[Poll] How would you rate episode 803?

[Snormund]

5 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

Because their other option would have been a siege. They would have starved in months. At any point the Night's King could have pulled his army back and simply waited. 

It would be worth seeing if the NK would actually attack them methinks. If it was clear he wasn’t going to, then they could have gone to the strategy they used in this episode. There was nothing stopping the NK from waiting them out once they retreated. Besides the dragons of course, so I suppose the battle could have just been between them. Hard to see that ending in the NK’s death tho. 

Edited April 29, 2019 by Snormund

[Ser Quork]

That was dire, far more so than I expected.  There have been other battle episodes that I've scored relatively high because the visuals and tension have been so good, and I expected this ep to trump that, given where we are in the story.  But no.  I was going to give it 3, but frankly that is just too much.  2 it is - and that is for the dragon fight and the music.

Everything else was lazy and annoying, contrived and stupid.

[ferrelhadley]

1 minute ago, Snormund said:

It would be worth seeing if the NK would actually attack them methinks. If it was clear he wasn’t going to, then they could have gone to the strategy they used in this episode

Once inside castles have narrow openings, you would not have been given the time to deploy so large a force it would be picked off peace-meal as you tried to deploy.  And opening the gates is a bad idea in siege warfare. 

Quote

Besides the dragons of course, so I suppose the battle could have just been between them. 

Dragons need to eat. 

[Snormund]

2 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

Once inside castles have narrow openings, you would not have been given the time to deploy so large a force it would be picked off peace-meal as you tried to deploy.  And opening the gates is a bad idea in siege warfare. 

Dragons need to eat. 

Well, if they started deploying and it lured the army of the dead closer, they could start picking them off, yes? Of course, I’m obviously no expert on warfare of any kind.

 

[longest night]

22 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

And where would they have gotten that much pitch. What happens about 30 minutes later when its burnt out. 

Where did they get a shit ton of dragonglass? They've been preparing this battle for months. 30 minutes could kill a hell of a lot of wights since you wait for them to walk on the pitch before you set it ablaze. 

[divica]

I am just realizing that we had an ep with dragons, wights, ww, giants and direwolves... And amazingly the only epic moments were theon's and Jorah's death... 

How sad is that? The most hyped ep in the series had amazingly few epic fights... 

[ferrelhadley]

3 minutes ago, longest night said:

Where did they get a shit ton of dragonglass? 

That was the point of Aegon's journey to Dragonstone in series 7. 

[longest night]

17 minutes ago, ferrelhadley said:

That was the point of Aegon's journey to Dragonstone in series 7. 

That's the point. They would get the pitch by getting what they need.

[ferrelhadley]

20 minutes ago, Snormund said:

Well, if they started deploying and it lured the army of the dead closer, they could start picking them off, yes? Of course, I’m obviously no expert on warfare of any kind.

 

In a real medieval battle the besiegers would start digging entrenchments (Stannis mentions this before he is wiped out at Winterfell and Jaime tells Bronn to show them how to do it properly at Riverrun). The point of a cavalry charge is the physical mass of the horses, so you dig pits to stop them. 

Here the entrenchments are already dug but have a one of use as firepits to try to kill some of the undead and thin out their numbers. The plan also used the  a cavalry charge for to take out some more.

Clearly it did not work but I think the other options were equally futile, to have had the undead rush the walls without first trying to thin out their numbers would likely have resulted in defeat. To have sat in a siege for months would have also ended in complete defeat. 

The battle was very imperfect, but I thought it was fun and am not sure peoples alternative strategies have much to offer. Meeting them in the open was a one off hit and hope in case it worked. All the other options seemed a lot worse to me. 

[Scrambles]

6 hours ago, anjulibai said:

Who the fuck gave it a 1?

I gave it a 3, but I wish I could go back and give it a 1.
It had everything to be a really good episode, but it missed one fundamental piece: logic.

[LordImp]

6 hours ago, Ser Gareth said:

Just having the books would be something, but considering how poor AFFC and ADWD were, I wouldn't hold out much hope.

And unless D&D intentionally switched up GRRMs story to have Arya being the main instrument in defeating the Others (unlikely) then it's likely to go down a very similar way in the books.

Yeah . But it can't be Arya in the books because of all TPTW/AA/LB stuff , no way those refers to Arya. 

A lot of stuff needs to be different in the books , what happened this episode didn't make sense at all. 

[Stark_in_Winterfell]

[Spoilers]

It was the best of the series which had a high bar. It was even more intense than Battle of the Bastards. That was impressive! Everything is down hill from here. They just got Winterfell redecorated and look, now they have to fix the place up again.

Whew!There are so many high points!

Interesting way to use the screaming Dothraki horde, turning them into a massive flaming blade.

Watching the unsullied stand off against the dead.

Little Lyanna stands true to her character. Shall she be remembered as Lyanna Giantsbane.

Jorah stood like he promised. Nice.

A long time ago some fans on here predicted a reunion with Sansa & Tyrion. I didn't think it was possible. Seems they might have been onto something. Seriously, this is why I don't gamble.

When I made my first post on here the only response I got was a troll accusing me of being a writer for HBO. Absurd as it was, I'm sure I have managed to put all doubts down with my lack of clarity on some things. I teach literature so I understand how stories are constructed which makes it seem like I know what I am talking about, once in awhile. It is hard to find fiction that surprises me and keeps me interested bc of studying so much literature. I like Game of Thrones for that reason. I can predict some things, but not many. And even though I clearly see the sources of the raw material, I am impressed with how it weaves together. Besides, if I had a cool job with HBO, I wouldn't risk it by leaking tidbits. 

[Ser Gareth]

17 minutes ago, LordImp said:

Yeah . But it can't be Arya in the books because of all TPTW/AA/LB stuff , no way those refers to Arya. 

A lot of stuff needs to be different in the books , what happened this episode didn't make sense at all. 

Well until the end of the series we won't know for sure.  Maybe the Others threat isn't done yet or maybe the second coming of the age of heroes isn't even related to the long night.....

[Krishtotter]

It just boggles my mind that the Night King...

A huge magical wall of ice built to defend the Seven Kingdoms from him.

And he can't even win one bloody battle against the living.

Death, literal death, comes for them and hardly anyone dies.

I just can't fathom that.

[legba11]

What a piece of trash.  I gave it a 1 (first time ever, I've given an ep below a 4).  That is unfair, there is some good production here and a few of the scenes really work well on their own.  However, this is end of 70 episodes of TV telling us Winter is Coming.  The Night King comes to kill Bran and he is stopped by Super Ninja Arya.  That is an end to a 30 minute cartoon.  What a joke.  I guess I can hope next week opens with little Arya waking up on the wagon being pulled by Yoren and finding out the past 60 episodes have been a PTSD nightmare of hers.  That would be more satisfying than this piece of trash.

 

Other things (good):

Theon's last stand scene worked (independent of a big complaint below).

The Unsullied covering the retreat worked in style, though was terribly expressed.

It was great seeing Peter Dinklage actually give a crap and act again. Maybe the writers should have given some meaningful work for the past three seasons.

Jaime and Brienne continue to be the best part of the show.

 

The Bad:

The entire episode is a mess of meaningless moments and dishonest filming.  Miguel Sapochnik was terrific with Hardhome, but has been a disaster with the two Winterfell battles.  How many times do we see a character doomed, the scene cuts and then when we come back they are fine?  I can think of at least 8.  The worst might be Theon and his men.  They are archers overrun in an overhead shot and then when we return the zombies are being held back with just arrows (until they run out!).  It happens with Sam, Brienne, Jaime, Jon, Dany/Jorah, sometimes more than once.  The characters are literally saved by scene cuts.  What terrible direction.  By the second time it happened, it had completely removed the stakes of the episode.  I guess that is foreshadowing for how badly the ending will undercut the entire series.

Dany picking up a sword and fighting.  WTF.  I guess all those years of training and that stupid armor stuff everyone else has to wear mean nothing when you have plot armor.  

The whole setup and logistics of this battle made no sense.  I had no idea what they were trying to do in any scene.  Things just happened to make the scene happen.

Ghost being added in post like Forest Gump.  Did they just see how much CGI money they had at the end of production and CGI Ghost into a few scenes?

 

I have almost no interest in watching the last three episodes.

[Krishtotter]

6 hours ago, Anthony Pirtle said:

Oh come on. She has zero value on a battlefield. She'd just have been someone other people had to die to keep alive.

Its not that I think she should have been on a battlefield.

It's that my respect for her as a person has dropped after seeing her semi-plot-stirring behind the scenes, at a safe remove, while the person she's directing her snipes against (a person I seriously don't like btw but fair is fair) is risking her neck for her home, while she isn't. 

Edited April 29, 2019 by Krishtotter

[cirah1712]

9 hours ago, Ran said:

What'd you think?

10/10. From a visual viewpoint, it was second to none, a masterclass in directing and cinematogrophy. It was so brutal in parts aswell. I can't believe Arya killed the Night King, but I'm happy it was her. Happy Bran survived, he's too important. Knew we would lose Theon, and that was pretty hard to watch. I think more characters that we know have died than we think, we just won't find out till the next episode. There are a few we didn't see after the battle ended so there fates are unknown at this point.

[cirah1712]

38 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

It just boggles my mind that the Night King...

A huge magical wall of ice built to defend the Seven Kingdoms from him.

And he can't even win one bloody battle against the living.

Death, literal death, comes for them and hardly anyone dies.

I just can't fathom that.

I think we won't find out who is dead until the next episode, a lot of characters fates were left up in the air at the end of this episode.

[Isildur's Mane]

I gave it a 6/10

And that was mainly because of some of the visuals. 

From the bits I could see there was some nice cinematic sections.
I liked the dragons flying above the clouds.
I like some of Arya's fight scenes. (Even the bit leading up to the library and some of the library scenes themselves)
I liked the bit just before Theon died. 
I liked Lyanna's death
I liked how Grey Worm had to make the tough decision to sacrifice his men.
Visually, Arya killing the Night King looked good.

I didnt like how the dragons werent used to their full potential. I didnt like how when the Night King was on Viserion and attacking the other dragons with blue fire and neither Drogon or Rhaegal attack with flame.  The lack of dragon fire bothered me. 
I didnt like how when the NK gets to Bran, he waits and stares for ages. Its almost like the bad guys in TV and film have this unwritten law that they have to wait a certain amount of time to give any good guy a chance to step in and save the day. 

There is more, but I'll save it for the rant and rave thread. 

   

 

 

 

 

[Neds Secret]

23 minutes ago, cirah1712 said:

10/10. From a visual viewpoint, it was second to none, a masterclass in directing and cinematogrophy. It was so brutal in parts aswell. I can't believe Arya killed the Night King, but I'm happy it was her. Happy Bran survived, he's too important. Knew we would lose Theon, and that was pretty hard to watch. I think more characters that we know have died than we think, we just won't find out till the next episode. There are a few we didn't see after the battle ended so there fates are unknown at this point.

will somebody please tell me exactly why Bran is "too Important"? what does he do, exactly? why did the NK want him? where did he go? if some of these questions were answered it may have had the entire battle make more sense. Yes, I did enjoy Arya killing him, but I still have no idea what any of this is all about. Dothraki were sacrificed, the battle plans were imbecilic, the lighting was terrible and I still have no idea what Bran is supposedly capable of . cest la Vie 

Edited April 29, 2019 by Neds Secret