MIA White Walkers

[btfu806]

In the past WW have attacked while the Wights attacked as well. No idea why they didn't this time. It would have been nice to see another duel scene between a WW and somebody. Maybe it was too overdone? Maybe D&D watched a lot of The Walking Dead and wanted to do a scene like that? Who knows.

[Ser Hedge]

7 hours ago, btfu806 said:

In the past WW have attacked while the Wights attacked as well. No idea why they didn't this time. It would have been nice to see another duel scene between a WW and somebody. Maybe it was too overdone? Maybe D&D watched a lot of The Walking Dead and wanted to do a scene like that? Who knows.

 

It couldn't have been that hard to have had a few scenes of WWs facing off with some of the main characters, with WWs killing off a few, the characters reducing some of them to little bits of ice, one or two duels perhaps interrupted by another event allowing the main character to beat a hasty retreat. Maybe that's a trope, but it's not a bad one. Hardhome was the better off for it. 

I dunno if D&D thought they were subverting tropes by making Jon so ineffective and letting his little sister/cousin win the day. Look I don't have an issue with Arya snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, and being the last hero/Azor Ahai, but Jon needed at least one big moment for his character arc. He's already made his mistakes, so now towards the end of the series he can't just be mucking around, it diminishes the whole R+L=J that has been banged about since Season 6 and now you have 3 episodes of "whose iron throne is it anyway ?" with one of the main characters somewhat diminished.

Actually, I'm going off topic, sorry, let me stop here.

[MinscS2]

It could also be as simple as the NK knowing that the defenders had an abundance of dragonglass and dragonfire*, and decided that it wasn't worth the risk of sending forth his lieutenants.

Against dragonglass, a WW isn't much better than a wight, let alone 10 wights, and since WW's are much harder to create (and there where so few of them to begin with) he decided to hold them back.
Then add the fact that every WW killed means potentially thousand of wights instantly destroyed as well.

(*Which afaik can harm regular WW's in the books, but we don't know regarding the show, and probably never will now.)

[King Perkis]

11 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

It could also be as simple as the NK knowing that the defenders had an abundance of dragonglass and dragonfire*, and decided that it wasn't worth the risk of sending forth his lieutenants. Against dragonglass, a WW isn't much better than a wight, let alone 10 wights, and since WW's are much harder to create (and there where so few of them to begin with) he decided to hold them back.

(*Which afaik can harm regular WW's in the books, but we don't know regarding the show, and probably never will now.)

Agree with your prior points and this one especially.  Even though it would have been satisfying to see several 1v1 fights, NK saw one WW die by Tarly (even if not aware of how death occurred he knows he never came back with the baby), 2nd at Hardhome (first scene seeing Jon with Valeryian and knows it is still a factor), and last during the journey to grab a wight (WW leading band of wights to the fire).  So, I would assume at this point NK is aware that his peeps are more vulnerable than he was led to believe with prior outings (take first scene where NW are attacked by wight).

 

[Frances Bean Corbray]

The Night King and the Walkers behaved like a good villain should.  Cower until you're "sure" you're going to win, then start strutting.

The Lieutenant Walkers didn't show up until well after the gate was breached and it looked like it was basically over.  If the only way the army of the dead loses is if the Walkers themselves are killed and the wight horde loses animation section by section, why would they ever put themselves in position for that to happen (as Jaime astutely observed during the previous week's strategy session).

ESPECIALLY since The Night King knows the Winterfell army does have the means to actually kill White Walkers.  They're almost irreplaceable [now that Craster is dead], there's only a dozen or so of them, and the living have taken out 4 already (Jon 2, Sam 1, Meera 1).  It's not accident or luck; The NK knows they know the secret.

And as some have already said, it would have been nice if the battle had been more back and forth, and the Lieutenant Walkers had needed to risk committing to the field to turn the tide back in their favor (also, having a Walker go down and their corresponding segment of wights suddenly fall down would've been a more fun way to save various named characters from "certain" death situations.

And Arya could've been in position to steal a White Walker Face this way.  It was the only one of her skills not otherwise utilized in her journey from the ramparts to the Weirwood where she shanked the Night King and if you're gonna have her get that close to literally "using everything she learned" why not tick the last box?  Plus it would have looked cooler and been more uniquely Game Of Thrones than just another ninja jump out of nowhere