A couple of volleys fired blindly into the darkness.
Who chose the tactical order of battle? Davos? Jon? Melisandre?
Maybe getting Melisandre to light their swords on fire and send them in first was a political calculation to get rid of “Dany’s people”, and reduce her bargaining power in the end?
Just a thought.
Probably the same strategic mastermind that had their cavalry make a suicidal charge instead of using them for flanking, and placed the siege engines in front of the infantry line.
Sorry poorly written. I meant that the NK didn’t know they had a ton of VS and DG weapons. As far as he knew it was just a few.
Highly disappointing overall. I have been saying that while the show has been going downhill for a long time, it could still pull off big set-pieces but now they have failed at that too. Many of the scenes were too dark to be exciting and while the the last 20 minutes or so seemed to gather some real momentum it was all undone by the death of the Night King which felt cheap and unearned.
This is a show which became rightly famous for not being afraid to kill its major characters but it’s striking how almost all of them have survived what was supposed to be an apocalyptic ordeal.
I will probably watch till the end out of inertia but I think I am done caring about the show. I still think the first three books and the corresponding episodes are some of the best storytelling I have ever seen. In the first couple of seasons I sometimes felt that the TV show was even better than the books and I had high expectations that it would perhaps become the definitive version of the story but clearly it was not to be.
What it shows is that it’s really hard to sustain the quality of storytelling of the early books and show. I guess we should be grateful for what we got and move on.
The waste of the Dothraki cavalry really destroyed the episode for me. I can think of no reason to use cavalry like that. They are raiders, suitable for harrying the oncoming army–and then flanking. That said, even if it was a military blunder, it did make for a great visual with the flaming swords being snuffed out like that.
I think maybe Bran warged into Theon for a bit. Theon was never all that great of a warrior–it even took him multiple swings to behead somebody when he occupied Winterfell. Now, all of a sudden, he’s Horatio at the bridge? I think Bran guided his weapons–thus the exchange where Bran thanked him before the suicide charge.
Hated the darkness. A film that can’t be seen isn’t much of a film.
I have always equated the Dothraki with the Mongols. The Mongols did not blindly charge massed infantry. If they did we never would’ve heard of them.
I think that people are exaggerating the extent to which earlier seasons avoided cliches. Yes, there have been a couple of instances where individuals who would typically have plot armor die, but throughout there have been dramatic-rescues-at-the-last-minute-of-apparently-doomed-characters, unexpected reversals of fortune, and a lot of other typical tropes of the genre.
Take for example the Battle of the Blackwater. People have been unfavorably comparing this battle to that one. But we have the following incidents:
-A magical or semi-magical strategy, wildfire, that apparently gives the victory to Joffrey’s forces by destroying most of Stannis’s fleet.
-A reversal when Stannis’s forces land and almost succeed in taking the city anyway.
-Another reversal when Tyrion organizes a sortie and appears to be winning.
-Another reversal when Tyrion is nearly killed and appears on the brink of death, but is saved in the nick of time by Pod.
-A final reversal by the unexpected deus-ex-machina arrival of Tywin and the Lannister-Tyrell forces to win the day. There was a slight suggestion that Tywin might be going there in a previous episode, but it was kept hidden for dramatic purposes. It’s pretty much the same cavalry comes to the rescue at the last minute scenario that we saw at the Battle of the Bastards with the Knights of the Vale.
I have all the same complaints everyone else does, but nevertheless it’s still one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
I liked it.
I had no problem telling what was going on, although I have a good TV with great blacks (<3 my plasma), properly calibrated, in a properly dark room, with a good streaming connection through HBO GO.
I’m also not sad that they didn’t kill more characters. They still gotta take on Cirsei, and are probably going to kill off a few more in that one. If you’re going to create a new good world, some good people need to be left.
My criticism is they set that up to not be believable. When they snuff out thousands of Dothraki, on horseback, in a matter of seconds, then nobody’s going to survive a pile of them coming after them in a sustained manner for a half hour. No one. By the time the wights made it to the Winterfell wall they should have been GREATLY pared down (and they COULD have done that with better Dragon management), but nope they were still piling and crawling all over each other. NO WAY anyone survives that. They could have easily made it more believable but didn’t.
I LOVED Arya taking out the NK. Fistpumped that part.
For people complaining she shouldn’t have been able to do that, of course she should. Why? BECAUSE SHE’S A FUCKING NINJA. In fact, she puts real world ninjas to shame.
Do I think GoT is gonna have a happy ending? Yeah, I do. A bittersweet one at least. And you know what? THAT would actually be subverting expectations, not killing everybody off.
Plus I think I know why they’re doing it. Benioff and Weiss are going to be doing the next batch of Star Wars films. They’re not going to want to be known as the guys that left GoT on a bummer note.
I actually agree with you here…my statement was directed at the people who thought “How could they have killed the Night King so quickly? He was supposed to be the Big Bad of the series; it should have taken much longer to defeat him.” He died so quickly because he was not ‘the Big Bad’ of the series, just as Ned was not ‘the Hero’ of the series.
As for the circumstances that let up to the moment of his death, I think you’re spot on. Things could have been done in a much more satisfying manner.
They had a bunch of dragon glass but only a handful of Valerian steel weapons. Rare and very expensive. Jon, Jorah, Arya, Brienne and Jaime may have been the only ones. Maybe I’m forgetting a couple.
They only had five Valyrian steel weapons among all of them. And the Night King employed a strategy based on knowing they might have had weapons that could kill Walkers. He also knew they had two dragons. There’s no reason to think he didn’t know what he was up against.
Counterattacks aren’t reversals or plot armor. The top 3 of those bullets are totally fine. 4th is borderline. I mean, Tyrion’s squire protected him as he should. 5th is fine as far as turning the battle (Tywin mentions a fast march before he leaves Harrenhall, we just don’t know where he’s going), the timing wrt Tyrion is iffy, sure.
She was on her list. For taking Genry off to be killed for Stannis.
So was the Hound, though technically, she left him for dead, so not really on there anymore.
No, that’s everyone who had Valyrian steel in the battle. The only weapon that was used to take out a White Walker (the Night King) was Arya’s. So much for Checkov’s swords.
One thing that bothered me about the crypt scenes was that both Tyrion and Sansa were armed with dragon glass but I don’t think we saw either of them trying to take out any wights. Nice that they could share a special moment while women and children were getting ripped apart:rolleyes:.
Re: Theon at the end.
When Theon charges the Night King, my immediate thought was ‘He’s violating the first law of aikido!* You let the opponent charge you!’
- OK, I don’t know aikido. Nevertheless.
I’m sure I could find plenty of other instances of characters who by all rights should be dead but were saved at the last second in earlier seasons (e.g. Brienne being rescued from the bear by Jaime). And if that was fine at the Blackwater, then the very similar arrival of the Knights of the Vale was fine for the Battle of the Bastards. Sansa had written to Littlefinger for help, and Littlefinger had previously gotten Robin to approve helping Jon. Similarly we were were mostly kept in the dark about whether they were on their way.
Speaking of the Knights of the Vale, Lord Royce was conspicuous by his absence during the last battle. He was certainly an expendable character.
Trebuchets that probably took weeks to build and apparently fired once each. The correct time to start using them being apparently just one second before the cavalry engage the ennemy and it’s not possible to use them anymore.
Still, the whole scene was quite good dramatically.