Game of Thrones

[Star_Jammer]

The marketers never should have brought up Helm's Deep.

They set the expectations WAY too high.

Next they can compare Ep5 to End game final battle or something ridiculous

Would you have liked the episode better, had you not heard them make that comparison?

My "advertisement intake" on Game of Thrones is fairly light. By comparison, MCU/DCU movies, I read articles and spoil myself on the movies before they're even released, I watch all the trailers/TV spots/etc...so I'm pretty invested. With GoT, I watch the episodes...but that's about it. I'd never heard of this "Helms Deep" comparison. Although, truthfully, I can see some similarities. Curiously too, though, the Helms Deep battle (at least as far as the movie goes) only lasted a single night, and I've seen that criticism lobbied against GoT.

Can we take a guess as to whether or not the majority of GoT viewers heard of this "Helms Deep" comparison?

[stillanerd]

Jon was resurrected to end the Night King; that doesnt mean he had to dish out the killing blow. Without him rallying the troops together, there would be no Battle of Winterfell. Without him, the Boltons would likely still hold it and Arya wouldnt have returned. Jon is the reason why she came back and he is what gave her the NK as a target. He played a vital role in putting the chess pieces on the board to end the great threat

That's true. But it may not be the only reason. After all, Beric kept being brought back because he was meant to protect Arya. When that purpose was accomplished, he died. Perhaps Jon's purpose was to save the Seven Kingdoms but not only from the Night King.

[MichaelC]

Something just occurred to me: the Night King and army were just a metaphor for the Black Death. Like the Black Death, they were devastating, depopulating huge areas. And like the Black Death, they were ultimately politically irrelevant, save perhaps for weakening certain regions more than others. Martin took a lot of inspiration for his stories from historical events. Many of the events in the stories are versions of real life dark ages events with an element of fantasy added. The Night King is the Black Death. That's why he is voiceless and ultimately anticlimactic. He was never supposed to be a real villain so much as a force of nature who affected politics only indirectly before sputtering out.

[AndrewCrossett]

Everyone praises GRRM for subverting cliches (or "tropes" as I guess they're now called). The two biggest cliches in fantasy literature are the "prophecy" which always comes true, and the "chosen one." I would not be at all surprised if some or all of the plot-hammer prophecies... Azor Ahai, Maggy the Frog saying Cersei's brother will kill her... turn out to be so much BS. Right about as often as real-world prophecies are. And Jon is considered the "chosen one" of this story but frankly isn't up to it. He's a brave and honorable man, but he's a bad military commander and would probably be a worse king.

[SpiderClops]

There is no point in subverting expectations if it thematically makes no goddammed sense. The show has been pretty predictable when it needed to be. Who kills Tywin? Tyrion, because it makes sense for both their characters. Who is the catalyst for winning the Battle of the Bastards? Sansa(even if they had to dumb down everyone else to make Sansa look smart). Hell, she literally stops Jon from killing Ramsay because its not his place to finish him. Arya has killed Meryn Trant and the whole Frey house because her quest for revenge. It makes sense for her character to finish them. Littlefinger, the mastermind manipulating everyone gets manipulated by Sansa in the end. Who kills Stannis? Brienne who wanted to take revenge for her beloved king.

Hell, just in this episode. Theon dies protecting Bran finishing his redemption arc. Jorah dies protecting his queen that he always loved. One episode ago, Brienne finally becomes a knight that she always wished. The heck so unpredictable about any of these? But that doesn't make it bad because it made sense.

Arya killing the Night King is equivalent to *AVENGERS: ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD* Hawkeye doing the final snap instead of Tony. Is he capable of doing it? Sure. Does is subvert our expectations? Yes it does. But would it have been satisfying? Heck no. And then people defend it by, "Oh but see, Tony built the time platform and the time GPS, so it really is because of him that they won."

[TriggerWarning]

Ah, but perhaps we're just assuming the prophecies are now over and done with when they actually aren't. Don't forget, both Bran and Dany have seen visions about a ruin Red Keep/Iron Throne with what looks like snow or ash on the ground. There's also that image Bran has seen of the shadow of a dragon flying over King's Landing. And consider this: if the Lord of Light didn't resurrect Jon Snow to kill the Night King, what did he resurrect him for? As this series has shown over and over, we can never take prophecy at face value, or assume they mean one thing when they mean quite another.

Arya never kills the Night King if not for Jon being willing to sacrifice himself. I like many missed it the first viewing but when Jon stands up in front of the dragon he is screaming "Go, go, gooooooooo!" And then we see Arya breezing past the wights and killing the Night King. They didn't show it because it would have given away the surprise but Jon must have seen Arya also trying to get past the dragon and realized that the only way either of them get past is if one distracts the dragon so Jon did this. Arya still gets credit for the killing blow but Jon clearly gets an assist.

[TriggerWarning]

Everyone praises GRRM for subverting cliches (or "tropes" as I guess they're now called). The two biggest cliches in fantasy literature are the "prophecy" which always comes true, and the "chosen one." I would not be at all surprised if some or all of the plot-hammer prophecies... Azor Ahai, Maggy the Frog saying Cersei's brother will kill her... turn out to be so much BS. Right about as often as real-world prophecies are. And Jon is considered the "chosen one" of this story but frankly isn't up to it. He's a brave and honorable man, but he's a bad military commander and would probably be a worse king.

As to the chosen one trope the subversion would be having it not who you thought it was going to be. Both the books and series would have had you guessing it would be Jon and if not him than Dany. Jon is arguably the main protagonist. He has the secret heritage, the special sword, and is the one who was brought back from the dead - all things which are cliche for the typical fantasy tropes for the main hero who will save everyone. But instead they went with Arya so it was a subversion of tropes.

[Punisher007]

Subversion purely for the sake of subversion, or because you think that that's the ONLY way to "make things interesting" is not good writing. It still has to make sense. And sometimes, something is "predictable" because it makes sense to do it that way.

As the above poster noted, Tywin's death is a good example of this. Was Tyrion killing him "predictable," sure. But it made total sense and was appropriate given all that was set up beforehand. Same with Dany letting Viserys die as well for that matter.

Theon and Jorah's deaths made sense for them and their character arcs. Sansa killing Ramsay (although that episode had some writing flaws, this particular scene worked for me personally) made sense, etc.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

. Theories like Jon would need to kill Dany (or vice versa) to create Lightbringer - the legendary sword Azor Ahai used to end the Long Night - thus making the White Walker storyline more important than anything else would have taken away from the battle for the Iron Throne.

I would have been perfectly fine with that. Cause frankly that should have been squared away first. Or somehow tied into the throne conflict like someone else mentioned.

[PwrdOn]

Something just occurred to me: the Night King and army were just a metaphor for the Black Death. Like the Black Death, they were devastating, depopulating huge areas. And like the Black Death, they were ultimately politically irrelevant, save perhaps for weakening certain regions more than others. Martin took a lot of inspiration for his stories from historical events. Many of the events in the stories are versions of real life dark ages events with an element of fantasy added. The Night King is the Black Death. That's why he is voiceless and ultimately anticlimactic. He was never supposed to be a real villain so much as a force of nature who affected politics only indirectly before sputtering out.

I wouldn't say that, the Black Death had sweeping and long lasting socioeconomic impacts in Europe. For one thing, it largely spelled the end of feudalism because the shortage of labor made workers far more valuable than they were before, so that formerly downtrodden peasants now had the leverage to push for higher pay and greater rights. This ultimately led to the formation of an urban commercial class that would eventually drain most of the wealth and power away from the old aristocracy in the next few centuries, allowing the formerly impoverished nations of Europe to prosper economically and technologically, while the rest of the world remained stuck in the old ways of rigid and oppressive feudal structures. I dare say that this made it probably the single most important event in sparking the transition from the medieval to the modern age.

Sadly, no such revolution seems to be in the cards for the smallfolk of Westeros. Even though the new generation of leaders seems to be well meaning at their core, they are still mainly focused on plotting for dynastic advantage and thus it's unlikely they will find times between all their scheming to push for any radical social changes, and in any even these rarely come down from the top anyway. Arguably had the White Walkers wiped out a significant proportion of the Westerosi population, this would have forced the survivors to rethink the value of human life, since with a depleted population lords would have to think twice about casually mistreating their subjects or starting costly wars on a whim, and who knows what else might change with this shift in values.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

There is no point in subverting expectations if it thematically makes no goddammed sense. The show has been pretty predictable when it needed to be. Who kills Tywin? Tyrion, because it makes sense for both their characters. Who is the catalyst for winning the Battle of the Bastards? Sansa(even if they had to dumb down everyone else to make Sansa look smart). Hell, she literally stops Jon from killing Ramsay because its not his place to finish him. Arya has killed Meryn Trant and the whole Frey house because her quest for revenge. It makes sense for her character to finish them. Littlefinger, the mastermind manipulating everyone gets manipulated by Sansa in the end. Who kills Stannis? Brienne who wanted to take revenge for her beloved king.

Hell, just in this episode. Theon dies protecting Bran finishing his redemption arc. Jorah dies protecting his queen that he always loved. One episode ago, Brienne finally becomes a knight that she always wished. The heck so unpredictable about any of these? But that doesn't make it bad because it made sense.

Arya killing the Night King is equivalent to *AVENGERS: ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD* Hawkeye doing the final snap instead of Tony. Is he capable of doing it? Sure. Does is subvert our expectations? Yes it does. But would it have been satisfying? Heck no. And then people defend it by, "Oh but see, Tony built the time platform and the time GPS, so it really is because of him that they won."

Except Jon already was the most important person there.

-Jon discovered the White Walker threat
-Jon befriended the wildlings
-Jon helped save the wildlings
-Jon united the Northerners and wildlings for the first time ever
-Jon took back the location of the final stand
-Jon united the North once again to be at full strength for the final stand.
-Jon was able to convince the greatest army in Westeros to abandon their campaign to face the WhitebWalkers. This included the two most fearsome fighting forces in seasons (Dothraki and Unsullied) and Dragons
-Jon was able to convince other characters like Jamie and Theon who never saw the threat to join up.
-Jon and his friend discovered the key weaknesses of the White Walkers
-Jon secures and brought dragon glass to Winterfell
-Jon armed his massive army with dragonglass, without which they would have been a useless army
-Jon knocked the Night King from his dragon which is the only reason he was as vulnerable as he was.

Everything about this was Jon’s victory. Meanwhile there was the story of his best soldier being his sister who trained to become a master Assassin who spent her entire life dealing with the many faces of death. She was the most likely candidate to be able to deliver the crucial blow. And she wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t her beloved brother’s cause and he didn’t already take back their home.

This is like saying George Washington doesn’t get credit if he doesn’t personally capture the opposing general.

[AndrewCrossett]

As to the chosen one trope the subversion would be having it not who you thought it was going to be. Both the books and series would have had you guessing it would be Jon and if not him than Dany. Jon is arguably the main protagonist. He has the secret heritage, the special sword, and is the one who was brought back from the dead - all things which are cliche for the typical fantasy tropes for the main hero who will save everyone. But instead they went with Arya so it was a subversion of tropes.

Yes, but an even better way of subverting the trope is to show that there's no such thing as "chosen ones" and people make their own fate. Which is what I think they are going for here.

At the beginning of the series, we (non book readers) all thought Ned Stark was going to be the protagonist. Then he got his head cut off and we were all "whut?" And all this time we've thought Jon was destined to be the Big Damn Hero and it turned out to be Arya. In the next battle, it might be Jon or it might be someone else, or no one at all.

Subversion purely for the sake of subversion, or because you think that that's the ONLY way to "make things interesting" is not good writing. It still has to make sense. And sometimes, something is "predictable" because it makes sense to do it that way.

Makes perfect sense to me. Arya's entire character arc was leading up to that point, from the very beginning. How many other characters could have pulled off what she did?

[MindofShadow]

Curiously too, though, the Helms Deep battle (at least as far as the movie goes) only lasted a single night, and I've seen that criticism lobbied against GoT.

Because Helm's deep was one battle in the War for Middle Earth. Sauron didn't walk up to Helm's Deep and get stabbed by Frodo lol

"The Great War" was supposed to be a war. the long night, the everlasting winter, winter is coming. The teased a long horrific war for seasons and it was over in one episode.

[SpiderClops]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Makes zero sense to me.

Arya's entire character arc was leading up to that point, from the very beginning.

No, it wasn't. Arya's arc is about revenge and proving herself in the man's world. Not saving all of humanity.

How many other characters could have pulled off what she did?

Anyone who had enough plot armour.

[Havok83]

Makes zero sense to me.

No, it wasn't. Arya's arc is about revenge and proving herself in the man's world. Not saving all of humanity.

Anyone who had enough plot armour.

revenge for people killing her family and those that she loved. For the first time, she got to kill someone before they killed another family member. She saved Bran in a way that she wasnt able to save Ned, Cat, Rickon, etc.... She also saved Jon and Sansa with that killing blow. It works for me