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S08.E03: The Long Night

Athena

By Athena
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Meredith Quill
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Growsonwalls
Growsonwalls

HOLY SHIT. I THINK AFTER THAT EPISODE ALL OF WESTEROS NEEDS TO BEND THE KNEE TO ARYA STARK, SLAYER OF NIGHT WALKERS. HONORARY KNEE BENDS TO LYANNA MORMONT, SLAYER OF GIANT WIGHT WALKERS, THEON GR

rozen
rozen

This was great and all...but what the hell was Bran's plan? Seriously? He sat there warging into some ravens watching w/ surround sound as the Night King came to murder him? I honestly expected the Ni

scarynikki12
scarynikki12

ARYA IS MY QUEEN HOLY FUCK!!!

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kieyra

kieyra

I expect people’s stream source (cable vs HBO Now vs HBO Go vs Amazon HBO, plus wired or wireless) has more to do with quality than whether an A/V tech tweaked some settings in their Picture menu. >.> The HBO Now stream is known to be worse quality than, for example, Amazon’s HBO product. HBO Now on WiFi last night was hot pixelated garbage.

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Bannon

Bannon

54 minutes ago, Blakeston said:

I'll say it - I was disappointed by this episode.

I get what they were going for with the extreme darkness and the frenetic editing - "what you can't see is scarier than what you can see!" - but a little of that goes away. It was so disorienting that at many times I just wasn't engaged like I should have been.

And it was flat-out ridiculous that so few of the significant characters died.

Bodies were piled up all over, they were absolutely overwhelmed with wights inside Winterfell, and the dragons were indiscriminately breathing fire everywhere...and somehow the only recognizable casualties were obvious redshirts like Theon and Jorah, and a few minor characters? Talk about plot armor!

There were obviously some good moments, as well (like the sense of terror when the Dothraki's lights were snuffed out) but I was expecting a lot more.

I didn't expect a great episode, because with the exception of Blackwater, I've not thought that battle episodes were a strength of these writers. My expectations were pretty much met, especially since half the combatants were unfeeling, unthinking, zombies, and it is the emotions,  fear, uncertainty, confusion, rage, etc., of combatants, and how they channel those emotions into action/improvisation, or paralyzing inaction, which makes battle compelling. It's just a fundamental weakess of zombie fiction; zombies are kind of tedious, especially when the Zombie General and his officers are pretty much ciphers.

Luckily, there have been other elements of this show which I've enjoyed at lot, for many years.

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Bannon

Bannon

8 minutes ago, sumiregusa said:

My issue (and clearly unpopular opinion) with this show is that the writers have removed all sense of wonder and unpredictability from the storytelling. The only thing keeping me on my toes is having to dodge so many plot anvils falling from the sky. Everyone is talking about how blown away they are and how magnificent everything is. While I do agree that the show has fabulous actors and is visually stunning -- it's pretty hard to argue simple facts -- that isn't enough.

Things have been going downhill since S5, with the exception of Hardhome. The writing is clunky, the tropes are obvious, the surprises really aren't that surprising. Inside The Episode doesn't even feel like D&D are revealing anything because their explanations aren't necessary to me. Maybe I'm too jaded, maybe I've expected too much from the story given how well, for the most part, D&D adapted the content from the books. As far as creativity is concerned, I am giving the show writers a big D leaning towards an F. Congratulations guys, you are hitting all the beats, you're checking things off the writer to-do list. Just show me the ending already. I'm bored.

I don't think the show ever fully recovered from Tywin Lamnister's death. I mean, it made sense dramatically, but once he was gone, the royal politics, which is what I enjoyed most from the beginning, were really diminished, from a storytelling perspective.

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sarthaz

sarthaz

(edited)
1 hour ago, catrox14 said:

Whilst it felt annoying that Jon didnt kill yhe Night King, Arya killing was foreshadowed long ago. If it had been someone other than Arya, then I would have been upset. Jon's purpose may have never been to kill him himself but more to be the one that stayed alive long enough to get the message across to the others that the NK was going to kill all of them.  He must have a differnt purpose now.

I think the inability to see much was intentional to help us feel exactly what those in yhe field of battle were experiencing, confusion and fear.

Yeah, I always expected Arya to get the kill here. My working theory was that she was going to impersonate Bran and lure the Night King in for an up-close kill. What they did was cool, though.

And while this episode was a spectacular technical achievement, I totally empathize with those who didn't enjoy it. If you watch this show for story and intrigue and characters and plot, there's really none of that in an 82-minute battle sequence. At times, I found myself bored with it all.

Edited by sarthaz
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Drogo

Drogo

Just now, Law Mom said:

As for everyone having a role to play, let's give it up for Hot Pie, without whose friendship Arya never would have made it to Winterfell. Also the nameless girl who taught Arya how to fight in the dark when she was blind.

+Catelyn Stark for being such an extreme bitch to Jon Snow that he chose a life of celibacy among rapists and murderers rather than remaining comfortable in a castle with her.

+Ros for sending Theon into deep despair when she left Winterfell so he started making bad choices that brought him to this moment. 

+Viserys Targaryen for being such a colossal jackass that even a dragon named for him can't be trusted. 

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enoughcats

enoughcats

30 minutes ago, Moot Smoothie said:

an article this morning about how the makers have been purposely using only "natural" light for past several seasons in order to be more authentic because they didn't actually have giant electric lights back in 'those days' which never happened anyhow and people were too poor to be burning candles inside! 

We rewatched the library's version of Season 7 and their copy showed dark scenes for that year much better than our taken from Directv copy: same TV set, same settings.   I wondered if they had tweaked the settings before making the DVDs.

Carolina Girl

Carolina Girl

10 hours ago, gorgy said:

It's great to find people who dislike Sam as much as I do. I thought I was the only one

I would have been fine with Sam going down in the crypt and staying out of the effing WAY.  As a result of this pudding shitting his pants, we lost Dolorous Edd and probably no-named others since they had to take out the members of the AotD that were surrounding him.  So much for his pre-battle boast of being the one who'd actually KILLED a WhiteWalker.  

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Drogo

Drogo

2 minutes ago, MV713 said:
11 hours ago, BitterApple said:

Since the Dothraki and majority of the Unsullied are now gone, do Jon and Dany have the numbers to beat Cersei?

this is what I am wondering now.

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

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LadyChaos

LadyChaos

4 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

Dany to Drogon and Rhaegal :Make sure you pick the Crockery off before you eat your BBQ

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BooBear

BooBear

26 minutes ago, aquarian1 said:

  She had just seen Dany in the thick of battle working to protect them, too.  I don't know why she'd still be wary of others being loyal to her.

I was a little surprised by that too. I loved the scene where the two dragons took out like 700 dead in one shot right in front of Sansa and Arya.  My only theory was that it was not meant to be a Barb against Dany. But more a "your heart has been captured by Dany" thing. I hope Sansa apologizes next episode. Everyone was freaked out and salty.

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Fairlily26

Fairlily26

13 hours ago, Advance35 said:

OMG I just don't know what to do with myself.

Arya Stark saved the world.  It had reached the point where I couldn't stay seated and was watching standing up.

You too?! I had a chatterbox toddler in the background and every question Mr Lily asked got an aggressive hand wave with no verbal answer. 

Shit was so real in my living room last night, especially with the scenes being shot so dark I could hardly tell what was even happening!

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Bannon

Bannon

6 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

It'll be interesting to see if they write the remaining military strategy with a modicum of intelligence, because it actually is kind of a interesting conflict strategically and tactically. One side is now hugely superior in conventional military capabilities, while the other is hugely superior in unconventional weapons of mass destruction (dragon), special operations (Arya's faces and assassin's skills), and very, very, importantly, intelligence gathering (Bran, and using the dragons for aerial observation). Cersei's politically brittle rule (and as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu note war is inherently political) is a big fat target for a well planned, well executed decapitation strike, but the dragon is not invulnerable, and the enemy having a much bigger, better provisioned army amd navy are real problems for the northern forces to overcome.

I really hope they write well enough, given a pretty interesting remaining human premise, now that the zombies are gone. 

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DrSparkles

DrSparkles

11 hours ago, Conan Troutman said:

I just don't see how he could be even harder to bring down and he needs to have one weakness. I can't imagine there's going to be three episodes worth of fighting Cersei either. We'll get one transitional episode next week, one battle episode where Cersei goes down and then one hour of hugging (and boy are we going to need that). 

Agreed.

Kate47

Kate47

(edited)

The significance of the night battle is that the Night King comes to bring the Long Night. He brings the deep darkness and the fear, and your blood freezes in your veins and you know true cold and terror and pain. When he dies, the sun rises.

I too couldn't see shit, but a day battle wouldn't have had the same impact IMO. I was hoping to see giant spiders pale as ice, but you can't have everything.

Edited by Kate47
Word repetition
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Joimiaroxeu

Joimiaroxeu

Quote

Well Arya was kissing someone in the preview clip.  So Gendry lives or Arya’s a ho.

She better be thanking Gendry for that Vitamin D injection he gave her the night before. Not that she wouldn't have been a badass anyway but it seems to have given her some extra, um, incentive.

Quote

Fat yellow-bellied bastard.

Right? Especially after all the bragging he did before the battle. He delivered nothing but wolf tickets.

Quote

Jerome Flynn and Lene Headey won't share any scenes.  

I had to google the backstory there and wow, that's some The Good Wife-level of petty.

Quote

And now we know why the children in the North grow up hearing terrifying stories of the White Walkers before bed, where in the South they consider WWs along the lines of grumpkins/snarks/imaginary creatures- and why House Stark's words (Winter is Coming) are held in such high regard by Northerners while the Southern houses find the words boring and tiresome.  

Sounds like the South, Cersei in particular, is overdue for some comeuppance.

I'm going back and forth on who I want to kill Cersei. One minute I want it to be Jaime and the next I want it to be Arya. It'll probably end up being some random person that no one predicted.

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chrisvee

chrisvee

(edited)
23 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

lol let’s hope so!

ETA LeBron James

Edited by chrisvee
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Bryce Lynch

Bryce Lynch

15 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

Exactly.  The only numbers that count are:

Dany: 2 dragons, 1 Arya

Cersei : 0 dragons, 0 Aryas, 0 elephants  

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paigow

paigow

15 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

They can pick up "Second Sons for Second Brides" and other assorted sellswords / conscripts / gladiators / slaves along the way....

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sunnyface

sunnyface

Quote

Someone in the cast or crew said that this season they were essentially making a whole movie for each episode. After seeing this episode, I totally agree.

That's part of the reason that the first two episodes (especially the 2nd) failed to excite.  The lighting of the 3rd episode ruined the episode's opportunity to appear film-like.  Half of the season is done and has been quite underwhelming.  After all the screen time for those creatures and Still no explanation.

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Constantinople

Constantinople

Ultimately, the episode fell a little flat for me despite the tremendous achievement of putting the entire thing together. I understand many people will feel differently in whole or in part to the points below

  • It was too difficult to see anything. That's realistic, but frustrating as the episode wore on.  It reminded me of when the miniseries Shogun didn't have English subtitles when Japanese was spoken. Also realistic, but increasingly frustrating.
     
  • Some scenes, such the wights chasing Arya in the library, seemed to go on to long.  I kept thinking of the raptors in kitchen in the first Jurassic Park
     
  • I never really felt a sense of why the Night King wanted to eliminate knowledge.  Ultimately, for me, it felt to me as if the Night King only wanted to eliminate knowledge so that Bran could be bait.  Not that Bran was bait because the Night King wanted to eliminate knowledge
     
  • Jon and Daenerys had a role in defeating the Night King, as did everyone, but I didn't feel as if rose to the level of Melisandre's mumbo jumbo about a savior.  It's as if the LOL -- acronym intended -- knew a soft sell such as "everyone can do their bit" wouldn't cut it.
     
  • I didn't like the dead coming to life in the crypts. There was too much foreshadowing in the previous episode about how the crypts were the only safe place. Also, based on nothing but my own preference, I thought there should be some limits to raising the dead based on how long or disassembled they are.
     
  • I'm kind of ticked off at Sam for getting Edd killed and putting other people's lives in jeopardy.
     
  • I'm also unsure how they'll fill the next 3 episodes, now that the Night King is dead.

That said, I don't think it was too easy to kill the Night King.  First he had to be knocked off his dragon (I'm not sure if that was Daenerys or Jon or both of them who did that).  Then Daenerys, Jon and Theon all tried to kill the Night King before Arya succeeded.

And I think it makes sense that Arya killed the Night King, at least, if anyone was going to kill him at close quarters, closer than sword length.  But, as I said, it did undercut the whole savior mumbo jumbo.

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Macbeth

Macbeth

(edited)
3 hours ago, Wendy said:

IMO Arya got there before the WW and the NK, she probably sneaked right abound the Godswoood tree and bid her time knowing that the NK would come for Bran. She didn't run past the generals of the NK as I originally thought, she came out of nowhere, probably one of the branches of the tree. 

There is a call out to this in the Church of the Many Face God. 

During S6 when Jaquen approaches Arya and tells he will give her sight back if she admits she is Arya. She tells him that she is No One. Arya is kneeling at a lighted fireplace when he asks her. 

As Jaqen goes to get the potion to give her eyesight back, the camera pans out and you see part of a werewood tree was sculpted into the wall above the fireplace. 

Jaqen knew Arya was still House Stark. The many-faced God accepted all faiths. Did he see something in the flames that told of her future. Could explain why he let her go with a couple of faces in her bag. 

Edited by Macbeth
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Uncle JUICE

Uncle JUICE

1 minute ago, Bannon said:

It'll be interesting to see if they write the remaining military strategy with a modicum of intelligence, because it actually is kind of a interesting conflict strategically and tactically. One side is now hugely superior in conventional military capabilities, while the other is hugely superior in unconventional weapons of mass destruction (dragon), special operations (Arya's faces and assassin's skills), and very, very, importantly, intelligence gathering (Bran, and using the dragons for aerial observation). Cersei's politically brittle rule (and as Clausewitz and Sun Tzu note war is inherently political) is a big fat target for a well planned, well executed decapitation strike, but the dragon is not invulnerable, and the enemy having a much bigger, better provisioned army amd navy are real problems for the northern forces to overcome.

I really hope they write well enough, given a pretty interesting remaining human premise, now that the zombies are gone. 

I think they are only because the show wants them to be. For example? Bran, warg it up into some birds and find that fleet. Drogon, Rhaegal, in the middle of the night, all by yourselves, riders optional, fly silently to wherever that is, at altitude, then, here's the trick: you fly down there and burn as many ships as you can in the two minutes it will take to start putting people on the decks of those ships. Get nervous? Fly away! We can do more tomorrow! Army's a problem? Again, Bran raven wargs, where's the camp, and again, silent thrashing with fire by Drogon. 

I worry that no matter what happens, my original plan will STILL have been the best one. 

1: Land in Westeros with three dragons.

2: Fly three dragons directly to red keep. Perch two dragons ON red Keep.

3: Loudly announce to the staff that their wildly unpopular, insane and evil queen needs to be presented within two minutes. OR, you can burn with her, if you like. THere is almost no chance they'd have given their lives for their queen.

Dragons are basically a game ender. Should have been over by now, really. They should have scrapped the stupid summit in KL. 

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VCRTracking

VCRTracking

When D&D said this was like Helm's Deep, they weren't kidding, because that was a big battle where no major characters died either and wasn't really a climax!

Looking at season 8 as one long movie it probably is best they didn't "blow their wad" with three episodes left. It won't be considered the greatest battle of the show: Bastards was more epic, the night fighting was better in Castle Black, the tense buildup and civilian scenes at Blackwater was better, the horror was better in Hardhome, and Roseroad better utilized the dragons and Dothraki. Winterfell does have great moments and a fitting sendoff for a few characters.

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Drogo

Drogo

4 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:
22 minutes ago, Drogo said:

You know what Cersei still doesn't have?  Dragons. 

Bet that Golden Company armor will lend itself to the perfect Kentucky Fried Mercenaries.  (Like a Le Creuset, but for peoples.)  Get the hot sauce ready, folks!   

Exactly.  The only numbers that count are:

Dany: 2 dragons, 1 Arya

Also, while the Night King took home gold in the Ice Javelin Throw at the Sochi Olympics, Cersei is notably unathletic. 

*And even the skilled Night King couldn't hit Drogon or Rhaegal with his Ice Javelin... 

Apparently Viserion was the Rickon Stark of the dragon crew.

43aca3cbce65f6bdfa9a2f981eeef937

giphy.gif

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Carolina Girl

Carolina Girl

9 hours ago, Barbara Please said:

Cersei gets MVP for not sending her troops and letting the North do all the heavy lifting. 

Although, to me, the DOWN side for Cersei on this is that as the Northern Army moves toward King's Landing, word may spread to the other houses along the way that Cersei was gambling with their lives.  She had no way of knowing if Winterfell would survive the onslaught; if it didn't, there were now be - what? - Another 50,000 in the AofD from the casualties at Winterfell?  And the houses not in on summit (which is MOST of them) would have absolutely NO way of knowing how to kill them.  Dragonglass?  They not only don't have any, they have absolutely no way of knowing how to get it?  Valyrian Steel?  Very few arms are made with it.  Fire?  We've seen how ineffective that actually is on a grand scale.  And as the AofD moved south, more and more houses would fall and join it.  

Meanwhile, word will get out that the STARKS and TARGARYENS are the houses ones that saved Westoros; that the Lanisters did NOTHING (aside from Jaime and Tyrion) to try to save the people of Westeros.  Cersie may have those mercenaries; but Dany still has two dragons.  Now that Jaime has gone north and can reveal the plan to Dany, I suspect you'll see a night strike on Euron Greyjoy's fleet.    

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enoughcats

enoughcats

12 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

I'm going back and forth on who I want to kill Cersei. One minute I want it to be Jaime and the next I want it to be Arya. It'll probably end up being some random person that no one predicted.

May I enter Euron in the Kill Cersei sweepstakes.  A marriage happens and he finds that she either is pregnant with not-his, or no longer productive.  

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Uncle JUICE

Uncle JUICE

1 minute ago, aquarian1 said:

Addition for Cersei: (at least) 1 anti-dragon weapon curtousy of Qyburn 

More reason to do my night strike attack. Plus those weapons are garbage practically, if you're not Rickoning you can easily avoid them. Just fly straight up, presenting two problems: those huge spears decrease in terminal velocity very, very rapdily (fighting gravity), AND you suddenly have a bunch of spears raining down on your own troops. Plus how long does it take to reload? Long enough for a dragon to wheel around and charbroil your ass, is the answer. 

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AuxArx

AuxArx

Where the heck did Arya come from?  “I just flew in from the battle and boy, are my arms tired!”

I had forgotten about The Hound’s fear of fire.

Aww, Dany’s dragon sheltering her and dead Jorah.

I thought for a minute when Sansa pulled her knife that she was going to kill herself since it seemed that all was lost.

The bridges of the dead over the fires was so creepy.

I’m glad Jaime lived, mainly because I’m shallow and have always enjoyed looking at him.

So glad everyone else had a problem with the darkness; I was thinking that maybe it was time for that cataract surgery the doctor has warned is in my future.

And on a related “I’m so old” note—Googling the actors in this episode, I see that I’m older than everyone there, even Tormund’s portrayer, who was born after I was out of college and onto my second job.  Dang...

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Meredith Quill
Message added by Meredith Quill

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