SPOILER ALERT! So am I the only one excited about a new round of GoT?

[Hammers]

They really did waste their time building all those trebuchets. When you have the castle you don't want siege weapons, you want anti-siege weapons. That effort would have been better spent on cauldrons, ballistae and other such stuff on the walls.

But that didn't really bother me any, if I'm honest. It's just a talking point.


I'm not quite sure why the Night King was so obsessed with Bran, though. If he had lurked at the back his minions would have easily killed Bran for him and the baddies would have won. He was defeated by his desire to do the deed himself. What does he even gain from Bran's death that he doesn't already have? I'm sure someone can come up with a lore reason, but it seems to me that it is entirely for the plot's sake.

I was sort of half expecting Bran to flaunt some greenseer superpower, or even  reveal some secret bond to the NK (as has  been much speculated about among the fanboy/girl theorists). As it turned out Arya was the Captain marvel of the plot. Guess that works but it was less of a surprise.

[Belligerentparrot]

I was sort of half expecting Bran to flaunt some greenseer superpower

I've only *just* realised that when Bran wargs into the crows, he does so to lure the Night King to his location.

[LordOdo]

I've only *just* realised that when Bran wargs into the crows, he does so to lure the Night King to his location.

How?

In a previous episode, 1 or 2 of this season, he stated the Night King does always know where he is, due to the mark on his arm. So there would not be any luring needed, I guess?

[bergschotten]

I just finished episode 3. I am sure you will mock me but I was quite anguished through the whole thing. I don't think I've been this affected by a film/series since the first installment of Lord of the Rings.

I need to sleep on it before I can comment the plot, I feel. *If* I can sleep. Phew...


EDIT: Little Lyanna Mormont got a very worthy end, I like that.

I totally agree, it was 'harrowing' in parts I started watching it at about 5.30 (UK) but was so agog at the pace and carnage I had to stop and it is only episode 3!!!!!

[pixelgeek]

On tactics - yeah, I see the complaints. BUT......

Not sure what tactics will do against an army that runs at you at full speed, doesn't care for its own safety, literally flows over your lines in waves of troops, puts out a flaming barrier with their own bodies and then uses their bodies to form a ramp to attack the walls of the castle.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

.... in the key respect their tactics were spot on given the nature of the enemy. Lure the NK into the godswood, and kill him. Doesn't matter what else you do, because if you don't do that you're going to lose. (They needed some luck for this, but who doesn't in battle?)

But didn they succeed in luring the Night King to Bran, given that the wights had basically sclaughtered their way through the forces before he got to Bran? Dany+Jon+dragons were somewhat supposed to jump him once the time came, but Arya was in no way planned. A planned ambush with dragonglass arrows or every person available with valyrian steel weaponry. This was, what, dumb luck? Fate? Not even part of a prophecy, which I found to be the most confusing part (as the prophecies did make it into the show). Arya was never the Prince(ss) who was Promised, or Azor Ahai. The fact that this basically means the whole Long Night invasion of the dead started and ended in the scope of one hour is anticlimactic to say the least.

Not sure what tactics will do against an army that runs at you at full speed, doesn't care for its own safety, literally flows over your lines in waves of troops, puts out a flaming barrier with their own bodies and then uses their bodies to form a ramp to attack the walls of the castle.

A suicidal charge against an enemy able to raise the dead seems the worst tactic imaginable. Setting up a (loose) defensive line outside of the castle walls not much better. Maybe sally out if they surround and attempt to starve you, but if they just blindly attack, delay with obstacles and by defending the walls while raining down all the dragonglass arrows, artillery and oil you can muster to thin the numbers. They could hardly have done a worse job, unless they just put Bran outside the castle with no defenders whatsoever (not that Bran appears to have any use whatsoever).


In a different context, I might have enjoyed the episode despite the ridiculousness and stupidity of the "plan". The fact that it was an overly long, barely visible display of shapes attacking other shapes, whereby most characters had extra heavy plot armour aside, not a single white walker actually fought and it all ended with an undeserved dea ex machina, well, did not make it so. Not sure if it was the worst episode of the show, but it might have been.

For the past few years, we have been told by Jon and co how this was the fight that mattered. Turns out it was over in a day, with limited casualties as far as the "important" characters were concerned and far fewer others had they been sensible. Should have seen this coming. After all, what does Jon know?

[Belligerentparrot]

Don't mean to hog the thread, just enjoying chatting GoT with you all.

LordOdo: It took me a while to get this, but I think the warging bit is supposed to be seen as follows: we see the Night King directing his army from the air - so yeah, he can always find where Bran is but his attention is instead focused on the battle, then Bran wargs and the crows find the NK, and he switches focus to Bran (we know from last season that he can sense when Bran is magically watching him), flies off in that direction.

PixelG: I don't think we disagree? (Sorry, not v. good at interpreting others' posts). As Plynkes pointed out upthread, anti-siege weapons would have been more useful than siege weapons, and that seems true even if you're facing a zombie horde. So yeah, I can see that as a tactical error while also thinking that they got the only crucial tactical choice right: lure the NK into a trap, kill him and you win, otherwise you lose.

Coenus S: hadn't thought about the prophecies, that is super interesting. I wonder if GoT prophecies aren't literal (so unlike e.g. LotR ones). So Arya doesn't fit the description of Azor Ahai, but she still *is* the person that the prophecy is about - it is just that the prophecy has a few fictional elements in it reflecting the biases of the religion it belongs to. Sorta fits with religion in GoT, do you think? The different religions are human creations, but they have a common root in some elemental forces at work in that world. So they're not literally true, but have some truth in them.

I definitely shared a lot of your negative reaction to the ep at first, but on thinking about it some more I've managed to convince myself it makes more sense than I thought it did at the time. I mean, I was disappointed more heroes didn't die (actually thought Sam did, bah), but it kinda makes sense that in that sort of battle the most likely survivors are the very best fighters, no?
 

[pixelgeek]

Ultimately it is a TV show and they aim for entertainment and not tactical realism  I don't know that I would have liked it if the battle lasted past the end of the episode in any case.

Continuing the discussion though, I actually don't think that anything they did would work against a horde of zombies. I also don't know that the battle would last more than a day despite any better tactics. They created ramps of bodies for goodness sake! I think that hordes of zombies, especially fast ones with weapons, are dramatically under-estimated as a threat. Especially when there is a guy that can resurrect the entire army at the drop of a hat.

[Andym]

Ultimately it is a TV show and they aim for entertainment and not tactical realism  I don't know that I would have liked it if the battle lasted past the end of the episode in any case.

Continuing the discussion though, I actually don't think that anything they did would work against a horde of zombies. I also don't know that the battle would last more than a day despite any better tactics. They created ramps of bodies for goodness sake! I think that hordes of zombies, especially fast ones with weapons, are dramatically under-estimated as a threat. Especially when there is a guy that can resurrect the entire army at the drop of a hat.

The impression I got was that the dead the Wight King rose back up were the comrades of the living that had been slain by the dead. The undead killed by Dragon glass and fire were still unmoving/dead again/ashes.

The bits I didn't understand were.....

1. Having the best part of your army standing in FRONT of the defenses!

2. Having the catapults in FRONT of your army that's in FRONT of your defenses!!

3. Only firing said catapults 5 seconds before the Dothraki cavalry charge the White Walkers.

4. Not using the oil you've used to fill the ditches,  in cauldrens ready to be tipped onto said piles of zombies climbing up the castle wall and then setting fire to them, thus creating another fire obstacle for them to cross.

5. Not putting the deadly tank trap/dragon's teeth covered dragon glass OUTSIDE the castle walls. The traps were slaughtering zombies that ran into them!!!!

And last but not least.....

6. Daenerys calmly sitting there while she knows there's a horde of zombies about,  allowing them to crawl ALL over the back of her precious Dragon!!!


I really found this episode difficult to watch. It should have been one of the best, but it REALLY was marred by being waaaaay too dark and suffering from jumpy camera syndrome!! That and the fact that the story seems to have been dumbed down. Gone were the twists and turns that make the series, only for Arya to somehow appear out of the dark, after being chased around an empty(?) Castle!! The story seemed to be heading in the direction that Bran was going to be something or do something when the Wight King found him. AND why did he want him in the first place?!?

Rant over!!

[Hobgoblin]

I thought it was pretty good overall. The silly tactics were offset by the almost operatic drama (all those flames winking out!). And while I'd have liked to see a bigger clear-out of named characters, I can appreciate the need to have characters dying significantly (as with Jorah) rather than apparently randomly.

I do think the previous two episodes could have been used to build up a greater sense of the Army of the Dead's inexorable advance - perhaps showing more of the mopping up of nearby, lesser fortresses (we got a bit of that with the Umber boy, but it could have been amped up more, with other northern strongholds falling).

Overall, I thought it was much better than Helm's Deep in the LotR films. That battle seems to get worse every time I see it. Compare Arya's escape through the library to the dwarf-tossing sally-port lark in The Two Towers for an example of how to 'zoom in' on a siege without breaking the tension. And the ill-advised Dothraki tactics were nothing compared to the Isengarders' bringing pikemen to a siege!

[Coenus Scaldingus]

The story seemed to be heading in the direction that Bran was going to be something or do something when the Wight King found him. AND why did he want him in the first place?!?

They mentioned in the previous episode that the White Walkers want to wipe out "the memory of the world". A memory that so far has yet to produce anything of much note (aside from "use me as bait", which hardly worked, given that the dead slaughtered their way through Winterfel before they finally got to Bran). Why they attack now, after all these centuries (and invaded south, rather than attacking in force when the former Three Eyed Raven had been hanging out north of the wall for considerable time), and whey they were created in the first place, or why exactly they want to spread death and memory loss.. guess we won't know now they're gone.

Coenus S: hadn't thought about the prophecies, that is super interesting. I wonder if GoT prophecies aren't literal (so unlike e.g. LotR ones). So Arya doesn't fit the description of Azor Ahai, but she still *is* the person that the prophecy is about - it is just that the prophecy has a few fictional elements in it reflecting the biases of the religion it belongs to. Sorta fits with religion in GoT, do you think? The different religions are human creations, but they have a common root in some elemental forces at work in that world. So they're not literally true, but have some truth in them.

For all the talk of A Song and Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones subverting the fantasy tropes, it shouldn't be forgotten this is not always the case. Stone dragon eggs? Of course they hatched after all. Jon being stabbed? Sure he'd come back.
The prophecies (more of them and more prominent in the books, but not wholly absent from the show - though I struggle to remember which made it in what form!) are not unlike those found in mythology and other works of fiction. If the prophecies are wrong, there is no point to them, at all. No, the eternal difficulty lies in how the words are (mis)interpreted. Oedipus tried to prevent killing his father and marrying his mother, fled from the people he thought were his parents, and, well, you know the rest. The Witch-king of Angmar thought he was unkillable as no man would kill him, forgetting about the existence of women and hobbits.

As said, the books especially contain numerous prophecies and visions. These are often too vague to be clear until after the fact, or misinterpreted to devastating effect. Melisandre sees visions in the flames, and wrongly makes Stannis into the promised hero to end the Long Night, Azor Ahai. Cersei was told she would lose her children, be replaced by a queen younger and more beautiful than her and be killed by her younger brother. Her actions to save the former end up losing them, she thinks Margaery is the contender while this is likely another mistake (though it's unclear who it actually is) and while she always suspects her monstrous brother Tyrion to become her undoing, odds are it will be her slightly younger twin brother and former lover Jaime. (This second part was not in the show I believe, so who knows.) In the show, they definitely alluded to the Prince who was Promised (possibly but not certainly the same character as Azor Ahai). Last season, Missandei and Daenarys discussed the original wording, and how it could refer to a Prince or Princess (again, vagueness at work - both for characters and indeed the reader/viewer). There is the surrounding story of how the hero would be (re-?)born amid salt and smoke, which could refer to Dany, Jon or many others including Davos (Dragonstone, tears, Blackwater Bay). In the books, there are also creepy Patchface and the ghost of High Heart, who appear to have predicted the Red Wedding, the deaths of Joffrey, Renly Baratheon and the old Greyjoy, the battle of Blackwater Bay and more, including events yet to come. Again, the words are true - but vague and very susceptible to wrong interpretation...

[Captain Harlock]

Not sure what tactics will do against an army that runs at you at full speed, doesn't care for its own safety, literally flows over your lines in waves of troops, puts out a flaming barrier with their own bodies and then uses their bodies to form a ramp to attack the walls of the castle.

To be frank my cat would have a better plan than the one used by Jon and the crew...

[Hammers]

To be frank my cat would have a better plan than the one used by Jon and the crew...

Oooh, that would have been a good episode. The aloof cruelty....

[thebinmann]

As it turned out Arya was the Captain marvel of the plot. Guess that works but it was less of a surprise.

She has been the key since s1 e1, with the Hound

[Charlie_]

I won't repeat the ridiculous tactical errors......

Things which really baffled me....

What the hell was Bran doing all episode? In fact, what the hell has he been doing all this and the last season?? Or what the hell has he been doing every since he went to live with an old man in a tree?? Just really anti-climactic, like the writers have gotten him to this point and have know realised "Oh, what do we do with him now?" He literally sat there, then warged some ravens for no apparent reason, which apparently lasted the whole battle. Then woke up in time to meet the Night King, didn't say a word, then Arya saved the day...

Similarly, the White Walkers, and the Night King himself. So, that's it? No characterisation, no motivation, no explanation? Just.... stabbed with a magic dagger, turns to ice cubes, his whole army dies. Oh. This show has been building up the White Walkers as this apocalyptic ice age horror.... Sure, they killed a lot of Wildlings on their way south to the wall, sacked ONE castle in the North.... apparently slaughtered an entire army...... and didn't make it any further. What the hell did they want with Bran at all??
The books have such a great sense of dread and horror around the whole 'winter is coming' theme, and we've only actually ever seen the White Walkers twice. I remember the most gripping, terrifying chapter is when the wights attack the Nights Watch north of the wall, which is when you see them for the first time. In both book and show it happens at the end of book/season 2, start of book/season 3..... And it's incredible. You see it from a terrified Sam's point of view, as he is one of the few survivors. But in comparison, by this stage of the TV show, it's just meh, more zombies, and the Dark Lord who controls them.
(Wouldn't it have been cool if the Night King had spoken in this episode?)

Ghost the dire-wolf. It seems both the writers and all the cast have completely forgotten he exists these last two seasons. Occasionally someone remembers and you see ONE shot of him briefly, but he never does anything and no reference is ever made to him.

What was that weird scene with Arya hiding in the library all about??? She started fighting the zombies and was really kicking ass, taking loads of them down... Then suddenly she is in side a deserted (and completely silent) Winterfell hiding under the table from just a few zombies who are prowling around the bookshelves, and she has to be saved. As if she suddenly forgot who she was, what she was doing there, or how to fight. But she remembered in time to save the day.

Did John's dragon die? That wasn't clear.

Did all (or most) of the Unsullied get killed as well?




However some things I liked....

The real hopeless, depressing sense of it all being over... zombies overrunning the castle and literally everyone being hacked to death. Really quite harrowing. Though I was sure I saw Jaime, Brienne and others being killed, only for them to miraculously still be alive later!

The Dothraki charge, though tactically absolutely ridiculous... It was pretty scary to see them riding off into the dark and seeing the lights go out and everything go quiet... Then have Jorah gallop back with a look of terror on his face.....

Dragon-on-dragon combat. Shame it was hard to quite see what was going on, but still... Pretty fantastic from what could be glimpsed. Think about it, aerial combat between two monstrous fire-breathing lizards, trying to stay in the air as they grapple and rip chunks out of each other, as their riders cling on for dear life.... It should be something incredible to see, and if you could peer through the dark and the blizzard I think this episode had some pretty great dragon combat going on. Makes me look forward to seeing the new Godzilla film actually....