Game of Thrones (TV ONLY) [Leaked Spoilers prohibited]

[Valonqar]

3 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

Arya killing the NK was great.

 

But her just apparating out of nowhere was poor execution.

 

It would have been more effective/tense if we got some glimpses of her setting up the ambush, and the payoff even better as we first go out no her strategy failed, and then she recovers for the kill shot.

maybe it was shown but we just couldn't see shit? 

 

 

[gadd]

8 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

As I said the problem was not that Arya Kills the NK...

Its that the NK is not the final boss.

I totally get that, and admittedly when there were suggestions months ago that S08E03 would be the final battle against the Army of the Dead, I wasn't that pleased either. In fact, when Season 6 ended I wanted 7 to be centered around Dany vs. Cersei and 8 to be Jon and Dany vs. The Night King. However, if we'd gotten that, people would've complained about it being too predictable, and the conflict with the White Walkers would've been too drawn out in my view. 
Ultimately, the bulk of season 7 revolved around convincing the characters who were unbeknownst to the threat of the Army of the Dead to fight against them. The first two episodes of this season built up the battle, especially S08E02 which felt like the penultimate episode of the show. The battle itself gave the series its longest episode ever, and was also its 70th. To be honest if, after all of that build up, the Army of the Dead just ravaged Winterfell and marched to King's Landing, I think there would've been complaints about this episode being anti-climactic, just in a different way. It reminds me how 'Ozymandias', the third-to-last episode of Breaking Bad, seemed like the proper series finale, while the next two served as more of an epilogue. That's how I see GOT playing out: we had our grand finale (The Great War), now we have the epilogue (The Last War).

[charlie Jatinder]

I am still wondering, how big a jump Arya made to go over White walkers, wights and covering some distance to land in hands of Night King.

 

The battle was dull overall, no tension at all, everyone important was safe.

 

That said I would have liked if Night King was killed in duel with multiple characters, Jon, Arya, Jaimie, Brienne perhaps.

 

Among other nitpicks, all the other white walkers did was standing behind Night King. They should have led charge.

 

But then they have made walkers very weak/vulnerable. All you gotta do is basically touch them with dragon glass or valeryin steel. They broke like glass with stone.

 

Wights were bigger threat than Walkers.

[gadd]

14 minutes ago, Charlie Jatinder said:

I am still wondering, how big a jump Arya made to go over White walkers, wights and covering some distance to land in hands of Night King.

 

The battle was dull overall, no tension at all, everyone important was safe.

 

That said I would have liked if Night King was killed in duel with multiple characters, Jon, Arya, Jaimie, Brienne perhaps.

 

Among other nitpicks, all the other white walkers did was standing behind Night King. They should have led charge.

 

But then they have made walkers very weak/vulnerable. All you gotta do is basically touch them with dragon glass or valeryin steel. They broke like glass with stone.

 

Wights were bigger threat than Walkers.

Arya's stealth skills had been established not just over the past few seasons, not just in the opening episode of THIS season (Jon: "How did you sneak up on me?"), but earlier in the episode when she's in the library. They make a point of demonstrating how the sound of a drop of blood hitting the floor was louder than her movements. Plus, the Night King obviously has control over the White Walkers, and their entire focus at that moment was on Bran. 
He's also seen his own soldiers get killed by Valyrian steel weapons ('Hardhome') so sending them out to confront the others who in all likelihood have weapons made from the same material would've been ridiculous. He also saw Jon fight before and took notice of him, so engaging in combat with a guy who has a similar, if not superior, level of fighting ability for the sake of it was also pointless, apart from delivering some fan-service. When you have the ability to raise the dead to stop a guy in his tracks when your main priority is someone else, why not do it?

Edited April 30, 2019 by gadd

[Valonqar]

22 minutes ago, Charlie Jatinder said:

I am still wondering, how big a jump Arya made to go over White walkers, wights and covering some distance to land in hands of Night King.

 

The battle was dull overall, no tension at all, everyone important was safe.

 

That said I would have liked if Night King was killed in duel with multiple characters, Jon, Arya, Jaimie, Brienne perhaps.

 

Among other nitpicks, all the other white walkers did was standing behind Night King. They should have led charge.

 

But then they have made walkers very weak/vulnerable. All you gotta do is basically touch them with dragon glass or valeryin steel. They broke like glass with stone.

 

Wights were bigger threat than Walkers.

This. I think that the episode would go over better if some characters engaged WW and took out some before Arya took out NK. Instead, that was just anti-climactic. they were literally standing there waiting to blow to pieces, doing nothing. all fights were against wights which grew tired quickly. they swarm the character, character kills 20 but can't kill another 20, barely escapes cause reasons. rinse repeat.

 

I do like that Arya jumps like a cat and kills NK with the catpaw cause that goes back to her book nickname Cat O'Tunnels (that the show ignored boo) and cat being her spirit animal (she had psychic link with them or could warg into them forgot which). Also, sees/fight in the dark like a cat. 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Valonqar

[Jonan23]

3 hours ago, Valonqar said:

 

@Jonan23 That and also you don't make everyone useless and stupid just to prop one character. I think that the episode would go over much better if everyone got something memorable to do (everyone being main characters) so that it wasn't just for Arya fans. cause right now, the only fans that are uncritically happy with the whole thing are Arya fans and it should have been that everyone was happy how it turned out including Jon fans accepting that Arya taking out NK was the right thing. But they didn't execute it well. 

 

 

Agree that other characters getting a big moment would have satisfied other fans as well. It feels especially disappointing as everything was right there.

I won't dwell on the pre battle problems you mentioned and focus intstead on this episode and improving it with simple tweaks.

I mentioned my proposed Grey Worm moment

Next could have been Brienne who could have been given a rousing moment rallying the troops with Jamie right behind her the moment the undead were able to breach the walls. Then give her a glorious death going down fighting. One possible option is her saving Sam. This gives Sam guilt to weigh heavily on the next episode.

Finally have another death be The Hound. Let Beric die in the hallway and let Hound be stabbed but be able to make it to the room and close the door. He could have a short final sentence after Mellisandre tells him that he has fulfilled his purpose.
"I guess it's not that f....ng bad."

Then Jon needs a good memorable moment. I'm not sure where. Maybe have him take out the ice dragon somehow though that might be too silly. Or maybe have him save Sam again delaying him from reaching Bran and giving Sam even more guilt.

I think those would have been enough as we would have lost two characters Brienne, The Hound, we care about making the loss feel more acute and distracting from all the narrative problems you mentioned. It would also make the Arya moment a lot better as there would be still be a feeling of loss after it was done.

 

[gadd]

7 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

This. I think that the episode would go over better if some characters engaged WW and took out some before Arya took out NK. Instead, that was just anti-climactic. they were literally standing there waiting to blow to pieces, doing nothing. all fights were against wights which grew tired quickly. they swarm the character, character kills 20 but can't kill another 20, barely escapes cause reasons. rinse repeat.

 

I do like that Arya jumps like a cat and kills NK with the catpaw cause that goes back to her book nickname Cat O'Tunnels (that the show ignored boo) and cat being her spirit animal (she had psychic link with them or could warg into them forgot which). Also, sees/fight in the dark like a cat. 

 

 

Understandable complaint but, apart from what I've stated earlier about the intelligence of not sending your most trusted force to fight against characters with the combat skills and weapons to counter them, I also think it made sense to have all of the White Walkers by the Night King's side, as it makes Arya's achievement even more surprising and impressive. Imagine if the Night King had one or two WW protecting him, or worse yet, going to Bran on his own, we'd be saying how dumb that was. He's always had at least 3 or 4 WW by his side ('Hardhome', 'The Door', 'Beyond the Wall'). I can see the counter-argument that in 'The Door', a few WW went into the cave before the Night King confronted the Three-Eyed Raven, but he's built his army up since then so there's more disposable soldiers to confront Theon and the Ironborn in the Godswood. 
I completely get people's issues by the way, I'm not trying to suggest that they're not paying attention or anything. I'm just making counter-arguments to show that there's more than meets the eye in regards to some of these things, and also highlight the fact that if the narrative had progressed differently, we'd probably still have a similar amount of complaints. I wanted to see a Jon vs. Night King showdown as much as the next person, but for me it made sense as to why it didn't occur given how the episode played out.

[Jonan23]

17 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

This. I think that the episode would go over better if some characters engaged WW and took out some before Arya took out NK. Instead, that was just anti-climactic. they were literally standing there waiting to blow to pieces, doing nothing. all fights were against wights which grew tired quickly. they swarm the character, character kills 20 but can't kill another 20, barely escapes cause reasons. rinse repeat.

 

I do like that Arya jumps like a cat and kills NK with the catpaw cause that goes back to her book nickname Cat O'Tunnels (that the show ignored boo) and cat being her spirit animal (she had psychic link with them or could warg into them forgot which). Also, sees/fight in the dark like a cat. 

 

 

Great point about everyone feeling safe. If they really weren't going to kill anyone else then tease the ones we think we will die. They teased Jon and Dany dying but those were devoid of tension because they are not dying. They should have teased a Jamie or Brienne. or Tormund death instead. They still would have survived but at least there would be a moment of suspense (at least for me.)

 

[Lordmandeep]

I look at this way

 

Its like if Thanos who is built over 20 films and hyped over 7 years is killed by a sneak attack at Wakanda before he got the last stone.

 

Would been a decent movie but what would be is left much to be desired. 

 

I think this how I feel about Game of Thrones right now. 

[gadd]

2 minutes ago, Jonan23 said:

Agree that other characters getting a big moment would have satisfied other fans as well. It feels especially disappointing as everything was right there.

I won't dwell on the pre battle problems you mentioned and focus intstead on this episode and improving it with simple tweaks.

I mentioned my proposed Grey Worm moment

Next could have been Brienne who could have been given a rousing moment rallying the troops with Jamie right behind her the moment the undead were able to breach the walls. Then give her a glorious death going down fighting. One possible option is her saving Sam. This gives Sam guilt to weigh heavily on the next episode.

Finally have another death be The Hound. Let Beric die in the hallway and let Hound be stabbed but be able to make it to the room and close the door. He could have a short final sentence after Mellisandre tells him that he has fulfilled his purpose.
"I guess it's not that f....ng bad."

Then Jon needs a good memorable moment. I'm not sure where. Maybe have him take out the ice dragon somehow though that might be too silly. Or maybe have him save Sam again delaying him from reaching Bran and giving Sam even more guilt.

I think those would have been enough as we would have lost two characters Brienne, The Hound, we care about making the loss feel more acute and distracting from all the narrative problems you mentioned. It would also make the Arya moment a lot better as there would be still be a feeling of loss after it was done.

 

People would've lost their minds if the Hound had died before Cleganebowl. There was no chance he was going out in this episode, and to a random wight nonetheless.

[Jonan23]

One huge positive though that I haven't seen mentioned in this episode was the sound and music which I felt did a lot of the heavy lifting in setting the tone.

[gadd]

2 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

I look at this way

 

Its like if Thanos who is built over 20 films and hyped over 7 years is killed by a sneak attack at Wakanda before he got the last stone.

 

Would been a decent movie but what would be is left much to be desired. 

 

I think this how I feel about Game of Thrones right now. 

If a plot line and character arc had been developing in an MCU series over the past 10 years which offered a viable solution to getting rid of Thanos, as was the case here, I wouldn't have minded it. If it had come out of nowhere and been a character with no motivation or skills to carry out a stealth attack, then it would've sucked.

[Lordmandeep]

1 minute ago, gadd said:

If a plot line and character arc had been developing in an MCU series over the past 10 years which offered a viable solution to getting rid of Thanos, as was the case here, I wouldn't have minded it. If it had come out of nowhere and been a character with no motivation or skills to carry out a stealth attack, then it would've sucked.

 

You mean the 100 foot jump lol 

[Jonan23]

6 minutes ago, gadd said:

People would've lost their minds if the Hound had died before Cleganebowl. There was no chance he was going out in this episode, and to a random wight nonetheless.

Hahaha. Fine. Leave Clegane alive. Substitute Tormund instead. Overwhelmed by Wights after he goes into a rage at the death of Brienne

[gadd]

10 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

 

You mean the 100 foot jump lol 

Quite the exaggeration lol. The library she was in is very close to the Godswood, so there was plenty of time for her to get into the right position to execute the move, which we know Arya is more capable of doing because that's what she's done since season 1. When I say 'viable solution', I mean that if a Marvel character had demonstrated a habit or skill in stealth attacks across multiple films and used these traits to inflict the killer blow, and had also built up these skills in the context of confronting the ultimate enemy (as Arya did with 'Death'), then I would've been cool with it. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by gadd

[Valonqar]

15 minutes ago, gadd said:

I also think it made sense to have all of the White Walkers by the Night King's side, as it makes Arya's achievement even more surprising and impressive.

but it isn't impressive since too many people are complaining that it was anticlimactic. there's a difference between a genuine surprise and WTF. One is set up well, the other isn't. 

 

People would've lost their minds if the Hound had died before Cleganebowl. 

 

yeah, that's the problem. They save characters because expected thing X, Y, Z later. The Hound can't die before Clegganebowl. Etc. Once upon a time, GOT problem was killing off characters without finishing their arcs, for shock value. Now they are too obviously sparing characters for predictable events. Never mind that The Hound had a good arc without ever confronting The Mountain again. Fans want their service and D&D oblige by plot-armoring The Hound. Like, they can spare characters without plot armor. just don't tease their death. give them errands that aren't dangerous. etc. it can be done organically. for example, the crypt could have stayed safe and therefore we wouldn't get the stupid death tease about Tyrion, Sansa, Gilly, Baby Sam, Missandei, Varys and Bargain Shireen. nothing would be lost without that gimmick.

[gadd]

16 minutes ago, Valonqar said:

but it isn't impressive since too many people are complaining that it was anticlimactic. there's a difference between a genuine surprise and WTF. One is set up well, the other isn't. 

 

 

 

 

yeah, that's the problem. They save characters because expected thing X, Y, Z later. The Hound can't die before Clegganebowl. Etc. Once upon a time, GOT problem was killing off characters without finishing their arcs, for shock value. Now they are too obviously sparing characters for predictable events. Never mind that The Hound had a good arc without ever confronting The Mountain again. Fans want their service and D&D oblige by plot-armoring The Hound. Like, they can spare characters without plot armor. just don't tease their death. give them errands that aren't dangerous. etc. it can be done organically. for example, the crypt could have stayed safe and therefore we wouldn't get the stupid death tease about Tyrion, Sansa, Gilly, Baby Sam, Missandei, Varys and Bargain Shireen. nothing would be lost without that gimmick.

It was totally set up well, it had been subtly foreshadowed for years, it's just that fans got too caught up in the seemingly more obvious foreshadowing with Jon and the Night King which turned out to be a red herring. Again, if Arya hadn't had that pay-off, what the hell were all of those training montages and visits to Braavos for? What was that meeting with Melisandre all about? Why was Beric brought back all of those times? Why did Bran give her the dagger? It was a surprise that made sense retrospectively, and was quite poetic too: the biggest army Westeros has ever seen got taken out by someone who had hid in the shadows for most of her life. 
Also, this idea that GOT used to kill off characters for shock value and has stopped doing that is the biggest myth about the show. Yes, characters like Ned, Catelyn, Robb and Oberyn dying were shocking, but their deaths also had a freaking purpose. They led to a series of important events further down the line. Arya killing the Night King has a similar level of surprise these deaths had: ones that seemed abrupt and out-of-the-blue but made total sense in hindsight. If The Hound was killed off in this episode, why is the Mountain even back? It's because the Hound has business to settle, the confrontation with his brother is a critical part of his character development that has yet to be resolved. If a main character dies in GOT, it usually triggers something. The Hound dying wouldn't have triggered anything accept justifiable fan outrage as opposed to the short-sighted fan rage Arya killing the Night King has generated. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by gadd

[Ozymandias]

Thanos > Night King LOL

 

never in a million years i thought id be saying that

[Lordmandeep]

3 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

Thanos > Night King LOL

 

never in a million years i thought id be saying that

 

 

Questions left unanswered

 

Who is the night king

What do they want

What do they want Bran

 

 

Questions left

Who kills cersci, arya or Jamie?

 

 

Yawns.. 

[gadd]

3 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

 

 

Questions left unanswered

 

Who is the night king

What do they want

What do they want Bran

 

 

Questions left

Who kills cersci, arya or Jamie?

 

 

Yawns.. 

He was a human turned into a "weapon" by the Children of the Forest in order to counter the threat posed by humans. This went awry, big time. He became the Night King, and wanted to wipe out all of humanity, both the actual humans and the Children of the Forest, in retaliation for the treatment he endured by the COTF. Due to having memories of various events involving mankind, he set his sights on the Three-Eyed Ravens, because wiping their memory symbolised the 'death' of humanity. Since Bran became the new Three-Eyed Raven, he became the Night King's target. 
This stuff was established in Season 6 Episode 5 and even the last episode, and not in a subtle way either. It was pretty much spelled out for the audience.