[Poll] How would you rate episode 803?

[lakin1013]

5 hours ago, Kajjo said:

I believe it to be a misunderstanding that the last 8 years were just about the Nightking. We had eight years of suspension, entertainment and speculation about intrigues, plots, battles, relationsships. Game of Thrones is about emotions and many parallel threads, all of them interesting and everyone can have their preferences.

 

The thread about the NK has permeated the past several seasons.  I believe you do it a disservice by blithely brushing it off.  People built theories about who the NK was, what he wanted, why he existed, and how to kill him.  The NK theories branched off the CoTF theories, 3-eRaven, what Bran was, what he sees, who was Craster, why don't the wights die, and what did Hardhome mean.  Sure there was other material, but this was a thread with magic, and overtones, and fantasy.  Smart people like puzzles and this was a good puzzle. 

Smart people spent time with this puzzle because Martin was a good writer, and meant the words he said and used.  D&D decided to abandon the puzzle theorists in favor of fighting and spectacle. It was like a punch to the stomach.  All the air went out, and folks wondered -- is that all there is (cue Peggy Lee).   Yes, unless there is some super-duper twist, that is all there is.  D&D left it on the cutting floor, if it indeed made it to film.  They don't care about the prophecies.  There once was a bad cold dude and now he is dead.

Now back to fighting meanie Cersei and her pirate boyfriend. 50% of the final season is over.  

Edited April 30, 2019 by lakin1013

[Werwolfsweirwood]

I haven't logged in to this forum in years and have barely visited in that time. I logged on now, after all this time, just to rate this episode a 1. 

How the hell can that be all that the white walkers amounted to??

I think everything I have to say has been said by others, I'll go over to the rant and rave thread if I need to get more off my chest. 

Release Winds, George! For the love of god! I need to see an asoiaf plot that makes a lick of sense! And wouldn't the completion of the series be the best possible time to announce the book release? Right when it's on everyone's mind at the very forefront of pop culture. The hype would be insane! A man can dream...

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

I gave it an 8. The highest I've rated an episode in quite a while. There were somethings I didn't like but there were some really great things too.

Things I liked:

Absolutely stellar performance by John Bradley. He was great.

I usually don't like the "call backs" to previous episodes but "stick them with the pointy end" was great

The Hounds panic attack & coming out of it to help Arya

Arya - I read a lot of complaints about her this episode but I enjoyed her. She is tough. But I am admittedly a fan girl so maybe I have a biased opinion. At any rate I thought Maisie was great & found her parts reasonably written

Sansa & Tyrion - they were great at the end & the look between them when Sansa first comes to the crypts. I love when a message can be conveyed on screen with no words. 

Mel lighting the trench - very intense moment. 

Theon - Wow. "You are a good man, thank you" Theon's face hit me right in the feels. Bravo.

Lyanna Mormont - I haven't been a huge fan of hers. I liked her when she was originally introduced but since then have found her kind of bratty, but when that giant crushed her little girl bones & she still managed to stab him in the eye all was forgiven. She is one bad little girl. 

Things I didn't like:

Mel lighting the trenches - I know I just said I did like it & I did the actual lighting but for shits sake Mel you have an army of dead all around you & a wall of people dying trying to hold them back you want to, I don't know, hurry a little? She meanders down toward the trench like she is taking a Sunday stroll! Run damn it!

So maybe someone better versed in battle strategy can explain this to me but after the trenches were lit & Dany & Drogon could see where they were WHY IN THE WORLD did she not start torching the fuckers?! Everyone just stood around & waited for them to get through the fire & granted there wasn't much everyone else could do but... Pardon me ma'am think you could stop pissing around & help humanity survive for a few minutes??

Ghost - WHERE THE HELL IS GHOST?? He runs to fight the others with the Dothraki & then what??? & Why is he shrinking?

I'm a Brienne fan but I swore if she screamed one more time while swinging her sword I was going to gouge my own eyes out. Enough is enough - it got annoying. 

Anyway over all I think it was a good episode. I can't help but feel like The George will kill off more people & some of which we have grown to love but I'm not mad at the show for that - I would love for them all to survive. 

The parts where you couldn't tell who or what was fighting or even if they were fighting. That was pretty stupid.

Soo.. who was the NK? What did he want? Why did he want Bran? What even is Bran? I guess those are unimportant answers to D&D but thankfully I lowered my expectations of this slow enough that I will live with it & hope beyond hope for Winds to come soon. 

One more thing - did it look like Dany turned Jorah into the sword there towards the end or was it just me? It was like she used him for a shield! 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Lyanna<3Rhaegar

[Alvin Co]

voted 7. A lot of scenes were too dark for me. 

A lot of people saying NK was killed off quickly and no back story. The White Walkers plot in the story is not the main one but a vehicle for the writer for Jon Snow to emerged as Aegon Targayen. Next question is how will they win at Kingslanding and then how will he emerge as the King of the Seven Kingdoms 

[Frances Bean Corbray]

MODIFIED MCSHANE SCORING SYSTEM PRESENTS:  GAME OF THRONES S8 E3 (episode 70)

No Tits, Just Dragons, base line of 5.

no "previously on" segment before the episode, and I like this because that usually functions as the cliff notes of foreshadowing and I like the idea of nope we're not giving you clues this time, just guess.

 Tonight's episode will be broadcast in SPOOOOOOOOOOKYVISION which means its too dark to see what's actually going on and who's dead or not.  I respect the whole wanting to have fog of war and terrifying confusion and all but it's a television show, let us watch the television show.  Minus 2 points [3/10]

I've said before and I'll say again that I dig it when this show shuts the fuck up and lets its cinematography breathe.  Again we start with an extended stretch of no [coherent] dialogue as last minute preparations are underway and we follow Sam's path through them.  Varys and Tyrion heading towards the crypt, Theon marching off at Bran's side and I think the lineless Alys Karstark is with them for reasons unknown but it could just be an extra [not that Alys isn't one herself at this point] portraying a female Ironborn warrior, contradiction of lore though that is.  Either way it's hard to tell in the gloom.  +1 point for focusing on the show's strength and hiding its weakness (the dialogue lol). [4/10]

Melisandre shows up at the last minute to cast a couple AOE cleric buffs on the party, then promises both Ser Davos and the audience that she will die before morning.  SPOILERS, Mel, geeeez.  Glad she's here. +1 [5/10]

Dothraki death charge was a wonderful visual as the lights of their flaming arakhs gradually, silently, went out.  Possibly the best visual of the episode.  It's ALMOST enough to make me forgive and forget the terminal case of Dumb For The Sake Of Plot that went into this happening.  Especially considering Mel showed up at the last second so the plan was to do this without even flaming arakhs.  Having the first sortee be a catastrophic failure is fine (and like I said the visual was great and the "oh shit" of Jorah coming back from it alone was wonderful too).  But what even was success supposed to look like with this?  Did Jon and Dany think they had this in the bag, feel bad for The Night King, and want to spot him a couple touchdowns to start the game?  Also, the timing of the trebuchet volley basically amounted to shelling their own men, and not even the most tactically bereft WWI generals were that cavalier about killing their own men (they considered it much more gentlemanly to let the enemy do it).  There had to have been a smarter and more character-consistent way to get this disastrous start achieved and create this feeling of peril.  Battle of the Bastards had a dumb early cavalry charge too but at least there they admitted it was dumb but did it anyway for plausible emotional reasons.  Also way to summon Ghost back to his home planet in the middle of this charge.  +1 for the visual of the lights dying, -1.5 for basically giving the NK their cavalry in a way that makes our heroes look like idiots. [4.5/10]

The crush of the wights hitting the unsullied spear wall really felt like a crushing wave.  That was good shit.  Soon after, we have our first confirmed Named Character Death, and the dubious honor goes to Dolorous Edd, shortly after he saves Sam's ass one more time.  In the grand scheme of things, Dolorous Edd died unflatteringly early and got rather ignominiously chumped from behind.  I think Dolorous Edd would appreciate and even predict going out this way.  His last words are "fuck's sake, Sam" which is a fitting epithet for show Edd if not necessarily Book Edd.  I'm glad they gave me a clear opportunity to say goodbye last week.  +1 point for the infantry crush visual and for giving Edd a good death. [5.5/10]

NIGHT'S KING WITH A MAGIC STEALTH BLIZZARD LOL.  Killing the visibility would've been more effective if visibility wasn't dead from the start due to SPOOOOOOOOOOOKYVISION but at this point I'm digging the flow of living and dead trading punches.  Dothraki cav gets chumped, Dragonrider strafing torches the wight infantry, magic snowstorm kills the visibility and nobody can see Davos' signal to light the trench as the Unsullied retreat.  LOVE seeing fire arrows get snuffed out by the cold wind as early attempts to light the trenches fail.  Melisandre comes up clutch once again, lighting the trench by hand and by chanting mojo.  Boy, how bad does the initial battle plan suck considering it didn't have her in it?  She is saving some serious bacon out there.  +1 for Mel being all over the place trying to repay the karmic debt for burning Shireen. [6.5/10]

Setting Sansa up to be the Anti-Cersei in a replay of Maegor's Holdfast in the Crypts of Winterfell is lovely.  Unfortunately the dialogue is up to snuff.  Missandei, technically you're right but you're not helping right now.  Varys says "at least we're already in a crypt" and Connleth Hill drags that line into acceptably amusing territory by sheer force of actor's will.  Doesn't quite stick the landing but I appreciate Sansa and Tyrion having a moment.

Didn't expect Little Lady Mormont to get smacked around and especially not to get killed.  This is the only death from outside my "probably gonna die" list.  I thought they did an acceptable job of establishing that she was making the choice to die because taking out the particularly dangerous Wight Giant was worth it. I suspect this bit was homage to some Lord Of The Rings bit I'm not familiar with, and I appreciate that they made it work even for someone like me who lacks that reference point. +1 [7.5/10]

Collapsing the trench as the Unsullied covered everyone else's escape really should've been the moment of Grey Worm's death.  I guess White Savior Dany getting all her brown people killed off wastefully was too much of a bad look even for the production team about to bring us the atrocious "Confederate" TV show?  This episode is supposed to be a heavy die-off.  And you marked this dude for death with the Naath retirement plan.  Don't wimp out on me, guys. -1 [6.5/10]

Speaking of which, how many times die Jaime Brienne and Pod get near crushed to death only without the dying bit?  Pod's expendable and Brienne's knighthood completes her arc with the validation she always deserved.  Wouldn't have been a dry eye in the viewership if you'd taken at least one of them out.  Or at least don't devalue the fakeout by putting them in it so much? -1 [5.5/10]

The Wights stopping at the trench until the Walkers start strategically sacrificing them to snuff out a breach was a nice tactical touch.  I also appreciate the Lieutenant White Walkers were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN until they breached the gate, had overcome the walls, and looked like they could plausibly believe they had it in the bag.  That's some tactical competence! Though I wish one or two had actually been in position to get got, it would've been a good pendulum swing of false hope before things really started going bad.  Also, one other reason that I'm saving for the end. +.5 [6/10]

Pretty sure Sandor was kinda over his firephobia as of his flame gazing at the start of Season 7?  And they beat the drum a little too hard on Beric yelling at him to come on, over and over and OVER.  But I do appreciate that it was Arya's peril that got him over the hump.  So I'm only taking a quarter point off. -.25 [5.75/10]

Arya stars in a commercial for the upcoming Game Of Thrones video game that hasn't been made yet as she gets her Solid Snake on in a Stealth Level in the Winterfell archives.  Anyway she grabs one of Maester Luwin's favorite tomes and throws it, and all the wights spawn exclamation points over their heads and chase the noise, and Arya runs away.  Too long and maybe I'm too jaded but I didn't ever think Arya was really in danger here.  -.5 [5.25/10]

Dwaggin Joust!  Jon unhorses The Night's King!  Okay that was pretty cool. Would've been nice if we could tell which dragons are which.  Thanks SPOOOOOOOKYVISION. +.25 for the battle, it was nice, wish I could've seen it better and would give it more points if I could. [5.5/10]

Beric sacrifices himself to cover Arya and The Hound's escape from a pack of wights.  To put things absolutely on the nose in case you're too dumb for symbolism, the guy whose whole gimmick is that he's died and been resurrected literally strikes the Jesus Christ Pose to block as much hallway as he can.  Later on Arya and The Hound barricade themselves in a room and... ...um, somehow Beric gets away from the wights he's dying to block and catches up with the people whose escape he's covering?  So he can have one last look at Arya and die in the room with them?  So Mel (oh yeah she's already in the room because why the fuck not) can pontificate on Beric having served his purpose in The Lord Of Light's plan?  Okay look.  You can do the heroic sacrifice to cover an escape.  You can do the "I almost made it oops no I didn't" bleedout after everyone's escaped.  Both are valid, both are good, both were even done well here.  Except for one problem.  YOU CAN'T HAVE THE SAME CHARACTER DO BOTH IN THE SAME SCENE.  Shit, man.  PICK ONE.  There's plenty of other people who can get killed off and pick up either one of these mantles.  You can still have Arya cry over Beric dying for her sake and have Mel give her the destiny pep talk without him physically being there.  This way either his sacrifice was pointless because they didn't get that far away (he caught up with them) or the wight pack in question was beatable and didn't require a sacrifice to escape.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  -2 points. [3.5/10]

The Totally Safe Crypts turn out not to be safe.  But its a matter of the invading wights breaching it instead of anything amusingly dumb like Headless Ned, Wolfhead Robb, or even Zombie Rickon.  Sansa having to actually use that knife Arya gave her would've been a nice moment.  Also nobody even died here that I saw.  Not even Soup Girl.  Though Gilly got the obligatory spot of clawing at the ground as she's dragged away on her belly, screaming.  But even she didn't die?  I think?  Maybe I should re-watch before I do these things.  Or I can just blame SPOOOOOOKYVISION instead.  Missandei or Varys (or both) could have gotten got here, honestly.  Missed opportunity.

Dracarys! On The Night King.  BUT IT DOESN'T WORK, failing as foreshadowed, and he smirks up at Dany before chasing her off with a death javelin aimed at Drogon.  I love this guy.  The wrinkle that the White Walkers are not emotionless alien robots but actually cocky motherfuckers who like to psyche the enemy out and taunt and toy with people before killing them is a wonderful wrinkle, both because it reminds us that they used to be human men, and also it's a good lampshade for the old problem of villains not finishing off the heroes when they have the chance.  Being cocky all along is way better than only being cocky in response to plot demands, and I'm glad they put the effort into having the White Walkers, particularly the Night King, demonstrate this flaw.  +1.5 [5/10]

Sansa ALMOST makes the tough decision to gank herself and/or Tyrion to spare themselves agony when it looks hopeless. That would've taken some HUGE stones on the producers' part and I'd have applauded them until the end of time had they dared to do it, even as much as I would ultimately prefer they both stick around (and Tyrion still kinda needs to due to the Bronn thing and the Cersei thing).  How "bittersweet ending" would THAT be, especially if the day got saved right after?  But they don't.  Cheers for getting me to think it for a couple seconds, though.  +1 [6/10]

I lost track of Gendry and Tormund and I don't think I even saw Lord Royce at all? They could all be dead or all be alive or somewhere in between.  Thanks, SPOOOOOOKYVISION

Jon rushes the Night King after Dragonfire fails.  But he's not nearly in time to stop the Night King from doing his slow dramatic The Undertaker arm raise and, yeah, you knew it was coming.  Finally we get it.  Cut to a Dothraki with blue eyes.  Cut to Edd getting blue eyes.  Cut to an Unsullied that looks like Grey Worm [it's not but in the dark its hard to tell] getting blue eyes.  Cut to Little Lady Mormont getting blue eyes.  They held off on busting this nut for a long, long time.  I applaud the patience.  +1 [7/10]

What I do not applaud is the new wave of wights instantly surrounding Jon and suddenly following Bruce Lee movie rules and coming at him one at a time to fight his way out of it.  Also there's one of many cuts to Bran & Theon by the weirwood as Theon's crew start pumping the new wave with fire arrows and when we cut back to Jon he is considerably less surrounded than he was, i.e. nobody's behind him any more.  Come. On.  Now, of course Dany saves him with a strafe of dragonfire and that's FINE but the stall on doing it to let Jon get some Kickin' Rad sword kills in and having the wights suddenly deviate from their rush n' crush pattern (as seen with the Unsullied spear wall early and seen in several hallways of Winterfell at Jaime Brienne and Pod's collective expense) exposes the nuts and bolts of plot armor.  Have Dany burn him an escape path and even drag him onto Drogon's back, fine, but do it right away before the wights have a chance to crush him.  OR, kill Jon off.  I'd prefer not the latter but Dumb For The Sake Of Plot is annoying when the badguys do it, too.  -1 [6/10]

Drogon lands and gets swarmed.  Dany gets un"horsed" and somehow Jorah Mormont is back outside, making a heroic last stand with Heartsbane in a "doomed" effort to keep Khaleesi alive.  Daenerys is suddenly and spontaneously competent with a blade in her own right as they sorta fight back to back but mostly fight with Jorah as her (willing) human shield.  Dany wielding a sword for the first time in the series is some left field shit but whatever, I wouldn't buy her just cowering and giving up, either.  I'm much more contentious over how Jorah got back outside into his Appropriate Dying Position right on schedule.  Woof. -1 [5/10]

One last cut to the Weirwood and, aw, damn.  Theon standing alone beside Bran as the Night King and The Walkers approach.  Welp, guess he's not making it after all.  Minus Eleventy Jillion points.  Just kidding.  Theon apologies for not getting Bran out of this.  Aww. Bran confirms that destiny is destiny and Theon makes a doomed charge with The Spear Not Of Destiny and of course completely fails to gank the Night King, and gets ganked himself.  At least he got to go out against The King, and there's something suitably viking and thus Ironborn about him literally fighting to the last [in his section of the battle, anyway]. being unafraid to die in combat, and at least taking a 1 in a million shot at getting the lucky blow on the Night's King.  Theon better get his damn bronze statue on the shores of Pyke.  He gets to bleed out and have a death rattle before NK closes on Bran. +1 point for killing off Theon in a way that didn't irritate my inner fanboy, that's not always so easily done. [6/10]

Anyway, unless you've completely avoided the internet for the last couple days (and if you're reading this, obviously you haven't), then you know what happens next.  Arya comes out of nowhere with a NINJA JUMP and tries to gank the Night King, who catches her by the throat, and she drops the Valyrian Steel Dagger that's been known as Chekov since Season 1 Episode 2 but catches it with her other hand, shanks the Night King with it, and it's SNOW CONES FOR EVERYBODY!  Quick cuts to the zombie hordes dropping here and there and everywhere in sheets.  Viserion crumbles particularly nicely half way through rearing back to bite Jon.

Jorah, having just barely technically made it through the battle, succumbs to his wounds, and Dany bawls like a baby over him, leaving me wishing once again Clarke actually got more chances to emote with this role. +1 for letting Clarke show something being stoic leader robot, and for giving Jorah the ideal death (even though he kinda hopped in the Littlefinger memorial Teleporter to get there) [7/10]

Davos watches Melisandre ride off into the sunset except she has no horse and it's actually a sunrise, and instead of disappearing beyond the horizon we watch her cast off her ruby choker, revert to her true impossibly old crone form, and collapse before withering to dust.  Davos says nothing.  As much as he hated her for burning Shireen I want to think he respected that she showed up to contribute to the greater good and hey, she kept her word and died before morning.  I doubt he'll point out how much she did to upgrade their battle plan from Shit to Not Very Good, but I'm hoping he channels some Stannis and says a few words about the good she did along with the bad next week, as everyone's (hopefully) eulogizing the heroic dead.  +1 for giving Mel a good enough sendoff for me to overlook the convenience of her last second showing up to die on time. [8/10]

Okay but seriously the SPOOOOOKYVISION was a huge damper on this episode and while I still don't have a good feel for who exactly survived and who didn't it's definitely clear that for as epic and grim and final as this was billed and as "hopeless" as it was supposed to be this episode really pulled a lot of punches and chickened out on the meatgrinder front.  Nobody who would've left a huge void died, everyone who did die was either expendable or had finished up their character arc cleanly.  And even among the expendable casualties were surprisingly light.  Almost disappointingly so. And Ghost needs a better agent.  Seriously.  Appeared to die off camera when he didn't come back from the doomed cav charge but he's still hanging out in the previews for next week?  Did Ghost pee in Benioff's cornflakes or something?  -2 points [6/10]

Final Score: 6 out of 10

fun in parts, fulfilling on some fronts, but room for improvement and they could've done more.

Also mildly disappointed not that Arya got the death blow on the Night's King (that's pretty cool actually, even if Mel's pep talk about closing eyes forever and reminding Arya of Syrio's prayer to the God Of Death telegraphed it pretty forcefully) but because they had her go for it in an action movie way that any other show or film could have done, instead of doing something that could be uniquely Game Of Thrones:  namely, having her sneak up on the Night's King by wearing a White Walker face.  A little contrived and lore breaking for the sake of KICKIN' RAD but look we've already jumped that chasm anyway, might as well go all out with it.  But unfortunately that window closed when they had the Lieutenant Walkers do the smart thing and not show themselves at all until things appeared to be well in hand.  What they did was fine enough (though if Arya'd shown a little more hustle maybe Theon wouldn't have had to die ) but I feel like they left something on the table.  Even sacrificing Bran so that Arya could wear Bran's face and spring up out of the chair to shiv the Night King.  How "bittersweet ending" would that be?  So much more they could've done here even if what they did was ok.

But my main disappointment is a narrative/thematic one:  It's entirely personal feeling so I'm not going to deduct points for it but I'm gonna say it anyway.  I did not expect the Army of The Dead to get neutralized this early.  See, from the very beginning of the show (and the books) we are shown the White Walkers, we have them established as looming in the background, seen sparingly enough that they can be temporarily forgotten about and distracted from, but when they reemerge you're reminded of them and the threat they pose to everything.  Like Jeor Mormont says, "do you really think it matters who sits on the throne when the dead are up and walking?"  The White Walkers, we're told, are the real battle.  The real threat to everything and everyone, and the game of thrones is a dangerous and destructive distraction that further imperils everyone.

And yet, in the end, the southern half of Westeros and the royal court's cavalier dismissal of the undead threat and, indeed, every crisis ever centered on The Wall, as mere "northern problems" and things they need not take seriously and can even trust to only inconvenience their nothern political rivals, just another bit of chaos they can spin to their advantage, turned out to be basically correct.  The Maesters, The Tarlys, The Boltons, Renly, The Tyrells, Tywin, Littlefinger, Cersei, Euron, everyone who ever said LOL SNARKS AND GRUMPKINS and focused on the petty rivalries of Iron Throne machinations, ended up having the right idea.

Cersei's "lol fuck you I'm not helping" got validated.  She has been rewarded for making the opposite decision from what Jon Snow has made (i.e. immediately giving up his crown for the greater good of his people).  Jon chose the song of ice and fire.  Cersei chose the game of thrones.  And the show has just said "yeah she's right" and even if Dany and Jon go on to defeat and even kill in the next 3 episodes, they cannot repudiate her.  She effectively allied with the Army Of The Dead and it worked out for her.  It cost her nothing but Jaime's loyalty.  So unless Jaime, specifically, kills her and kills her in a specific way that Jon and/or Dany could not otherwise achieve, then Cersei being petty, selfish, and short sighted was tactically and morally correct.  And the White Walkers were one hell of a shaggy dog story line after all.

Boy was I wrong about the theme of this whole thing.  Ouch.

Well, we'll see how the last 3 episodes play out, I guess.

Edited April 30, 2019 by Frances Bean Corbray

[SansaJonRule]

18 hours ago, ferrelhadley said:

Possibly they could have built tension round Arya seeking up on the Night's King, but then there would be people moaning the ending was telegraphed etc etc. 

I liked the surprise of her coming out of nowhere. Since she knows WF like the back of her hand, I'm guessing she crept along the roof so was able to jump the NK. Well, almost.

18 hours ago, Snormund said:

just sacrificed themselves until it was smothered if the fires were low enough

Like they did to make bridges through the trenches.

18 hours ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Every main character and half the side characters live. Why?

Cuz we still need some of them to die in the battle against Cersei.

20 hours ago, FireWinds said:

Have multiple walls of fire to get through before even being near the castle

They had how many days to prepare? And those weren't just regular trenches, they had shards of dragon glass affixed to them, which didn't arrive until a few days ago.

20 hours ago, FireWinds said:

It also annoyed me that the wall was not manned. 

It was well manned after the retreat (before that just archers). But a lot of them got killed presumably. You started to see more gaps between soldiers as more wights made it over the wall.

I thought the wall was surprisingly short.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by SansaJonRule

[SansaJonRule]

After watching it again, I dropped my rating from from 10 to 8.

-2 points because a lot of the wights spurted blood when they were killed, and this was before the NK raised the newly dead. Dead bodies do not bleed. They just wanted to increase the gore effect (cuz sadly so many viewers love it).

[daveyboy79]

I was torn between a 6 and a 7. Bran went to where, Bahamas for a quick tanning session. What happened with Dani and John before the battle, I felt the director didnt give them enough time to finish their hot coco moment. I dont know but it seemed like the folks in Winterfell should have built more firewalls around Winterfell - just one? How many times did I see Sam get attacked by zombies but yet remain alive. 

[SansaJonRule]

34 minutes ago, Frances Bean Corbray said:

Also nobody even died here that I saw.  Not even Soup Girl.  Though Gilly got the obligatory spot of clawing at the ground as she's dragged away on her belly, screaming.  But even she didn't die? 

I believe people did die. At the end it looked like freshly dead bodies on the ground.

I don't think that was Gilly. I think it was an unknown. But we don't see Gilly standing with the other survivors, so we don't know yet.

Does anyone know what Sansa said immediately after Tyrion said "Perhaps we should have stayed married"? Was it "you were the best of them"? I've played it over a few times and I just can't tell for sure.

I wonder if any of those still standing end up dying from their wounds?

[Frances Bean Corbray]

Yeah, that was Sansa's line.  Faint praise for Tyrion, given the character of Joffrey, Ramsay, and even Robin Arryn, but praise nonetheless.

 

[daveyboy79]

3 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

But we don't see Gilly standing with the other survivors, so we don't know yet.

The director does a shot of the survivors once Arya does her thing, you can see Gilly and little Sam on the right side.

Only question I have is where is Ghost and is there now one or two living dragons?

[longest night]

Just now, daveyboy79 said:

The director does a shot of the survivors once Arya does her thing, you can see Gilly and little Sam on the right side.

Only question I have is where is Ghost and is there now one or two living dragons?

Both Ghost and the dragons are in the preview for next episode.

[Cas Stark]

48 minutes ago, Frances Bean Corbray said:

MODIFIED MCSHANE SCORING SYSTEM PRESENTS:  GAME OF THRONES S8 E3 (episode 70)

No Tits, Just Dragons, base line of 5.

no "previously on" segment before the episode, and I like this because that usually functions as the cliff notes of foreshadowing and I like the idea of nope we're not giving you clues this time, just guess.

 Tonight's episode will be broadcast in SPOOOOOOOOOOKYVISION which means its too dark to see what's actually going on and who's dead or not.  I respect the whole wanting to have fog of war and terrifying confusion and all but it's a television show, let us watch the television show.  Minus 2 points [3/10]

I've said before and I'll say again that I dig it when this show shuts the fuck up and lets its cinematography breathe.  Again we start with an extended stretch of no [coherent] dialogue as last minute preparations are underway and we follow Sam's path through them.  Varys and Tyrion heading towards the crypt, Theon marching off at Bran's side and I think the lineless Alys Karstark is with them for reasons unknown but it could just be an extra [not that Alys isn't one herself at this point] portraying a female Ironborn warrior, contradiction of lore though that is.  Either way it's hard to tell in the gloom.  +1 point for focusing on the show's strength and hiding its weakness (the dialogue lol). [4/10]

Melisandre shows up at the last minute to cast a couple AOE cleric buffs on the party, then promises both Ser Davos and the audience that she will die before morning.  SPOILERS, Mel, geeeez.  Glad she's here. +1 [5/10]

Dothraki death charge was a wonderful visual as the lights of their flaming arakhs gradually, silently, went out.  Possibly the best visual of the episode.  It's ALMOST enough to make me forgive and forget the terminal case of Dumb For The Sake Of Plot that went into this happening.  Especially considering Mel showed up at the last second so the plan was to do this without even flaming arakhs.  Having the first sortee be a catastrophic failure is fine (and like I said the visual was great and the "oh shit" of Jorah coming back from it alone was wonderful too).  But what even was success supposed to look like with this?  Did Jon and Dany think they had this in the bag, feel bad for The Night King, and want to spot him a couple touchdowns to start the game?  Also, the timing of the trebuchet volley basically amounted to shelling their own men, and not even the most tactically bereft WWI generals were that cavalier about killing their own men (they considered it much more gentlemanly to let the enemy do it).  There had to have been a smarter and more character-consistent way to get this disastrous start achieved and create this feeling of peril.  Battle of the Bastards had a dumb early cavalry charge too but at least there they admitted it was dumb but did it anyway for plausible emotional reasons.  Also way to summon Ghost back to his home planet in the middle of this charge.  +1 for the visual of the lights dying, -1.5 for basically giving the NK their cavalry in a way that makes our heroes look like idiots. [4.5/10]

The crush of the wights hitting the unsullied spear wall really felt like a crushing wave.  That was good shit.  Soon after, we have our first confirmed Named Character Death, and the dubious honor goes to Dolorous Edd, shortly after he saves Sam's ass one more time.  In the grand scheme of things, Dolorous Edd died unflatteringly early and got rather ignominiously chumped from behind.  I think Dolorous Edd would appreciate and even predict going out this way.  His last words are "fuck's sake, Sam" which is a fitting epithet for show Edd if not necessarily Book Edd.  I'm glad they gave me a clear opportunity to say goodbye last week.  +1 point for the infantry crush visual and for giving Edd a good death. [5.5/10]

NIGHT'S KING WITH A MAGIC STEALTH BLIZZARD LOL.  Killing the visibility would've been more effective if visibility wasn't dead from the start due to SPOOOOOOOOOOOKYVISION but at this point I'm digging the flow of living and dead trading punches.  Dothraki cav gets chumped, Dragonrider strafing torches the wight infantry, magic snowstorm kills the visibility and nobody can see Davos' signal to light the trench as the Unsullied retreat.  LOVE seeing fire arrows get snuffed out by the cold wind as early attempts to light the trenches fail.  Melisandre comes up clutch once again, lighting the trench by hand and by chanting mojo.  Boy, how bad does the initial battle plan suck considering it didn't have her in it?  She is saving some serious bacon out there.  +1 for Mel being all over the place trying to repay the karmic debt for burning Shireen. [6.5/10]

Setting Sansa up to be the Anti-Cersei in a replay of Maegor's Holdfast in the Crypts of Winterfell is lovely.  Unfortunately the dialogue is up to snuff.  Missandei, technically you're right but you're not helping right now.  Varys says "at least we're already in a crypt" and Connleth Hill drags that line into acceptably amusing territory by sheer force of actor's will.  Doesn't quite stick the landing but I appreciate Sansa and Tyrion having a moment.

Didn't expect Little Lady Mormont to get smacked around and especially not to get killed.  This is the only death from outside my "probably gonna die" list.  I thought they did an acceptable job of establishing that she was making the choice to die because taking out the particularly dangerous Wight Giant was worth it. I suspect this bit was homage to some Lord Of The Rings bit I'm not familiar with, and I appreciate that they made it work even for someone like me who lacks that reference point. +1 [7.5/10]

Collapsing the trench as the Unsullied covered everyone else's escape really should've been the moment of Grey Worm's death.  I guess White Savior Dany getting all her brown people killed off wastefully was too much of a bad look even for the production team about to bring us the atrocious "Confederate" TV show?  This episode is supposed to be a heavy die-off.  And you marked this dude for death with the Naath retirement plan.  Don't wimp out on me, guys. -1 [6.5/10]

Speaking of which, how many times die Jaime Brienne and Pod get near crushed to death only without the dying bit?  Pod's expendable and Brienne's knighthood completes her arc with the validation she always deserved.  Wouldn't have been a dry eye in the viewership if you'd taken at least one of them out.  Or at least don't devalue the fakeout by putting them in it so much? -1 [5.5/10]

The Wights stopping at the trench until the Walkers start strategically sacrificing them to snuff out a breach was a nice tactical touch.  I also appreciate the Lieutenant White Walkers were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN until they breached the gate, had overcome the walls, and looked like they could plausibly believe they had it in the bag.  That's some tactical competence! Though I wish one or two had actually been in position to get got, it would've been a good pendulum swing of false hope before things really started going bad.  Also, one other reason that I'm saving for the end. +.5 [6/10]

Pretty sure Sandor was kinda over his firephobia as of his flame gazing at the start of Season 7?  And they beat the drum a little too hard on Beric yelling at him to come on, over and over and OVER.  But I do appreciate that it was Arya's peril that got him over the hump.  So I'm only taking a quarter point off. -.25 [5.75/10]

Arya stars in a commercial for the upcoming Game Of Thrones video game that hasn't been made yet as she gets her Solid Snake on in a Stealth Level in the Winterfell archives.  Anyway she grabs one of Maester Luwin's favorite tomes and throws it, and all the wights spawn exclamation points over their heads and chase the noise, and Arya runs away.  Too long and maybe I'm too jaded but I didn't ever think Arya was really in danger here.  -.5 [5.25/10]

Dwaggin Joust!  Jon unhorses The Night's King!  Okay that was pretty cool. Would've been nice if we could tell which dragons are which.  Thanks SPOOOOOOOKYVISION. +.25 for the battle, it was nice, wish I could've seen it better and would give it more points if I could. [5.5/10]

Beric sacrifices himself to cover Arya and The Hound's escape from a pack of wights.  To put things absolutely on the nose in case you're too dumb for symbolism, the guy whose whole gimmick is that he's died and been resurrected literally strikes the Jesus Christ Pose to block as much hallway as he can.  Later on Arya and The Hound barricade themselves in a room and... ...um, somehow Beric gets away from the wights he's dying to block and catches up with the people whose escape he's covering?  So he can have one last look at Arya and die in the room with them?  So Mel (oh yeah she's already in the room because why the fuck not) can pontificate on Beric having served his purpose in The Lord Of Light's plan?  Okay look.  You can do the heroic sacrifice to cover an escape.  You can do the "I almost made it oops no I didn't" bleedout after everyone's escaped.  Both are valid, both are good, both were even done well here.  Except for one problem.  YOU CAN'T HAVE THE SAME CHARACTER DO BOTH IN THE SAME SCENE.  Shit, man.  PICK ONE.  There's plenty of other people who can get killed off and pick up either one of these mantles.  You can still have Arya cry over Beric dying for her sake and have Mel give her the destiny pep talk without him physically being there.  This way either his sacrifice was pointless because they didn't get that far away (he caught up with them) or the wight pack in question was beatable and didn't require a sacrifice to escape.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  -2 points. [3.5/10]

The Totally Safe Crypts turn out not to be safe.  But its a matter of the invading wights breaching it instead of anything amusingly dumb like Headless Ned, Wolfhead Robb, or even Zombie Rickon.  Sansa having to actually use that knife Arya gave her would've been a nice moment.  Also nobody even died here that I saw.  Not even Soup Girl.  Though Gilly got the obligatory spot of clawing at the ground as she's dragged away on her belly, screaming.  But even she didn't die?  I think?  Maybe I should re-watch before I do these things.  Or I can just blame SPOOOOOOKYVISION instead.  Missandei or Varys (or both) could have gotten got here, honestly.  Missed opportunity.

Dracarys! On The Night King.  BUT IT DOESN'T WORK, failing as foreshadowed, and he smirks up at Dany before chasing her off with a death javelin aimed at Drogon.  I love this guy.  The wrinkle that the White Walkers are not emotionless alien robots but actually cocky motherfuckers who like to psyche the enemy out and taunt and toy with people before killing them is a wonderful wrinkle, both because it reminds us that they used to be human men, and also it's a good lampshade for the old problem of villains not finishing off the heroes when they have the chance.  Being cocky all along is way better than only being cocky in response to plot demands, and I'm glad they put the effort into having the White Walkers, particularly the Night King, demonstrate this flaw.  +1.5 [5/10]

Sansa ALMOST makes the tough decision to gank herself and/or Tyrion to spare themselves agony when it looks hopeless. That would've taken some HUGE stones on the producers' part and I'd have applauded them until the end of time had they dared to do it, even as much as I would ultimately prefer they both stick around (and Tyrion still kinda needs to due to the Bronn thing and the Cersei thing).  How "bittersweet ending" would THAT be, especially if the day got saved right after?  But they don't.  Cheers for getting me to think it for a couple seconds, though.  +1 [6/10]

I lost track of Gendry and Tormund and I don't think I even saw Lord Royce at all? They could all be dead or all be alive or somewhere in between.  Thanks, SPOOOOOOKYVISION

Jon rushes the Night King after Dragonfire fails.  But he's not nearly in time to stop the Night King from doing his slow dramatic The Undertaker arm raise and, yeah, you knew it was coming.  Finally we get it.  Cut to a Dothraki with blue eyes.  Cut to Edd getting blue eyes.  Cut to an Unsullied that looks like Grey Worm [it's not but in the dark its hard to tell] getting blue eyes.  Cut to Little Lady Mormont getting blue eyes.  They held off on busting this nut for a long, long time.  I applaud the patience.  +1 [7/10]

What I do not applaud is the new wave of wights instantly surrounding Jon and suddenly following Bruce Lee movie rules and coming at him one at a time to fight his way out of it.  Also there's one of many cuts to Bran & Theon by the weirwood as Theon's crew start pumping the new wave with fire arrows and when we cut back to Jon he is considerably less surrounded than he was, i.e. nobody's behind him any more.  Come. On.  Now, of course Dany saves him with a strafe of dragonfire and that's FINE but the stall on doing it to let Jon get some Kickin' Rad sword kills in and having the wights suddenly deviate from their rush n' crush pattern (as seen with the Unsullied spear wall early and seen in several hallways of Winterfell at Jaime Brienne and Pod's collective expense) exposes the nuts and bolts of plot armor.  Have Dany burn him an escape path and even drag him onto Drogon's back, fine, but do it right away before the wights have a chance to crush him.  OR, kill Jon off.  I'd prefer not the latter but Dumb For The Sake Of Plot is annoying when the badguys do it, too.  -1 [6/10]

Drogon lands and gets swarmed.  Dany gets un"horsed" and somehow Jorah Mormont is back outside, making a heroic last stand with Heartsbane in a "doomed" effort to keep Khaleesi alive.  Daenerys is suddenly and spontaneously competent with a blade in her own right as they sorta fight back to back but mostly fight with Jorah as her (willing) human shield.  Dany wielding a sword for the first time in the series is some left field shit but whatever, I wouldn't buy her just cowering and giving up, either.  I'm much more contentious over how Jorah got back outside into his Appropriate Dying Position right on schedule.  Woof. -1 [5/10]

One last cut to the Weirwood and, aw, damn.  Theon standing alone beside Bran as the Night King and The Walkers approach.  Welp, guess he's not making it after all.  Minus Eleventy Jillion points.  Just kidding.  Theon apologies for not getting Bran out of this.  Aww. Bran confirms that destiny is destiny and Theon makes a doomed charge with The Spear Not Of Destiny and of course completely fails to gank the Night King, and gets ganked himself.  At least he got to go out against The King, and there's something suitably viking and thus Ironborn about him literally fighting to the last [in his section of the battle, anyway]. being unafraid to die in combat, and at least taking a 1 in a million shot at getting the lucky blow on the Night's King.  Theon better get his damn bronze statue on the shores of Pyke.  He gets to bleed out and have a death rattle before NK closes on Bran. +1 point for killing off Theon in a way that didn't irritate my inner fanboy, that's not always so easily done. [6/10]

Anyway, unless you've completely avoided the internet for the last couple days (and if you're reading this, obviously you haven't), then you know what happens next.  Arya comes out of nowhere with a NINJA JUMP and tries to gank the Night King, who catches her by the throat, and she drops the Valyrian Steel Dagger that's been known as Chekov since Season 1 Episode 2 but catches it with her other hand, shanks the Night King with it, and it's SNOW CONES FOR EVERYBODY!  Quick cuts to the zombie hordes dropping here and there and everywhere in sheets.  Viserion crumbles particularly nicely half way through rearing back to bite Jon.

Jorah, having just barely technically made it through the battle, succumbs to his wounds, and Dany bawls like a baby over him, leaving me wishing once again Clarke actually got more chances to emote with this role. +1 for letting Clarke show something being stoic leader robot, and for giving Jorah the ideal death (even though he kinda hopped in the Littlefinger memorial Teleporter to get there) [7/10]

Davos watches Melisandre ride off into the sunset except she has no horse and it's actually a sunrise, and instead of disappearing beyond the horizon we watch her cast off her ruby choker, revert to her true impossibly old crone form, and collapse before withering to dust.  Davos says nothing.  As much as he hated her for burning Shireen I want to think he respected that she showed up to contribute to the greater good and hey, she kept her word and died before morning.  I doubt he'll point out how much she did to upgrade their battle plan from Shit to Not Very Good, but I'm hoping he channels some Stannis and says a few words about the good she did along with the bad next week, as everyone's (hopefully) eulogizing the heroic dead.  +1 for giving Mel a good enough sendoff for me to overlook the convenience of her last second showing up to die on time. [8/10]

Okay but seriously the SPOOOOOKYVISION was a huge damper on this episode and while I still don't have a good feel for who exactly survived and who didn't it's definitely clear that for as epic and grim and final as this was billed and as "hopeless" as it was supposed to be this episode really pulled a lot of punches and chickened out on the meatgrinder front.  Nobody who would've left a huge void died, everyone who did die was either expendable or had finished up their character arc cleanly.  And even among the expendable casualties were surprisingly light.  Almost disappointingly so. And Ghost needs a better agent.  Seriously.  Appeared to die off camera when he didn't come back from the doomed cav charge but he's still hanging out in the previews for next week?  Did Ghost pee in Benioff's cornflakes or something?  -2 points [6/10]

Final Score: 6 out of 10

fun in parts, fulfilling on some fronts, but room for improvement and they could've done more.

Also mildly disappointed not that Arya got the death blow on the Night's King (that's pretty cool actually, even if Mel's pep talk about closing eyes forever and reminding Arya of Syrio's prayer to the God Of Death telegraphed it pretty forcefully) but because they had her go for it in an action movie way that any other show or film could have done, instead of doing something that could be uniquely Game Of Thrones:  namely, having her sneak up on the Night's King by wearing a White Walker face.  A little contrived and lore breaking for the sake of KICKIN' RAD but look we've already jumped that chasm anyway, might as well go all out with it.  But unfortunately that window closed when they had the Lieutenant Walkers do the smart thing and not show themselves at all until things appeared to be well in hand.  What they did was fine enough (though if Arya'd shown a little more hustle maybe Theon wouldn't have had to die ) but I feel like they left something on the table.  Even sacrificing Bran so that Arya could wear Bran's face and spring up out of the chair to shiv the Night King.  How "bittersweet ending" would that be?  So much more they could've done here even if what they did was ok.

But my main disappointment is a narrative/thematic one:  It's entirely personal feeling so I'm not going to deduct points for it but I'm gonna say it anyway.  I did not expect the Army of The Dead to get neutralized this early.  See, from the very beginning of the show (and the books) we are shown the White Walkers, we have them established as looming in the background, seen sparingly enough that they can be temporarily forgotten about and distracted from, but when they reemerge you're reminded of them and the threat they pose to everything.  Like Jeor Mormont says, "do you really think it matters who sits on the throne when the dead are up and walking?"  The White Walkers, we're told, are the real battle.  The real threat to everything and everyone, and the game of thrones is a dangerous and destructive distraction that further imperils everyone.

And yet, in the end, the southern half of Westeros and the royal court's cavalier dismissal of the undead threat and, indeed, every crisis ever centered on The Wall, as mere "northern problems" and things they need not take seriously and can even trust to only inconvenience their nothern political rivals, just another bit of chaos they can spin to their advantage, turned out to be basically correct.  The Maesters, The Tarlys, The Boltons, Renly, The Tyrells, Tywin, Littlefinger, Cersei, Euron, everyone who ever said LOL SNARKS AND GRUMPKINS and focused on the petty rivalries of Iron Throne machinations, ended up having the right idea.

Cersei's "lol fuck you I'm not helping" got validated.  She has been rewarded for making the opposite decision from what Jon Snow has made (i.e. immediately giving up his crown for the greater good of his people).  Jon chose the song of ice and fire.  Cersei chose the game of thrones.  And the show has just said "yeah she's right" and even if Dany and Jon go on to defeat and even kill in the next 3 episodes, they cannot repudiate her.  She effectively allied with the Army Of The Dead and it worked out for her.  It cost her nothing but Jaime's loyalty.  So unless Jaime, specifically, kills her and kills her in a specific way that Jon and/or Dany could not otherwise achieve, then Cersei being petty, selfish, and short sighted was tactically and morally correct.  And the White Walkers were one hell of a shaggy dog story line after all.

Boy was I wrong about the theme of this whole thing.  Ouch.

Well, we'll see how the last 3 episodes play out, I guess.

I love these reviews.

Re the issues of Cersei taking the correct action and whatever the show thinks its message is, I don't see how that can be fixed in the last 3 episodes, but we'll see.

[HellasLEAF]

So I resisted giving a rating. 

And on this one I'm glad I did after a rewatching (better visuals, adjusted contrast).

9/10.  

The battle was just too epic to take points off for some plot issues.  I am reserving judgement on some of the NK explanation as the ending was for dramatic effect.  Hoping Episode 4 does a decent enough job explaining why we need 3 episodes now for Cersei end boss but keeping faith after a solid episode 1 and 2.  

[SansaJonRule]

4 minutes ago, daveyboy79 said:

Bran went to where, Bahamas for a quick tanning session.

He warged into the ravens. I think he was keeping an eye on exactly where the NK was.

21 minutes ago, longest night said:

Both Ghost and the dragons are in the preview for next episode.

Yes, I did finally see that. I had to sit right in front of the tv and watch closely (I'm a little nearsighted).

21 minutes ago, longest night said:

Both Ghost and the dragons are in the preview for next episode.

I saw at least one dragon, but when do they show Ghost? Anyway, *happy dance*!

 

Another thing I really liked was how Drogon seemed to be trying to comfort Dany as she was crying over Jorah.

[mermer]

13 hours ago, lakin1013 said:

 

First I want to say, people in reddit have signaled that ghost survived and can be seen in the 0:18 mark of the new preview near the dothraki pyre.

I gave it a 4. Great television but just plain dumb for me. I get this is a tv show, but is Arya Azhor Ahai? What about the prophecies? Only dispatching secondary characters in the main battle? The final batttle is going to be Cersei? The North is going to bend its knee to a queen that did nothing in the whole battle when it was a Stark the one who killed the NK?

I just don't get it and think they don't have enough time to explain it to me.

The best part by far for me this episode was the not today quote. 

Edited April 30, 2019 by mermer

[BradDoty08]

I gave it a 3. I think I was just too disappointed by how it all played out.

Sorry to everyone that I'm not quoting but there's too much to go back to. But some of you made some great points.

I think the Dothraki part in it all was dumb but was necessary because it's that "holy shit" moment where the rest of the living look on and see the Dothraki don't even last a minute. No one could match them in open battle and they just go defeated in seconds. But then the dead come and literally trample all over everyone. And yet they somehow mostly all survive. That makes no sense at all. Jamie, Brienne, Tormund, etc had hundreds of dead on top of them but they somehow manged to still get up. Same as Jon at the end when the Nigh King raises all the dead. He's surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dead but somehow manages to survive long enough until help comes. 

The person who commented on Theon staying back with Bran, I agree. Theon should've had a dragonglass sword and fought and killed a White Walker. Then the Night King says enough (in his head I guess), fights Theon, and then kills him. But we never even get to see the Night King fight. Would've liked to see Jon, or anyone really, fight him at least once. Now the Night King and the rest of the army of the dead are gone without us really even knowing what their purpose was.

Also agree that Jon and Bran were basically useless during the battle. Thought Bran would've done something to help them. Or Jon. Instead he just flies around aimlessly. 

I just feel unfulfilled after that, which is fair since we're not all going to be satisfied with the ending of the Night King. It was just too much flash for me and not even substance. And it was too long. I honestly started getting bored halfway through when I realized the living would win. I thought it would be Bran to kill him somehow though. 

[Heartofice]

I rated it a 7.

i think it was a well made episode and the action and suspense were enjoyable, it was tense and pretty well structured.. it had dragon fights and zombies and pretty much most of what you would expect from such an episode.

But the problem with it is in the fact that 8 seasons of plot and story and build up are all pretty much resolved by one stab of the knife. From the moment I realised that the NK could be killed like an end game boss and therefore solve all their problems, I knew it was pretty much game over for any sort of interesting storyline. It’s such an easy way to resolve that plot, just kill the main big guy, that everything complex about the situation gets thrown out the window.

And now he’s dead and I guess the rest of the show stops worrying about the long night and goes back to what it was doing.

It just feels all so anti climactic , the problem is it was easy to see this problem coming when you saw how few episodes there were left. Now the NK seems like a sort of side plot 

[ummester]

8 hours ago, Talking Hodor said:

There is no source material. There's an outline or some musings of GRRM at best.

This - so many times this. Story should never have been sold for adaptation until it was finished.

After this episode, I accept all the rant and ravers that call D&D hacks - I believe they are entirely now. Trouble is, just because GRRM can plot a good start with some great characters, does it really make him a good writer if he can't finish?

Unless, of course, GRRM knew all along that he never had a good ending and sold it to hacks as a way to take the heat off himself.

[maiden of tarth]

It’s difficult as I have read the books. I hoped we would learn more about who the White Walkers are and what they’re about. I hoped the White Walkers would get further south and the southern realms would be forced to confront the real danger and see how petty and irrelevant their squabbles for power are. The whole build up of the three/one prophecies of TPTWP, The Last Hero and Azor Ahai seem to be for nothing. If I hadn’t read the books, Arya defeating the White Walker as she did would have seemed perfect. Having read the books, it just seems a little ehhhh? What’s the point in Jon and Daenerys? I wish I’d started reading the books after the whole show was finished instead of starting them after watching season one.