S08.E03: The Long Night

[VCRTracking]

I would say the show has proven a Cersei backed into a corner is the most dangerous. Especially when she has a loyal mad scientist.

Edited April 29, 2019 by VCRTracking

[Charlemagne]

13 hours ago, Lemuria said:

It was an intense and scary episode and I really liked most of it.  In the end, though, I found it unsatisfying.  I know this will be an Unpopular Opinion:  I love Badass Arya and I'm all for Gril-l-l Power but there was no set-up for Arya to take down the NK.  In 7-1/2 seasons, nothing.  Not even a subtle hint, versus more than one stare-off between the NK and Jon.

It's one thing to have a twist, where the hints were very subtle but looking back, you can see the signs.  And maybe they slipped right past me, but I still can't see anything when I think back.  

So basically, for me, it ended up being a bait-and-switch, and I hate those.

They set it up for her to kill him in Season 3 and in Season 7.

[Giselle]

Just now, VCRTracking said:

I would say the show has proven a Cersei backed into a corner is the most dangerous.

Her survival instinct is her greatest weapon.

[GodsBeloved]

4 minutes ago, Drogo said:

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.

Really? You’re doing this after I just lost Theon. 

Last week you were so wrong. This week you are triple wrong.

[Bryce Lynch]

4 minutes ago, aquarian1 said:

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

While it wounded Drogon, it didn't win the Battle of the Loot Train, and that was against only one dragon.

Plus, Dany now knows about the Giant Crossbow and she and Jon presumably will be careful to avoid it, and look to destroy it at the start of the battle  Also, I doubt Bronn will be fighting on Cersei's side, and I'm not sure how many others would be skilled enough to hit a dragon and crazy enough to try.  

1 minute ago, Giselle said:

Her survival instinct is her greatest weapon.

Yes, and her ruthlessness.  If Cersei survives it will be cause she is pure evil, and evil will always triumph because good is dumb.  

[ElectricBoogaloo]

3 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

I would say the show has proven a Cersei backed into a corner is the most dangerous. Especially when she has a loyal mad scientist.

2 minutes ago, Giselle said:

Her survival instinct is her greatest weapon.

Unless she thinks that death is imminent, in which case she’s ready to kill herself and her kids. 

[VCRTracking]

[Bryce Lynch]

2 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Unless she thinks that death is imminent, in which case she’s ready to kill herself and her kids. 

I'm not sure Cersei fears rape, torture, etc. from Dany, Jon and their troops the way she did from Stannis's men.   Plus, she has grown harder and more brutal since Blackwater and doesn't have any children to worry about.  

I expect her to fight to the death, though I think Arya will cross her off her list.  

[Growsonwalls]

Because I cannot say this enough; Alfie Allen is an amazing actor. He took a character most despised at the outset and turned him into such a complex, three dimensional person. His look of complete serenity as he looked at Bran and prepared to die was wonderful acting, Cannot wait to see what he does next.

[Quickbeam]

13 hours ago, MVFrostsMyPie said:

I need a musical montage of all the fallen so I can get some closure. 

I was hoping for some Hunger Game images....It would have been helpful.

[Smad]

Jon Snow: The prince that was promised to do absolutely nothing

Arya Stark: The princess that was promised to have Dr. Strange open a portal right above the NK

[Constantinople]

5 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Unless she thinks that death is imminent, in which case she’s ready to kill herself and her kids. 

But now that's been Queen, not just Queen Regent or Queen Consort, I don't think she'll go down so meekly.

And now I'm wondering if the pyromancers have been able to whip up any new wildfire

[MJ Frog]

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I was trying to figure out why Melisandre was able to light all the Dothraki swords so quickly but it seemed to take forever for her to light some flammable wood.

My guess is that there was some sort of fire suppression going on when that storm rolled in and the Night King was getting near. The fire arrows and torches weren't doing much good either.

Plus, it scares the crap out of the audience.

[Giselle]

3 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Unless she thinks that death is imminent, in which case she’s ready to kill herself and her kids. 

There was only one vial if I remember correctly. She was going to kill her son to spare him the pain of death or torture.  The executioner was to take care of the rest.

She was younger then and she's come a very long way from her time in the keep. 

[hnygrl]

I just realized just now...12 hours later (west coast), where the night king went wrong.

He got cocky. He felt himself to be undefeatable. So when Our Girl Arya....? He was like, "this yo' knight?!?!?" Until she pulled that Rae thing with the dagger. Would've lived if he didn't cockily play with his food...

Oh man...I'm still pumped...

I think that after this? Those that fought and lived? Will have nooooooo problem wiping Cerci's ass off the map. Easy Peasy after this. 

Man...Cerci don't even KNOW...

AND THAT WAS JUST EPISODE THREE!!!! EEEK!

[Bannon]

39 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

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. 

Well, look, this genre just demands that the audience suspend logic from time to time. If you are going to insert what are essentially living A-10 Warthogs into a medieval military conflict, you just need to gulp hard and handwave from time to time, or just not watch. 

Edited April 29, 2019 by Bannon

[Drogo]

14 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Quote

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.

TBH I probably wouldn't watch this show. 

[laprin]

12 hours ago, Giselle said:

I hope Gillie (sp?) didn't make it out of the crypt. Useless Cowardly Sam doesn't deserve to keep all of his family. 

Fat yellow-bellied bastard.

I don't want Gillie to suffer because of Sam's ineptitude.  He was absolutely useless and deserved to die for basically just standing in the way of the other fighters. 

[ulkis]

1 hour ago, sumiregusa said:

The writing is clunky, the tropes are obvious, the surprises really aren't that surprising. 

I'd rather they play the obvious beats than pull something random out of their behinds solely for the sake of surprise. I think the latter is horrible storytelling.

The writing is definitely much clunkier than when they still had the books as guidelines but given they have attempted to do what GRRM hasn't attempted to do in about 18 years I'm inclined to be lenient on them.

[Coxfires]

38 minutes ago, kieyra said:

Public service announcement for any young folks reading: None of the items above will prevent pregnancy. 

I know but, heck, it takes sometimes more than a few tries!

[LadyChaos]

In the Behind the scenes GoT just posted they said that they made sure that everyone was fighting a losing battle, and they were all truly fucked in whatever task they were trying to accomplish. They everyone, minus Arya, failed. 

[Bannon]

6 minutes ago, Drogo said:

TBH I probably wouldn't watch this show. 

Yeah, that wasn't me who wrote that. I agree that you just have to suspend logic in this genre, or you have a show that is over, once the dragons reach full size. The dragons are integral to the story, so I'm willing to do it. I wish elements like the giants had been left out, on the other hand, because they aren't integral, and thus introduce a lot of suspension of logic which is not needed.

[terrymct]

1 hour 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!   

Cersei DOES have a maester with homicidal tendencies and a big huge bolt shooting mega crossbow thing designed to take down dragons.

[Coxfires]

40 minutes ago, Giselle said:

Um... You can get preggers even if it is your first time. 

Of course, you can, but you also don't necessarily get preggo right away, many of my friends had to go at it for a while before finally getting preggers. Not that I am condoning unprotected sex AT ALL because that is just dumb for many other reasons than just pregnancy

[Lady Iris]

Last night was a ginormous roller coaster of everything that I'm still feeling it today. I can't comment on the skills of the writers because I'd never be able to parse out a storyline if my life depended on it. Well I suppose I could but it'd be as good as Sam is in combat.

For my money, a couple of the odder moments was Jon dismissing Sam as he was swarmed by the wights. I mean seriously, Jon didn't have time fo that. Also, when Bran just blandly said, "I'll be going now."

I like the idea that no one person was the savior of the day. It took something from everyone to achieve the end goal.

[MrsR]

 

 

 

1

3 hours ago, Drogo said:

Plenty, but they don't believe in the Lord O' Lite.  (The Hound seems to be coming around, though, definitely willing to pick up a pamphlets/promotional magnets.)

The Hound was praying at the end. 

He taught Arya where to put the knife for a quick kill.

[Bannon]

7 minutes ago, terrymct said:

Cersei DOES have a maester with homicidal tendencies and a big huge bolt shooting mega crossbow thing designed to take down dragons.

It really would make the most sense for Arya to enter Kings Landing covertly, take the face of someone not well guarded who interacts with Qyburn, then take Qyburn's face, then whack Cersei. Might lack some drama, of course.

[sumiregusa]

17 minutes ago, ulkis said:

I'd rather they play the obvious beats than pull something random out of their behinds solely for the sake of surprise. I think the latter is horrible storytelling.

The writing is definitely much clunkier than when they still had the books as guidelines but given they have attempted to do what GRRM hasn't attempted to do in about 18 years I'm inclined to be lenient on them.

I don't think they need to be random. They're capable of writing good surprises -- i.e. Hardhome, as I mentioned before. The fact that they have shown they can do it and are just choosing to do otherwise is IMO the worst kind of horrible storytelling.

As for GRRM, that is a separate complaint for a different day. He has been sitting back collecting checks without a care in the world so I don't have much to say in his defense. I just know it's disappointing when D&D intentionally fall short of the bar they set for themselves with their own show.

Edited April 29, 2019 by sumiregusa
Spellerizing is hard

[MadameKillerB]

My stomach actually hurt watching the episode. Not just the first time I watched it but even when we took a break and watched it again right before bed.

My first feeling: I felt satisfied. It was good television and I felt like I didn’t even need anything else. Like I wasn’t even invested in what happens after the rest of the series.

Of course, I have questions and thoughts 😊

-LOVED the parallel of Arya using the dagger right at the spot where Bran gave it to her. Dem skills, girl! Bran being chill cuz he knew what was coming.

-Jorah got his hero death. “I’m hurt.”

-Theon broke my heart. It was so generous of Bran to give him those words right before he dies. Alfie Allen has grown tremendously as an actor.

-Dany proves that yeah, she’ll make plans with you but in the end, she will do what she wants.

 (why didn’t she carry weapons?! I’m glad she picked one up but a dragonglass dagger strapped to her boot would have been prudent.)

-Missendei? I don’t get her snippiness with Sansa. Yeah, loyalty, but Sansa didn’t really rag on Dany. It took me out of the moment.

-THE MUSIC

-Sam being brave! Oh Edd is gone so now no more Night’s Watch. And with the Wall gone, everything will be restructured anyway.

-what was the Red Lady doing in that room with all the dead wights/soldiers? Just hanging by the fire, waiting to be spooky with Arya to get her to fulfill her destiny?

-the Hound def has PTSD, not just around fire but with all the death he’s wrought and his own death always just a swordfight away. He’s done. But he needs to fight his bro so I dunno…

-would have gladly given up a few cosmic dragon scenes in order to get more Ghost. I like that he was by Jorah. I think Ghost thought that was where he was needed?

-Tyrion and Sansa ready to die. I don’t want them to end up together but it looks like the show is shipping them hard.

-most touching moment: Drogon comforting Dany. He was making little kitty noises and it broke me.

ETA: Oh, Beric! My husband was like: dying like old school movie stars, bro. Good stuff.

more eta: great article posted about the lighting! we watched this with my son who is in film school atm so he was telling us all about frame rate, lighting, etc. We watched it around 8pm in our darkened living room.

one last eta: How could I forget Little Bear Lyanna! I was jumping up and down in my seat and my husband was like, "look, she's gonna kill that giant. Lyanna the Giantkiller's gonna get songs, it's okay...it's okay." LOL

Edited April 29, 2019 by MadameKillerB

[Growsonwalls]

I know it's a trope but i loved that the bravest fighters were the least physically imposing. Arya-is so tiny and yet she killed the NK. Lyanna Mormont is only a little girl, but she slayed a giant before dying. Theon has a few appendages missing but he fearlessly defended Bran. And Jorah was never really a fighter either. Because sometimes it really is about the bravery you have inside your heart, and not the kind of weapons you have,.

[ulkis]

1 minute ago, sumiregusa said:

I don't think they need to be random. They're capable of writing good surprises -- i.e. Hardome, as I mentioned before. The fact that they have shown they can do it and are just choosing to do otherwise is IMO the worst kind of horrible storytelling.

What was the surprise in Hardhome? 

I think it's hard to keep on doing genuine surprises for 8 seasons, imo. 

[sumiregusa]

Just now, ulkis said:

What was the surprise in Hardhome? 

I think it's hard to keep on doing genuine surprises for 8 seasons, imo. 

Maybe some people weren't surprised that they had a full confrontation with the AOTD but I sure was. Also Jon killing the walker.

[Drogo]

Just now, Growsonwalls said:

And Jorah was never really a fighter either.

How quickly we forget...

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, Bannon said:

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.

Yep, the older generations were the master politicians.  Without Tywin, Lady O did not have anyone to match her wits.  Also nobody left to control / direct Cersei's brute force approaches

[Lemuria]

9 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I hope Dany picks up his sword and brings it back to Sam. Sentimentality aside, there's no need for a sword made of Valyrian steel to go to waste!

Well, that would mean that you don't give it back to Sam.

[Hellga]

1 hour ago, Bryce Lynch said:

"The seed is strong." - Jon Arryn   

Expect a black of hair baby in 9 months.   🙂

Not that strong, or there would be not 16 bastards of Robert, but 160 if not 1600 🙂

I did not like this episode.  I wanted to feel them, to get emotional - well, the main emotion was facepalm.  Other than Lyanna Mormont's valiant death and Theon's last desperate charge there were no moments that made me sad.  Other than Melisandre lighting up the trenches, there were no moments to make me soar.  And it did not reach the level of st00pid which actually gets funny a-la the Battle of Five Armies (in the Hobbit movies).   Very meh.  Unless, of course, part of the battle plan was to cut down the number of hungry mouth (human and horse) as the provisions within Winterfell would not be enough to feed all of them.

[DarkRaichu]

1 hour ago, millennium said:

Was the rest of the vision metaphorical?

I believe most viewers took it as NK sitting on the throne.  With NK gone, at least I am interpreting it as a metaphor.  Also, Dany never sit on the throne in her vision, close but no sugar

[chrisvee]

29 minutes ago, LadyChaos said:

In the Behind the scenes GoT just posted they said that they made sure that everyone was fighting a losing battle, and they were all truly fucked in whatever task they were trying to accomplish. They everyone, minus Arya, failed. 

I hear what they are saying but everyone else contributes to Arya succeeding or else she would have been dead six times over.

[Dobian]

The only downside is that the Night King was always a thoroughly uninteresting and one-dimensional villain.  He didn't even talk.  His whole presence was really just to be the existential threat for our heroes to defeat, so the interest came from how they dealt with the challenge and not with him.  This compared to many other villains on GoT that were/are fascinating to watch (Cersei).

[ElectricBoogaloo]

This made me laugh!

[Bryce Lynch]

33 minutes ago, laprin said:

I don't want Gillie to suffer because of Sam's ineptitude.  He was absolutely useless and deserved to die for basically just standing in the way of the other fighters. 

Sam is not much of a warrior, but without him:

a) Nobody would know that dragonglass kills White Walkers

b) Nobody would know that there were huge deposits of dragonglass under Dragonstone 

c) Jorah Mormont would not have had a Valyrian steel sword to protect Daenyrs from the wights.   

He is pretty useless in battle, but extremely valuable to the battle.  Nobody expects any other maester or Qyburn to engage in combat.  

[Carolina Girl]

1 hour ago, VCRTracking said:

I would say the show has proven a Cersei backed into a corner is the most dangerous. Especially when she has a loyal mad scientist.

I'll see you one mad scientist and raise you a stealth Arya.  

[LadyChaos]

4 minutes ago, chrisvee said:

I hear what they are saying but everyone else contributes to Arya succeeding or else she would have been dead six times over.

I think what they mean is that, in their individual battles they all failed.  Everyone helped Arya succeed, but Jon couldn't win against the wight dragon, Jaime and Brianne could want against the horde, Sam had a nervous breakdown of sorts, Gendry and Davos couldn't beat off the hordes coming over the wall forever, etc... They were all in situations that they would have died.

[Uncle JUICE]

45 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Well, look, this genre just demands that the audience suspend logic from time to time. If you are going to insert what are essentially living A-10 Warthogs into a medieval military conflict, you just need to gulp hard and handwave from time to time, or just not watch. 

Totally with you, it doesn't stop me from appreciating the show, it's just one of those thought exercises I run into whenever I watch. Especially with such dwindled numbers on the north side. 

Let me ask anyone who wants to answer: are you "up" for another big battle episode like The Long Night? I am not sure I am as it comes to King's Landing. I don't know!

[mothmonsterman]

I was also impressed with how well everyone was fighting in what was essentially a blizzard. I have been in a few and it sucks. Walking 50 feet can be hard, let alone fighting murderous zombies. 

The fighters from the north had that advantage over everyone else, and I think they set up the fight plan well. I swooned when the unsullied yelled "protect the retreat." 

I saw Endgame Friday and it was great, but then I watched this and it blows Endgame out of the water. I am at work and can't wait to get home to watch it a 3rd time. 

Game of Thrones is the best television show ever, imo. I was antsy the last 2 weeks and thought they had lost that special spark, but I should have known to trust the show, they never fail. 

[VCRTracking]

What's great is we've seen Arya kill before out of revenge, first in rage and later with frightening serenity. We've seen her coldly execute Littlefinger. Killing the Night King and saving Bran was her first real hero moment.

[Bannon]

13 minutes ago, Dobian said:

The only downside is that the Night King was always a thoroughly uninteresting and one-dimensional villain.  He didn't even talk.  His whole presence was really just to be the existential threat for our heroes to defeat, so the interest came from how they dealt with the challenge and not with him.  This compared to many other villains on GoT that were/are fascinating to watch (Cersei).

This is exactly right. The Night King was tedious, and that has been a problem for the show as his actions became more central to the plot. Even Sauron in LotR is more interesting, given how he actively played on the psychological weaknesses of humans, dwarves, and elves. The NK? Really didn't engage with living people, other than to attack them. Yawn.

[Bali]

2 hours ago, Giselle said:

But the GOAT is Tom Brady!

Don't get me started. Okay, too late. I'm from Indy. Tom Brady is good. But Peyton was so great that when he got hurt, no one else on the team could play either.

[tiredofwork]

I see many think Jon was worthless.   I certainly think he understood the plan was to KILL the NK.  He fought hard as hell to do that, shit just got out of hand...  It wasn't in the script for him to be the hero this time.. But this dude is  almost solely responsible for putting together the entire plan to end this threat, he had to convince all the throne greedy assholes (and that includes Dany) that this was the paramount threat..  So kudos to him. If I was him, now that it is over, I would say "fuck all y'all" drop the mike and go somewhere warm...

So when Bran told Theon that he was going to "go now" and he did the white eye thing and was flying with the ravens.. what the "freak'" did that accomplish because I missed it.  Was the reconnaissance spotting the whereabouts exactly of the NK?

I actually think of any person who has the most reason and right to end Cersei, it is Sansa.  I know all of the Stark's were affected by what her demon child did to Ned...I know Cersie didn't even condone it but she could have stopped it.  Then she treated Sansa like shit and continued to torture her mentally.   I wouldn't put it past Sansa to put that unused Dragon Glass knife to use in Cersei.

I also believe that when the battle down south takes place, I think the Lannister boys will somehow convince the Lannister army to turn on the crazy Queen against the "sell swords'.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

As sad as it was for me to watch Arya (and later Jon, sort of) running around Winterfell as the battle went on and their childhood home was being destroyed, it gave them a slight advantage (mostly Arya) because they know every inch of that castle like the backs of their hands.