"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 3 "The Long Night" - Spoilers post 2 forwa

jammiedodgers wrote: »

This may cheer you up. I know I found it much easier to watch than the actual episode.

Its savage criticism but everything he says is true...

What an absolute mess the writers have made of this show.

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Roll on Sunday night.

Sunday night can ask me arse...

ogsjw wrote: »

Also something to look forward to, in fairness.

And presumably the Soviet authorities won't be shown responding to the reactor fire by unleashing a horde of sword-wielding cossacks at it.:P

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

very suprising actually.if you are a casual watcher who has not been there from the start then I can undstand you liking this episode but it completely destroys Jons story arc in favor of Arya fan service. This has really become a LOST like situation and I think the episode will be remembered as the point when the show died for a lot of people.

How has it destroyed Jon’s arc he gathered every resource he could to get everything in place for the battle he’s played a massive role in everything just because he didn’t get the final killing blow means his “arc” is destroyed come on

As with the post above if I am honest I don't really care who sits on the Throne at the end, or about the majority of the main characters involved anymore.

I don't think it's down to the episode, it's been coming for a while now. Alot of the "good" characters aren't that interesting anymore or have any nuance about them.

I think there's a lot of bandwagoning and dog-piling going on over this episode: it's become fashionable to tear it down because it did not quite live up to hype. In my opinion, it was as an episode and spectacle still compelling viewing, somewhere below the Red Wedding, Hardhome and the BoB and above Blackwater and Spoils of War.

The start was tense and terrifying, really well done. People complain that the armies were outside the walls, this actually makes sense to me as the armies involved were too vast to all be positioned inside; having the main part of the force outside with the walls to fall back to delays the onslaught further (it was all about delay, not winning) and gives the archers more time to whittle down the enemy too. Why they were in front of the fire trench is less easily explained... being generous I'll argue that it was also part of the delaying strategy.

What is unforgivable is having the artillery in front of the infantry. These were rare and expensive machines in a medieval context and that positioning was ludicrous. They predictably only got one volley out before being over run and with proven battlefield commanders present like Grey Worm, Jaime, Davos, Jon (though never the sharpest tactician), Bronze Yohn and even Eddison and Tyrion around that, to me, was probably the only unforgivable plot hole.

And where was Bronze Yohn? He appeared in so many of the Winterfell scenes in the lead up, so the actor was around. Ridiculous to have one of the most respected surviving military veteran leaders in Westeros disappear as battle commences while a fourteen year old girl marshals the defenders instead. Having said that, I'm not salty about any of Lyanna Mormont's exploits in the battle, Joan of Arc was not much older when she featured prominently in the Hundred Years War.

The Dothraki charge comes in for a lot of criticism but makes sense to me. The Dead are essentially light infantry; determined cavalry can be expected to do awful things to lightly armed and unarmored infantry (see Stannis versus the Wildlings). The usual function of medieval cavalry was to charge and obliterate the enemy or charge, withdraw, then charge again and wear the enemy infantry down that way rather than stay in a protracted melee with them. It's reasonable to assume the living thought the Dothraki could get a few charges in before the dead reached Winterfell but the savages were shocked and overwhelmed by the scale and ferocity of the enemy. You can see the surprised horror when the Dothraki melt away on the first attempt. Jorah manages to do his charge and withdraw job to an extent, but unlike his barbarian comrades, he is well armored, an A-tier warrior and armed with Valyrian steel.

Of course, the ideal thing would be to hit the Dead in the flank after the infantry had engaged but maybe it was too dark/too late for a complex maneuver. The Dothraki have a culture that values recklessness anyway so a wild frontal charge is not all that absurd. In any event, the visual was absolutely stunning.

Maybe it was an overly prompt way to get rid of the Dothraki, who have been with us since episode 1. They could have done with a scene in the previous episodes or a speech/moment before the charge just to give their decimation more substance.

No problem with the Knights of the Vale fighting on foot, medieval knights often fought on foot when the situation demanded it, such as in a defensive scenario.

I loved the role of the Red Woman, she turns up unexpectedly to give the good guys a supernatural counter against supernatural foes like a twisted Gandalf. Her scenes were haunting, especially appearing out of the dark at the very start and shuffling out to the wastes to die, her life's purpose fulfilled, at the very end.

Maybe there was an opportunity to bump off more named characters, we still have a crowded cast going into end game. Sam especially should have died. His arc, which was all to do with the WW threat, is done. As well as that, it was ridiculous to have him wallowing in the mud in the courtyard while Winterfell was being over run yet still survive somehow. His plot armor was the thickest of all in the episode. I don't mind others surviving the odds. Remember, they were mostly A-tier warriors, you become so by having a habit of being alive at the end of battles. Brienne, Jaime, Jon and Jorah all had Valyrian steel which cuts down the undead effortlessly. The Hound and Thormund are hardened survivors. Gendry gets plot armor because he needs to round off the Baratheon loose end, and let's just say Pod is lucky! Jon and Jorah's Valyrian steel and skill/determination gives them credible license to move around the battle as they did, in my view.

Theon, Beric, Edd, Jorah, Melisandre, Lyanna as well as most of the Dothraki, Unsullied, most of the Vale Knights, Wildlings, Northern Army, Night's Watch, The Night King and all the White Walkers still die. While there was certainly room to dispatch more named characters with them, that's by far the biggest body count of any set piece yet.

The scenes in the crypt were a nice counter to the confusion of the battle and nicely done. One problem is the corpses in the crypt were not killed by wights or WWs and so should not have turned based on what we've seen so far. This explains why the living thought the crypts were a safe refuge... It's not hard to imagine the NK was at the height of his power during the assault and so became able to turn even corpses killed in a neutral way, surprising the living.

Finally, I like Arya killing the Night King. The writing earned it, we see Arya go through so much pain and humiliation for so long to become what she is: a deadly assassin capable of killing anything. She could have disguised herself as a Wight easily; had she actually peeled the face off a zombie on screen it would have telegraphed what was going to happen too obviously. Apart from that and her training, she knows Winterfell as well as anyone living. If anyone could blindside the Night King, it was her and she still barely gets away with it. She also had one of only five Valyrian steel weapons on the battlefield capable of harming the NK (we know dragonglass kills WWs, but no evidence it would harm the NK, dragonfire failed). So, the right material was brought by the right person to the right place at the right time. I think it was satisfying and nothing to do with "fan service", much less to do with "girl power".

There's not a lot that happened that can't be feasibly explained, which is impressive in a massive and supernatural fantasy battle. And I really enjoyed every minute.

Not the best show ever, not even the best GoT ever, but compelling television undeserving of much of the criticism it is getting.

DeadHand wrote: »

I think there's a lot of bandwagoning and dog-piling going on over this episode: it's become fashionable to tear it down because it did not quite live up to hype. In my opinion, it was as an episode and spectacle still compelling viewing, somewhere below the Red Wedding, Hardhome and the BoB and above Blackwater and Spoils of War.

The start was tense and terrifying, really well done. People complain that the armies were outside the walls, this actually makes sense to me as the armies involved were too vast to all be positioned inside; having the main part of the force outside with the walls to fall back to delays the onslaught further (it was all about delay, not winning) and gives the archers more time to whittle down the enemy too. Why they were in front of the fire trench is less easily explained... being generous I'll argue that it was also part of the delaying strategy.

What is unforgivable is having the artillery in front of the infantry. These were rare and expensive machines in a medieval context and that positioning was ludicrous. They predictably only got one volley out before being over run and with proven battlefield commanders present like Grey Worm, Jaime, Davos, Jon (though never the sharpest tactician), Bronze Yohn and even Eddison and Tyrion around that, to me, was probably the only unforgivable plot hole.

And where was Bronze Yohn? He appeared in so many of the Winterfell scenes in the lead up, so the actor was around. Ridiculous to have one of the most respected surviving military veteran leaders in Westeros disappear as battle commences while a fourteen year old girl marshals the defenders instead. Having said that, I'm not salty about any of Lyanna Mormont's exploits in the battle, Joan of Arc was not much older when she featured prominently in the Hundred Years War.

The Dothraki charge comes in for a lot of criticism but makes sense to me. The Dead are essentially light infantry; determined cavalry can be expected to do awful things to lightly armed and unarmored infantry (see Stannis versus the Wildlings). The usual function of medieval cavalry was to charge and obliterate the enemy or charge, withdraw, then charge again and wear the enemy infantry down that way rather than stay in a protracted melee with them. It's reasonable to assume the living thought the Dothraki could get a few charges in before the dead reached Winterfell but the savages were shocked and overwhelmed by the scale and ferocity of the enemy. You can see the surprised horror when the Dothraki melt away on the first attempt. Jorah manages to do his charge and withdraw job to an extent, but unlike his barbarian comrades, he is well armored, an A-tier warrior and armed with Valyrian steel.

Of course, the ideal thing would be to hit the Dead in the flank after the infantry had engaged but maybe it was too dark/too late for a complex maneuver. The Dothraki have a culture that values recklessness anyway so a wild frontal charge is not all that absurd. In any event, the visual was absolutely stunning.

Maybe it was an overly prompt way to get rid of the Dothraki, who have been with us since episode 1. They could have done with a scene in the previous episodes or a speech/moment before the charge just to give their decimation more substance.

No problem with the Knights of the Vale fighting on foot, medieval knights often fought on foot when the situation demanded it, such as in a defensive scenario.

I loved the role of the Red Woman, she turns up unexpectedly to give the good guys a supernatural counter against supernatural foes like a twisted Gandalf. Her scenes were haunting, especially appearing out of the dark at the very start and shuffling out to the wastes to die, her life's purpose fulfilled, at the very end.

Maybe there was an opportunity to bump off more named characters, we still have a crowded cast going into end game. Sam especially should have died. His arc, which was all to do with the WW threat, is done. As well as that, it was ridiculous to have him wallowing in the mud in the courtyard while Winterfell was being over run yet still survive somehow. His plot armor was the thickest of all in the episode. I don't mind others surviving the odds. Remember, they were mostly A-tier warriors, you become so by having a habit of being alive at the end of battles. Brienne, Jaime, Jon and Jorah all had Valyrian steel which cuts down the undead effortlessly. The Hound and Thormund are hardened survivors. Gendry gets plot armor because he needs to round off the Baratheon loose end, and let's just say Pod is lucky! Jon and Jorah's Valyrian steel and skill/determination gives them credible license to move around the battle as they did, in my view.

Theon, Beric, Edd, Jorah, Melisandre, Lyanna as well as most of the Dothraki, Unsullied, most of the Vale Knights, Wildlings, Northern Army, Night's Watch, The Night King and all the White Walkers still die. While there was certainly room to dispatch more named characters with them, that's by far the biggest body count of any set piece yet.

The scenes in the crypt were a nice counter to the confusion of the battle and nicely done. One problem is the corpses in the crypt were not killed by wights or WWs and so should not have turned based on what we've seen so far. This explains why the living thought the crypts were a safe refuge... It's not hard to imagine the NK was at the height of his power during the assault and so became able to turn even corpses killed in a neutral way, surprising the living.

Finally, I like Arya killing the Night King. The writing earned it, we see Arya go through so much pain and humiliation for so long to become what she is: a deadly assassin capable of killing anything. She could have disguised herself as a Wight easily; had she actually peeled the face off a zombie on screen it would have telegraphed what was going to happen too obviously. Apart from that and her training, she knows Winterfell as well as anyone living. If anyone could blindside the Night King, it was her and she still barely gets away with it. She also had one of only five Valyrian steel weapons on the battlefield capable of harming the NK (we know dragonglass kills WWs, but no evidence it would harm the NK, dragonfire failed). So, the right material was brought by the right person to the right place at the right time. I think it was satisfying and nothing to do with "fan service", much less to do with "girl power".

There's not a lot that happened that can't be feasibly explained, which is impressive in a massive and supernatural fantasy battle. And I really enjoyed every minute.

Not the best show ever, not even the best GoT ever, but compelling television undeserving of much of the criticism it is getting.

100% agree with this. People are treating this like the show is actually over when we have 4hours worth of thrones left to go 2 full length movies essentially who knows what will happen

The premise for this battle was a simple kill the head vampire and the rest will die job. That was the only play they had due to the deads' number advantage.

Does that in itself make for a good story?Probably not.

But it was enjoyable seeing how they achieved it.

DeadHand wrote: »

I think there's a lot of bandwagoning and dog-piling going on over this episode: it's become fashionable to tear it down because it did not quite live up to hype. In my opinion, it was as an episode and spectacle still compelling viewing, somewhere below the Red Wedding, Hardhome and the BoB and above Blackwater and Spoils of War.

Okay so this is going to be my last ever post on the most expensive television episode in history.

I think the battles in hardhome, battle of bastards, watchers on the wall, and spoils of war were all better. Blackwater was overall one of the better episodes in GOT, but the actual battle scenes were not up to the same quality as what was seen in the other ones mentioned here.

Having said all that, it is incredibly impressive what was achieved in the episode last Sunday with the budget they had. They were working with less than half the budget that LOTR's Return of the King had for the equivalent type of battle, and I think the results (other than being too dark) were visually spectacular.

DeadHand wrote: »

People complain that...

Most of the events that took place in the episode don't really make much sense to be honest.

DeadHand wrote: »

Finally, I like Arya killing the Night King.

I think it would be fitting if Arya killed Cersei, as the two have a shared history. Arya spent a whole season running away from Cersei after witnessing her father's murder. That has a real cathartic element to it.

Arya killing the NK feels a bit random, and if that was in keeping with the rest of the episode that would be fine, but instead you have a situation where all the named characters that died only did so in the pursuit of heroic sacrifices, and random chance had no other part to play in the proceedings.

donegal_man wrote: »

As for the song, beurgh!

Most people absolutely loved the climactic music. I personally found it distractingly similar to some computer game... might be one of the Legend of Zelda games... took me out of the moment a bit.

Yet huge numbers of fans have been critical .

I think some of the ten a penny websites eager to exploit the hype wouldn't dare give a negative review.

Reading IGN, who gave it a 9.5, but the review is Uber critical. Make of that what you will.