# Game of Thrones 8x03 "The Long Night" 4/28/19



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> By the way, am I the only one who is a little creeped out by how insistent everybody is about sending the women and children to hide from the dead in...the crypt?


Called it!


Rob Helmerichs said:


> photoshopgrl said:
> 
> 
> > Jon and Dany both dying this episode? Never gonna happen.
> ...


Called it!


Rob Helmerichs said:


> I'm not even sure how big a battle it will be. Cersei is depending on the living and the dead beating to crap out of each other, leaving the survivor weak enough for her to take on. But although no doubt the battle between the living and the dead will be a spectacular piece of television, one swing of the sword could (I think will) end it when somebody (Jon?) kills the Night King. Which could leave their army largely intact, and lead to a brutal surprise for Cersei. That battle could start with most of her followers abandoning her when they see who's going to win, and then go downhill for Cersei from there...


Two out of three ain't bad...  But I did figure the Night King would die tonight, and all his minions too. I just didn't anticipate Jon & Dani's army being largely wiped out as well. That should make for some interesting maneuvering, as Cersei's plan seems to have worked to perfection.

The Dothraki attack was both awesome, and a very cheap battle to film...

Hopefully now Jon and Dani can have their little chat.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

F-ing Arya


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Sigh. I was disappointed. Boring battle done in the dark. Stupid defense of Bran. And Arya was obviously missing for about 20 minutes after running Doctor Who style up and down corridors. 

Let’s get back to the good story. The politics and killing of Cersei.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

I felt like I needed my eyes checked this entire episode. It was driving me bonkers.


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## madmari333 (Sep 24, 2010)

The most poorly lit battle in the history of cinema. At most 10-15 minutes was worth watching. I dislike zombies and battle scenes where you do not know what is going on.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Sigh. I was disappointed. Boring battle done in the dark. Stupid defense of Bran. And Arya was obviously missing for about 20 minutes after running Doctor Who style up and down corridors.
> 
> Let's get back to the good story. The politics and killing of Cersei.


Kinda with you.

There were a few moments I got caught up in how brutal this battle was. But pretty predictable who died and I liked last week's episode more.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

One thing I know. I don't want Samwell Tarly on my side during a fight.

Did both Dany's and Jon's dragons survive?

Arya for Queen!

I thought Brienne kicked the bucket early on in the battle but she lasted long afterwards.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Theon & Jorah RIP at least they went out heroes. ARYA STARK THE QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> I felt like I needed my eyes checked this entire episode. It was driving me bonkers.


I usually have my Hue lights set at 50% when I'm watching TV (along with a backlight). After a few minutes of GoT tonight, I turned it down to about 20%. That helped a lot. (A 75" screen didn't hurt...)


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

The dimly lit battle was a disappointment but I still liked the episode. Just sad that my boy the Night King was so dumb.

How big was that crypt?

Those were some spry dead folks.


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## erk48188 (Aug 16, 2002)

slow motion walking...slow motion walking...slow motion walking...slow motion reaching over your shoulder...

cinematography at it's best!


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## getbak (Oct 8, 2004)

_"You said I'd shut many eyes forever. You were right about that too."

"Brown eyes, green eyes ... and blue eyes."

_
I went 3/3 in the death poll, with Jorah, Theon, and Beric. Although, they definitely seemed like the most-obvious choices.

I'm actually surprised by how many of the main characters survived this.

I'm curious as to how many dragons are left. Did Jon's die (was that him at the end, or was that the Night King's original dragon)? Also, we saw Ghost running alongside the Dothraki, but never saw him again.

You're next, Cersei.


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## Maui (Apr 22, 2000)

I actually expected more to die. 

I liked it though even if it was entirely at night and very dark. The biggest cheers of the night were for me the young women. Obviously Arya for that ending but how about three cheers for the badass, Lyanna Mormont!!!!


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

Deus ex Arya


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Azlen said:


> Deus ex Arya


By definition it's not a deus ex machina if it's blatantly foreshadowed...


getbak said:


> _"You said I'd shut many eyes forever. You were right about that too."
> 
> "Brown eyes, green eyes ... and blue eyes."_


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I usually have my Hue lights set at 50% when I'm watching TV. After a few minutes of GoT tonight, I turned it down to about 20%. That helped a lot. (A 75" screen didn't hurt...)


I had to turn the lights off. And all other light sources in the room. But with the room pitch black, there were fortunately no scenes that were too dark to tell what was going on (unlike a scene in a previous episode). But if you weren't able to get a good level of contrast, I could see the show being 80% unwatchable.

But you know, under the circumstances, the crypts kinda were the safest place in Winterfell. Sure, they weren't safe, at all. Dead swarming in from outside. Dead falling through the ceiling. And Dead rising on the spot. Probably 90% of the people hiding there died. Still - probably safer than outside!  (Dead chasing you around the crypts, undead dragon sitting in the courtyard, tough decision...)


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## rloper (Mar 25, 2002)

Some of it was like watching “World War Z”...silly fast ant-swarming zombies...errr...wights.

What were the wights looking for in the library?

Did Jon’s dragon Rhaegal survive?

Lyanna went out the Big Damn Hero.

I was half expecting Arya to have substituted herself for Bran. Instead of rolling a crit 20 on a Backstab after Hiding in Shadows.


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## BeanMeScot (Apr 17, 2002)

Maui said:


> I actually expected more to die.


This!

Although I am not disappointed that more didn't die. I also hated not being able to really see what was going on. But it was a thrilling episode! Go Lyanna and Arya!


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

That was great. To those complaining about having trouble seeing things. Time to buy a better TV, lol.

Lyanna Mormont taking out the Giant was great, probably the saddest death.

It was obvious Theon was a goner, I'm glad Bran gave him some closure before he committed suicide by Night King.

It was also obvious that towards the end you knew the Night King was a goner and that it was going to be Arya to take him down since she disappeared for like 20 minutes.

I liked seeing Melisandre scared when she was trying to light the trench, it almost seemed like for a split second she doubted her lord of light. I wasn't expecting her to go the way she did. It almost felt like Davos wanted to forgive her when she walked away.

Not sure about the status of Grey Worm and Missendei, I don't remember seeing her at the end in the crypt.

Ohhh, so much more but I'll stop for now.

Oh, someone needs to do a "In Memoriam" Video for GoT, all those we lost, Talking Dead style. lol


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

rloper said:


> What were the wights looking for in the library?


Martin's latest manuscript? That was a pointless scene. Then Arya got them to all run with the throwing of a book while they were dumping things all over the place.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

All female tonight. 

I whooped when she lit up the Dothraki swords. That was bad-ass. 

I whooped when Lyanna took out the giant. 

And I whooped when Arya shattered the Night King. 


But I thought she gave Littlefinger’s dagger to Sansa.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

So glad the Night King is done. Now back to the drama this show is really good at.

And yeah loved how tiny Lady Mormont killed the Giant! So are the Mormonts done?


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

uncdrew said:


> All female tonight.
> 
> I whooped when she lit up the Dothraki swords. That was bad-ass.
> 
> ...


I think she gave her dragonglass.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

uncdrew said:


> But I thought she gave Littlefinger's dagger to Sansa.


Nope, just a shard of dragonglass. But that's probably what you were supposed to think.

I was gonna say that if the Night King hadn't made such a big deal of slow-walking up to Bran to kill him (I checked, over 3 minutes) - he would have won. Except, I suppose even if he had killed Bran, Arya would have still gotten him and collapsed his entire army. But still, that slow-walk hurt him.


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

getbak said:


> I went 3/3 in the death poll, with Jorah, Theon, and Beric. Although, they definitely seemed like the most-obvious choices.


I guessed Theon, Beric and Greyworm. Did Greyworm live?



uncdrew said:


> I whooped when she lit up the Dothraki swords.


No one drops a sword that suddenly lights on fire?


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Pretty predictable at the end with Arya gone for the last 20 minutes or so of the episode. 

The one thing I’m not sure about was what was the thing with the walker moving it’s head near the end? Was that to indicate that Arya was pretending to be the walker or that the walker saw Arya coming?

Neither really makes sense since if Arya just charged in, how did she get past the entire army. If she was a walker how did she accomplish that since they crumble to pieces when killed. 

Edit: went back and watched and the Walker’s hair blew indicating that Arya was running really fast. I didn’t realize super speed was one of her superpowers. 


Also I did keep thinking how it was that none of the main characters got killed when it was basically 2 or 3 of them vs the entire undead army. 

I also agree it was very dark, but I enjoyed it. You have to also feel for the actors since according to the commentary it took 55 consecutive whole nights of shooting in minus 14 degree weather to film.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

kdmorse said:


> Nope, just a shard of dragonglass. But that's probably what you were supposed to think.


The after episode commentary said it was Valerian steel and it was in the exact spot where the stone that made the Night King was inserted. That said it did look like a shard of dragon glass.

Edit: went back and looked and it was defiantly steel, not dragonglass.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

morac said:


> The after episode commentary said it was Valerian steel and it was in the exact spot where the stone that made the Night King was inserted. That said it did look like a shard of dragon glass.


That's what kdmorse said...that she gave a shard of dragonglass to Sansa.


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## rloper (Mar 25, 2002)

The dagger Arya used is more interesting than I remembered.

The mystery of the Valyrian steel dagger in 'Game of Thrones' Episode 5

It was Rhaegar's.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

RiP Ghost


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

I think the combination of dimly lit/fast cut/hard to follow zombie/zombie dragon fights, combined with me coming off epic fight scenes in Endgame, left this less satisfying than it otherwise may have been. 

Did like the zombie giant killing, though. And the Arya thing did come as a bit of a surprise.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> I felt like I needed my eyes checked this entire episode. It was driving me bonkers.


It was dark, but I thought it was just my old, outdated TV. I still barely breathed the entire episodea. On edge!


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Dead:

Edd
Beric
Lyanna Mormont
Theon

Jorah Mormont
Night King
Melisandre
Anyone else of note?


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Good episode!


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I’ll note for those that say the Night King doesn’t bring Winter with him, that it sure looked like the Night King brought a blizzard with him to the battle.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

getbak said:


> I'm curious as to how many dragons are left. Did Jon's die (was that him at the end, or was that the Night King's original dragon)?


I'm confused if Drogon got rid of the wights when he flew off or if he was the one blasting Jon toward the end? I thought the original wight dragon was taken down during the air fight.



gossamer88 said:


> RiP Ghost


You shut up! We don't know this yet!!!


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

Episode title: The Long Night


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

Unfortunately, not only were the scenes extremely dark, but they were rendered even harder to watch by Comcast's ridiculously high compression. It was still a great episode, though, and I look forward to seeing what it will look like on 4K Blu-ray.


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## cbrrider (Feb 2, 2005)

morac said:


> went back and watched and the Walker's hair blew indicating that Arya was running really fast. I didn't realize super speed was one of her superpowers.


Arya learned the super speed skill from the Terminator waif.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

gweempose said:


> Unfortunately, not only were the scenes extremely dark, but they were rendered even harder to watch by Comcast's ridiculously high compression.


Yup, the smoke, haze, and blizzard generated some horrible artifacts (mostly banding) in places. I'll assuming it was only a problem on comcast (like last weeks audio compression problems) by default.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

So chalk up the Night King as the most boring character ever. 

He never spoke a word and we never found out what his deal was?


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

I loved it. Let out a yell when Arya took out the Night King. But why did _she_ yell? I thought she was stealthy. Oh well, it worked out.

Is Arya Azor Ahai?

I enjoyed both of Melisandre's moments, even if they only bought the time needed for the key players to survive.

Where the heck was Davos the whole battle?

I did not like the crypt scene. Skeletal wights digging through stone while recently dead can't get through a door? Can't believe Gilly survived just standing there with crying Sam.

Edd, Lyanna and Jorah Mormont, Theon, Melisandre, Beric confirmed.

Fate uncertain:
Sam (looked like a goner)
Grey Worm
Rhaegal
Gendry
Ghost
Tormund (though it looked like him in the background after Viserion fell)


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## cbrrider (Feb 2, 2005)

vertigo235 said:


> So chalk up the Night King as the most boring character ever.
> 
> He never spoke a word and we never found out what his deal was?


That's what prequels are for ....


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## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

It was dark, but I loved it. I was able to see things OK. maybe I just have the TV contrast up. I did dim the lights in the room quite a bit but I always do for GoT so nothing different there. I didn't notice artifacts/banding/etc. (we have Fios).

I believe the dragon with Dany at the end was Drogon, and he's basically OK. I'm not sure if the dragon facing off with Jon was Jon's dragon that was killed then wight-ified when the NK resurrected all the other dead, or if that was the original wight dragon and we don't know what happened to Jon's dragon.

I don't think Arya has super-speed, she has normal speed but super-stealth. I have to admit I was sure Jon was going to get free somehow and take out the NK even though he seemed locked down. They did a good job (with me) of getting me to forget about Arya and I didn't expect her.

I thought it was awesome! Really impressive.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

I want to reply but we can't discuss previews for next week so 

I'm still yelling about Arya. The Princess Who Was Promised. Who knew!


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

kdmorse said:


> Yup, the smoke, haze, and blizzard generated some horrible artifacts (mostly banding) in places. I'll assuming it was only a problem on comcast (like last weeks audio compression problems) by default.


I avoid watching on Comcast at all costs, so I watch on HBOGo, but even that had banding and "fuzzies" in some of the darker scenes.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

I don’t remember seeing Missandei die. It was in the crypts?


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

tivotvaddict said:


> I don't remember seeing Missandei die. It was in the crypts?


She didn't die


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

I happened to watch it in a hotel room on my iPad about a foot away and i didn't think it was too dark. 

With the speed of the dead it had to run at a frenetic pace. And I didn't mind some of the slow mo to zoom in on the action. 

The women rocked in this episode. 

Loved Arya's little hand manuever, but I think she stole that from Rey in The Last Jedi


-smak-


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

photoshopgrl said:


> She didn't die


Oh good! I was confusing melisandre with missandei on the death list


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

It's interesting that they said they knew for three years that Aria was going to be the one to kill The Night King. 


-smak-


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

We were both sitting on the edge of our seats for the last half hour of the show. So good! 

I was frustrated as well by the banding artifacts in this episode. I was watching on HBO Go through Amazon Prime. It's usually better than that. 

Lyanna Mormont goes out as the badass she was. Jorah Mormont redeems himself by giving his life for Dany. Another house dies.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

PJO1966 said:


> Lyanna Mormont goes out as the badass she was.


At first, I thought she might of survived that after she got a good stab in. Obviously she didn't, but at the moment, it could have gone either way.


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## xuxa (Oct 8, 2001)

Interesting that Winterfell is where winter fell. Told us from the start.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

I'll admit, I didn't get the foreshadowing of Arya killing the knight King, I just thought millasandre meant she'd kill many white walkers. I also completely forgot about Arya near the end so it was a compete shock to me. 

I thought it was an amazing episode.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

smak said:


> It's interesting that they said they knew for three years that Aria was going to be the one to kill The Night King.
> 
> -smak-


Who said that?


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I found it to be a disappointing episode in a disappointing season.

Whole damn episode was way too dark. Yeah, I get what they were going for, battle at night in the cold, and yeah the darkness added atmosphere and realism to the encounter, but it wasn't a pleasant experience from an audience perspective.

I actually let loose with a "What the hell is going on?" when Arya was running around corridor after corridor after corridor.

We all knew the crypt was going to be a mistake (Thanks, Rob!). But not so much a mistake that any key players died down there. I mean if you're gonna try to pull a shock moment like that, at least use it to take out Sansa or Tyrion or Varys or that character whose name I always mix up with Melissandre (how tragic would that have been, Grey Worm survives against all odds only to find his love killed in the one "safe" place). So much opportunity lost with the crypt.

The moments that made it worthwhile was the two young women, taking down the giant and taking down the night king. The Arya scene I thought worked really well, and there was that "_OMG she failed they're going to kill Arya_" moment for about quarter of a second.

I wanted Spock to show up during the dragons-in-a-nebula scene and make a comment about the need for 3 dimensional thinking.

They only had to kill one guy, and we all knew by the end of the episode they would kill that one guy. The only suspense was in how many important characters would they sacrifice in doing so. Not many.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

I wish they had come up with some reason for the Night King to let his army stand back while he walked in alone toward Bran. For example, perhaps there could have been a circle of fire surrounding the weirwood that also had some of the magic that prevented wights from getting through. Throughout the battle we would have seen the wights run up and instantly collapse.

When the Night King arrived, however, he would have opened up a hole and walked through with some White Walkers. Theon and the rest of the people guarding Bran would have then run toward the Night King, but the White Walkers would have gotten in their way. As they battled the White Walkers (in slow motion, of course), the Night King would have walked toward Bran, with one of the White Walkers standing nearby and facing outward to protect him.

As the Night King neared Bran, we would have heard a yell from Theon as he ran toward them. The White Walker guard would have turned toward Theon and stabbed him, killing him. In that moment when the White Walker was distracted by Theon, Arya would have jumped in, and things would have played out with the Night King as they actually did.

That not only would have made the Night King's actions have made more sense, but also given Theon a better death.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> That not only would have made the Night King's actions have made more sense, but also given Theon a better death.


I thought Theon had a fine death. The guy who has been cowardly for the whole series has his big moment of courage, making a last ditch hopeless attempt to save his friend.

The Night King's purpose was never to "make sense". He didn't really have any more motivation than the iceberg did in Titanic.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

smbaker said:


> I thought Theon had a fine death. The guy who has been cowardly for the whole series has his big moment of courage, making a last ditch hopeless attempt to save his friend.


I didn't think his death was bad. I just would have preferred that his moment of courage had also directly contributed to destroying the Night King. (As opposed to indirectly by leaving Bran unguarded, and thus luring the Night King out.)



smbaker said:


> The Night King's purpose was never to "make sense". He didn't really have any more motivation than the iceberg did in Titanic.


It wasn't his goal that I cared about, though. It was the fact that he had been careful to keep himself protected all this time, and then all of the suddenly didn't seem at all concerned about it. I get that Bran was bait to get him to leave himself more exposed. But there didn't seem to be any reason for him to leave himself as exposed as he was.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

I also think instead of having Melisandre's conversation with Arya about "What do we say to death?", it would have been cooler to have had Arya simply say, "Not today" after having stabbed the Night King.


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## spear (Oct 11, 2006)

morac said:


> I avoid watching on Comcast at all costs, so I watch on HBOGo, but even that had banding and "fuzzies" in some of the darker scenes.


I recently got an Apple TV 4k specifically so I could watch the final season on HBO Go instead of Comcast. I didn't notice any problems tonight, although I started watching about an hour after it was available. I heard other complaints about HBO Go being unwatchable tonight, so I'm thinking maybe the servers were overwhelmed initially.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

morac said:


> I'll note for those that say the Night King doesn't bring Winter with him, that it sure looked like the Night King brought a blizzard with him to the battle.


There's a difference between bringing winter and being able to use the winter that's already there...


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

They said No One can kill the Night King... A girl is No One..... a girl with a valyrian steel dagger giver to her by.......Bran.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Watched it again this morning.

When Bran said to Theon that he was going to go now, he seemed to warg into a raven. What was the purpose of that?

Arya seemed to have been shot out of a cannon when she attacked the Night King.

Why was Bran so important to the Night King anyway?

You know, in tv and movies where the bad guy wastes time explaining his evil plan to conquer the world instead of just killing the good guy and being done with it? That was the Night King even though he didn't say a word. Just kill Bran. Five seconds. That's all it would have taken but noooooooo, he had to pose for two minutes. Dumbass.

I thought it was fitting that Lyanna, the smallest warrior, took out the Giant, the biggest warrior.

Jon Snow was basically useless.

Whoever made the decision to film the dragon battle sequences in the clouds and mist, along with the fast close up cuts gets a big thumbs down from me.

I chuckled a bit when Sansa was complaining about Tyrion's divided loyalties between her an the Dragon Queen and Missandei broke in and said "If it wasn't for the Dragon Queen, we'd all be dead, beyotch!"

The Dothraki didn't last long.

It's a shame that the Night King was so easily killable. I still believe that the Night King battle should have been the final battle of the series. As long as the good guys have at least one dragon, Cercei's troops should have no chance but they'll stretch it out over a couple of episodes.


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

"you were the best of them."

Talk about damning him with faint praise.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

smak said:


> Loved Arya's little hand manuever, but I think she stole that from Rey in The Last Jedi


She used that same move when training with Brienne.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Having Jaime survive (?) sets up an interesting conundrum for the rest of the series. He fought for the living against the dead, as he promised. Now does he fight for the North against Cersei?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> It's a shame that the Night King was so easily killable. I still believe that the Night King battle should have been the final battle of the series. As long as the good guys have at least one dragon, Cercei's troops should have no chance but they'll stretch it out over a couple of episodes.


I suspect not...next episode will probably be setting things up for that fight; then one episode for the fight; then one episode for the wrap-up.

Remember that Cersei's people invented a workable anti-dragon weapon, and she's had plenty of time to build more of them. Plus she has an army (and a navy); Jon & Dani's was largely wiped out. The question isn't going to be how Cersei makes it interesting; it's going to be how Jon & Dani stand any chance at all.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

So the battle plan against an overwhelmingly larger army is to send a small portion of your troops (the Dothraki) to fight them all by themselves?

My take on the dragons: Jon's dragon dropped him off and flew away. Dany's dragon came back at the end to either rest next to her or die next to her. The NK's dragon died when NK died, just like all the dead.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

We didn't see the Knights of the Veil at all. Also, there's the one house in the North that refused the call and stayed at some castle (Moat Kailyn or something?). Otherwise, it sure looks like Jon and Dany have maybe 100 warriors left to fight Cersei.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Quite a bit of foreshadowing of a Tyrion/Sansa re-marriage...


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Anubys said:


> So the battle plan against an overwhelmingly larger army is to send a small portion of your troops (the Dothraki) to fight them all by themselves?


I think the myth of the invincibility of a Dothraki horde conned everybody into thinking it was a great plan (and not a CUNNING PLAN)...and that was before they were armed with special wight-killing flaming swords!


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

The Night King must have recruited his lieutenants from the 0-16 2017 Cleveland Browns. Those guys were useless, letting Arya get past them. The Night King was an idiot. It reminded me of Star Trek episodes where they send all the most important people on the ship out on very dangerous missions. He should have been directing the battle while holed up in some remote bunker that the good guys couldn't get to.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> Those guys were useless, letting Arya get past them. The Night King was an idiot. ... He should have been directing the battle while holed up in some remote bunker that the good guys couldn't get to.


Was it possible at all for anyone but the Night King to kill Bran?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

So HBOGo on an Apple TV on an OLED set and I started about 30 minutes after broadcast started and while dark I had no issues watching it and telling what was going on, was it dark? sure? too dark? not for me... did it have more artifacts than usual? also yes...

Other than that I thought some of the battles did go on too long, but was happy to see how it ended, bring on Cersei!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

ct1 said:


> Was it possible at all for anyone but the Night King to kill Bran?


Jaime couldn't manage it when Bran was just a little kid, and Jaime was the greatest warrior in Westeros! 

But seriously, I don't know why not...


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## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

Robin said:


> "you were the best of them."
> 
> Talk about damning him with faint praise.


That was a _great_ line, and Dinklage played it perfectly: both pleased and horrified at the same time.


----------



## markp99 (Mar 21, 2002)

dianebrat said:


> So HBOGo on an Apple TV on an OLED set and I started about 30 minutes after broadcast started and while dark I had no issues watching it and telling what was going on, was it dark? sure? too dark? not for me... did it have more artifacts than usual? also yes...
> 
> Other than that I thought some of the battles did go on too long, but was happy to see how it ended, bring on Cersei!


Diane, I thought to ping you directly as we have the same LGTV. HBOGO via Amazon here. Banding was very prominent. Are there really no shades of grey/blue available between those bands in the dark zones?  Is it more TV or compression related??

Just tried a true 1080p MKV copy on my PC via Plex. Wayyy too dark (almost unwatchable); not sure I saw banding, maybe it was all just too dark to see them...


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I suspect not...next episode will probably be setting things up for that fight; then one episode for the fight; then one episode for the wrap-up.
> 
> Remember that Cersei's people invented a workable anti-dragon weapon, and she's had plenty of time to build more of them. Plus she has an army (and a navy); Jon & Dani's was largely wiped out. The question isn't going to be how Cersei makes it interesting; it's going to be how Jon & Dani stand any chance at all.


A workable anti dragon weapon that depends on the dragon staying stationary. Serpentine. Serpentine.


----------



## markp99 (Mar 21, 2002)

Long, drawn out battle/fight scenes really turn me off, leaving me to roll my eyes and tap my fingers waiting for the story to resume. I exclaimed to my wife early on, "Please, don't let this be a an 88 minute battle scene!" Especially, a dark, muddy, generally unwatchable one!

The post-show interviews mentioned that long battle scenes can get boring for the viewer. Well, duh! However, I was happy to hear the producers acknowledge the point; I've wondered if any producers had this concern at all.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> A workable anti dragon weapon that depends on the dragon staying stationary. Serpentine. Serpentine.


Except one dragon tactic is to hover in the air raining down fire on their enemies...


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Was Arya flying through the air preparing to deliver the death blow with her left hand?

She’s not left handed is she?


----------



## ADG (Aug 20, 2003)

Anubys said:


> My take on the dragons: Jon's dragon dropped him off and flew away. Dany's dragon came back at the end to either rest next to her or die next to her. The NK's dragon died when NK died, just like all the dead.


Yeah, it was unclear to me whether both dragons survived or just the one.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> Was Arya flying through the air preparing to deliver the death blow with her left hand?
> 
> She's not left handed is she?


She can stab with her left hand, she can stab with her right hand, it doesn't matter.

She's amphibious!


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

gweempose said:


> Unfortunately, not only were the scenes extremely dark, but they were rendered even harder to watch by Comcast's ridiculously high compression.


I didn't have any issues with any scenes, even with the room lights on. That's been puzzling me about a lot of the responses, but now that you mention it, compression is often bad at handling dark or monotone (ie: fog) scenes. I do remember one scene ( I think it was when Tyrion freed the dragons) where even the Blu-ray suffered a bit. So cable watchers I could definitely see that being a big issue. For myself, HBO Now was fine.



spear said:


> I heard other complaints about HBO Go being unwatchable tonight, so I'm thinking maybe the servers were overwhelmed initially.


 I was about 4 minutes behind real-time and HBO Now was fine. Now and Go are essentially the same service just with different authentication, but I'm not sure if they share servers.



Anubys said:


> We didn't see the Knights of the Veil at all. Also, there's the one house in the North that refused the call and stayed at some castle (Moat Kailyn or something?). Otherwise, it sure looks like Jon and Dany have maybe 100 warriors left to fight Cersei.


 how many second sons are there? I assume we are done with them, and they don't even have any ships as far as we know, but it's a small possibility.


----------



## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

uncdrew said:


> Was Arya flying through the air preparing to deliver the death blow with her left hand?
> 
> She's not left handed is she?


She is indeed left handed, though Masie is right handed. There was talk in earlier seasons about that very fact when they were filming her Needle scenes.


----------



## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

I was not a big fan of this episode, especially since it is should be the last great battle of the show. (I suppose the assumed battle between Cersei/Euron and everyone else could be epic, but I think that will be much smaller in scale.) Many of my complaints were already mentioned, so some of these complaints are repeats, but my view:

It was too long of a battle. It just kept coming and coming.
Some of the scenes just didn't make sense. My wife turned to me after Arya has been slinking around the library for what seemed like ages and asked "What is the point of this scene?" Darned if I had any idea.

For a show that is known for unexpected and "Oh sh!t they didn't just kill XXXX, did they?" moments, none of the deaths were particularly surprising. (Many people had Theon, Beric, and Jorah on their death list.) Only Lady Mormont was even somewhat surprising. Why not kill a "major" character like John/Dany/Tyrion/Sansa/etc?
I HATED how they treated Sansa in this episode. At first I was glad to see her on the wall with HER men (and women). But, then Arya sends her to the crypts like a helpless child. When she gets there, she broods alone as everyone stares at her (and they all look at her like she is a coward.) They could have given her a chance to redeem herself at the end by using the Dragonglass. But, no, she just cowers behind a crypt while her people are being slaughtered. We will see what happens with her in future episodes, but she will not be in a good place to rule Winterfell now.
I admit I did not see the end coming with Arya. While I liked that she was the one to kill the NightKing, it just felt a little too dramatic.
It was mentioned in the after show, not really a spoiler, especially since it was not obvious in the show


Spoiler



Once again Dany proves she is not a leader. Apparently she and Jon had a plan to wait for the NightKing and then attack him directly. But, seeing her Dothraki army being slaughtered, she just abandoned the plan and started attacking randomly. Plus is Dragonfile really that precise? With all the close in fighting, I am certain that it wasn't only the Wight army that was burned to a crisp.



We will see what the next three episodes turn out to be. Hopefully they are better.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

LordKronos said:


> how many second sons are there? I assume we are done with them, and they don't even have any ships as far as we know, but it's a small possibility.


Aren't the Second Sons working as enforcers for Daario in Slaver's Dragon Bay? Now, THAT would be a deus ex machina!


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

LordKronos said:


> I was about 4 minutes behind real-time and HBO Now was fine.


Interesting. I had the same experience. HBO Now, just a few minutes behind "live." None of the issues others have reported.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TriBruin said:


> I HATED how they treated Sansa in this episode. At first I was glad to see her on the wall with HER men (and women). But, then Arya sends her to the crypts like a helpless child. When she gets there, she broods alone as everyone stares at her (and they all look at her like she is a coward.) They could have given her a chance to redeem herself at the end by using the Dragonglass. But, no, she just cowers behind a crypt while her people are being slaughtered. We will see what happens with her in future episodes, but she will not be in a good place to rule Winterfell now.


I know what you mean, but they (the writers) were really in a tight spot with her. There is NO way somebody with her military skills could be expected to survive the sack of Winterfell (OK, Sam, but at least he has some experience killing the dead).

They probably should have come up with a reason for her to be down there in the first place (as in, say, leadership?). Then again, her being on the wall as the battle began is symbolic of the insane level of overconfidence the living were experiencing...

And after all, these are the people who sent their women and children (and eunuchs and dwarves) to hide from the dead IN A CRYPT!


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

PJO1966 said:


> Jorah Mormont redeems himself by giving his life for Dany. Another house dies.


Redeems himself how? He wasn't in need of redemption. But he did go out exactly as he'd want, protecting his queen.



cheesesteak said:


> Jon Snow was basically useless.


Jon Snow was basically useless because Dany didn't stick to the plan and he was trying to catch up the entire episode. I'm annoyed how many people I'm seeing with this viewpoint.


----------



## ADG (Aug 20, 2003)

TriBruin said:


> I was not a big fan of this episode, especially since it is should be the last great battle of the show. (I suppose the assumed battle between Cersei/Euron and everyone else could be epic, but I think that will be much smaller in scale.) Many of my complaints were already mentioned, so some of these complaints are repeats, but my view:
> 
> It was too long of a battle. It just kept coming and coming.
> Some of the scenes just didn't make sense. My wife turned to me after Arya has been slinking around the library for what seemed like ages and asked "What is the point of this scene?" Darned if I had any idea.
> ...


I agree with everything you said PLUS - Where were the dragons when the Walkers were crossing the ditch? That would have been the perfect time to eliminate most, if not all of them.


----------



## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

dianebrat said:


> So HBOGo on an Apple TV on an OLED set and I started about 30 minutes after broadcast started and while dark I had no issues watching it and telling what was going on, was it dark? sure? too dark? not for me... did it have more artifacts than usual? also yes...
> 
> Other than that I thought some of the battles did go on too long, but was happy to see how it ended, bring on Cersei!


I put my C7 OLED on ISF Bright mode. I've been doing it for a while when it comes to GoT.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> Who said that?


The creators of the show said it in the segment that plays after the episode explaining their insights about what was going on.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> Redeems himself how? He wasn't in need of redemption. But he did go out exactly as he'd want, protecting his queen.


He needed redemption for selling humans into slavery and actively working against Dany by spying on her.

He redeemed himself by giving his life to save hers, exactly as he wanted to.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

ADG said:


> I agree with everything you said PLUS - Where were the dragons when the Walkers were crossing the ditch? That would have been the perfect time to eliminate most, if not all of them.


The plan was for the dragons to light the ditch on fire when the wights started crossing. That plan went to hell when Dany couldn't see the signal.

By the way, the Night King's dragon-slaying ice-spears were a rare (for this show) piece of foreshadowing that went nowhere...


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

PJO1966 said:


> He needed redemption for selling humans into slavery and actively working against Dany by spying on her.
> 
> He redeemed himself by giving his life to save hers, exactly as he wanted to.


Please. He redeemed himself for that long ago.


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

TriBruin said:


> For a show that is known for unexpected and "Oh sh!t they didn't just kill XXXX, did they?" moments, none of the deaths were particularly surprising. (Many people had Theon, Beric, and Jorah on their death list.) Only Lady Mormont was even somewhat surprising. Why not kill a "major" character like John/Dany/Tyrion/Sansa/etc?


I see this criticism a lot, but don't fully understand it. How many of the surprising deaths of major characters have come in battle? Stannis (kind of)? I actually can't think of another. It is more consistent for this show to have those "Oh" moments via betrayal/murder/execution. I imagine these same critics (not directed at you) would be sorely disappointed if Dany was killed by a wight.

I'd also argue that Jorah and Theon *are* major characters. They've been around since the very first episode. Melisandre, Beric and Edd have been around since Season 1.


----------



## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

Anubys said:


> Quite a bit of foreshadowing of a Tyrion/Sansa re-marriage...


When I first read this, I thought, "Nah. They are just playing on the relationship the two had..." But then I thought about it.

Sansa + Tyrion = Stark + Lannister
Arya + Gendry = Stark + Baratheon
Jon + Dany = Stark + Targarryen (though Jon is also Stark + Targarryen already)

After defeating Cersi, that's four of the nine houses, with a fifth (Greyjoy via Yara) aligned to Stark. And I'm not certain if there are any more Tully, Arryn, or Tyrell houses anymore. While it doesn't seem to fit as neatly with the TV series versions of the characters, I could see Martin writing it that way...


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

I thought I saw Gilly being dragged by wights from the crypt. Did she survive?

I also thought Sansa in the crypt was very much like Cersei in the red keep during Stannis' attack on King's landing. But then the director didn't take the parallel any further.


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

dslunceford said:


> When I first read this, I thought, "Nah. They are just playing on the relationship the two had..." But then I thought about it.
> 
> Sansa + Tyrion = Stark + Lannister
> Arya + Gendry = Stark + Baratheon
> ...


Jon & Dany = Targaryen + Targaryen, technically. 
Edmure Tully is still at Riverrun, I believe. He is pledged to Cersei - though he made that agreement with Jaime.
Robin Arryn is still at the Vale. I doubt they sent their entire military to Winterfell.
Tyrell is toast. (no pun intended)


----------



## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I think the myth of the invincibility of a Dothraki horde conned everybody into thinking it was a great plan (and not a CUNNING PLAN)...and that was before they were armed with special wight-killing flaming swords!


The best comment i saw was the stupidity of their attack plan. Why send heavy calvary out into the literal fog of war with no support? You always let the archers soften the enemy up before a charge. Not to mention the stupidity of just letting them charge off.


----------



## xuxa (Oct 8, 2001)

vertigo235 said:


> So chalk up the Night King as the most boring character ever.
> 
> He never spoke a word and we never found out what his deal was?


In season 5 they explained, The Night King was created by the children of the forest to battle the humans because the first men were destroying the sacred trees.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

xuxa said:


> In season 5 they explained, The Night King was created by the children of the forest to battle the humans because the first men were destroying the sacred trees.


Only they lost control of their weapon...turns out he had a mind of his own! Pesky humans...


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

Anubys said:


> We didn't see the Knights of the Veil at all. Also, there's the one house in the North that refused the call and stayed at some castle (Moat Kailyn or something?). Otherwise, it sure looks like Jon and Dany have maybe 100 warriors left to fight Cersei.


Thinking more, we Also have whatever grayjoys yara can round up back at the iron islands. We never saw anyone from dorne die other than the leaders. Other than the armies in high garden, the test of the reach is still around (Sam's dad and brother died but everyone else kneeled for Dany. Not sure what happened to the armies of riverrun after surrendering to Jamie. So they don't have a single big army left...this will just be a bunch of small armies reuniting at the end


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Also what's the deal with Dany landing Drogo when there are countless wights running around? That's actually the part that bothered me the most. 

The Arya library scene, while a bit long seemed to me the part where Arya steeled herself. She seemed to be shaken and acting as an average person would be expected to but then she seemed to remember her training and regather herself.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

TriBruin said:


> It was mentioned in the after show, not really a spoiler, especially since it was not obvious in the show
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...




That was absolutely discussed in the show. Last week they talked about using Bran as bait to draw in the Night King and having the dragons close by waiting to come in. But as far as Dany not being a good leader and abandoning plans, Jon is no better. Remember the Battle of the Bastards?


----------



## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

Anubys said:


> We didn't see the Knights of the Veil at all. Also, there's the one house in the North that refused the call and stayed at some castle (Moat Kailyn or something?). Otherwise, it sure looks like Jon and Dany have maybe 100 warriors left to fight Cersei.


We definitely saw the Knights of the Vale in the battle. The Sigil on the shield was noticeable in a couple of scenes.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

MacThor said:


> Jon & Dany = Targaryen + Targaryen, technically.
> Edmure Tully is still at Riverrun, I believe. He is pledged to Cersei - though he made that agreement with Jaime.
> Robin Arryn is still at the Vale. I doubt they sent their entire military to Winterfell.
> Tyrell is toast. (no pun intended)


c'mon Jon is much more a Stark than a Targaryen. He has 50/50 blood but he was raised a Stark.



xuxa said:


> In season 5 they explained, The Night King was created by the children of the forest to battle the humans because the first men were destroying the sacred trees.


OK Fair enough, which is why he's the most boring and pointless character of all.


----------



## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

MacThor said:


> Having Jaime survive (?) sets up an interesting conundrum for the rest of the series. He fought for the living against the dead, as he promised. Now does he fight for the North against Cersei?


Bronn can just kill him 3 minutes into the next episode...



LordKronos said:


> But as far as Dany not being a good leader and abandoning plans


No plan survives contact with the enemy. They weren't aware how difficult it was going to be to navigate the dragons in the 'fog of winter'. Near the start of the battle at one point it looked like they were going to make right for the white walker leaders, and then they just hit a wall of winter and lost visibility and navigability. Then you have the whole fiasco with the ditches.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

smbaker said:


> Bronn can just kill him 3 minutes into the next episode...


It's possible, but it's more likely that Bronn gives him the crossbow he uses to kill Cersei. The kingslayer missed his opportunity to slay another king this episode (though for a brief moment when they showed Jamie looking at the Night King I was wondering if that might happen) but he can always become the queenslayer.


----------



## dtle (Dec 12, 2001)

So did anyone get a good source to watch? If so, how?

Mine is Frontier FIOS, and the banding and artifacts were horrible during fast, dark shots. I will try to watch HBO Go today to see if it's any better.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

I also don't understand people's issue with the length of the battle in this episode. This was a fight coming from episode/day 1. This wasnt a situation that was going to be story told/character developed out of. It had to be a big glorious/devastating battle. And it was. It was like Lord of the rings. It was a physical clash that had to happen and much of the series was built towards, if they hadn't dedicated a whole episode to it it wouldn't be doing it justice.


----------



## MonsterJoe (Feb 19, 2003)

I enjoyed it thoroughly - The whole series has been leading up to this battle...literally from the first scene of S01E01. If it wasn't all about the battle, that would have been a worse transgression than the Lost finale.

It looked fine to me on HBOGo (roku)...but I'm also not super picky, unless it's REALLY bad, which it wasn't.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

brianp6621 said:


> I also don't understand people's issue with the length of the battle in this episode. This was a fight coming from episode/day 1. This wasnt a situation that was going to be story told/character developed out of. It had to be a big glorious/devastating battle. And it was. It was like Lord of the rings. It was a physical clash that had to happen and much of the series was built towards, if they hadn't dedicated a whole episode to it it wouldn't be doing it justice.


It's funny that the first two episodes people were complaining about no battles or deaths, now that this episode airs, people are complaining about how long the battle was!


----------



## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> I also don't understand people's issue with the length of the battle in this episode.


For me it wasn't the length of the battle as much as it was the way it was filmed, in the dark. It became tedious to watch.

The "Battle of the Bastards" episode, on the other hand, was a lengthy battle episode that I felt played very well.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

I do agree that I wasn't a fan of the battle in the dark, but I think it made sense. I mean if you were the dead, why would you attack during the day? Also probably helped to sell the fact that they really had no idea when it would end or how big the dead army was etc.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

tlc said:


> Dead:
> 
> Edd
> Beric
> ...


The Dothraki. The direwolf that accompanied then. Hundreds of extras.


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

I have a true 10-bit panel tv and could hardly see anything. Could have been a problem at the head end side, though. I felt the Battle of the Hornburg in Two Towers (also at night) was filmed much better. 

Overall, glad it's behind us. Too bad we didn't really get any closure on the Night King (his backstory and motivation). Jon was a bit of a dud. I'm being kind.

Let's get back to story telling.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

MacThor said:


> Having Jaime survive (?) sets up an interesting conundrum for the rest of the series. He fought for the living against the dead, as he promised. Now does he fight for the North against Cersei?


I think he will. He saw for himself the horror of the dead and I think after her refusing to help a s leaving them hanging the way she did, that his loyalties now lie elsewhere. He truly sees her for what she is.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

vertigo235 said:


> I do agree that I wasn't a fan of the battle in the dark, but I think it made sense. I mean if you were the dead, why would you attack during the day? Also probably helped to sell the fact that they really had no idea when it would end or how big the dead army was etc.


It also makes it cheaper to film, which means they'll have more budget for the showdown with Cersei (which I suspect will happen in daylight!).

The whole Dothraki thing was great...not only was it a very cool way to portray an epic disaster of a battle, but it was also dirt cheap. That's one thing this show has always done, with varying degrees of success...come up with ways to NOT show large battles.


----------



## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

wprager said:


> The Dothraki. The direwolf that accompanied then. Hundreds of extras.


We don't know that Ghost is dead yet, I mean Jorah made it back alive didn't he?


----------



## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

wprager said:


> The Dothraki. The direwolf that accompanied then. Hundreds of extras.


Ghost's status has not been confirmed.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

We need to have ONE Stark direwolf survive.


----------



## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

I understand that the Night King would probably attack at night. But it still wasn't as much fun to watch.


----------



## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

MacThor said:


> Jon & Dany = Targaryen + Targaryen, technically.


As I ninja edited, Jon is actually Stark + Targaryen by himself.

When was Edomure pledged to Cersi? He married into Frey (for Rob), and surrenders Riverrun to Lannister/Frey. But didn't think he pledged to Cersi, I thought he was a captive of house Lannister.

With so many characters across many years and across books and TV it can be dizzying to remember/keep up!


----------



## xuxa (Oct 8, 2001)

Overall the episode was fine, but with a significant portion of the discussion post-episode are people talking about the specifications of their TV, I think the director has failed quite a bit.

Also the cat and mouse game that Arya played in the library was tv/movie trope at it worst. I get needing a break from the melee/battle scenes for pacing but come up with something better than that. Throwing something (a book in this case) to distract and escape, cmon.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> We need to have ONE Stark direwolf survive.


Nymeria is out there in the wild still (Arya encountered her briefly a few seasons ago..edit: make that a few years ago, as I believe it was last season).


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

ADG said:


> Yeah, it was unclear to me whether both dragons survived or just the one.


I am pretty sure both survived. But I could be wrong.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

tivotvaddict said:


> She is indeed left handed, though Masie is right handed. There was talk in earlier seasons about that very fact when they were filming her Needle scenes.


Excellent.

Because, just saying... if you are flying through the air trying to stab someone, you'd use your dominant hand.

Don't ask me how I know this.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

dslunceford said:


> As I ninja edited, Jon is actually Stark + Targaryen by himself.
> 
> When was Edomure pledged to Cersi? He married into Frey (for Rob), and surrenders Riverrun to Lannister/Frey. But didn't think he pledged to Cersi, I thought he was a captive of house Lannister.
> 
> With so many characters across many years and across books and TV it can be dizzying to remember/keep up!


I agree. I'm confused as well. Edmure is still married and I don't recall him being pledged to Cersei. What's even more absurd would've been Jaime doing the pledging given that Jaime was 100% on the Cersei bandwagon (no dirty joke intended) at the time.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

This would've been a fine episode if not for the fact that the entire series culminated here. I had lots of problems with the visual quality (streaming via HBO Go 1 hour after it started), but I had way more problems with how they chose to edit and film the battle. As an audience member I would be ok with one or two "isn't this frenetic and confusing?" moments, but not an whole battle when the battle was this important. The camera cuts also made it a little unclear where everything was geographically. They should've hired George Miller.

Plot wise it was good and satisfying. Not as strong as last episode, but if you ignore the problems with how the battle came to the screen, I enjoyed it.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> Please. He redeemed himself for that long ago.


Not in his mind. In my opinion, he would be paying for this for the rest of his life, and most likely with his life. I think he now considers himself redeemed.


----------



## andyw715 (Jul 31, 2007)

It's all a dream of spring.


----------



## GBL (Apr 20, 2000)

Episode title is "The Long Night", moderators please change.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

vertigo235 said:


> We don't know that Ghost is dead yet, I mean Jorah made it back alive didn't he?


I took a bit of issue with that.

I loved the Dothraki scene. Both lighting the swords and watching them decimated from afar. Really powerful.

However, the moment I saw Jorah lead them out I thought:

1. Why send them so early (as DTF mentioned earlier)
2. Jorah will be one of very few to return

So you're in the lead of riding out and you make it back? Highly improbable. And about 90+% of the army is wiped out but less than 30% of the main characters who were also fighting? Blah. Boo. Should have killed off a few more main characters.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

LordKronos said:


> Nymeria is out there in the wild still (Arya encountered her briefly a few seasons ago..edit: make that a few years ago, as I believe it was last season).


True. But unless she comes in at the last minute to somehow save Arya's life, she's out of the picture.

It would have been really cool if Ghost had been riding the dragon with Jon.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

smbaker said:


> For me it wasn't the length of the battle as much as it was the way it was filmed, in the dark. It became tedious to watch.
> 
> The "Battle of the Bastards" episode, on the other hand, was a lengthy battle episode that I felt played very well.


Exactly. It was tedious. And muddled. And stupid. Why so much time in the library? How did the dark dragon no longer have tattered wings making it hard to determine which dragon was which. Why make it so hard to follow? The point is to tell a story. This didn't.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

vertigo235 said:


> I do agree that I wasn't a fan of the battle in the dark, but I think it made sense. I mean if you were the dead, why would you attack during the day? Also probably helped to sell the fact that they really had no idea when it would end or how big the dead army was etc.


Why would the dead care if it was day or night? They've attacked in the day before. It was done to make the bill for filming less expensive. And it was going to end when the NK was done. Not before. Ever.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

I will most likely re-watch, but I'll fast forward the stupid library scene.


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## Maui (Apr 22, 2000)

I don't believe for a second that Ghost is dead. He has played to big off a role in Jon's story for the death to be off-camera and simply something we have to assume.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

dslunceford said:


> As I ninja edited, Jon is actually Stark + Targaryen by himself.
> 
> When was Edomure pledged to Cersi? He married into Frey (for Rob), and surrenders Riverrun to Lannister/Frey. But didn't think he pledged to Cersi, I thought he was a captive of house Lannister.
> 
> With so many characters across many years and across books and TV it can be dizzying to remember/keep up!


I was only thinking TV show, but I thought when Jaime convinced Edmure to enter Riverrun and surrender, they struck a deal. However, you're right - I mis-remembered. Edmure surrendered simply to save the Tully house from the slaughter Jaime promised. I assume Edmure is still alive somewhere, and the Blackfish is the only Tully killed during the siege.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TAsunder said:


> This would've been a fine episode if not for the fact that the entire series culminated here.


Well, not really...this is, after all, Game of Thrones. The battle between the living and the dead, although it has become very important the past couple seasons, is still a sideline. The biggest question (who will sit on the Iron Throne) is still very much up in the air...and although we can be pretty sure which side will win, that question still remains very much in play.


TonyD79 said:


> Why would the dead care if it was day or night? They've attacked in the day before. It was done to make the bill for filming less expensive. And it was going to end when the NK was done. Not before. Ever.


They don't care, but if the Night King has any brains, he'll attack when the people who DO care (i.e, the living) least want it. 

And while we can argue from other evidence that the Night King has no brains, in this case at least he made a sound strategic decision. Which just happened to make filming less expensive.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> I will most likely re-watch, but I'll fast forward the stupid library scene.


I may but from a different source to see if it is watchable.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Blah. Boo. Should have killed off a few more main characters.


Still confused by this. They killed off 5 main characters (6 if you stretch and count Lyanna Mormont). I can't recall another episode with more big character deaths except perhaps the Season 6 finale, and none of them died in battle. Ygritte, Pyp and Grenn died in the battle with Mance's army - besides Ygritte I don't think any of them were more "main" than anyone who died in the Long Night.

I agree that the Dothraki scene was cool. Even if it was a dumb battle decision.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

tater2 said:


> SPOILER


Dude.


----------



## MikeekiM (Jun 25, 2002)

OK... I have gone through all the previous posts (whew! and they say that the "Now Playing" forum has low participation!)... As always, a lot has been said that I already agree with... Here are my comments:

*1. Filming was too d*mn dark!!!* I blamed my 2006 Sony SXRD LCoS and its poor ability to render subtle shades of gray and black for my poor viewing experience. However, it looks like everyone (or at least most people) had the same experience that I had. For those of you with OLED displays, was it bearable? It was unbearable on my set.

I wonder if the poor lighting was intentional, and that we are not supposed to see everything. I can see an argument that the people in battle are under low light conditions, and that there is a lot of chaos and confusion. Did the director want us to experience the same dark, low light chaos as the players at war?

*2. A lot were killed in volume, but we didn't lose as many notable characters as I expected. * The fact that we lost nearly all (if not 100%) of the Dothrakies is pretty huge, in addition to the countless unsullied. The shear volume of people slaughtered is very significant and will make the next battle more difficult. So as others have said, the notable deaths were: Edd, Beric, Lyanna Mormont, Theon, Jorah, Night King and Melisandre. How the hell did Sam survive???

*3. Use the pointy end.* Loved that comment from Arya.

*4. Theon Greyjoy (smh)... * Reminded me of a "death by cop" suicide. I wish they did a better job at his death. That was so senseless.

*5. Lyanna Mormont crushed to death.* Man, hearing the giant cracking her ribs was excruciating to hear. Glad she got her final licks in before we lost her.

*6. Crypt coming to life *kind of surprised me, but not really. I had always considered the fact that they were hunkered down with "the dead"...and had always thought that it might happen. But I didn't think it would really happen. Yet it did.

*7. Arya is a bad *ss! * Yeah, I realized that Arya was absent for most of the last part of the episode and that she would need to make an appearance before the credit roll. Didn't think she would be the one who actually dealt the devastating blow to the Night King, but that was pretty epic. As others have said, I was a little surprised that a prick of dragonglass did it (okay...it was more than a prick)... 

I vaguely remember the "not today" quote... I need to look back at it's previous uses... I did a little searching, and it was used at least once in season 1 during Arya's training with the mentor that trained her with the wooden sword. And I read that it was also used sometime in season 3. I need to do more searching. My memory is not serving me well here.

*8. Melisandre's death. * Okay, so what's the story here. She played her role and self destructed? Was she of no use to them in their upcoming battle with Cersei? Did she understand her destiny, and with that fulfilled she laid herself to rest? If she knows so much, why did she make so many mistakes in the past? How does she know she does not have future destinies to fulfill?

*9. Remaining episodes.* I am assuming episode 4 will be the emotional set up for the big battle at Kings Landing. Episode 5 will be the big battle. Episode 6 will be wrapping things up and tying a bow around the series...


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

Jaime, Brienne, Pod, Greyworm, Tormund, Davos (where was he at?) and the others fighting outside at the wall, I have no idea how they survived and at one point I kind of written them off. The wave of wights was so unrelenting and coming from every direction I thought the rest, like Arya, would fall back into the castles hallways for some reprieve. They could've broken up the fighting with some character moments having a few trapped in a room for a moment or have them take to take turns defending a hallway as fatigue would to be setting in.
I enjoyed it, It was a bit dark for me but made do.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Well, not really...this is, after all, Game of Thrones. The battle between the living and the dead, although it has become very important the past couple seasons, is still a sideline. The biggest question (who will sit on the Iron Throne) is still very much up in the air...and although we can be pretty sure which side will win, that question still remains very much in play.


Past couple of seasons? You mean since the opening scene of the entire series?


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

Spoiler






tater2 said:


> Ghost is alive. If you look at the shot of the preview. They are all outside the gate looking at the dead. Ghost is there






previews are spoilers, reported.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> And while we can argue from other evidence that the Night King has no brains, in this case at least he made a sound strategic decision. Which just happened to make filming less expensive.


Perhaps. I get the sense the dead simply march at their steady pace and attack when they arrive. Sometimes they arrive in the morning, sometimes they arrive at night. The previous episode seemed to show they arrived at night.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

MikeekiM said:


> I was a little surprised that a prick of dragonglass did it


It was a Valerian steel dagger. The same one they attempted to stab Bran with, and kill Littlefinger. It originally belonged to Rhaegar, Jon's dad.

BTW, agree with pretty much your entire post. Nicely summarized my thoughts too.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

uncdrew said:


> I took a bit of issue with that.
> 
> I loved the Dothraki scene. Both lighting the swords and watching them decimated from afar. Really powerful.
> 
> ...


But they did show at one point all the Dothraki passing him up as they were running. I almost thought he got trampled. So him retreating as soon as he saw them going down that fast made sense to me.



MacThor said:


> Dude.


I was biting my tongue to not say something about the previews and this guy just jumps right in.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

MikeekiM said:


> I was a little surprised that a prick of dragonglass did it (okay...it was more than a prick)...


It was the Valyrian steel dagger.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

robojerk said:


> Jaime, Brienne, Pod, Greyworm, Tormund, Davos (where was he at?) and the others fighting outside at the wall, I have no idea how they survived and at one point I kind of written them off. The wave of wights was so unrelenting and coming from every direction I thought the rest, like Arya, would fall back into the castles hallways for some reprieve.


You know what. I have to agree with this here. I'm really really happy that Jaime, Brienne and Pod survived but ...... HOW. At one point we literally see them overcome against that wall by a swarm of wights on each of them. I actually said out loud "I can't believe they just killed all three of them like that" and then they are just okay? Contrived as hellll.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

MacThor said:


> Still confused by this. They killed off 5 main characters (6 if you stretch and count Lyanna Mormont). I can't recall another episode with more big character deaths except perhaps the Season 6 finale, and none of them died in battle. Ygritte, Pyp and Grenn died in the battle with Mance's army - besides Ygritte I don't think any of them were more "main" than anyone who died in the Long Night.


So all the people who lead entire regiments into battle all survived*? It's like magic. It's the proportions of death -- so much killing wiping out the majority of the army but not the majority of the main characters. I expected more from GOT.

* Jorah survived the initial charge. Of course he succumbed later, of course.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Did the dragonglass actually help them much? Does it render the wight's dead on contact or anything?


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## xuxa (Oct 8, 2001)

MacThor said:


> It was the Valyrian steel dagger.


 And stabbed at the same spot where he was stabbed by the Children when created


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> But they did show at one point all the Dothraki passing him up as they were running. I almost thought he got trampled. So him retreating as soon as he saw them going down that fast made sense to me.


I will watch more closely next time. I don't think any Dothraki were running, unless you mean the horses were galloping.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TAsunder said:


> Past couple of seasons? You mean since the opening scene of the entire series?


No, it's been a factor since the opening scene. But it's only been central the past couple of seasons. Most of the show, the main focus has been on the, well, game of thrones.


uncdrew said:


> I will watch more closely next time. I don't think any Dothraki were running, unless you mean the horses were galloping.


That's how Dothraki run.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

TAsunder said:


> Did the dragonglass actually help them much? Does it render the wight's dead on contact or anything?


I was under the impression that fire killed the wights and dragon glass/valyrian steel killed the white walkers. But honestly they had to try everything, didn't they?


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

I'm fascinated by the various religions in the story, and how they came into play last night.

Some of the heroic deaths came from followers of the Lord of Light (Melisandre, Beric) and the Drowned God (Theon).
Arya is "sort of" a disciple of the Many Faced God, and she used a Valyrian (different gods) dagger to kill the NK, in the Godswood (Old Gods).
Most of Westeros follows the faith of the Seven, and they were not very involved in the Great War.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

uncdrew said:


> I will watch more closely next time. I don't think any Dothraki were running, unless you mean the horses were galloping.


 I meant as the entire army was running, horses included!


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

I'd like to know how Daenerys and Jon were able to hold on to those dragons during those crazy fight sequences. They should have plummeted to their death the first time the Night King rammed into one of them.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Did the dragonglass actually help them much? Does it render the wight's dead on contact or anything?


I think so.

They did show some shots of the wights running into the barricades that had dragonglass on the corners. They purposefully showed us that it worked.

But I don't think it kills on contact. I think it just kinda makes wounds act like wounds with a normal sword on a normal human would work (for lack of a better way to word that).


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> Why would the dead care if it was day or night? They've attacked in the day before. It was done to make the bill for filming less expensive. And it was going to end when the NK was done. Not before. Ever.


Well, that's exactly why they *should* attack at night, because they don't care but it would give them a strategic advantage. I mean I realize that the Night King has made some dumb moves but he has had at least some strategy.

However I do agree that it was mostly to save money, but there is a valid plot reason as well.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

uncdrew said:


> I think so.
> 
> They did show some shots of the wights running into the barricades that had dragonglass on the corners. They purposefully showed us that it worked.


Was it the dragon glass though or just the fact that they got stuck?


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

DUSlider said:


> previews are spoilers, reported.


Wait, so preview material, that airs just after the episode both on Live and Streaming options, are considered spoilers for those who watched the episode? Do a lot of folks skip those on purpose? I ask because I'm purposefully watching shows like Talking Dead specifically to see a preview after watching current episode.

Frankly, I'm surprised I wasn't reported earlier for referencing that this Night King fight left me a bit meh after watching Endgame's epic fight scenes Friday night. Thought for sure someone would complain I spoiled by divulging Endgame had epic fight scenes


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> Was it the dragon glass though or just the fact that they got stuck?


I will watch for this more closely on my re-watch.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

tater2 said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Ghost is alive. If you look at the shot of the preview. They are all outside the gate looking at the dead. Ghost is there


Do NOT READ IF YOU DONT WATCH THE PREVIEW


Spoiler



Looks like both dragons made it as well.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> No, it's been a factor since the opening scene. But it's only been central the past couple of seasons. Most of the show, the main focus has been on the, well, game of thrones.


Can't really understand your point of view here but ok. At what point did it become no longer a "sideline" in your mind? Was it still a sideline at Hardhome?


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## dtle (Dec 12, 2001)

Yes, I purposely skip previews because it may spoiled the future episodes.

I started way back in the first season of _24_.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> Exactly. It was tedious. And muddled. And stupid. Why so much time in the library? How did the dark dragon no longer have tattered wings making it hard to determine which dragon was which. Why make it so hard to follow? The point is to tell a story. This didn't.


He did, but it was so dark on my TV I couldn'ttell.. I just watched a small clip of the aerial fight between the two dragons on my phone (which has a much better screen than my 10 year old tv) and the wings were, in fact, still quite tattered.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

dslunceford said:


> Wait, so preview material, that airs just after the episode both on Live and Streaming options, are considered spoilers for those who watched the episode? Do a lot of folks skip those on purpose? I ask because I'm purposefully watching shows like Talking Dead specifically to see a preview after watching current episode.
> 
> <snip>


Yes, yes yes. Previews are spoilers, without question. I absolutely, 100%, do not watch previews for this show because I don't want any future story spoiled before I watch it. I appreciate you putting it in spoilers and am really happy I didn't happen to see it before the spoiler tags were added.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

TonyD79 said:


> Exactly. It was tedious. And muddled. And stupid. Why so much time in the library? How did the dark dragon no longer have tattered wings making it hard to determine which dragon was which. Why make it so hard to follow? The point is to tell a story. This didn't.


There were definitely still tattered wings as I used then to tell them apart. But it was still difficult at times, and I think that was purposeful to maintain the suspense but not sure it worked as well as hoped.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

tivotvaddict said:


> Yes, yes yes. Previews are spoilers, without question. I absolutely, 100%, do not watch previews for this show because I don't want any future story spoiled before I watch it. I appreciate you putting it in spoilers and am really happy I didn't happen to see it before the spoiler tags were added.


Additionally, the rules for posting to this forum explicitly state that previews count as spoilers, so regardless of whether one agrees with it, those are the rules.


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

I'm going to have to rewatch on HBO GO to see if it's any better. My Comcast recording looked pretty crappy. I turned the room lights way down to help with the darkness, but the muddy gray macroblocking/artifacts were terrible and the quick motion made it look even worse. I've also been having audio issues for months where the volume level is all over the place and I have to keep doing large adjustments while watching, plus having occasional audio pops. Not sure if it's Comcast, HBO, Tivo, or my audio receiver...but it's going to take some troubleshooting.

I wasn't a fan of all the slow-mo walking and drawn out looks. The Night King looked like a bride slowly making his way towards Bran at the altar! I was kind of confused as to what their actual plans were. The whole thing with lighting the trench. Once it was lit, they all just stood and watched the wights on the other side until they figured out how to come across. Were they just waiting for the dragons to come and light them up? Have some tar at the ready to fling at them and light them up with arrows! I thought the battles scenes in the earlier seasons were done much better.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Regarding Theon's death, I didn't find it pointless or suicide by cop. There was no way he could survive once the night King showed up so he went out swinging.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

I also don't understand why people think we should have or needed more on the night King. He was created by the children of the forest to fight against "man". It's that simple. He isn't Thanos with motivations, feelings, intricacies etc.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

brianp6621 said:


> Regarding Theon's death, I didn't find it pointless or suicide by cop. There was no way he could survive once the night King showed up so he went out swinging.


Yes I agree. Instead of running away, he was the last man standing to fight for Bran. He knew when he saw the Night King there was no way out and no way he could defeat him but he went for it all the same. Definition of a true hero.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

The Battle of Winterfell was dark and full of terrors. So dark, in fact, we couldn't see anything.




TAsunder said:


> Can't really understand your point of view here but ok. At what point did it become no longer a "sideline" in your mind? Was it still a sideline at Hardhome?


I would say that's around the time it took (mostly) center stage, at least sporadically. But the main focus of the show as a whole has been the struggle for the Iron Throne.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

TAsunder said:


> Can't really understand your point of view here but ok. At what point did it become no longer a "sideline" in your mind? Was it still a sideline at Hardhome?


I'm with you here. Fist of the First Men. Mance's main reason for building his "Army" was to get the free folk South of the Wall. Jon let the Wildlings through to prevent them becoming "meat for the army of the dead." The Night's Watch killed him for it! Jon's pretty much been obsessed with the dead since he killed that wight in LC Mormont's chambers.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

MacThor said:


> I'm with you here. Fist of the First Men. Mance's main reason for building his "Army" was to get the free folk South of the Wall. Jon let the Wildlings through to prevent them becoming "meat for the army of the dead." The Night's Watch killed him for it! Jon's pretty much been obsessed with the dead since he killed that wight in LC Mormont's chambers.


Well, to be fair, once you've had an up close and personal interaction with one of them, they are pretty hard to ignore.


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## nirisahn (Nov 19, 2005)

What I didn't get was once everyone retreated inside the walls, why weren't they flinging fire out onto the battlefield to burn as many of the dead as possible? They know the enemy can animate the dead. Oh wait. They're not thinking about that if they send their non-combatants into the crypt with the dead. I guess they weren't thinking about it during the battle, either.


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

MikeekiM said:


> *8. Melisandre's death. * Okay, so what's the story here. She played her role and self destructed? Was she of no use to them in their upcoming battle with Cersei? Did she understand her destiny, and with that fulfilled she laid herself to rest? If she knows so much, why did she make so many mistakes in the past? How does she know she does not have future destinies to fulfill?


Melisandre's role from what I understand was never about the iron throne. Her goal throughout this series was to support the one person that the Lord of Light thought was best suited to defeat the Night King. Once the Night King was defeated, her arc was over.

The library scene that everyone hates or doesn't understand...
1. They used it to break up the battle scenes.
2. A reminder of how Arya is deceptive, quiet, cat like to setup the end with her sneaking in to kill the Night King.
3. A way of getting Beric/The Hound to Arya to fulfill Beric's arc.

As far as why Arya screamed. I'm thinking she was worried that the Night King would kill Bran before she got to him and needed his attention and the plan was to always drop the dagger to her free hand.

Addressing a couple other comments/complaints.

1. *Jon being useless:* Someone else mentioned this, but once Dany threw the battle plans to the fire after seeing her precious Dothraki get destroyed, Jon was trying to keep up with her. Better to fight together than separate. Then this caused him to be one step behind. Of course, this also allowed Arya to kill the Night King.

2. *Dragon air to air battle confusion and what dragon landed in the castle and died:* This reminded me of the end of How to Train Your Dragon, lol. Both Dany and Jon fly above the clouds and Viserion flies up from below shooting blue flame at Dany. The whole time Dany/Drogon is being chased then Jon attacks Viserion with Rhaegel, both dragons get hurt but Viserion gets a leaky fire jaw, lol. This is how I knew it was Viserion at the end that landed in the middle of the castle as blue fire kept coming out the side of his head.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

I *hate* it when I get a leaky fire jaw!! So annoying! :tearsofjoy::tonguewink::grinning:


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> So all the people who lead entire regiments into battle all survived*? It's like magic. It's the proportions of death -- so much killing wiping out the majority of the army but not the majority of the main characters. I expected more from GOT.
> 
> * Jorah survived the initial charge. Of course he succumbed later, of course.


Fair enough. Given *how* overwhelmed their forces were, it's extremely unrealistic. They probably shouldn't have been decimated if they were going to have that many battle commanders survive.

But this show has been consistent. The plot armor is strong. There's no way Jon or Tormund should have survived the Battle of the Bastards - or Hardhome for that matter. No main characters died at Blackwater, or in any of the battles in the War of the Five Kings. Jamie and Bronn were the only two who "escaped" the Loot Train.

Of the three battles against the dead, the one that makes the least sense to have so many survivors was the Fist of the First Men. You'd think the dead would leave no survivors. How did the Crows survive the Fist? At Hardhome, some escaped by boat.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> The Battle of Winterfell was dark and full of terrors. So dark, in fact, we couldn't see anything.
> 
> 
> 
> I would say that's around the time it took (mostly) center stage, at least sporadically. But the main focus of the show as a whole has been the struggle for the Iron Throne.


Some funny tweets there! especially loved the Danaerys' fake smile squint.


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## hummingbird_206 (Aug 23, 2007)

How did Arya know exactly where she needed to stab The Night King?


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

Also....

*People not understanding Bran's purpose in warging into the Crow:* He said he is marked by the Night King and the Night King knows where he is. However, I thought that only worked for the Night King if Bran was actively warging into something? Thus, Bran had to warg into the crows during the battle so that the Night King knew exactly where he was. Or at least. If Bran wasn't warging the Night King had an idea where he was, but not exactly where.

Thus, Bran had to Warg to get the Night King attention and get him moving to his location near the Gods Tree.



hummingbird_206 said:


> How did Arya know exactly where she needed to stab The Night King?


I don't think she new or that it mattered where she stabbed him. I was always under the impression that you just needed valyrian steel to kill the Night King, not that you had to stab him somewhere particular. I don't remember anything in this series specifying that the Night King had to be stabbed in the heart (Where he was stabbed as a human by the children of the forest with the dragon glass.) Unless it was implied that he had to be stabbed in the same place where he was stabbed by the dragon glass to create him?


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

CNet story on the dark screen/scene issues (and a video comparing LED to OLED).

My Roku TCL LED does a decent job, and I've done some calibration, but I'm not going to pretend its black levels could keep up, even though I had a great connection for HBOGo on FiOS.

I may watch again on my projector (also via stream) but not certain it will help me follow much more


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

I watched on Comcast on a budget TCL Roku TV and whole dark I could mostly follow. I will try on my main set 2018 Sony XBR900 and HBO go next week when that rooms flooring is done.


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

brianp6621 said:


> I watched on Comcast on a budget TCL Roku TV and whole dark I could mostly follow. I will try on my main set 2018 Sony XBR900 and HBO go next week when that rooms flooring is done.


I watched on my 12 year old Panasonic 50" Plasma through Verizon FiOS, then again via HBOGo on my AppleTV, which up until now I thought was still ok,lol. I'm starting to look for an OLED now, lol. The stream through HBO Go seemed a bit better. It's obvious that my Plasma has lost some of it's brightness. I turned off all the lights to watch in pitch black which helped a little but some scenes were kind of hard to make out.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> Regarding Theon's death, I didn't find it pointless or suicide by cop. There was no way he could survive once the night King showed up so he went out swinging.


I kind wanted him to run the other way.

Bran says Thanks, see y'all later.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

DUSlider said:


> The library scene that everyone hates or doesn't understand...
> 1. They used it to break up the battle scenes.
> 2. A reminder of how Arya is deceptive, quiet, cat like to setup the end with her sneaking in to kill the Night King.
> 3. A way of getting Beric/The Hound to Arya to fulfill Beric's arc.


1. Plenty of better ways to do that and use the time
2. We don't need the reminder
3. Plenty of others ways to do that


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

All I kept thinking during the library scene was that it was just like something in an episode of The Walking Dead.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

hummingbird_206 said:


> How did Arya know exactly where she needed to stab The Night King?


She just needed to use the pointy end.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

hummingbird_206 said:


> How did Arya know exactly where she needed to stab The Night King?


Luck.

But I don't think she planned that maneuver. I don't think you plan to get one arm caught and drop the dagger to the other hand. That was also just luck. And good reflexes.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> 1. Plenty of better ways to do that and use the time
> 2. We don't need the reminder
> 3. Plenty of others ways to do that


Ironic that the only episode of three this season that has spent *any* time away from Winterfell was the episode titled "Winterfell."


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)




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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> I also don't understand people's issue with the length of the battle in this episode. This was a fight coming from episode/day 1. This wasnt a situation that was going to be story told/character developed out of. It had to be a big glorious/devastating battle. And it was. It was like Lord of the rings. It was a physical clash that had to happen and much of the series was built towards, if they hadn't dedicated a whole episode to it it wouldn't be doing it justice.


I was kinda hoping the battle would last into the next episode. The Night King's wham, bam, thank you ma'am death and its aftermath was too sudden for its 10 year build up. I just hope the Cercei battle happens during the day.

What about Jon's brilliant plan at the end to face off mano y mano with the ice dragon? And in true television/movie form, the dragon farted around for a few seconds instead of making him extra crispy. Then Arya happened.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

cherry ghost said:


>


Nice pull. In that scene she tosses the dagger from right to left and goes from low to high, but it's the same principle - being able to switch hands when your opponent grabs your wrist.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

uncdrew said:


> 1. Plenty of better ways to do that and use the time
> 2. We don't need the reminder
> 3. Plenty of others ways to do that


Like I said it was a character moment. She at first seemed like the scared little girl she was supposed to be. Then she became no-one again


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> Regarding Theon's death, I didn't find it pointless or suicide by cop. There was no way he could survive once the night King showed up so he went out swinging.


He could always have run the other way.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

cheesesteak said:


> He could always have run the other way.


No. He really couldn't.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

cheesesteak said:


> He could always have run the other way.


And completely undo his last 3-4 seasons of character development? I'm glad you weren't writing GoT


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Did any of the good guys besides Grey Worm wear helmets into battle?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> Did any of the good guys besides Grey Worm wear helmets into battle?


If you're wearing a helmet, it's too hard for the audience to recognize the characters. 

(I noticed that even Grey Worm kept taking his helmet off and putting it back on once we'd gotten a good look at him...)


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> And completely undo his last 3-4 seasons of character development? I'm glad you weren't writing GoT


He had already redeemed himself. His certain death changed nothing unless people want to give him credit for delaying the Night King long enough for Arya to teleport in.

I'm a non book reader. Are the people who care about the direwolves all book readers? They've had such a minimal presence on the tv show that I don't care about them at all.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

cheesesteak said:


> He had already redeemed himself. His certain death changed nothing unless people want to give him credit for delaying the Night King long enough for Arya to teleport in.
> I'm a non book reader. Are the people who care about the direwolves all book readers? They've had such a minimal presence on the tv show that I don't care about them at all.


I'm not a book reader and I care very much about the good doggies.
I also still disagree with you about Theon.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> I'm a non book reader. Are the people who care about the direwolves all book readers? They've had such a minimal presence on the tv show that I don't care about them at all.


They mattered a lot to the characters in the first season, but as they grew I think they just became too expensive to be very prominent...


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## SoBelle0 (Jun 25, 2002)

The scene with the dothraki, alight and running, was tremendous! A beautiful scene, then slowly as each light extinguished it became more and more fearsome.
Then, seeing Jon and Dany up there watching from afar - I couldn't figure out why they didn't just fly ahead and fry all of the undead. I didn't fully understand their plan, and now wonder if they did either. When Dany went off book and started THEN trying to fry the undead (along with what remained of the Dothraki) I thought, you and Jon are going to waste all of this. And, they did.

Lady Mormont made my day!
Then, Arya made my night!

We cheered for them both, and worried they were both goners. Bummed about Lady Lyanna, and grateful that wasn't yet Arya's last moment. Could she be the True Princess?
'Cause Dany kind of stinks at all of this leading.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

Dany may stink at leading, but we have zero indication that Arya would be any better. She has zero experience. Nor do we have any indication whatsoever that she would want to lead.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

SoBelle0 said:


> The scene with the dothraki, alight and running, was tremendous! A beautiful scene, then slowly as each light extinguished it became more and more fearsome.
> Then, seeing Jon and Dany up there watching from afar - I couldn't figure out why they didn't just fly ahead and fry all of the undead. I didn't fully understand their plan, and now wonder if they did either.


They were there to wait for the NK to show up in the Godswood then they would swoop down on him.


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## stellie93 (Feb 25, 2006)

ct1 said:


> Was it possible at all for anyone but the Night King to kill Bran?


Why was it important to kill Bran? If the Night King had killed him and then Arya did the same thing she did, would NK have died?



astrohip said:


> It was a Valerian steel dagger. The same one they attempted to stab Bran with, and kill Littlefinger. It originally belonged to Rhaegar, Jon's dad.
> 
> .


How did Littlefinger ever get Rhaegar's daggar?

Going back to the early seasons when they killed off the best character--Ned Stark--and then Robert Baratheon, I expected some biggies to die in this battle. Maybe next time....


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

cheesesteak said:


> He had already redeemed himself.


 Yes but looking/acting like a coward again likely right before his death anyways wouldn't be a good look.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

In hindsight, the best strategy would have been not to fight them at all. 
Have Arya wear wight-face and infiltrate the army of the dead and assassinate the Night King. 

If only they had a shaved-head Master of Whisperers.....


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

stellie93 said:


> Why was it important to kill Bran? If the Night King had killed him and then Arya did the same thing she did, would NK have died?


The Three-Eyed Raven was the only thing in the human world with the power to stop him. I think he'd been obsessed with killing him for ages (literally), and when Bran both got the old 3ER killed and at the same time opened himself up to the NK's GPS, the NK saw his chance to be rid of his greatest foe once and for all. So Bran became (made himself) an irresistible target, and since the living's strategy and tactics were...lacking, NK probably thought it was safe to indulge himself.


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## ozzman73 (Nov 27, 2006)

I may have missed the comment, but also confirmed that the NK was a Targaryen. Fire couldn't destroy him, only good ole Valaryan steel.

Rob, could corroborate, but besides all the bad tactical decisions, sieges as we saw with the Riverrun clan, are about outlasting those in the castle. You don't need equal numbers to defend an attack, just effective tactics. Granted if you have an army that becomes a self-supporting siege ladder, things change. But before that, not even an ounce of oil and fire on those wights attacking the walls?


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> Yes but looking/acting like a coward again likely right before his death anyways wouldn't be a good look.


Pulling an exit, stage left and living to fight another day isn't cowardice. It's a strategy. Especially against an unbeatable foe. Although Snagglepuss is not known as a military strategist, his philosophy would have served Theon well in this instance. Now the good guys are down a good fighter for the upcoming battle of the seven kingdoms. But Theon was heroic for the story.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

cheesesteak said:


> Pulling an exit, stage left and living to fight another day isn't cowardice. It's a strategy. Especially against an unbeatable foe. Although Snagglepuss is not known as a military strategist, his philosophy would have served Theon well in this instance. Now the good guys are down a good fighter for the upcoming battle of the seven kingdoms. But Theon was heroic for the story.


Unless there was a dragon specifically coming to his aide, Theon was a goner anyway once in the presence of the Night King. Sure the show could have written him a way out but that would have been absurd. This was his correct ending.
And it would have been viewed as cowardice in this scenario as he was charged with guarding Bran (even if he didn't need to)


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## dslunceford (Oct 19, 2000)

ozzman73 said:


> I may have missed the comment, but also confirmed that the NK was a Targaryen. Fire couldn't destroy him, only good ole Valaryan steel.


This article seems to discount the NK = Targaryen theory


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## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

I was Loud Wrong about the plot. So much for my pet theory.  I dare say the Night King SHOULD have flown to Kings Landing ... much easier opposition.

I think it was very much a missed opportunity when the crypts came horribly to life. Nobody was shown coming face to face with a beloved, undead ancestor.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> Pulling an exit, stage left and living to fight another day isn't cowardice.


Exit and do _what_? go _where_? The series made it pretty clear that death of Bran was Game Over time for the human population.

Buying Bran an extra few seconds / taking a wild stab at killing the NK was the only move he had left.



Marco said:


> I dare say the Night King SHOULD have flown to Kings Landing ... much easier opposition.


All he had to do was wait until everything other living thing at Winterfell was dead before going after Bran. He had overwhelming numbers and complete dominance of the battlefield. Just go sit on an undead horse for another ten minutes.

He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, like many big bads do.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> There were definitely still tattered wings as I used then to tell them apart. But it was still difficult at times, and I think that was purposeful to maintain the suspense but not sure it worked as well as hoped.


Screw suspense. If you are showing me a battle, let me see who is who. Otherwise, don't show me the battle.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

smbaker said:


> The series made it pretty clear that death of Bran was Game Over time for the human population.


Really? I honestly must have missed that if that is the case.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

TonyD79 said:


> Screw suspense. If you are showing me a battle, let me see who is who. Otherwise, don't show me the battle.


Then its just a big popcorn scene, like gladiator, not one that actually creates suspense/tension which is more about story telling.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

Great quote from Alan Sepinwall's review at the Rolling Stone:

_And just when all seemed lost even for those people - in a sequence scored to some of the most haunting music Ramin Djawadi has ever composed for the show (when you hear a piano on Game of Thrones, things are very bad) - Arya stabbed the Night King and all was relatively well again._

The work Ramin has done on this show and Westworld is simply sublime.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

dslunceford said:


> This article seems to discount the NK = Targaryen theory


Hevn't clicked on the article, but the NK was made centuries (if not millennia) before the Targarioans ever came to Westeros, and probably before they ever existed at all...


ozzman73 said:


> Rob, could corroborate, but besides all the bad tactical decisions, sieges as we saw with the Riverrun clan, are about outlasting those in the castle. You don't need equal numbers to defend an attack, just effective tactics. Granted if you have an army that becomes a self-supporting siege ladder, things change. But before that, not even an ounce of oil and fire on those wights attacking the walls?


Yeah, that drove me crazy...and even worse, several times they ACTUALLY SHOWED equipment mounted on the walls for dropping onto people trying to scale them. Granted, they would have only given a temporary reprieve, but it's bizarre that not only did nobody in the city ever think of using anti-siege weaponry on their attackers, somebody on the show's staff did think of it (whoever put the sweeps on the walls).


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## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

What would a medieval guy know about besieging castles, though.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Hevn't clicked on the article, but the NK was made centuries (if not millennia) before the Targarioans ever came to Westeros, and probably before they ever existed at all...
> 
> Yeah, that drove me crazy...and even worse, several times they ACTUALLY SHOWED equipment mounted on the walls for dropping onto people trying to scale them. Granted, they would have only given a temporary reprieve, but it's bizarre that not only did nobody in the city ever think of using anti-siege weaponry on their attackers, somebody on the show's staff did think of it (whoever put the sweeps on the walls).


I saw the spike thingys on top of the wall and thought "gee, those would be great to knock down a bunch of wights"


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## ozzman73 (Nov 27, 2006)

dslunceford said:


> This article seems to discount the NK = Targaryen theory





Rob Helmerichs said:


> Hevn't clicked on the article, but the NK was made centuries (if not millennia) before the Targarioans ever came to Westeros, and probably before they ever existed at all...


OK, I'm convinced that NK was not a Targaryen, but he was a dragonrider for sure and immune to fire, so maybe a precursor.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> Really? I honestly must have missed that if that is the case.


Didn't Bran as much as say so in the prior episode, and wasn't it the whole point of putting Bran out there as bait?



> "An endless night. He wants to erase this world, and I am its memory."


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

smbaker said:


> Didn't Bran as much as say so in the prior episode, and wasn't it the whole point of putting Bran out there as bait?


I never took that as if you kill Bran, that is the end of mankind, simply that Bran was very important and it would be significant if the night king killed him)


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## jakerock (Dec 9, 2002)

hummingbird_206 said:


> How did Arya know exactly where she needed to stab The Night King?


It may have been luck etc. but Bran gave her the dagger she used on him and he was the one who 'saw' what we saw in order to know where to stab the NK. So in my mind, he would have been able to tell her what to do if she ever got the chance. Given his abilities that doesn't seem too outlandish.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> I never took that as if you kill Bran, that is the end of mankind, simply that Bran was very important and it would be significant if the night king killed him)


"_erase this world_" sounds pretty game over to me. But, we're all free to interpret it as we see fit.

There is some speculation that Bran has yet to travel in time some more, and killing Bran (or killing any three eyed raven that would have prevented Bran from becoming the three eyed raven) might have negative impact on the timeline for mankind. GOT isn't time travel fiction in the way that for example Star Trek likes to dabble with time travel, but you do have that whole Hodor business, kind of a loopy thing going on there.

I do wonder what they're going to do with Bran in the remaining three episodes, whether his influence on the story has mostly concluded with the death of the NK, or whether they have bigger plans for him.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

smbaker said:


> "_erase this world_" sounds pretty game over to me. But, we're all free to interpret it as we see fit.
> 
> There is some speculation that Bran has yet to travel in time some more, and killing Bran (or killing any three eyed raven that would have prevented Bran from becoming the three eyed raven) might have negative impact on the timeline for mankind. GOT isn't time travel fiction in the way that for example Star Trek likes to dabble with time travel, but you do have that whole Hodor business, kind of a loopy thing going on there.
> 
> I do wonder what they're going to do with Bran in the remaining three episodes, whether his influence on the story has mostly concluded with the death of the NK, or whether they have bigger plans for him.


I parse that differently. The knight King wants to erase the world and Bran is the memory (I.e. a significant part of it/in it) but that doesn't read to me as if killing Bran/TeR destroys mankind.

I can see it both ways but if it really was your way, why works the night King attack aimlessly at all. Just Target Bran.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

vertigo235 said:


> I do agree that I wasn't a fan of the battle in the dark, but I think it made sense. I mean if you were the dead, why would you attack during the day? Also probably helped to sell the fact that they really had no idea when it would end or how big the dead army was etc.


Plus it's a whole lot cheaper to add CGI Wights if they're just a dark mass as opposed to individual forms that would have to be animated if the battle were fought during the daytime.


ozzman73 said:


> OK, I'm convinced that NK was not a Targaryen, but he was a dragonrider for sure and immune to fire, so maybe a precursor.


I don't get why you're hung up on this. The Night King was a magical being who could raise the dead simply by lifting his arms. Why do you need to justify the source of him being fireproof? Isn't it enough to simply understand that not being susceptible to fire is another of his magical properties and probably has zero to do with who he was before he was turned into the Night King?


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

photoshopgrl said:


> You know what. I have to agree with this here. I'm really really happy that Jaime, Brienne and Pod survived but ...... HOW. At one point we literally see them overcome against that wall by a swarm of wights on each of them. I actually said out loud "I can't believe they just killed all three of them like that" and then they are just okay? Contrived as hellll.


They must've worn their.... 








Plot Armor


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> I parse that differently. The knight King wants to erase the world and Bran is the memory (I.e. a significant part of it/in it) but that doesn't read to me as if killing Bran/TeR destroys mankind.
> 
> I can see it both ways but if it really was your way, why works the night King attack aimlessly at all. Just Target Bran.


Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Bran was a major impediment in his plans. Not the end itself but made the ends easier to accomplish if the only true historian is gone. Maybe the wights were looking for history books in the library.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

ozzman73 said:


> OK, I'm convinced that NK was not a Targaryen, but he was a dragonrider for sure and immune to fire, so maybe a precursor.


If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

photoshopgrl said:


> You know what. I have to agree with this here. I'm really really happy that Jaime, Brienne and Pod survived but ...... HOW. At one point we literally see them overcome against that wall by a swarm of wights on each of them. I actually said out loud "I can't believe they just killed all three of them like that" and then they are just okay? Contrived as hellll.


One explanation is that not everything you see is happening after the previous scene. A lot is happening simultaneously. Everything leading up to Arya killing Night King was just about game over, for Jaime, Brienne, everybody in the crypt. But I think that was all happening at the same time. But it just seems that they were all fighting them off for 15 minutes.

-smak-


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.


Actually that's a pretty good point.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

PJO1966 said:


> If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.





Jstkiddn said:


> Actually that's a pretty good point.


Thanks 

I'm spoilerizing this because I don't remember where I read it and I don't know if this is canon or something somebody made up:



Spoiler



From what I read, GoT is supposed to be set on Earth several millennia in the future. Did nothing from our civilization survive?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

PJO1966 said:


> If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.


Or he had the extra protection of being male in Hollywood...


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1122699882857488384


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, that drove me crazy...and even worse, several times they ACTUALLY SHOWED equipment mounted on the walls for dropping onto people trying to scale them. Granted, they would have only given a temporary reprieve, but it's bizarre that not only did nobody in the city ever think of using anti-siege weaponry on their attackers, somebody on the show's staff did think of it (whoever put the sweeps on the walls).


Roose Bolton even told Ramsey this. Just sit behind the walls and don't go out to meet them. And that's when the Boltons outnumbered their opponents 3 to 1.

I guess the rebuttal would be that the other side had a dragon so the castle walls were not going to help.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

A couple of notes after re-watching:

the beautiful Karstark girl was last seen heading with Theon and the gang to the tree. But then she was not in any of the fight scenes or any scene after that.

When Edd saved Sam just to get killed a few seconds later, Sam looks at the wight that killed Edd and then tucks tail and runs EXACTLY like the six fingered man in the Princess Bride!


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## Odds Bodkins (Jun 7, 2006)

gossamer88 said:


> RiP Ghost


May as well be dead. Writers greatest disservice was how they "handled" the direwolves after season 2.


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## Odds Bodkins (Jun 7, 2006)

Anubys said:


> So the battle plan against an overwhelmingly larger army is to send a small portion of your troops (the Dothraki) to fight them all by themselves?


So dumb but obviously a decision to give us that amazing long shot from Dany/Jon's purview. One of the 6 scenes you could actually make out.


----------



## Odds Bodkins (Jun 7, 2006)

TriBruin said:


> For a show that is known for unexpected and "Oh sh!t they didn't just kill XXXX, did they?" moments, none of the deaths were particularly surprising. (Many people had Theon, Beric, and Jorah on their death list.) Only Lady Mormont was even somewhat surprising. Why not kill a "major" character like John/Dany/Tyrion/Sansa/etc?


Yep. Writers lost their nerve the second they ran out of source material. For nary a major character to die in this battle is the biggest cop-out of many cop-outs.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

Odds Bodkins said:


> May as well be dead. Writers greatest disservice was how they "handled" the direwolves after season 2.


Sam defending Gilly at Castle Black in season 5 seemed happy Ghost was around.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.


We've seen white walkers having some sort of cold field around them. They froze sam's dragon glass and stepped through fire and magically doused it in previous seasons


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## mrdazzo7 (Jan 8, 2006)

My thoughts as a newbie who only started watching this season (LOL). 

*Props to the director, producers, cast and crew on this episode... plot contrivances aside, they pulled up one of (if not THE) longest battle sequences ever (movies or film). The suspence and cinematography of it was excelled (except, of course, for the fact that you CANT SEE HALF OF IT). 

*As soon as the sorceress chick emphasised "with BLUE EYES" to Arya, it was obvious she'd kill mr. king. But I think that moment was too quick, and too easy. Maybe I missed something but wasn't that whole tree area surrounded by the undead? How did she get the drop on him? And how has he been this rising power for seven season yet he was too slow to stop her when she dropped the knife? I know it was in slow motion but even in real time, that move would have taken WAY too long for him not to react to it. He simply watches. ?? Cool moment though. That chick's been through some **** and deserves the win. 

*Theon's death was absurd. I don't care what reasoning anyone comes up with - the dude committed suicide for no reason. I just don't understand how that's "heroic"... It would have been better if he stood his ground defending Bran, and the night king had to walk over to him and take him out while he defends himself. Charging an enemy from 100 feet away with like three hours of warning is nonsensical, TV show or otherwise. I didn't find it to be a heroic moment just because it was in slow motion. 

*Like others, I'm baffled by how few major players died in this battle, especially given GOT's penchant for killing people off. As soon as the white walkers annihilated the first wave of fighters in 30 seconds, it should have been game over for at least 1/3 of the cast. I know killing characters is rough but for a battle that's been building for seven seasons, I'd expect the pay off to be bigger. 

Anyway, reading about this episode was the reason I started watching the show, so I guess I owe it that. Still enjoying the ride for now


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> We've seen white walkers having some sort of cold field around them.


And anyone whose seen a video of an ice block vs a flamethrower can tell you how that works out. It takes a ridiculously long time to melt ice with fire.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

stellie93 said:


> How did Littlefinger ever get Rhaegar's daggar?


Some background:

Valyrian steel dagger

The mystery of the Valyrian steel dagger in 'Game of Thrones' Episode 5


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

PJO1966 said:


> If he was immune to fire his clothes would have been burned away, as we've seen happen with Dany twice. He wasn't standing there naked, so he must have had a force field or something.


He has been around for over 1000 years, he can literally raise skeletons from the dead and they follow his commands, but you take issue that he can't protect his clothing from fire?


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

So I downloaded the episode and pumped the brightness up on my player. Couple of things:

I see now the dragon fight in the sky so much better. The Night King was on his way to Bran and Jon interrupted him and their dragons fought which is where Viserion lost the jaw. Rhaegal getting hurt enough that he had to do a hard land which is what sent Jon flying to the ground. Dany and Drogon are the ones that knocked the Night King off his and threw Viserion to the ground. I thought dead the first time around so that was my confusion on which dragon was in the courtyard later. Now I see it had to be Viserion with the missing jaw. Rhaegal was just grounded/injured for the remainder of the episode? I assume not dead or he would have re-animated with everything else.

I still think anyone saying they knew it was Arya that would kill the NK is fibbing. When she said "blue eyes" there was no way to ever think she meant him and not just there fighting wights with the rest of them. But seeing it having that knowledge it was pretty clear that's why Arya was like "yeah bish! I'm out" and ran out of there.

I really thought the wights had broken through the walls to the crypt when I watched the first time, not that the crypt "members" had come up but it makes sense now after the NK raised the dead that they would have as well. It's just obviously not something that automatically happens in his presence which I think was thought/argued by others previously.

Also little Mormont was just as awesome the second time around! They did not show us Sam, Grey Worm or Gendry when it was all said and done but since we didn't see them actually die or re-animate, I'll assume they survived as well.

ETA: I did see Gendry nevermind, he was on the hill of bodies with Tormund!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

astrohip said:


> The mystery of the Valyrian steel dagger in 'Game of Thrones' Episode 5


It's impressive how well he works out the history of the dagger, and how poorly he predicts its future...


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

mrdazzo7 said:


> *Theon's death was absurd. I don't care what reasoning anyone comes up with - the dude committed suicide for no reason. I just don't understand how that's "heroic"... It would have been better if he stood his ground defending Bran, and the night king had to walk over to him and take him out while he defends himself. Charging an enemy from 100 feet away with like three hours of warning is nonsensical, TV show or otherwise. I didn't find it to be a heroic moment just because it was in slow motion


I still don't get how anyone has an issue with this. This exact type of death has been done SO many times before as the heroic death when all is basically lost or as a last ditch effort. So many characters have gone charging to their assured deaths. The writers certainly didn't create anything new for Theon.


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## Jstkiddn (Oct 15, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> We've seen white walkers having some sort of cold field around them. They froze sam's dragon glass and stepped through fire and magically doused it in previous seasons


Wasn't the fire first doused by the Night King? And then the others followed?


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

photoshopgrl said:


> I still think anyone saying they knew it was Arya that would kill the NK is fibbing. When she said "blue eyes" there was no way to ever think she meant him and not just there fighting wights with the rest of them. But seeing it having that knowledge it was pretty clear that's why Arya was like "yeah bish! I'm out" and ran out of there.


I can see how some might have picked up on it but I had your take that it was melasandre just reminding her of her aptitude for killing and her prophesy. I never connected blue eyes with only the night King, but just white walkers/wights as a whole.

I'm glad I didn't pick up on it as it made the final scene so much more amazing


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/biry8y


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

xuxa said:


> Throwing something (a book in this case) to distract and escape, cmon.


That didn't bother me. The wights are mindless creatures who don't care about their own existence or about who they kill. So not only would they not have realized that they were being tricked, they wouldn't have cared once they found out it was nothing.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

DUSlider said:


> He said he is marked by the Night King and the Night King knows where he is. However, I thought that only worked for the Night King if Bran was actively warging into something? Thus, Bran had to warg into the crows during the battle so that the Night King knew exactly where he was. Or at least. If Bran wasn't warging the Night King had an idea where he was, but not exactly where.


I don't know if that's the case, but at the very least it allowed him to find the Night King, and draw him out. Once the Night King saw that Bran was tracking him, he had to go on the offensive instead of staying in hiding.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

photoshopgrl said:


> I still think anyone saying they knew it was Arya that would kill the NK is fibbing. When she said "blue eyes" there was no way to ever think she meant him and not just there fighting wights with the rest of them.


As soon as Arya ran off, I was 99% certain it was going to be her. The only uncertainty I had was whether this was a red herring or if Arya would fail, and either someone else would end up doing it or they would lose.

Even before the episode, I thought it was most likely going to be Arya, although I was far less certain. I thought it was most likely going to be either Arya or Jon, and gave the edge to Arya with something like a 60/40 split.

The Night King was the epitome of brute force, and to me, stealth was the best weapon against that. Then you also have the recurring "What do we say to the God of Death?" theme. I've also suspected that Jaqen H'ghar meeting Arya was not a coincidence. How does someone with his abilities get captured unless that's exactly where he wants to be? But why would higher forces guide Arya down the path she took simply so she could kill people on her list? It seemed to me that she was trained to serve a greater purpose.

That being said, they could have easily thrown me off the scent by having Arya stand there right after the "What do we say to the God of Death?" / "Not today" exchange, and then having the door start to freeze followed by a White Walker bursting through. If they had cut the scene with Arya drawing her dagger ready to fight, I would have been less certain about what she was going to do. However, it still wouldn't have made sense to me that Beric Dondarrion would have been brought back to life a bunch of times so that he could save Arya in order for her to kill a White Walker or two.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> I still don't get how anyone has an issue with this. This exact type of death has been done SO many times before as the heroic death when all is basically lost or as a last ditch effort. So many characters have gone charging to their assured deaths. The writers certainly didn't create anything new for Theon.


The issue is that Theon still had someone to protect. Why would he not have stood guard in front of Bran, and given up his life that way? He was most likely going to die either way, but staying near Bran could have potentially kept Bran alive a little bit longer.

The only reason I can think of is that Bran, knowing that Arya was on her way, had told Theon he needed to do that in order for him to be left unprotected so that the Night King would stupidly walk all by himself over to him. Absent that, Theon ran and got himself killed, leaving Bran unprotected for no reason.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

photoshopgrl said:


> So I downloaded the episode and pumped the brightness up on my player. Couple of things:
> 
> I see now the dragon fight in the sky so much better. <snip>


To double down on your post...

I watched the first time live on a four yr old 75" Samsung HD TV. Near top of the line when I bought it, but nothing super-special beyond that. Thru DirecTV, so it was probably 1080i. I had the same issue many had, where everything seemed dark & muddled. Had trouble telling who was attacking who, which dragon was which, and all the wights were just a stream of pixels.

Watched it tonight via HBO-Now, Android TV app, on a relatively new Sony 75" 4K Bravia. What a difference! It was a different show. Every detail stood out. I could see the individual wights when they attacked, and as psg said above, the dragon fight was actually clear enough to follow. You could see Rhaegar fight Viserion, and Drogon attack the NK. And during the castle battle, it was easy to see who was in each scene. Whereas the first time I watched, you really couldn't see who was fighting unless they did a facial closeup.

The first watch was frustrating, not being able to pick up all the details. The second time thru, a pure joy.

I have to rebuke the producers for this. It shouldn't be necessary to watch on a state-of-the-art TV to get all the details. And there is enough buzz online that this is a widespread concern. I'm already seeing memes about how the episode was "dark and full of terrors".

If you have a chance, watch it under better conditions. It's like a whole 'nother show!


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

photoshopgrl said:


> Was it the dragon glass though or just the fact that they got stuck?


It was the dragon glass.

Lyanna Mormont's epic takedown of the giant demonstrated that it disrupted the magic that was animating them.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

brianp6621 said:


> I can see how some might have picked up on it but I had your take that it was melasandre just reminding her of her aptitude for killing and her prophesy. I never connected blue eyes with only the night King, but just white walkers/wights as a whole.


Yeah, it was standard prophecy...perfectly clear, but only after the fact.

(I saw a show or movie once, and it's driving me crazy that I can't remember which one, but in it a prophet made her prophecy and it was extremely explicit. The recipient shook her head, frowned, and said something like "Well, THAT was...surprisingly useful." I suspect it was Buffy; it sounds like something Whedon & Crew would do.)

By the time the Night King was making his Evil Overlord List speech (in a television first, the Evil Overlord made his speech without uttering a word) it was obvious to me that Arya would be the one to kill him, but not because of the prophecy; simply because from a storytelling perspective she was the obvious choice at that point.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I assume the next episode will be very talky with little action. At least I know I won't have to buy a new $2,000+ tv to see what's going on. I wonder if this episode will spur new television sales like the Super Bowl does every year.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

brianp6621 said:


> I can see how some might have picked up on it but I had your take that it was melasandre just reminding her of her aptitude for killing and her prophesy. I never connected blue eyes with only the night King, but just white walkers/wights as a whole.
> 
> I'm glad I didn't pick up on it as it made the final scene so much more amazing


Well, Mellissandre's comment about Blue eyes followed a long scene of Dondarian (or whatever his name his) sacrificing himself (even with a Jesus/cross pose) and finally dying after serving his purpose; which was to keep Arya alive (also the Hound's purpose, but I suspect he's not done yet because he has to kill the Mountain).

So we had a long arc of this guy dying 7 or 8 times and coming back to live for some mysterious purpose, then the blue eyes comment, then the "not today"...I'm not saying I "knew" it, but at that point I would have put money on it 

it was still a long time later that you got swept in the show and forgot about it...so it was still a surprise when it happened!

Edit: or what Bibyblit said (sorry, I smeeked!)


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

One final note from re-watching: Mellissandre's prayer to light up the Dothrakis' swords was much longer than the one she said to light up the trench (she only said the first verse for the trench). So maybe that's why it didn't light right away!


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> I still think anyone saying they knew it was Arya that would kill the NK is fibbing. When she said "blue eyes" there was no way to ever think she meant him and not just there fighting wights with the rest of them. But seeing it having that knowledge it was pretty clear that's why Arya was like "yeah bish! I'm out" and ran out of there.


So, when I said it out loud multiple times between the line about the blue eyes and the ending, I was fibbing? Including as the NK was approaching Bran?

Come on. You don't make a prophecy about wights. It was completely obvious to my entire family, watching in different locations. And it became more obvious as Arya was not on screen after we watched her every move.

None of the other "eyes" talked about were trivial. They were all important. Why would the blue eyes be just extras?


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

astrohip said:


> To double down on your post...
> 
> I watched the first time live on a four yr old 75" Samsung HD TV. Near top of the line when I bought it, but nothing super-special beyond that. Thru DirecTV, so it was probably 1080i. I had the same issue many had, where everything seemed dark & muddled. Had trouble telling who was attacking who, which dragon was which, and all the wights were just a stream of pixels.
> 
> ...


Was it the TV or HBO now giving you a good stream this time? Several people reported improved picture re-watching on hbo now hours later on the same television.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

astrohip said:


> Watched it tonight via HBO-Now, Android TV app, on a relatively new Sony 75" 4K Bravia. What a difference! It was a different show. Every detail stood out. I could see the individual wights when they attacked, and as psg said above, the dragon fight was actually clear enough to follow. You could see Rhaegar fight Viserion, and Drogon attack the NK. And during the castle battle, it was easy to see who was in each scene. Whereas the first time I watched, you really couldn't see who was fighting unless they did a facial closeup.


I watched on a Sony 55" 4K HDR x930e Bravia with HBO Go, which has been described as a "light cannon". The picture wasn't dark (not like the clips I've seen posted online), but it definitely wasn't what I would call clear. It still had banding at times and was a bit fuzzy in some scenes. Maybe it would look better now that no one is streaming anymore.

I could tell who was who when the camera wasn't flailing all over the place, but when there was a lot of movement I had no idea what was going on, such as during the dragon aerial fight. Not because it was too dark, but because everything was just blurry. Fortunately most of the scenes didn't have all that zoomed in motion, but it still wasn't the best picture.

I've read the director choose to film with no external light sources, so the only sources of light was the moon and the fires. Maybe with a 4K Blu-ray that would look good, but a compressed HD video isn't going to look good like that.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I was surprised that Arya didn't kill the Night King with the special weapon she kept badgering Gendry to make.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> I was surprised that Arya didn't kill the Night King with the special weapon she kept badgering Gendry to make.


Yeah, I was figuring that would have more significance.

As in, ANY significance.

I suppose it still could, but I can't imagine what at this point, what with the beings it was designed to kill all being all dead and stuff. (And not just mostly dead!)


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

cheesesteak said:


> I was surprised that Arya didn't kill the Night King with the special weapon she kept badgering Gendry to make.


I'm not sure she still has it - does she?


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

SullyND said:


> I'm not sure she still has it - does she?


They wasted a lot of foreshadowing and Chekov's Gun implications if it's never seen again.


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## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> They wasted a lot of foreshadowing and Chekov's Gun implications if it's never seen again.


Or, it could have been a device plot to get her closer to Gendry and a reason to throw herself at him.

I think she did use it early in the episode, but either lost it or threw it away before she got to the Night King.

About the prophecy, it specifies "Brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes." If we go with the order being international, that means Arya is still up for killing someone with green eyes. Gee, I wonder if anyone on her list has green eye? Maybe a certain person biding her time in King's Landing?


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

vertigo235 said:


> He has been around for over 1000 years, he can literally raise skeletons from the dead and they follow his commands, but you take issue that he can't protect his clothing from fire?


I don't take issue with it at all. I was just pointing out that the reason he didn't burn had nothing to do with him possibly being a Targaryan.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TriBruin said:


> Or, it could have been a device plot to get her closer to Gendry and a reason to throw herself at him.


That's my current theory.


TriBruin said:


> I think she did use it early in the episode, but either lost it or threw it away before she got to the Night King.


I think she broke it during the castle fights...


TriBruin said:


> About the prophecy, it specifies "Brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes." If we go with the order being [intentional], that means Arya is still up for killing someone with green eyes. Gee, I wonder if anyone on her list has green eye? Maybe a certain person biding her time in King's Landing?


I thought blue was last..?


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## markp99 (Mar 21, 2002)




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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

I don't know if she broke the weapon or if it was designed to be taken apart. First as a long staff for keeping people farther away and then for a much closer hand to hand combat.

I think the dagger is a much more appropriate weapon for the NK given its prominence since season 1 and the fact that Bran gave it to her; one would say specifically for the purpose of killing the NK.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

markp99 said:


> View attachment 40710


No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

BitbyBlit said:


> Even before the episode, I thought it was most likely going to be Arya, although I was far less certain. I thought it was most likely going to be either Arya or Jon, and gave the edge to Arya with something like a 60/40 split.





Anubys said:


> So we had a long arc of this guy dying 7 or 8 times and coming back to live for some mysterious purpose, then the blue eyes comment, then the "not today"...I'm not saying I "knew" it, but at that point I would have put money on it





TonyD79 said:


> So, when I said it out loud multiple times between the line about the blue eyes and the ending, I was fibbing? Including as the NK was approaching Bran?


Okay okay I concede. Y'all are smarter than I am then. I am usually right up with the best of the guesses. It's annoying how few times I'm able to be surprised like this. I tip my hat to anyone that figured it out then. 



SullyND said:


> I'm not sure she still has it - does she?


She didn't have it after she went out on the roof thing, where Beric scolded The Hound for being afraid.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> I thought blue was last..?


When they met originally she did say it in that order but this episode she said blue last.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

photoshopgrl said:


> She didn't have it after she went out on the roof thing, where Beric scolded The Hound for being afraid.


Yeah, that's what I thought too.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

I'm pretty sure that when she was fighting in the castle something hit the weapon, and it fell in pieces to the floor, never to be seen again...


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

TAsunder said:


> Was it the TV or HBO now giving you a good stream this time? Several people reported improved picture re-watching on hbo now hours later on the same television.


I think it was both. A better TV, upscaling to 4K, with better blacks, helped. But I think the HBO-Now stream was a higher quality than whatever we got thru DirecTV (which was 1080i, but who knows what compression).

BTW, I also tried watching the Comcast recording thru TiVo on the 4K Sony. It was a muddled mess. Their 720p compression made the details just fuzz away. It's a shame most people don't realize how much Comcast (Xfinity) is screwing up their PQ.

The vote is in:
HBO-Now via Android TV App thru Sony 4K high end TV = 9
Xfinity HBO cable via TiVo thru Sony 4K high end TV = 4
DirecTV HBO satellite via Genie thru Samsung HD TV = 7

Comparing HBO-Now and Xfinity on the same TV is like the difference between HD and SD. It's that dramatic.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> I thought blue was last..?


When the Red Witch originally said it, the order was brown, blue, green. I just rewatched that scene.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I'm pretty sure that when she was fighting in the castle something hit the weapon, and it fell in pieces to the floor, never to be seen again...


She had it in full tact up until the moment she rolled over the top of them down the steps and hit her head. We didn't see it after that because the next scene was her out on the roof.


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## dtle (Dec 12, 2001)

TAsunder said:


> Was it the TV or HBO now giving you a good stream this time? Several people reported improved picture re-watching on hbo now hours later on the same television.


I watch it again from a "questionable" 1080p source. It was still dark, but there's no compression artifacts. It was so much better than my FIOS.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Okay which one of you is this? 
ONE YEAR AGO


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> When they met originally she did say it in that order but this episode she said blue last.


She said blue last... after a dramatic pause for emphasis.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

PJO1966 said:


> She said blue last... after a dramatic pause for emphasis.


That's what I just said. Originally the order was as Tribuin said here


TriBruin said:


> *About the prophecy, it specifies "Brown eyes, blue eyes, and green eyes.*" If we go with the order being international, that means Arya is still up for killing someone with green eyes. Gee, I wonder if anyone on her list has green eye? Maybe a certain person biding her time in King's Landing?


I was saying it was originally that order but on the show this week she said blue eyes last.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

astrohip said:


> Comparing HBO-Now and Xfinity on the same TV is like the difference between HD and SD. It's that dramatic.


Which is why almost always watch HBO through the Apple TV HBOGo streaming app. My only exceptions are for programs where it doesn't really matter like Last Week Tonight.

I made a side by side video a few years back comparing a scene from GoT on Comcast vs HBOGo and the difference is extremely noticeable.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Arya used the weapon during the battle, then pulled it apart and was dual-wielding for a brief stretch until she hit her head.


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

astrohip said:


> I have to rebuke the producers for this. It shouldn't be necessary to watch on a state-of-the-art TV to get all the details.





cheesesteak said:


> I assume the next episode will be very talky with little action. At least I know I won't have to buy a new $2,000+ tv to see what's going on.


It's not the TV. It's the content source. I watched from HBO Now, and my TV was a Vizio 50" I paid $450 for 4 years ago. Nothing special at all about that TV, but I had absolutely no issues seeing anything (and I even had the room lights on). Comcast is known for crap quality compression as it is. And as I mentioned earlier, dark scenes are especially difficult to compress. You need to pay careful attention to the process to maintain quality. I imagine HBO was careful about this, this being their original content. Comcast, on the other hand...I suspect not so much.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> I think she broke it during the castle fights...


Just from memory: We see her outside with it swinging it for the fight. I'm pretty sure that when she enters the castle (right around when The Hound goes to join her) we see her holding the blade in 1 hand and the staff in the other. By the time she's in the library the staff is gone, but I'm pretty sure the dragonglass blade from it was what she used to stab that wight in the neck (it could've been the valyrian steel dagger, but I was pretty sure it was the dragonglass tip from the staff).



photoshopgrl said:


> Okay which one of you is this?
> ONE YEAR AGO


The prediction is good, but even better is the only reply: "no". I want the OP to come back now and just say "yes". (edit: oh, damn. the post is archived)


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## Sparky1234 (May 8, 2006)

Too dark but great episode.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

fwiw, I didn't see any problem with PQ during the first watch. But then I followed Rob's advice* and turned off all the lights on the second watch and the PQ was even better.


* Someone call a medic for Rob, I don't know if his heart can take the shock


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

I always watch GOT at night with the lights off and I still couldn't see much. Certainly couldn't tell one dragon from another during the fight in the sky. Will try again with TiVO streaming HBOGo.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> The issue is that Theon still had someone to protect. Why would he not have stood guard in front of Bran, and given up his life that way? He was most likely going to die either way, but staying near Bran could have potentially kept Bran alive a little bit longer.
> 
> The only reason I can think of is that Bran, knowing that Arya was on her way, had told Theon he needed to do that in order for him to be left unprotected so that the Night King would stupidly walk all by himself over to him. Absent that, Theon ran and got himself killed, leaving Bran unprotected for no reason.


He was protecting Bran. At that point with the night King standing there, he wasn't going to fight off wights, white walkers, and the night King one by one like he did with just the wights. His ONLY possible chance (which he still knew was suicide) was to kill the night King right away and stop it all. Fighting more wights or white walkers would just tire himself out more and not change the outcome.


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## etexlady (Jun 23, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> She had it in full tact up until the moment she rolled over the top of them down the steps and hit her head. We didn't see it after that because the next scene was her out on the roof.


What weapon did she give to Sansa just before she went into the crypt and told her to use the "pointy end"? Don't recall Sansa using it though.


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## dcheesi (Apr 6, 2001)

Loved the ending; especially how even for those of us who had guessed what Arya was going to do, they still managed to give us an "oh [BLEEP]!" moment! 

Beyond that... Apologies for the digest of responses here. I had to rewatch (and "digest"  ) before opening this thread, in part because...


kdmorse said:


> Yup, the smoke, haze, and blizzard generated some horrible artifacts (mostly banding) in places. I'll assuming it was only a problem on comcast (like last weeks audio compression problems) by default.


FiOS here, albeit on my gf's TV*. Absolutely horrible, I was straining to make things out the entire episode. Rewatched via Comcast streaming (PC and phone) and it was much better.

[*A crappy Westinghouse TV with no original remote, so we couldn't even tweak the brightness. BUT every other show looks fine on it]



uncdrew said:


> I took a bit of issue with that.
> 
> I loved the Dothraki scene. Both lighting the swords and watching them decimated from afar. Really powerful.
> 
> ...


Agree on the larger point, but for Jorah in particular, there's an explanation, one that he's been harping on since S1... armor! The Dothraki were lightly armored, which kept them mobile; good for one-on one fights or hit & run tactics. But Westerosi plate armor is much more survivable in this kind of battle, when you're up against a concerted mass of biting, clawing monstrosities that severely outnumber you. A whirling blade will keep a living foe at bay, but the dead have no sense of self-preservation, and are only stopped by solid physical barriers (e.g. steel plate).



Rob Helmerichs said:


> The Three-Eyed Raven was the only thing in the human world with the power to stop him. I think he'd been obsessed with killing him for ages (literally), and when Bran both got the old 3ER killed and at the same time opened himself up to the NK's GPS, the NK saw his chance to be rid of his greatest foe once and for all. So Bran became (made himself) an irresistible target, and since the living's strategy and tactics were...lacking, NK probably thought it was safe to indulge himself.


Not only that, but the 3ER represents a particular "abomination" to him: Children of the Forest magic allied with a human, and with humanity as a whole.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

etexlady said:


> What weapon did she give to Sansa just before she went into the crypt and told her to use the "pointy end"? Don't recall Sansa using it though.


Just a dragonglass shaped like an arrow with a dragonglass handle...


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Also for what it's worth, I was streaming HBOGo for the original airing and had all the lights out in my house and even turned off my monitors so they didn't give any light since my computers are in the same room. Was still really dark.


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Anubys said:


> I thought I saw Gilly being dragged by wights from the crypt. Did she survive?


 I thought so, too. But I also thought I saw her later, when Sansa et. al. came out for a look after the wights "died". So maybe that was someone else?

Regarding Jaime:


Jstkiddn said:


> I think he will. He saw for himself the horror of the dead and I think after her refusing to help a s leaving them hanging the way she did, that his loyalties now lie elsewhere. He truly sees her for what she is.


But she's carrying his child. Then again, Bronn's going to show up a say "BTW, she paid me to kill you."

Regarding the Dothraki:


Odds Bodkins said:


> So dumb but obviously a decision to give us that amazing long shot from Dany/Jon's purview. One of the 6 scenes you could actually make out.


I think it will also be a plot point that _would-be-Queen_ Dany doesn't have much of an army anymore.

So, they have 2 dragons and a couple hundred soldiers left? Against 10's of thousands? Sounds like a job for Arya the Assassin!


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> I still don't get how anyone has an issue with this. This exact type of death has been done SO many times before as the heroic death when all is basically lost or as a last ditch effort. So many characters have gone charging to their assured deaths. The writers certainly didn't create anything new for Theon.


If your job is to protect Bran, you don't go charging off to your death. You stand your ground and protect Bran.

I thought it was silly as well.


----------



## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Not only did totally I miss the "brown eyes, green eyes, blue eyes" foreshadowing in this episode. ("Hey, she's killed a lot of people.") I'd also forgotten the prophecy variation in Season 3: 




This ep:


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

SullyND said:


> I'm not sure she still has it - does she?


She kicked some serious butt with it, in a sequence observed by Davos. One of my favorite scenes.

But she did seem to lose it, I recall.


----------



## tlc (May 30, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> She kicked some serious butt with it, in a sequence observed by Davos. One of my favorite scenes.
> 
> But she did seem to lose it, I recall.


That's OK. She knows the maker.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

dcheesi said:


> Agree on the larger point, but for Jorah in particular, there's an explanation, one that he's been harping on since S1... armor! The Dothraki were lightly armored, which kept them mobile; good for one-on one fights or hit & run tactics. But Westerosi plate armor is much more survivable in this kind of battle, when you're up against a concerted mass of biting, clawing monstrosities that severely outnumber you. A whirling blade will keep a living foe at bay, but the dead have no sense of self-preservation, and are only stopped by solid physical barriers (e.g. steel plate).


Makes some sense, yes. However I think the wights simply swarm your horse and bring it down. Then the armor is simply keeping you alive a little longer, not saving your life.

Was his horse wearing armor?


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

tlc said:


> So, they have 2 dragons and a couple hundred soldiers left? Against 10's of thousands? Sounds like a job for Arya the Assassin!


Sounds like a job for dragons.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

For those eagerly awaiting Sunday:


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

...and...


----------



## spartanstew (Feb 24, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> For those eagerly awaiting Sunday:


Anyone that eager would have watched it in post #201


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

photoshopgrl said:


> Also for what it's worth, I was streaming HBOGo for the original airing and had all the lights out in my house and even turned off my monitors so they didn't give any light since my computers are in the same room. Was still really dark.


It's also worth noting that most streaming services will vary quality to fit available bandwidth. When some server on the pipeline on the network gets congested, they will start streaming a lower quality version (lower resolution and/or higher compression ratio) to try and ensure you can continue the feed without ...buffering... pauses. If you had any huge uploads/downloads going on at the same time, that could've reduced the quality (though it could've been anywhere, even on HBOs end).

And of course, it could always be your TV settings (and note that most TVs have different picture settings for each input)


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

uncdrew said:


> If your job is to protect Bran, you don't go charging off to your death. You stand your ground and protect Bran.
> 
> I thought it was silly as well.


See my above response. In that situation the only possible protection he could deliver is by killing the night King immediately.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> See my above response. In that situation the only possible protection he could deliver is by killing the night King immediately.


I disagree with your logic on that one.

Theon was in the room. He knew the plan was to keep Bran alive as long as possible, waiting for others to come once the Night King was there. He had no reason to think that plan had changed.

He almost cost them them everything. Typical "show up at the last second" lame ending IMO, but he should have tried to buy more time for the good guys.

You make the assumption that had he not charged NK that he would have had to fight off wights and WWs. No real way to know how it would have played out. WWs really didn't fight much of anything. His correct move was to stay and protect Bran. And even if that meant fighting more wights and WWs, that would have bought Bran more time. Which was the plan and the right move.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Just a note that when she killed Merin Trant (I think that's his name...the King's Guard she killed in the brothel...the one who liked very young girls and liked to beat them), she stabbed him in the eyes and blinded him first.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> Also for what it's worth, I was streaming HBOGo for the original airing and had all the lights out in my house and even turned off my monitors so they didn't give any light since my computers are in the same room. Was still really dark.


Yeah. I tried hbo go yesterday. A bit better but still dark and artifacts galore.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

uncdrew said:


> I disagree with your logic on that one.
> 
> Theon was in the room. He knew the plan was to keep Bran alive as long as possible, waiting for others to come once the Night King was there. He had no reason to think that plan had changed.
> 
> ...


The plan was to lure the night King and kill him. He could have very well thought that at that point if the others aren't there and the whole area was surrounded, they weren't going to make it so he had to be the one to try.


----------



## caslu (Jun 24, 2003)

I'm really baffled by all the complaints about the episode being too dark. It was dark, that's true, but not TOO dark. I had no real trouble understanding what was happening on screen or figuring out who died. All in all, a great experience for me.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

caslu said:


> I'm really baffled by all the complaints about the episode being too dark. It was dark, that's true, but not TOO dark. I had no real trouble understanding what was happening on screen or figuring out who died. All in all, a great experience for me.


I think when its this universally complained about there was an issue either an intentional decision that went too far or a technical issue that affected almost everyone. You likely either have a very high quality set, or a very poorly calibrated set with the brightness too high, or didn't have some of the carrier/compression issues that contributed to the issue for lots of people.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Yeah, it seems they pushed the envelope, forgetting that most people don't live on the bleeding edge of technology...


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, it seems they pushed the envelope, forgetting that most people don't live on the bleeding edge of technology...


A lot a lot of what I've seen is that people who have their brightness too high aren't complaining. So I'm not sure it is a matter of bleeding edge of technology.


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I hope the inevitable showdown between the Hound and the Mountain is held in a fireproof room.


----------



## 3D (Oct 9, 2001)

cheesesteak said:


> I hope the inevitable showdown between the Hound and the Mountain is held in a well-lit fireproof room.


FYP


----------



## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

I watched via HBO Now via AppleTV on a ~13-year-old Samsung TV, and there was no point where I couldn't see who was on screen and what they were doing. Yes it was dark, but until I read all the comments online I just thought that was an effort to depict what the real nighttime battle would have looked like. (And to save money, too, of course.) 

Late response to some earlier discussion: As soon as Mel said "blue eyes," my wife and I both realized Arya was going after NK. My own thought was the she would somehow fool him by wearing a WW's face or something. So I was wrong about the method, but right about the outcome.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

TonyD79 said:


> A lot a lot of what I've seen is that people who have their brightness too high aren't complaining. So I'm not sure it is a matter of bleeding edge of technology.


But if you have cutting-edge equipment, you can see without over-cranking the brightness. And I suspect they had cutting-edge equipment in their editing suite, and just pushed the boundaries of what THEY could see without considering that not everybody will have gear that's up to the challenge.


----------



## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But if you have cutting-edge equipment, you can see without over-cranking the brightness. And I suspect they had cutting-edge equipment in their editing suite, and just pushed the boundaries of what THEY could see without considering that not everybody will have gear that's up to the challenge.


If I were to guess, I'd guess it's 25% that and 75% not testing / anticipating compression-related issues. I've watched clips and shots from it and they all look much better than what I watched on HBO Go.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> That's what I just said. Originally the order was as Tribuin said here
> I was saying it was originally that order but on the show this week she said blue eyes last.


And my post agreed with yours and added that she had a dramatic pause before saying blue eyes last.


----------



## zordude (Sep 23, 2003)

astrohip said:


> I have to rebuke the producers for this. It shouldn't be necessary to watch on a state-of-the-art TV to get all the details.


I DID watch on a state of the art tv (LG OLED 65" C9) and it looked terrible. I blame Xfinity for compressing the hell out of it. Next week I will stream it direct for sure.

EDIT: saw your followup post I will try streaming it tonight on the 4k ATV.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

zordude said:


> I DID watch on a state of the art tv (LG OLED 65" C9) and it looked terrible. I blame Xfinity for compressing the hell out of it. Next week I will stream it direct for sure.
> 
> EDIT: saw your followup post I will try streaming it tonight on the 4k ATV.


Blame HBO. Their PQ reeks on most systems.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

TonyD79 said:


> Blame HBO. Their PQ reeks on most systems.


Reek!


----------



## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

TonyD79 said:


> Blame HBO. Their PQ reeks on most systems.


Yeah, my Apple TV 4K peaks out around 5 mbit/s for HBO Now, which is kinda marginal.

If I watch the same content through Amazon Prime Video it's around 15 mbit/s, substantially better PQ.

I haven't checked DirecTV Now in a bit, but it usually floats in the middle between those.

That said, the overall low light level of most of this episode is exactly the sort of thing that most codecs kinda suck at.


----------



## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> Blame HBO. Their PQ reeks on most systems.


Then shouldn't we blame "most systems"?


----------



## WO312 (Jan 24, 2003)

I watched on a 55" LG OLED and it wasn't bad. Spectrum. Guess they don't compress as bad as Comcast. I still didn't like the darkness and how long it lasted. Pretty repetitive.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

astrohip said:


> Then shouldn't we blame "most systems"?


No, I was leaving room for things like hbo streaming. The HBO linear feed to cable and satellite systems is awful. You may see good PQ on hbo from a streaming source. Maybe.


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

So here's a question. Do the injured dragon(s) heal in time for their arrival in Kings Landing? If they have to wait on the troops to venture down, it was said before it was about a months journey right? So the dragons could chill and get better in Winterfell while everyone was traveling most of the way then join up outside of KL for the take down. Thoughts?


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Did we ever actually see Rhaegal after he dumped Jon?


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> So here's a question. Do the injured dragon(s) heal in time for their arrival in Kings Landing? If they have to wait on the troops to venture down, it was said before it was about a months journey right? So the dragons could chill and get better in Winterfell while everyone was traveling most of the way then join up outside of KL for the take down. Thoughts?


Yup, my take is they'll be fully healed for the battle.


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I watched portions of it again while adjusting my tv's back light and brightness settings. The picture got a little bit better but it was still too dark. I don't know if the cinematographer, HBO or Comcast is to blame but we shouldn't have to fart around with our tv's picture settings in this day and age. Reminds me of when I was a kid and how we had to mess around with the rabbit ears to get a good picture.

When Melissandre lit the Dothraki's swords on fire she should have given them all red shirts too.

I thought Brienne was in the Dothraki charge but it seems that she wasn't. The direwolf seemed to be running aside a tall blonde woman in the charge. Maybe it was a man but who was that? How would the direwolf know to be in the charge and who to attack especially when no Starks were in the charge? Do they have a sentient bond with humans?

I still don't get the whole Bran (Three Eyed Raven)/Night King show down connection. It's not like Bran was the only one who could kill the NK. Seems like anybody with a valyrian steel blade and a big set of balls (Sorry, Theon. You go, Aria!) could do kill him.

Did the Night King's boys do anything except get killed in this whole series? Sam killed one of them, for cryin' out loud. Then they just stood around like the Pips while Arya ninja'd her way to the Night King.


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

brianp6621 said:


> Did we ever actually see Rhaegal after he dumped Jon?


Nope, he was injured fighting in the sky. That's why I said (s) on the dragons. We don't know his fate quite yet even though I assume he's alive.



cheesesteak said:


> I thought Brienne was in the Dothraki charge but it seems that she wasn't. The direwolf seemed to be running aside a tall blonde woman in the charge. Maybe it was a man but who was that? How would the direwolf know to be in the charge and who to attack especially when no Starks were in the charge? Do they have a sentient bond with humans?
> 
> Did the Night King's boys do anything except get killed in this whole series? Sam killed one of them, for cryin' out loud. Then they just stood around like the Pips while Arya ninja'd her way to the Night King.


Ghost ran with Jorah leading the Dothraki and he knows to kill them because he's been in fights with them in the past. Also yeah I said to a friend after the episode, "what exactly where the white walkers even there for? The wights did all the work and by the time they got there, the Night King was there and didn't need back up."


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> Yup, my take is they'll be fully healed for the battle.


Plus, all they have to do is kill Cercei. Like the Night King, once she bites the dust her armies will have no reason to continue fighting. Get one of that creepy eunuch dude's platoon of child spies to find out where Cercei's going to be and dragon fire the crap out of that building. War over. None of the good guys have to get killed. Then we have two or three episodes of Jon/Dany relationship drama. On second thought, don't kill Cercei until the final episode!


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

photoshopgrl said:


> Ghost ran with Jorah leading the Dothraki and he knows to kill them because he's been in fights with them in the past.


So Jorah was in the ill fated Dothraki charge? It's bad enough that the game plan was to send all the brown people in first as canon fodder but then the only person to miraculously survive the slaughter was the white dude? I'm only kidding but still...


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> I still don't get the whole Bran (Three Eyed Raven)/Night King show down connection. It's not like Bran was the only one who could kill the NK. Seems like anybody with a valyrian steel blade and a big set of balls (Sorry, Theon. You go, Aria!) could do kill him.


But it's a lot easier to kill him when Bran (and his omniscient mind's eye) is on your side, and manipulating you into position and giving you the right equipment to do it.

That's why the Night King wanted Bran dead at (almost) any cost...he knew Bran was the biggest threat against him. he just underestimated how big a threat he really was.


----------



## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

brianp6621 said:


> Did we ever actually see Rhaegal after he dumped Jon?





Spoiler



Forum rules prohibit me from answering.



If I were the Northerners, I would do all I could to avoid attacking before I had my dragon air support fully available.

There's still the matter of Bran's and Dany's visions of burned-out Kings Landing and dragon flying overhead to be fulfilled.


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But it's a lot easier to kill him when Bran (and his omniscient mind's eye) is on your side, and manipulating you into position and giving you the right equipment to do it.
> 
> That's why the Night King wanted Bran dead at (almost) any cost...he knew Bran was the biggest threat against him. he just underestimated how big a threat he really was.


Well, at least he learned not to do the whole "really stupid evil mastermind takes his sweet ol' time killing the good guy" routine for the next time!


----------



## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

photoshopgrl said:


> So here's a question. Do the injured dragon(s) heal in time for their arrival in Kings Landing? If they have to wait on the troops to venture down, it was said before it was about a months journey right? So the dragons could chill and get better in Winterfell while everyone was traveling most of the way then join up outside of KL for the take down. Thoughts?


the problem for the North is they don't have very many soldiers left. I imagine Arya will use her face wearing magic to infiltrate, but I guess that wouldn't be a satisfying battle.

Don't the dragons ever need to recharge their fire? Seems like some law of thermodynamics is being violated.


----------



## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> So Jorah was in the ill fated Dothraki charge? It's bad enough that the game plan was to send all the brown people in first as canon fodder but then the only person to miraculously survive the slaughter was the white dude? I'm only kidding but still...


Too much fighting not enough talking. Why didn't Jorah tell anybody what he saw in the Dothraki charge?


----------



## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> the problem for the North is they don't have very many soldiers left.


I now expect Cersei to do something awful that makes people join up with the North to fight.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Marco said:


> Too much fighting not enough talking. Why didn't Jorah tell anybody what he saw in the Dothraki charge?


When was there time and exactly what would he have said? 
"There are LOTS of them"


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Also by the time Dany and Co reach Kings Landing Cercei should be like 18mo pregnant right?


----------



## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

One last thing before I forget... The piano based orchestration and the use of muted audio in the last 15, 16 minutes of this episode was absolutely brilliant.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> Don't the dragons ever need to recharge their fire? Seems like some law of thermodynamics is being violated.


Right, because dragons are so very careful about obeying all the OTHER laws of science!


----------



## Lady Honora (Oct 9, 2018)

DavidTigerFan said:


> The best comment i saw was the stupidity of their attack plan. Why send heavy calvary out into the literal fog of war with no support? You always let the archers soften the enemy up before a charge. Not to mention the stupidity of just letting them charge off.


But, would arrows, even arrows with dragonglass heads, do any good against the wights? Maybe flaming arrows.


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/gam...rapher-dark-battle-of-winterfell-episode.html


----------



## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

About those flaming swords. Wouldn't that alter the temper and ruin the sword?


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

cherry ghost said:


> https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/gam...rapher-dark-battle-of-winterfell-episode.html


"A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don't know how to tune their TVs properly,"









I stopped reading at that.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

heySkippy said:


> About those flaming swords. Wouldn't that alter the temper and ruin the sword?


Its magic.


----------



## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Lady Honora said:


> But, would arrows, even arrows with dragonglass heads, do any good against the wights? Maybe flaming arrows.


Yes. That was shown. Theon took out dozens with flaming arrows


----------



## tim1724 (Jul 3, 2007)

WO312 said:


> I watched on a 55" LG OLED and it wasn't bad. Spectrum. Guess they don't compress as bad as Comcast.


Same here. The quality was fine on my 10-year-old 1080p Samsung LCD using the feed provided by Spectrum.


----------



## Hercules67 (Dec 8, 2007)

So, I am not on the Reddit forum for this, and this and one other forum is all the places I post for this show.
So, putting all that aside, 

I have an observation:

Bran wargs into the ravens, but after he finds the NK, and even much later, as late as right before Theon makes his charge, Bran is still warging (is that the verb form?)

Where was Bran all this time?
Interestingly, during this time, Arya disappears from the screen for a considerable amount of time. (Some have said 20 minutes).

Ok, then after Bran finishes warging and Theon goes on his ill-fated charge, Arya appears out of nowhere and kills the NK.

So,

Is it at all possible for Bran to either
a) Have warged into Arya to get her through the wights UP TO the point of her attack
or
b) Shield her somehow from the eyes of the NK and all the wights using 3ER magic?

I dunno, but I've been wondering this.....


----------



## realityboy (Jun 13, 2003)

tim1724 said:


> Same here. The quality was fine on my 10-year-old 1080p Samsung LCD using the feed provided by Spectrum.


I was actually pretty good on Spectrum as well. 5 year old 1080p Vizio (well calibrated). I did have to turn off the lights in the room, but otherwise, it was fine.

100000% improvement over how I had to watch episode 2. I saw it on my parents state of the art 4K TV....streaming from HBO Go over satellite internet. It played for about 30 seconds at a time before buffering for 5 seconds or so.


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> the problem for the North is they don't have very many soldiers left. I imagine Arya will use her face wearing magic to infiltrate, but I guess that wouldn't be a satisfying battle.


It sure seemed satisfying when she got revenge for the red wedding. And a lot of people cheered her stabbing the Night King (the battle itself was meaningless as all they had to do was stab NK).


----------



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Hercules67 said:


> So, I am not on the Reddit forum for this, and this and one other forum is all the places I post for this show.
> So, putting all that aside,
> 
> I have an observation:
> ...


Huh? They kept showing Bran sitting under the tree all through the show?


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

TonyD79 said:


> Huh? They kept showing Bran sitting under the tree all through the show?


They mean he was warging for a long ass time, what was he doing all that time?


----------



## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

photoshopgrl said:


> They mean he was warging for a long ass time, what was he doing all that time?


Sharing only because people keep asking what Brandon was doing the entire time. I shared the image, originally found it on Reddit under /r/freefolk
Titled "What Bran was doing the whole time, or, How Arya snuck up on the Night King!"


----------



## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

photoshopgrl said:


> They mean he was warging for a long ass time, what was he doing all that time?


Porn-warging, obv.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> So Jorah was in the ill fated Dothraki charge? It's bad enough that the game plan was to send all the brown people in first as canon fodder but then the only person to miraculously survive the slaughter was the white dude? I'm only kidding but still...


Several Dothraki ran away...which is another issue. It doesn't seem in character for Dothraki to run from anything, even death.



photoshopgrl said:


> "A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don't know how to tune their TVs properly,"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But he isn't wrong.


robojerk said:


> Sharing only because people keep asking what Brandon was doing the entire time. I shared the image, originally found it on Reddit under /r/freefolk
> Titled "What Bran was doing the whole time, or, How Arya snuck up on the Night King!"
> View attachment 40727


I was wondering where the f*** Arya was coming from. That explains so much.


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

LordKronos said:


> But he isn't wrong.


----------



## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

realityboy said:


> I was actually pretty good on Spectrum as well. 5 year old 1080p Vizio (well calibrated). I did have to turn off the lights in the room, but otherwise, it was fine.
> 
> 100000% improvement over how I had to watch episode 2. I saw it on my parents state of the art 4K TV....streaming from HBO Go over satellite internet. It played for about 30 seconds at a time before buffering for 5 seconds or so.


Is Spectrum still mpeg-2?

Xfinity converts to h.264 here and it wasn't good. My TV probably saved it from being really bad.


----------



## realityboy (Jun 13, 2003)

cherry ghost said:


> Is Spectrum still mpeg-2?
> 
> Xfinity converts to h.264 here and it wasn't good. My TV probably saved it from being really bad.


Yes. Still mpeg-2. Spectrum (formerly TW) is heavily into SDV so I don't think they needed to compress as much.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

LordKronos said:


> But he isn't wrong..


He's 100% wrong as no media meant for mass consumption on consumer devices should depend on leading edge quality and/or professional level calibration.


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

Every other episode of GoT has looked incredible on HBO Go through Amazon Prime, even exceptionally dark scenes. This looked like crap.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> Every other episode of GoT has looked incredible on HBO Go through Amazon Prime, even exceptionally dark scenes. This looked like crap.


Not to me it didn't. For me it was perfectly clear. It wasn't overbright (there was still plenty of pitch black) but I could see everything that's going on. And I don't have a wonderful TV. Just an average low cost model.

The worst part about all this is that this could finally be an opportunity for the masses to raise their pitchforks against the poor quality sold by companies like comcast, squeezing bitrate so they can fit more channels. Some people have been *****ing about it forever, and most people just shrug their shoulders. Now they've finally taken notice, but they're pointing those pitchforks at the producers instead.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

brianp6621 said:


> He's 100% wrong as no media meant for mass consumption on consumer devices should depend on leading edge quality and/or professional level calibration.


I didn't realize my $450 Vizio from 4 years ago (and it wasn't a new model, so probably 5-6 year old tech) was considered leading edge quality, or that Vizio professionally calibrated them (because I certainly didn't).

But that aside, the story I'm hearing here is that people spent nearly 80 minutes being confused instead of taking 15 seconds to adjust a setting. If they would've done that, it either would've looked better or instantly made obvious that the compression was the problem.

I'm curious to see people's reaction will be when the Blu-ray comes out


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

LordKronos said:


> Not to me it didn't. For me it was perfectly clear. It wasn't overbright (there was still plenty of pitch black) but I could see everything that's going on. And I don't have a wonderful TV. Just an average low cost model.
> 
> The worst part about all this is that this could finally be an opportunity for the masses to raise their pitchforks against the poor quality sold by companies like comcast, squeezing bitrate so they can fit more channels. Some people have been *****ing about it forever, and most people just shrug their shoulders. Now they've finally taken notice, but they're pointing those pitchforks at the producers instead.


There's 2 reasons for that. LOTS of people don't understand that the provider impacts the picture quality and the original source material was done in such a way to exacerbate provider differences. So both are to blame


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

LordKronos said:


> I didn't realize my $450 Vizio from 4 years ago (and it wasn't a new model, so probably 5-6 year old tech) was considered leading edge quality, or that Vizio professionally calibrated them (because I certainly didn't).
> 
> But that aside, the story I'm hearing here is that people spent nearly 80 minutes being confused instead of taking 15 seconds to adjust a setting. If they would've done that, it either would've looked better or instantly made obvious that the compression was the problem.
> 
> I'm curious to see people's reaction will be when the Blu-ray comes out


Then it's possible your set is actually miscalibrated on the bright side, is actually doing a good job with blacks, and/or your provider wasn't contributing to the problem.

When the vast vast majority of people taking about the episode are talking about how hard it was to see stuff, the creators have done something wrong.


----------



## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

When will vBulletin have AI filters? This thread would be 70% smaller if I could skip everyone’s TV specs.


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

Bottom line...

-They recorded it as they meant for it to be seen.
-They can't control how the TV providers compress the signal
-They can't control your internet connection being too slow
-They can't control how many people watch it at the same time
-They can't control who doesn't calibrate their TV.

If you want a better picture.
-Don't watch it when everyone else is if you're streaming
-Use a quality streaming device.
-Turn off all the lights
-Put the TV in cinema mode
-Get your TV calibrated
-Buy it on disc when it's released

Maybe there should be a separate thread for those complaining about the video quality of this episode.


----------



## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

I don't even think there is such a thing as the creators of a TV show testing how an episode might look on multiple TV's and providers.

Like you might test a web page to see how it looked in Chrome or Firefox, on an Ipad, , etc..

-smak-


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

DUSlider said:


> Bottom line...
> 
> -They recorded it as they meant for it to be seen.
> -They can't control how the TV providers compress the signal
> ...


You've got it backwards, as do they.

If they want it to be seen and enjoyed, then don't stick to some impression/ideal of artistic integrity if it makes the final product suffer (as consumed by those whom are intended to consume it). They absolutely SHOULD consider, the possible ways their art will be modified before the viewer sees it. That doesn't mean they can or should be able to perceive every permutation, but when this many have the same critique, they made a mistake/bad choice.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

DUSlider said:


> Bottom line...
> 
> -They recorded it as they meant for it to be seen.
> -They can't control how the TV providers compress the signal
> ...


So I have to do ALL those things? Seems like a big ask. I did 2, 3, 4, 5


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

Good read comparing Winterfell to Helm's Deep battle.

Winterfell vs. Helm's Deep: How the Two Epic Battle Scenes Stack Up | RELEVANT Magazine


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> When will vBulletin have AI filters? This thread would be 70% smaller if I could skip everyone's TV specs.


Since this thread isn't on a vBulletin site it wouldn't make a difference.


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## DUSlider (Apr 29, 2005)

Night King Theme music. It is on iTunes if you want to buy it.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

cheesesteak said:


> They wasted a lot of foreshadowing and Chekov's Gun implications if it's never seen again.


I personally didn't have any expectations of that particular weapon other than that Arya was going to use it to fight, which she did.

It was good to have some backstory on the weapon rather than simply having Arya show up during this episode wielding something we hadn't seen before, particularly since it wasn't a generic sword or spear.



brianp6621 said:


> He was protecting Bran. At that point with the night King standing there, he wasn't going to fight off wights, white walkers, and the night King one by one like he did with just the wights. His ONLY possible chance (which he still knew was suicide) was to kill the night King right away and stop it all. Fighting more wights or white walkers would just tire himself out more and not change the outcome.


If the Night King was just standing there waiting for Theon to run toward him, he must not have been that threatened by him. The Night King could have just as easily had wights and White Walkers run toward Theon as Theon was running toward him if that's what he wanted to do. So Theon risked fighting them anyway.

Instead of wasting his energy running toward the Night King, taking a defensive position would have allowed him to protect Bran longer.



mooseAndSquirrel said:


> Don't the dragons ever need to recharge their fire? Seems like some law of thermodynamics is being violated.


Every time 10 White Walkers are born, a dragon gets its wings.


----------



## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

Worth pointing out most of all of Dany's people were wiped out last episode. The Dothraki, The unsullied, ser jorah, are all dead. Varys said his loyalty was hers as long as he felt she was good for the realm. Tyrion is always pragmatic and his loyalties could swing another way if she gets crazy or something else happens. All she has left with pure loyalty are Greyworm, Missandei, and the Greyjoys.
Plus 2 dragons.
I'd say Jon is in her corner but she got all pissy about his claim to the iron throne when he told her about his parentage and she might get more pissy because of Sansa.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> If the Night King was just standing there waiting for Theon to run toward him, he must not have been that threatened by him. The Night King could have just as easily had wights and White Walkers run toward Theon as Theon was running toward him if that's what he wanted to do. So Theon risked fighting them anyway.
> 
> Instead of wasting his energy running toward the Night King, taking a defensive position would have allowed him to protect Bran longer.


Theon had no chance of defeating all of those white walkers(likely not even one) and the night King so the only meaningful course of action that could have changed the outcome was to kill the night King and completely stop the threat.

He had no knowledge that any help was still able to come (it wasn't other than Arya and he didn't know that) so he took the only course of action that could have a definite impact if he was successful.

His choices were sit and wait and hope someone was going to help and very likely die in the next 10 seconds or charge the night King and hopefully kill him and very likely die on the next 10 seconds.

I'd take the possibly greater payout any day.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> Theon had no chance of defeating all of those white walkers(likely not even one) and the night King so the only meaningful course of action that could have changed the outcome was to kill the night King and completely stop the threat.


But again, the Night King could have sent those same White Walkers at Theon while he was running toward him. If the Night King had been separated from the rest of his army, it might have made sense for Theon to try to get to him before his minions could. But Theon chose to run at the squad rather than wait for the squad to move toward him.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

robojerk said:


> Worth pointing out most of all of Dany's people were wiped out last episode. The Dothraki, The unsullied, ser jorah, are all dead. Varys said his loyalty was hers as long as he felt she was good for the realm. Tyrion is always pragmatic and his loyalties could swing another way if she gets crazy or something else happens. All she has left with pure loyalty are Greyworm, Missandei, and the Greyjoys.
> Plus 2 dragons.
> I'd say Jon is in her corner but she got all pissy about his claim to the iron throne when he told her about his parentage and she might get more pissy because of Sansa.


As long as she has a dragon, she's good.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Read an interesting analysis of the battle. 

Tormund killed the most wights per second of screen time. Arya killed the most total wights. 

Brienne came in second in both categories, I believe.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> Read an interesting analysis of the battle.
> 
> Tormund killed the most wights per second of screen time. Arya killed the most total wights.
> 
> Brienne came in second in both categories, I believe.


What about Lady Mormont? Most wights (by volume) per second of screen time?


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> Read an interesting analysis of the battle.
> 
> Tormund killed the most wights per second of screen time. Arya killed the most total wights.
> 
> Brienne came in second in both categories, I believe.


I'd say Arya was #1 in both categories, by a VERY wide margin.

Since she killed millions of them.


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Can't believe I'm getting into this. Theon's best option was to wait, hoping for the prophesy to be fulfilled. As the Prince(ss) that was Promised came charging at the NK he could have possibly helped by distracting him on some way. Sure, he was likely dead eventually anyway but every pawn that's sacrificed should be sacrificed at the right time.


----------



## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Initially I felt the blue eyes speech was a bit of corner retcon. I've been youtubing a bunch of crazy theories and various other GoT related content, so I was well aware of Melisandre's last meeting with Arya, and the but about the eyes. But because she changed the order, saying "blue eyes" last, I thought it was just a "Hey, we said this back a few seasons ago, and we can use it now to make it look like that was there plan all along.". Another reason to think this was retcon, at the time Melisandre initially talked about the eyes I believe they were still at least one book behind in the story. They were still expecting that GRRM would finish the books before they did, and unless that was *his* plan all along they would never have planned it that way. 

Now, could it be that this was GRRM's plan from the begining? The high valyrian word for "prince" apparently is not tied to a specific gender, she we did have that "I am no princess" remark from a young Arya. Do I guess it is possible. It just feels off.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

If Cersei's eyes are green, then the initial order is still possible and the Red Woman changed the order in this episode for emphasis on the next color up!


----------



## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

wprager said:


> Initially I felt the blue eyes speech was a bit of corner retcon. I've been youtubing a bunch of crazy theories and various other GoT related content, so I was well aware of Melisandre's last meeting with Arya, and the but about the eyes. But because she changed the order, saying "blue eyes" last, I thought it was just a "Hey, we said this back a few seasons ago, and we can use it now to make it look like that was there plan all along.". Another reason to think this was retcon, at the time Melisandre initially talked about the eyes I believe they were still at least one book behind in the story. They were still expecting that GRRM would finish the books before they did, and unless that was *his* plan all along they would never have planned it that way.
> 
> Now, could it be that this was GRRM's plan from the begining? The high valyrian word for "prince" apparently is not tied to a specific gender, she we did have that "I am no princess" remark from a young Arya. Do I guess it is possible. It just feels off


Obviously we won't know until GRRM finished the books (if he decided to finish them now.) But, we know that he told the Showrunners a high level of his master plan. While certainly they have changed many things over the year (and eliminated a number of subplots), I would have to believe that something this big was part of his plan. But who knows.

Now, whether Arya is the "Prince that was promised", that I am struggling with. She does not fit any the characteristics we have heard. We would need to get a better explanation of that.


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Anubys said:


> If Cersei's eyes are green, then the initial order is still possible and the Red Woman changed the order in this episode for emphasis on the next color up!


My thoughts exactly. The blue eyes needed to be emphasized at this moment in history.
In their initial meeting, Mel also said "I see a darkness in you."


----------



## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

robojerk said:


> Worth pointing out most of all of Dany's people were wiped out last episode. The Dothraki, The unsullied, ser jorah, are all dead. Varys said his loyalty was hers as long as he felt she was good for the realm. Tyrion is always pragmatic and his loyalties could swing another way if she gets crazy or something else happens. All she has left with pure loyalty are Greyworm, Missandei, and the Greyjoys.
> Plus 2 dragons.
> I'd say Jon is in her corner but she got all pissy about his claim to the iron throne when he told her about his parentage and she might get more pissy because of Sansa.


My guess is the northerners (what's left of them) will rally behind her because she suffered great losses defending Winterfell.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

PJO1966 said:


> My guess is the northerners (what's left of them) will rally behind her because she suffered great losses defending Winterfell.


Especially if she and Jon work out their new-found family issues and present a united front.

Which I'm pretty sure is gonna happen...and there's no doubt the North would rally behind King Jon Aegon and Queen Dani!


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> Read an interesting analysis of the battle.
> 
> Tormund killed the most wights per second of screen time. Arya killed the most total wights.
> 
> Brienne came in second in both categories, I believe.


I need a new tv. I thought Brienne got killed twice and I confused her with Jorah on the Dothraki red shirt charge.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

wprager said:


> Can't believe I'm getting into this. Theon's best option was to wait, hoping for the prophesy to be fulfilled. As the Prince(ss) that was Promised came charging at the NK he could have possibly helped by distracting him on some way. Sure, he was likely dead eventually anyway but every pawn that's sacrificed should be sacrificed at the right time.


His best option to the viewer was to wait for the prophesy to hopefully be fulfilled but if you're saying in that moment as Theon, he would have been waiting and hoping, that sounds a bit ludicrous to me.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> Especially if she and Jon work out their new-found family issues and present a united front.
> 
> Which I'm pretty sure is gonna happen...and there's no doubt the North would rally behind King Jon Aegon and Queen Dani!


I mean the North would rally around Jon the bastard of Winterfell so you sure as hell know they'll rally around him as the rightful male Targaryen. But I also think they'll work it out and plan to rule together, even if that plan ends up going to ****e like most of the plans on this show.


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> I need a new tv. I thought Brienne got killed twice and I confused her with Jorah on the Dothraki red shirt charge.


Isn't that a sign of love, when you see her everywhere?


photoshopgrl said:


> I mean the North would rally around Jon the bastard of Winterfell so you sure as hell know they'll rally around him as the rightful male Targaryen. But I also think they'll work it out and plan to rule together, even if that plan end up going to ****e like most of the plans on this show.


Especially Stark plans!


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Especially if she and Jon work out their new-found family issues and present a united front.
> 
> Which I'm pretty sure is gonna happen...and there's no doubt the North would rally behind King Jon Aegon and Queen Dani!


I came up with the following completely baseless speculation after 3 or 4 beers last night. There will be Dany/Jon drama but they'll eventually decide that one ruler on the iron throne is a bad idea and will form some kind of a democratic council of Dany, Jon, Sansa, Tyrion, Arya etc... to rule over the United States Of Westeros.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> I'd say Arya was #1 in both categories, by a VERY wide margin.
> 
> Since she killed millions of them.


The analysis excluded all "indirect kills".

So Dani gets 1, despite her Drogon flaming hundreds of them.
Jon gets a lot less than what his dragon did.
Arya gets 22, I believe.
Podrick and Gendry get 9 each.
Jaime 11.
Hound 12.
Sam 4.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

LordKronos said:


> What about Lady Mormont? Most wights (by volume) per second of screen time?


While I enjoyed her kill, I'm beginning to think it less impressive than I originally did.

She got picked up and squished to death. She was held a foot from his eye and she stabbed it. That kill was hand-wrapped and gifted to her. Less impressive now that I think about it more.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Especially if she and Jon work out their new-found family issues and present a united front.
> 
> Which I'm pretty sure is gonna happen...and there's no doubt the North would rally behind King Jon Aegon and Queen Dani!


You ride a freaking dragon you are the ruler. It's that simple. People run in fear and cower in awe. Dani still well in charge of this, even more so if Jon and Dragon #2 are on board.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

But Jon has a dragon now too.

Jon is the rightful ruler. Dani is the one who wants to be ruler. They're hot for each other.

Marriage and co-monarchy is the obvious answer, and I suspect the one they'll come up with. Not so sure it'll work out that way, though!


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## Marco (Sep 19, 2000)

Once upon a time Daenerys wanted to Break The Wheel.

Does she still want to do that, or simply possess the Iron Throne like any other monarch before her?


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

Wow. Jon distracted the dragon so Arya could get by it. I totally missed that.

Game Of Thrones Fan Proves Jon Snow Wasn't Just 'Screaming At A Dragon'


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> But again, the Night King could have sent those same White Walkers at Theon while he was running toward him. If the Night King had been separated from the rest of his army, it might have made sense for Theon to try to get to him before his minions could. But Theon chose to run at the squad rather than wait for the squad to move toward him.


Because the only chance he realistically had was that 1. The night King wouldn't send the WW at him out of arrogance or whatever it 2. That he could get to The NK before the WWs could get to him. Waiting to be swarmed was not the right course of action.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But Jon has a dragon now too.
> 
> Jon is the rightful ruler. Dani is the one who wants to be ruler. They're hot for each other.
> 
> Marriage and co-monarchy is the obvious answer, and I suspect the one they'll come up with. Not so sure it'll work out that way, though!


Yes, I agree.

The issue is only Jon v. Dani or Jon + Dani. I don't see any other contenders. Perhaps we're all on board with this.

And because the dragon really belongs to Dani (she's their mom, of course) if Dragon 2 had to pick he'd (she'd?) pick Dani. And I think Jon cares more about his future with Dani than the throne, and that Dani cares more about the throne than her future with Jon. So she's still in the catbird seat in my opinion.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

PJO1966 said:


> Wow. Jon distracted the dragon so Arya could get by it. I totally missed that.
> Game Of Thrones Fan Proves Jon Snow Wasn't Just 'Screaming At A Dragon'


I saw that but I don't buy it. No way would he just see Arya and know she was going for the Night King. If anything he would see her and try to get her out of harms way. Remember Jon doesn't have the knowledge of what Arya is capable of like we do and to some extent some others do. He didn't even see her in battle like Davos did.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

PJO1966 said:


> Wow. Jon distracted the dragon so Arya could get by it. I totally missed that.
> 
> Game Of Thrones Fan Proves Jon Snow Wasn't Just 'Screaming At A Dragon'


Interesting idea but I also don't buy it. I don't think he was screaming go but just screaming as he knew his end was near.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

PJO1966 said:


> Wow. Jon distracted the dragon so Arya could get by it. I totally missed that.
> 
> Game Of Thrones Fan Proves Jon Snow Wasn't Just 'Screaming At A Dragon'


Excellent.

They certainly hid that well, but if he was at the entrance to Godswood and if the Dragon was there protecting the entrance...

And if he saw Arya there, and if he was shouting "Go!!!" to Arya who was behind the dragon...


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> I saw that but I don't buy it. No way would he just see Arya and know she was going for the Night King. If anything he would see her and try to get her out of harms way. Remember Jon doesn't have the knowledge of what Arya is capable of like we do and to some extent some others do. He didn't even see her in battle like Davos did.


He could certainly know about her skills. She trained with Brienne, she trained with Syrio. She trained with The Hound. She bested the Hound. She killed Littlefinger. These events were witnessed by many. Lots of off-screen talk would have occurred. He knows she's not a little helpless girl. Though I do agree he'd want to protect her.

What makes not buy it is they just didn't give us enough to piece it together. I guess they couldn't show her running behind the dragon while Jon yelled "Go!". Maybe they really did intend this...


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> Wow. Jon distracted the dragon so Arya could get by it. I totally missed that.
> 
> Game Of Thrones Fan Proves Jon Snow Wasn't Just 'Screaming At A Dragon'





> As you're all probably aware, it's pretty much common knowledge that Jon Snow was about as useful as a chocolate fireguard for the entirety of the episode.


That was a very British article. I had to look up what the heck a chocolate fireguard was.


> A fire-guard is used in front of a fireplace for safety. A chocolate fire-guard is of no use. An alternative to 'As much use as a chocolate teapot'.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

photoshopgrl said:


> I mean the North would rally around Jon the bastard of Winterfell so you sure as hell know they'll rally around him as the rightful male Targaryen. But I also think they'll work it out and plan to rule together, even if that plan ends up going to ****e like most of the plans on this show.


I was nodding my head in agreement as I read your post, but (Ned Stark always said everything before the "but" is BS!) 

The North Remembers, right? They might want him as their king when he was a Stark; would they feel the same when he's a Targarian?


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

So much for my cool "Night King 2020" t-shirt I bought from Woot.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Anubys said:


> I was nodding my head in agreement as I read your post, but (Ned Stark always said everything before the "but" is BS!)
> 
> The North Remembers, right? They might want him as their king when he was a Stark; would they feel the same when he's a Targarian?


He's still a Stark. In fact, he's more of a Stark than he was before...he's a legitimate Stark! Son of the beloved Lyanna Stark.


cheesesteak said:


> So much for my cool "Night King 2020" t-shirt I bought from Woot.


I got Arya!


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

I continue to see complaints about how slowly the ice king was moving toward Bran, that it was like some sort of cartoon villain. Isn't that how he's always moved? Very slowly. When raising the dead, it took eons for his hands to move a millimeter, both in this battle and Hard Home. We've only ever seen him (and the White Walkers for that matter) walking very slowly.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

tivotvaddict said:


> I continue to see complaints about how slowly the ice king was moving toward Bran, that it was like some sort of cartoon villain. Isn't that how he's always moved? Very slowly. When raising the dead, it took eons for his hands to move a millimeter, both in this battle and Hard Home. We've only ever seen him (and the wights for that matter) walking very slowly.


Nah, during the battle the wights swarmed the ramparts like 20 Days Later zombies!


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

He moved pretty fast when throwing the spear. At least his arm did.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

tivotvaddict said:


> I continue to see complaints about how slowly the ice king was moving toward Bran, that it was like some sort of cartoon villain. Isn't that how he's always moved? Very slowly. When raising the dead, it took eons for his hands to move a millimeter, both in this battle and Hard Home. We've only ever seen him (and the wights for that matter) walking very slowly.


That whole scene was slowed down, it wasn't just the NK. Yes he just walked to Bran, but he's never seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Nah, during the battle the wights swarmed the ramparts like 20 Days Later zombies!


Oops I meant the White Walkers - the old dudes


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

tivotvaddict said:


> Oops I meant the White Walkers - the old dudes


White Walkers and Wight Runners?


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> The analysis excluded all "indirect kills".
> 
> So Dani gets 1, despite her Drogon flaming hundreds of them.
> Jon gets a lot less than what his dragon did.
> ...


Drogon and Rhaegal have filed a protest.


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## WO312 (Jan 24, 2003)

You guys are assuming there is going to be a happily-ever-after ending. I don't think that will happen. Between Jon and Dani, I think one of them is going to die. At this point I think Dani dies. Nothing to base it on, just a hunch.


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Anubys said:


> I was nodding my head in agreement as I read your post, but (Ned Stark always said everything before the "but" is BS!)
> 
> The North Remembers, right? They might want him as their king when he was a Stark; would they feel the same when he's a Targarian?


The son of a married Targaryen & Stark, vs the son bastard of a Stark & a commoner?


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

MacThor said:


> Drogon and Rhaegal have filed a protest.


The Red Lady too. She rose from the dead to say "What?!? Lighting the trench was chopped liver yo?"


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> He's still a Stark. In fact, he's more of a Stark than he was before...he's a legitimate Stark! Son of the beloved Lyanna Stark.


hmmm...good point. In a way, he bypasses the traditional way of merging houses via marriage since he's the product of the unifying marriage; and the product of a love story to boot.

Ok. I'm back on the North will welcome him bandwagon!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

WO312 said:


> You guys are assuming there is going to be a happily-ever-after ending.


Not me!


Rob Helmerichs said:


> But Jon has a dragon now too.
> 
> Jon is the rightful ruler. Dani is the one who wants to be ruler. They're hot for each other.
> 
> Marriage and co-monarchy is the obvious answer, and I suspect the one they'll come up with. Not so sure it'll work out that way, though!


I think Jon and Dany will come to the obvious conclusion as how best to proceed, but that life in Westeros will have other plans.

A WaPo writer today theorized that Sansa would end up Queen, and made a not entirely unconvincing case for it.

Sansa Stark should sit on the Iron Throne in 'Game of Thrones' - and it looks like she might


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

WO312 said:


> You guys are assuming there is going to be a happily-ever-after ending. I don't think that will happen.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I believe there'll be a relatively happy ending to the tv show. The book ending? Not so much.

Based on how un-quickly the both moved, a Night King v. Ser Gregor fight would have been the slowest fight ever seen.

I feel sorry for whoever has the burial detail after the Battle Of Winterfell.


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

WO312 said:


> You guys are assuming there is going to be a happily-ever-after ending.


I'm not convinced Cersei won't become the Mad Queen a start screaming "burn then all". She's defeated her enemies twice with wildfire already, so I presume she's got the pyromancers working overtime after using up the last stash of it. She's clearly proven not to give a **** about anyone, so if she thinks she's gonna fall (and she knows there's no way she wouldn't be executed), it wouldn't be beyond her to take everyone with her.


----------



## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

cheesesteak said:


> I believe there'll be a relatively happy ending to the tv show. The book ending? Not so much.
> 
> Based on how un-quickly the both moved, a Night King v. Ser Gregor fight would have been the slowest fight ever seen.
> 
> I feel sorry for whoever has the burial detail after the Battle Of Winterfell.


That's gonna be cremation.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Robin said:


> That's gonna be cremation.


Yeah, the dragons can take care of clean-up and burial duty in no time. Even faster if the humans don't mind heating up some of the castle structure.


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## cl8855 (Jan 2, 2009)

cheesesteak said:


> So much for my cool "Night King 2020" t-shirt I bought from Woot.


Good thing I got the Arya 2020 one...


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, the dragons can take care of clean-up and burial duty in no time. Even faster if the humans don't mind heating up some of the castle structure.


New design style for the Stark crypt. Iron bars everywhere!


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## 3D (Oct 9, 2001)

LordKronos said:


> I'm not convinced Cersei won't become the Mad Queen a start screaming "burn then all". She's defeated her enemies twice with wildfire already, so I presume she's got the pyromancers working overtime after using up the last stash of it. She's clearly proven not to give a **** about anyone, so if she thinks she's gonna fall (and she knows there's no way she wouldn't be executed), it wouldn't be beyond her to take everyone with her.


Interesting thought, and that would present the perfect scenario for Jaimie to become a queen slayer as some have speculated.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

cheesesteak said:


> I believe there'll be a relatively happy ending to the tv show. The book ending? Not so much.
> 
> Based on how un-quickly the both moved, a Night King v. Ser Gregor fight would have been the slowest fight ever seen.
> 
> I feel sorry for whoever has the burial detail after the Battle Of Winterfell.


Yes, I'm of the mind the good guys win, and we are left with some combo of J & D running the show. That's a relatively happy ending, even if one of them dies.

Unhappy ending is with either Night King winning, Cersei winning, or Euron Greyjoy winning. I don't see any of those happening but I'd love to be surprised.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, the dragons can take care of clean-up and burial duty in no time. Even faster if the humans don't mind heating up some of the castle structure.


I couldn't tell (you know why), but it doesn't seem like there can be a lot of castle left.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

uncdrew said:


> Yes, I'm of the mind the good guys win, and we are left with some combo of J & D running the show. That's a relatively happy ending, even if one of them dies.
> 
> Unhappy ending is with either Night King winning, Cersei winning, or Euron Greyjoy winning. I don't see any of those happening but I'd love to be surprised.


Well I can tell you one of those doesn't happen.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> I couldn't tell (you know why), but it doesn't seem like there can be a lot of castle left.


I don't think much of the actual castle structure was harmed. Maybe a little when the dragon landed on the ramparts, and they'll have lots of wooden railings and walkways to rebuild inside the keep, but overall I think the structure stayed pretty intact.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

cl8855 said:


> Good thing I got the Arya 2020 one...


Debating getting this for a friend. Do you like yours? How was the fit?


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## cl8855 (Jan 2, 2009)

tivotvaddict said:


> Debating getting this for a friend. Do you like yours? How was the fit?


I went with the longsleeve XL (they call LS unisex sizes if I remember correctly?), fits equiv to a typical men's XL t-shirt. Feels a bit thin, but is comfy.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

As they panned back from Winterfell after the NK went down (showing all the wights falling off the walls) there looked like a pretty big gap in the outer wall. It may have been the gate destroyed by the wight giant.

A slight goof in that shot - you still see the army of the dead running towards Winterfell as the wights on the walls are falling dead. Maybe the death of the NK needed to "radiate out."


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

MacThor said:


> Maybe the death of the NK needed to "radiate out."


That's exactly how it looked to me.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

MacThor said:


> As they panned back from Winterfell after the NK went down (showing all the wights falling off the walls) there looked like a pretty big gap in the outer wall. It may have been the gate destroyed by the wight giant.


You're right. I hadn't noticed that before. I guess there was some of the wall destroyed. Did they show that to us during the battle scenes?


MacThor said:


> A slight goof in that shot - you still see the army of the dead running towards Winterfell as the wights on the walls are falling dead. *Maybe the death of the NK needed to "radiate out."*


That's exactly what happened. As the camera panned out, the wights slowly all fell. They didn't all fall simultaneously.


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

I'm pretty sure I saw the wight dragon breach the wall with blue fire.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> I believe there'll be a relatively happy ending to the tv show. The book ending? Not so much.


Do we have any reason to think they (book and TV) won't be the same? Or very similar? Every interview I've read said that while the journey to the end may take some different paths, D&D intend to stay true to GRRM's story.

I'm not sure we'll get an ending that's neat and simple. Dany or Jon or both on the throne sounds too easy for a show like this. It could be someone else (Sansa, Tyrion), it could even be a totally different path. Maybe the winners decide Westeros should return to the Seven Kingdoms concept (even though a few of them don't really exist any more). Split it into three or four kingdoms. Or create a triumvirate. Whatever we end up with, I tend to think it's something that doesn't seem obvious to us now. But will in hindsight.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Yeah, I'll say it again...I think Jon and Dany will decide to be co-monarchs, but I am far, far less sure things will work out the way they want.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

I think Sansa and Tyrion will renew their vows.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

PJO1966 said:


> I think Sansa and Tyrion will renew their vows.


I was thinking this too. And Arya and Gendry? There are empty castles right?


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

SullyND said:


> I was thinking this too. And Arya and Gendry? There are empty castles right?


They will get a comedy spinoff with Samwell as their whacky neighbor.


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

I read an "expert" said that everyone should have switched their TVs to the Cinema or Movie mode to handle the darkness. I'm going to try it when I re-watch on HBO Go built into my TV.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

So I noticed that for some reason HBOGo on my Apple TV 4K is outputting all video as Dolby Vision on my Sony 4K, despite the fact that I have match range turned on. That explains why GoT looked brighter than expected. I’m also fairly certain that’s a bug because no other video apps do that on the ATV4k.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

super dave said:


> I read an "expert" said that everyone should have switched their TVs to the Cinema or Movie mode to handle the darkness. I'm going to try it when I re-watch on HBO Go built into my TV.


Won't that just make it darker? That would hide the compression artifacts, but it would hide everything else, too!


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

super dave said:


> I read an "expert" said that everyone should have switched their TVs to the Cinema or Movie mode to handle the darkness. I'm going to try it when I re-watch on HBO Go built into my TV.


I think that usually results in a darker picture and doesn't necessarily improve the black response.


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> I think that usually results in a darker picture and doesn't necessarily improve the black response.


He claims that it's set for the darkness so you can see, who knows but I'll try it and see for myself.


----------



## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

MacThor said:


> As they panned back from Winterfell after the NK went down (showing all the wights falling off the walls) there looked like a pretty big gap in the outer wall. It may have been the gate destroyed by the wight giant.


Visceron destroyed it with his blue fire.



MacThor said:


> A slight goof in that shot - you still see the army of the dead running towards Winterfell as the wights on the walls are falling dead. Maybe the death of the NK needed to "radiate out."


 Yeah, that sorta bugged me. Like it was a self destruct signal or something. Hmmm....if that's the case, maybe the Night King had a reserve army kept in a Faraday cage somewhere and they could still come out to take kings landing. In fact, maybe that wasn't even the Night King. It was his....dun dun dun....evil twin brother.



SullyND said:


> I was thinking this too. And Arya and Gendry? There are empty castles right?


Well, Highgarden was empty. Possibly still Casterly Rock. Did anybody make it out of Last Hearth? There are 19...errr, make that 18...castles on the wall that are no longer needed. Bear Island is now in need of a Lord or Lady. If Dany moves into Kings Landing, then Dragonstone will be available.


----------



## mm2margaret (Dec 7, 2010)

super dave said:


> He claims that it's set for the darkness so you can see, who knows but I'll try it and see for myself.


As an Video Editor, I just took my recorded copy and ran it through Davinci Resolve - I adjusted the gain parameter, saturation and a few other things. Came out great, and while it's still dark, its significantly brighter than it was, revealing much more detail and very much easier to watch.


----------



## tlc (May 30, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> Also yeah I said to a friend after the episode, "what exactly where the white walkers even there for? The wights did all the work ..."


Typical middle management.



heySkippy said:


> About those flaming swords. Wouldn't that alter the temper and ruin the sword?


That only matters if you live to use it again.


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

I wonder if anyone else will be able to wield Beric's flaming sword? Not that it's needed against the living. 
Maybe Sandor will overcome his fear and use it on Gregor.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

cheesesteak said:


> I came up with the following completely baseless speculation after 3 or 4 beers last night. There will be Dany/Jon drama but they'll eventually decide that one ruler on the iron throne is a bad idea and will form some kind of a democratic council of Dany, Jon, Sansa, Tyrion, Arya etc... to rule over the United States Of Westeros.


Westeros has the seven kingdoms, so I think it would be the United Kingdoms of Westeros. In the next series, we'll find out they joined the WEU (Westeros-Essos Union). But the first episode will be titled "Wexit".



uncdrew said:


> While I enjoyed her kill, I'm beginning to think it less impressive than I originally did.
> 
> She got picked up and squished to death. She was held a foot from his eye and she stabbed it. That kill was hand-wrapped and gifted to her. Less impressive now that I think about it more.


None of that would have been possible, however, if she hadn't had the courage to run toward the giant to attack him. And even while being crushed, knowing she was about to die, she still had her wits about her to think of finding a way to take the giant with her.

In any case, it was a good reminder that it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> Because the only chance he realistically had was that 1. The night King wouldn't send the WW at him out of arrogance or whatever it 2. That he could get to The NK before the WWs could get to him. Waiting to be swarmed was not the right course of action.


The Night King's minions didn't need to get to him.

Theon died surrounded by them:










The only reason they didn't attack is because the Night King didn't need them to.

One minor change the writers could have done to make Theon look less dumb would have been to have had the Night King start his walk toward Bran before Theon ran toward him. When the Night King was about halfway to Bran from his minions, at that point it would have made more sense for Theon to try to take him out. Theon could have run toward the Night King, and the Night King could have killed him in the same manner.

I still like my version of Theon serving as a distraction better, though, because that version makes both Theon and the Night King look less dumb.


----------



## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> The Night King's minions didn't need to get to him.
> 
> Theon died surrounded by them:
> 
> ...


Correct. It was still plausible that the night King was arrogant enough to not have the WWs attack but Theon still have a chance at killing the night King. That's what he was hoping.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

uncdrew said:


> He could certainly know about her skills. She trained with Brienne, she trained with Syrio. She trained with The Hound. She bested the Hound. She killed Littlefinger. These events were witnessed by many. Lots of off-screen talk would have occurred. He knows she's not a little helpless girl. Though I do agree he'd want to protect her.


And Jon also knows that Arya was able to sneak up on him, specifically while he was standing in the godswood next to the weirwood tree. That was another bit of foreshadowing that caused me to think Arya had a good shot at being the one to take out the Night King.



uncdrew said:


> What makes not buy it is they just didn't give us enough to piece it together. I guess they couldn't show her running behind the dragon while Jon yelled "Go!". Maybe they really did intend this...


Yeah, if they had intended this, I wish they would have given us some indication that we could have gone back and seen in retrospect. Perhaps as Jon was turning toward the dragon just before he screamed, he could have paused a bit while looking to his right (our left), then jumped up, and screamed. That wouldn't have given anything away, but we could have then gone back, and figured out that he had seen Arya in that moment.

As it was shown, there was no indication that he saw anyone. He just jumped up, and started screaming. It still looks to me like he was screaming out of frustration and hopelessness.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> Correct. It was still plausible that the night King was arrogant enough to not have the WWs attack but Theon still have a chance at killing the night King. That's what he was hoping.


If he was hoping that, he should have waited for the Night King to come to him. Or at least get further away from his minions. Running toward the whole group on the off chance that none of them would attack was stupid.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

LordKronos said:


> There are 19...errr, make that 18...castles on the wall that are no longer needed.


It will be interesting to see what happens with the Night's Watch. Will the members' oaths be held fulfilled? The oath really should have said, "It shall not end until my death or the destruction of the Night King, whichever comes first." I guess that shows how confident they were that they would ever win. 

Or perhaps they will become a reserve unit like the U.S. National Guard. But who knows how many of the Night's Watch are even left.

In any case, I'm assuming this means Sam can become Lord Tarly now. At least as long as Qyburn doesn't figure out how to create the Night King 2.0.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

BitbyBlit said:


> In any case, I'm assuming this means Sam can become Lord Tarly now. At least as long as Qyburn doesn't figure out how to create the Night King 2.0.


Nah, I think Tarly becomes one of those available castles.

After the Battle of Winterfell, if there's anything anybody wants less than Sam wants being put in a position that involves military service, it's anybody else wanting Sam being put in a position that involves military service. 

I suspect he'll stay on the Maester career track, and somebody else becomes Lord Tarly.

(Assuming, of course, that he survives the last few episodes!)


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## getbak (Oct 8, 2004)

Marco said:


> Once upon a time Daenerys wanted to Break The Wheel.
> 
> Does she still want to do that, or simply possess the Iron Throne like any other monarch before her?


I'm pretty sure that her definition of breaking the wheel was always that she'd be the one sitting on the Iron Throne forever and no one would question Targaryen rule ever again.

When she talks about breaking the wheel, she mentions the large and powerful houses of Westeros and how each one gets their turn on top before the wheel rolls along. The one family she doesn't mention is her own.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> If he was hoping that, he should have waited for the Night King to come to him. Or at least get further away from his minions. Running toward the whole group on the off chance that none of them would attack was stupid.


Not as stupid as hoping the night King would come to him first or that he could fend off white walkers until only the night King was left.

But we've gone round and round about this and I don't think there's anything left to be said.

Agree to disagree.


----------



## Haps (Nov 30, 2001)

TriBruin said:


> I HATED how they treated Sansa in this episode.




I was disappointed because of how I figured it would go down.

I was expecting them to show a contrast compared to how Cersei conducted herself while locked away during the Blackwater Bay battle.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

odds and ends

- The 18 "castles" on the Wall are no more castles than calling a mud hut a mansion 
- there is no longer a need for the Wall or the castles guarding it. No longer a need for the Night's Watch.
- Casterly Rock goes to Jaime; but the Lannisters are completely broke. So maybe he and Brienne will marry and take the Tyrell's land and castle, HighGarden.
- Or maybe Brienne and Tormund! But then they would get Last Hearth. Tormund won't like a place without snow.
- *WHEN* Tyrion and Sansa re-marry, they will live at Winterfell
- Baby Sam is the next Lord Tarly
- Who gets Dorne? I vote for Bronn...lots of loose women and great wine!


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## Haps (Nov 30, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, I'll say it again...I think Jon and Dany will decide to be co-monarchs, but I am far, far less sure things will work out the way they want.


My guess is Dany concedes she is not the rightful heir. Jon takes the iron throne. Dany goes back to rule essos


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Haps said:


> My guess is Dany concedes she is not the rightful heir. Jon takes the iron throne. Dany goes back to rule essos


I don't think she'll ever fully concede that, but being co-monarchs means she doesn't have to.

They haven't spent one second of screen time setting up a return to Essos, so I don't see that being even a remote possibility at this point...


----------



## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Game Reset - Seven Kingdoms:

North - Stark, pledged to Daenerys
Iron Islands & Riverlands - This one is kind of messy. I believe the Tullys were the ruling house after the Greyjoy Rebellion. (?) Edmure is still alive but hasn't been seen since Jaime used him to surrender Riverrun back to the Freys. Now the Freys are dead. I don't think Jaime's forces killed anyone but the Blackfish at Riverrun. Obviously the Islanders are divided, but Euron has the majority over Yara.
Reach - All the Tyrells are dead, unless there are some unknown cousins out there. Lion banners hang at Highgarden, but I doubt there are many Lannister forces there.
Westerlands/Rock - AFAIK, the Unsullied took Casterly Rock for Daenerys, but I have no idea who's there now.
Stormlands - No idea. I guess Gendry if someone legitimizes him?
Vale - Arryn, aligned with Stark/Targaryen
Dorne - I think all the Martells are dead. Maybe the Dornish sit this last one out.


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## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

MacThor said:


> Game Reset - Seven Kingdoms:
> 
> North - Stark, pledged to Daenerys


Is Bran the only male Stark left? (Is he still a "Stark" or does he consider himself to only be the 3ER.)


----------



## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

SullyND said:


> Is Bran the only male Stark left? (Is he still a "Stark" or does he consider himself to only be the 3ER.)


Yes, he is the last male Stark, and I suspect he's not going to be in the running...


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Haps said:


> My guess is Dany concedes she is not the rightful heir. Jon takes the iron throne. Dany goes back to rule essos


This would go counter to the prophesy that a pretty queen would take Cersei's place. Since Jon is single if Dany leaves, then it will either be Jon and Dany or Sansa who take over from Cersei.

Although I do think the Karstark girl is very pretty as well


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

MacThor said:


> Game Reset - Seven Kingdoms:
> 
> North - Stark, pledged to Daenerys
> Iron Islands & Riverlands - This one is kind of messy. I believe the Tullys were the ruling house after the Greyjoy Rebellion. (?) Edmure is still alive but hasn't been seen since Jaime used him to surrender Riverrun back to the Freys. Now the Freys are dead. I don't think Jaime's forces killed anyone but the Blackfish at Riverrun. Obviously the Islanders are divided, but Euron has the majority over Yara.
> ...


I assume Edmure would be let go by the Frey women...heck, Edmure might end up with RiverRun AND the Twins!

We've seen how well a fleet of ships performs against dragons. I suspect Euron can be quickly overwhelmed.


----------



## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

heySkippy said:


> About those flaming swords. Wouldn't that alter the temper and ruin the sword?


Unless the Dothraki have modern steels, anything from the basic carbon steel world will actually get improved by mild heating. You have to get to almost glowing hot before you start any sort of annealing.


----------



## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

cheesesteak said:


> The Dothraki didn't last long.


Because once again either the characters or the show runners have no idea about battle tactics. A straight up the middle cavalry charge has almost always been a good way to lose you cavalry -- unless the other side is few in number of panics and runs. Because their center stalls or falls back and their flanks curl around and the cavalry ends up pinned together and then they're just targets in a field of horses.

You want to fix their middle against your infantry, or better infantry behind field fortifications, and use the cavalry to hit their flanks.

Instead it was "lets throw away the only part of our force that might be faster than the dead in a suicidal charge, then commit the remaining forces piecemeal in open combat ahead of any of our defensive works. That'll let the dead defeat us in detail _and_ give them plenty of room to build up a charge out of the darkness to break our lines and turn this in the kind of militarily stupid general melee that's the only thing we seem to know how to film.

Can't think of a single large battle this show has done that hasn't shown suicidal stupid tactics.

Still, while predictable based on it happening too soon, I did like the Night King just enjoying the warm breeze that was dragon fire 

(It also bugged me that apparently _everyone_ in the crypt panicked when the dead down their started to rise. We know some of them had dragon glass weapons, and I'd expect most of them should have just in case any dead ever broke in. But _nobody_ started stabbing the dead as they were breaking out of their crypts. Sure some people are going to panic, but couldn't they have someone trying to take advantage of the newly risen dead being nearly stationary targets for dozens of seconds as they break free to get some risk free dragon glass stabbing in? I don't insist the refugees win - just that they aren't _all_ headless chickens. (Though somehow all the named characters down their survived by hiding in corners - odd that)


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Haps said:


> My guess is Dany concedes she is not the rightful heir. Jon takes the iron throne. Dany goes back to rule essos


I can't in any way see Dany conceding. Agreeing to rule together maybe.



Anubys said:


> This would go counter to the prophesy that a pretty queen would take Cersei's place. Since Jon is single if Dany leaves, then it will either be Jon and Dany or Sansa who take over from Cersei.
> 
> Although I do think the Karstark girl is very pretty as well


The prophesy also said Cercei would have 3 children that died but she's again pregnant so if she carries the baby to term, that prophesy is mud.

Also the Karstark girl is dead. She was in the Godswood with Theon and everyone including him that was there are goners.


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

PJO1966 said:


> I think Sansa and Tyrion will renew their vows.


I'm not seeing it, but certainly a possibility. He was relatively kind to her in their brief marriage.

But not sure she gets passed his past. Both with the family who beheaded pops and his brothel-going exploits. Plus, I think she's saving herself for a Prince Charming type. And she seems in no hurry at all.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

photoshopgrl said:


> The prophesy also said Cercei would have 3 children that died but she's again pregnant so if she carries the baby to term, that prophesy is mud.
> 
> Also the Karstark girl is dead. She was in the Godswood with Theon and everyone including him that was there are goners.


Agreed on all counts...but 

You already qualified that Cersei may not carry to term, and her brothers already wonder if she were pregnant at all.

I did see the Karstark beauty marching with Theon and Bran; but she was conspicuously absent in any subsequent scenes. So I'm holding out hope to see her again!


----------



## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

BitbyBlit said:


> It will be interesting to see what happens with the Night's Watch. Will the members' oaths be held fulfilled? The oath really should have said, "It shall not end until my death or the destruction of the Night King, whichever comes first." I guess that shows how confident they were that they would ever win.
> 
> Or perhaps they will become a reserve unit like the U.S. National Guard. But who knows how many of the Night's Watch are even left.
> 
> In any case, I'm assuming this means Sam can become Lord Tarly now. At least as long as Qyburn doesn't figure out how to create the Night King 2.0.


The Night King and his blue-eyed Dragon broke through on the East end of the Wall, correct?

I wonder if there's a sentry sitting on the West End of the wall twiddling his thumbs wondering what's for dinner.


----------



## SullyND (Dec 30, 2004)

photoshopgrl said:


> The prophesy also said Cercei would have 3 children that died but she's again pregnant so if she carries the baby to term, that prophesy is mud.


Is she pregnant? I think she's not, and the tryst with Euron was to try again and cover "wow, that was a long pregnancy Jaime, weird that he has dark hair, huh?"


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

uncdrew said:


> I'm not seeing it, but certainly a possibility. He was relatively kind to her in their brief marriage.
> 
> But not sure she gets passed his past. Both with the family who beheaded pops and his brothel-going exploits. Plus, I think she's saving herself for a Prince Charming type. And she seems in no hurry at all.


She was warming up to him in a big way already until his family killed Rob (which made that whore - sorry, I forget her name - extra super jealous). They also went out of their way to put them together talking about the possibility* and then bonding in fear and holding hands. I think there is enough foreshadowing for them to become at the very least good friends and allies, but I think there is much more to it.

* And when she told him "he was the best of them" and she could see Tyrion wonder about them as a couple...she didn't say "let's stay in the friend zone". She outlined why it would not be politically possible. Well, politics change very quickly. What's not possible one day is the only course of action the next.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> I'm not seeing it, but certainly a possibility. He was relatively kind to her in their brief marriage.
> 
> But not sure she gets passed his past. Both with the family who beheaded pops and his brothel-going exploits. Plus, I think she's saving herself for a Prince Charming type. And she seems in no hurry at all.


I think she outgrew her desire for a handsome prince a long time ago. She's called herself an idiot for believing that was important.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

PJO1966 said:


> I think she outgrew her desire for a handsome prince a long time ago. She's called herself an idiot for believing that was important.


I'm not sure the writers on this show are evolved enough to think this way, but it seems to me she's at a point in her life where the last thing she wants is any kind of prince. She has finally become her own person.

But I suspect (assuming she survives!) they'll marry her off one way or another.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

I rewatched and have a greater respect for the Unsullied. They fought well, held their composure, and sacrificed nobly. They protected the main retreat, were responsible for Red Witch being able to light the trenches, and killed a cajillion wights.

Dany coming off her Dragon was odd. She recognized wights were on him, and she had many many seconds to realize that flying was the right course of action. He eventually just did it himself and the wights came falling off. She should have quickly took flight, back to where she could help the most.

I found it odd that Lyanna was calling for the gates to be opened and closed. Not sure you give that job to a teen, and not sure she has the battle experience to be in charge of that. Perhaps she was just passing on the order as yelled by Davos -- not sure.

Theon did fight well. Took down about a dozen with his bow and another half dozen with a spear. Fine job, his apology tour is complete, he is now redeemed.

Kind of odd how Arya was in a room with Hound and Red Witch, and then she goes running to Godswood. Who knows how long that all took, but at the end of the episode Hound is with Red Witch as she walks outside to die. So I guess Hound just chilled in that room the entire time?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

uncdrew said:


> Kind of odd how Arya was in a room with Hound and Red Witch, and then she goes running to Godswood. Who knows how long that all took, but at the end of the episode Hound is with Red Witch as she walks outside to die. So I guess Hound just chilled in that room the entire time?


I suspect they had their own problems on the way...


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Anubys said:


> She was warming up to him in a big way already until his family killed Rob (which made that whore - sorry, I forget her name - extra super jealous). They also went out of their way to put them together talking about the possibility* and then bonding in fear and holding hands. I think there is enough foreshadowing for them to become at the very least good friends and allies, but I think there is much more to it.
> 
> * And when she told him "he was the best of them" and she could see Tyrion wonder about them as a couple...she didn't say "let's stay in the friend zone". She outlined why it would not be politically possible. Well, politics change very quickly. What's not possible one day is the only course of action the next.


Yeah, I agree the writers are setting it up.

But again, since it's me, I am saying I don't see it. I don't think she marries a dwarf from the family that killed her dad and other relatives and who I think is older and sluttier.

I'm with Rob, that she is independent and solo and likes it that way. However, in Westeros you kind of marry for politics. Not sure how the Lannisters fit into that, especially after Green Eyes dies.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

uncdrew said:


> Dany coming off her Dragon was odd. She recognized wights were on him, and she had many many seconds to realize that flying was the right course of action. He eventually just did it himself and the wights came falling off. She should have quickly took flight, back to where she could help the most.


I have watched that scene numerous times now and there's no way she could stay on there. First the wights would have gotten her and second as Drogon took flight he started doing the dog shake to rid himself of them. I'm not sure he could have done that with her on ...... but of course she's held on through worse so lol. There were just too many on there, there's no way at least one of them wouldn't have gotten to her before being shaken off.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

photoshopgrl said:


> I have watched that scene numerous times now and there's no way she could stay on there. First the wights would have gotten her and second as Drogon took flight he started doing the dog shake to rid himself of them. I'm not sure he could have done that with her on ...... but of course she's held on through worse so lol. There were just too many on there, there's no way at least one of them wouldn't have gotten to her before being shaken off.


Yeah, he's been in mid-air fights with ice fire surrounding him and she held on. 

As I watched, there was a lot of time. Enough for me to yell "fly!" a few times at the TV.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> Regarding Theon's death, I didn't find it pointless or suicide by cop. There was no way he could survive once the night King showed up so he went out swinging.


No way he could survive; unless someone miraculously shows up to take out the Night King in the nick of time. Of course the entire plan was for someone (the dragons) to show up in the nick of time to save Bran...

I think Theon should have been playing a clock management game. He can't kill the Night King, and if not saved by outside help he's going to lose. But he can't be sure the dragons are in position (and they're not) so he _should_ be trying to draw out his confrontation with the Night King as long as possible -- keep NK is a known area while waiting for your heavy hitters to take the field and hopefully take him out. If they don't come in time for you every minute you buy increases the chances they'll at least come before NK takes out Bran and leaves.

A straight up charge right at him is basically the _shortest_ Theon could possibly have delayed the Night King. So, brave; but stupid (so kind of right in character )


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## nirisahn (Nov 19, 2005)

I watched the episode twice, both the same way - Comcast OnDemand on an 11 year old plasma tv set for vivid. (I tried other settings last night and vivid was the best.) It was an awful mess Sunday night. Last night was much clearer. So I guess the answer is not to watch it Sunday night, but watch when fewer people are watching so there's less strain on the servers and the bandwidth.


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## LordKronos (Dec 28, 2003)

uncdrew said:


> wonder if there's a sentry sitting on the West End of the wall twiddling his thumbs wondering what's for dinner.


In episode 1 Jon said to send Ravens to all the castles and instruct everyone to head to Winterfell.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Over 500 posts so it's time for me to ask: anyone else wonder why Drogon did not bite the NK in half after the smug smile for surviving the dragon fire?


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

Anubys said:


> Over 500 posts so it's time for me to ask: anyone else wonder why Drogon did not bite the NK in half after the smug smile for surviving the dragon fire?


He was wearing plot armor.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

LordKronos said:


> In episode 1 Jon said to send Ravens to all the castles and instruct everyone to head to Winterfell.


Thanks, I missed that.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Anubys said:


> Over 500 posts so it's time for me to ask: anyone else wonder why Drogon did not bite the NK in half after the smug smile for surviving the dragon fire?


NK did have an ice spear, which he threw and just missed Drogon as he retreated after flame on.

Not sure if Drogon and Dany knew that, but had they charged NK that ice spear probably would have taken Drogon down.

In my rewatch, I also noticed that Jon got pretty darn close to NK as NK raised the dead. Of course seeing the dead rise up would slow any charge, but had Jon kept running at the NK he might have gotten to him. He was really only yards away and the risen dead didn't seem to quite have their senses yet.


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## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> In my rewatch, I also noticed that Jon got pretty darn close to NK as NK raised the dead. Of course seeing the dead rise up would slow any charge, but had Jon kept running at the NK he might have gotten to him. He was really only yards away and the risen dead didn't seem to quite have their senses yet.


He probably should have, but, he knew nothing.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

photoshopgrl said:


> I have watched that scene numerous times now and there's no way she could stay on there. First the wights would have gotten her and second as Drogon took flight he started doing the dog shake to rid himself of them. I'm not sure he could have done that with her on ...... but of course she's held on through worse so lol. There were just too many on there, there's no way at least one of them wouldn't have gotten to her before being shaken off.


I thought it quite stupid that Dany landed to begin with.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

brianp6621 said:


> I thought it quite stupid that Dany landed to begin with.


Now that I agree with 100%.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

brianp6621 said:


> I thought it quite stupid that Dany landed to begin with.


Yeah, don't drop a flying machine on the ground where they can swarm you.

That said, why did she? I can't recall. Was Drogon hurt? Was she wanting to get off?


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, don't drop a flying machine on the ground where they can swarm you.
> 
> That said, why did she? I can't recall. Was Drogon hurt? Was she wanting to get off?


I think she landed to get Jon but then he yelled "Bran" and she told him to go but then it was too late. At least that's how I see it, otherwise she was just dumb to do it.


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## allan (Oct 14, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, don't drop a flying machine on the ground where they can swarm you.
> 
> That said, why did she? I can't recall. Was Drogon hurt? Was she wanting to get off?


When you gotta go, you gotta go!


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## SoBelle0 (Jun 25, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, don't drop a flying machine on the ground where they can swarm you.
> 
> That said, why did she? I can't recall. Was Drogon hurt? Was she wanting to get off?


She was checking on Jon. He'd just been tossed from R. He screamed about Bran - and I told her to "Fly! go check on Bran..." she then yelled at Jon to Go! And he took off running while she just stood there.

A frustrating scene.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Anubys said:


> This would go counter to the prophesy that a pretty queen would take Cersei's place.


Didn't that prophecy already come true when Margaery Tyrell married her son?


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## Shakhari (Jan 2, 2005)

I don't see the succession to the Iron Throne as all that problematic. Whatever the legitimacy of their respective claims, Jon has bent the knee to Dany and acknowledged her as Queen. So she's the Queen. And since she can't have children, Jon is her heir.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

MacThor said:


> Didn't that prophecy already come true when Margaery Tyrell married her son?


It could be argued, but Margaery didn't take Cersei's place except in a vague, indirect fashion (Cersei stopped being Queen in the sense of the King;s wife when Robert died).


Shakhari said:


> I don't see the succession to the Iron Throne as all that problematic. Whatever the legitimacy of their respective claims, Jon has bent the knee to Dany and acknowledged her as Queen. So she's the Queen.


Only if Jon renounces his claim. They both know full well that he wasn't in possession of all the facts (and neither was she) at that moment.

Which he could well do, but he hasn't yet.

Whatever they do, they have to agree on it, otherwise it's chaos and more warfare.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Shakhari said:


> I don't see the succession to the Iron Throne as all that problematic. Whatever the legitimacy of their respective claims, Jon has bent the knee to Dany and acknowledged her as Queen. So she's the Queen. And since she can't have children, Jon is her heir.


They'll need some babies...


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

uncdrew said:


> Yeah, I agree the writers are setting it up.
> 
> But again, since it's me, I am saying I don't see it. I don't think she marries a dwarf from the family that killed her dad and other relatives and who I think is older and sluttier.
> 
> I'm with Rob, that she is independent and solo and likes it that way. However, in Westeros you kind of marry for politics. Not sure how the Lannisters fit into that, especially after Green Eyes dies.


If only Robin Arryn hadn't smashed her snow castle.


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## TAsunder (Aug 6, 2003)

Shakhari said:


> I don't see the succession to the Iron Throne as all that problematic. Whatever the legitimacy of their respective claims, Jon has bent the knee to Dany and acknowledged her as Queen. So she's the Queen. And since she can't have children, Jon is her heir.


OR CAN SHE


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Jonathan_S said:


> Because once again either the characters or the show runners have no idea about battle tactics. A straight up the middle cavalry charge has almost always been a good way to lose you cavalry -- unless the other side is few in number of panics and runs. Because their center stalls or falls back and their flanks curl around and the cavalry ends up pinned together and then they're just targets in a field of horses.
> 
> You want to fix their middle against your infantry, or better infantry behind field fortifications, and use the cavalry to hit their flanks.
> 
> ...


Tyrion did pretty well at Blackwater, and Jon was OK in Watchers on the Wall. But since then, they've been awful at strategy (TL) and tactics (JS). Jon is really brave but is a terrible field commander.

Max Brooks (World War Z) is a friend of GRRM. Prior to this episode, he said:


> George said something that has guided my prediction of every episode, where he said, "To me, my characters always make bad choices."
> 
> I guarantee you not everybody will make good choices on the defense side. Just as things are going to be going well and we're going to be like, "Yay!" somebody is going to mess up. That's going to move the story forward and we're going to be grabbing our TVs and going, "No! No! Why did you do that?" That's going to happen.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

Such a waste of (mostly Dany's) forces. Jon and the others who had already battled the AotD should have known that a straight up battle was going to be a slaughter. The wights are pretty stupid. They overwhelm you with their relentlessness, their ferocity, and their sheer numbers.

They (the good guys) should have been willing to raze Winterfell and use it as a trap. Evacuate the civilians to Moat Cailin or Greywater Watch or somewhere. Set multiple flaming trenches and barriers, and use limited forces to make the enemy believe you're going to engage them. Nothing but artillery as the dead pause at each barrier. Lob a bunch of fire from within the Walls of Winterfell. Use your forces to drive the enemy into Winterfell.

Cover the walls and gates of Winterfell (exterior, and more importantly _interior) _and even the ground with jagged dragonglass. Once they breach, beat a hasty retreat and barricade the south gate behind you. The dead would have poured over the walls ISO an enemy who wasn't there. Once the majority of the dead were trapped inside Winterfell, burn them all. Turn Winterfell into a big fire pit. You wouldn't get them all, but I bet you could take out enough to create a numerical advantage, and there wouldn't be thousands of your own men for the NK to re-animate.


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## HIHZia (Nov 3, 2004)

It seems to me the idea was to sacrifice lots of soldiers and know that they would either get the Night King to believe victory was assured and lure him in, or everybody dies.

If they had a solid well planned defense the NK might not have gone for Bran until everyone was dead. Fighting well and _everyone_ dying or fighting badly and lots of people dying, and leading NK in, seemed to be the two options they were choosing from.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

HIHZia said:


> It seems to me the idea was to sacrifice lots of soldiers and know that they would either get the Night King to believe victory was assured and lure him in, or everybody dies.
> 
> If they had a solid well planned defense the NK might not have gone for Bran until everyone was dead. Fighting well and _everyone_ dying or fighting badly and lots of people dying, and leading NK in, seemed to be the two options they were choosing from.


You think if the NK's forces were routed, he'd not show himself and retreat back North of the Wall?

Some things I had forgotten but the writers were consistent about after a rewatch of "The Door."

Fire doesn't bother the NK or the WW. They just walked right through the fire ring the Children of the Forest had outside the cave. The wights had to go around. The WW Jon killed at Hardhome also walked right through fire. So....not too surprising it didn't work when Drogon went all Dracarys on the NK.
Valyrian steel and dragon glass, however, results in almost an instant ice explosion. (Jon at Hardhome, Meera in the Cave, Sam)
When the NK killed the TER, it was very similar. He and the WW waited until that section of the cave was empty except for the immobile TER directly under the tree. He slow-walks up to the TER, pauses to stare him down for a moment, then strikes him down.


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## HIHZia (Nov 3, 2004)

The NK wouldn't retreat, and even if the living fought perfectly they'd lose eventually. They just needed to seem like they weren't going to be a real threat to the NK in the short term, because that's how they get him drawn in. If they put up too good of a fight he just waits while the dead overwhelm the living, then goes after Bran.


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## MacThor (Feb 7, 2002)

HIHZia said:


> The NK wouldn't retreat, and even if the living fought perfectly they'd lose eventually. They just needed to seem like they weren't going to be a real threat to the NK in the short term, because that's how they get him drawn in. If they put up too good of a fight he just waits while the dead overwhelm the living, then goes after Bran.


Fair enough. Then just use 1/5 or less of your forces and stash everyone somewhere else. Don't sacrifice _everyone_ to lure him out.

Here we are, debating tactics in a battle between an undead army and one led by dragons.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

I'll be curious to see what the count is of who is remaining of which forces.

-smak-


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> Not as stupid as hoping the night King would come to him first or that he could fend off white walkers until only the night King was left.


I don't see why Theon would have thought, "If I run toward the Night King's posse, none of them will attack me. But if I stay here, all of them will."

The Night King demonstrated that he didn't need any of his minions to defeat Theon. He would have had no more need for them had Theon stayed near Bran. It's not like they were his moral support or he had something to prove to them.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> After the Battle of Winterfell, if there's anything anybody wants less than Sam wants being put in a position that involves military service, it's anybody else wanting Sam being put in a position that involves military service.


Does becoming a lord in Westeros automatically mean commanding an army? I thought it just meant you (or your family) owned and were in charge of one or more lands.

Petyr Baelish was made lord of Harrenhal, and I don't really picture him as the type who would have been interested in military service either.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

BitbyBlit said:


> Does becoming a lord in Westeros automatically mean commanding an army? I thought it just meant you (or your family) owned and were in charge of one or more lands.
> 
> Petyr Baelish was made lord of Harrenhal, and I don't really picture him as the type who would have been interested in military service either.


In the Middle Ages (and from what I've seen on the show, Westeros seems to run on much the same principle), the whole point of giving somebody lands is so they'll be able to afford military service (e.g., Sam's father and brother, who supplied and led troops for Cersei, and presumably they and all their predecessors for all her predecessors).

Theoretically Sam could just raise the troops and send them on their way, but that kind of "leadership" generally doesn't inspire much respect and loyalty.

You don't "own" land, by the way; you hold it from the king (or in this case queen) in exchange for various obligations, first and foremost military but also taxes. If you don't fulfill those obligations, the king can always take the lands back; he is the true "owner" to the extent that anybody is.

You can bet that had Baelish survived to take over his lands, he would have been in charge of a fairly large contingent of troops the next time Cersei called. And you can bet that when those troops rode into battle, Baelish would have been right their with them...well, right there _behind _them. Or maybe well behind them. But there!


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

SullyND said:


> Is she pregnant? I think she's not, and the tryst with Euron was to try again and cover "wow, that was a long pregnancy Jaime, weird that he has dark hair, huh?"


Then again, Jaime has darker hair now.



uncdrew said:


> I rewatched and have a greater respect for the Unsullied. They fought well, held their composure, and sacrificed nobly. They protected the main retreat, were responsible for Red Witch being able to light the trenches, and killed a cajillion wights.


Yes. GreyWorm collapsed that bridge with a _lot_ of unsullied still on the other side defending the trench.



uncdrew said:


> They'll need some babies...


Ooh! Maybe it's *"When the SON rises in the West..."*
Jon is a son recently "risen" (as a Targaryan), in Westeros.
Or maybe when Daeny bears a son in Westeros.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

MacThor said:


> Fair enough. Then just use 1/5 or less of your forces and stash everyone somewhere else. Don't sacrifice _everyone_ to lure him out.
> 
> Here we are, debating tactics in a battle between an undead army and one led by dragons.


Yeah, I'm with you.

I don't believe the leaders actual strategy was "let's sacrifice 80,000 loyal soldiers in the hopes the NK shows up".

I think their strategy was "Bran tells us the NK is coming for him, so let's put him over here with little defenses, and then try to win a war over here. When they come for Bran, we'll come back and try to kill him."

I don't think the plan needed tens of thousands of soldiers outside the gates to die for the NK to appear. He did, of course, have a dragon to ride on and Bran told him exactly where he was when he warged.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

BitbyBlit said:


> I don't see why Theon would have thought, "If I run toward the Night King's posse, none of them will attack me. But if I stay here, all of them will."
> 
> The Night King demonstrated that he didn't need any of his minions to defeat Theon. He would have had no more need for them had Theon stayed near Bran. It's not like they were his moral support or he had something to prove to them.


He killed Theon with Theon's spear. It was like a dragon being attacked by a newt.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Is it Sunday, yet?


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

BitbyBlit said:


> I don't see why Theon would have thought, "If I run toward the Night King's posse, none of them will attack me. But if I stay here, all of them will."
> 
> The Night King demonstrated that he didn't need any of his minions to defeat Theon. He would have had no more need for them had Theon stayed near Bran. It's not like they were his moral support or he had something to prove to them.


I didn't say he would think that but he certainly would have to know he would quickly be overwhelmed if he stayed where he was. It was a last ditch effort with a very very low chance of success.


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

Who would've thought out of all the problems with the episode, battle logic deficiency, too dark to view, only 2 of the main characters dying off when it felt like more should've gone down. Theon's death by charging at the NK would be what people spend their energy discussing.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

robojerk said:


> Who would've thought out of all the problems with the episode, battle logic deficiency, too dark to view, only 2 of the main characters dying off when it felt like more should've gone down. Theon's death by charging at the NK would be what people spend their energy discussing.


Hi, you must be new here. Welcome to TiVoCommunity!


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bk4bgy


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

robojerk said:


> Who would've thought out of all the problems with the episode, battle logic deficiency, too dark to view, only 2 of the main characters dying off when it felt like more should've gone down. Theon's death by charging at the NK would be what people spend their energy discussing.


It was the only scene I could see.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

wprager said:


> Is it Sunday, yet?


Very, very close. Almost there.


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## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

Sunday is Coming


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Another thought as I sit staring at the wall thinking about the season so far (because that's a thing that everyone does right? ) - When Sansa asked Dany "what about the North" why didn't Dany just say to her "The North made Jon the King of the North and your King has bent the knee to me so what exactly should you expect?" or something along those lines. I mean the truth of it is, it doesn't matter what Sansa says, it's already been done unless the North wants to rebel against Jon and the crown on their own.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

photoshopgrl said:


> Another thought as I sit staring at the wall thinking about the season so far (because that's a thing that everyone does right? ) - When Sansa asked Dany "what about the North" why didn't Dany just say to her "The North made Jon the King of the North and your King has bent the knee to me so what exactly should you expect?" or something along those lines. I mean the truth of it is, it doesn't matter what Sansa says, it's already been done unless the North wants to rebel against Jon and the crown on their own.


But the status of the North under Dany's rule was never worked out (that we know of). And of course it's even more complicated than it was now that Jon and Dany both know who Jon really is...


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## nirisahn (Nov 19, 2005)

But neither Jon nor Dany have been shown Bran's visions or the maesters book. Jon's taking it on faith from Sam and who knows what Dany is thinking because that scene hasn't been played out yet (besides the fact that if true, Jon has a claim on the throne).


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But the status of the North under Dany's rule was never worked out (that we know of). And of course it's even more complicated than it was now that Jon and Dany both know who Jon really is...


Right but when that conversation happened Dany didn't know about Jon and since he had already bent the knee that kinda reverts him back to Ed's status as Warden of the North so what was to work out?

Obviously now that's changed but that exchange with them has just bugged me since it happened so I was just pondering.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

photoshopgrl said:


> Right but when that conversation happened Dany didn't know about Jon and since he had already bent the knee that kinda reverts him back to Ed's status as Warden of the North so what was to work out?
> 
> Obviously now that's changed but that exchange with them has just bugged me since it happened so I was just pondering.


But we don't know what arrangement they made. Maybe that really did revert him to Ned's status. Or maybe they've worked out something else. We don't know.

And it doesn't matter, because their respective status has since changed, and now they have to work something out on THAT basis.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

I'm assuming part of the next episode will be Jon's revelation to his sisters (cousins) and Sansa pushing him to claim the throne.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> But we don't know what arrangement they made. Maybe that really did revert him to Ned's status. Or maybe they've worked out something else. We don't know.


Well we kinda do because at Jaime's "trial" Dany turned to Jon and said "and what does the Warden of the North have to say?" soooooooo ....... but yeah it doesn't matter now.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)




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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

uncdrew said:


>


Mine wasn't as dark as the top frame, I could see substantially more content than that. But, the lower frame, had so much more detail, so more easily seen, that plot be damned - it's just unarguably better. They should have thrown Melisandre in there, had her say "May the lord of Light illuminate our struggle" to explain the oddness of such illumination at night, and cranked the contrast. There's just no excuse for making the visual effects work that people worked so hard on, so hard to see.


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## uncdrew (Aug 6, 2002)

Mine was much more like the top one. Not as bad, but almost.

I was having to just imagine there were wights present. It looked like they were battling shadows.


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## TriBruin (Dec 10, 2003)

photoshopgrl said:


> Another thought as I sit staring at the wall thinking about the season so far (because that's a thing that everyone does right? ) - When Sansa asked Dany "what about the North" why didn't Dany just say to her "The North made Jon the King of the North and your King has bent the knee to me so what exactly should you expect?" or something along those lines. I mean the truth of it is, it doesn't matter what Sansa says, it's already been done unless the North wants to rebel against Jon and the crown on their own.


I think Dany is starting (finally) to realize that being a ruler is more than calling herself the Queen. I always go back to Tywin's quote "Any (wo)man who must say "I am the King (Queen)", is no true King (Queen)". For the first time, Dany's claim to the throne is being questioned. If she tries and force her rule on the North, she will lose the North and, likely, result in a war between the North, Dany, and Cersei will break out. Dany needs the North and the North are following Sansa now. They may have named Jon the "King of the North", but their allegiance is to the Starks. As long as Sansa is cordial with Dany, the North will be too.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

PJO1966 said:


> I'm assuming part of the next episode will be Jon's revelation to his sisters (cousins) and Sansa pushing him to claim the throne.


Jon Snow is thinking...you're right...they're not my half-sisters! they're my cousins! saaayyyy...Sansa is hot...I love cousins!


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

uncdrew said:


>


dang...now I finally understand what all the complaining was about...if that's what people saw (the top frame), then that is totally unacceptable. Thank God the lower frame is what I saw!


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Anubys said:


> dang...now I finally understand what all the complaining was about...if that's what people saw (the top frame), then that is totally unacceptable. Thank God the lower frame is what I saw!


Honestly if the bottom frame is what you saw your TV is very badly calibrated. I saw something in between but slightly closer to the top but not nearly that bad.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

brianp6621 said:


> Honestly if the bottom frame is what you saw your TV is very badly calibrated. I saw something in between but slightly closer to the top but not nearly that bad.


I don't know why being able to see is bad calibration but I will concede that I don't know much about these things...I got the TV and ran settings from experts on AVS forum...

When I look at the lower frame, I can easily identify people...in the upper frame, it's 100 times harder and maybe only if I rewind...in that sense, that is what I mean when I say that I had the lower frame. Once I turned off the lights, I could even identify the dragons in the air fight.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

Anubys said:


> Jon Snow is thinking...you're right...they're not my half-sisters! they're my cousins! saaayyyy...Sansa is hot...I love cousins!


Well, so far he's only done his aunt. Cousins would be something new.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

brianp6621 said:


> Honestly if the bottom frame is what you saw your TV is very badly calibrated. I saw something in between but slightly closer to the top but not nearly that bad.


Yeah, neither is good but the bottom one is terrible. They're both cranked, but in opposite directions. The top one has no brightness, and the bottom one has no black.


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## brianp6621 (Nov 22, 1999)

Anubys said:


> I don't know why being able to see is bad calibration but I will concede that I don't know much about these things...I got the TV and ran settings from experts on AVS forum...
> 
> When I look at the lower frame, I can easily identify people...in the upper frame, it's 100 times harder and maybe only if I rewind...in that sense, that is what I mean when I say that I had the lower frame. Once I turned off the lights, I could even identify the dragons in the air fight.


Because it's far too bright where it shouldn't be to the point some colors are distorted. It also completely removes the oppressiveness of night and the unknown/unseen they were going for (they went too far). You can see all the details (some you shouldn't) but changes the overall mood also.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Yeah, neither is good but the bottom one is terrible. They're both cranked, but in opposite directions. The top one has no brightness, and the bottom one has no black.


Yeah the top is definitely not source. They edited both to show the vast difference. Mine was pretty dark but not anywhere close to the top one. The bottom is about what it looked like when I went back and edited my media player settings to rewatch.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

But all anyone wears on GOT is black and the only other color is snow or red hair. So I say my TV is perfectly calibrated for the show


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> In the Middle Ages (and from what I've seen on the show, Westeros seems to run on much the same principle), the whole point of giving somebody lands is so they'll be able to afford military service (e.g., Sam's father and brother, who supplied and led troops for Cersei, and presumably they and all their predecessors for all her predecessors).


But in that case why would Randyll Tarly have cared about Sam being the rightful heir to House Tarly? Wouldn't he have known that Sam would have wanted to give it up?

Also, Tyrion wanted Tywin to make him the lord of Casterly Rock. But I think it was because he wanted to rule it, not lead the Lannister army.

It seems to me that at least at this point in Westerosi history, lordship has evolved to being something more political.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

brianp6621 said:


> I didn't say he would think that but he certainly would have to know he would quickly be overwhelmed if he stayed where he was. It was a last ditch effort with a very very low chance of success.


There were two possibilities:

The Night King was confident he could take out Theon single-handedly.

He wasn't, and thus would use his minions to do it.
In the first case, Theon charging him would have resulted in him fighting Theon on his own, as was what happened. Theon not charging him would have resulted in him walking toward Bran, and attempting to take Theon out on the way there, seeing him as nothing more than a minor nuisance.

In the second case, Theon charging him would have resulted in him sending his minions to take Theon out before Theon could get to him. Theon not charging him would have resulted in him sending his minions to get rid of the threat standing in his way.

In both cases, Theon would have been better off staying near Bran to buy more time.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

robojerk said:


> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bk4bgy


For some reason, the embedding for this video wasn't working for me in Chrome.

But because it didn't work, I ended up finding this gem that was also posted there:






It was actually made before Season 7, but I had never seen it before.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

BitbyBlit said:


> But in that case why would Randyll Tarly have cared about Sam being the rightful heir to House Tarly? Wouldn't he have known that Sam would have wanted to give it up?
> 
> Also, Tyrion wanted Tywin to make him the lord of Casterly Rock. But I think it was because he wanted to rule it, not lead the Lannister army.
> 
> It seems to me that at least at this point in Westerosi history, lordship has evolved to being something more political.


I'm not sure what you meant about the Sam issue. But his father forced him to take the Black of the Night's Watch precisely because that would make him not eligible to inherit house Tarly and now the second son became the heir.

The only reason Tyrion was eligible is because Jaime joined the King's Guard; which also forbids having children or inheriting a house. In this case, Tyrion was the rightful heir of Casterly Rock after Tywin died (or too busy being Hand of the King to oversee the House - much like Robb became Lord of Winterfell when Ned left).

So in both of those cases, the succession was very neatly spelled out. No politics whatsoever. Tywin threatened Leanna to take her grandson into the King's Guard unless he married Cersei.


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## hummingbird_206 (Aug 23, 2007)

I wonder if Daario Naharis will show up with an army of the Second Sons to help Dany?


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

hummingbird_206 said:


> I wonder if Daario Naharis will show up with an army of the Second Sons to help Dany?


I was looking at the actor's IMDB for the time they were filming and it looks like he's been pretty busy. That doesn't mean he didn't make time to go film and episode or two.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

But they haven't done _anything _to set that up, so I would say no.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

__
http://instagr.am/p/BwXiGsbl4Fo/


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## hummingbird_206 (Aug 23, 2007)

photoshopgrl said:


> I was looking at the actor's IMDB for the time they were filming and it looks like he's been pretty busy. That doesn't mean he didn't make time to go film and episode or two.


Maybe they will revert to the first actor. I hope not, I liked the second guy much more.



Rob Helmerichs said:


> But they haven't done _anything _to set that up, so I would say no.


Probably just wishful thinking on my part, but Dany has to get help from somewhere to take out the 20K sell swords that Cersei has now. Might as well be Daario riding to the rescue. Plus would be fun to see Jon's reaction.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

ct1 said:


> __
> http://instagr.am/p/BwXiGsbl4Fo/


Too soon.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

But that reminds me, I meant to ask...

Obviously the Red Woman has a history with a number of the folks who gave her some nasty looks when she arrived in Winterfell. But there was a long evil stare from Arya as she walked in - I can't remember, what did she do to Arya? (Unless it's just stealing Gendry)


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

kdmorse said:


> But that reminds me, I meant to ask...
> 
> Obviously the Red Woman has a history with a number of the folks who gave her some nasty looks when she arrived in Winterfell. But there was a long evil stare from Arya as she walked in - I can't remember, what did she do to Arya? (Unless it's just stealing Gendry)


Just stealing Gendry.

In the books,


Spoiler



that never happened and Arya and Melisandre have never met.


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## hahathatsfunny (Jul 29, 2008)

MacThor said:


> Game Reset - Seven Kingdoms:
> 
> North - Stark, pledged to Daenerys
> Iron Islands & Riverlands - This one is kind of messy. I believe the Tullys were the ruling house after the Greyjoy Rebellion. (?) Edmure is still alive but hasn't been seen since Jaime used him to surrender Riverrun back to the Freys. Now the Freys are dead. I don't think Jaime's forces killed anyone but the Blackfish at Riverrun. Obviously the Islanders are divided, but Euron has the majority over Yara.
> ...


I just wonder if there will be a twist with Robin Arryn. I was re-watching season 1, and the boy wanted the Tyrion/ the Imp dead, and the charge at the time was Tyrion killed his father. While the Vale supported Sansa in the Battle of the Bastards, it was mainly through Petyr's request. He's also a creepy kind of kid that I could see him betray Sansa/The Starks similar to how his mom Lysa betrayed Catelyn.

Are the Frey daughters dead too? I thought it was the Frey sons.

It just seems now so easy for Arya to put on a face mask, pretend to be someone else and kill any enemies like Cersei, that there wouldn't need to have battles.


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## hahathatsfunny (Jul 29, 2008)

photoshopgrl said:


> The prophesy also said Cercei would have 3 children that died but she's again pregnant so if she carries the baby to term, that prophesy is mud.


Was the prophesy flawed from the beginning or the writers forgot. From season 1, she mentioned to Catelyn and later another scene, that she had a first child who passed away, that was before Joffrey. Then she had Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen.


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## wedgecon (Dec 28, 2002)

hahathatsfunny said:


> I just wonder if there will be a twist with Robin Arryn. I was re-watching season 1, and the boy wanted the Tyrion/ the Imp dead, and the charge at the time was Tyrion killed his father. While the Vale supported Sansa in the Battle of the Bastards, it was mainly through Petyr's request. He's also a creepy kind of kid that I could see him betray Sansa/The Starks similar to how his mom Lysa betrayed Catelyn.
> 
> Are the Frey daughters dead too? I thought it was the Frey sons.
> 
> It just seems now so easy for Arya to put on a face mask, pretend to be someone else and kill any enemies like Cersei, that there wouldn't need to have battles.


Yohn Royce who is now effectively in charge of the knights of the vale despised Littlefinger and was only too happy to turn on him when Sansa accused him of treason.

In the books Sansa takes over the role of caring for Robyn after Littlefinger kills his mother. Book Robyn has a crush on his cousin Sansa.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

tivotvaddict said:


> The work Ramin has done on this show and Westworld is simply sublime.


The guy is a brilliant composer, but his music in this episode actually took me out of the scene because it sounded much more like Westworld than GoT.


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## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

Beware, looks like some or all of 8x04 have leaked already!


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Dawghows said:


> Sunday is Coming


Sunday is here.


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## hahathatsfunny (Jul 29, 2008)

wedgecon said:


> Yohn Royce who is now effectively in charge of the knights of the vale despised Littlefinger and was only too happy to turn on him when Sansa accused him of treason.
> 
> In the books Sansa takes over the role of caring for Robyn after Littlefinger kills his mother. Book Robyn has a crush on his cousin Sansa.


In the HBO series, Sansa is not looking after Robyn though. From his point of view, she abandoned him. I just can see it going the other way as a plot twist, where he's a little devil like his mom, and old enough now to override Yohn Royce. But let's see. Conventional thinking is the Vale will support the Starks.


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## tivotvaddict (Aug 11, 2005)

gweempose said:


> The guy is a brilliant composer, but his music in this episode actually took me out of the scene because it sounded much more like Westworld than GoT.


I can see that. His "The Night King" hit the charts on iTunes. Not sure how high it got, but a week later it's at #36. I've had it on replay most of the weekend.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

Just finished rewatching. I tried a 1080p episode using magic. It was much brighter. A little too bright, but I got a better grasp of what was happening. 

Despite naysayers, I think Jon was distracting the dragon to let Arya get by.
The music towards the end was brilliant. I definitely heard the similarities to Westworld, but it was still gorgeous. 
It was just an overall incredible experience. I'm looking forward to tonight.


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

PJO1966 said:


> Despite naysayers, I think Jon was distracting the dragon to let Arya get by.


I don't think the undead dragon was in the gods wood though.


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## madscientist (Nov 12, 2003)

robojerk said:


> I don't think the undead dragon was in the gods wood though.


 You're right, it wasn't; it was in the courtyard outside the godswood. It was guarding the entrance to the godswood to keep Jon from getting by to kill the Night King and save Bran, which is why Jon was so desperate to get past the dragon.


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## PJO1966 (Mar 5, 2002)

madscientist said:


> You're right, it wasn't; it was in the courtyard outside the godswood. It was guarding the entrance to the godswood to keep Jon from getting by to kill the Night King and save Bran, which is why Jon was so desperate to get past the dragon.


Exactly. Jon is just outside the godswood. He sees Arya and jumps up, yelling at her to go. Seconds later we see the hair of the WW move and he turns his head after something runs by, and then Air Arya attacks the NK.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

hahathatsfunny said:


> I just wonder if there will be a twist with Robin Arryn. I was re-watching season 1, and the boy wanted the Tyrion/ the Imp dead, and the charge at the time was Tyrion killed his father. While the Vale supported Sansa in the Battle of the Bastards, it was mainly through Petyr's request. He's also a creepy kind of kid that I could see him betray Sansa/The Starks similar to how his mom Lysa betrayed Catelyn.
> 
> Are the Frey daughters dead too? I thought it was the Frey sons.
> 
> It just seems now so easy for Arya to put on a face mask, pretend to be someone else and kill any enemies like Cersei, that there wouldn't need to have battles.


Yes, Arya only killed the Frey men. Even stopped one of the girls from drinking the poison wine.

Arya has to kill someone that can get close to Cersei. That would be the Mountain, Tyburn (the maester), or Euron.


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

PJO1966 said:


> Exactly. Jon is just outside the godswood. He sees Arya and jumps up, yelling at her to go. Seconds later we see the hair of the WW move and he turns his head after something runs by, and then Air Arya attacks the NK.


I watched the end again..
There's nothing there that shows Jon knew she was there, and closed captions just says he [yells]. I agree it's the only thing that makes sense as to why anyone would yell at an undead dragon and expose yourself to it's wrath, but so little of the battle made sense I wouldn't say that's why he did it unless they express that in the next episode.


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

PJO1966 said:


> Exactly. Jon is just outside the godswood. He sees Arya and jumps up, yelling at her to go. Seconds later we see the hair of the WW move and he turns his head after something runs by, and then Air Arya attacks the NK.


I've rewatched it several times, and can't see anything that resembles this scenario.



robojerk said:


> I watched the end again..
> There's nothing there that shows Jon knew she was there, and closed captions just says he [yells].


Ditto. And the captions are as close to canon as you can get on HBO.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

astrohip said:


> I've rewatched it several times, and can't see anything that resembles this scenario.
> 
> Ditto. And the captions are as close to canon as you can get on HBO.


Would the captions say "yells to distract dragon"?


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

Anubys said:


> Would the captions say "yells to distract dragon"?


Shmaybe


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

Anubys said:


> Would the captions say "yells to distract dragon"?


Some people seem to be under the impression he yells "Go" or something...


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

It sort of sounded like "go!", but I couldn't see any other evidence of this theory.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Anubys said:


> So in both of those cases, the succession was very neatly spelled out. No politics whatsoever.


I wasn't referring to succession, but rather responsibilities. The issue wasn't whether Sam or Tyrion had the right to become Lord of their respective Houses, but whether they would have wanted it had it meant leading armies.


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## haniwa202 (Jan 28, 2014)

I heard rumors that the Night King was going to turn out to be Dany's long dead father, and when he did not die from the dragon fire, I was starting to believe. Guess we'll never know.
Also was wondering that since Jon Snow is off the same blood as Dany, would he also survive fire? Was expecting to see it happen when he turned to cave blue dragon. 

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

haniwa202 said:


> I heard rumors that the Night King was going to turn out to be Dany's long dead father, and when he did not die from the dragon fire, I was starting to believe. Guess we'll never know.


Yes, we know, unless Dany's father is thousands of years old. Because we know the Night King was "made" by the Children thousands of years ago.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

MacThor said:


> Max Brooks (World War Z) is a friend of GRRM. Prior to this episode, he said:
> 
> 
> > eorge said something that has guided my prediction of every episode, where he said, "To me, my characters always make bad choices."
> ...


Sure. But you can set things up with a good starting strategy and then have them go wrong.

It's not so out of character for the Dothraki to throw away the plan and charge. Even a minor change would have been better. Simply starting with them split out on the sides of the infantry, so when they get overexcited by the flaming swords and charge you see two groups of them merging from either side to charge forward would be enough to show their charge straight up the middle probably wasn't the plan - at least to people who'd know why they'd be off to the sides. And for everyone else the merging streams of light charging into the darkness would still be a neat visual. (But better might be to have a quick scene of the strategy planning so everyone knew the plan was getting thrown away).

There's room for the plan to go awry; I'd just like for it to _look_ like they had a non-idiotic plan in the first place. There's a difference between expecting things to go wrong and just deciding that since something will go wrong might as well skip any planning.


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## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

13 minutes long.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

I'm watching The Lord Of The Rings -The Two Towers on A&E. There's a huge battle scene, on the same scale as this episode's if not bigger, between the good guys and the Orcs. I can clearly see everything and every person. It's a night battle but I can clearly make out everything that's going on. This movie is from 2002 but in a similar battle scene in this episode of GoT, the cinematographer blames us and our tvs not being calibrated correctly for not being able to decipher large parts of the battle. Dude, you shot it too dark. It's your problem, not ours.. You bleeped up.

I've complained about this before but this site has the absolute worst search engine I've ever used.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

cheesesteak said:


> I'm watching The Lord Of The Rings -The Two Towers on A&E. There's a huge battle scene, on the same scale as this episode's if not bigger, between the good guys and the Orcs. I can clearly see everything and every person. It's a night battle but I can clearly make out everything that's going on. This movie is from 2002 but in a similar battle scene in this episode of GoT, the cinematographer blames us and our tvs not being calibrated correctly for not being able to decipher large parts of the battle. Dude, you shot it too dark. It's your problem, not ours.. You bleeped up.
> 
> I've complained about this before but this site has the absolute worst search engine I've ever used.


When this episode aired, there were lots of comparisons to the Helm's Deep battle scene. The primary difference is that the filmmakers of the LotR movies chose to use lots of artificial light and not worry about the fact that there was no light source within the scene that could possibly be providing that light. In contrast, the filmmakers of GoT tried to keep the lighting as realistic and natural as possible, which means many of the scenes were very dark, because that's how it would be in a real battle under those conditions.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

cheesesteak said:


> I'm watching The Lord Of The Rings -The Two Towers on A&E. There's a huge battle scene, on the same scale as this episode's if not bigger, between the good guys and the Orcs. I can clearly see everything and every person. It's a night battle but I can clearly make out everything that's going on. This movie is from 2002 but in a similar battle scene in this episode of GoT, the cinematographer blames us and our tvs not being calibrated correctly for not being able to decipher large parts of the battle. Dude, you shot it too dark. It's your problem, not ours.. You bleeped up.
> 
> I've complained about this before but this site has the absolute worst search engine I've ever used.


Yep. I wound up finding another copy that someone made (not an authorized copy), that artificially brightened the episode. Much better.


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> When this episode aired, there were lots of comparisons to the Helm's Deep battle scene. The primary difference is that the filmmakers of the LotR movies chose to use lots of artificial light and not worry about the fact that there was no light source within the scene that could possibly be providing that light. In contrast, the filmmakers of GoT tried to keep the lighting as realistic and natural as possible, which means many of the scenes were very dark, because that's how it would be in a real battle under those conditions.


I get that and the confusion within the fog of war but... it's a tv show. It's entertainment. We'd like to have an idea of what's going on.


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## jakerock (Dec 9, 2002)

I wonder how much they spent on special effects that we couldn't actually see?


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

If we wanted photorealism we'd look at old wartime reels (none of which drifted nighttime battles, of course).


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