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That sure didn't turn out how I thought it would tonight. Now we're going to get Cersi!

I thought it was pretty predictable. The only surprise to me was that Arya didn't use her new super weapon on the Night King.

I found myself fast forwarding through the long music-laden fight seen. I was a tad disappointed that the Night King didn't actually say anything. There was a definite "what was the point of all that" feel

I have to kind of agree with the general I read on FB. Jon's military strategy leaves a bit to be desired. Though, admittedly, if your opponent can just wave his hand and bring all the dead back to fight, it does give you a serious disadvantage.

Logistically, if you've got air superiority, you just pull everyone back and unleash fire dragon blasts until the earth cools. They tried to step on that with the whole 'cloud' thing, but realistically, if all the friendly forces were inside, you just fly low and roast anything moving (or not moving - it wouldn't matter).

However, I'm watching a show with dragons and the undead. Nitpicking over close air support is a little small potatoes.

The producers had a problem. We'd been building to this for, well, forever. It was always going to be an epic battle. It had to be at Night, that's in the dark. With dark armies. An epic battle in the dark with dark armies can easily make for 45 minutes of unwatchable scrabbling. By rotating viewpoints from Bran to the Crypt to Arya to Grey Worm to the Dragon Corps, the producers did their best to build and relieve tension. I won't say it was perfect or even great. I found myself thinking, "Well, I guess I'll wait for this to end and see who's left alive".

Maybe I'm hoping too much, but I really don't feel that the Night King came all that way just to fall apart like a bad ice cube tray.

We'll need to check on the dragons and see how many are airworthy at this point.

The military strategy was dumb. There were so many stupid decisions made it really just kind of makes you think the writers decided to go for what looks cool versus what would actually make sense. Either that or Jon was trying to throw the battle and we find that out later (he did die at one time).

That said it is a tv show and not one on a channel that I expect to be anywhere near accurate on those kind of things. Throw out the strategy part and I thought it was pretty good. I liked the ending as well.

So what happens now. Almost the entire northern army is destroyed and Cerci wants the throne. The army of the dead is out of her way as well. It feels like Cerci has to die, but she is by far sitting in the best position to take it all. Theon's sister can get the Iron Islands to fight, but not sure that is enough. I doubt that Cerci's generals will decide to fight outside the walls of their castle and lose half their troops before running inside either.

Saw the post game show on it.

They explained that the plan was to wait for the Night King to show his face then take him on two dragons to one.

Dany lost it when she saw the Darthraki get wiped out and she abandoned the plan and attacked.

I would say that was a big letdown after the buildup for several seasons.

BTW - did anyone else expect Theon Greyjoy to have just enough left to take out the nightking? He was still alive when the Nightking stepped over him. Kinda expected Theon to reach up and take back what was taken from him

Also, the fact that none of the main characters died was also a letdown.Unless you count Ser Jorah or Theon. They've been killing of folks left and right over the years. Now with 3 shows to go and the perfect scenario to save a few bucks on the show payroll, they didn't?

The good news, Ghost is still with us. No blue eyes for that dire wolf!

I was thinking the same thing. But, I'm excited to see how they take down Cersi. Of course, we got the dragons to spit a Little fire on her army.

Wichitabear said:

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I was thinking the same thing. But, I'm excited to see how they take down Cersi. Of course, we got the dragons to spit a Little fire on her army.

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Are we sure both dragons are good?

I'm counting on it. Lolol I didn't see the one Jon was riding get hurt. Did you?

John's dragon was tangled up pretty heavy with undead-Viserion. Got claw ripped in the belly pretty good, and didn't really stick the landing.

Now, at the pace of the battle, anything is possible. Heck, many of our important characters got the snot knocked out of them, suffering wounds that should have been mortal, only to be shown alive at the end.

That episode almost felt like a deliberate slap in the face to the book fans. Jon's entire story arc has been setting him up as the Night King's (who actually doesn't exist in the book story yet) antagonist, and then they have Arya kill him in a very unexplained, dubious fashion. Jon's actions seemingly had no bearing on how things played out anyway, despite the books implying very heavily through prophecy and visions that he was going to play a major direct role. Why was he even brought back from the dead just so he could mostly stand around on a dragon while the fight raged around him?

We learned nothing about the NK's motivations or past, lost no major characters that matter, Bran spent the whole fight being useless (I sure hope he explains why he had to go be a raven while everyone around him died), cavalry charges into the dark against an unknown foe, artillery deployed among infantry ranks...Jon in the show is a pretty poor combat tactician and that makes me sad.

It's weird, I loved the spectacle that the episode put on, and man was it tense as hell (until it became obvious the main characters weren't really in danger), but its implications for the plot and larger story are very discouraging. Whole books worth of material and theories were very unceremoniously discarded. All in all it just feels right now (pending the last 3 episodes and any twists they may bring) like the show became really predictable and less nuanced after season 5, and full of the kind of cliches that GRRM purposefully subverted.

One last detail I've read about today that is a red flag, according to a behind the scenes feature about the episode, the showrunners (not GRRM) decided that Arya would kill the Night king 3yrs ago...which makes me wonder how much GRRM even has pinned down about his own ending and late-story plot details. Maybe one day we'll get to read his version of things, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm definitley on board for that 3 episodes, but my hope for their quality is waning.

I'm going to re watch this last episode.

Not sure that there will be enough time to get in the rebuilding, battle Cersi, have Auntie Danery's baby with nephew Jon that is half dead/half nightking/half Stark/half Direwolf/half Targeryn (lots of halves) and all the other goodies that need to be resolved.

Its almost like they are setting the table for some followup movies

I kinda like Dani and Jon together even though this is so messed up. But not any worse than Cersi and Jamie. I just wish the author had wrapped this thing up himself. I definitely think Dani wants to be queen. How bad??? I think Jon and Dani die in the end and Sansa/Tyrion rule together. Lolol oh man I don't know.

Wichitabear said:

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I'm counting on it. Lolol I didn't see the one Jon was riding get hurt. Did you?

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My wife, ever the thorough one, showed me the "next week on GoT" trailer for, well, next week. It did show two dragons wafting over the Red Keep, so it's pretty obvious they both survived well and hardy.

HuMcK said:

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We learned nothing about the NK's motivations or past, lost no major characters that matter, Bran spent the whole fight being useless (I sure hope he explains why he had to go be a raven while everyone around him died), cavalry charges into the dark against an unknown foe

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I was thinking about the deaths, and so many of them got to redeem themselves from past mistakes
* Mormont died defending Dany
* Theon died defending Bran
* The Red Witch died after giving her all to create the fire that stopped the dead for a while
* The one eyed guy who'd been resurrected so many times saved Arya

What's unusual about this is that GRRM almost never gives someone that kind of death. It's very much in the LotR type thinking.


I am inclined to think that the one eyed raven (Bran) is basically just an information holder. His power is solely in what he knows. I suspect he has no real power to use (though you wonder why he couldn't summon a whole host of animals to join the battle somehow)

I was also bothered by the way they wasted the Dothraki. They could have been used much more interestingly in a daylight battle against Cersei's forces.

TechDawgMc said:

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HuMcK said:

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We learned nothing about the NK's motivations or past, lost no major characters that matter, Bran spent the whole fight being useless (I sure hope he explains why he had to go be a raven while everyone around him died), cavalry charges into the dark against an unknown foe

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I was thinking about the deaths, and so many of them got to redeem themselves from past mistakes
* Mormont died defending Dany
* Theon died defending Bran
* The Red Witch died after giving her all to create the fire that stopped the dead for a while
* The one eyed guy who'd been resurrected so many times saved Arya

What's unusual about this is that GRRM almost never gives someone that kind of death. It's very much in the LotR type thinking.


I am inclined to think that the one eyed raven (Bran) is basically just an information holder. His power is solely in what he knows. I suspect he has no real power to use (though you wonder why he couldn't summon a whole host of animals to join the battle somehow)

I was also bothered by the way they wasted the Dothraki. They could have been used much more interestingly in a daylight battle against Cersei's forces.

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I loved the Dothraki also but they hadn't really been relevant in a few seasons had they?

I'm with you in the LotR feel for some of the deaths, although I will say Jorah and Theon's felt pretty earned to me after all theyve done/been through, but that's not how GRRM had typically been doing things in the books. The fake outs kind of got annoying too, Brienne and Grey Worm both were seemingly overwhelmed more than once, Jaime I get because it seems like he's going to confront Cersei again. Perhaps the impending gut punches are the survivors of the Dead getting offed in a petty Game of Thrones.

Bran in the show is held back by sloppy writing I think, it's almost like they just don't know what to do with him. He's supposed to basically know everything (like Cersei's betrayal maybe?) and be able to take over certain animals (and people? Not sure if Hodor's mental condition was the main factor in that). That little stunt he pulled with the ravens might have come in handy just a little bit earlier to scout the darkness and maybe save the Dothraki from annihilation, or maybe to let Jon/Dany know where the NK was lurking at. He just zoned out for the whole battle and gave Theon an admittedly nice pat on the back at the end, which was weird to me. He's still alive and able to explain things though so maybe an exposition dump is coming soon.

The caveat to all this is we have roughly 4 regular episodes of time left to tell the story, so I have to hope this isn't really the last word on the White Walkers/Others storyline. Maybe the writers have set up to pull a fast one on the audience. Maybe Jon doesn't want to go fight in the South and instead heads North to investigate, idk. So much is left unanswered still without any obvious avenues to do that in.

Well, a brief thought would have been that the Army of the Dead had no siege weapons nor realistic air support. Obviously, they had one dragon who could only be ridden by their clearly most important person - and single point of failure.

Structurally, with two dragons, you'd fly high and around to the enemy flank, then send one at a time screaming into the ranks. The giant would have stood out in a field and been immediately targeted. If the Night King did mount his own dragon, obviously that becomes a priority threat and both would climb to engage from opposing angles.

The Night King weaved the fog to obscure the flights, but getting slow and low at that point wouldn't have been an issue. They faced no credible ground to air threat and could have continued mowing down undead in the open field. So much flame would be an obvious marker for the trebuchets to target, but as long as the dragons were unimpeded, it would be unnecessary and ill advised.

The flame trench should have been bigger and further out. You build it with a sloping front (so the enemy can walk down it) and a vertical wall (so they can't climb out without breaching material). With enough distance, you give your archers something to aim at.

At this point, it'd be hard to see how the undead are going to breach the walls. They have no siege engines nor breaching equipment, certainly none that might survive a trip through a flaming pitch trench. Once again, they'd have to bring their own dragon to fight - requiring the services of the Night King. A more nasty turn of mind might arrange a small part of the wall to fail - just to create a kind of "kill box" where the army inside can casually slaughter a small but steady stream of undead as they struggled through. Any one company of Unsullied could do this without really standing up.

If the Dothraki were employed at all, they could have shredded the retreat in a route. They're tailor made for sweeping madly from plain to plain on horseback.

Militarily, dragons win. When one side has them, the other side loses badly.

The ideal ending, everyone dies except for Tryion and Cersi who are stuck in a crypt together with Cersi attempting to cut off Tryion's Johnson while wielding Longclaw while Tryion grab's Arya's Needle and sticks her with the pointy end

This will sound super snobby, but that is honestly the kind of thinking that separates the books from the show. The medium of TV just doesn't seem to lend itself to that kind of tactical minutia like the written word does, because the books are full of the stuff. This was the easiest battle to nitpick their gameplan, and it was the one that mattered the most.

HuMcK said:

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This will sound super snobby, but that is honestly the kind of thinking that separates the books from the show. The medium of TV just doesn't seem to lend itself to that kind of tactical minutia like the written word does, because the books are full of the stuff. This was the easiest battle to nitpick their gameplan, and it was the one that mattered the most.

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Not snobby at all. It highlights the basic problems the directors had with this scene.

Logistically, it should be nothing more than an hour's worth of scrabbly battling. Dragons swoop, shoot fire, and everyone else heaves to. In the dark.

That would be really, really lousy to watch, so no one would. They did the best they could (as soon as Melissandre lit up the Dothraki weapons, I thought "This is just so TV has something to focus on as an army rides into the night") by switching views and characters repeatedly, but they were constrained by the fact they were showing the penultimate battle of the series featuring a Night Army at night. It was just gonna be dark.

A book doesn't have those issues. If it's dark, it's dark. The words paint that picture, and the author uses it for effect.

It will be interesting to see how GRRM finishes his own work, and if he feels any compunction to play out the story in the same vein.

Mr Tulip said:

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HuMcK said:

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This will sound super snobby, but that is honestly the kind of thinking that separates the books from the show. The medium of TV just doesn't seem to lend itself to that kind of tactical minutia like the written word does, because the books are full of the stuff. This was the easiest battle to nitpick their gameplan, and it was the one that mattered the most.

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It will be interesting to see how GRRM finishes his own work, and if he feels any compunction to play out the story in the same vein.

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I have hopes that the indignity of seeing his story finished for him, potentially in ways that are wildly divergent from his own vision, will motivate him to finish it up himself. On the flipside, if it's done to his satisfaction, he may just feel that the matter is closed and continue blogging about the NY Giants.

Great

HuMcK said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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HuMcK said:

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This will sound super snobby, but that is honestly the kind of thinking that separates the books from the show. The medium of TV just doesn't seem to lend itself to that kind of tactical minutia like the written word does, because the books are full of the stuff. This was the easiest battle to nitpick their gameplan, and it was the one that mattered the most.

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It will be interesting to see how GRRM finishes his own work, and if he feels any compunction to play out the story in the same vein.

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I have hopes that the indignity of seeing his story finished for him, potentially in ways that are wildly divergent from his own vision, will motivate him to finish it up himself. On the flipside, if it's done to his satisfaction, he may just feel that the matter is closed and continue blogging about the NY Giants.

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He has no one to blame but himself if he is upset about someone else finishing his work. After a nice two year separation between each of the first three books, it was then five years until the 4th book, and another six years until the 5th, and now eight years later he has released novellas and then a history on the Targaryen's but still no 6th ASOIAF book.

I started reading his books right after the release of A Storm of Swords and have never re-read any of them. I'm about to the point where I've forgotten the differences, all the extra details, and where everyone is in the books.

I'm stuck in the same position with the Kingkiller Chronicle - an author who sold rights to TV and is now sitting on finishing his own work.

90sBear said:

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He has no one to blame but himself if he is upset about someone else finishing his work. After a nice two year separation between each of the first three books, it was then five years until the 4th book, and another six years until the 5th, and now eight years later he has released novellas and then a history on the Targaryen's but still no 6th ASOIAF book.

I started reading his books right after the release of A Storm of Swords and have never re-read any of them. I'm about to the point where I've forgotten the differences, all the extra details, and where everyone is in the books.

I'm stuck in the same position with the Kingkiller Chronicle - an author who sold rights to TV and is now sitting on finishing his own work.

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Sometimes you just run out of things to say. Been looking at my screen for several months now on another project. Its still mostly blank

Assassin said:

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90sBear said:

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He has no one to blame but himself if he is upset about someone else finishing his work. After a nice two year separation between each of the first three books, it was then five years until the 4th book, and another six years until the 5th, and now eight years later he has released novellas and then a history on the Targaryen's but still no 6th ASOIAF book.

I started reading his books right after the release of A Storm of Swords and have never re-read any of them. I'm about to the point where I've forgotten the differences, all the extra details, and where everyone is in the books.

I'm stuck in the same position with the Kingkiller Chronicle - an author who sold rights to TV and is now sitting on finishing his own work.

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Sometimes you just run out of things to say. Been looking at my screen for several months now on another project. Its still mostly blank

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I don't think that's his problem.

Dany is the main reason I watch GoT. I had a friend watch the big season 3 battle and assure me Dany survived because I wasnt going to watch anymore if she did. I dont think her life has been any easier than Arya's life.

The only character that died that I will miss is Bronn. He should have stayed home.

I was glad to see Tormund, Tyrion and Brienne.

I know the lighting was poor to reflect the chaos and uncertainty of battle but it frustrated me. It took me three sittings to make it through the episode.

Limited IQ Redneck in P said:

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The only character that died that I will miss is Bronn. He should have stayed home.

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This got me, too, for a second.

This guy is Dolorous Edd from the Night's Watch. He died at Winterfell


This guy is Bronn, Tyrion's sellsword. He's hanging around King's Landing with Tyrion's crossbow, ostensibly waiting to kill Jamie and Tyrion with it.

Yes, I get that. I had to re watch the battle scene again.

Me either.

90sBear said:

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Assassin said:

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Sometimes you just run out of things to say. Been looking at my screen for several months now on another project. Its still mostly blank

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I don't think that's his problem.

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I think it's partly his problem. He's written himself into a position, I suspect, where he's developed this story that's so big he's not sure he can land it. It was supposed to be a trilogy. Then he kept expanding as he wrote. Now he's got all these things going and he's not sure he can get to his ending smoothly. (he'd have a much better chance if he had an editor; he's way too self-indulgent in his writing).

He's trying to write a perfect story and that's a sure starter for procrastination. And he's done that better than most college students. All the crap he's written when he should have been writing GoT is a great example. So, yes, distractions are a problem (I'm guessing that's what you mean) but they are the distractions of someone stuck in perfectionism is my guess.

Still, the original point -- that he has no one to blame but himself for not finishing the story -- is quite valid. Eight years between books is just stupid.