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Post by Kenbo on Apr 28, 2019 22:56:42 GMT -5
Also... aside from the Night King the White Walkers didn't do anything at all... all that build up and Arya just 1v1s their leader. What confuses me is NK's other top guys. Like that one dude with the long white hair. What was his purpose? It seems there is some organization to NK's "kingdom". Why does that matter if they are mindless creatures with one goal Why tf didn't they use wildfire That's what I was thinking too. Step 1. Hide lots of wildfire casks in the snow. Step 2. Lure the undead. Step 3. BOOM! Easy win. Maybe not necessarily easy win but just lobbing wildfire from the catapults would've helped quite a bit. |
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Post by Star on Apr 28, 2019 22:59:29 GMT -5
I can't help but be underwhelmed by this episode. It was definitely great, but having the Night King die halfway into the season seems disappointing. I suppose his death showcased perfectly that no one was safe, but given we've only seen them in 3 major battles, I wish we would've learned more about them. We had 6 big deaths, but I almost feel like we should've had 1-2 more due to this being the final stand of the dead.
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Post by Star on Apr 28, 2019 23:01:33 GMT -5
The show really hyped up the White Walkers. I think that's what makes this most frustrating to see them go out with such little screen time. At this point, it almost feels like they were simply a plot device to unite Dany, Jon, and the North.
I guess Cersei being the true endgame is cool, but I was hoping the White Walkers could stick around at least another episode or two.
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Post by Star on Apr 28, 2019 23:08:50 GMT -5
Arya ending up being the prophesied princess that was promised, Azor Ahai, to bring an end to the Long Night is a neat twist, but it still doesn't sit right with me to have it end so suddenly here. Maybe repeat viewings and seeing how the rest of the season unfolds will change my mind, but I have very mixed feelings about the final 10 minutes of this one.
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Post by Kenbo on Apr 28, 2019 23:15:30 GMT -5
The problem lies in having the battle take place before the end of the season/show. Because this is the ultimate fucking battle. It is unwinable for the living because every person that dies can just be recruited into the army of the dead. There is no way to win without killing the Night King. So they had to kill the Night King...
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Post by Spidyyr on Apr 28, 2019 23:54:45 GMT -5
I’m not really sure what to say
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Post by Spidyyr on Apr 29, 2019 0:06:36 GMT -5
I honestly thought we might not even see the White Walkers this episode and it would just be them sending the wights.
Once the Night's King showed up, this really was the only way it could've ended.
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Post by Spidyyr on Apr 29, 2019 0:23:47 GMT -5
Why tf didn't they use wildfire That's what I was thinking too. Step 1. Hide lots of wildfire casks in the snow. Step 2. Lure the undead. Step 3. BOOM! Easy win. I think Cersei has all the wildfire. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 5:02:49 GMT -5
It seems like ultimately the White Walkers are irrelevant to the story. All they did was weaken Jon and Dany's armies...
But anyone could have done that... they could have had Ramsey or Euron so it just as easily... or have an invasion from Slaver's Bay do the same. The WW are useless.
I wonder how similar the books will be... because the Night King hasn't been introduced yet. So maybe killing the White Walkers will be more complicated than stabbing one guy. Also I hope George actually uses the prophecies...
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 6:07:55 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking too. Step 1. Hide lots of wildfire casks in the snow. Step 2. Lure the undead. Step 3. BOOM! Easy win. I think Cersei has all the wildfire. They had time to make lots of dragonglass weapons... I am sure they could have gotten their hands on some wildfire. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 8:19:12 GMT -5
So you are telling me they pulled a Disney and didn't plan out the story before starting their series? Also, I suppose this means the book version could be very different because clearly George planned his version much earlier than 3 years ago... Now let's hope we ever get to see Dreams of Spring...
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 8:39:37 GMT -5
I think our expectations kind of made us enjoy this one less also. We kept thinking there was more to the White Walkers, but maybe there never really was. I'm sure GRRM gave some guidance, but let the show runners do the rest. I imagine there will be more in the novels if they release, but those always have more details on everything compared to the show.
This high fantasy aspect was a big part of the story, but the center of it all has always been the game for the Iron Throne, which is what these final 3 episodes will depict. Cersei, Euron, etc stand in the way of victory for the heroes, and it's still possible Dany may go mad and become another obstacle. It disappoints me that this seems to be how it ultimately ends for the Night King and his forces, but the battle was still very impressive.
Also, this death was a shocker just like major deaths from earlier seasons. I know the books revealed those to some prior to the episodes, but if you hadn't read the books, killing characters like Ned and Joffrey could've seemed crazy, since we expected more to come from them. The Night King's death seems even dumber to some, since the books didn't officially determine it first, but that's kind of a silly argument to use. I highly doubt GRRM didn't tell them he wanted the Night King to die here and by Arya as well.
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 8:41:09 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty upset to see the Night King go like this. But I do have to blame myself for hyping him up more than was probably necessary, when GoT ultimately needed a character like Cersei to be the true final villain.
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Post by Potato on Apr 29, 2019 9:05:26 GMT -5
I've warmed up to the idea of Arya doing it a little more (she's been trained as an assassin for a long time, Beric protecting her, Melisandre recognizing her importance). And the catspaw dagger doing it is ironic, since it was meant to kill Bran in season 1, and Littlefinger ordered the kill. So in a way Littlefinger saved everyone.  But the issue is they did it now. They should have had this in episode 6 or episode 5. Cersei and Euron just aren't that great on their own. |
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Post by Potato on Apr 29, 2019 9:07:32 GMT -5
Also, they teased that Jon v Night King battle and never followed through with it. When that happened, I thought the Night King would somehow get away. But I guess we never even really get to see him fight in a proper duel. Jon got shafted pretty hard this episode. They wanted someone unexpected to kill the Night King, but it screwed over their main protagonist.
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Post by Potato on Apr 29, 2019 9:21:59 GMT -5
The best description of all this I saw was that it's like Kylo Ren killing Snoke and then General Hux becoming the main bad guy....
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Post by Spidyyr on Apr 29, 2019 9:36:10 GMT -5
I know the show is called “Game of Thrones.” But that was taken from the title of the first book. Is the throne really the main point of “A Song of Ice and Fire” or “A Dream of Spring.” It would seem even weirder for the Night King to die this early in the books.
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Post by Spidyyr on Apr 29, 2019 9:44:59 GMT -5
But booooo no ice spiders
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 9:56:08 GMT -5
Also, this death was a shocker just like major deaths from earlier seasons. I know the books revealed those to some prior to the episodes, but if you hadn't read the books, killing characters like Ned and Joffrey could've seemed crazy, since we expected more to come from them. The Night King's death seems even dumber to some, since the books didn't officially determine it first, but that's kind of a silly argument to use. I highly doubt GRRM didn't tell them he wanted the Night King to die here and by Arya as well. Killing of characters like Ned was crazy, but in a good way. And it made sense storywise. I didn't expect the Red Wedding, but there are so many hints and moments of foreshadowing to that event in the books and show. But there is 0 foreshadowing of Arya killing the Night King in the books. There is some in the show, provided by Beric and Melisandre. But Arya doesn't meet Mel in the books and Beric dies much earlier, so there is nothing that foreshadows Arya being the one to save the living in the books, which makes me doubt it will happen that way. Besides, the Night King still doesn't exist in the books... I feel like the showrunners just wanted to simplify things because they only had 6 episodes. And they didn't want to go with Jon killing the Night King because that's too predictable... |
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 9:57:19 GMT -5
I've warmed up to the idea of Arya doing it a little more (she's been trained as an assassin for a long time, Beric protecting her, Melisandre recognizing her importance). And the catspaw dagger doing it is ironic, since it was meant to kill Bran in season 1, and Littlefinger ordered the kill. So in a way Littlefinger saved everyone. But the issue is they did it now. They should have had this in episode 6 or episode 5. Cersei and Euron just aren't that great on their own. I thought that usage of Littlefinger's dagger was a nice touch. But if they had waited until the final episode to kill the Night King, I feel like it would take away from whatever they have in mind for Cersei. There must be a reason they set her aside two episodes and are now bringing her back to the front these final three. It also makes me think it's more likely to go forth with the idea of making Dany go mad. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 9:58:38 GMT -5
I know the show is called “Game of Thrones.” But that was taken from the title of the first book. Is the throne really the main point of “A Song of Ice and Fire” or “A Dream of Spring.” It would seem even weirder for the Night King to die this early in the books. The point of the story always seemed to be that the throne didn't matter. So this is just weird... I feel like the book will be very different. |
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 10:02:56 GMT -5
Also, this death was a shocker just like major deaths from earlier seasons. I know the books revealed those to some prior to the episodes, but if you hadn't read the books, killing characters like Ned and Joffrey could've seemed crazy, since we expected more to come from them. The Night King's death seems even dumber to some, since the books didn't officially determine it first, but that's kind of a silly argument to use. I highly doubt GRRM didn't tell them he wanted the Night King to die here and by Arya as well. Killing of characters like Ned was crazy, but in a good way. And it made sense storywise. I didn't expect the Red Wedding, but there are so many hints and moments of foreshadowing to that event in the books and show. But there is 0 foreshadowing of Arya killing the Night King in the books. There is some in the show, provided by Beric and Melisandre. But Arya doesn't meet Mel in the books and Beric dies much earlier, so there is nothing that foreshadows Arya being the one to save the living in the books, which makes me doubt it will happen that way. Besides, the Night King still doesn't exist in the books... I feel like the showrunners just wanted to simplify things because they only had 6 episodes. And they didn't want to go with Jon killing the Night King because that's too predictable... The plots with Arya becoming an assassin and Faceless Man are still in the books though. I feel like that and other characters from the novels that Beric, Melisandre, etc took the role of in the show might be able to make up for that. Jon not killing the Night King didn't seem like a deliberate attempt to go against expectations. It felt pretty natural to me, but it does feel weird that they seemed to be hinting the two would face off again. The Night King rarely appears in the show, so it's possible they just wanted to include him even more than what GRRM potentially has planned. If this is how soon he would exit in the books, at least he appeared as early as S4 versus only a season ago for the show. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 10:09:34 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty upset to see the Night King go like this. But I do have to blame myself for hyping him up more than was probably necessary, when GoT ultimately needed a character like Cersei to be the true final villain. It doesn't. Cersei is an underwhelming villain compared to the Night King... Unless she discovers how to create an undead army. |
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Post by Potato on Apr 29, 2019 10:12:43 GMT -5
I've warmed up to the idea of Arya doing it a little more (she's been trained as an assassin for a long time, Beric protecting her, Melisandre recognizing her importance). And the catspaw dagger doing it is ironic, since it was meant to kill Bran in season 1, and Littlefinger ordered the kill. So in a way Littlefinger saved everyone. But the issue is they did it now. They should have had this in episode 6 or episode 5. Cersei and Euron just aren't that great on their own. I thought that usage of Littlefinger's dagger was a nice touch. But if they had waited until the final episode to kill the Night King, I feel like it would take away from whatever they have in mind for Cersei. There must be a reason they set her aside two episodes and are now bringing her back to the front these final three. It also makes me think it's more likely to go forth with the idea of making Dany go mad. I just hope that whatever they have planned with Cersei is interesting enough to warrant the main conflict of the last 3 episodes. At the very least, Cleganebowl is basically a guarantee. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 10:13:43 GMT -5
Killing of characters like Ned was crazy, but in a good way. And it made sense storywise. I didn't expect the Red Wedding, but there are so many hints and moments of foreshadowing to that event in the books and show. But there is 0 foreshadowing of Arya killing the Night King in the books. There is some in the show, provided by Beric and Melisandre. But Arya doesn't meet Mel in the books and Beric dies much earlier, so there is nothing that foreshadows Arya being the one to save the living in the books, which makes me doubt it will happen that way. Besides, the Night King still doesn't exist in the books... I feel like the showrunners just wanted to simplify things because they only had 6 episodes. And they didn't want to go with Jon killing the Night King because that's too predictable... The plots with Arya becoming an assassin and Faceless Man are still in the books though. I feel like that and other characters from the novels that Beric, Melisandre, etc took the role of in the show might be able to make up for that. Jon not killing the Night King didn't seem like a deliberate attempt to go against expectations. It felt pretty natural to me, but it does feel weird that they seemed to be hinting the two would face off again. The Night King rarely appears in the show, so it's possible they just wanted to include him even more than what GRRM potentially has planned. If this is how soon he would exit in the books, at least he appeared as early as S4 versus only a season ago for the show. The specifically said they had Arya do it because Jon would be too obvious... Which is a stupid reason. The Night King likely won't exist in the books because there is already a Night 's King, who was a Lord Commander of the Night Watch and fell in love with (presumably) a female White Walker and then ruled with her in one of the Night Watch forts as "The Night's King" until he was slain by the King in the North. Presumably the Night's King became a White Walker himself, but he was not the original White Walker, so killing him wouldn't make all White Walkers disappear. The way it seems in the books the White Walkers have no real leader. Unless the Great Other is the same person as the Night King in the show... But the Great Other is considered a god, equal to the Lord of Light... |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 10:14:18 GMT -5
Story problems this episode created: - Cersei can never top the Night King. Sure she can destroy King's Landing with wildfire and kill all the main characters... but she cannot turn all of Westoros into a horde of undead zombies... So this episode was the series's climax.
- Bran's story is useless. He became the Three-eyed Raven just to bait the Night King and talk to Jon about his parents? Pretty pointless. And what about the timetravel stuff? Is it going to be used to defeat Cersei... I don't like that. I like Bran using supernatural powers to defeat a supernatural enemy... but using it to defeat Cersei? That's just shitty writing.
- Sam's story is kind of useless too. He went to the citadel to discover something to defeat the Night King. But he only found out about Rhaegar's marriage, which really doesn't matter for the Long Night (apparently). He also learned about the dragonglass in Dragonstone... but Stannis already literally told him about that in Season 5... So that was irrelevant too.
- This is important: We still don't know why the Walkers came south in the first place. Even if we accept that they were just pure evil... something caused them to act. The First Long Night happened approximately 5000-8000 years ago. What caused the Others to suddenly make a come back?
- We have a bunch of useless characters running around that contributed next to nothing to the Long Night. Characters like Tyrion and Sansa will probably play a major role in what is about to come... But many others probably won't.
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 10:16:37 GMT -5
Hmmm... so GRRM never officially gave the show the idea to have Arya kill the Night King. However, I still think in terms of the show, it worked well. It's clear that the show has needed to implement its own ideas for a lot of things, since it's too difficult to go through GRRM on everything. But this doesn't rule out the idea that Cersei was intended to the be final villain. |
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Post by Star on Apr 29, 2019 10:18:41 GMT -5
I thought that usage of Littlefinger's dagger was a nice touch. But if they had waited until the final episode to kill the Night King, I feel like it would take away from whatever they have in mind for Cersei. There must be a reason they set her aside two episodes and are now bringing her back to the front these final three. It also makes me think it's more likely to go forth with the idea of making Dany go mad. I just hope that whatever they have planned with Cersei is interesting enough to warrant the main conflict of the last 3 episodes. At the very least, Cleganebowl is basically a guarantee. Yes, that's probably what I'm most excited for at the moment. |
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 10:32:03 GMT -5
Interesting how the "A Song of Ice and Fire" subreddit is very negative about this episode while the one for the show is pretty positive.
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Post by Pinda on Apr 29, 2019 10:47:19 GMT -5
Some people think the Night King is not actually dead and will return... Honestly if that happens the writing is probably worse than I though... unless a new Night King is created near the end.
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it’s been quite a while. I’ve been pretty good, how about yourself? 