I have gripes with the episode, but after last season this was kind of what I expected, so I wasn't disappointed.
However, this comment kind of personifies my confusion with the series:
We got to see the Night King's wrath for one whole episode after such a buildup. The very first episode of the series is literally titled "Winter is Coming".
Don't forget the very first scene of the series showing wights and a white walker killing Night's Watch. They were presented as the ultimate threat since episode one and have been "coming" for close to a decade now. Then when we get a bit of backstory we learn about the first Long Night and the epic battles and sacrifices that were needed to win. But when they finally returned they were snuffed out immediately
Just goes back to my complaints for the last few seasons that everything is about quick payoffs now, they need to wrap everything up quickly because they spent way too long on the buildup
There were two or three times close to the end of EP03 when I expected a quick cut - fade to black - end credits, with the climax of the NK story carried over into next week.
I wonder if that would have been a better way to deal with things.
I agree with the sentiment that seasons 7 and 8 have been in fast forward mode. I might have done away with the everyone go north of the wall/kidnap a creature thing, but it was cool that the NK was able to capture and convert a dragon and I kinda enjoyed the summit at King's Landing.
I have gripes with the episode, but after last season this was kind of what I expected, so I wasn't disappointed.
However, this comment kind of personifies my confusion with the series:
We got to see the Night King's wrath for one whole episode after such a buildup. The very first episode of the series is literally titled "Winter is Coming".
Isn’t this is a great example of not following fantasy tropes. The hero’s journey of the bastard becoming the chosen one, and coming back from the dead and fulfilling the prophcacy.
Instead the character with Agency kills the big bad. Arya chose not to be a princess when she was a child. Demanded to be trained. Was clever to name the faceless man to escape prison, choose to leave the Hound and Brienne and set her own path, chose not be no one and instead to be a Stark, choose to #### Gendry, chose her weapons and chose to kill the night king. Agency beat prophecy.
The evil in the world isn’t an unknown enemy that has been prophicized about. It’s people. I think the divide you see in this episode is those who the fantasy elements were paramount versus those who the political elements were paramount. The writers always shied away from fulling embracing and getting into the how the magic worked. I think in a TV show this is a good choice.
Going forward the next prophecy and opportunity for consequences to be real is Cersei. Dany chose to fight the Night King instead of go for Kings landing. Cersei acted in self interest. Will Cersei allow the prophecy to be self fulfilling like when she kill Margery leading to Tommen killing himself or will she chose to reject it.
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Plus the night king's whole death is much like Oberyn's. He completely outclassed his opponent and all he had to do is finish it and that would have been it. However, in both cases ego got in the way and that was their undoing.
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Isn’t this is a great example of not following fantasy tropes. The hero’s journey of the bastard becoming the chosen one, and coming back from the dead and fulfilling the prophcacy.
Instead the character with Agency kills the big bad. Arya chose not to be a princess when she was a child. Demanded to be trained. Was clever to name the faceless man to escape prison, choose to leave the Hound and Brienne and set her own path, chose not be no one and instead to be a Stark, choose to #### Gendry, chose her weapons and chose to kill the night king. Agency beat prophecy.
The evil in the world isn’t an unknown enemy that has been prophicized about. It’s people. I think the divide you see in this episode is those who the fantasy elements were paramount versus those who the political elements were paramount. The writers always shied away from fulling embracing and getting into the how the magic worked. I think in a TV show this is a good choice.
Going forward the next prophecy and opportunity for consequences to be real is Cersei. Dany chose to fight the Night King instead of go for Kings landing. Cersei acted in self interest. Will Cersei allow the prophecy to be self fulfilling like when she kill Margery leading to Tommen killing himself or will she chose to reject it.
This isn't what I was complaining about at all though.
The White Walkers didn't even necessarily have to be the final villains of the series, but prior to this episode, the overarching story had been the threat of the White Walkers being ignored in favour of the minor quarrels of men. If I'm not mistaken, literally every season has ended featuring the White Walkers. The series began with them.
I'm not asking for the writers to follow a prophecy. I don't need Jon Snow to be the hero. But through the first 6 seasons, they created and developed a fantasy world with rules and laws and threats. I'm not talking about fan theories not coming to pass (as I said, I tried to ignore them all following season 7). It's just... disappointing.
You can say this is a way for the writers to avoid falling into standard fantasy tropes, but to me that's just lazy writing. I'm not even sure you're correct in saying it's avoiding fantasy tropes. The heroes won. Three supplementary characters died heroically and completed their character arcs. Now they face the evil woman to the south.
The White Walkers didn't need to be victorious for me to be satisfied, but how un-tropey would it have been to have seen the Night King win, kill almost everyone in Winterfell, march south, and eventually run into Cersei? Now the last three episodes are Cersei vs the threat she ignored. That's the most extreme example of what could have been, but it's certainly anything but a fantasy trope.
I don't know. I just expected more. The episode itself wasn't disappointing, but the overarching story has turned for me. I wanted to see a North devastated by White Walkers. I wanted to see people try to survive in this new climate. We heard about some of it prior to episode 3, it just wasn't built into the narrative.
This just feels lazy and incomplete.
I'm still going to watch the rest of the season and enjoy it. I will re-watch the series and enjoy it.
I have gripes with the episode, but after last season this was kind of what I expected, so I wasn't disappointed.
However, this comment kind of personifies my confusion with the series:
We got to see the Night King's wrath for one whole episode after such a buildup. The very first episode of the series is literally titled "Winter is Coming".
Winter is coming could have also just been a metaphor for the bigger picture.
Also happens to be the episode were Robert and Cersei "come" to Winterfell for the first time, and starts the show down the path to Bran becoming the Three Eyed Raven.
I do think that more will be explained before the end of the series and it will become a little more clear when this is all done.
The Night King may have always felt like the biggest threat, but personally I've never once felt like this series was about him or the White Walkers. It was always about the other people.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 05-03-2019 at 01:13 PM.
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Plus the night king's whole death is much like Oberyn's. He completely outclassed his opponent and all he had to do is finish it and that would have been it. However, in both cases ego got in the way and that was their undoing.
Difference being Oberyn was pretty well established as an arrogant person. The Night King appeared to be far more pragmatic.
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I dunno man, I think the "bad pusseey" still tops the Worst Episodes list.
It can’t get worse than whatever the hell that episode was.
That episode won an Emmy too hilariously.
After season 4 they simply cared too much about giving characters “proper send-offs” as opposed to their being somewhat realistic consequences to their actions.
The white walkers may have been the true existential threat but they weren’t the main focus of the plot throughout the series, mostly a threat lurking in the background. That threat came to a head and was dealt with, now the series can get back to the main plot lines.
The difficulty with extending the WW story is that they are invincible until defeated. Unlimited numbers, every battle generates more, fearless, completely disposable and replaceable. Every episode with them south of the wall would be endless repetition of zombie swarms. Maybe a few sword fights with individual WWs but not much back and forth or question of who would win. The only question was can they be stopped and only conclusion is the NKs death. I’m not sure you can stretch that out in a meaningful way.
Instead they devoted one long episode to the absolute dread and horror of an unstoppable undead army rolling over everyone, skillfully built incredible tension over the 80 minutes and finally gave catharsis at the end. I can’t think of a better way of dealing with it.
Last edited by edslunch; 05-03-2019 at 01:26 PM.
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It's really about re-calibrating your expectations of what kind of show GoT is. Imagine if the Wire gradually turned into Die Hard. I mean, Die Hard is cool. But it's not the Wire.
I have gripes with the episode, but after last season this was kind of what I expected, so I wasn't disappointed.
However, this comment kind of personifies my confusion with the series:
We got to see the Night King's wrath for one whole episode after such a buildup. The very first episode of the series is literally titled "Winter is Coming".
Well I mean the show has to work within the bounds of there being only 3 episodes left, some closure had to be drawn with the North v White walker plot line while leaving time for the other major Cersei v Everybody plotline. It's not like Arya took a ship beyond the wall, knifed the mofo and that was that. There was a ton of development in the seasons leading up to this one, the preparations to fight them, allying with wildlings, diverting Danyreas from her clear goal, compromising the North's independence, and a lot of major characters making the choice to abandon their own goals to fight the overarching threat. And now that the battle is over there's still a ton to flesh out on if that was the right choice, and was Cersei correct to be shamelessly self serving the entire time? What degree of altruism is woth the cost?
It feels sudden because killing the NK and a battle are a pretty finite moment of time. But I don't think the critique people seem to have that it was all worthless is correct, there are a ton of consequences stemming from this battle that will decide this series in total. What did people want to happen? A longer battle, two part battle that made it seem like more of a struggle against the WWs? Or maybe people wanted the WW to win, but I have a feeling a lot of the same complaints would arise that we've followed all these characters for 8 years just to see them all die in a pile for nothing, and have three episodes left of the same thing happening to the only other major character still alive in King's Landing. I think a lot of the complaints are more directly related to the series ending.
The white walkers may have been the true existential threat but they weren’t the main focus of the plot throughout the series, mostly a threat lurking in the background. That threat came to a head and was dealt with, now the series can get back to the main plot lines.
The difficulty with extending the WW story is that they are invincible until defeated. Unlimited numbers, every battle generates more, fearless, completely disposable and replaceable. Every episode with them south of the wall would be endless repetition of zombie swarms. Maybe a few sword fights with individual WWs but not much back and forth or question of who would win. The only question was can they be stopped and only conclusion is the NKs death. I’m not sure you can stretch that out in a meaningful way.
Instead they devoted one long episode to the absolute dread and horror of an unstoppable undead army rolling over everyone, skillfully built incredible tension over the 80 minutes and finally gave catharsis at the end. I can’t think of a better way of dealing with it.
And this is the problem with an uncontrollable Zombie enemy that can re-animate not only the newly dead but those that have been dead for a long time - you almost need to kill them off in one episode.
If they win the first battle against the greatest army ever assembled that just means they are going to able to easily win every battle.
It's either a one episode arc or the white walkers kill everyone and that's how you end the show.
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I'm going to reserve judgment until things are finished.
If the winter is truly already over and we have 3 episodes of human vs human conflict for the iron throne left, I'll agree with the sentiment that the real conflict concluded far too quickly and easily considering the build up.
I still think there's more to come though, I can't see things playing out that way.
And this is the problem with an uncontrollable Zombie enemy that can re-animate not only the newly dead but those that have been dead for a long time - you almost need to kill them off in one episode.
If they win the first battle against the greatest army ever assembled that just means they are going to able to easily win every battle.
It's either a one episode arc or the white walkers kill everyone and that's how you end the show.
Since it’s not a zombie show I have no problem with how it played out. That was one of the most emotionally draining and ultimately satisfying things I’ve ever watched, intellect be damned.
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I'm going to reserve judgment until things are finished.
If the winter is truly already over and we have 3 episodes of human vs human conflict for the iron throne left, I'll agree with the sentiment that the real conflict concluded far too quickly and easily considering the build up.
I still think there's more to come though, I can't see things playing out that way.
Does this actually mean that the long winter is cancelled?
Wouldn't it blow everyone's minds if that didn't eliminate a the white walkers but only one 'house'. Like if you kill all the Castameres but that doesn't mean all humans are gone.
What if the Night King was just one of several kings? And another White Walker comes next episode (or episode 5 or 6)?
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Don't forget Dany took the NK off his dragon which is half the reason why he marched into WF. Who's to say he wasn't going to originally roast everything in the godswood from the sky, which would've been an easy victory for team undead.
I do think the long night is over and done with and I'm perfectly happy with it.
We literally have a spin off coming out about the first long night, or around that time frame. I dont need all the nitty gritty details now. Save the mystery, I love it.
I'm more interested in the human and political conflict than I was with the White Walkers. There's just way more to it, and the primary investment of the characters and plot have been around this game of thrones.
Not to discount how much I enjoyed the build up and resolution of the White Walker threat, but the real meat and potatoes of this show has always been the conflicts and machinations of its central cast.
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