"We must fight together now ... or die."
Hello everyone!
The Night King came and we mostly made it, so I suppose the day after is the time to count our losses, look and see just who it was that survived to fight another day, and figure out what in the seven hells went wrong.
Is anyone saying 'but nothing went wrong?'
HaHA. Sweet summer children.
A lot of things went wrong.
Still, at the end of the day, it was a cinematografic 80 minutes that HBO dished out for us, and for that I am truly thankful. With only three more episodes to go, it's coming to an end of an era, so I'm feeling bitter-sweet.
That being said, however, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Or misopinions.
So make sure to grip that dragonglass, and have a torch ready. The Long Night is upon us.
As per usual, you can find links to the previous two blog posts down at the bottom of this page. On with the show!
This season's timetable is pretty tight in that we don't really have many time jumps between episodes, since they usually continue right where they left off. This is also true for The Long Night, where our defenders are waiting on baited breath, arrayed outside, within and on the walls of Winterfell, while the Army of the Dead is ... sulking somewhere.
No, really, it's just dark over on their end.
For the night is dark and full of terrors ...
Ahem.
"Should have asked for that pay raise while I had the chance."
Out of this darkness rides a lone figure, revealed to be Melisandre - and honestly, at this point, I've given up even on Air Westeros logic. I'm not entirely sure (read: I can't recall at the moment) where she was specifically told to go and where she did go after Davos chucked her out, but maybe she was just drifting, waiting for the defenders to set up shop, so that she could come over. In any event, come over she does, puts her hand on a Dothraki sword, speaks some High Valyrian, and hey presto! the Dothraki now have flaming weapons.
Beric Dondarrion is probably thinking: that is SO last episode.
The Dothraki then lead the charge in a visually rather stunning vista because you can see the flaming swords like a pool of lights rampaging towards where the Dead are supposedly hiding - we get to see this from the vantage point Dany and Jon take up with Drogon and Rhaegal, watching from above.
🎵Through shadow, to the edge of night ...🎵
The stunning vista of lights smacks into a wall of dark and, one by one, they, too, fall into darkness.
If there's anybody likening this charge to the Rohirrim on the Pelennor fields, allow me to correct you: this was Faramir's charge against Osgiliath.
Stragglers come limping back and Dany breaks strategy to go on the offense and stop playing defense, despite Jon's luke-warm attempt to stop her since, you know, the Night King is coming. She takes Drogon and starts frying down below, followed by a reluctant Jon on Rhaegal, since, you know, two dragons are better than one.
But the Dothraki are now virtually gone (and so is the useless cavalry), which means it's the Knights and the Unsullied standing between Winterfell and what's coming next.
"Interrupting our regularly scheduled broadcast ..."
And what comes next are the Dead.
The battle goes full-tilt as the Dead swarm over the defenders in very Pirates of the Caribbean zombies/Return of the King ghost army style, and Arya sends Sansa to the crypts.
She's of no use on the battlements as she's no soldier, considering she doesn't even know to stick them with the pointy end after Arya gives her a dragonglass knife (I thought for a second it was the Valyrian dagger that exchanged hands, but saw it fully later on). Sansa thus joins Varys, Tyrion, Missandei and the others locked down below and listening to the battle raging above (very Helm's Deep style, as was promised). The most harrowing scene (prior to all hell breaking loose) is when there are soldiers desperately banging on the crypt doors to be let in, but those below can't open them - they're all dead if they do.
"I'm not crying, you're crying."
Anyway, back to the action, which is mostly the Dead gaining ground and the defenders losing it, but we get some lovely character beats with Edd saving Sam, unfortunately dying in the process. As an aside, with how much Sam falls down, the fact that he makes it alive through the first assault wave is almost comical.
Jorah Mormont displays what you need to do if tossed: you never stop moving, because a stationary target is a very tempting and easy target. The knight instead dishes out punishment left, right and center with the Tarly sword, and at that point I'm just relieved he didn't ride back an undead, because the first shot of him riding back out of the darkness (he led the Dothraki assault, speaking their language and all) was ambiguous and almost made him seem like he had a case of zombie face.
"If you even THINK about running I WILL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!"
Along the lines, Brienne is basically the Man of the Hour, kicking ass and spitting curses at any knight who even THINKS of abandoning their post, and beside her Ser Jamie of the One Hand is equally valiant, but the defenders are being pushed back even with help from dragonfire.
OH and trebuchets. When the Dothraki first charged, the trebuchets fired flaming volleys into the distance, then (obviously) had to stop so they didn't hit their own people.
But speaking of dragonfire, it ceases when Jon and Dany decide to take the fight to the Night King himself, and end up in an icy, cloudy storm instead, bumping into each other and only randomly actually happening upon the Night King, calmly taking selfies with Viser-ice in the heart of the storm.
"Who's your daddy now?"
The three dragons go for it, tearing chunks out of each other, but of course things can't be that easy, because the end result, while tossing the Night King off his dragon mount, is him on the ground, Jon and Dany get separated, and in a little while Jon will be flung off a wounded Rhaegal so that the dragon can quietly disappear from screen and minimise CGI costs.
You know the plan, letting the Night King come for Bran so they can then ambush and kill him? Yeah, that one. I didn't remember it either at this point.
The defenders retreat through the gates to make another stand, but now the storm is too vicious so Dany can't light the trench on fire to make a barrier between Winterfell and the Dead sinc she can't see, so Melisandre does her magic again, lighting it up. It's another stunning visual, one of the few that came from this episode since a lot of it was just a jumbled blur in the dark and snow.
🎵Islands in the stream, that is what we are ...🎵
So what do we have: Grey Worm has sacrificed the Unsullied outside the walls for the defense, and he, Brienne, Jamie, Podrick (he lives!), Sam and Tormund (ain't nobody taking down the Giant slayer) are being pushed to the walls after the Dead go Lemming and just make crossings out of their own zombies to get over the fire.
Dondarrion has meanwhile kicked the Hound into gear since the guy is mortally afraid of anything flammable (thank you so much, Mountain, NOT), and the pair of them go after Ninja Arya who's been taking out the Dead left, right and centre, even going so far as to eluding them in Winterfell's library.
Were the dead really searching for something in there besides Arya, or was it just a trick of the scene?
"I'm outtie!"
Anyway, the trio meet up, Dondarrion is mortally wounded trying to hold back the advancing Dead, since the castle is breached (man am I on fire with the Lord of the Rings tonight!), the Hound pulls a Han Solo and drags Arya along with him through the maneouver, and they end up locked in a hall with a lot of bodies and Melisandre.
This woman took lessons from Dumbledore, I swear. She just Apparates around!
Melisandre reminds Arya about how we spit in the face of the God of Death, so Arya then rushes off into the unknown.
"Not today."
Outside, the defense is kind of ... dying. The walls have fallen, a once-friendly giant tries to squash Lyanna Mormont like a gnat but she stabs his eye out and kills him in the process of her own death like the true MVP she is, and the dragons ... well.
Everyone's pinned to the walls, and Jon is on foot close to the Night King.
Dany's still mounted and tries roasting the sucker, but SURPRISE! He's anti-flammable.
Time for plan ... oh let's be real, plans went out the window LONG AGO.
While attempting to attack the Night King, Jon gets a nasty surprise when said king raises the recently-dead, and I was pissed we didn't get to see an undead Lyanna Mormont kick some ass. Because you know she would have.
"I've always had blue eyes."
Thankfully, Dany's timing is impeccable so she lands Drogon for some more BBQ action, but the dragon gets swarmed and tosses her off later after Jon rushes towards the Godswood; Jorah heard the dragons before and hightailed it to the most likely location, so he can defend his Khaleesi and, unfortunately, die in the process, shielding her with his own body.
Meanwhile, as Viser-ice traps Jon in a game of hide-and-seek within the castle, Theon is doing his absolute best to defend Bran from the Dead, and Bran even thanks him for it, saying he came home, and is a good man. Which is the truth: as hostage, Theon was raised in Winterfell with the Starks, and now his debt is repaid when the Night King kills him on his way to Bran.
🎵If I let you go, I will never know ...🎵
Before we go to that showdown, just a note about those crypts: Sansa and Tyrion still have some sputtering flames between them, Missandei is SO not having anyone talk against Dany considering, and she has a point, everyone would be dead without the Dragon Queen, so Sansa really needs to chill until this is over, and remember the Night King raising the dead?
You do know what the crypts are, right?
They suddenly become prime battleground for all the ancient Starks, and I'm wondering if Lyanna Stark is also running around there. Maybe Catelyn and Ned, too? I honestly can't remember who's buried where or who even made it back North at this point.
ANYWAY, people be dying, Viser-ice is pulling a Smaug-vs-Erebor, and the Night King grabs Arya mid-jump as she somehow manages to make it through his Praetorian Guard of White Walkers and all the other Dead around him.
She just drops the Valyrian knife and stabs him with her other hand.
Nigh King goes boom, so do the White Walkers in a shower of icy crystals, and the Dead drop as if on command.
Yay?
It's so abrupt not even our heroes know what to do about it, although Jon is probably pretty happy Viser-ice didn't popsicle him. I think someone needs to call Filch for clean-up, however.
"Peace out, fam."
And in a closing squence, as dawn rises over the frozen landscape, Melisandre walks out of Winterfell, drops her ruby necklace which stops pulsing with light, becomes an old woman, and ... disintegrates before the eyes of Ser Davos.
At which point, the viewers finally catch a break as the episode ends.
FIN
The Night King is dead. Long live ... the Queen? Three episodes left, and now we'll be dealing with drunkard Cersei and Euron Guy-Liner for the rest of this season, which I'm not that stoked about. Somehow, the show runners turned the threat that they'd been building for eight full seasons into a footnote that gets taken out by a girl. I'll have more on that topic later, but Witchking vs Eowyn this was certainly not.
"Any last words, punk?"
I have mixed feelings about this episode. My most prevalent one, however, is a sort of meh. I'll explain why.
Mostly everyone out there is gushing how amazing it is, and saying shut up to the people who criticize it in terms of 'if you can't enjoy it, don't bash what others do enjoy'. Most of that, however, I saw under valid, reasonable commentary, which isn't bashing. Bashing would be to simply say OMG THIS SUCKED HOW CAN YOU WATCH IT GO WATCH HELLO KITTY. Criticism, however, is something that should be looked at and determined whether or not it could be useful.
So here are some of my points which I took out of this episode:
Alright FINE. That's a vista, HBO.
1. the brightness. Or lack of thereof. People are saying 'oh but it was perfect on a big TV and in the dark' or 'oh it's a snowstorm of course it would be dark'. Here's the thing: Helm's Deep, which this episode was basically based on, was dark. It had rain, it had a storm, it had night. The conditions, sans snow, were pretty much the same as in this battle, with the difference that YOU COULD SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON SCREEN. Game of Thrones tries for realism in the sense that, in a blizzard and a battle, you don't see much. That's cool. FOR THE CHARACTERS FIGHTING IN THE STORM. The viewers, however, need to see what's going on.
2. I'm not even going into Melisandre. She Apparates. Period.
3. abysmal battle tactics. And before someone goes up in arms IT'S EASY TO BE A GENERAL OFF A COUCH, let me tell you something: I don't need to be a general to see just how absurdly the defense of Winterfell was mounted. The cavalry charge, while a really good visual sequence (one of the few that was clearly seen), was useless, and only served to eliminate the Dothraki. The cavalry usually defends the wings of any battle formation, a STATIONARY battle, that is. Once that failed, it was only a matter of time before everything collapsed in on itself like a house of cards.
I mean ... this WAS a dragon landing. Kinda.
4. the dragons. Just ... the fact that it was "necessary" for Dany to do her own thing which collapsed the plan and thus put the dragons out of commission for large chunks of time while they were lost in the blizzard and people were dying is something I have no words for. Plus, has anyone ever heard of roasting fire to defend the retreat instead of Unsullied? No? Yeah, thought as much.
5. Valyrian dragons and dragonfire can't touch this, but Valyrian steel can. Okay.
6. Jon being completely useless. I mean, Dany is generally useless, like Sansa, when on foot and without her dragons, but Jon shouldn't have been reduced to some background fighting for all the preparations and way-paving this show has done over the years. Instead, he was left out like dessert you never get to.
🎵I'm burnin' through the sky, yeah two hundred degrees
that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit ...🎵
7. Arya. This is probably going to be the point people will argue about until they're blue in the face, but let me tell you what I thought over that, my very first thought: it wasn't OMG HOW COOL. It was, and I quote myself WAIT WHAT? And not in a good way. People will argue this was foretold and prepared back in season three when Martin was still a more active part of the show and there were books to fall back on, and Melisandre tells Arya she'll kill individuals with brown, green and blue eyes (and if you're paying attention, this means Arya kills Cersei).
Let me tell you, THE DEAD ALL HAVE BLUE EYES. Arya killed a bunch of those. Probably a bunch of brown-eyes, too. This does not, in any way, shape or form, make this more reasonable and 'oh but we PLANNED it that way'.
No-no.
You PLAN by inserting continuous breadcrumbs along the way, ALL THE WAY, and make sure you remind people of it, that you constantly keep weaving the story so that it makes sense AND PEOPLE REMEMBER RIGHT OFF THE BAT 'OOH YEAH THERE WERE HINTS!'. In Game of Thrones, season three happened FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm sorry, but not everybody has time to rewatch the entire show before going into this season.
More to the point, Arya's plot never had anything to do with the Night King. THAT'S what rankles the most. There were set-ups, there was way-paving, there were literal plots that were connected and meant something. Eight years, and it all turns to dust with one dagger-kill.
Bran seeing the future is a very poor, weak justification, as it's never actually stated he can see ALL of the future when he gives Arya the dagger. He can see the past, yes; but he sees FRAGMENTS of the future, because the future isn't set in stone. So that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I found one really good comment:
RIP Azor Ahai Theories
RIP Night King
RIP Logic
RIP Theon protecting Useless Boy
RIP Jorah and Beric Defending Strong Whamen
RIP Good storytelling and 9 years of Hype
"Miss me?"
I agree. I think what happened here isn't good storytelling, nor was it what was hyped. It wasn't even 'Oh but it's Game of Thrones! They do the unexpected!' Haha. Unexpected was killing Ned Stark, or Petyr Baelish. Arya was something else; Arya, in my mind, was this new age, modern feminism sinking its claws into HBO. I might not have seen that as a problem, or continuity as a problem so much before this episode, but it was GLARING LIKE A NEON SIGN here. Because, let's reduce mostly all the male characters to useless, and/or stupid, and make sure all the girls are raised up so high they can never reach them.
I'm a woman. And let me tell you straight-up: I hate it when "feminism" affects good storylines.
So: overall, this was an okay episode. It had some stunning visuals (when it wasn't a jumbled mess), we lost some characters (but not really any of the important ones, and is it really a Game of Thrones battle if no one important dies?), the Night King IS dead (but now the boring villain will take up screentime, and anyone arguing 'oh but it's the LIVING who are more dangerous than the dead!' ... eight years, people), Bran got to do his vacant stare thing, and now we can go on with our lives.
Am I stoked? Not really. More sort-of disappointed.
And for once, not really looking forward to the episodes as much as before.
xx
*poster image and video not mine, screencaps by me
No comments:
Post a Comment