Game of Thrones

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Seems "got lazy to get the story over with" is becoming the default thing, for a show that used to take pleasure in the small details.

I really hope the ending spoilers I saw are fake. If true I can see why people were rooting for The NK. I mean just kill these fuckin idiots already (¬_¬).

[soccerguy951]

Basically that lol.

IMO, the only valid complaints is the execution of the episode.

Not really, cause that’s a pretty simplified diagram. Maybe a combination of Bran finding some white walker weakness with Jon fighting the NK and Araya making the killing blow.

We didn’t even find out what the symbols the White Walkers left were referencing. Hopefully, a later episode. But it looks like the White Walker storyline may be over with.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Basically that lol.

IMO, the only valid complaints is the execution of the episode.

Imo that's a text book example of a Broken Base. Basically a fandom civil war over plot points. Fans aren't monolithic, so there's bound to be disagreements. GoT got to the worse case scenario of a Broken Base, and that's fragmenting.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Not really, cause that’s a pretty simplified diagram. Maybe a combination of Bran finding some white walker weakness with Jon fighting the NK and Araya making the killing blow.

We didn’t even find out what the symbols the White Walkers left were referencing. Hopefully, a later episode. But it looks like the White Walker storyline may be over with.

Showrunners claim the symbols were supposed to be the equivalent of an upside down cross. Basically blasphemy type iconography....or something

[Havok83]

Its the most viewed GoT episode ever but as of a few days ago it was also the lowest rated as far as fan ratings go.

again lowest rated where? Is there some official list of some sorts?

I could almost buy it being lower-rated just because the lighting made it hard to watch, even in a dark room with the screen at max. Much of the episode was lit like Tormund and Edd sneaking through the Last Hearth, but over an hour long. Someone put together a shot-for-shot comparison with Helm's Deep that really drives home the issue:

https://imgur.com/a/w6mzYyE

but again you'd have to watch the episode in order to experience that. Do you think people tuned in for 5 minutes, thought it was too dark and stopped watching all together? While not as convenient, it would make more sense to just turn up the tv brightness rather than skip out on the most anticipated episode

[AndrewCrossett]

People should stop looking for ratings and review numbers in order to prove that they're not stupid for holding their opinions. Have your own opinion, defend it, change it if the opposing arguments convince you.

The Dothraki charge was the strategically dumbest moment of the episode. I'm sure it had two story purposes: 1) to give us the cool horror movie image of their flaming swords dying out in the darkness one by one; and 2) to cut down Dany's military advantage over Cersei so the final battle will be more even.

To be fair, there were no good options. Nothing the defenders of Winterfell could do could save them, apart from killing the Night King. There was no legitimate use for a cavalry in this battle. The defenders knew perfectly well that the NK's army numbers in the hundreds of thousands by this point, and they are not subject to the "shock and awe" effect of a cavalry charge. They can see in the dark, and the Dothraki can't. It was a suicide mission from the start.

It would have made far more sense to keep all those Dothraki back to defend the castle as infantry. It would have resulted in a siege situation at best, but it would have bought the defenders more time to think of something.

Jon and Dany are simply not great military tacticians. This is a plot element, IMO, and not a failure of storytelling. Hopefully in the battle against Cersei, they will give Jamie a much bigger role since he is the only one who has much experience as a commander in conventional mass combat. That will also put him in position for the expected personal showdown with his sister.

I don't believe the theory that Jon was yelling "go go go" at Arya during his faceoff with Viserion.

1) If Arya was being obvious enough to get noticed by a man in mortal combat with an undead dragon, she sure as hell wasn't going to be sneaking up on the Night King and half a dozen White Walkers;

2) Hopefully Jon had enough respect for Arya that he knew she didn't need any coaching from him to "go go go," and

3) By yelling like that he would have alerted anyone within earshot that something was up.

Jon may not be a Napoleon, but he's no idiot either.

[TriggerWarning]

I don't believe the theory that Jon was yelling "go go go" at Arya during his faceoff with Viserion.

Its not a theory. Go back and watch the scene. Its absolutely what he was saying. I guess you could argue whether it was for Arya's benefit or not but it is what he was yelling.

The scene is on youtube now (at least til HBO gets it pulled). See for for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afivNGf1PsY

[Arsenal]

Probably should’ve tried to maneuver the Dothraki around the The NK’s army while it was focused on attacking winterfell. Maybe not the entire horde but at least a size able chunk.

[Punisher007]

Sending what are essentially light cavalry to charge a numerically superior enemy is dumb enough as it is, that's NOT how you use them. Also doing it in the darkness where they sight is severely impaired, against freaking ice zombies, and not giving them any kind of support in the process, is incompetence bordering on negligence. And it's not just that:

-deploy the infantry closer to the wall and cover the wall with archers using fire arrows and obsidian arrows.

-Maybe having your troops behind the fire trench so you didnt lose half your force in the most brutal infantry charge I've ever seen would have been wise.

-Have the Unsullied learn to do a proper shield wall and use their short swords to fight the undead that break the line

-Why didn't they resume firing the trebuchets after all the Dothraki died? it wouldn't effect the front line but it would effect the constant stream of undead to the front line. the undead basically used 70s era soviet tactics

-Almost every movie with a medieval style siege battle has the boiling and flaming oils poured on to enemies, or fire projectiles hurled over the walls at them. So disappointed it didn't happen. Maybe they didn't have time and resources to prepare them since they were also busy making the dragonglass weapons, but they never say that in the show itself.


And even from the beginning, It didn't make any sense that the army would form up outside of the castle to essentially meet the army of the dead in open field combat. It's a castle, it's meant to be defended from the INSIDE and it's easier to do it that way anyway. Then They mount a crappy, uncoordinated retreat back into the castle (you know, the one that they should have been in the first place) and then, once back inside the castle, they leave the walls undermanned until people start shouting to man the walls.

You've got a problem when I'm almost rooting for TNK to win just because your "heroes" are such colossal idiots that they almost deserve to lose.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

This video is great on the battle

[Cleric of Hell’s Brigade]

I could see the cavalry’s job being to punch through the dead and come back out the other side (like cavalry does).

Which they clearly did as several made it back through (Jorah and others).

I just don’t think any of them truly understood that cavalry is awesome for punching through normal people, but less so a solid wall/mass like the dead.

[Punisher007]

Yeah if they're HEAVY cavalry, like armored knights or something. The Dothraki aren't, and this isn't an ordinary enemy anyway, they're freaking ice zombies.

And honestly having watched it again last night, the IDEA of Arya killing TNK doesn't bother me. The EXECUTION of it, however, was questionable imo.

[GrandEleven]

Been reading enough that I feel compelled to add my 2 cents. I fall in the "not satisfied with how the the story played out" camp. The major points of annoyance to me was multi-faceted, so here's the cliffs notes and we'll see if anyone wants to debate/discuss.

1) Echoing the Dothraki charge being horrible. But it went beyond the bad strategy from Winterfell ... The NK was a moron as well. Instead of scattered horses coming back through the mist ... why didn't they raise the dead and send back an undead cavalry? That would have been way more intense and fun.

2) If the NK could raise any dead it wanted ... the 7 kingdoms were an untapped gift of army resources with bodies from 6+ seasons of war and conflict and a friggen dragon to let him gather it all up in moments. This should have been like a zerg/tyranid swarm of overwhelming size and over in moments, no "long night" about it.

But I get it ... we needed drama, being over in a moment isn't satisfying. So lets ignore the horrid tactics on all sides and talk about how the episode played out ... and sadly it wasn't any better.

3) every major character was out in the front lines minus a handful. They also all managed to survive. Sam in particular seemed to carry plot armor so thick that he stayed in the front line of conflict the entire night and ended on top of a literal pile of bodies almost comically high. I'd argue he got the most kills of the night. A librarian. And he did it with panic slashing.

4) despite the above, at no moment in the entire battle did it feel like Winterfell was going to turn the tide. It was just barely pulled off futile strategy after another. It was _so_ hopeless that the NK's death was the only possible resolution by about 30-40 minutes in, meaning the back 40min was just waiting to find out who swung the final blow. It removed a LOT of the tension for me when you combined plot armor with the inevitable resolution. It just became "oh they are teasing danny, now they are teasing jon" which just diminished the weight of the conflict.

5) I just cant get behind Arys being the "final blow". I felt like her arc led up to something major against cersie as it was such a focus of her character for most the series. I wanted her to kill the Mountain, or Cersei, or just maybe be put in a position where she chooses mercy and we're given a glimmer that that innocent "mouse" was still in there and despite her gruesome journey should could still be her on the other side. I honestly wanted it to be Theon. When he volunteered to defend Bran in the garden I thought that would be a perfect ark for the man who betrayed Winterfell in the beginning would defend it in his final dying moments.

5) I'm now very confused about the lord of the light resurrecting Jon. Was it because he would unite the people? was it due to the holding back the dragon theory? Jon's arc feels very out of place now.

6) Milesendre was probably worse than the night king at this point. The amount of people who died directly by her guidance is staggering. She started wars, convinced lords to kill their children, and her big fire contribution to the dothraki amounted to zero beyond false confidence.

Anyway, thats my take ... not super hot ... but I came out of that viewing as underwhelmed. At least the dragons looked cool.

[Punisher007]

They pulled the "main character is about to die, but miraculously is saved by someone else at the last minute" thing like 8 or 9 times this episode. You can get away with that a few times, but they overused it here. Same with "main character is in danger and seemingly cornered, we cut away, and we cut back and they're fine."

Also how did Arya even get there, how did she get past the WW's who were surrounding TNK, what did she jump from, and how could none of them move fast enough to stop her? AND how could TNK not just break her neck before she could pull her knife trick? He had a good 10-15 seconds to do it at least.

Also yeah TNK is kind of an idiot in this episode to with his "plan." Really they spent 8 seasons and like 10 years building the White Walker's up. The show OPENS with them for goodness sake, and you had the old woman telling tales about the mayhem they caused during the first Long Night. And you kill them off, in ONE EPISODE!! Yeah I can see why many find that to be a lame payoff for all the buildup. TNK ends up being one of the most disappointing villains in TV history imo if he's really gone for good now.

As someone else so amusingly yet accurately put it, Theon captured Winterfell for longer than TNK did and Walder Frey killed more main characters than TNK did as well.

[Punisher007]

I really hope the ending spoilers I saw are fake. If true I can see why people were rooting for The NK. I mean just kill these fuckin idiots already (¬_¬).

What ending spoilers exactly?