(Spoilers) Anyone else slightly mad about the demise of certain characters?

[bayjew]

Don't get me wrong, absolutely loved this episode. Really enjoyed how the show took a whole hour to express the battle and other elements to defending the wall. With that being said, I just feel as though deciding to kill off Grenn and Pyp were two terrible mistakes in this episode. Just quickly, I realise that the fight needed to kill characters that the audience is connected with, but this raises me to the issue with the wall storyline as a whole (just in the television show). The Wall itself is a setting that frequently draws complaints from many people who watch the show, mainly because it lacks pace and is "boring". Having always enjoyed the Jon perspective the most in the books and in the show, I can't really say the same, however I will say that I can understand why people may find it boring.

The Wall lacks any significant characters that can create intrigue. Certainly, Jon is obviously a pinnacle character, Sam too, but the audience has no other significant characters that it can attach to or like or hate in this story. We have Ser Aliser Thorne and recently Janos Slynt, but we as the audience are supposed to hate these characters. Grenn and Pyp, two characters given to us from season one, have remained somewhat consistently throughout the series, my main point here is that they are recognisable. We lack significant recognisable faces in this storyline, we have Jon, Sam, Aliser, Dolorous, Janos, Aemon, Grenn, Pyp. The wall supposedly had 100 men for this fight, yet it felt like we knew nothing about any of the nights watch members that fought and died. Establishing minor characters is essential, as Grenn had to fill Donal Noye's role. These two characters should not have died. Grenn represents Jon's connection with the fighting force of the Night's Watch, a man who he has known for two years almost. Pyp has the connection to the stewards etc. It just didn't feel right killing them off to me, also partially because of the role they play in helping Jom become Lord Commander.

[WikkedLoli]

I was upset with the deaths of Pyp and Grenn as well. As you said, I believe they did it so we could feel the sadness of losing important characters from the Wall we knew, which we didn't know that many. And having started the next book AFFC(490 pages in), I agree it stinks because Jon has big important decision to make and then his friends do what they do with the vote for Lord Commander which of course is a huge impact in Jon making that final decision. And now that I know what happens with Sam, I feel like Jon will be friendless except for Dolorous Edd. But maybe that is how it should be as Jon may be changing and growing into his role of Lord Commander. He may not be able to be as soft and friendly as he was before. Aw man...when Stannis the Mannis gave Jon that choice...when I thought of Jon as Lord of Winterfell...:-( Oh, how I wanted it for him..

[Cold Crashing Waves]

Grenn really grew on me this season. I would have liked for him to stick around a little longer, at least until after Jon's election, but at least they gave him an awesome hero's death. I never really cared about Pyp.

[boojam]

Dave and Dan said they needed to kill off some sympathetic characters, which George did not do , as far as I can recall. IN fact the attack from the South was smaller in the book.

But this leaves Jon with very few of the NW brother who were his circle of friends , I know they have team Stannis there, enough speaking parts... is it just Sam and Edd and Maester Aemon?

It's kind of like D&D killing off all of Dany's handmaidens , she really has too few characters about her now.