[Spoilers lie within!] Rate s08e03.

Well, I've read a fair bit of fantasy novels/series over the years and, bar the fact that it took some detours here and there, it's still turned out to be pretty standard fantasy. Especially as we now get closer to the end: The Bastard/low born/orphan/cripple/whatever who would be the long lost king. The cool ninja. The conflicted "baddie". The fairy/otherworldly/dragon lady love interest. The books and show morphed. There was less grey area: The goodies lost a certain amount of their greyness and the baddies lost a certain amount of their nuance. They are practically twirling moustaches at this stage. Character who were once people are now heroes.

As was said previously, originally these were normal mortal people: Arya got stabbed by one girl (Admittedly a trained assassin, but still). Now she's laying waste to zombies like a mini-Blade and leaping through the air and killing immortal white walkers (Nice backup crew he had there in the Godswood. Way to go, lads). Jamie is suddenly able to fight off hoards of zombies with his bad hand. F*cking SAM was killin' lads!!!!

It is a pity because, up until about the end of book three the characters were still people. I mean, let's face it, the books were never Shakespeare. But they were interesting.

OK, that comes across a bit more negative than I intended. I do enjoy the show. I did enjoy last night's episode but only as a bit of fun. I think the show looks great, the characters are enjoyable but it's still just TV. I genuinely cannot understand how Thrones is so popular with mainstream audience. The same people who would run a mile from a fantasy book are suddenly poring over the history of swords etc.


I did enjoy the bit with the Dothraki riding in and the flames slowly winking out one by one. It was very effective. (Poor choice of words )

Killing off of the Dothraki and the Unsullied in the manner they did was very stupid from a character/leadership standpoint.

Makes Bran's precognitive ability seem a little pointless.
One does not defend a besieged strongpoint by wasteful head on assault.
Further one does not fight fast zombies in the open! In any reality.

The loss of Dany's armed strength and the salvation of the North's is IMO a plot device to allow the Lannisters forces with the Golden Company to "balance" Jon and Dany for the remainder of the war.

The elimination of the Wight threat was a bit of a disappointment in that the whole tension being directed there for 7yrs was wasted with very little payoff.
Here's hoping the battle for the 7Kingdoms is a bit more strategically nuanced!


PS.
Glad I watched that episode on an OLED!
Can only imagine how hard it would have been on a backlit LCD!

I enjoyed this episode quite a bit, but there were a few things that I rolled my eyes at.

Jon on the battlefield when the dead all rose up - should have easily overcome him with those numbers and he should be dust by now. Much like the time last season up north of the wall when he was left behind and surrounded by hundreds of dead soldiers, he shouldn't have survived that either. Guess we'll put it down to plot armor again, but they really should just plan that scene a little more believable.

Why sacrifice all the Dothraki so stupidly at the start? Bombard with the catapults first, then send them in once the dead army got closer. After all the tactical battles being fought, and previous mistakes made by all the leaders in this battle, they should and would have known better than this. Poor writing at it's worst.

The hand to hand combat scenes were very difficult to see what was going on, especially with how dark this episode was. I watched it with the lights off, brightness on the TV up and contrast edited to make it just about visible. If this was deliberate thing by the producers to make an episode - the episode that everyone has been waiting 8 years for - that can only be seen on super dooper TVs and not by anyone else, then I'm even more pissed off with them. I couldn't tell who was fighting half the time, and thought Aria, Jamie, The Hound and a few others were dead on more than one occasion.

The survival rate of the main characters. They really should have had more killed off. You would expect that front line fighters would not all survive in a battle like this, and even though this is pure fantasy, the show has always taken a hard cull to favourite characters when you least expect it. I would have thought that Jamie, Brianne, The Hound and maybe one of the Starks would bite the dust in this one.

Good end for Jora, going out protecting the woman he loves and spent the whole show serving.

Lianna Mormont - good end too, taking down a giant. Thought they might let her go on to fight more though, and maybe sacrifice other characters in her place.

Thought Bran would have done more, but it seems he just flew around a bit as a raven, and did nothing else. Didn't even see the point to that astral projection scene. Maybe it was because I couldn't actually see what was happening on screen.

Kind of a quick and sudden end for the Night King too. He didn't feature much in the episode. Glad it was Aria that got him, as it's been building to that for years now with her faceless assassin training and all. I actually thought for a minute that Bran was actually Aria, and he had sacrificed himself to her to trap the NK.

Overall, I give it a 7. I enjoyed it, it was a big fight with loads going on, but it could have been better if they had just made it that bit more realistic (for a complete fantasy that is).

podgemonster wrote: »

Almost 80% of voters have given the episode 7/10 or greater.
Fairly consistent with the RT score of 75%. Its fairly conclusive that this episode while not perfect was generally positive and viewers enjoyed it.

And after watching it for second time last night with a cuppa tea I enjoyed even more. Looking at the screenshot stills and listening to the music Djawadi's soundtrack here at the mo and its is simply stunning.

Soundtrack was pretty sh!te for me and offered nothing to the episode. Which surprised me as I love the music to this show in general. Not a patch on Cersie's theme when burning the sept, or khaleesi theme from winds of winter where she's finally crossing the narrow sea.