"Book readers" - Season 8 Episode 3 "The Long Night" - Spoilers post 2 forward

Jofspring · 30-04-2019 2:00am

Epic Battle episode but very worrying for the rest of the season. As others have mentioned there has been a huge mystery behind the Night King, wights etc... So are we now just to accept that the night king wanted to kill Bran as somehow that would help him alive forever (even though he has already lived for thousands of years) and that's all there is to it?

Let down story wise and just shows that the two lads really have been lost without the books to help guide them. I don't care if George RR Martin has helped with the storyline, the drop off has been very noticeable and they are just rattling off scenes that we are supposed to accept as the answers to 8 years of questions and more if a book reader.

30-04-2019 3:07am

Years and years of reading theories and watching videos delving into the lore, and then the showmaker's admit they had Arya kill the NK because that would be the most surprising.

W T F

Prince that was promised and all that prophesy? Killing a lion, then killing the one you love? Lightbringer? Will it be Jaime killing Cersei? Jon killing Dany?

Nah, we just need a little ninja. Good going Arya. You got the ride last episode and killed the NK this week. Next week, I'm sure you'll do your faceless man shlte and kill Cersei. Such good television. Jon being a fuking Targ and riding dragons is going to be a 20 minute conflict in the last episode. A theory people been taking about for decades won't matter.

And then people are like "oh you just don't like Arya." Tf. I think the only way to get this through to people is by asking them for their favourite finished TV show and butchering the plot and asking them if they'd still like it.

fash · 30-04-2019 6:07am

Pter wrote: »

I was thinking about the dothraki tactics, placement of trench and placement of trebuchets today since it was brought up on thread.

I think it panned out the way it did because they were facing the dead. Yes a cavalry charge on the flanks would relieve pressure on the centre if the enemy were human and looking to preserve their number. But the enemy doesn't care about their soliders getting injured, nor do they care about their number depleting.

As such the dothraki would have been useless if only used on the flanks.

Likewise why not have the trebuchets up front. You get extra range out of it, and the dead weren't looking to capture and use them, so why not. The dead were always going to rush forward anyway, so their use would be neutralised once it became close quarter fighting.

And finally the trench. This was placed behind the formed ranks because it wasn't supposed to stop the deads advance, merely slow it for a period to allow retreat into the castle.

Or something.... As you can tell i haven't given it much thought.

Based on good tactics alone, the humans could have won: use two layers of fire trench with specific openings to create killing fields where the wights are slaughtered. Lock the wights in in between said two trenches then burn them. Keep the trebuchets at the back to keep on firing for as long as possible softening up the numbers, have lots of pitch or burning stuff to drop down from the castle walls, use the cavalry at the back to continue scything through the undead - the way the dragons were used to take pressure off the front. Man the walls properly - they had less than a third of the necessary manpower due to losing manpower in front of the castle - allowing the wights in too easily. Have more pitch at the base of the castle to burn there as the wights reached that point. Fall back into the castle using the small corridors against the more numerous wights to give further advantage, burning as you go.
They knew from Hardholme that there would be a death tsunami yet put their soldiers in front of the trenches to face certain death- why? Especially when they could have used the men on the castle walls.

facehugger99 · 30-04-2019 7:29am

Tired Gardener wrote: »

This robs the previous episode of its impact, this is what I think annoys me the most. Episode two was brilliant, easily one of the best episodes in TV, and now it has lost all impact, all that atmosphere built up that this is their last night, all that emotion displayed is rendered pointless.

This.

The scene with Jamie and Brienne would have taken on so much pathos in retrospect if they both die at each others backs in the battle.

Instead the writers chickened out and had every main character except Sir Friend-zone survive.

God, I hate the notion of 'fan-service', but this episode summed up everything that's wrong with it.

Had really been looking forward to seeing how this series ended after last week, now I'm totally deflated and have no confidence in any kind of satisfactory resolution. We've bumped off the NK and have Cersei left for 3 episodes - great.

Still I'm sure we'll get a 20 minute Cleganebowl - Go Fan Service!

2ndcoming · 30-04-2019 7:56am

The vast majority of people claimed last week that Brienne was "obviously" dying, along with Grey Worm, Jaime, Tormund, Sam etc. However the problem this week is you never thought they were going to die because "plot armour". You can't have it both ways, like. It's one thing wanting to be shocked by deaths of characters. The whole world predicted it en masse a week ago so that was hardly going to be shocking. Complaining then that a bunch of main characters we've followed for a decade didn't die in a way that wouldn't have shocked anyone anyway just so your prediction could be right is a bit tragic, surely?

I'm not for one second suggesting much of the criticism is coming from a bunch of edgelords wanting to poke holes in something exceptionally popular. But to read the thread some may well believe that.

Necro · 30-04-2019 8:12am

Gbear wrote:

Of course, the tone that LOTR goes for isn't the same. LOTR is a fairy tale. But there's something to be said for it not feeling like someone has rubbed a load of dirt on your eyeballs.

I mean, you're comparing a TV show battle with less of a budget to a blockbuster film. Dont you think that's a bit mental?

Also, as others have said. They were fighting the Night King. That should be an indication there on why it was so dark.

Rewatched it last night again and either I have a better TV than all of you or there's too much complaining. I could see all I needed to see. Really dont get the hullabaloo at all.

Jofspring wrote:

Epic Battle episode but very worrying for the rest of the season. As others have mentioned there has been a huge mystery behind the Night King, wights etc... So are we now just to accept that the night king wanted to kill Bran as somehow that would help him alive forever (even though he has already lived for thousands of years) and that's all there is to it?

Lol. It's literally called Game of Thrones. Dont you think that if they finished with the Night King wiping everyone out and continuing his slow silent march south that there would be way more outrage?

I'm honestly depressed reading these two threads here on Boards. It seems some are unhappy it didn't fit their perfect idea of what should.

The blame for that actually lies with the laziest buffoon in all of literature, GRRM. Had he finished the books instead of fading around for decades at this point there wouldn't be as many arguments. Shame on him.

frisbeeface · 30-04-2019 8:35am

Question for book readers: do the books mention the army of dead wights from the previous Long Night?

Watching that episode I don't see how the army of the dead can be defeated, except by killing the Night King. An army that is tireless, doesn't need food or shelter and is infinitely regenerating is unstoppable. I just can't figure out how the long night would have lasted as long as a generation against that!

RDM_83 again · 30-04-2019 9:03am

2ndcoming wrote: »

The vast majority of people claimed last week that Brienne was "obviously" dying, along with Grey Worm, Jaime, Tormund, Sam etc. However the problem this week is you never thought they were going to die because "plot armour". You can't have it both ways, like. It's one thing wanting to be shocked by deaths of characters. The whole world predicted it en masse a week ago so that was hardly going to be shocking. Complaining then that a bunch of main characters we've followed for a decade didn't die in a way that wouldn't have shocked anyone anyway just so your prediction could be right is a bit tragic, surely?

I'm not for one second suggesting much of the criticism is coming from a bunch of edgelords wanting to poke holes in something exceptionally popular. But to read the thread some may well believe that.

I will admit this episode subverted my expectations and suprised me.

Unfortunately it subverted my expectation that it was a series where actions have consequences and major characters can die not Marvel grade fan service. Its subverting the whole schtick of the books and the series pre S6 in a very unsatisfying way.

It surprised me that the big magical threat of what more than 70-80 hours of show time and 7-8 thousand years in world time was dealt with by a kick ass adolescent girl.

I don't actually mind epic fantasy that plays by the tropes when its done well e.g David Gemmel, this was never that type of thing though

ArmaniJeanss · 30-04-2019 9:25am

Mokuba wrote: »

The Merrett Frey bit is supposed to highlight that not every Frey was directly implicated and that not all Frey's are pure evil. LSH didn't discriminate though, just as Arya didn't.

Eh, Merrett Frey was an accessory to murder, even if his part was minor.
His (failed) role was to get the Greatjon so drunk that he couldn't fight.

Gbear · 30-04-2019 9:29am

Necro wrote: »

I mean, you're comparing a TV show battle with less of a budget to a blockbuster film. Dont you think that's a bit mental?

Also, as others have said. They were fighting the Night King. That should be an indication there on why it was so dark.

Rewatched it last night again and either I have a better TV than all of you or there's too much complaining. I could see all I needed to see. Really dont get the hullabaloo at all.

For one thing, I'm not sure they do have less of a budget than LOTR, but regardless, it wasn't a budget problem but a design decision that made them decide that it should look ugly.

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 9:33am

Do people really think that will be the end of the white walkers ?

Triceratops Ballet · 30-04-2019 9:34am

The darkness I have to admit was a bit of a pain, I turned up the brightness on my TV to view it, but it's not like this is unexpected, the show has always been lit this way, they use naturalistic lighting on purpose to give the audience an immersive feeling. We're supposed to be able to imagine what it must be like to be in that situation. It's a technique they've used in most battle episodes to disorient us in the same way the characters are disoriented.

Gbear · 30-04-2019 9:50am

Triceratops Ballet wrote: »

The darkness I have to admit was a bit of a pain, I turned up the brightness on my TV to view it, but it's not like this is unexpected, the show has always been lit this way, they use naturalistic lighting on purpose to give the audience an immersive feeling. We're supposed to be able to imagine what it must be like to be in that situation. It's a technique they've used in most battle episodes to disorient us in the same way the characters are disoriented.

It'd be interesting to do a side by side with the battles of Castle Black and Blackwater, because I don't remember having the same problem with those, although I wasn't as disdainful of the show back then.

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 9:53am

I haven't read the books but was there all the fore shadowing of Arya being the one ?

Did the first meeting of Arya and the red witch in season two happen in the books ?
Where she said to Arya " I see a darkness in you , you will shut eye forever, brown , BLUE, Green "

Triceratops Ballet · 30-04-2019 9:54am

Gbear wrote: »

It'd be interesting to do a side by side with the battles of Castle Black and Blackwater, because I don't remember having the same problem with those, although I wasn't as disdainful of the show back then.

TBF most of the action in battle of blackwater happened off screen they didn't film extensive battle scenes back then due to budgetary limitations

Mokuba · 30-04-2019 9:58am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

I haven't read the books but was there all the fore shadowing of Arya being the one ?

Did the first meeting of Arya and the red witch in season two happen in the books ?
Where she said to Arya " I see a darkness in you , you will shut eye forever, brown , BLUE, Green "

They never meet in the books.

razorblunt · 30-04-2019 10:01am

I have to admit the one thing (apart from Sam surviving) that really annoys me after its been pointed out standing in front of the trenches. I also don't think they gave the "humans" enough kudos by having them win somewhat using tactics (trebuchets would have been perfect) but then ultimately being swarmed. This would have tied in nicely with the NK raising the dead.
It also would have allowed a few WW to have been killed by Valyrian swords with their undead being re-raised by the NK.
Similarly Theon could have been given a better death than a pointless charge but that's a smaller gripe.

randomrb · 30-04-2019 10:28am

I think a lot of people have been disappointed with the episode because no on major died in it and the writers have lost their bottle.

That completely misunderstands how death is used in Game of Thrones. The reason that they resound so much with us is that they happen when we don't expect them and more importantly they advance the story.

they could have killed off Jaime or Tyrion or Sansa etc but how would that have made the story more interesting? Ser Jorah has alwasy been Daenys closest advisor (most of the time) and now that she has to make the biggest decision of her life as to whether to support Jons claim or her own she doesnt have him. That lends weight to his death and affects the story.

Just killing of main characters for the sake of it was not what made Game of Thrones great its the surprise deaths that change the Game that is what made us love it, it annoys me when people can't enjoy an episode simple because more characters didnt die

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 10:31am

randomrb wrote: »

I think a lot of people have been disappointed with the episode because no on major died in it and the writers have lost their bottle.

That completely misunderstands how death is used in Game of Thrones. The reason that they resound so much with us is that they happen when we don't expect them and more importantly they advance the story.

they could have killed off Jaime or Tyrion or Sansa etc but how would that have made the story more interesting? Ser Jorah has alwasy been Daenys closest advisor (most of the time) and now that she has to make the biggest decision of her life as to whether to support Jons claim or her own she doesnt have him. That lends weight to his death and affects the story.

Just killing of main characters for the sake of it was not what made Game of Thrones great its the surprise deaths that change the Game that is what made us love it, it annoys me when people can't enjoy an episode simple because more characters didnt die

Only person that survived that erked me was Sam,
He can't fight and was overwhelmed on a number of occasions , plus it seems like his story arch is done,

randomrb · 30-04-2019 10:34am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Only person that survived that erked me was Sam,
He can't fight and was overwhelmed on a number of occasions , plus it seems like his story arch is done,

I agree with you there. I was interesting watching the behind the scenes that they used Sam to try and put a non-fighter in the battle to give the viewer a more relatable baseline I dont know if it worked though

abff · 30-04-2019 10:35am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Do people really think that will be the end of the white walkers ?

I've also been wondering about that. Does anyone know whether the death of the night king also caused all the white walkers to die?

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 10:38am

abff wrote: »

I've also been wondering about that. Does anyone know whether the death of the night king also caused all the white walkers to die?

Yes it did cause them all to die, but somehow I don't think its the end just a hunch ,

Dial Hard · 30-04-2019 10:41am

Necro wrote:

Rewatched it last night again and either I have a better TV than all of you or there's too much complaining. I could see all I needed to see. Really dont get the hullabaloo at all.

Same, and not even in full darkness this time, it was still quite bright out when we started. At no point at all did I struggle to make out anything that was actually shown on-screen. Think it definitely depended on people's individual TV.

check_six · 30-04-2019 10:43am

abff wrote: »

I've also been wondering about that. Does anyone know whether the death of the night king also caused all the white walkers to die?

All the ones present burst into shards of ice when the NK was vanquished.

razorblunt · 30-04-2019 10:43am

Maybe the NK gets "reborn" via the Three Eyed Raven inadvertently bringing him back.
So Bran goes looking in the past and brings him back into current day?

Triceratops Ballet · 30-04-2019 10:44am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Only person that survived that erked me was Sam,
He can't fight and was overwhelmed on a number of occasions , plus it seems like his story arch is done,

Agreed, Sam should never have survived, he's not a fighter, never has been, never wanted to be. For all the others you can give some explanation, battle exp, skill etc, there is literally no reason for him to have survived and it's frustrating that he did, like even Tyrion has more actual fight experience and was down in the crypt. Sam should either have been in the crypt or ended up dead. Arguably he might have been more use in the crypt against the limited number of contained wights

tommy2bad · 30-04-2019 10:46am

randomrb wrote: »

I think a lot of people have been disappointed with the episode because no on major died in it and the writers have lost their bottle.

That completely misunderstands how death is used in Game of Thrones. The reason that they resound so much with us is that they happen when we don't expect them and more importantly they advance the story.

they could have killed off Jaime or Tyrion or Sansa etc but how would that have made the story more interesting? Ser Jorah has alwasy been Daenys closest advisor (most of the time) and now that she has to make the biggest decision of her life as to whether to support Jons claim or her own she doesnt have him. That lends weight to his death and affects the story.

Just killing of main characters for the sake of it was not what made Game of Thrones great its the surprise deaths that change the Game that is what made us love it, it annoys me when people can't enjoy an episode simple because more characters didnt die

Couldnt be more wrong. People died in GoT because they made bad decisions, since the books ran out the die because they lack fan armour. Their are no more concequences for decisions made, the whole thing is being driven by future events,i.e. the need to wind it up without pissing off the fanboys and girls.

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 10:55am

razorblunt wrote: »

Maybe the NK gets "reborn" via the Three Eyed Raven inadvertently bringing him back.
So Bran goes looking in the past and brings him back into current day?

Id think something along these lines, I can't see the NK gone forever ,
I see them somehow making Jon Snow the new KN

Mokuba · 30-04-2019 10:57am

tommy2bad wrote: »

Couldnt be more wrong. People died in GoT because they made bad decisions, since the books ran out the die because they lack fan armour. Their are no more concequences for decisions made, the whole thing is being driven by future events,i.e. the need to wind it up without pissing off the fanboys and girls.

Exactly. This is 100 percent the issue.

Loafing Oaf · 30-04-2019 11:05am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Do people really think that will be the end of the white walkers ?

Yep, the whole direction of the story since Benioff/Weiss/whoever took over from GRRM has been towards simplification/streamlining/reversion to conventional plotting. So the White Walkers have been completely vanquished and now, as someone said in another thread, it's winner plays Cersei in the final.

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 11:07am

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Yep, the whole direction of the story since Benioff/Weiss/whoever took over from GRRM has been towards simplification/streamlining/reversion to conventional plotting. So the White Walkers have been completely vanquished and now, as someone said in another thread, it's winner plays Cersei in the final.

I wouldn't put it past bran doing something that brings back the NK or creates a new NK in the final episode,

Loafing Oaf · 30-04-2019 11:14am

yourdeadwright wrote: »

I wouldn't put it past bran doing something that brings back the NK or creates a new NK in the final episode,

I wonder do the 'showrunners' even have the imagination/ingenuity to devise a storyline like that. After all none of Bran's 'powers' came in to play in Episode 3 AFAIK; he spent the episode flying round in warg mode....

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 11:17am

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I wonder do the 'showrunners' even have the imagination/ingenuity to devise a storyline like that. After all none of Bran's 'powers' came in to play in Episode 3 AFAIK; he spent the episode flying round in warg mode....

Can the Night King can get in Brans head ye ?
Maybe that why he warged and flew around , so the Night King couldn't get in his head and see what was going on , ?

Adamocovic · 30-04-2019 11:19am

Triceratops Ballet wrote: »

Agreed, Sam should never have survived, he's not a fighter, never has been, never wanted to be. For all the others you can give some explanation, battle exp, skill etc, there is literally no reason for him to have survived and it's frustrating that he did, like even Tyrion has more actual fight experience and was down in the crypt. Sam should either have been in the crypt or ended up dead. Arguably he might have been more use in the crypt against the limited number of contained wights

I agree Sam should have stayed in the crypt.

I understand why he survived (will be used to prove Jon's claim to throne and that storyline) but there was no need to put him in the battle. Only contribution was to get Edd killed.

ThunbergsAreGo · 30-04-2019 11:29am

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I wonder do the 'showrunners' even have the imagination/ingenuity to devise a storyline like that. After all none of Bran's 'powers' came in to play in Episode 3 AFAIK; he spent the episode flying round in warg mode....

Ah yeah but it gave us some cool visuals

Loafing Oaf · 30-04-2019 11:31am

Adamocovic wrote: »

I agree Sam should have stayed in the crypt.

Or hanging round the library so he could save Arya's skin:p

RobbingBandit · 30-04-2019 11:33am

Anyone thinking T-1000 Night King turnaround that ain't all she wrote

RobbingBandit · 30-04-2019 11:35am

Night King gonna go T-1000 mode this ain't over

Sleepy · 30-04-2019 11:47am

I think people missed the point of the White Walkers tbh. They always seemed an allegory for nuclear arms to me: a desperation play by a terrified race that over-reached and created a world ending weapon. The white walkers were created to kill the worlds of men. That's all the motivation they needed.

Gbear · 30-04-2019 11:59am

Dial Hard wrote: »

Same, and not even in full darkness this time, it was still quite bright out when we started. At no point at all did I struggle to make out anything that was actually shown on-screen. Think it definitely depended on people's individual TV.

60 inch, curved 4k smart tv. It should be more than sufficient for anything.

It wasn't about making stuff out but about having an aesthetic that doesn't look like dirt.

randomrb wrote: »

I think a lot of people have been disappointed with the episode because no on major died in it and the writers have lost their bottle.

That completely misunderstands how death is used in Game of Thrones. The reason that they resound so much with us is that they happen when we don't expect them and more importantly they advance the story.

they could have killed off Jaime or Tyrion or Sansa etc but how would that have made the story more interesting? Ser Jorah has alwasy been Daenys closest advisor (most of the time) and now that she has to make the biggest decision of her life as to whether to support Jons claim or her own she doesnt have him. That lends weight to his death and affects the story.

Just killing of main characters for the sake of it was not what made Game of Thrones great its the surprise deaths that change the Game that is what made us love it, it annoys me when people can't enjoy an episode simple because more characters didnt die

It's not that they had to kill someone. It's that they clearly put numerous charcters in situation where they obviously should have died.

Grey Worm was on the front line when it got hit by the tidal wave of the dead, John was surrounded by literally a hundred wights, Sam, Jaime and Brienne all should've been ripped to pieces, and so on.

It just made all of the scenes involving them weightless and irrelevant.

You can not have people die, but it has to make sense. If you're going to put them in a situation where they must die, as Ned and Robb were, then you kill them, because that's how you establish stakes.

30-04-2019 12:02pm

Sleepy wrote: »

I think people missed the point of the White Walkers tbh. They always seemed an allegory for nuclear arms to me: a desperation play by a terrified race that over-reached and created a world ending weapon. The white walkers were created to kill the worlds of men. That's all the motivation they needed.

Nah, we're just realising now that they were overplayed by D&D and it ended up being ended in a ridiculous fashion.

The Night King doesn't even exist in the books. D&D added him as a way for the White Walkers to be wiped out in one go. This would have been fine if they, and the Night King in particular, weren't bigged up for so many seasons as the most important thing in the show. It was hammered home that the petty politics of Westeros were a sideshow to the real threat. None of this had to be done to such an extreme.

To have Arya end it all was the nail in the coffin. Maisie Williams herself has said she knew it would be incredibly unpopular as Arya has to right to be the one to kill the NK.

D&D are basically abject morons. They fuked it up so badly. So badly in fact that it will go down like Lost and Dexter.

yourdeadwright · 30-04-2019 12:14pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Nah, we're just realising now that they were overplayed by D&D and it ended up being ended in a ridiculous fashion.

The Night King doesn't even exist in the books. D&D added him as a way for the White Walkers to be wiped out in one go. This would have been fine if they, and the Night King in particular, weren't bigged up for so many seasons as the most important thing in the show. It was hammered home that the petty politics of Westeros were a sideshow to the real threat. None of this had to be done to such an extreme.

To have Arya end it all was the nail in the coffin. Maisie Williams herself has said she knew it would be incredibly unpopular as Arya has to right to be the one to kill the NK.

D&D are basically abject morons. They fuked it up so badly. So badly in fact that it will go down like Lost and Dexter.

I think many people including myself enjoyed that it was Arya who killed him ,
Also the show is not over yet ,

30-04-2019 12:41pm

yourdeadwright wrote: »

I think many people including myself enjoyed that it was Arya who killed him ,
Also the show is not over yet ,

It's not over yet, but D&D themselves made us lose interest in the politics of the Iron Throne and focused on the White Walkers.

I hope they can pull off the Cersei thing with more than just shock tactics. They've three episodes to make the throne important again.

facehugger99 · 30-04-2019 12:49pm

Before Melisandre showed up, what was the plan for the Dothraki?

It seemed like they were ready to charge into the white walkers with just regular arakhs. Did that not strike anyone there as a bit pointless - the whole setting the arakhs on fire seemed to be a spur of the moment thing and not part of the original plan.

Logic is being sacrificed on the altar of 'coolness', which is so far away from where the original source material started out.

30-04-2019 12:51pm

facehugger99 wrote: »

Before Melisandre showed up, what was the plan for the Dothraki?

It seemed like they were ready to charge into the white walkers with just regular arakhs. Did that not strike anyone there as a bit pointless - the whole setting the arakhs on fire seemed to be a spur of the moment thing and not part of the original plan.

Logic is being sacrificed on the altar of 'coolness', which is so far away from where the original source material started out.

So so much talk of dragonglass in S7. But only the natives get it I guess.

Mokuba · 30-04-2019 12:54pm

When you have a far, far inferior sized army - it's always good to send the entire cavalry far away to engage the enemy you cannot see and you know can resurrect any who die.

But they wanted the visual of the lights going out. Sums up the priorities. Style over substance.

Irishcrx · 30-04-2019 12:59pm

Well , that was a mixed bag to be honest. So much excellent build up and tension and it really only hit half the mark for me , for such an anticipated battle I felt beyond the issue of actually being able to see what was going on in any clear way they also copped out on a lot of thing's.

The characters they killed off didn't have a huge impact for me and although the tension rose I actually never felt any of them were in real danger by the final scene and copped it would be Arya once she had the discussion with Melasandra 'Blue Eyes' etc...

There was no loss , no dragons , no main characters , no real emotion... Some would say the whole thing was pointless and the White Walkers served nothing more in the end than to weaken their army and set up Cercei...

So many ways they could have gone with it , I'd have preferred if the NK caught Arya and then strangled her that would have been a ballsy move and made more sense the his ark , it would have been a brave and fitting end for her to...I'd have preferred to have lost several main characters and then the few remaining have a re-group...more backstory to the White Walkers and NK for the next episodes..

Thousands of hours of plot theories and questions and no answers , what did the symbols mean? Who was the NK? What did he want? What's his backstory? Why always a stark in Winterfell? Prince Promised? What happened when they came before? Why was John Snow so significant in the end?

Most likely none of the above will now be explained , I don't know what the next 3 episodes have in store but my hopes are now slightly lower as are my expectations...but I really hope the means justify the end.

I also wonder if this will all go differently in the books when they are released.

Loafing Oaf · 30-04-2019 12:59pm

facehugger99 wrote: »

Before Melisandre showed up, what was the plan for the Dothraki?

It seemed like they were ready to charge into the white walkers with just regular arakhs. Did that not strike anyone there as a bit pointless

Well why was anyone out front at all, given what we and presumably they knew about the (if I can use the acronym) AOTD. Surely the thing to do would be to get everyone inside Winterfell, put every kind of booby trap out front, and put your best archers on the walls.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5 · 30-04-2019 1:19pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

So so much talk of dragonglass in S7. But only the natives get it I guess.

Dothraki were never going to get near the WWs, what's the point of giving it to them to bring it irretrievably far from the siege to use against enemies who can be killed with regular weapons?

Only real gripe for me was the suspension of disbelief required for Sam, Jaime and Brienne to survive despite being constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed by dozens of wights and similar for Jon being surrounded by newly risen ones. As said up thread, if they're going to survive don't keep putting them in those positions for a pseudo cliffhanger that's done away with 30 seconds later. I'd imagine it's more plot armour than fan armour per se though.

I think part of the shabbiness of that is probably inherent in the structure of the episode and the challenge of editing and pacing it. A dozen or so primary characters, in one location, over the course of one battle. I think probably some course of action could have been found that didn't vaguely create the impression that for example, wights arose, stared Jon down, and then waited a few minutes for the camera to come back to them before moving lining up to fight him one by one. I know I know, things aren't happening in real time relative to each other but it's distracting.

Arya taking out the NK I've no problem with, not like pipe for her being an excellent assassin hasn't been laid, and nice resolution for Melisandre. He's always avoided close-up hand-to-hand combat (even fighting Jon at Hardhome and the like he had a broad sword) and as far as I understand it wasn't his plan this time until he fell off his dragon like a big dope with a big gormless fally head on him. She got close, he underestimated her. Loved her sequence inside the castle, Maisie Williams is class. Don't really think gripes about his motivations and goals being developed are that valid either, it's been hammered home for several seasons, his goal is to kill all mankind with the motivation of them all being dead, it's what he was created by the children for.

Not sure what the point was of showing ghost for like 3 seconds at the start.

What was bran at? Was he just flying crows around inside a cloud seeing if there might be an auld Dragon there, was he trying to entice the NK, what?

Strong episode overall I'd say, the same inconsistencies in internal logic that have crept in since they passed the books but there are episodes with way worse examples of that and less to recommend them imo.

Loafing Oaf · 30-04-2019 1:28pm

Sam Rapid Rafter wrote: »

What was bran at? Was he just flying crows around inside a cloud seeing if there might be an auld Dragon there, was he trying to entice the NK, what?.

https://twitter.com/DanAmira/status/1122701011280433152

"Book readers" - Season 8 Episode 3 "The Long Night" - Spoilers post 2 forward

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