Lemuria

I wonder if Lucifer goes to Sister Jo, a "faith healer," because he thinks she can, in some way, restore his grace.

They remembered Dean went to Hell! Yes! And it meant something in regard to the story. Double yes!! I even thought there was an echo of the Righteous Man, in that something with an angelic element had a connection to Dean. I know. I just sat there staring at the screen and going "Sam, you idiotsky! What are you doing?" To make it worse, he wasn't only blowing on it, he was also waving his hand over it. Because feeding it just one way wasn't enough! Well, we know from "Sin City" that the Cage most likely was not in Hell, since Casey indicated that demons believed in their god, Lucifer, even though they didn't really know if he existed. Which they most likely would have, if they'd had to walk around the Cage on a regular basis. I thought it meant someone who had actually gone to Hell, ie, died and ended up in Hell, because of a deal or because he/she was a thoroughly rotten person, and who had then gotten out. I feel the same way. I especially loved how someone who has faced down every kind of supernatural beastie, demons, angels, Lucifer, Death, God, Amara, you name it, was unraveling over the idea of putting his hand blindly into something that might have spiders. Because...SPIDERS!!!! (I know exactly how you feel, Dean! lol).

But, if I remember it correctly (and I admit that the 2nd half of season 8 does not shine bright in my memory :) ), within only a couple (or so) of episodes, they're in the Impala and Sam is talking about how maybe Dean had been right and "this is harder than I thought." Yep, because it's perfectly reasonable to assume that closing the gates of Hell against Hell's wishes would be a walk in the park. Oy. And I do want to note that it wasn't Dean fans who were saying he was suicidal. Those I spoke with felt the same way about it that I did: It wasn't being suicidal, just pragmatic. This wasn't the kind of thing from which the person undertaking it would emerge unscathed (or even slightly "scathed" lol).

But that wasn't his original intent. Before dragons ever flew to the North, the NK was marching his army to Eastwatch. He wasn't going to sit there and hope a dragon showed up. Yes, he was ready for dragons, with his spears, but AFAIAC that was in anticipation of facing them after he went south, at which point Danaerys could not avoid realizing the threat and going against him. The NK, IMO, intended to go around the Wall. There was no other reason to be marching to Eastwatch. Look at the map that appears during the opening sequence: from season 1-6, we can see water/ocean to the east of Eastwatch. But in Season 7, it was white. This wasn't just any winter, this was the Long Night, and the ocean was freezing over. (And the NK's powers might be increasing, because it was the Long Night, and he was speeding up the freezing process.) The NK and his army were going to flank the Wall. They were heading south no matter what had happened with Danaerys. And doesn't that sound like Cersei. "I'm going to make them love me." How ominous. Speaking solely for the show, Jon didn't fail. He did what a good leader is supposed to do: What is best for his command, as well as for others who need protection. There were what, 50-100 men guarding the entire Wall? There was no way they could hold the Wall against the NK and the Walkers. Going for the Wildlings would serve two purposes: one was to save the Wildlings, who were human, from the Others, who definitely were not. The other was to beef up the forces guarding the Wall, that is, to help those under his command and to create a greater force to protect those to the south. The failure was on the part of Thorne and his supporters to remember that the Wall had not been built to keep out the Wildlings but to keep out the Others. (In fact, the Wall probably created the Wildlings, cutting off the First Men who were in the far North from the warmer, and more fertile, south.) If any had kept alive the memory of the first Long Night, it should have been the Watch, but they failed in that charge. And this was even after they had encountered a wight. Even Cersei didn't need more than a wight to believe in the Others; she just didn't believe how great a threat they were. (And isn't it ironic that Ser Thorne, who went to the Wall because he'd been a Targaryen supporter during the Rebellion, murdered the last trueborn male Targaryen heir.)

A lot of my feelings about this ep have already been covered, so some random stuff: =How stupid was that sleeping arrangement? Shouldn't there have been one brother in each room? You know, an experienced hunter? To protect Jack and Donatello (and/or to protect Donatello and the world from Jack, depending on the POV). =Speaking of Jack, why did Jack seem more knowledgeable and mature before he was born than after? His "communications." His vision of the future. Etc. =Faces: shouldn't Lucifer have been able to see Michael's true face behind his vessel? Shouldn't Jack have been able to pick up something from Asmodeus? =When did Kelly practically become a saint? The last decision we know for sure that she made on her own, without outside (or inside, as in Jack), influence was choosing to sleep with the President. After that, we have no clue how much was Kelly and how much was Jack. Besides, I'm not sure I consider deciding the risk the entire world on the "word" of a fetus that could be completely evil to be a really noble decision. =I don't agree that the show has shown us that being without a soul=being without morals, either with Donatello or with season 6 Sam. I also don't agree with that generally. If the soul were the seat of morality, then children would be born inherently moral. They aren't. They have to taught morality. They've shown that even young children can display empathy but they'll still think it's OK to just take what they want until they are taught otherwise. For me, morality is more complex and intellectual. (Even the soulless babysitter was doing what she considered to be moral: protecting a child from what she now saw as abuse. She just took it to extremes.) =As other posters have said, I'm really tired of seeing the show keep claiming that Dean has this black-and-white attitude toward "monsters." He definitely starting shifting his feelings on this in season 2 (and possibly even earlier. See, Faith.). And Sam has shown that he's not always kumbaya with non-humans. They've sort of met in the middle. =Put me in with those who really hated the "crossed wires" comment. I've read, here and elsewhere, posts that attempt to hand-wave it but "having wires crossed" is an expression in real life, and it doesn't refer to someone who masks his fear or grief with anger. "Having wires crossed" means there's something wrong in a defective sense. It's a problem that requires a fix or whatever it is that has the crossed wires will not work. You can't just say, "Buck up" and move on. Not to mention, I don't think that Dean was wrong for being wary and suspicious or for disagreeing with other opinions on the subject, including Sam's. In the end (as I'm pretty sure will happen), it may turn out that his concerns were unfounded but he does have reasons for feeling that way that have nothing to do with any alleged problem with expressing his emotions. =The problem with saying that it's on the writers, for me, is that, while it's true that it's the writers who put the words or actions into the script, once it's onscreen, it basically becomes part of the character even though the dialogue or behavior in question totally contradicts what we've seen before--and that's infuriating to me. I don't think I've ever seen showrunners and writers who care so little for consistency and their own canon. =Shedim (it's a plural noun in Hebrew) are demons. There are differing stories about how they came to be: e.g. one version is that they are the offspring of Adam and Lilith, the Mother of Demons. Another is that they were supposed to be humans also but God did not finish them because He rested on the Sabbath and He decided to leave them incomplete to underscore that all work was to be completed by the Sabbath. Sometimes it was believed that they could actually be helpful to humans and that some could even live in accordance with the Torah, such as--wait for it--Asmodeus. (How's that for coincidence--since I'll never believe these guys do any real research!) I do think they do this sort of thing to cause a rift between the brothers. Which worked initially but by now is an annoyance. I also think that a lot of times, based on what they're saying in interviews, that they have no clue how badly they are making the characters look.

I have to admit I couldn't get through Hocus Pocus. My mind went to Star Trek--one of my favorite episodes. “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but is often true.”

Occam's Razor applies, I think--look how many variations of "it's possible" you have to make. What might be "conceivable" (and fanon) is just really pure speculation. And there's no reason to assume that Bobby only recently acquired the Key of Solomon or that he would have passed on any knowledge--the Bobby who was Hunter Central doesn't show up until well after "Devil's Trap"--again, it's assumption not based on anything said or shown in the show. I never suggested that Dean had not met Bobby before "Devil's Trap," only that I got the distinct impression in the finale that Sam had not. John had a gift for ticking people off and that was all that I took away from that dialogue. In fact, if we were supposed to assume that Bobby knew Dean and Sam from the time they were kids and felt that they weren't being raised right, there is no way that Dean would have hesitated to come to Bobby for help, even if Bobby had been mad at John. And there's no way Sam would not have thought of Bobby as a source of help, the way Dean did. It is now but that was six season later and is clearly part of the retcon that started in season 3. JMO YMMV.

Bobby being a long-standing figure in the Winchester world is a retcon that starts with "A Very Supernatural Christmas." Watch "Devil's Trap" again. There was no doubt in my mind when that ep first aired that, while John may have known, or known of, Bobby before Sam left for Stanford (though he also may not have), at the very least, Dean had not learned of or met Bobby until after Sam was gone, or that Sam did not know Bobby until the season 1 finale. Two primary reasons I felt that way (and still do): first, when Dean says that saving John is there first priority and that he knows where to go, Sam has no idea where Dean is going. He never mentions Bobby. Second, Sam was amazed at the books in Bobby's library. This would not have been his attitude had he grown up around Bobby and Bobby's house and Bobby's library.

I loved Mickey Kostmayer. (And the fact that Robert McCall could find a parking spot on the streets of Manhatten--and surrounding boroughs--any time he wanted one!)

IMO, Dean did not remember Hell in any detail--just the flashes and the screams--until near the end of "Yellow Fever," when he hallucinates talking with little-girl Lilith and she tells him that he knows why he got sick, what he did in Hell. I believe that it all came back at that point but not before.

Is that supposed to be Jack saying "When I get scared, things happen?" 'Cause it sounds more like Cas to me. OTOH, that's not really true. Is there a third hand?

At whom do you think Dean (or Jensen) is throwing the stink-eye in the ninth picture down?

I don't think it was just that he was in love with Lyanna--that merely meant that he didn't kidnap and rape her--but he was also obsessed with the prophecy and he believed a union with Lyanna would produce the PwwP. (I've seen his belief in the prophecy called "insane" but since the Long Night is actually here and the Battle for the Dawn has started, well, he was right to believe in the prophecy, wasn't he?) Nope, not for a minute. With 6 episodes to go, you don't introduce a character out of the blue to take the place of someone that all signs have been pointing to (ie Jon). It's better known as a "bait-and-switch" and nothing is more guaranteed to infuriate viewers and/or readers faster or more likely to make sure they never tune into or read anything you do again.

I touched on this in a post in the book talk thread: the sea to the east of Eastwatch is freezing over. They show this on the map at the beginning, when it moves up to show the Wall and (this season) Eastwatch. The NK was marching his army to Eastwatch even before the plan to get a wight was hatched. He wasn't doing it to keep his army in shape. To me, it seems clear that he intended to flank the Wall and march his army around it over the frozen sea.

I think Tyrion believed that, when faced with total destruction at the hands of the undead, Cersei would make survival--especially her own--the most paramount problem. Cersei may be "mad" (though I'm not sure how much that is true) but she's been very smart since she took over. Under normal circumstances, letting two enemies fight first and then taking on the weakened survivor would make sense. In this situation, it doesn't. This is the first really irrational decision I've seen her make this season.

Wait, didn't he run to Eastwatch? All the while thinking, "Who do I have to f*!@ to get off this planet?"

Still an assumption. Jon was the leader because he was the only "king" there but he's never been someone who wouldn't listen to others. And besides, I'm still waiting to hear what a better option was. If this is the only chance you have, then this is what you do, no matter how risky it might be. I think he was saying, "I'm not going to lie to you about not becoming Switzerland--and I'm not lying to you about the fact that if you want to have a snowball's chance in Hell of holding onto the Iron Throne, you'd better help do something about the undead army." YMMV. I did like the Jon-Theon scene very much. Theon deserves a shot at redemption: He did bad things and he paid a harsh price for it. I loved that, as angry as we saw Jon was when he first encountered Theon this season, he still forgave him as much as he could. I also loved the scenes with the snow starting to fly around. All the more chilling (no pun intended!) for the lack of neon-sign music behind it. I know! When I heard the Hound say that, I was all, "The internet's going to go nuts." LOL That's a very interesting idea.

And we know this because...? This is an assumption. The only thing we saw was the discussion on Dragonstone. Everyone was saying, "Great! Jorah's back and he knows war and tactics; he can take over from Tyrion, who doesn't." So maybe it was Jorah's plan. Or maybe the BWB said, "We got a vision from the LoL and we have to get to a mountain shaped like an arrowhead. We'll find a wight there." We don't know how the actual raid was conceived but there wasn't much leeway. You continue to hide Enigma and let Coventry be destroyed. Because sometimes, the only options are "extremely lousy" and "really, really, really horribly, terribly bad." As for giving the NK a dragon: There are those who talk about how stupid the wight plan who say that Dany should just have done a flyover. Two problems with that, as I see it: First, that still would put a dragon in the line of fire. The NK was gunning for a dragon and he'd come prepared to take one down. I believe that the "scouting party" was out there looking for a dragon to arrive--the NK probably knew that sooner or later, Dany would have to see for herself--since there was no other reason to have a scouting party. The Wildlings were gone and the NW consisted of about the same number of people as it would take to fill a small movie theater. Second, Dany didn't need to just see the undead army, she needed to be convinced how much of a threat they were. I think she was more than a little arrogant about the power that the dragons represented. Nothing could have brought home with more impact the danger the NK and his army represented than losing Viserion did. I disagree. How many posts did we see over the last couple of weeks talking about how dumb the wight plan was because Cersei would never honor her promise to send troops to help them? That being the case, Jon's honesty was irrelevant. So if Jon had lied, she would have just lied to them sooner than she ended up lying to them? That would have somehow been a win for the Good Guys? This is who Jon is--and maybe it's the reason the LoL brought him back. (It also confirmed for Dany that this was someone she could trust and ally with.) IMO, no. The NK was marching toward Eastmarch for a reason. If you look at the weekly opening sequences, with the map, from the first 6 seasons, we see water on the map to the east of Eastmarch. If you look at the opening sequence for this season, we see white east of Eastmarch. This is no ordinary winter, this is the start of the Long Night, 8,000 years after the first one. In addition to meaning that the weather is colder than a normal winter, it may mean that the NK is at the height of his powers. Either way, the sea east of Eastmarch is freezing over. As I see it, the NK intended (if no flyover was done) to wait until it was frozen enough--or to use his power to freeze it more and faster than the winter would have--and then to march his army around the Wall. One way or another, he was getting south of the Wall. At some point, Rhaegar was too dead to prevent anyone from bringing her upsetting news. I think she was well aware that Rhaegar, Elia Martell and the kids were dead when Ned arrived. I'm wondering what Dany will think when (I'm assuming it's a when and not an if) she learns not only of Jon's parentage but also his name. Remember her dream/vision of Rhaeger appearing to her and saying that this is his son, Aegon, and he is the PwwP? She probably dismissed it since she believed Aegon was dead. This is now changed. Maybe it really was a curse that had been laid on her. Thing is, Jon has now been resurrected by Rhy'llor, which could be seen as making him "magic." That, in turn, might be able to defeat the curse. Just spitballin' here. But I think the whole point is that Jon is not a "playah." The only one not seeking to grab power or promote himself (making him, in one sense, the only person who should have the power). He accepted the "vote" to make him KiTN because it gave him the best opportunity to unite the North and to put together a defense against the oncoming army of the undead. I'm not sure he intended to keep the title if they won. If Dany truly intends to break the wheel, then that also means putting an end to the intrigue, the "game of thrones." It should also mean rulers who put the welfare of the people first. You know, Jon Snow. Forgot to add: I thought Lena H. did a fantastic job in this ep.

I thought one thing that Beric said to Jon was more than a little ominous: "You and I won't find much joy while we're here but we can keep others alive." I'm not sure Jon's ending will even be Martin's "bittersweet." There was a major game changer in this ep, IMO, and I don't mean Viserion. With Viserion, we get a change in the odds but this other thing changes what is needed for victory. Before "Beyond the Wall" I thought the endgame of the War for the Dawn would be army vs. army, the undead vs. the living armed with dragonglass and Valaryian steel. Now I think we will still see army vs army, but in end, their purpose will be to ensure that the two antagonists make it to the final battle. We learned that taking out the NK will bring down the entire WW/undead army. The stare-off--the second one the two of them have had--narrowed (for me) the deciding battle down to Jon and the NK.

Ah, yes, Lord Glover. "...and I'll regret that to my dying day." Or, two months. Whichever comes first.

I keep hearing this but I haven't heard any viable alternatives. A lot of "Well, they don't need to convince Cersei," but no decent other options. A flyover with her dragons? And how does that not risk a dragon falling to the NK's spear the same way? Clearly, he was gunning for a dragon. Then there was: Grab a corpse and wait for it to turn into a wight. To paraphrase Han Solo, "It doesn't work that way!" Was convincing Cersei important? Yes, especially as Dany, while she had come to believe in the WWs, still didn't believe they were so dangerous that she had to leave Dragonstone and CR for Cersei to take. She knows better now, and there's always the chance that Cersei will recognize that her survival as well as that of the people she'd like to have around to rule depends on stopping the NK. And who knows? There might even be a maester there who can get the word back to the idiots in Oldtown. So in the absence of any genuinely better plans, this is all they had. And it wasn't stupid. Incredibly risky, yes. Very dangerous, yes. But the only game in town. (And a thank you to everyone who beat me to the punch and pointed out that, no, it wasn't Jon's plan, it was Tyrion's. So if you think it's stupid--and I really think it was the only chance of convincing Westeros of the threat--please don't point the finger at Jon.) Besides, as Gimli said: "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?" I did like the conversations between the various members of the Snowicide Squad. Some of it was funny--poor Gendry, though I loved Jon's smile at what Tormund was saying--and some of it was very interesting, in particular, the discussion between Jon and Beric. Oh, and SC--maybe this will teach you not to willy-nilly (I believe that's Nissa Nissa's brother) throw stones. Maybe from all those empty castles along the wall that the NW was no longer able to man? I'm hoping that this is a set-up between Arya and Sansa to nail LF. Otherwise, Arya's a total wacko and Sansa's a total idiot. I mean, making LF her only confidante and advisor, after saying that a person would have to be a fool to trust him? I know that the threatening conversation appeared to be private but I'm hoping that they both believe that LF could find a way to spy on them and they're playing it to the hilt no matter where they are (they probably wouldn't want to play it out in public and end up with everyone in the castle taking sides). And that Sansa sent Brienne away so that Brienne didn't try to stop the "conflict" between them, which also might explain why she was so snotty to Brienne; she needed to make sure Brienne left. Otherwise...what a mess.

Re Sansa and Arya: neither one has seen the other for over 6 years and to some extent, they still see some of the same traits in each other that they saw all those years ago. We haven't seen them have a long discussion, which means that neither of them know what the other's been through or how each has changed. With Jon, for example: Arya was very close with Jon and she knew that Sansa didn't treat him well. Back then, Sansa took her cues in regard to Jon from Catelyn. I can't remember if it's in the show or the books (or maybe both!) that we learn that Sansa practically didn't talk to him at all in the years before they left Winterfell. We, the audience, know that Sansa has changed greatly in this regard and has apologized for her behavior but Arya doesn't know that as yet. So when it appears to her that Sansa is at least interested in hearing from the various lords that maybe there should be a QiTN instead of a KiTN, part of her judgment is based on what she knew about Sansa and Jon's relationship before everything went to Hell in a handbasket. The room is part of this: Arya doesn't know how it went down and so it seems that Sansa is giving off signals that she should be in charge and not Jon. All Sansa had to do to diffuse that part of the lack of understanding was to tell Arya what really happened: "Hey, I told Jon he should have the room but he said he shouldn't because he wasn't a Stark, and I said he was to me but he still insisted that I take the room. So I did because it was what he wanted." That conversation immediately casts a different light on things. I know that some posters will ask why Sansa had to be the one to explain this to Arya and my answer would be, "Because of the two of them, she's the only one who knows." It would be so easy to diffuse at least that part of any problems between them, why not do it? Thinking about what Varys was saying about his letting, even enabling, Aerys to kill all those people (accompanied by his telling Dany in a prior ep that he'll support a monarch that puts the people first) makes me wonder if the current Varys isn't trying to expiate the guilt he feels over not taking the right action back at the time of the tournament. Rhaegar had set up the tournament with many sizeable prizes expressly for the purpose of getting all of the lords to show up. He intended to have a Great Council to discuss the problem of his increasingly-insane father and to see if he could not get them to agree to go along with deposing Aerys and backing Rhaegar for the throne. Varys' intelligence system got the word back to him and he proceeded to put a spike in those plans by convincing Aerys to go to the tournament, which meant the council could not be set up and/or go forward. Lyanna choosing Rhaegar over Robert would have bruised Robert's ego but he couldn't have fought a war against the Targaryens on his own. It was the killing of Rickard and Branden Stark that caused House Stark to rise in rebellion and with it, the North. Maybe Varys now regrets not letting the council go forward. (I've seen comments elsewhere about how the war started because of Rhaegar's "crazy obsession" that the Long Night and the second Battle for the Dawn was coming. Well, as we watched the NK and his army march toward Eastwatch, he doesn't look quite so crazy anymore, does he?) I have to respectfully disagree. I think there was a big difference between that ep and this one. Tyrion never petted Rhaegal. Tyrion was talking to the dragons, trying to get them not to eat him, and while he was reaching up to the collar--and because he'd always wanted to touch a dragon--he rested one hand briefly on the dragon and then continued on to unlock the collar. At no time did he pet Rhaegal, certainly not the way Jon was petting Drogon, nor did Rhaegal respond with any affection. To me, the Tyrion scene was much more about showing us that the dragons could understand more than pretty everyone had thought they could. In this ep, however, Jon is outright petting Drogon. He's not doing anything to benefit Drogon nor is he someone who had met Drogon before or ever done anything for the dragon (eg fed him or freed him). And Drogon seems to be making the dragon equivalent of purring sounds. The camera even pans up so we can see Drogon close his eye (presumably, both eyes!) the way a person might if he or she asked someone to scratch their back and they got just the right spot. Does Tyrion have Targaryen blood? I don't know for sure--but I suspect not as there really haven't been any hints that the general audience could pick up on--but I don't think the scene in season 6 confirmed (or even suggested) that the way the scene here did.

"Earmuffs? We don't need no stinkin' earmuffs!" These guys are not Southern pantywaists, you know. lol I gave you a like for this--I was going to raise the same point after reading multiple times the suggestion that they should just grab a dead body and wait until it wights out. Corpses don't just become wights. If they did, the North and the rest of Westeros would by wall-to-wall wights by now. Sticking a corpse out near the Wall would accomplish nothing unless the Red God of Coincidence was on your side and had a WW stroll on by while walking his undead dog. Is it a dangerous, very risky plan? Yes. Are there viable alternatives? Not so far. Especially if they are trying to convince not only Cersei (and, to a lesser extent, Dany, who may now believe WWs exist but not realize just how bad the situation is) but also all the other lords, whose armies they're going to need. Yes, I agree, odds are Cersei won't honor any agreement she makes but to this point, she hasn't been stupid in her choices this year, so there's always the chance she'd realize just how badly things would go if the NK and his troops are not stopped. They have to try, IMO. Little Sam (LS) is very important in this ep. He's the reason Big Sam(BS) will have the crucial book in his hands when the time comes that bothers to read it. BS dismissed and ignored what Gilly was reading and had no respect for the person who'd written it. He went to grab the books and scrolls he thought were going to be useful. Before he did that, though, he gave the book to LS. He was trying to sneak away from the Citadel with a bunch of stolen books. The last thing he wanted to occur was a temper tantrum because he tried to take LS's book away from him. Otherwise, I think BS would have left that book/scroll and the 15,782 whatevers right there on the table. Way to go, LS. When the PwwP comes into his own, I think you deserve a holding of your own! (Maybe right next to Bronn's castle.) It wasn't a matter of Benjen's not allowing himself back through the Wall, nor was he afraid the NK would follow him (that was a possibility with Bran, not with Benjen). It's that the Wall wouldn't let him through because he had been partly turned into a wight. Who else has he allowed to pet his nose? None of the dragons have allowed that or been affectionate with anyone except Dany, and they consider her their Mom. Certainly the alpha, Drogon, hasn't. And Drogon didn't just allow Jon to pet him; he was practically purring and closing his eyes. There's no doubt to me that it's important. I'm just surprised that Dany all over it more. to me, it makes more sense. If Jon is true-born, then he is an even greater threat to the Baratheons and Lannisters, and certainly he'd be a rallying point for Targaryen loyalists. And speaking of Targaryen loyalists, I wonder how Ser Alister Thorne would have felt, since he went to the NW because he'd fought for the Targaryens during the Rebellion, if he'd found out that he just stabbed Rhaegar's heir to death. Ah, the irony. :)

That depends really. Someone throws a large spear and takes down a flying dragon. One of the watchers say, "Are we supposed to believe that could happen?" A person standing next to him then asks, "So you didn't notice the blue tights, red cape and big 'S' on his chest?" The Night King is not "people". He hasn't been "people" for 8,000 years. He's an immortal, powerfully magical being. I haven't seen the ep so I don't know how it plays out, but I can accept that he can do things that humans can't. My assumption is that if a WW is killed, only the wights that he raised would fall apart; we don't know where they might have been when Jon killed him. Since the Night King is the "sire" of all WW, I'm also assuming that taking him down would destroy his line (that is, the WWs) and every wight that the NK's "offspring" raised.

She isn't more directly descended from Aerys, she's just a step closer. A grandchild is considered a direct descendant, just one level down from a child.