Wait, why are we all using spoilers? I'm sure anyone who cares about them will avoid this thread.
outdoorcats wrote:I think you're all jumping the gun on judging the show overall without seeing the final 3 (feature length) episodes. Especially regarding A-list deaths
Well I hope they can bring it back, and I love Cersei as a character so I'm excited to see how all that plays out, but however good the next three episodes are I think I'll struggle to forgive the whimper ending to the White Walker storyline. I find it bizarre that it was built up from the
very first episode, increasing in importance to the point that it was all the characters could focus on, only for it to be over with one big battle - no twists, no surprises, not even any stakes if virtually everyone we cared about survived. It's not like I was desperate for the thrill and shock of a big death, but I definitely wanted the severity of the battle - after
so much hype over the unprecedented, horrifying danger they faced - to be realistically handled. The amount of characters who were inches away from death only to be saved by a sudden hero appearance was pretty ridiculous. How did Sam survive? He's never been a fighter. If the writers weren't ready to kill him off yet, put him in the crypt. If Brienne and Jaime needed to survive, show them fighting ferociously until the end - or even running and hiding ffs - rather than being overwhelmed (yet not ravaged?) and teasing us with their deaths. It was just cheap dramatics that served to undermine the threat.
outdoorcats wrote:If Arya posed as Bran she'd have to kill him and skin him first lol. Pretty dark even for Arya.
Bran could have sacrificed himself. If he knows everything then he knows about Arya's powers, and he could have insisted that she use them because the world will come to an end otherwise. Real threat, real stakes, real consequences for the Starks, and a moral conflict that is pretty perfect for GoT. It would have been more effective near the very end of the show (which is where I think the final showdown with the Night King should have been anyway) but shocking and powerful nonetheless. I expected both Arya and Bran's powers to be used in the episode. Where was Bran the whole time he was 'ravening'? (I'm sure there's a GoT universe word for his skill, anyone?) He didn't get any useful information at all, from what I could tell?
Ivan0716 wrote:"They literally could have sent everyone south to fight Cersei and just left Theon's force, Bran, and Arya (waiting in ambush) in the Godswood and achieved the same victory." is just hindsight speaking. They didn't even have a plan for dealing with the Night King after drawing him to the woods, no one in-universe planned for Arya to be there and for her to kill the Night King, except apparently the ones with foresight.
But the 'lack of plan' is just another problem with the episode. We used to get whole scenes of characters discussing their battle tactics and analysing their opponents. Why hadn't they thought about it more? Jon has
seen the Night King raise battle casualties from the dead to join his army; how did he forget that? They said outright that the only way to defeat the undead army was by killing the NK himself, and they purposely stuck Bran in the woods as bait, so why even bother sending their entire army into battle to be slaughtered? I swear GoT used to be smarter than this.
Ivan0719 wrote:To be fair, this episode(and the finale to the White Walker arc) couldn't have been anything other than a huge disappointment, once they got 90% of the surviving cast to Winterfell there was only two possible outcomes: the White Walkers get wiped out, or they kill (almost)everyone, and those that survived would be too depleted to play any further roles in the storyline(the battle for the throne), and I would argue that's even more anti-climatic.
Not necessarily, I thought it was possible that the surviving core characters would panic in the face of the chaos, regroup and escape for shelter at a planned location. From there it could have been exciting to see them defeat Cersei and the Night King, not with armies but through cerebral planning and using the skills/powers they have learned over the show. With Bran, Arya, and the dragons, they still had a legitimate chance. Personally I don't need another huge battle episode.
One thing I do love is that Arya has become the undeniable, badass MVP of the show. Her storyline, with everything she went through as an adolescent, has been compelling and moving from start to finish so it's satisfying as hell to see it pay off. Are we to believe that she's the prince(ss) who was promised?