olibar

That's a completely different criticism than of them being lazy, and one I can respect, though I don't agree with. Is it an A+ term paper? No, probably a solid B+ or A-, but at least it was turned in. Meanwhile your roommate is working on what may be the greatest term paper ever written, but has failed the class for failing to turn it in at the deadline But to bring it into specifics, exactly which character arcs do you feel were sabotaged? Which plot lines critical to the narrative dropped? And are you sure those criticisms are because of poor execution by the writers in the dramatization of the themes and narrative, rather than personal taste as to how you would have resolved them or explored them?

I regard those who call showruners lazy to be lazy critics. I can promise you that laziness has nothing to do with the issues you are identifying. What they had was a deadline (due to actor availability and need to not have too much time pass between seasons), a budget, and the inability to go back and change anything once it was filmed, three issues that Martin doesn't have. I mean, it's been eight years since ADWD and even he can't even finish the next book, much less the series. That's not from laziness either, it's from how difficult endings are and the quality level he wants it to be. The difference is he can take as long as he wants, doesn't have to worry about how much it will cost to produce, and can look at the final product, decide he doesn't like something, and go back and fix it as many times as he wants. I commend D&D for having the guts to push forward to the finish. Perhaps it's an imperfect finish (I think it's pretty great but can also admit that it would be better if they were working off Martin source material rather than having to invent whole cloth), I'm sure there is much they would do differently if they had the time and budget to change certain things, but I for one prefer getting an imperfect ending to no ending.

The northerners who were there would be mad to tell any story except the official narrative of the Queen, and the ravens she will send out telling her version of the story will beat them home. By the time of the invasion, she had a reasonable certainty that Jon was going to be put onto the throne by the Westerosi lords before long. The battle of KL may have been won when the bells tolled, but the War for the Throne had not, and winning battles doesn't win wars.

If I may add one more recent example, how about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII? The US had won the war, but those bombings meant the war ended in the most favorable way possible to us. Dany will no doubt claim that the destruction was necessary to bring a true end to the war, and will likely spin the narrative to say that the bells never tolled (since there are virtually no witnesses to attest otherwise). Unless we are given reason to believe otherwise in the final episode, what Dany did was not insane or mad, but a calculated choice to win the last war.

Why does everyone keep saying that Dany has gone mad? Her decision was perfectly rational. Unlike her father, who was going to burn a city for no strategic reason, the razing of a city by an invader who has enough firepower in reserve and the will (or appearance of the will) to repeat the tactic on other locations is a sound military strategy. Furthermore, the complete destruction of the city will allow the victor to control the narrative of what occurred in the histories. Dany can tell the world that the bells never tolled, that Circie fought until the bitter end, and there is no one alive who can or will say differently. Or the very few who can can be labeled as Lanister sympathizers and executed. On the flip side, let's say Dany stops the attack with the bells. Best case scenario has her deposed within weeks as the call for the "true King" of the Seven Kingdoms to take the throne grows louder and louder. If she kills Jon, the people revolt and she's lost. Worst case scenario is that this was another Lanister trap, set up by Tyrion, that ends with her and Drogon dead. There is no doubt that what Dany did was evil, but it was also sane.

Does anyone know if Dany's old Essos lover that she left behind somehow connected to Golden Company? I'm wondering if Dany has an ace up her sleeve that she's not told anyone, and knows she won't have to take the city by force because GC is actually loyal to her...

After years and years of build-up, it took the entire combined forces of Jon and Dany to defeat the Night King, and even then, they would have lost if not for the years of training and hardship that Arya endured that allowed her to strike the fatal blow when the Night King believed he'd finally won and made the mistake of exposing himself. What more did you want from that moment? As it is, we're left with Dany having to confront the most difficult choice she could possible face. Give up the throne or use her Dragons directly against Kings Landing to win it. And I think Jon may have something to say about the later...

Def agree that she was waiting for the moment the NK arrogantly went up to Bran alone, and even thought that Bran may have communicated that to her before hand. And it's definitely believable that she could have hid in the godswood waiting for them to arrive. The invisibility thing was really just a weird thought I had from looking at the shot just before she kills NK. It really seemed like something invisible moved past one of the WWs and thought it would be totally cool if either Arya had learned to turn herself invisible or that Bran somehow was able to do it to her. Either way, I'm guessing we'll find out more details about those last moments tonight!

Was Arya somehow invisible when she arrived at the Godswood? In the shot immediately preceding Arya attacking the Night King, there is a shot of the White Walker entourage at the outskirts of the Godswood. In that shot, we see a WW have his hair blown towards the NK with a whoosh sound, and its eyes dart around as if looking for something that it can't see. Arya then appears and attacks the Night King. Was Bran somehow able to either turn her invisible or otherwise hide her from the WWs as she approached the NK? Or could this be a Faceless Man ability that Arya somehow tapped into after her meeting with Mellisandre?

Um, yeah, so Sauron WAS killed off half way through The Return of the King and the remaining half of the book was about the Hobbits going back to the Shire and dealing with the repercussions of the war there, including facing an old enemy who used the fact that everyone's attention was focused on Sauron to grow his own power. The Night King was killed with less than 5% of the entire run of the show remaining. That's pretty much the end. Devoting 5% of the story to what happens after seems appropriate to me.

I find it hard to believe that Arya doesn't already know about John and Sansa being back in charge of Winterfell and yet is still choosing to go south for revenge instead. With how bad things are currently looking for Queen Circe, capturing Arya in a failed assassination attempt would give her leverage and perhaps cause a split between John and Danny (assuming they team up).

A couple random thoughts after the episode. Very concerned for Arya now that we know she is heading south instead of north. I don't think she will find as easy a time with the Lanisters as she did the Freys. Could she have come all this way only to make a rash decision and be either killed or captured for it? If Jon heads to Dragonstone to negotiate for dragonglass and Bran shows up at Winterfell while he is gone with the tale that Jon is not Ned's son, will Sansa use that opportunity to take over? Finally, everyone keeps talking about the White Walkers as this extreme threat, but as of yet we have no idea of their motivation. Given time traveling shenanigans as shown by the Hodor episode, could the WW army have been formed to protect the north from invasion by Dragons and Dothraki?

A couple of random thoughts on the best episode of this show yet. 1. I get the sense that they didn't spell out R+L=J to give Martin one last chance to release TWoW and be the one who reveals it officially. 2. I think Benjen is an agent of the Night King and has led Bran to the wall to tear it down when he crosses it. We have absolutely no proof that it was the CotF who saved him and not the Night King. So the zombies were never going to kill Bran, they just needed to lead him out of the cave and into his uncle. This would mean the story of Hodor is even more tragic... 3. If the wall does come down when Bran crosses it, I imagine we will see Danny race past Kings Landing to help fight off the WW invasion, allowing Cerci time to consolidate power (with Euron and Littlefinger) prior to the final battle between them in the last season. The size of Danny's current army makes me think that there needs to be a complication, and I can imagine Tyrion counseling her to ignore the Iron Throne and show Westeros what a great leader she is by going up north to fight the grumpkins. That should reduce the size of her army enough to have it be a closer fight with Cerci.

Do we have proof in the text that is how it works? Isn't it just as possible that to become a Faceless Man, you remove your own face and add it to the wall? That you truly become faceless, truly become no one? It gives purpose to why they needed the fight to be in the dark. There are many different ways that they could have shown Arya becoming a better fighter, but blind fighting specifically allowed them to hide the actual fight between Waif and Arya, and therefore hide the proof of who won the fight. Again, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong by something specific I've missed, but I can't think of anything that actually disproves this as a possibility.

If there is something I'm missing that rules out the possibility that the Waif killed Arya and took her place during the fight in the dark, please let me know. I don't want to believe my own theory but I haven't been able to rule it out based on what we've seen and been told.

Right, it's why I'm saying it makes much more sense that he was actually talking to the Waif wearing Arya's face. It was the final test for the Waif to become a Faceless Man. Her mission is to return to Winterfell and assassinate the remaining Starks. Real Arya didn't want to go back home, she wanted to explore what was "west of Westeros".

Under the assumption that if they were going for a twist with this, it would have been GRRM who designed it in the first place. It's possible the Waif cut off her own face, thus officially becoming a Faceless (wo)Man (going with a very literal interpretation here in regards to final FM initiation and why Jaqen said what he said). She was wearing Arya's face in the scene and replied that she was Arya Stark and returning to Winterfell because that's what the Waif's mission is. I don't like this interpretation, and I'm certainly not convinced that it is right, but it seems to be much more in line with what we know about how the FM work. It would also set up a "heartbreaking" finale for the series, to have FArya reunited with her family, having just won the war against the white walkers (and Danny?) and claimed the rule of Westeros, Jon, Sansa and the rest of the surviving Starks are murdered in their beds by FArya, The End.

I agree that this is the most logical and likely account of events, but I maintain that because we did not see Arya kill the Waif, it allows for a convenient loop hole should GRRM wish to have a major twist in the plot line. These are face changing assassins, after all, and what better way to infiltrate Westrosi society than by being able to pretend to be the daughter of a prominent house (that is, other than actually having said daughter be a brainwashed tool of your own organization). Again, I don't think it's likely that this is the case, but it also possible, given the current text, that we got a switcheroo in the darkness, thus subverting the expected narrative and giving real consequence to Arya's decision to join and then leave the FM. And if it is the case that we now have a FArya, then the surviving members of house Stark may be in grave danger.

This is just the very beginning of a theory that I hope to expand on later, but what if we didn't see the fight last night because the waif won and stole Arya's face. So it was the Waif who finally became "no one" by killing Arya and taking her face. And she has taken Arya's face to do the will of the House of Black and White in Westeros. The House of B&W couldn't turn Arya to their will. So they are impersonating her instead to achieve their goals.

While I've never rooted for Stannis, I think a just man who has been corrupted by the Devil and doesn't even realize it makes for a great villain. Especially if he ends up "winning".

He won't need nobles to choose to back him. Once he sees the snow melt and he is victorious at Winterfell, he will become even more convinced that this way is the right way. Nobels will join him or be burned and further fuel his Red Blood Magic DemonWitch's power. He will achieve victory over the WW and win the Iron Throne but will rule over a terrorized country where thousands will burn each week under his just rule. Or everything will go horribly wrong and he will realize that he sacrificed his only daughter for nothing.

And it is and adaptation. The show doesn't have 10 episodes to show a gorilla campaign run by Ramsey against Stannis over several months where small forces accustomed to moving and attacking in the snow eventually leads to Stannis's decision. And they don't have the luxury of spending 5 or 6 years figuring out the absolute most perfect way of compressing that into a single episode, so they made a decision they felt would make visual sense to the audience and went with it. It makes absolute sense that Stannis would have major issues fighting northmen in their home territory and that those issues might lead him to take desperate action. For details, see the book when it comes out.

The burning of the supplies I took to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Even if 5% of their supplies were destroyed, it could be enough at this point to break the morale of the Army and potentially lead to mass defections. That's one of the many reasons why it's a bad idea for armies not accustom to cold to be on the march during winter. The other being that the people defending the lands you are invading are much better equipped to harass a more vulnerable supply chain. Plenty of real life "brilliant" military commanders have made the same mistake at Stannis, so he can count himself in good company. And by the way, why is Stannis pushing south anyhow? Why didn't he give his army to the Night's Watch to use against the coming invasion of the undead. Oh yeah, because all he cares about is taking the Iron Throne. He doesn't make personal sacrifices, he just sacrifices others for his ambition. I bet if you gave Napoleon the option of securing victory in Russia by burning his children he would have jumped at it too.

Sorry if this has been posted earlier in the thread, but up until this episode I've always wondered why the WW haven't attacked the wall yet. I used to figure it was just a plotting issue imposed by the author. Now it has clicked into place for me I think. After this episode, I'm thinking that the WW have been chasing the wildlings across the north for the last few years (decades? since the last dragon died?) trying to corner them so they could swell their numbers. Mance kept that from happening for years through his leadership of the clans, but everything fell apart after attack on the wall and Stannis' intervention. At Hardhome, the WW finally achieved their objective, increasing their numbers by 10s of thousands and now will be ready to march South. On the other hand, had Stannis not intervened and the wildings gotten to the south, the WW may never have had the numbers necessary to push south. Is this sound reasoning or am I missing something?

Slightly different take on the Arya/Mel scene. Given Arya's response, I thought Arya connected those colors with the three people from her list she shot "head, breast, balls" with arrows earlier in the episode. Any chance those eye colors match with what Mel's "prophecy"? Note I am not saying Melisandre actually made any kind of a real prophecy here (I mean how generic can you get with the eye colors and the dramatic we will meet again), but that Arya may have believed she did. Overall, the entire Mel/Brotherhood interlude reinforced for me my belief that Mel is a fraud when it comes to Rhollor. What I'm still unsure of is whether she is actively aware that she is a fraud or if she is a true believer blind to the fact that she is serving the dark instead of the light. Which makes me think of the basic difference between Littlefinger and Varys summed up so well in this episode. Really been loving the way that different scenes have been resonating together in the episodes this season.