establishing Arya, not just as a faceless assassin, but as the potential hero who would save Westeros from its biggest threat yet.

Episode 4 airs tonight. Catch me on life support if Bran kills Cersei.