# Game of Thrones 8.03 "The Long Night" 4/28/19 \[Show discussion\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190 "2019-04-28T20:36:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![yellow\_sausage\_bandit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yellow_sausage_bandit/32/394_2.png) [@yellow\_sausage\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellow_sausage_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/161 "2019-04-29T13:52:07Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > Was Ser Friendzone in the Dothraki charge? Did he manage to get back? Yes, a bunch of riderless Dothraki horses returned and then an injured Jorah. When Dany’s dragon got injured/killed he fought alongside her but died in the end. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/162 "2019-04-29T13:53:00Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > Was Ghost in the Dothraki charge? I saw he was around and I was looking forward to some badass wolf action about three seasons since anything like that, and then I forgot about it. > > Was Ser Friendzone in the Dothraki charge? Did he manage to get back? Yes, yes and yes. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/163 "2019-04-29T13:55:31Z")
The disappointing part is the whole “make it look like _character_ is surely dead, then have them survive for no reason” is absolutely the opposite of what made Game of Thrones good. It was not necessary to show Grey Worm on the very front lines right before the army of the dead is shown completely deleting the front ranks of the unsullied just to have him pop up completely fine in a different spot. It wasn’t necessary to have Sam go down something ridiculous like five times and survive them, half of them without anyones help. It wasn’t necessary to show constant cuts of Jamie Brienne and Pod completely overwhelmed by zombies without any room to even swing their weapons. Theon dying defending Bran was a great moment, but Jorah becoming the martyr of all friendzoned nice guys was the most generic and cliche moment of the show. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/164 "2019-04-29T14:08:04Z")
I don’t think the tactics were that bad. The Dothraki fight by charging across the steppe on their horses and mowing down infantry. So that is how they were used. The battle plan was designed to get the Night King in the open where Dany could kill him with dragon fire. So they had the Unsullied and the rest of the infantry make a stand while they strafed the wights with two dragons. The night king then used his dragon to fight the other two so they fell back behind the wall and trench since they didn’t have anymore dragons to help. If the night king had not been immune to dragon fire it would have worked. With the Dothraki, the Unsullied, the archers, the trebuchets, and the dragons it looked like they had killed most of the night kings original army. They successfully lured the night king to Bran as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/165 "2019-04-29T14:09:46Z")
Do we have any idea how many are left at Winterfell? We know that Cersei has 20,000+ and I’m wondering how large a force can be massed against her. And who gets to kill her in the end? Or does the show end with everyone else dead and her on that stupid, uncomfortable throne? ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/166 "2019-04-29T14:13:32Z")
I’m with you **Meanjoe**. I thought everyone would be as pleased as me. I guess I should have known better! I loved everything about this episode. It was everything I hoped it would be and more, given that unexpected ending. I mean I’m sure others knew what was going to happen all along but despite my great love of theory videos I have never seen one that went past a “possibly Arya” but that’s usually reserved for killing Cersei, not the NK. I loved that it was her. It was so fast paced I didn’t shed a tear until Theon’s scene. And those who say none of the main characters died… I considered Jorah a main character. He’s gone through so much and he’s always been one of my favorites. I still say this ain’t gonna be a happy ending though, not for the series. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/167 "2019-04-29T14:17:54Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Maester Aemon died of old age seasons ago! Dang. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/168 "2019-04-29T14:22:14Z")
[Night King Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1frgt0D_f4) is up and on Spotify. Only piano use i can think of other than this is “Light of the Seven”. I quite liked the new piece. Seemed to say “This is what the end of the world is like.” ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/169 "2019-04-29T14:23:12Z")
Cersei does not have a dragon or wights so that battle will be very different. A dragon can wipe out a lot of soldiers quickly as we already saw. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/170 "2019-04-29T14:25:25Z")
Oh and btw…all across internetland is the acclaim about not being able to see shit. I watched on my monitor and it was fine. I mean at least I felt that what I couldnt see was on purpose. I DID have to back up some at times, cause I felt i wasn’t taking it all in correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/171 "2019-04-29T14:29:21Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Oh and btw…all across internetland is the acclaim about not being able to see shit. I watched on my monitor and it was fine. Most people don’t have monitors. I’m sure it looked fine in a darkened editing suite, on high-end monitors. We have a consumer-grade Vizio HD TV, and our house has windows. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/172 "2019-04-29T14:37:53Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Anyway, this is not the battle George R.R. Martin would have written - at least back when he was writing the first books. I’m not so sure about now. There was too much fan-service, too much writing in the service of cool visuals. A dragon battle in the moonlight? That sounds cool, and SFX says we can do it in budget because it’ll all be in silhouette. Call the script guys and tell them to make sure there’s a moonlight dragon battle. [Moderating] This is a reminder that the books do not exist in this thread. If you want to imagine what the sainted GRRM would have written if he had ever gotten around to writing imaginary books, you can take it up in the book thread. Colibri ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/173 "2019-04-29T14:39:22Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Martin gave up on the books and turned it over to the TV people. So what you get is a TV show. Why should anyone expect different? Ditto ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/174 "2019-04-29T14:40:08Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Cersei does not have a dragon or wights so that battle will be very different. A dragon can wipe out a lot of soldiers quickly as we already saw. Yes, but they’ve shown that they can hit and injure a dragon, so the dragons are not invulnerable. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/175 "2019-04-29T14:43:01Z")
I hope we don’t have another episode-long battle. For one thing, without zombies, zombie dragons, and ice-demons, the threat couldn’t possibly approach what we saw last night. For another, the human intrigue is usually a lot more fun, IMO. ISTM that Arya could probably use her face-stealing powers to kill Cersei all by herself without much trouble, but there will probably be more to it than that. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/176 "2019-04-29T14:44:36Z")
I’m not quite as negative as some of you… but I think it was a big disappointment overall. (1) We watched it via cable on-demand on a fairly nice HDTV, with the lights out, after dark. It was confusing, but I didn’t think it was more confusing than intended. If they both wanted people like me to have the intended cinematic experience, but also allow people to watch on laptops in normal lighting, maybe they should have released two versions? (2) My biggest criticism is that all along, I’ve made fun of people who wonder who will end up in the iron throne, because the series has set us up to think that that’s not what really matters, what really matters is this existential threat. The final conflict in the series should be humans vs WW, not humans vs each other. (That said, if the night king was going to die, Arya was as good a person as any to do it, better than most.) (3) It is ridiculous and infuriating how few consequential characters died (4) The one thing the episode did genuinely quite well was convey the sense of dread and hopelessness. It also aimed to convey a sense of battlefield fog-of-war confusion, and did… but that got a bit old after a while. (5) Lady Mormont went out like a boss. Of course. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/177 "2019-04-29T14:45:32Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Yes, but they’ve shown that they can hit and injure a dragon, so the dragons are not invulnerable. That was with one single ballista, if she gets a good number of them they could do some damage. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/178 "2019-04-29T14:47:44Z")
Exactly. So Dany can’t just swoop in whenever she wants and burn Cersei’s troops freely. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/179 "2019-04-29T14:49:06Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Most people don’t have monitors. I’m sure it looked fine in a darkened editing suite, on high-end monitors. We have a consumer-grade Vizio HD TV, and our house has windows. Dale being pedantic moment #3444: Most people don’t have monitors?? Don’t most people have home computers? I guess what I was saying was…I suppose I should be glad PS3 stopped supporting HBO Now ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190/180 "2019-04-29T14:51:18Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Dale being pedantic moment #3444: Most people don’t have monitors?? Don’t most people have home computers? Different kind of monitor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-03-the-long-night-4-28-19-show-discussion/833190.md?page=10)