Technical expertise - firstly, credit where credit is due: the sheer scope, scale and technical execution of this battle episode were phenomenal. Even allowing for the practically unlimited budget they have to play with nowadays, the production values in this episode were very high. The music was great (especially during the NK's final, slow walk). I also really like the long takes where they switch from following one character to following another as they cross paths, a neat little trick which was also present in the previous episode.
Concepts and variation - these were also pretty good, considering that zerg-rushing undead can quickly get visually boring. The one-by-one bridging, the swarming wall climb and the claustrophobic interior fights all felt distinct enough to be interesting. Arya's horror-movie chase in the middle third was good for shaking things up, though to my mind it went on perhaps a little too long.
The Dothraki charge - Knowing a few things about real-life warfare is always a curse when watching cinematic battles, because it’s forever messing with your suspension of disbelief (e.g the Battle of the Bastards, although my lack of enjoyment for this otherwise stunning battle had more to do with Jon and Sansa’s incomprehensible character decisions rather than the questionable battle tactics). That said, I found this sequence visually stunning and it perfectly captured the sense of defiance melting into ominous dread as all the sword-lights steadily winked out.
Obviously it was utterly, suicidally stupid - even someone with no interest in battle tactics is going to call bullshit on opening a (defensive!) battle by sending your cavalry straight into an enemy horde that they can’t even see, and more to the point who you know are going to send them right back at you. If I had my tactical hat on I would ask why they didn't keep them back to circle / clear the walls - or hell, have them sweep down on the NK when he showed up in the Godswood, since luring and killing him there was allegedly their entire plan. Nevertheless it was a beautiful and haunting sequence, and if they really wanted to fix it all they had to do was show one panicked protest from Dany / Jon / Tyrion to show that the attack was unplanned, and that someone recognises that it was a rash, impetuous decision - this wouldn’t even have undercut the creeping horror of the lights going out.
Plot armour - GoT has not lived up to its "anyone can die" credentials for many seasons now. One of the most egregious examples of this was last season when Jon went north to capture a wight with a bunch of main characters and a few Wildling redshirts, and it was blindingly obvious who was going to die and who was going to live barring the one obligatory "shock" death. So I shouldn't have been surprised by the same thing happening here, but my god was it noticeable. Most of the deaths that did happen were simply cutting characters who had no obvious role after the NK plot was done. Not to say that some of these deaths weren't handled well, but it still felt like a letdown after an entire “our last day on earth” episode that was about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Lyanna - I actually thought she was gone when the giant first swatted her aside...which I wouldn’t even have minded because of it’s brutal suddenness, but in the end taking down the giant was equally satisfying. A good ending, though ultimately a minor character and a "safe" death.
Mel, Beric and Edd - predictable casualties since they were all intrinsically tied to the White Walker plot, and had no real reason to be around afterwards. Of the three deaths Edd’s was notably shocking and sudden, which is not a bad idea for an episode like this, and it's somewhat disappointing that no-one of more note met the same fate.
Jorah - as soon as he shows up to save a stranded Dany you know he’s dead, because he was always going to die defending her. The predictability stole a bit of the emotional resonance for me, for all Emilia Clarke's tears.
Theon - probably the best done of the deaths (not unexpected since he’s D&D’s favourite character). The emotional resonance is definitely there even if the flow of events around it has a few plot holes.
The Night King - despite all the plot armour, I was still a little bit uncertain at the end if someone was going to jump in or if he was going to kill Bran and send the few survivors fleeing. Unfortunately he’s been flat as cardboard since his intro, so there was no way that his end was going to be fully satisfying unless one side had an incomplete victory and he hung around for another episode or two and actually spoke (though it's been clear for a long time that D&D were not bothered with developing his character beyond the basics). A silent, sinister and unknowable villain is okay, but it felt a bit unsatisfying after so much build up to end it all here, in one episode.
And now on to the survivors...
Jon and Arya - I'm not actually upset that it wasn’t Jon who eventually fought and killed the NK. This does raise questions about prophesies and why he was allowed to come back from the dead - though you could argue that he was still pivotal in uniting the living, and moreover the books make a big deal of the “one true king” trope being BS and that prophesies will predict whatever people think they will (even the show acknowledged this with Varys’ king-priest-merchant story, back when the show was good). I don’t think D&D cared about any of this of course; they were going for emotion and subverted expectations, and since Arya’s arc in this episode was well done (despite heavy-handed foreshadowing from Mel) that’s not a bad thing on this occasion.
Sam - I sort of get why D&D would want to use a main character to show the terror that the undead invoke in everyone, but I feel like using Sam for this purpose is doing him a disservice. Sam in the show has not been a coward for some time now, especially when he’s standing up for people he loves - why turn him back into one for just this episode? The fact that he's barely fighting back as the wights swarm him only serves to make his plot armour even more obvious.
Brienne, Jamie, Tormund, Gendry and Pod - aside from cutting back to them every now and then to show them still struggling under the same dogpile of wights (plot armour again!) the show didn’t seem to know what to do with them. After the first couple of times it lost its effect because it became clear they were all due to survive this episode.
Sansa - I feel like they could have done more with her, although that's a recurring gripe of mine. A large part of why Sansa’s character has been so mishandled in general is that D&D don’t seem to think a character can be truly heroic in a TV show without being a fighter. Even if the show itself has demonstrated the value of figureheads and how morale can fail when a commander leaves (Battle of Blackwater). And once down in the crypts she was once again strangely useless. Now, Sansa isn’t and never has been a fighter, so I’m not particularly mad that she didn’t even try to use the dagger Arya gave her, but we know from past seasons that Sansa's main strengths are empathy, organisation and a touch of cunning ruthlessness - couldn’t the Lady of Winterfell have shown her leadership by talking to someone other than Tyrion?
Tyrion - Tyrion himself has of course been suffering for a while, mainly because D&D are not as good as GRRM at concocting smart plans for him to enact. Like Sansa he seemed strangely useless, and it's not like he's completely helpless in a fight (even if he doesn't ride around with an axe like he does in the first book, we've seen him handle a crossbow and smash someone's head with a shield). As he himself points out, why isn't he up top with Sansa putting his mind to some strategic use?
Sandor - was never going to die, because Cleganebowl. You know, I actually don’t really care about his fight with Gregor (I find his relationship with the Stark girls more interesting).
Grey Worm - where did he disappear to halfway through the episode? Also (tactical nitpick) why were he and the rest of the Unsullied placed outside the walls? And why were these veteran soldiers rolled over so quickly? Of course, it does set the interesting new dynamic of Dany having lost most / all of her forces except her dragons (and one of those is now Jon’s), and thus she is likely going to have to deal with being far less dominant in future episodes.
Davos - another MIA, seriously where was he for most of this episode? Granted, he's not exactly a fighter, but again D&D don't seem to have any interesting ideas for things for these sort of characters to do during an action episode. Even though they clearly do understand the value of bringing in a quieter, more contemplative or more harrowing scene every now and then to break up the adrenaline.
On the subject of missing things - no White Walker fights? No-one being faced with the wight of a former friend, not even after the NK explicitly raises all of the battle's casualties? These absences are hardly deal breakers for the episode, but they could have been interesting - especially since D&D clearly don't mind deploying other well-worn cinematic tropes throughout the episode.
Originally Posted by Kris
I agree. I keep saying that you can feel the missing hand of the original writer. After season 4 the series feeling like a high budget fan-fiction
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks