[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I would consider Theon just as much a main player as Jorah, if not more.

Martin is never finishing the books, never, and it is too bad.

I've been fervently against the Theon redemption arc the whole time. I get that he's had bad shit happen to him, but he always sucked. And he also always sucked as a fighter, but apparently now he turned into a boss just in time to buy a little more time for & be vocally forgiven by Bran. After being told he was a good person instead of having him charge the Night King they should have had him run away (again.) Maybe some people cared as he was bleeding out after pointlessly charging the Night King, but it sure as heck wasn't me, and the show trying to force an emotional link between that & Jorah dying for Dany was laughable to me. They had 5-6 characters who could've been the one sacrificing to buy time for Arya/Bran, with Jaime and The Hound being the most poetic, but instead all of them were off in the other parts of the castle and survived.

It was as bad as ending the episode with Melisandre choosing to accept death as the final shot. Were we supposed to have an emotional connection with her? She could be useful during the battle vs the dead, but was irredeemable as a person once she'd burned Shireen.

Originally Posted by sabotai

*facepalm*

Good job Melisandre!

It would've been cool if Melisandre's gambit backfired and the Dothraki were thrown into disarray and panicked after she lit their swords on fire. They have the backstory set up with the Dothraki's hatred of Asshai and sorcerer's and it would've been a better way to explain the terrible tactics. Even if they wanted to say the Dothraki were pumped & weren't supposed to be charging that soon they did not convey that at all & even a simple "Why are they charging so soon?" from Dany to Jon up on the ridge as he stops her from flying to help them with close air support would've done the trick.

Originally Posted by sabotai

The Good:

I liked Arya's hide and seek scene. It gave a pause to the action to give us suspense. It changed things up without dropping the intended intensity of the episode. The shot of Jon and the Night King on the burning battlefield looked great.

As a tempo changer cool, and once there were hordes chasing in the hallways the threat felt real, but in the library were we supposed to pretend she had a concussion? We just watched her take on 20+ on the walls, she apparently sneaks past hundreds of wights and every white walker to kill the Night King 10 minutes later, but we're supposed to think she's scared of a few isolated ones or forget she still has a Valyrian blade on her? They set up the library scene just so Melisandre can give her a pep talk?

And at the end, I was hoping Bran was going to pull some three-eyed raven shit to save the day. Instead we get fan service to the most popular character. I wasn't entirely disappointed with Arya killing the Night King, though.

Like I said, I was fine with Arya killing him in that way. Who were the other realistic options, Daenerys (who took her shot and was brushed off), Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen (who took his shot and was brushed off), or Bran (who apparently decided to get a birds eye view of the battle and then not help anybody with that or any information)? What didn't feel right was there being no help or sacrifice from Jon/Aegon or Bran during the climactic scene. Even if Bran is the one who gives Arya the pep talk instead of Melisandre & tells her she must come to the Godswood, or Bran distracting the Night King and allowing Dany to knock him off his dragon or Arya to sneak up on him it would've been one useful thing he did during the battle.

Originally Posted by spleen1015

It was hard to see what was going on, but I think it was part of the fear effect they were going for. It added some excitement to what was happening for me.

The same director did the Battle of the Bastards where the chaos and confusion really helped and made sense if you were in a medieval melee battle, but it was all one huge melee in the middle of a field, so there was no question of where the action was taking place. Hardhome vs the dead there was the gate, the main hall, and a long road between the gate & the wharf where the ships were, so it was easy to track location. This one was always going to be a bigger scale like the defense of King's Landing in The Battle of the Blackwater, but it felt like there were 4 distinct places at the end (inside the castle, the vaults, the Godswood, and wherever exactly Jon/Dany & at the last minute Jorah ended up).

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I don't think anyone is expecting realism, but I agree 110% with what ISiddiqui and PilotMan just said. This used to be a genuinely intelligently written show, where a bad or tough decision could and would get you killed, and if you were up shit's creek then chances are you were up shit's creek and there was no magic dragon or flying assassin to save you.

It's still good TV, but it's typical cliche ridden TV at this point. The dead in the crypt only get risen late on in the episode when there's time for the night king to be killed just in time so no major characters die down there. Arya goes from a scared child running from the dead to murdering the night king with a pep talk from a friendly janitor. Jon decides to charge the night king in no mans land and gets the entire battlefield resurrected around him but gets saved by the worlds most accurate blast of dragon fire.

Agree here. If the dead had risen in the crypts earlier or even just when they did we ended up getting Davos/Jaime/Brienne/Gendry/Pod etc figuring it out and defending the people there it would have given them something useful to do while the real action was happening in the Godswood. Instead they were all just killing endless and faceless wight's only to be miraculously saved, while apparently everyone in the crypts is just awesome at playing hide and seek.

PS you know who could be a pretty big help to Jon in close quarters combat if he needed to be saved? His pet fucking direwolf that you brought back last episode & showed limping back from the failed Dothraki charge. Having his new pet dragon try and help, but then abandon him to save itself only for Ghost to show up and actually save him would've been great.