WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 8 of Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame.
The past weekend proved to be quite an epic one in modern pop culture, as Avengers: Endgame went head to head with Game of Thrones. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers got a rematch against Thanos, while over in Westeros Jon Snow got his round two with the Night King in the Battle of Winterfell.
Heroes and villains collided, with the very fate of their respective worlds on the line. As intimidating as the Night King was, it's the Mad Titan who ends up taking top billing as the bigger, badder supervillain.
The writing's been on the wall for some time now that we'd get to see who was the true destroyer between the two, as fate brought the Night King to Winterfell's doorstep the same weekend Thanos got another shot at dusting the galaxy.
The geek tale of the tape sized up the towering Thanos in the purple corner as someone who won his last bout, decimating the universe by snapping half of life away in Infinity War's finale. As for the Night King in the blue corner, the icy overlord beat Jon and company twice, killing and reanimating a dragon in the process, all before burning the Wall down and marching on the free world.
So, as you can see, both are clearly heavy-hitters meant to bring about the apocalypse, but when it came down to finishing their enemies, while both failed, the Mad Titan inflicted more damage and came off as the more fearsome entity.
The Night King, as intimidating as he was, ends up being underwhelming in his crowning moment of glory in "The Long Night." He and his generals fall into a simple trap laid by Arya Stark, who sneaks up and stabs him to death.
It's certainly a cool sequence, but it lacks any sense of urgency and fails to deliver on the promise we saw in episodes like "Hardhome." The Night King doesn't appear intelligent, as he had ample time to spear Bran, yet he opts to smile, walk slowly and do a bunch of unnecessary staring, not to mention his crew of flunkies are the worst bodyguards ever when it comes to protecting their lord.
It's as incompetent as a gang gets, and after seeing them as such unbeatable warriors in previous episodes, to lose by a single, decisive blow is pretty anticlimactic. We didn't even see (no pun intended, as the show's lighting was pretty dark) Viserion wreaking havoc the way we wanted to, and seeing as this dragon was the Night King's equalizer of mass destruction against Daenerys' other beasts -- one might even call it his Infinity Gauntlet -- you can't help but feel short-changed.
Conversely, Endgame has Thanos pushing Earth's Mightiest Heroes to their limits again. Stopping him requires Black Widow killing herself for the Soul Stone, only for the Mad Titan to scupper the time heist by coming to the present to destroy the New Avengers' headquarters.
As for his performance in the battlefield, Thanos follows up his onslaught in Wakanda with yet another clinical display, taking out Marvel's Trinity of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor (who were all fully powered up). The icing on the cake comes in how he holds off Captain Marvel, proving not even a walking, breathing cosmic powerhouse is enough to stymie his sinister ambitions.
And unlike the Night King, who rarely threw a blow in his fights, Thanos is a way better warrior than in Infinity War. He's quick, cruel and packs a diverse array of moves in his arsenal, all backed by his double-bladed sword, reiterating this is the Mad Titan in his prime, and someone no Avenger can best in practical combat.
Ultimately, it comes down to the Hail Mary plays the heroes deploy to take each out. The Night King falls prey to a shortsword in the gut, but Thanos' demise calls for more desperate measures (i.e., Tony Stark sacrificing his own life to snap the villain away using his tech-infused Gauntlet). This has much more of a dramatic impact than Arya's killing blow, delivering a better spectacle for someone who can literally only be killed by warping the very fabric of reality.