Arya Stark and Ramin Djawadi: The heroes of Winterfell on 'Game of Thrones'

"Game of Thrones" fans had been hearing about Sunday's supersized 82-minute episode for months. It would contain "the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film," according to Entertainment Weekly's November cover story. An assistant director let slip months ago on Instagram that the cast and crew had endured 55 straight nighttime shoots for this one installment.

And after last week's bittersweet, dialogue-driven hour, it seemed all too clear that we would be bidding farewell to multiple beloved characters as the Night King (Vladimir Furdik) and his army of the dead closed in on Winterfell.

But "The Long Night" - a brutal, heart-pounding, sometimes frustrating but ultimately energizing "Thrones" milestone - had more than a few aces up its sleeve, beginning with composer Ramin Djawadi.

Djawadi, who has twice performed his "Thrones" music at Chicago-area arenas, has long been one of the show's true heroes. His opening-title theme laughs in the face of those who would normally tap "Skip Intro." Dragons glide on his soaring Targaryen theme. If the scripts failed to make Season 5's Sons of the Harpy a terrifying presence, Djawadi's deep, dread-filled strings (accompanied by evil, hissing vocals) did the trick.

Dread was appropriate again Sunday, and Djawadi delivered. He set the tone in the opening scene with a low, pulsing rhythm that would have sounded right at home in John Carpenter's "The Thing." Djawadi tells us "The Long Night" won't be a rousing, exhilarating action flick; it will be a horror film.

Until, in the climactic montage, we hear the piano.

We've been trained by Season 6's season finale, "The Winds of Winter," to expect pure shock when we hear the piano. In that episode, it signaled a requiem for the High Sparrow, his followers, the Tyrells, the Great Sept of Baelor and, eventually, King Tommen as Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) exacted revenge with wildfire.

When the piano reappeared Sunday, it felt like a requiem for Winterfell. For Jon Snow (Kit Harington), trapped within the castle walls with the ice dragon Viserion. For Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), outnumbered in a field of flames. For Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), who marched headfirst into doom after finding redemption in the godswood. For Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), who did not realize that the family crypt isn't safe when you're fighting zombies. And for Brandon Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), the all-seeing Three-Eyed Raven who seemed consigned to his fate. Djawadi's beautiful, heart-rending music had us convinced that we were about to watch the demise of every last hero in Westeros.

And then came Arya.

<h3 class="breakHead">What do we say to the god of death?</h3>

For far too long, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) felt like a prisoner of this show. For the better part of two seasons, she trained to be a faceless assassin in a subplot that felt even more disconnected from the story's main action than Daenerys' adventures in Essos. Ned Stark's crafty, cunning daughter had been one of the very best reasons to watch "Game of Thrones," but soon her very appearance inspired eye-rolling. ("Oysters, clams and cockles!")

At the end of Season 6, she defeated the waif (Faye Marsay) and declared herself ready to return home. On the way, in the Season 7 premiere, she took revenge on Walder Frey (David Bradley) for the Red Wedding. And in that season's finale, she and sister Sansa finally got rid of that pesky Littlefinger (Aiden Gillen).

All of that culminated Sunday with her perfectly constructed arc.

When the battle begins, Arya is the most competent, impressive fighter on display, surviving an onslaught that claimed the entire Dothraki horde and sent the towering Sandor Clegane (Rory McCann) running.

When the tide turns against our heroes, Arya retreats within, and has a scary raptors-in-the-kitchen confrontation with the undead that makes us think her time has finally come.

When Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer) succumbs, it seems as if it's all over - but then the Red Witch Melisandre (Carice van Houten), who arrived in town just in time for the party, reminds her of those words she learned seven seasons ago from Syrio Forel (Miltos Yerolemou): "Not today."

Arya runs out of the room, and we don't see her again until she interrupts Djawadi's requiem by dealing the killing blow to the Night King - remembering, perhaps, how she bested Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) in their friendly sparring session last season.

Bran wasn't waiting to die. He was waiting for his sister.

A girl is no one. A girl is Arya Stark of Winterfell. A girl is a legend.

<h3 class="breakHead">Who didn't make it</h3>

Brienne of Tarth and the man who knighted her, Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), are still, amazingly and unexpectedly, alive.

The same can't be said for Jorah (Iain Glen) and Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey), two warriors who seemed destined to die in the glory of battle. Jorah died protecting his Dragon Queen, and without being able to tell her he loves her. Lyanna refused to give up even as she was being crushed by an undead giant, and plunged her dagger into the great beast's eye.

Beric is gone, as is Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Eddison Tollett (Ben Crompton). Melisandre took off her necklace and lay herself to rest. (I thought she was going to burst into flames at the very end, didn't you?)

The cruelest loss was that of Theon, whose journey toward death was riddled with pain and despair at every turn, most of it his own doing.

But most of our heroes live to fight another day, and a fight is definitely coming. It seems the only villain more terrifying than the Night King is Cersei, with the forces of the Golden Company on her side.

<h3 class="breakHead">Shadows and light</h3>

Director Miguel Sapochnik and cinematographer Fabian Wagner conjured some of the most haunting, beautiful images in the show's history Sunday: Dothraki swords being lit ... and then extinguished. Dracarys engulfing the dead. Moonlight-bathed dragons soaring above the clouds. Battles in silhouette. Drogon shaking dozens of zombies off of his scales. The Night King in the snow-covered godswood. Arya swooping in over his shoulder.

Unfortunately, the best way to actually see most of this happen is on the small, clear screen of a smartphone with the brightness jacked all the way up. The dark photography of "Thrones" has often led to complaints from its viewers, and Sunday was no exception, as summed up by a Variety article. One is reminded of another fantasy epic, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II," whose many airings on cable are nearly unwatchable.

Photography like this demands to be seen on a 30-foot screen in a pitch-black theater. If only we could watch "Game of Thrones" that way.

<h3 class="breakHead">The best episode ever?</h3>

One is tempted to make such a proclamation, especially after jumping up and down and screaming for Arya. (Yes I did. And at the office, no less. (I was on my dinner break.)) But for a long stretch in the middle, "The Long Night" was more than a little confounding, beginning with those head-scratching scenes between Sansa and Tyrion in the crypt. At one point, it seems they're about to carry out a suicide pact, but instead ... uh ... walk to the other side of the crypt?

Most glaringly, it turns out that there isn't a good answer to what I think is a rather obvious question: How do you possibly take dragons away from a battle that they could presumably decide very easily?

The answers are just more questions. What, exactly, were Jon and Dany doing with those dragons in that snowstorm? Why would they ever stop breathing fire? Where were they when Viserion was trying to fry Jon? Why wouldn't they be protecting Bran?

But I don't have better answers than those offered Sunday by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who are also credited with this episode's script. As ever, the logistics of action (and yes, sometimes even plot) should take a back seat to the characters, and "The Long Night" was certainly another impeccably acted love letter to the show's characters.

Whether "The Long Night" will be remembered as the pinnacle of a great show remains to be seen. There are three episodes left, and a straightforward struggle for the Iron Throne feels underwhelming after the destruction of a zombie horde. The matter of Jon Snow's Targaryen heritage will complicate things, as will Bronn's (Jerome Flynn) hunt for the Lannister boys, but Sunday's end of the Night King also feels like the end of the show's magic and wonder.

But what a way to go.

• Follow Sean on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH. WaterTower Music has released an eight-minute excerpt from Sunday's musical score via YouTube, Spotify and other outlets. Entitled "The Night King," it includes the episode's climactic moment.