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[Halo is Back]

I think a lot of people are not realizing the NK’s strategy. Yea he could of fought John and the Whites could of helped but the NK KNEW he had Valarian steel and that he was a great fighter. Fighting John head on would unessarly put them in danger. That is why he let his army do most of the dirty work.

 

[Javthusiast]

Since the DD's mention that they've known Arya kills the NK for years now. Apparently it was one of GRRM's bulletpoints. This is brought up in the "After the Episode" interviews. I would love to someday see how he handles it and the Others on as a whole in the books.

One day... I am sure... please GRRM?...

 

[EviLore]

There's no Night King in the books. The closest we know of is the Great Other, the god of darkness, cold, and death to the followers of R'hllor, and probably not a corporeal entity.

 

[Kadayi]

I honestly amazed at how many people here thought that the Night King was going to live past this episode. This was a pure win or die situation for all of those in Winterfell. There's no tactical retreat from the Army of the dead. We've already seen with hardholme that they will just swamp you at speed. As for the Dothraki, they're entire purpose as Cavalry was shock and awe. Against the Lannisters, they were devasting against infantry, which was why when seeing them basically get snuffed out when they went up the Night King's army is such a bone-chilling sequence. It conveys firstly how truly deep in number his army is and secondly how formidable they are. Those Dothraki probably just got 10 ranks deep and couldn't get out again before they got swamped. It is when Danys basically sees them get obliterated that she deviates from the plan and flies off on Drogon that things truly start to go wrong.

 

[Come On Tars]

good: The score was so dope. The bass buildup to when the fight starts. The night king final walk to bran was so dramatic. The cg spot on. The fight has some great moments. grey walkers on the dragon like ants, every frame of that looked like a LOTR painting. so cool and high fantasy. The lighting of the polynesisan swords was a great moment and helped you see what was going on. also many scenes made my eyes well up, the crypt stuff with sansa and tyrion. battle moments -good first clash with them spilling over the lines. them falling out of the sky and over the walls when john was pacing around in another fur sure history one shot.

the bad:

I'm not the type to be like: but why didn't Bran Warg into crows with dragon glass taped to their beaks? I'm more into just how the events they chose were portrayed and if it was effective.

-most of these great moments, especially as the battle develops, felt SUPER telegraphed. They should have cut out the hints and the lead up, and maybe left them out till the moment happened, THEN show bran seeing the plan. ESPECIALLY when it comes to Arya assassination. the moment on the king approaching bran was great, but it felt neutered that it was obvious what was going to happen. it would have been a twist if it didn't. they set it up shitty.

they really didn't have the balls to pull through on the deaths that would have really been for effective.sir friend zone dying, yeah expected, theon, expected, all the other ones, expected

the little queen girl moment was ruined by giving her a hero scene. Just make it a HOLY shit moment by having the giant smash her AS IF SHE WERE ANY OTHER PERSON. Which leads me to my next gripe, it all felt so artificial when it came to our main characters in the battle. JUST.LET.THEM.DIE.QUICK. No extra slo mo send off. make it feel real and unpredictable AND KEEP THE GAME OF THRONES TENSION. This isn't LOTR. they really missed an amazing way to send off tyrion, sansa, or both. I would have loved for sansa to validate tyrion with a kiss or and quick sloppy bj in the crypt before they die, or let tyrion save some of the kids or his unique friend. They just didn't pull the trigger. Why is Sam getting so many near death scenes?

overall, great battle and a lot of plot was developed, but nothing about it was shocking, surprising, or tragic. a good fight.

Still thinking about this. I feel like Martin while an incredible writer has set up 2 different kinds of story that are hard to reconcile. On one hand a unpredictable authentic backstabbing political drama, on the other a high fantasy "destiny" type plot (chock full of plot armor and predictibility) have we built the story into something it ultimately isn't? Is Martin just an expert at building up a killing off SIDE characters?

What I DO like about cersei is that she is consistent. Many thought she was going to come in and save the day, the white walkers after all represent an ultimate threat to highlight the pettiness of their "Game of Thrones" a device of perspective on what matters. To me, if all the characters banded together to fight against the end of the world it would have felt ultimately conventional. Charavters like cersei feel consistent in that they are selfish till the very end (and it paid off) I love that.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

honestly, at least let theon do hand to hand for 10 seconds with the NK. dont make him just run knowingly into his spear.

after all youve tried to do with theon that was not the way to redeem him, show runners.

 

[Halo is Back]

Another thing about the whole character deaths I really want to wait until the entire season is done to judge wether the writers have the balls to do it or not. We still have 3 long episodes to go and another major conflict. So I assume more key players will die. However, I really think John and Sam should have died. I know John is an amazing fighter and all but he was literally surrounded by thousands of dead. There is no way she should have walked away from that and honestly he has served his purpose in the story he brought everyone (well almost) together to fight the NK. I see people say he did nothing in the battle but he did fuck up a lot of the dead on the dragon. BUT, the most important thing is without John NONE of this would have ever happened and everyone in the 7 kingdoms would have been divided and slaughtered.

 

[E-Cat]

I'm ready to accept that the Night King and pretty much anything beyond the wall was just straight up mcguffin ..

As it should be. The lame magic stuff always felt like a distraction from the more interesting and grounded political storylines. Not that we are rid of the supernatural now, lol.

 

[Grinchy]

I feel like they could have just had some archer groups hide far away from Winterfell, wait for the undead army to march past and start fighting, then get out of hiding and walk up behind the whole group and shoot dragonglass arrows at the white walker leaders. Those guys just stand there from behind the action the whole time and if you even hit 2 or 3 of them with those arrows, huge groups of undead soldiers just fall down.

 

[Mithrarin]

Good episode with an underwhelming and disspointing conclusion. You build up this big bad mystic figure, who is immune to dragonfire, revives everything that is dead, controls and rides a dragon, to get killed off with a Deus Ex Machina moment and thick plot armour. Sorry, not buying it.

My hype and excitement for this season is down after this episode. I don't care at all about Cersei/Euron and their shenanigans. Meh, what a let down. This show started with magic and the white walkers and ending in this way was anticlimatic.

 

[Shai-Tan]

The scale is an achievement for tv and the white walker hordes looked cool but there were too many bad action movie tropes in the episode in addition to the culmination of the hollow fantasy elements in the GoT universe that went nowhere. I read that the head writers on the show were uninterested in the magic, prophecy, etc in the books and it seems it was for good reasons.

It's good that the show is ending because it's run out of steam either because it got too far ahead of George RR martin or as is typical with tv shows it's impossible to sustain polish in the grind of seasons. I thought several of the previous battles were cool despite the obvious budget constraints (others like the battle at Blackwater were bad) This one had serious problems in how it unfolded, failing to tell a believable dramatic story in the action and to top it off they made the night king a dumb overconfident villain cliche, hovering over the three eyed raven who ended up being a hand wavy maguffin to build a feeling of mystery that turned out to be as incoherent as Lost.

 

[Javthusiast]

Fun fact I just found out:

David Benioff and some other dude wrote the cinematic masterpiece X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

And regarding the deaths. Beric Dondarrion was the saddest death for me, cause his flaming sword actually allowed me to see wtf was happening on screen. xD

 

[LaughingStock]

I'm not excited anymore to watch the rest of the season. I'll watch it just because.

 

[Jon Neu]

I honestly amazed at how many people here thought that the Night King was going to live past this episode. This was a pure win or die situation for all of those in Winterfell. There's no tactical retreat from the Army of the dead. We've already seen with hardholme that they will just swamp you at speed. As for the Dothraki, they're entire purpose as Cavalry was shock and awe. Against the Lannisters, they were devasting against infantry, which was why when seeing them basically get snuffed out when they went up the Night King's army is such a bone-chilling sequence. It conveys firstly how truly deep in number his army is and secondly how formidable they are. Those Dothraki probably just got 10 ranks deep and couldn't get out again before they got swamped. It is when Danys basically sees them get obliterated that she deviates from the plan and flies off on Drogon that things truly start to go wrong.

They escaped from Hardhome in boats, I'm sure they could have escaped with the Ironborn ships (like Yara points out) and the dragons.

And how are you going to shook and awe a bunch of zombies? Doesn't make any sense.

 

[Mista]

This thread is open spoilers right? Because I’m going to say a couple of things that I expected to happen in today’s episode because of something that happened way back in season 3

 

[CrankyJay™]

This thread is open spoilers right? Because I’m going to say a couple of things that I expected to happen in today’s episode because of something that happened way back in season 3

I think if it already happened and you were able to pick up on clues that aren't unknown info then it's fair game, though some people on the Internet have been known to take spoilers and pass them off as "wild guesses" for credibility. Why not just wrap your thoughts in spoiler tags and give a brief context? That way people can decide whether or not they want to click on it?

 

[DragoonKain]

I honestly amazed at how many people here thought that the Night King was going to live past this episode. This was a pure win or die situation for all of those in Winterfell. There's no tactical retreat from the Army of the dead. We've already seen with hardholme that they will just swamp you at speed. As for the Dothraki, they're entire purpose as Cavalry was shock and awe. Against the Lannisters, they were devasting against infantry, which was why when seeing them basically get snuffed out when they went up the Night King's army is such a bone-chilling sequence. It conveys firstly how truly deep in number his army is and secondly how formidable they are. Those Dothraki probably just got 10 ranks deep and couldn't get out again before they got swamped. It is when Danys basically sees them get obliterated that she deviates from the plan and flies off on Drogon that things truly start to go wrong.

I actually thought he was going to die. I posted such last week. Just disappointed that he actually did and how he did. Arguably the most menacing threat in TV fictional history went out like a chump.

 

[Mista]

I think if it already happened and you were able to pick up on clues that aren't unknown info then it's fair game, though some people on the Internet have been known to take spoilers and pass them off as "wild guesses" for credibility. Why not just wrap your thoughts in spoiler tags and give a brief context? That way people can decide whether or not they want to click on it?

Fair enough. Will write it in the next post

 

[CrankyJay™]

I actually thought he was going to die. I posted such last week. Just disappointed that he actually did and how he did. Arguably the most menacing threat in TV fictional history went out like a chump.

I dunno, here's a dude who hid behind his horde and his knights. Maybe he should go out like a chump.

 

[ruvikx]

I find it interesting when I read comments or hear opinions from people (all over the internet, basically) who claim last night's episode was not fan service or Marvel-esque. It was. Across the entire board. Jorah? Died protecting "his" queen. Lady Mormont? Died with a cliché stab in the eye to her enemy. Jaime, Sam & Brienne? Inexplicably still alive despite being overwhelmed for nearly one hour. Arya killing the night king after seemingly flying in from nowhere? Welcome to Dragon Ball Z.

It was a massive spectacle & I loved the score in particular (reminiscent of zombie flicks). But it failed its dramatic moments. It chose easy secondary characters to kill off & didn't offer any real surprises. It took the easy "safe" route. Tune in next week for smirking Cersei when she hears the north has lost most of its army.

 

[TBiddy]

I'm not much for hyperbole, generally, but what a piss-poor episode. I love GoT and I was goddamn hyped to see this one. And what did I get? 30 minutes of complete darkness, trope after trope after trope and the most ridiculous ending to the Night King you could imagine. I've read 5th-grader essays with better endings than this.

Yeah yeah, Arya is bad-ass and all that, but seriously? "OMG, Jon Snow is getting killed by a dragon and Bran is gonna get beaten by the Night King!". You could smell what was coming miles away. I'm angry. It's becoming more and more obvious that they are improvising the story now that they've run out of books.

edit: I also agree 100% with ruvikx .

 

[Sybrix]

It was a good episode but i feel unsatisfied.... not sure why

I'm just thinking is that it for the night king and the army of the dead? All over? All that build up over the last 8 years?

 

[Mista]

In Season 3

Spoiler: Melisandre to Arya

Don’t know how many paid attention to this or actually forgot about it but it was said way back in season 3

Now in Season 8

Spoiler: Episode 3

What Melisandre told Arya 5 seasons back, happened today! And the “blue eyes” aka the night king was killed by Arya

Also one more thing about Melisandre’s prophecy back in season 3

Spoiler: The Prophecy happened so who’s next?

Not trying to sound like a genius cunt or anything. Just refreshing your memories a bit

 

[DragoonKain]

You fucking asshole should get banned. Not everyone has seen that movie yet. Fucking idiot.

I said Infinity War you jackass, not Endgame. If you honestly thought

Spoiler

Thanos could die in act 2 of Infinity War

even without seeing it when Endgame, a sequel to the movie just came out, what do you think Endgame is about exactly? It's not a spoiler at all, you dolt.

 

[Come On Tars]

Gosh the love the music as the king approaches Bran. But could you IMAGINE if it played out like this.

Slow dramatic music night king walk up to Bran as he stares back.

He finally approaches

Knight looks at Bran. Bran looks back.

Dramatic holy shit somethings going down music swells. (the night king theme really is amazing)

Bran looks down at kings chest for a second as he did.

Night king looks slighty confused as he did.

Bran stands up

Reveals dagger and stabs night king in the heart.

Entire army falls dead

Cut back to Bran, peels of face to reveal Arya.

Cut to Bran hiding in the crypt with white eyes.

Bran let's a tiny smirk as the episode cuts to black.

To me, it doesn't change much but is a way more dramatic ending then Arya simply wire flying behind.

 

[MMaRsu]

Ofcourse that would be better but I guess if he can "feel" the three eyed raven it cant work and brann knew that

 

[dcll]

I personally thought the other battles were better than this shaky cam mess. Pretty lame as well how Aria could just run right up as well and pull that off

 

[blu]

Dothrakis playing a human progress bar non-withstanding, episode was good and logical.
Spoiler-tagging the rest just in case.

Spoiler

As it was an either-or scenario, it was clear from the start that 1) Winterfell was going to, well, fall, as Bran had foreseen in his visions that that was the only way a skilled warrior could get anywhere near the NK and kill him. 2) Of all possible characters not many would've been able to perform that, save for that one professional who's been working pro bono (for a sec I thought that would've been John, but of course not, silly me). 3) enough chars left for the second half of the finals.

 

[eot]

I re-watched the episode, I don't think I'm going to bother commenting on the plot/writing because you can poke as many holes in that as you want to, and fair enough if you do. Plot armor was in play.

What I want to say is that I think the directing in this episode was fantastic. The first 15 minutes in particular, the slow build up, I think that's some of my favourite television ever, and I've been down on the show for the last three seasons, I even stopped watching it. I can't think of another show that would let a director / editor create a moment like that, so hats off. Also, while it was very dark, I still thought the cinematography was great too, and the lighting they did have was well used for the most part. There were plenty of shots that were pure feasts for the eyes. It's almost trite at this point to say that GoT looks better than some movies, and I never cared much for those arguments, but this episode did it for me in that department.

 

[Come On Tars]

Ofcourse that would be better but I guess if he can "feel" the three eyed raven it cant work and brann knew that

Oh don't mind me I'm a dummy, I don't know the lore super well. That's true tho. I guess an alternate would have have it go down as it did which king catching Arya, as we see bran stand up out of focus behind the king to finish it. Maybe have Arya die and drop the knife and bran uses it.

 

[Shai-Tan]

Gosh the love the music as the king approaches Bran. But could you IMAGINE if it played out like this.

Slow dramatic music night king walk up to Bran as he stares back.

He finally approaches

Knight looks at Bran. Bran looks back.

Dramatic holy shit somethings going down music swells. (the night king theme really is amazing)

Bran looks down at kings chest for a second as he did.

Night king looks slighty confused as he did.

Bran stands up

Reveals dagger and stabs night king in the heart.

Entire army falls dead

Cut back to Bran, peels of face to reveal Arya.

Cut to Bran hiding in the crypt with white eyes.

Bran let's a tiny smirk as the episode cuts to black.

To me, it doesn't change much but is a way more dramatic ending then Arya simply wire flying behind.

That sounds better and would have made them cut the scenes where she goes dynasty warriors on the white walkers

 

[ConnorDuffy1977]

Cut back to Bran, peels of face to reveal Arya.

Doesn't the person have to be dead to wear their face?

 

[lifa-cobex]

Spring is coming.

 

[ConnorDuffy1977]

What I want to say is that I think the directing in this episode was fantastic.

It was a great episode. It was what we all love about the show and we will all be watching the final three. Reading all of these posts suggesting what they should have done kind of misses the point about the whole thing.

 

[Kadayi]

They escaped from Hardhome in boats, I'm sure they could have escaped with the Ironborn ships (like Yara points out) and the dragons.

Winterfell is a long way from the sea, it's slap bang in the middle of the North Map here

And how are you going to shook and awe a bunch of zombies? Doesn't make any sense.

Don't let your hate boner get in the way of your reading comprehension there bud. I outlining their role in a traditional battle. Against the dead in overwhelming numbers, not so much.

I actually thought he was going to die. I posted such last week. Just disappointed that he actually did and how he did. Arguably the most menacing threat in TV fictional history went out like a chump.

I predicted what would happen before the season started in terms of the mid-season battle. Frankly, I kind of liked that it was a rug pull in terms of the eventual outcome as to who would finish the NK.

It was a great episode. It was what we all love about the show and we will all be watching the final three. Reading all of these posts suggesting what they should have done kind of misses the point about the whole thing.

Indeed. I get the criticisms about a lack of significant character deaths but at the same time, those who did die like Beric, Jorah & Theon all played their role to a greater or lesser degree. I think Edd was rather hard done by but at the same time I guess it was necessary for something to drive Sam back, though in truth I'd have preferred it if he ended up in the crypts to protect Gilly etc. That would have been a better use of him.

 

[Come On Tars]

Doesn't the person have to be dead to wear their face?

Well shit man.

 

[greyshark]

Title of next episode will be A Dream of Spring.

 

[Onikaan]

Winter is coming, my arse.

 

[Kadayi]

I'm looking forward to the next episode in terms of seeing how the survivors reflect on what happened. I think Grey Worm in particular will be feeling particularly bad after he closed the bridge and left a large swathe of the unsullied to die on the other side.

Also, do we know if both Dragons survived? I wasn't clear if they both did.

 

[Verdanth]

Amazing episode. Now that's my Game of Thrones. Was on the edge of my sit the entire time.

The melody that plays at the end is a masterpiece.

MVP Arya, fuck yeah!

Only grip:

Spoiler

Considering the scale of the battle, many of the main cast should have died, specially John Snow, 100% surrounded, and still manages to live lol

 

[vpance]

I didn't really think the entire battle would've been resolved in a single episode. I was expecting them to cliffhanger it. If they had budget for another ep, almost whatever else they could've come up with would've had a better payoff, IMO. As it is, it's fine, but it just had like a "oh it's done" feeling.

Looking forward to seeing this 4K UHD release though. VQ was pure creamy shit.

 

[Come On Tars]

Another issue is the reality of streaming services or people downloading the episode to watch later is BITRATE. The blacks were pixelated af. I really wish that throughout the battle it progressed into dawn. Would have made it feel more epic and also the added bonus of the show looking cleaner.

 

[Halo is Back]

I dunno, here's a dude who hid behind his horde and his knights. Maybe he should go out like a chump.

Chump? The NK would be stupid to charge in battle head on. What the NK did was smart just like Ramsey Bolton was in the BoB.

 

[CrankyJay™]

Chump? The NK would be stupid to charge in battle head on. What the NK did was smart just like Ramsey Bolton was in the BoB.

That’s the word the person I was quoting used. I don’t think he was ever hailed as some master fighter. Kings often aren’t.

 

[CrankyJay™]

Doesn't the person have to be dead to wear their face?

No. Jacquen wore Arya’s face as she kept tearing off his masks.

 

[Grinchy]

I don't think it's a problem that Arya was the one that killed him. I just don't like that they told us it would happen that way halfway through the episode and then the way they showed it made no physical sense.

 

[Atrus]

One of the problems with the way the show dealt with the army of the dead and their nigh unstoppable, millennia old, magic wielding king is that it prospectively shits on the impact of subsequent battles.

Are we to believe that the Golden Company, the Iron fleet, and the remaining Lannister’s are going to pose more of a threat than a tsunami of wights, undead giants, ice magic and an undead dragon?

Why can’t Arya simply ninja kill every remaining opponent? Surely Cersei is infinitely easier to kill than an undead Necromancer King?

This creates a balance problem versus the remaining big bad that is often resolved by forced and inconsistent plot mechanics where the good guys, having pulled a win out of their ass the last time, suddenly faces a string of bad luck meant to even the playing field.

 

[Acerac]

Will be super pissed if Ayra somehow dies in the last 3 eps.

I am confident you have nothing to worry about.

Game of Thrones is not a show that likes killing off popular and important characters.

 

[Tygeezy]

I’m definitely curious to learn what Martin does differently in the final book whenever that comes out. I doubt I’ll ever read the books even though I keep telling myself I need to, but I’m interested in all the differences.

I think my ideal scenario would have been Night King wins at Winterfell and a few remaining survivors retreat to King’s Landing. Cersei, seeing how truly powerful the Night King is, allies with the surviving norherners and somehow together they defeat the NK. Or NK just wins Westeros and few survivors retreat to Bay of Dragons and Mareen and that’s how humanity survives.

Whatever though, I know I’m a filthy casual.

If I had to rate each episode so far:

Episode one: 7.5

Episode two: 6.7

Episode three: 9.2

Even with my gripes on the writing/choices, this episode was just so well made. The score, the tension, the cinematics. Beautiful

I’m pretty clueless as to how this is gonna end now. I don’t see how they can invade King’s Landing now

The night king as we know him doesn't even exist in the book and probably won't going by how paper thing the show runners made him.

 

[bitbydeath]

I was entertained and on he edge of my seat the entire time, but boy was I disappointed with the Night King being just a guy.

The whitest of guys.