Yea that's definitely what we needed, Another cliffhanger lol. Good God man.

4/28/2019 10:59:17 PM

So let's just wrap up the main villain that has been unstoppable for 8 seasons like this? Like he had no backup plan or protection from fucking valyrian steel? And how'd Arya get that close with the walkers there??

I dunno man, I'd take a cliffhanger that dives into his backstory over what we got. Sorry

4/28/2019 11:04:20 PM

Quote :

"dunno man, I'd take a cliffhanger that dives into his backstory over what we got. Sorry "

Im really hoping they dive more into it over the next episode or two. Otherwise, the way it ended will be the biggest horseshit on thebshow

4/28/2019 11:12:11 PM

He has to have a way to die.

And just like when she finally reunited with Jon, she snuck up on him in the gods wood.

She spent years in Bravos learn these skills. They started with her teacher season 1. Also he did catch her, and would have killed her, but not today.

Scared for her though, her story might be finished and the faceless man maybe coming for her

[Edited on April 28, 2019 at 11:13 PM. Reason : Bugger question wtf happened to Ghost ]

4/28/2019 11:12:41 PM

Ghost survived, he's in the preview for next week

I'm not mad that Arya killed him, and I totally get it that it's in her story arc to be an assassin. Hell, it would've even been cool to see her wearing a white Walker face with blue eyes, like Melissandre alluded to, and that's how she got past the walkers. I still just feel unfulfilled by that whole scene. Was Bran really just going to take it? Or can he in fact see the future and knew Arya would save the day?

[Edited on April 28, 2019 at 11:20 PM. Reason : Ugh]

4/28/2019 11:15:30 PM

Quote :

"main villain is already dead"

while the night king was a major threat, no way he is a bigger villain than cersei. You have hated Cersei/Joffrey/Lannisters for 8 years. The Night King was just a bad ass that feed the duty vs choice theme (duty of defending the living against the dead or choice of fucking a bitch up). Now it is time to resolve the more difficult theme of ruler/leader vs conquerer (dany has to find a way to take cersei off the throne and win the hearts of the people at the same time especially now that she doesn't have the overwhelming numbers any more)

Quote :

"Arya's new weapon is a misdirection, the valyrian dagger will be the one making a bigtime kill."

called that shit!!!!

4/28/2019 11:22:10 PM

Feel kinda let down. There was some cool stuff but that wasn’t how I envisioned this ultimate evil they’ve been talking up for seven years to go down.

What was Bran even doing?

Also, that lighting was absolutely terrible - I couldn’t see shit.

4/28/2019 11:24:38 PM

yup going to have to rewatch with the brightness turned all the way up. They are working on prequels that covers the "the last Winter" and maybe there will be more 3 eye raven stuff revealed there.

who/what was he warg into. or was he in the past or replaying what he could do to change the past. like a Dr. Strange moment.

4/28/2019 11:35:58 PM

Maybe I'm just dead inside but

The smoke/snow/lighting made the ep miserable to watch. The dragon fights were just a total mess.

Zombies can hear aryas blood dripping but the walkers miss her running through the whole gang.

We learned absolutely nothing about the night king, saving for a prequel??

Who died in the end? Beric, jorah, theon, Edd, Rhaegal, Melisandre (who just chose to die I guess).....? Characters we really cared about on that list Jorah and...?

Who makes the plans for these battles? Have to have melisandre come at the last second to give the dothraki weapons worth using and then they charge in BEFORE fireballs? Landing the dragon next to the hoard.

Cersei is certainly a more interesting villain, but Dany still has a dragon and Arya, even if her army is toast.


The whole thing just seems rushed since they ran out of books. I don't need 8 more seasons but man it feels like they just needed to wrap everything up.

4/28/2019 11:39:20 PM

c’mon dudes

a series based on politics isn’t going to end with zombies v. humans

I’m also not trying to stunt, but I bought a tv 2 weeks ago and had no issues seeing anything.

[Edited on April 28, 2019 at 11:46 PM. Reason : .]

4/28/2019 11:42:47 PM

I vaguely remember them alluding to this earlier but how is the night king impervious to fire?

4/28/2019 11:44:57 PM

^^fine then make this more interesting. Maybe they'll blow me away but is the 4 hours of compelling plot left? Can't arya just kill cersei and end it? Let the dragon take out eurons fleet. Done.

4/28/2019 11:50:02 PM

Quote :

"I’m also not trying to stunt, but I bought a tv 2 weeks ago and had no issues seeing anything."

If a non-trivial portion of viewers are saying the lighting is bad, the lighting is bad. Something was definitely off.

4/28/2019 11:56:16 PM

I think people are seeing bad compression artifacts. Dark scenes and video compression don’t mix at all.

I could see everything but it wasn’t a great experience. It’s very hard to capture a battle scene at night in a world where there’s no artificial lighting, especially when you’re watching it digitally compressed.

4/29/2019 12:06:40 AM

tv issues aside

it started as Starks v. Lannisters, and that’s how it’s gonna end

and I haven’t posted it on here, but I think Sam’s gonna end up on the Throne

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 1:00 AM. Reason : .]

4/29/2019 12:52:55 AM

Maybe the Night King was a Targaryan when he was human thousands of years ago, and that is why the fire didn’t hurt him?

Also, I don’t think Bran was “doing nothing”. He was playing the bait. He knew what Arya was gonna do so he had to be the distraction.

4/29/2019 1:11:53 AM

just caught up. man fts!...i was all for team night king marching south and #teamnightking wiinning it.

4/29/2019 1:46:18 AM

Night king was created thousands of years ago. Nobody knows anything about the guy. Supposedly was just a captured first man fighting the children of the forest. His goal is to wipe out all life. He's a weapon that went off the rails.

What really matters is why it took thousands of years to try to invade.

4/29/2019 7:03:12 AM

Only so many dead people north of the wall. It took awhile.

4/29/2019 7:42:16 AM

Looks like there are still 2 dragons left in the preview for episode 4.

4/29/2019 7:58:49 AM

We had a hard time watching it. Tried it on two fairly new TVs and picked the least-shitty-looking one with the brightness turned way up, and it was still kind of a mess. I don't know what "compression artifacts" are but we were streaming it, so if those two go together then maybe moron is on to something.

I don't have an issue with how the Night King was killed, per se - it wasn't a deus ex machina, as others have described, they've been setting up Arya for this kind of move since Season 1. But the whole experience did kind of leave me wondering...what was the point of the Night King, narratively speaking? Did this major subplot exist solely to weaken Danaerys' forces so she doesn't steamroll Cersei too easily? Because...

Quote :

"while the night king was a major threat, no way he is a bigger villain than cersei."

...doesn't cut it with me. What I've taken away from the past several seasons is that Cersei is a mentally unstable incompetent with dwindling military and political power. She's looked increasingly pathetic compared to Danaerys since the latter picked up the Unsullied. We're outright told that the only reason she didn't just fly to King's Landing and raze that shit to the ground is that Tyrion told her it would be bad PR. As an existential threat, she's just hard for me to take seriously.

The Night King, meanwhile, had overwhelming numbers of tireless, fearless soldiers, the ability to recruit more such at every single encounter, and a goddamn dragon zombie. So militarily, bigger villain. In terms of motivation - wiping out all life on Westeros - also a bigger villain.

I'm going to be happy to watch Cersei get killed and all, but if I was supposed to buy her as the biggest, worst villain, then they did a crap job on the setup.

---

But taking this episode as a self-contained unit, by far my biggest problem was the sense of anti-climax brought from the lack of major character deaths. The whole episode builds this tension where it looks like everybody is about to die, and that's supposed to be resolved by...Jorah? The character whose death they've been telegraphing basically since the beginning, who has never really been a driver of the plot, whose death we'd already started to prepare for back when he got super-leprosy?

4/29/2019 8:23:16 AM

Also the wall magically and it took either a marked 3-eyed raven or a snow dragon to destroy it. that took a while. I wonder if the prequel will be before the wall was built. Also is Arya the Prince(ss) that was promised. I can't remember that whole legend.

4/29/2019 8:27:15 AM

i was watching through the HBO channel on the Amazon Prime app and jfc it looked terrible, there were so many compression artifacts and basically no contrast, it looked worse than an illegal stream.


they totally misused the dragons, why not spit a row of fire first before sending the dothraki to die? and after the dothraki died, why didn't they resume the trebuchets? someone built all these massive weapons, chiseled giant rocks to make projectiles, and they used it for a single volley.

Quote :

"Characters we really cared about on that list Jorah and...?"

uh, fucking theon? you don't care about theon? you are dead inside.



[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 8:35 AM. Reason : .]

4/29/2019 8:33:13 AM

so i guess jon stark is just never going to warg in the tv show, they're just ignoring those chapters entirely?

4/29/2019 8:40:51 AM

Quote :

"The Night King, meanwhile, had overwhelming numbers of tireless, fearless soldiers, t"

And yet 3 dudes on horses can also just run around them and beat them to Winterfell despite starting late

Quote :

"for back when he got super-leprosy?"

Which was then cured LITERALLY overnight

Quote :

"Also the wall magically and it took either a marked 3-eyed raven or a snow dragon to destroy it"

Yea I mean it all goes back to this. Writers couldn't figure how to get the walkers past the wall so they had to come up with this silly "go capture a wight" plan and all the silliness that came with it.

Quote :

"i was watching through the HBO channel on the Amazon Prime app and jfc it looked terrible, there were so many compression artifacts and basically no contrast, it looked worse than an illegal stream. "

I actually switched from spectrum dvr to hbo go on ps4 about 2/3s through and it was better, but maybe that was bc the shit part was over

Quote :

"they totally misused the dragons, why not spit a row of fire first before sending the dothraki to die? and after the dothraki died, why didn't they resume the trebuchets? someone built all these massive weapons, chiseled giant rocks to make projectiles, and they used it for a single volley."

EXACTLY. Jon seems like a terrible general.

Quote :

"fucking theon? you don't care about theon? you are dead inside."

I mostly FF through his stuff on rewatch bc I don't like torture porn. But alsonyeah I guess I thought the starks let him off a little easy since he just killed somebody else's children.

4/29/2019 8:51:40 AM

This should go without saying, but stay off Twitter if you haven't watched and don't want it spoiled. There's an obnoxious branded hashtag trending that spoils the episode.

4/29/2019 9:00:56 AM

Overall it was a badass episode, but I had a really difficult time seeing anything. I think I'm going to have to rewatch the episode really late at night with all other lighting sources shut off.

The dragon fights were really confusing, and frustrating in that it seemed like the Night King knew what he was doing way more than the other two. Dany should have been a pro at this. Also did Jon Snow's dragon (the one he was riding at least) die? I couldn't figure that out.

Also, FFS, why did Dany just chill on the ground with her drag for a while after saving Jon and basically let her dragon get covered and almost killed by wights? Of all the moronic things to do.

Finally, WTF was Samwell doing...literally the entire battle? He wasn't fighting, he was always on the verge of being killed. Just ridiculously dumb.

4/29/2019 9:02:05 AM

I must be one of the few that didnt have issues with lighting. I was in a completely dark room but for a night battle, i thought it was fine.
^rhaegar didnt die, theres two dragons seen flying in the episode 4 preview. Also, i assumed dany stayed on the ground to keep the wights coming after her instead of jon. And yeah, i kinda expected sam to be useless fighting

4/29/2019 9:13:32 AM

I really like the episode overall but still agree with a lot of the complaints here. I thought my tv was set to the wrong resolution because it was so blurry.

Quote :

"I actually switched from spectrum dvr to hbo go on ps4 about 2/3s through and it was better, but maybe that was bc the shit part was over "

The shit part was over. The last 1/3 or so was much better

Quote :

"Was Bran really just going to take it? Or can he in fact see the future and knew Arya would save the day?"

He can see the future and knew Arya would save the day

4/29/2019 9:19:13 AM

Fat lot of good Melisandre did for all those Dothraki with flaming swords.

4/29/2019 9:30:29 AM

I've always watched Game of Thrones on my TV through my Dish box, and I've always had difficulty viewing dark scenes; however, I never have the same issues when I watch the same episodes again on Blu-ray.

With that being said, I've been streaming the latest season to my TV from HBO Now via Chromecast, and I haven't noticed any significant visibility issues this season, including last night's episode.

4/29/2019 9:32:11 AM

^^^Pretty sure Bran can't see the future, think he can only see everything that has happened up to now. He has made references to this and he made it clear that he didn't know if dragon fire could even hurt the NK because no one had tried yet. Also think his raven worging needs to have a purpose, he flew away from the battle and said "I'll be going now", seems like he was up to something.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment in this discussion, while the episode was great and I liked some of the scenes, the ending of the Night King felt very anti-climactic. About 2/3 or 3/4 through the episode when he summoned the army to rise, it was apparent that 1 of 2 things was going to happen: NK wins and everyone dies, or the NK dies and our band of heroes wins the day. Just didn't see them killing off everyone in this battle, so it was basically just waiting to see who killed NK and if we lost anyone of note along the way. Even the crypt scene was a little "meh" considering the 6 times they referenced it last week so it felt like it was going to be a much bigger deal.

This episode, sadly, felt a little like The Walking Dead. Where you have this big build up for an opportunity and powerful/meaningful deaths and you chicken out or take the easy way out and surround your characters with far too much plot armor. Essentially every main character not in the crypt should have died multiple times. Like Sam, he ABSOLUTELY should have died given the situations he was put in, but I never once felt like he was a goner, mainly because I think he is going to be the one that survives to write the story.

I think the Arya scene was cool and it was great seeing her have such a triumphant moment, but I guess just based on what I've read from the book discussions, it just didn't really fit any of the prophecies. Arya doesn't fit the prophecy of Azor Ahai and it just seems more and more like the TV Show is just going to act like that prophecy never happened and no one is going to fulfill it. I was glad that dragon fire didn't hurt the NK, I'm glad it wasn't dragon glass(would have made no sense) either, but I still felt like valyrian steel was a cop out and it should have needed Lightbringer to kill him. A 1,000+ old enemy that is unstoppable should require a special means of slaying him, not just a rare-ish metal.

That being said. I'm now 99.9% confident that if GRRM ever actually finishes the books, he will NOT follow the same story the show is presenting.

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 9:36 AM. Reason : .]

4/29/2019 9:35:08 AM

why did no one in the crypt have weapons? there were a lot of people and not many dead bodies, it seems like they should have been able to make quick work of the walking dead with just a few weapons

4/29/2019 9:43:07 AM

Quote :

"they totally misused the dragons, why not spit a row of fire first before sending the dothraki to die?"

the key to their whole plan was kill the night king so everything else dies, not try to engage the enemy. the dragons were supposed to stay out of the fight until the night king exposed himself by going after bran. Dany panicked when all the dothraki die and she has to go spit fire, which is the start of the deviation from their master plan.

also the night king is out there somewhere and can throw a nasty spear. You don't want to expose your dragons unless you know where he is especially just to kill the grunts of the night army.

I agree that it seemed weird to send the dothraki into the darkness to fight a massive army, but the dothraki's power comes from fighting in the open field and not from behind trenches. I guess the hope was that the dothraki would delay or alter the night king's plan. Instead the dothraki didn't have a chance.

I like the fight, I did expect some other people to die, but I can understand wanting to give people like jorah, theon, and lady mormont a big death and not just lumped into a bunch of people being killed all at once.

4/29/2019 9:45:00 AM

^"I don't want to engage the enemy so I'll just send my entire mounted force charging into the unknown with useless weapons"

Quote :

"I was in a completely dark room but for a night battle, i thought it was fine. ^rhaegar didnt die, theres two dragons seen flying in the episode 4 preview"

1. Wall battle and Blackwater for 1000x easier to see
2a. Don't post about the previews in this thread please
2b if you what you say is true that's even dumber. Both rhaeghal and Viserion looked "dead" at one point. Obviously Viserion wasn't but I guess it's another in a long line of confusing rules in this world.

4/29/2019 10:48:44 AM

It was so dark that I had no idea it was even Lady Mormont that killed the giant until talking with friends after the show. Thought it was Arya and that she somehow survived, because even her death wasn't all that clear except for the crunching when he grabbed her.

Quote :

"Pretty sure Bran can't see the future, think he can only see everything that has happened up to now."

I partially disagree here. Bran has had visions of the future, especially in dreams (such as in season one where he dreamed about Ned's death; season six he sees the destruction of the Sept of Baelor, etc.). When Meera (where tf is she btw?) and Jojen take him north of the wall, there's a ton of talk about Jojen having green sight / being a greenseer where he had seeen his death and other events that ended up playing out. This goes back to a kind of lineage with the Children of the Forest, which Bran seems to be a super-evolved version of. So while I don't think Bran has a clear picture of everything that will ever happen, he gets fragmented images and tries to make sense of what he can in context of everything else. He also gives Arya the very dagger that she kills the NK with, which doesn't seem coincidental.

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 11:11 AM. Reason : .]

4/29/2019 11:09:57 AM

Quote :

"That being said. I'm now 99.9% confident that if GRRM ever actually finishes the books, he will NOT follow the same story the show is presenting"

Same. While this episode was entertaining, it also ironically reinforced why I shelved fantasy as a genre for so long after too many stories with lots of character armor and deus ex machina. (The irony being that ASOIAF is what got me back into fantasy because it almost never had those moments yet the show has fallen prey to them post books).

4/29/2019 11:13:10 AM

the more i think about it, the more I am OK with this being the end of the night army.

but the night army hardly made it into westeros! the night king doesn't care about westeros, king's landing, cersei, or the iron throne. He is not playing the game of thrones. Historically the rest of westeros did not know/believe/care about the white walkers. The north built the wall, donated the land for the night's watch, and supplied the watch with most of its soldiers. The night king was created by the children of the forest to fight back against the first men and protect their territory. The night army may even be weakened in the south as they get further away from the magic that created them (the weirwoods were cut down in the south and no one believes in the old gods there). It is fitting that the rest of westeros may never know or care about the threat of the white walkers because that is how things have been the last 1000 years.

the night king built his army for seven seasons and was taken out in a single battle! the night king may have been building this army for centuries, but things were accelerated when mance brought all the wildlings together (and they could be bulk added to his army). The land north of the wall is sparsely populated, so it would take time to kill people and slowly build your army. When the night king got a dragon, he also finally had a means to get past the wall. This also wasn't just some typical battle, this was the largest battle we have seen. Dany had an almost unstoppable army with all the dothraki, unsullied, and dragons combined with the northmen, knights of the vale, and mance's wilding army. The night king is not a master strategist, he uses his army to kill people, turn the dead into wights, add them to his army, and repeat. Even with a superior numbers, the smartest move by the night king would have been to lay seige to winterfell instead of risking his dragon or white walker buddies. But the night king did not want to wait and potentially let the 3-eyed raven escape.

It was established last episode that the night king wants to capture the 3-eyed raven because that will destroy mankind's history. Erasing mankind's history is essential to destroying their future. The night king's goal in this fight is not to capture dany, kill jon, or destroy winterfell. He wants mankind gone and the next critical step in that plan is to capture the 3 eyed raven. The 3 eyed raven has escaped him many times, which is why once he located and trapped the raven, he came himself to ensure that Bran could not escape again.

the whole battle seemed like a letdown! It would have been satisfying to see the army of the dead march south and be able to say "I told you so!" to all the doubting people, especially cersei. It would have been cool to see two of our main antagonists face one another, but the night king would have massacred cersei's 20,000 troops (hell, cersei's army wasn't much of a threat to dany before this battle at winterfell). But cersei didn't care about the night king, and the night king didn't care about cersei. It would have been a bigger letdown to have cersei killed by the night king, and it would have felt off to have cersei ally herself with our protagonists (also unfulfilling because we need cersei to answer for all her crimes towards the starks).

I am glad we have 3 episodes to spend on the return of the targaryens to king's landing. The night king and battle of winterfell was great action and as a plot driver, but the real story is the game of thrones and the people that play it.

4/29/2019 11:23:55 AM

These are the characters that died last night

Dolorous Edd
Lyanna Mormont
Beric Dondarrion
Theon Greyjoy
The Night King
Ice Viserion
Jorah Mormont
Melisandre

4/29/2019 11:54:01 AM

Quote :

" 1. Wall battle and Blackwater for 1000x easier to see 2a. Don't post about the previews in this thread please 2b if you what you say is true that's even dumber. Both rhaeghal and Viserion looked "dead" at one point. Obviously Viserion wasn't but I guess it's another in a long line of confusing rules in this world."

1. I couldnt give a fuck.
2. Fuck you. Ghost is alive too. Hes also in the preview. And the preview is immediately after the episode so go fuck yourself.
3 i couldnt give a fuck what you think is dumb...its in the show

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 12:25 PM. Reason : Shdh]

4/29/2019 12:24:42 PM

So why wouldn't they go to the Vale for their battle with the Night King? I feel like that would be a way more impenetrable fortress than Winterfell. It has a long narrow road that leads to it that would have been a complete choke point, right?

4/29/2019 12:38:31 PM

Jesus christ what a meltdown, Go talk about the show to your cats if you don't want to here other opinions.

And previews like that are usually made by the network not the writers, so they'll show stuff that is essentially a spoiler. It's common courtesy not to post that. Sorry if I made you shit your pants.

4/29/2019 12:38:50 PM

^^ The Eyrie is literally half of Westeros (south of the wall) away from Winterfell and not terribly far from King's Landing (relative to Winterfell).

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 12:59 PM. Reason : ]

4/29/2019 12:53:53 PM

Quote :

"EXACTLY. Jon seems like a terrible general."

Yup. This isn't a complaint so much about the show, which I get isn't supposed to be a primer on medieval military tactics or anything, but he's frustrating as a character because he's such a shit military leader sometimes. The impatience at the Battle of the Bastards, and this plan for the defense of Winterfell... What the fuck?

Sending all your cavalry in a frontal assault against an enemy you can't even see yet - and, but for the timely arrival of Melissandre, armed with weapons you know don't really work?

Assembling all those trebuchets so that you can fire, like, one shot each?

Having the vast majority of your army chilling outside the walls, basically waiting in the recruiting line for the army of the dead?

None of these decisions served the larger plan of luring out the Night King, but they did get most of the Danaerys/Stark forces killed.

4/29/2019 1:33:51 PM

My buddy pointed out the obvious, why not START with some outbound, already lit flaming trenches, at a minimum it would funnel the enemy to defensible locations. Having backups (or plan A even) to light without dragons would have been great to. Especially if you're someone sure your dragons might be fighting/luring a zombie dragon.

4/29/2019 1:47:13 PM

Does the Night King have to expose himself? Cant he just send wave after wave of the undead like he did to do his biddings?

4/29/2019 2:10:04 PM

That's one of the biggest problems. We know little to nothing about this majority villain; his motivation, his desires, his full powers. Donmega posted something about what the night king cares about, but it's all guesses and assumptions. He obviously isn't just some mindless killing machine, he's an intelligent being with goals and strategies. I guess to know what any of those are, we'll be forced to watch the prequels (not me fuck that extortion nonsense)

4/29/2019 3:01:00 PM

Biggest question: boxers or briefs?

4/29/2019 3:05:28 PM

Hes pretty athletic so prob boxer briefs. A modern man.

4/29/2019 3:48:20 PM

They mentioned something in an earlier season about a wargs body dying while warging and that their soul stays in that animal I think. So maybe he left to the ravens to protect himself should theon fail but then was able to see the ending (arya) and warged out to thank Theon. Cant back up hypothesis but I seem to remember this being said as fact when the wildling eagle guy got waxed.

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 4:10 PM. Reason : Cant type on iphone while shitting]

4/29/2019 4:09:03 PM