S08.E03: The Long Night

[sistermagpie]

6 hours ago, stagmania said:

This is what they were going for, but they didn't do the work to set it up at all. Arya doesn't know how the Night King was created and the team had no idea how to kill him - so she just happened to get lucky in her Hail Mary attempt by stabbing him in exactly the right place with exactly the right weapon. Then the audience had to google for interviews and Wikis afterward to make sense of it. Extremely unsatisfying, IMO.

19 hours ago, Kate47 said:

1 hour ago, stagmania said:

That doesn't at all comport with Melisandre being the one to guide her in this episode, and would be an example of terrible writing.

I think Bran and Arya can work together in the plot without the idea being that Bran literally laid out to her what to do, though. Bran knows what's going to happen so he doesn't have to tell her what to do--he knows she'll get the idea to do it. He does give her the right knife, and once she has that it's perfectly natural that she would do the right thing without knowing that she's destroying the dragon glass in the NK's heart. 

We've seen her taught to be an assassin, seen she can sneak around, seen she knows how to fake out people by looking helpless and know she's been taught to go for the heart for a quick kill. Bran just gave her the right knife to do it with.

[jojozigs]

So... question re: Cersei's fate.  I thought Arya would kill Cersei and be the younger and more beautiful queen and/or the Valonquar (Or, maybe Sansa is YAMBQ and Arya is Valonquar).  I thought that would be the whole point of Arya becoming an assassin.  It would be a twist because we expect it to be Jaime (Valonquar) and Dany (YAMBQ).  

So what now?  I can't imagine that they would have Arya kill both the Night's King AND Cersei.  So will it really be Jaime / Dany?  Or just Jaime?  One thing I thought of given Brienne is still alive (whew!) - could it be that Brienne (the "Beauty") is YAMBQ?  If Jaime and Brienne take her down together...  

[Hanahope]

15 minutes ago, jojozigs said:

So... question re: Cersei's fate.  I thought Arya would kill Cersei and be the younger and more beautiful queen and/or the Valonquar (Or, maybe Sansa is YAMBQ and Arya is Valonquar).  I thought that would be the whole point of Arya becoming an assassin.  It would be a twist because we expect it to be Jaime (Valonquar) and Dany (YAMBQ).  

So what now?  I can't imagine that they would have Arya kill both the Night's King AND Cersei.  So will it really be Jaime / Dany?  Or just Jaime?  One thing I thought of given Brienne is still alive (whew!) - could it be that Brienne (the "Beauty") is YAMBQ?  If Jaime and Brienne take her down together...  

IIRC, Cersei is just going to be "replaced" by a YAMBQ, not killed by her.   She would be killed by the Valonquar (younger brother) which could be either Jamie or Tyrion.  Cersie believed the YAMBQ was either Margarey, or Dany, and the Valonquar was Tyrion.

[benteen]

1 hour ago, jojozigs said:

So... question re: Cersei's fate.  I thought Arya would kill Cersei and be the younger and more beautiful queen and/or the Valonquar (Or, maybe Sansa is YAMBQ and Arya is Valonquar).  I thought that would be the whole point of Arya becoming an assassin.  It would be a twist because we expect it to be Jaime (Valonquar) and Dany (YAMBQ).  

So what now?  I can't imagine that they would have Arya kill both the Night's King AND Cersei.  So will it really be Jaime / Dany?  Or just Jaime?  One thing I thought of given Brienne is still alive (whew!) - could it be that Brienne (the "Beauty") is YAMBQ?  If Jaime and Brienne take her down together...  

Yeah, I imagine killing the Night King will take Arya out of the killing Cersei sweepstakes.

[qtpye]

6 hours ago, benteen said:

I hate Deadspin but I can't say they're not right here.

GRRM doesn't have the right to complain about this until he actually goes out and finishes the books he's supposedly still writing.

I will say the musical score on this episode was outstanding and should secure the show an Emmy for that alone.

5 hours ago, benteen said:

I think D and D have made a lot of questionable decisions on this show and that was on full display this past episode, with how the threat of the White Walkers played out, deemphasizing Jon's importance and making Cersei the big bad of the show.  At the same time, they've made a lot of good decisions.  They streamlined a lot of books tedious storylines, got the characters together quicker, got the characters together in ways they never would have in the book (some of these characters will probably never meet in the books) and that's been one of the best things about this show.  I love the "road trip fellowship" episode last season for instance.  But I don't think when they've had to go into business on their own or made changes to the books, it's always resulted in the best possible outcome.  If the books had been finished, maybe the focus this season would be entirely different.

But then again, that all comes down to George.  George's undisciplined style of writing and his clear lack of interest in finishing his stories has left D and D to their own devices, which I've found to be a mixed bag many times.  George's decision-making can be just as bad, as the last two books have shown.  So I think there can be valid criticism of all three.

Sometimes I wish he would just cut the bullshit and say “l’m rich bitch...no way in Hell my sunset years are going to be filled with endless writing”

Let’s pour a drink out for the Night King...arguably the best father in Westeros after Ned Stark.

[Misplaced]

Having just watched it again, a few random thoughts:

1.  Sam - aside from being reduced to a blubbering wreck, he did actually kill alotta wights.  He knifed one right before he was jumped / Edd saved him / Edd died, he killed a bunch on the walls and when Jon ran past him towards the end, he was weeping while slaying left and right with his dragonglass.  So I'm giving him a little leeway.

2.  Sansa in the crypts: I *completely* missed, first time round, the bit where the Alive of Winterfell are bashing on the door to the crypts screaming "Open the door!  Open the door!" while the AoTD is tearing them apart.  Amazing scene.  Throwback to "Hold the door" of course and watch the emotions across Sansa's face.  

3. Sansa and Tyrion in the crypt - I am pretty sure Tyrion whipped out his own dragonglass knife before kissing Sansa's hand - and then it looked like they were going to lead people out of the crypts by trying to kill the crawling dead with their knives.  Also I thought that was Maester Lewin lurching around (as someone said upthread), ewww.

4. I think the first wight to attack Dany/Jorah after the wights were shaken off Drogon (he was one of the shaken-off-wights) was The Bald Dude wilding from Hardhome? 

5.  Melisandre walking out into the snow at the end - the music there is a variation on "Forgive Me", Season 5, which is the theme behind Stannis betraying Shireen / Shireen walking to the pyre.  Both are walking between two sides of an army, one alive and one dead. 

Oh I do love this episode.   

[iMonrey]

Since all of the crypt corpses were presumably dead Starks, it makes me wonder if one of the wights was Lyanna Stark herself. There'd be no way to recognize her unless they made a big deal out identifying her in some way but it's such a creepy thought. 

[krankydoodle]

Emilia Clarke was great in her final scene, crying over Jorah. Drogon whimpering and giving them a dragon version of a hug had me tearing up too.

I feel bad for Dany. Now that she knows Jon has a claim to the throne and is her nephew to boot, and with Tyrion falling short as an advisor and Missandei and Grey Worm planning an exit strategy, I think Jorah was really the only one who was fully committed to her and whose loyalty she could be sure of (ironic given how their relationship started).

[Chaser]

Emilia Clarke has grown a lot as an actress. She did some A level in this episode. 

[GrailKing]

On 4/29/2019 at 6:45 PM, WatchrTina said:

Some people have commented how Sansa's behavior in the crypt is so very different from how she behaved during the Battle of the Blackwater.  I have a speculation.  The religion of the Seven seems to be much more demonstrative than that of the Old Gods.  Sansa wanted to fit in in Kings Landing (and of course she did know the Seven because her mother followed that faith) so during the Battle of the Blackwater she joined hands and prayed aloud to the Seven with the other young women because that was the "right" thing to do.  Even Cersei comments on how "perfect" Sansa's behavior is.

But in THIS episode she is with Northerners and they keep to the old gods.  They pray in front of a weirwood tree and I think they pray silently.  I suspect that Sansa offering to lead the group in prayer would have been completely at odds with cultural norms. Furthermore she is the Lady of Winterfell and she needs to look strong.  For her to pray aloud, asking to be kept safe while hiding from the battle might be viewed as weakness by Northerners.  I suppose she could have led them in prayers for the fighting men but, again, I suspect that's not how they roll.

One talent Sansa DOES have is she knows how the Lady of Winterfell should behave in front of a crowd.  That being the case, I suspect Sansa being silent and stoic in the crypts (before, you know, all hell broke loose) was probably exactly what the people of Winterfell expected of their Lady.

I'm going to add my take. 

In BOBW, Sansa was also naive, and full of hopes and dreams. Back then she didn't fully understand the concept of war ( hence Cersei needling her ).

7 years later Sansa is a full fledged woman who now knows and understands the consequences of war and the knowledge that heroes can die, or not show up at all. 

[Miles]

On 4/30/2019 at 2:29 AM, sistermagpie said:

But jumping and screaming at him was the stealth. She knew he'd hear her coming when she screamed. That's also why it's not a mistake when Bran's expression changes when he sees her coming. The stealth was her pretending to be vanquished and dropping the knife only to stick it in exactly the right place. So screaming just supported the act.

That's the dumbest move ever and only works on TV with a ton of plot armor. In any real world scenario, she would have been dead instantly.

[millennium]

On 4/28/2019 at 10:37 PM, nodorothyparker said:

  I kind of hate that this validated Cersei leaving them all to fend for themselves because now she's suddenly looking like the smartest person in the room.

Not so much.  Cersei's gambit looks good now only because the living won.   Had Winterfell fallen, Cersei and Urine and the Golden Company would have been forced to battle the dead, including every last one of Winterfell's vanquished warriors -- Dothraki, Unsullied, Starks, etc.,not to mention three pissed off wight dragons.   There is no way they could have survived. 

[sistermagpie]

3 minutes ago, Miles said:

That's the dumbest move ever and only works on TV with a ton of plot armor. In any real world scenario, she would have been dead instantly.

Not sure exactly which part of her move this refers to (could be several), but there's probably very little about this battle that would work out in a real world scenario.

1 minute ago, millennium said:

Not so much.  Cersei's gambit looks good now only because the living won.   Had Winterfell fallen, Cersei and Urine and the Golden Company would have been forced to battle the dead, including every last one of Winterfell's vanquished warriors -- Dothraki, Unsullied, Starks, etc.,not to mention three pissed off wight dragons.   There is no way they could have survived. 

Yeah, and we know just how close that was to happening. It's not like the living actually beat the dead as an army.

[GrailKing]

12 hours ago, stagmania said:

Agree with your take on Sansa heading down to the crypts. I would have liked to see her saying something to her people here, too, rather than just snarking at Tyrion and offending Missandei. But for me the real disappointment was her running and hiding when the dead burst into the crypt, leaving them to die and not even attempting to make use of the weapon Arya gave her. At the end it looked like she might finally do something, but that went nowhere. For all her distrust and dislike of Dany, who was the one of the two of them who stood and fought for the North? She didn't need to become a warrior all of a sudden, but some attempt to protect anyone would have been nice.

They cut that scene out.  : (

[GrailKing]

On 4/29/2019 at 2:51 PM, WatchrTina said:

Well I try to cut Dany some slack because she had just saved Jon from a gruesome death and she's the tiniest bit distracted by what a close call that was. It was not her finest moment in terms of being a cold, calculating, dragon-back warrior -- but perhaps it did reveal her genuine love for Jon.

He yelled "Bran" to tell her what he was trying to accomplish and she yelled "Go!"

ETA: Having watched the two behind-the-scenes videos (I posted the link to the longer one above) I have to say I think they filmed a LOT more in the crypt and then cut most of it in favor of focusing on Sansa & Tyrion.  In the BTS video they talk about how the episode moves through various genres, beginning with suspense as everyone awaits the battle and then the Dothraki are defeated in the far-way dark, moving to horror (Arya's tiptoe through the library), and then swinging into full-on action.  I suspect the un-dead in the crypt was going to be another horror beat and they decided that the Arya horror interlude was better and didn't want a lot more from that genre.  I'm not a horror fan (I can barely watch Arya's trip though the library) so I'm not sorry they cut most of the "tale from the crypt."

Yeah, Sansa and Tyrion, actually killed a couple, but they cut it because it overlapped Arya's kill.

[maystone]

5 hours ago, Misplaced said:

2.  Sansa in the crypts: I *completely* missed, first time round, the bit where the Alive of Winterfell are bashing on the door to the crypts screaming "Open the door!  Open the door!" while the AoTD is tearing them apart.  Amazing scene.  Throwback to "Hold the door" of course and watch the emotions across Sansa's face.  

Oh I do love this episode.   

To make it worse, I heard someone trapped outside actually calling to her by name twice. Right before everything went quiet. That just added to the horror of that sequence. As to Sansa and Tyrion hiding, what actual help could either of them have been? It would have been a suicidal gesture. Which, nonetheless, it appears that they were going to make right before Arya took out NK and all the wights shattered.

[Chaser]

I still can’t get over some of those military choices. I wonder what it would have looked like if Robb planned it.

[Miles]

1 hour ago, sistermagpie said:

Not sure exactly which part of her move this refers to (could be several), but there's probably very little about this battle that would work out in a real world scenario.

Ah the old "it's fiction, so it doesn't have to make sense"-defense! A writers wet dream, giving them the license to write as crappy as can be and still have people excuse it.

[sistermagpie]

Just now, Miles said:

Ah the old "it's fiction, so it doesn't have to make sense"-defense! A writers wet dream, giving them the license to write as crappy as can be and still have people excuse it.

No, mostly just asking which part of it you meant specifically because there really are multiple things in the sequence that aren't reality based. But also there's a difference between something being realistic and something not making sense. The sequence makes perfect sense to me and fit with the rest of the show. Everything she does is laid down beforehand, which is mostly what I ask for .

[GraceK]

Someone gets it 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/04/30/daenerys-had-every-reason-to-betray-the-starks-in-game-of-thrones-she-didnt-she-wont/#719a2dad6904

[jeansheridan]

12 hours ago, paramitch said:

went back and looked, and you can see trees on both sides, behind the silent wights along the path, and within the entire circle surrounding Bran. There are wights lined up there but raggedly (there are several visible empty spaces in the ranks). For me, this makes it pretty believable that Arya could have sneaked around through the trees, then raced forward into the clearing and leaped at the NK, especially since every single focus in the scene is on Bran and the NK, nothing else.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I know it's being picky on my part but GOT does cheat details like having Bronn save Jaime from the dragon by pulling him into suddenly deep water and somehow they swim across the whole lake to safety in full armor.

Also, didn't Jorah swim across a bay tugging Tyrion behind him after the stone man attack?

So I feel like her leap was a bit much. Maise is short. Having her drop down from a tree makes more sense.

[jeansheridan]

10 hours ago, Misplaced said:

Melisandre walking out into the snow at the end - the music there is a variation on "Forgive Me", Season 5, which is the theme behind Stannis betraying Shireen / Shireen walking to the pyre.  Both are walking between two sides of an army, one alive and one dead. 

I loved her death too. On her own terms. I wish we knew how old she was. 

Seeing her walk into the dawn also called back that beauty shot of Davos before the BotB when he found Shireen's toy. He was backlit by the dawn.

I felt like that final shot was deeply earned by the episode and the actress. I like that the show never really explains her much. 

[Wouter]

18 hours ago, jeansheridan said:

Since y'all are book readers, based on the books thus far, how would this battle look differently? Would we have three Targaryens on three dragons? Lady Stoneheart protecting her children? More wolves? Is Jaime even alive at this point? It's a bit exciting to imagine different ways to get to the same outcome, Arya taking out the Night King.

In the books, there is no Night King (except as a historical/mythical figure in a tale, a lord commander of the Night's Watch who got enthralled by the Others and was killed by the then lord Stark). AFAIK, there is not a single person to kill to defeat the whole army of the death. Wights are different, too, in the books: slower but without a clear vulnerability to dragonglass (which only kills white walkers instantly, in the books).

I suspect that the actual army will have to be defeated in the books, or at least all of the Others/White Walkers who control the wights.

18 hours ago, paramitch said:

According to Martin, Arya was always going to take out the NK, it's just that in his universe everyone is 4-5 years younger, so she's basically 12 doing so in his mind, not 18 as here.

Source? The NK doesn't exist in the books (in that form). When/where dit Martin state anything about this?

D&D did say though that they had planned for Arya to take out the NK for 3-4 seasons already (and true enough, you can see the foreshadowing), but did not imply this came from Martin. To the contrary, their statements implied they made the choice themselves ("Jon would have been boring").

16 hours ago, Misplaced said:

Having just watched it again, a few random thoughts:

3. Sansa and Tyrion in the crypt - I am pretty sure Tyrion whipped out his own dragonglass knife before kissing Sansa's hand - and then it looked like they were going to lead people out of the crypts by trying to kill the crawling dead with their knives.  Also I thought that was Maester Lewin lurching around (as someone said upthread), ewww.

4. I think the first wight to attack Dany/Jorah after the wights were shaken off Drogon (he was one of the shaken-off-wights) was The Bald Dude wilding from Hardhome? 

5.  Melisandre walking out into the snow at the end - the music there is a variation on "Forgive Me", Season 5, which is the theme behind Stannis betraying Shireen / Shireen walking to the pyre.  Both are walking between two sides of an army, one alive and one dead.

Melisandre felt her job was done I think, and she was probably tired of living (since she is extremely old and only alive by magical means) and sick of what she had done to reach her ultimate goal, the defeat of the army of the dead.

I don't think any of the wights were recognisable (new ones like Lyanna Mormont apart), otherwise they would have to use and credit the actors involved.

In the crypts, the wights seemed to come through the walls and have plenty of flesh on them. I think they were wights which arrived with the NK and just found a way to breach the crypt (the walls apparently being less strong that the front door?), rather than old Starks coming to live (almost all of which would have been really old skeletons).

[jcin617]

34 minutes ago, Wouter said:

In the crypts, the wights seemed to come through the walls and have plenty of flesh on them. I think they were wights which arrived with the NK and just found a way to breach the crypt (the walls apparently being less strong that the front door?), rather than old Starks coming to live (almost all of which would have been really old skeletons).

They were punching their way out of the sarcophagi, not the walls.  (You can see how thin the stone was when their arms come through... not thick stone like a wall).   

[EccentricLily]

40 minutes ago, jcin617 said:

They were punching their way out of the sarcophagi, not the walls.  (You can see how thin the stone was when their arms come through... not thick stone like a wall).   

It looked to me as though several of these were swathed in cerements so, yes, right from the grave, er, sarcophagus! Ugh. It really is a shame we weren't shown Sansa and Tyrion resisting the wights along with the others; this left an unfavorable impression of them both. 

[benteen]

While the idea of the long dead Stark coming out of the crypts is a cool one, I doesn't make much sense as almost all of them are just bones and dust.  Hell, I think Ned is just a bunch of dissembled bones now.

[proserpina65]

19 hours ago, Chaser said:

I still can’t get over some of those military choices. I wonder what it would have looked like if Robb planned it.

Robb was good at military tactics.  So was Tywin Lannister and Stannis Baratheon.  Jaime was the only one left who had any skill in that area, but even then, he isn't his father.

[EccentricLily]

I have re-watched the scene, with many stop-action pauses. Nothing happens inside the crypt until after the NK raises the newly dead. Then the first hand punches through a sarcophagus. Note how thin the ‘wall’ is, and how hollow within the opening.  The body is enshrouded and tumbles out, still loosely wrapped. Shortly afterward a second one punches through at the upper right corner of another sarcophagus.

I contend that if the first wight had burrowed through earth and stone to break into the crypt, its attire would have been shredded and torn and filthy. If the crypt sits below Winterfell as described, any wights would have had a great deal of tunneling to do.

As an aside, in the fourth chapter (“Eddard”) of the book Game of Thrones:

“...By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now. He hoped not. …”

Perhaps there were a few Starks who had no swords, but whose bones yet remained. In a later scene of this episode, the fugitives in the crypt are gathered about several unbroken tombs whose statues still have swords.

I would just as soon the Stark dead had not been affected by the NK, but this is why it seems to me at least some of them were. 

[Kate47]

Watching the Inside the Episode clips, I feel kind of bad for the set designers of the crypt scene. They're so proud of the makeup for the risen dead, how they made them realistic and flaky with hair and bone showing, and nobody can even tell if they're rising from tombs or busting down the walls.

Reminds me of all the beautifully wasted embroidery details in the costuming. Why do you do this, show.

[iMonrey]

Yes, it's clear from the "making of" documentary that a lot of attention (and time, and money) went into details that were imperceptible to most TV viewers because everything was too dark. 

[MrWhyt]

3 hours ago, beetlebaum said:

I have re-watched the scene, with many stop-action pauses. Nothing happens inside the crypt until after the NK raises the newly dead. Then the first hand punches through a sarcophagus. Note how thin the ‘wall’ is, and how hollow within the opening.  The body is enshrouded and tumbles out, still loosely wrapped. Shortly afterward a second one punches through at the upper right corner of another sarcophagus.

I contend that if the first wight had burrowed through earth and stone to break into the crypt, its attire would have been shredded and torn and filthy. If the crypt sits below Winterfell as described, any wights would have had a great deal of tunneling to do.

As an aside, in the fourth chapter (“Eddard”) of the book Game of Thrones:

“...By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now. He hoped not. …”

Perhaps there were a few Starks who had no swords, but whose bones yet remained. In a later scene of this episode, the fugitives in the crypt are gathered about several unbroken tombs whose statues still have swords.

I would just as soon the Stark dead had not been affected by the NK, but this is why it seems to me at least some of them were. 

or perhaps the iron swords tradition is just based on superstition. 

[GraceK]

I’m interested to see Jon have more of a personality again. He’s been so focused on the NK and this threat for years that he hasn’t been able to live his life. It’s gonna be interesting to see what he does now. 

[FemmyV]

Four watches later:

The crypt survivors shot is a little humorous in a 'clean up in aisle 4' kind of way.

Bran's wheelchair kind of looks like a throne, doesn't it?

The look between Arya and Bran at the end says so much, with so few words: everything we went through, to get to this moment.

[Lemuria]

I have to admit, I got a bit of a kick out of this rant about the NK's end: The WORST ending for Game of Thrones!

[ShellsandCheese]

11 minutes ago, Lemuria said:

I have to admit, I got a bit of a kick out of this rant about the NK's end: The WORST ending for Game of Thrones!

Lots of valid points. 

[Lemuria]

1 minute ago, ShellsandCheese said:

Lots of valid points. 

Especially the part about sewing shut the mouth the Merc With a Mouth!  😁

[rmontro]

15 hours ago, jcin617 said:

They were punching their way out of the sarcophagi, not the walls.  (You can see how thin the stone was when their arms come through... not thick stone like a wall).   

I was confused about whether the dead were rising in the crypts when I watched the show, everything was so dark.  But the behind the scenes special confirms that the dead in the crypts rise, so we can put that question behind us.

I still think that most of those dead had to be nothing but skeletons by this point, but all the corpses we saw had a lot of flesh on them still.  Ned was just a box of bones, and he hasn't been dead as long as others in the crypt.  Maybe there are a lot of recent dead in there, from Robb's war, Theon's takeover, and the Boltons ruling there.  Maybe the ones that were all skeletal couldn't "pull themselves together".  Unless the Night King's magic restored some flesh to them, which I find doubtful.

Not saying the episode was perfect, but I loved it.  I feel like I've watched the climax of the show, really, even though there are three more to go.  That was just the most epic thing I have ever seen.

[jeansheridan]

4 hours ago, Lemuria said:

have to admit, I got a bit of a kick out of this rant about the NK's end: The WORST ending for Game of Thrones!

I think he needs some herbal tea. I personally don't mind a clear victory for once. Or that killing the NK killed all of his minions (it wasn't instantaneous either...they die in waves moving away from the NK's location). There have been plenty of mixed wins on this show.  And the show ends on a lovely pensive note. Dawn is rising and one of the heroes of the hour melts away. Plus I liked making Mel, who is maybe at best a chaotic good character, one of the major contributors to their victory.

I rewatched just once. The action was easy to follow on my smallish low def TV. It's not an episode to watch on an iPad. I would love to see it in a theater actually.

But what I love is that there are very few triumphant moments. Jon doesn't pose prettily or heroically. Dany does her Dracerys thing but she looks tense doing it. Only Theon really gets a hero's pause when Bran thanks him (and this time I noted the body count around him...Theon was a killing machine).

Yeah this ep improves with multiple viewings which I love. And I generally hate battle scenes.

[Misplaced]

7 hours ago, rmontro said:

 I still think that most of those dead had to be nothing but skeletons by this point, but all the corpses we saw had a lot of flesh on them still.  Ned was just a box of bones, and he hasn't been dead as long as others in the crypt.  Maybe there are a lot of recent dead in there, from Robb's war, Theon's takeover, and the Boltons ruling there.  Maybe the ones that were all skeletal couldn't "pull themselves together".  Unless the Night King's magic restored some flesh to them, which I find doubtful.

Soooo this was sort of my thing on putting everyone down in the crypts in the first place ("they're safe! the crypts are safe, don't worry!")...I think all the dead-raising Jon Et Al have seen are the newly-dead.  Every warning the NW receives beyond the wall is "burn the bodies before dark", the dead in Wall battles are burned before dark, Hardhome dead were raised just after dying, etc etc etc.  So I'm genuinely wondering if Team Alive supposed the Dead Raising Rule = the Night King can only raise "fresh" dead.  It's like Amazon Fresh, but different.

Speculative question now that I'm considering further:

Spoiler

Would Uncle Benjen have 'died' when the Night King was killed?  As I recall from Episode Whatever, the Children save Benjen from zombifying by knifing dragonglass into his heart, just as they created the Night King.  So what's with that, then??  Is he still roaming around beyond the Wall? 

Edited May 2, 2019 by Misplaced
...correcting a stray 'd' (Night Kind doesn't make a whole lot of sense)

[Misplaced]

Oh!  And one other thing I noticed.  Jon Snow has only one spoken line in this episode:  "The Night King is coooming."  Cue Ned Stark! 

[Maximum Taco]

On 4/30/2019 at 1:10 PM, jeansheridan said:

Since y'all are book readers, based on the books thus far, how would this battle look differently? Would we have three Targaryens on three dragons? Lady Stoneheart protecting her children? More wolves? Is Jaime even alive at this point? It's a bit exciting to imagine different ways to get to the same outcome, Arya taking out the Night King.

It would look much much different. 

In the books there is no Night King. The Night's King in the books is a legendary figure akin to Brandon the Builder, or Lann the Clever someone who existed long before the Andals even came to Westeros. In the books there is no indication the Others even have a leader (Melisandre does sometimes refer to a "Great Other" but he's seen more as a metaphysical god to oppose R'hllor then a physical being in this world.) GRRM writes them much more like a zombie horde, but with more elegance, they are not organized, and they have never attacked in anything like a coordinated assault like we see in the show at Hardhome or this episode. That's not to say they don't travel and attack in groups, they do attack Jeor Mormont's force at the Fist of the First Men, but in ADwD when Jon asks Tormund if the Others ever attacked them Tormund tells him they were with them the entire way, but never attacked in force. 

IMO, Others in the books should be seen more as the advancing front of a natural destruction, like a tsunami or lava flow or hurricane. It's going to slowly cross the wall and come south, but it's not going to be "Ok they've gathered all their forces at Winterfell! Let's make directly for there boys!" The Others don't think, they pursue warm blooded creatures. So while they will attack on mass if there's a collection of them at proximity (like at the Fist of the First Men) they aren't going to think and make an assault and use tactics to take a castle. 

Will there even BE a battle like this one? Arya might take out a White Walker, but I don't think the conclusion to the threat of the Others will be as a simple as "take out the leader and watch the rest of them crumble to shards of ice" in the books. 

Edited May 2, 2019 by Maximum Taco

[jeansheridan]

23 hours ago, Maximum Taco said:

The Others don't think, they pursue warm blooded creatures. So while they will attack on mass if there's a collection of them at proximity (like at the Fist of the First Men) they aren't going to think and make an assault and use tactics to take a castle. 

It's been a long time since I read the first book but don't the walkers leave the mutilated bodies artistically arranged? And Craster's sons are sacrificed too. My point being they have intentions versus mindless killing (they don't even snack, do they? They are just killing).

George isn't a tidy writer so the conflict probably will be messier but the thought of the enemy just being an amorphous natural force would drive me batty. How do you defeat nature?

Edited May 3, 2019 by jeansheridan
Spelling

[Misplaced]

2 hours ago, Misplaced said:

Speculative question now that I'm considering further:

  Reveal spoiler

Would Uncle Benjen have 'died' when the Night King was killed?  As I recall from Episode Whatever, the Children save Benjen from zombifying by knifing dragonglass into his heart, just as they created the Night King.  So what's with that, then??  Is he still roaming around beyond the Wall? 

Ooops never mind, forgot / blocked out of my mind that whole Wight Hunt storyline.  Although the narrative implications are making my head ache if 

Spoiler

he isn't a human OR a wight but a dragonglassed-Something.  So can he be 'killed' by wights?  Or is he maybe still lurching around?  Over to Speculation Thread. 

[Maximum Taco]

2 hours ago, jeansheridan said:

It's been a long time since I read the first book but don't the walkers leave the mutilated bodies artistically arranged? And Craster's sons are sacrificed too. My point bring they have intentions versus mindless killing (they don't even snack, do they? They are just killing).

George isn't a tidy writer so the conflict probably will be messier but the thought of the enemy just being an amorphous natural force would drive me batty. How do you defeat nature?

No they don't.

In A Game of Thrones (the book) Prologue, Will tells Ser Waymar that he saw a camp of dead wildlings, but they aren't mutilated or arranged. They were just sitting/laying down around a campsite with the fire having gone out. Will thinks they are dead because they aren't moving ("No living man ever lay so still") Waymar then asks if he saw any blood and Will says "no." Waymar suggests they could be sleeping, and Will says he waited for a long time and they never moved, he's sure they are dead. Gared then suggests the cold killed them. Waymar says that's impossible, the Wall has been Weeping, so it's not cold enough for anyone to freeze to death and insists upon investigating further. 

When they go to investigate the bodies are gone (presumably because they became wights), and they are attacked by Others. Of note here is the Others leave Will alone they don't look for him or hunt for him, even though he's just up a tree directly over Waymar and Waymar was just yelling at him. They dispassionately kill Waymar, and when there's no one left to kill they move on. 

Craster's sons are sacrificed, but we don't know how that works exactly. All we know from the books is that when the white cold comes Craster leaves his son out to freeze to death. What exactly happens? Is it a ritual like in the show? Or is it as simple as an infant (or young child) left to freeze will become an Other as opposed to a wight? The Others do seem to leave Craster alone, but we don't know that this is an agreed upon accord, or if it's something more mystical. Is this a blood ritual that is keeping Craster safe? Or is there really a "Great Other" who is pleased with the sacrifice and legitimately keeps the Others from attacking him so he can get more Others?

How do you defeat nature? Yeah, that's the interesting question. Way more interesting IMO then the old kill Sauron and the evil army crumbles cliche. How do you defeat an enemy that is dispassionate, that has no desire, that has no intellect to manipulate, that has no emotion to take advantage of, that has no clear goal (beyond the slow methodical destruction of everything) to disrupt? Especially in a world where most of the victories have come via an enemy's hubris, or stupidity or emotion. That's what makes the Others threatening.

Edited May 2, 2019 by Maximum Taco

[tv-talk]

Been awhile for me too but I feel as if it was apparent Craster had some kind of understanding with them which would mean they are more than mindless killing machines.

The main difference I think we'd have gotten in book form is more characters would have died. This episode was pure Hollywood.

[MarySNJ]

On 5/1/2019 at 9:50 AM, benteen said:

While the idea of the long dead Stark coming out of the crypts is a cool one, I doesn't make much sense as almost all of them are just bones and dust.  Hell, I think Ned is just a bunch of dissembled bones now.

According to the BTS videos, they were created to look like mummies because they'd been dead so long. 

[Maximum Taco]

20 hours ago, tv-talk said:

Been awhile for me too but I feel as if it was apparent Craster had some kind of understanding with them which would mean they are more than mindless killing machines.

The main difference I think we'd have gotten in book form is more characters would have died. This episode was pure Hollywood.

It's never really expanded upon in the books. 

Gilly says that if her child is a boy Craster will "give him to the gods" another of Craster's wives say the boy's brothers will come for him with the white cold. 

It's definitely implied that the boys become walkers (Craster's wives believe this anyhow), and fans have inferred that Craster's sacrifices must somehow be saving himself and his wives from the Others but it's deliberately left ambiguous exactly what kind of arrangement it is. Is this an arrangement with the Great Other? Is this an arrangement with the Others themselves? Does Craster himself even know? And we'll never really find out now, cause Craster's dead. Unless Martin decides to give us a word of god.

Edited May 3, 2019 by Maximum Taco

[MadameKillerB]

Re: Craster's sons

Do the babies grow up quickly? Are the sons the military leaders in armor? Are there some babies back at the Night King's lair? I really wanted more of an answer to that in the show.

[AshleyN]

On 5/1/2019 at 11:20 AM, benteen said:

While the idea of the long dead Stark coming out of the crypts is a cool one, I doesn't make much sense as almost all of them are just bones and dust.  Hell, I think Ned is just a bunch of dissembled bones now.

I saw someone elsewhere suggest that that scene would have been creepier if they'd come alive but remained trapped in their tombs, and instead all the characters down there had been surrounded by the sounds of them struggling to get out. I think I agree actually -- I get the idea that nowhere is safe and all, but all those long dead, mostly decomposed corpses punching through solid stone just didn't really work for me.

[iMonrey]

Quote

I’m interested to see Jon have more of a personality again. He’s been so focused on the NK and this threat for years that he hasn’t been able to live his life. It’s gonna be interesting to see what he does now. 

Frankly he never had much of a personality even before he found out the Night King existed.