This episode was nonsensical garbage. Poor lighting aside, none of it really made any sense at all.
So their plan was to have Jon and Dany wait up on a cliff until the Night King showed himself, when all he had to do was send waves and waves of the dead to overrun the people on the ground, and just hang back himself? You had to use the dragons from the get-go, what kind of stupid idea was this? The Night King didn't have to enter the fray at all if you weren't going to use your dragons.
I love how in previous episodes where he did nothing but talk, Jon was wearing badass black armor with the Stark crest on it, but now that it's "The Great War", his armor is gone, f**king lol.
Melisandre shows up and knows what all is about to go down apparently, so she lights the Arakhs up only to have them get molly whopped about 2 minutes later? She doesn't say anything to Jon, the guy she brought back from the dead, who is allegedly TPTWP, now it's all about Arya now? What? Where did this even come from? Why even have the prophecy about TPTWP/Azor Ahai Reborn, who shall return to combat the Long Night?
Ghost is stuck in the first charge with the Dothraki, we never see him again, but apparently he's alive next episode. Rhaegal crash lands and Jon falls off his back and we never see him again, but don't worry, he's somehow alive next episode? LMAO.
What the hell was with Arya being a total badass, then all of a sudden she's scared shitless of a few shambling zombies? What even was that scene in that library? Or whatever it was? It was like a video game level, there's a f**king WAR going on outside and these few random zombies are just shambling among bookcases not making a sound lmao what the f**k is going on? Why are they in there and not out fighting? They go from running super fast, world war Z style to shambling around like Walking Dead zombies.
And Beric... The dude gets stabbed a few times, breaks free, keeps running, gets stabbed some more, keeps running, then he's like blocking the path with his arms outstretched, just getting laid into with daggers and swords and it's like wow, he's giving them time to escape... then they get outside and you see him hunched over running behind them LMAO, it was seriously like a parody. "Oh he's dead, oh no he's not, oh yes he is, oh no he's not, oh yes he.... oh no, he's not." LOL. Then he gets outside and just dies without a word, why even show that? What the hell?
There are literally scenes towards the end where there's basically no good guys fighting except main characters, i.e Brienne, Jaime, Pod. And they're just taking on hordes of the dead, it even looks like they're being swarmed and dogpiled to the ground and stabbed in some scenes, only to be standing and still fighting next scene. The suspense was not there for me, the longer the episode went on, the more obvious it was that not many people out of the main cast were actually going to die. All this build up and they couldn't pull the trigger.
I thought for sure there was some reason, some magic, about the Crypts of Winterfell that made it so the dead could not raise there. How else could you explain these morons packing the women and children into a place filled with cadavers? AND THEN THEY DO RAISE FROM THE DEAD AND KILL A BUNCH OF THEM, LOL? How can these people possibly be so god damn stupid?
So Bran just let Theon and everyone die, knowing full well the zombies would just halt in a circle around him and wait for the Night King to show up anyway? What a prick. 1 minute after Theon's dead, Arya materializes out of thin air to attack the NK, lmao? She got through the thousands of zombies and group of White Walkers, and was able to sneak up on the NK? How? What? This reeked of Snoke's death in TLJ. Bad surprises are still bad...
And now the next episode is "We won the Great War, now let's go win the... last war?" Who even cares at this point? The apocalyptic threat you've been building up since the very first scene of the very first episode in season 1 is now gone. The threat that was supposed to make the squabbling over the Iron Throne irrelevant has been defeated, and the vast majority of the world doesn't even know it ever existed LOL. Now you just go deal with Cersei, who has no dragons, and who Arya should just be able to assassinate in about 2 minutes after arriving at King's Landing? What a waste of a build up, god damn.
There's so much more even to b**ch about, but apparently the majority of watchers loved it and think it's the greatest episode of television ever.
The show has become a Hollywood cliche, it is no longer Game of Thrones.
Originally posted by TrocityThe real issue is that it was explicitly acknowledged by every member of the team, in the prior episode, that they knew exactly where the NK was going to go during the battle (to kill Bran). Soooo why even bother chasing him blindly through the clouds and shit for half an episode instead of setting a trap inside the God's Wood?
So their plan was to have Jon and Dany wait up on a cliff until the Night King showed himself
Originally posted by TrocityThe execution of how the scene unfolds was terrible yeah, just like every other scene in the episode. I just don't mind that it was her who landed the killing blow.
No issue with how she kills the Night King?Has anyone made a gif of her slinging in on a web like Spider-Man yet?
If they were dead-set on having Arya finish him, I think it would have made more sense for Jon and Theon to end up running interference, killing the majority of the NKs lieutenants with dragon-glass and then being overwhelmed (Theon dies). But enough of the NK's guard is killed that Arya can slip in and shank him.
The show became so famous in part because it didn't follow expected formulas; killing main characters quickly, having villains win etc. But once everyone expects that to happen the only way to "not do what's expected" is to return to traditional formulas: main characters always surviving, villains losing right as they're about to win.
There was no way for this show to both defy expectations while still fulfilling expectations. Maybe having the living embodiment of death be the series' final villain instead of Cersei, and have him defeated Pyrrhicly (the Night King destroyed but the world has to burn, maybe) could have been more satisfying---though there's always going to be a very large segment of viewers who just want a "badass, kinda sad, but ultimately happy" ending and those people have no imaginations.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
The show became so famous in part because it didn't follow expected formulas; killing main characters quickly, having villains win etc. But once everyone expects that to happen the only way to "not do what's expected" is to return to traditional formulas: main characters always surviving, villains losing right as they're about to win.
Exactly. Its strange that people would be furious if there is a somewhat happy ending instead of having all the main characters dead. Even though that is GOT cliche' and the expected ending.
I did want Jon to kill the Night King though. So the whole Azor Ahai thing was all meaningless lulz.
Another thing that was dumb was that Melisandre just suicides for no reason.
The season has been hyped to the point it is gonna be hard to live up to the hype, but they could at least try to make the episodes somewhat coherent. Oh and the only time the audience should be laughing is at the parts the writers intended to be funny. If people are laughing at scenes from a "serious" battle then the writers and directors f*cked up.
There were plenty of scenes where you just could not tell what the hell was happening.
Oh and can someone explain why
Spoiler:
Melisandre died? The only reason I could guess is that she used up her life force when she used magic to create that fire.
She probably had no purpose anymore in the story, so they killed her off. Would have been better had her death been an actual sacrifice, like exploding in a fireball to kill Viserion--appropriate given her history of doing that to other people.
The lighting really sucked this time round. Maybe she could have died lighting up the whole sky with fire to counter the Night King's ice cloud. Ice and Fire. Appropriate symbolism? No, just have her kinda hide during the battle then fall down and vanish? Okay.
Originally posted by RobtardThat line had me expecting some memorable gesture of sacrifice. But my expectations were subverted for no appropriate reason, so mission accomplished, I guess.
Funny, I said similar, I thought she was going to jihad and explode herself into a glorious blaze saving someone important or a group of nobides, thereby semi-redeeming herself and touching back on her "I won't survive" comment to the Onion Lord.
Anti-climactic and inappropriate describe this episode best. Just because you can draw a connection between two events or themes doesn't make it the most appropriate. Jon v Night King would be appropriate. Bran v Night King is appropriate--there are connections established between these characters--emotionally charged connections that can be paid off with any combination of victory, defeat, and interpersonal resolution. What did Arya and the Night King have in connection?
A superficial theme of death was all they had in common. That's not enough. NK was killed both too early and by the wrong person. A genuine surprise would be to not have him die at all. Or win. Reveal something deeper to his and the Walker's nature and origin. If that doesn't happen in the next 3 episodes they're going to to wind up being just another army that gets fought on the battlefield and then collapses once their leader gets The Phantom Menace treatment.
One of the finest examples of anti-climax masked with "epicness" I've ever watched on screen.
Arya killing the NK didnt suprise me i assumed thats the route they were gonna go after ep 1 this season.
As for the rest. From the beginning of the ep, it seemed more like a Marvel "What If" (as in, What if all the characters that participated in this battle did so with mild down syndrom) rather than an actual canon episode.
The plan from the beginning was beyond dumb. Just send the dothraki into the pitch black to face the Night kings army. Wtf? But oooh now their swords are on fire. So on the plus side they can now see 2 feet in front of themselves. On the negative the opposing army can see them coming, in the dark, from a mile away.
Those 6 or 7 catapults sure came in handy. For the 5 seconds they used them. They sure did look nice tho, just sitting there, untouched for the rest of the battle.
Maybe a line or 2 of archers shooting fire arrows behind the cavalry into the undead masses might have helped. Or maybe raining them down from the walls of winterfell would have been nice after the trench was lit. But standing around like morons not evening manning the walls was an idea too i guess.
Someone already mentioned packing the women and children into the freaking crypts, while they're fighting an army of freaking zombies. And literally no one, not Tyrion, sansa, varys... the supposed "smartest" people in the land thought this might be a poor choice. I get Gilly being too dumb to notice, but everyone else. Come on.
The Night Kings generals were cool characters tho. Too bad they did absolutly nothing.
I do like how they knew from previous experience that killing the generals would take out large groups of the undead. Yet made no attempt what so ever to make that a part of their strategy. Its not like they had the greatest assassin in the world (arya) whose quite familiar with winterfell and the north, that could have snuck around picking a few off. Nope. Use her to fight them head on in the halls. Great use of her skills right there.
Not to mention all the other crap people have already brought up. The lighting, the main characters plot armor, etc...
Bran sitting there all episode doing nothing, then having no part in his main enemies demise was a genius stroke tho. Not a complete waste of a main characters story arc or anything. It was almost as smart as Theon, running at the NK, in a straight line, from 50 yards away. How in the world did that move fail?
Why did they even make their stand at Winterfell in the first place? Almost everywhere we've seen north of King's Landing is better. Moat Cailin, a high castle surrounded by marshlands. The Twins. A wide river with a bottleneck and a castle at each end. The Vale. A very high castle protected by a narrow entry and several castles and gates.
So much other dumb stuff. If the 3 eyed ravens are the memory of men why are they hundreds of miles north of the wall where no man has seen them in thousands of years? If Bran is the continuation of them why does he never tell anyone anything?
I think he's done some telepathic deal with the Night King that Arya has just ruined and now he's going to warg into her and get her to stick a dragonglass dagger in his heart or maybe Sansa and make her the Night Queen.
Nobody expects Bronn to actually kill Tyrion so that means he probably will.
Cleganebowl: Get Hype 2
Originally posted by jaden_2.0I really hope it's something like this. If Ep. 3's bland ending is the last we see of the Night King or the White Walkers after 9 years of buildup... f*ck.
I think he's done some telepathic deal with the Night King that Arya has just ruined and now he's going to warg into her and get her to stick a dragonglass dagger in his heart or maybe Sansa and make her the Night Queen.
If Bran made a telepathic deal, like trading his life (or becoming a White Walker) in return for letting everyone else live, then it was failing considering zombies where chewing up everyone without plot-armor right up until Arya killed the NK and epic laughs then at Bran just watching Theon do a retard's suicide charge after protecting Bran from zombie after zombie for like 40mins.
Honestly, can't see this, it makes zero sense considering Bran's actions/inactions. But at this point, not making sense is kinda the thing a lot of the time. God damn it.