Game of Thrones (contains serious, massive SPOILERS)

[Ouenben]

HBO has confirmed that Game of Thrones will conclude with a 6-episode season 8 beginning (and ending) in 2019.

During my wait for season 7, I re-watched the entire series with my brother-in-law (his first time).

The wait for season 8 will be long enough for me to re-read the first book and then proceed to read the rest of the series. That's the plan, anyway.

I did exactly the same, with my cousin who hadn't previously seen any Game of Thrones. Was exciting to see his reactions to big moments and particular episodes!

[SkyPikachu]

Think it's the first time I've come out disappointed with an episode.

The major flaw was the lighting I couldn't see shit I actually changed tvs at one point it ruined the emersion big time.

Spoiler

Really don't understand how basically all the main cast fighters lived how nobody important died in the crypts very unrealistic with how easily the army was tearing through the no named characters.

Arya killing the night king was cool but stupidly predictible however the fact that it just insta killed all the white walkers made it feel super anti climactic. Since episode 1 then we're teasing the white walkers and to have one person take out the whole army was weird.

We had 2 years then 2 episodes hyping up this battle and for the biggest loses to be theon (a former traitor small main character) and Jorah (someone who's getting fairly old at this point) just didn't feel like a big enough lose for what they were hyped up to be. I really think they've rushed the ended and I think we should have gotten to see the night King take winterfell and have them flee before they kill him. Having main characters turn into white walkers then have people have to kill them would have been exciting too. The OMG moment of lyanna and edd coming back as white walkers was lost after Arya killed the night King and they didn't actually do anything.

I think had they not over hyped how they were all going to die then survive due to plot armor I would have liked it a lot more.

The episode was still decent just didn't live up to my expectation and didn't have any decent twist.

All Dany and Jon may as well have not been there they were useless.

Nonetheless excited to see how they clean up the cersei stuff.

Probably the first time I'd rate an episode below 5 out of 10.

Kong posted this on twitter so I'll respond here.

People are misguidedly nostalgic for a GoT where everyone dies for no reason because of a couple early surprises, but the show has never promised to be that through its entire plot. Good subversive deaths are still plot-necessary beyond just "big battle needs body count."

This isn't "the show where everyone dies"—it's the show about the abject horror of humanity's pursuit of power. The most frightening enemy is us. Last night's episode took us a couple of good, necessary steps in that direction. And people still died!

Spoiler

I think the biggest issue was no one of great plot importance died when they very easily could of in the situation they were in. Sam should of died he never survives that. Jaime, Brienne, Pod, grey worm all should have died in the situation they were in. Like 99% chance they all die there but they didn't which makes it weird.

Hopefully bran actually has a purpose but bran could easily have been siding with the night King and Arya kill them both for dramatic effect.

Arya could have died killing the night King.

I didn't want everyone to die but the deaths that happened weren't massive for me

Edd (basically a no name)
Jorah (traitor and plot had ended extremely well)
Red Lady (expected)
Lyanna Mormont (cool scene but she's a side character)
Theon (good death but also a traitor with a redemption story I just disliked the whole bran thing though)
Night King (expected and not considered a lose)
Beric (another character whom wasn't that important in the end and was just fodder to help save Arya. Have the hound die for Arya would have been a good loss)

Yeah 6 (excluding NK) is a decent number but they were teased to all die to lose this fight that they were royally fucked add the 2 years of teasing and 2 episodes and it feels like no loss at all even though the army has been damaged heavily the main cast hasn't.

Gilly, Pod, Grey Worm and Sam die and you have a situation where you have 10 characters die it's still nowhere near everyone but it feels like a decent lose.

[The Shoemaker]

The episode was on par with how the series has been since season 5 to be honest. This is just how they write the show. I have low expectations,

Spoiler

but I definitely didn't expect the White Walker's ending to be that anticlimactic, and quite honestly, bullshit.

I don't necessarily think it needed more deaths to be impactful (but it could have). Might of been better if they didn't make it look like characters died 5 times over only to make it out of a swarm of zombies.

I agree it was a huge missed opportunity to let a few notable characters die, come back as wights, and then actually attack the other main characters. Literally something we'll never see on the show now.

We'll see how the series ends. I don't really like the implication that Cersei was right in disregarding the white Walker threat over her own political/personal status... but I mean she's going to die this season regardless.

Maybe they'll have some interesting things to tackle, like what Jon's purpose is now that the walkers are done for.

I'm not terribly interested though, everything they've set up through season 7 to now is just unnecessary, forced drama to pad out the series.

[Kong Wen]

Spoiler

Really don't understand how basically all the main cast fighters lived how nobody important died in the crypts very unrealistic with how easily the army was tearing through the no named characters.

I have a hard time stomaching complaints about "all the main characters lived!" because Jorah and Theon are huge deep-theme season 1 characters with full plot arcs and important impacts on other main characters, and Lyanna is a relatively new character but a fan favourite. Whether a person particularly cares about Jorah or Theon is subjective—for some, they were the only reason to watch the show. It's a big blow. And no one can argue they weren't important characters.

The threat of the army of the dead was amply demonstrated by eradicating all the freefolk, all the northern houses that weren't at Winterfell, all the Dothraki, and almost all the Unsullied. The people in the crypts were contending against maybe 4 fully desiccated skeletons without weapons, not an army.

I really think they've rushed the ended and I think we should have gotten to see the night King take winterfell and have them flee before they kill him.

That would have padded the season without really adding anything new. Instead of one big set piece battle, they get to have two. Hardhome already established the "crushed forces running from the Night King" plot beat. And Winterfell established the "North has nothing left" plot beat. I struggle to understand what new central narrative purpose another retreat from the Night King would serve, and beyond that, padding it out just for the sake of more action kind of flies in the face of some of the other complaints people have about the show (that it cashes in story for action and glitz). Some fans seem to want to have their cake and eat it too with a lot of their complaints in this season/episode.

I think had they not over hyped how they were all going to die then survive due to plot armor I would have liked it a lot more.

Characters die when it's expedient for the plot, and they live when it's expedient for the plot, same as in the early seasons. Just killing a bunch of important characters because the night King is supposed to be scary would be bad writing. Most of the characters you listed who "should have died" underneath my tweet—killing characters off for visceral effect before their story arc comes full circle is bad planning, pandering. If the show has to religiously follow a pattern of offing key characters to keep people interested, that's the flip-upside-down-side of the narrative gain they made from killing Ned: predictable, toothless. The purpose of the last episode's brooding about how we're all going to die wasn't to bluntly foreshadow that they were all going to die.

The episode was still decent just didn't live up to my expectation and didn't have any decent twist.

I like that people somehow think Ned's and Robb's plot-necessary deaths were these great, subversive surprises, and lament that the show doesn't do that anymore. Meanwhile, the NK's plot-necessary death was a great, subversive surprise.

All Dany and Jon may as well have not been there they were useless.

That was the point. That was part of the twist. This show is not about the heroes doing heroic things. The fabled King in the North and Dragon Queen are just people, with power, who are exercising that power in whatever way they can, and sometimes it doesn't avail them.

That said, they both had interesting plot beats, which is what makes a character useful in a given episode. A good story is strung together by characters moving forward along a plot arc, whether they stab any bad mans or not.

Nonetheless excited to see how they clean up the cersei stuff.

Agreed. This is what the show is supposed to be about. And it's still up for debate whether the Cersei stuff will be "cleaned up". Cersei isn't a bogeyman zombie from the shadows. She's another main character exercising political power. Cersei, Jon, and Dany are all in the mix in the endgame and we don't know how it will play out. That's why the NK's fate and when it happened are classic, good, successfully-executed early-season-style plot elements. Keeping him in the game any longer would have devolved this show into stock fairytale fantasy, which is not what it's supposed to be.

I don't really like the implication that Cersei was right in disregarding the white Walker threat over her own political/personal status... but I mean she's going to die this season regardless.

I think it's fucking fantastic that she was right. Cersei ignoring the greater threat to defend her own power and then actually gaining from it is the exact kind of twist-of-the-dagger plot moment as Ned doing the right thing and being punished for it. Cersei in S7-8 so far has been the purest culmination of G.R.R. Martin's aesthetic since the early seasons of the show.

Maybe they'll have some interesting things to tackle, like what Jon's purpose is now that the walkers are done for. I'm not terribly interested though, everything they've set up through season 7 to now is just unnecessary, forced drama to pad out the series.

Everything they've set up through season 7 to now is the main thrust of the entire 8 seasons. The WWs/NK were the padding, and they had to shed them to get back to the real story: the exertion of political power on and by Cersei, Jon, and Dany and how it affects them in different ways.

You make a great point about Jon's purpose now that the WWs are gone. He's been using the threat posed by the WWs to hide from any questions of his life's purpose and goals, and on top of that, he's just heard some interesting news about himself that he hasn't been able to process yet. How does that internal conflict resolve itself now that he doesn't have a bogeyman to bury it in?

Anyway, all that said, I'm not saying this was the greatest episode of TV ever filmed. But it was a good episode, great action setpiece, with nice cinematography and pacing, and interesting plot and character development.

It's also OK not to have liked the episode! Jesus Christ. It's just that I've found the complaints I've seen so far about the show losing its way or about the episode in particular to be massively unconvincing and unsupported at best.

[Kong Wen]

Use your spoiler tags, ya wanks!

[Kiwi the Tortoise]

Spoiler

Really don't understand how basically all the main cast fighters lived how nobody important died in the crypts very unrealistic with how easily the army was tearing through the no named characters.

I have a hard time stomaching complaints about "all the main characters lived!" because Jorah and Theon are huge deep-theme season 1 characters with full plot arcs and important impacts on other main characters, and Lyanna is a relatively new character but a fan favourite. Whether a person particularly cares about Jorah or Theon is subjective—for some, they were the only reason to watch the show. It's a big blow. And no one can argue they weren't important characters.

The threat of the army of the dead was amply demonstrated by eradicating all the freefolk, all the northern houses that weren't at Winterfell, all the Dothraki, and almost all the Unsullied. The people in the crypts were contending against maybe 4 fully desiccated skeletons without weapons, not an army.

I really think they've rushed the ended and I think we should have gotten to see the night King take winterfell and have them flee before they kill him.

That would have padded the season without really adding anything new. Instead of one big set piece battle, they get to have two. Hardhome already established the "crushed forces running from the Night King" plot beat. And Winterfell established the "North has nothing left" plot beat. I struggle to understand what new central narrative purpose another retreat from the Night King would serve, and beyond that, padding it out just for the sake of more action kind of flies in the face of some of the other complaints people have about the show (that it cashes in story for action and glitz). Some fans seem to want to have their cake and eat it too with a lot of their complaints in this season/episode.

I think had they not over hyped how they were all going to die then survive due to plot armor I would have liked it a lot more.

Characters die when it's expedient for the plot, and they live when it's expedient for the plot, same as in the early seasons. Just killing a bunch of important characters because the night King is supposed to be scary would be bad writing. Most of the characters you listed who "should have died" underneath my tweet—killing characters off for visceral effect before their story arc comes full circle is bad planning, pandering. If the show has to religiously follow a pattern of offing key characters to keep people interested, that's the flip-upside-down-side of the narrative gain they made from killing Ned: predictable, toothless. The purpose of the last episode's brooding about how we're all going to die wasn't to bluntly foreshadow that they were all going to die.

The episode was still decent just didn't live up to my expectation and didn't have any decent twist.

I like that people somehow think Ned's and Robb's plot-necessary deaths were these great, subversive surprises, and lament that the show doesn't do that anymore. Meanwhile, the NK's plot-necessary death was a great, subversive surprise.

All Dany and Jon may as well have not been there they were useless.

That was the point. That was part of the twist. This show is not about the heroes doing heroic things. The fabled King in the North and Dragon Queen are just people, with power, who are exercising that power in whatever way they can, and sometimes it doesn't avail them.

That said, they both had interesting plot beats, which is what makes a character useful in a given episode. A good story is strung together by characters moving forward along a plot arc, whether they stab any bad mans or not.

Nonetheless excited to see how they clean up the cersei stuff.

Agreed. This is what the show is supposed to be about. And it's still up for debate whether the Cersei stuff will be "cleaned up". Cersei isn't a bogeyman zombie from the shadows. She's another main character exercising political power. Cersei, Jon, and Dany are all in the mix in the endgame and we don't know how it will play out. That's why the NK's fate and when it happened are classic, good, successfully-executed early-season-style plot elements. Keeping him in the game any longer would have devolved this show into stock fairytale fantasy, which is not what it's supposed to be.

I don't really like the implication that Cersei was right in disregarding the white Walker threat over her own political/personal status... but I mean she's going to die this season regardless.

I think it's fucking fantastic that she was right. Cersei ignoring the greater threat to defend her own power and then actually gaining from it is the exact kind of twist-of-the-dagger plot moment as Ned doing the right thing and being punished for it. Cersei in S7-8 so far has been the purest culmination of G.R.R. Martin's aesthetic since the early seasons of the show.

Maybe they'll have some interesting things to tackle, like what Jon's purpose is now that the walkers are done for. I'm not terribly interested though, everything they've set up through season 7 to now is just unnecessary, forced drama to pad out the series.

Everything they've set up through season 7 to now is the main thrust of the entire 8 seasons. The WWs/NK were the padding, and they had to shed them to get back to the real story: the exertion of political power on and by Cersei, Jon, and Dany and how it affects them in different ways.

You make a great point about Jon's purpose now that the WWs are gone. He's been using the threat posed by the WWs to hide from any questions of his life's purpose and goals, and on top of that, he's just heard some interesting news about himself that he hasn't been able to process yet. How does that internal conflict resolve itself now that he doesn't have a bogeyman to bury it in?

Anyway, all that said, I'm not saying this was the greatest episode of TV ever filmed. But it was a good episode, great action setpiece, with nice cinematography and pacing, and interesting plot and character development. Every complaint I've seen about the show losing its way or about the episode in particular has been massively unconvincing and unsupported at best.

I applaude you for these responses.

Spoiler

While watching this episode I also had the feeling that there is quite a bit of main character plot armor here and wondered why.
There is a heavy focus on the protagonists in this episode and very little presence of the common footsoldier as the episode goes on, unlike the previous battle setpieces. As a result the feeling that only main characters survived surfaces, which ain't exactly the case.

[Kong Wen]

I applaude you for these responses.

Spoiler

While watching this episode I also had the feeling that there is quite a bit of main character plot armor here and wondered why.
There is a heavy focus on the protagonists in this episode and very little presence of the common footsoldier as the episode goes on, unlike the previous battle setpieces. As a result the feeling that only main characters survived surfaces, which ain't exactly the case.

There are a couple more reasons for this feeling in addition to the one you pinpointed, one narrative and one structural:

Spoiler

The narrative reason is that, other than the eradicated Dothraki, and the Unsullied who are playing a specific role of being a human wall in the front line, the rest of the fighters at Winterfell are literally women and farmers. Hell, they even devoted multiple scenes to establishing this fact, so I'm not sure why it's surprising. Even Sam is a better fighter than the common footsoldiers at Winterfell right now. It's perfectly feasible for peasants to get overwhelmed by weak enemies while seasoned, trained veteran warriors fighting in formation with superior weapons could stave them off.

The structural reason is that it's more interesting to see good fighters doing cool stuff than it is to see nameless refugees with obsidian farming implements getting wrestled by weaponless skeletons. As long as he doesn't get too surrounded, someone like Jaime could kill skeletons with little effort until he drops from exhaustion. And if he does get too surrounded, you just need a friend to help. The point of these scenes isn't to demonstrate that wights are mighty warriors, just that there are a lot of them. It's more interesting and more fun to show that by showing characters you like.

The whole idea of plot armour is a shorthand copout. It's not armour, it's storytelling. Where was Jorah's plot armour? The plot needed him to die. You don't hear people complaining about plot swords. "Wah, it's stupid that Ned died, total plot sword." Yes, him dying was an essential part of the plot. Someone else surviving was an essential part of the plot, because it's better writing for him to die later (or not at all) than in the middle of an arc just for unexpected shock-lulz.

[SkyPikachu]

Can I blame that the episode was too dark so that's why I couldn't see the spoiler tags? (Sorry)

Spoiler

Really don't understand how basically all the main cast fighters lived how nobody important died in the crypts very unrealistic with how easily the army was tearing through the no named characters.

I have a hard time stomaching complaints about "all the main characters lived!" because Jorah and Theon are huge deep-theme season 1 characters with full plot arcs and important impacts on other main characters, and Lyanna is a relatively new character but a fan favourite. Whether a person particularly cares about Jorah or Theon is subjective—for some, they were the only reason to watch the show. It's a big blow. And no one can argue they weren't important characters.

It was more that they just survived the impossible Sam should have died 5 times over. It sucks when they do that it ruins the immersion when there's physically no way they survive it but they do.

I really think they've rushed the ended and I think we should have gotten to see the night King take winterfell and have them flee before they kill him.

That would have padded the season without really adding anything new. Instead of one big set piece battle, they get to have two. Hardhome already established the "crushed forces running from the Night King" plot beat. And Winterfell established the "North has nothing left" plot beat. I struggle to understand what new central narrative purpose another retreat from the Night King would serve, and beyond that, padding it out just for the sake of more action kind of flies in the face of some of the other complaints people have about the show (that it cashes in story for action and glitz). Some fans seem to want to have their cake and eat it too with a lot of their complaints in this season/episode.

The fact that the starks lose winterfell would be a big deal I also think that the night king should have been the final boss. Cersi army seems like nothing compared to the undead.

I think had they not over hyped how they were all going to die then survive due to plot armor I would have liked it a lot more.

Characters die when it's expedient for the plot, and they live when it's expedient for the plot, same as in the early seasons. Just killing a bunch of important characters because the night King is supposed to be scary would be bad writing. Most of the characters you listed who "should have died" underneath my tweet—killing characters off for visceral effect before their story arc comes full circle is bad planning, pandering. If the show has to religiously follow a pattern of offing key characters to keep people interested, that's the flip-upside-down-side of the narrative gain they made from killing Ned: predictable, toothless. The purpose of the last episode's brooding about how we're all going to die wasn't to bluntly foreshadow that they were all going to die.

Then simply don't put them in a situation where they should have died. These are zombies one bite and you're dead. Sam struggled to fight off one early on in the show and now the man that can't hold up a sword survived that so unrealistic. I love Sam I didn't want him to die but giving them stupid plot armour like that just felt dumb.

The episode was still decent just didn't live up to my expectation and didn't have any decent twist.

I like that people somehow think Ned's and Robb's plot-necessary deaths were these great, subversive surprises, and lament that the show doesn't do that anymore. Meanwhile, the NK's plot-necessary death was a great, subversive surprise.

Twist doesn't equal death. The Night Knight could have attacked kings landing instead, Bran could have been linked to the Night King, Lyanna could have killed Jorah when she was a white walker or Nymeria could have saved Arya on the battlefield. With 3 episode left after this episode you knew the NK would die and my biggest guess of who would do it was Arya. It's the first episode I've ever properly predicted the whole way through.

All Dany and Jon may as well have not been there they were useless.

That was the point. That was part of the twist. This show is not about the heroes doing heroic things. The fabled King in the North and Dragon Queen are just people, with power, who are exercising that power in whatever way they can, and sometimes it doesn't avail them.

That's fair.

It's also OK not to have liked the episode! Jesus Christ. It's just that I've found the complaints I've seen so far about the show losing its way or about the episode in particular to be massively unconvincing and unsupported at best.

It has lost it's way a bit it's not as amazing as it was a few seasons ago Season 4 being superb. However it's not bad and one episode that I rate 5/10 doesn't mean I hate the series now Episode 2 was fantastic. I much prefer the politics of the show over the battling though. The backstabbing and twist and turns. Nothing will replace the utter shock of Neds arc it was so unexpected the fact that something happened that was so unexpected was just insane. Same with the Red Wedding. Outside of the Battle of the Bastards I haven't really loved a big battle episode.

To be clear though the directing was FUCKING AWFUL Game of Thrones not Game of Darkness. That's one of the reason the episode is my least favorite ever. If I was able to see what was going on it would have just locked in as another below average episode as the ending was still awesome.

Spoiler

Also something I forgot to mention. Don't have Ghost run in the front line at the start of the episode then not be seen again all episode then show him in the promo. He should either be revealed to be alive in episode 3 or they reveal he's alive in episode 4. Not in the promo. Promos should not spoil stuff like this. Personally it's not a big enough thing to have as a teaser so just have him hanging out with Jon at the end of the episode or something. /Rant #GhostWinsTheThrone

[The Shoemaker]

I will just say, even though they show them as zombies, they aren't actual zombies. A Walker biting you won't turn you into one, they literally have to kill you first.

[Kong Wen]

I will just say, even though they show them as zombies, they aren't actual zombies. A Walker biting you won't turn you into one, they literally have to kill you first.

I know, it's just reductive shorthand.