A Song of Tits and Wine (Spoilers!)

[Skalpadda]

First thing to say, if you have means to watch this on a non-shitty streaming service than do so. Here in the UK, the only (legal) way to watch it besides broadcast television is on Now TV, a service whose highest quality is 720p. Many scenes were an absolute mess of terribly blurry and indistinguishable characters, with a whole lot of awful colour banding every where. I’m going to assume that this was caused by the low quality stream and not the cinematography, which is normally excellent for this show. How I wish that this would be on a decent service like Netflix, so it could be watched at 4k with HDR, as it should be.

I watched it on HBO Nordic, which usually has rather decent quality, and it was a muddy mess. I think what they’ve done is just darken everything in post without doing anything to preserve highlights. Even things like direct light sources (torches, dragon fire, etc) and reflections, which should look very bright in the dark, looked dull and it made everything really indistinct. I just turned up the brightness and contrast a couple of notches which meant I could see what was happening, but I got to enjoy all the lovely compression artifacts from trying to encode an almost dark image with no contrast instead.

The Dothraki: it was a cool visual, but possibly the dumbest battle tactics in the show yet.

Arya was clearly picked up by Bran’s flock of ravens and launched at the NK in an aerial attack. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. I think Bran was trying to just get the NK’s attention, but yes he seemed to achieve that almost instantly and then he was just sitting there warging for ages to seemingly no effect or purpose.

Both the crypt ghosts scene and all of the Lyanna Mormont stuff had me giggling out loud. I always find skellingtons kind of funny, and as I said some of the editing felt like comedy editing. Same goes for the scene where Sam is on his back flailing at wights and Jon decides to not save him and go for Bran, it just came across as humorous the way it was presented.

[Vandelay]

Re: Bran’s warg. Yes, makes some sense that it was to get his attention. I guess I didn’t even think that as they already established that the NK knows where he is all the time since marking him, so there shouldn’t be any need!

Love the idea that Arya was lifted by the ravens.
Now disappointed that we didn’t see that happening.

[LexW]

NOW TV is indeed a crime against television I will be informing Sky of this when I cancel my sub immediately after GoT ends. I certainly won’t be resubscribing to them. I think they do it out of some sort of cretinous idea that people will pay for Sky instead, but they’re fucking dreaming - £30+ quid possibly plus installation, setup, etc. for Sky? In 2019? Jesus. Plus it’s a pain in the arse.

But other than that I thought it was pretty amazing and was a lot less nit-picky and hair-splitty than you lot! The music was also just fucking A-grade. I think we were helped by the fact that so many people complained about the darkness that even dodging spoilers I knew it would be an issue, and we adjusted the TV so it was significantly brighter than usual - it was still shitty image due to NOW TV, but I saw all the things that I later read people missed because it was “too dark”, so I think that helped how I felt.

That said, the Total War player in me was apoplectic at the tactics employed by the living.

As I said to my wife - a fellow TW player - “Oh shit I double-clicked and I thought I had the dragons selected not the cavalry!”. Seriously there isn’t a TW player on the planet who hasn’t made a cavalry charge that dumb though. But that was pretty much the last time we were laughing in the episode. The positioning of the artillery also made my eye twitch.

EDIT - Ok I did also laugh at Jon seeing Sam cry-stabbing the wights whilst on a pile of wights, then appearing to think “Ooookaaaay, I guess Sam has that handled let’s move on and never think about that again!”.

Re: the rest of it, I think this was some pretty GoT-ish expect-the-unexpected, because pretty much everyone seemed to be expecting one of two scenarios (including me), that being a desperate escape for a few main characters, or the whole thing being a feint and the NK heading south. But that didn’t happen. Most of the major characters, except my boys Theon and Jorah (meaning all the characters I liked most except Sansa are now dead, others having died earlier), made it out alive. I honestly did not think Jaime or Brienne would make it.

Lots of other unexpected stuff - Jon was totally useless. Dany wasn’t much better. Even Jon with an assist from Dany totally failed to stop the NK. I think a fair number of people thought Arya might nail the NK due to her assassinatin’ tendencies, but the way they lined it up, with three people who have all been on Arya’s kill list, three people who have seen things in the fires, clearing the way for her - possibly four if you buy the theory that Jon was shouting “GOOOOO! GOOO!” when screaming at the dracolich (presumably Arya was sprinting past) - was really amazing. That last scene is extremely re-watchable. The fucking dagger drop and catch. An old trick but a very, very good one.

My wife’s theory is the Bran is indeed Bran the Builder but it’s a mistranslation and he’s actually Bran the Architect, but in the sense that he has constructed the present situation via mental time-travel and fucking with people, possibly through the ages. He spent this entire episode warg’d the fuck out, so presumably he was doing something, if he wasn’t, as the internet suggests, playing Raven Simulator 2000.

Be interesting to see how well they handle “a pregnant lady and a pirate” as the final bosses to GoT, and what more plays out in the remaining extra-long episodes. I think, for me, this is more interesting that if they’d just drawn the NK stuff out - even though it would be a better climate change metaphor if they’d had him be unstoppable until he was on Cersei’s doorstep. The books are definitely going to differ here - for starters Beric isn’t even alive, so couldn’t have helped Arya.

Honestly overall I thought it was one of the best things I’d seen on TV.

[Skalpadda]

Dropping spoiler tags now as people should have had time to watch it.

On expecting the unexpected, Arya killing the NK seemed like the most obvious thing ever given how they’ve built her up as a superhero, all the foreshadowing around getting her the dagger and her dialogue about the Walkers in the last few episodes, not to mention how the show has veered ever more into hero worship and fanservice since season 6-ish. I was just sure it was too obvious for them not to subvert it and kill her off.

I fully expect a Night King vs Arya fight or something to happen in the actual episode.

As the NK was walking up towards Bran I was hoping there was some twist that was going to happen with Bran actually doing something or that we’d get some insight into the White Walkers, but nope, Arya launches in from orbit and I said “oh no” (well, “å nej”) out loud as all the buildup and tension deflated and my worst prediction came true. I’ve enjoyed the reactions I’ve seen from Azor Ahai fan theorists though, as I’ve always been in the “all prophecies are bollocks” camp.

On Jon being useless, apart from being pretty enough to lure Dany to the North, has he been anything but useless since the battle at Castle Black? They did stop Viserion (well, get him damaged and out of the air), which turned out somewhat useful, but yeah.

And on the books differing, well I doubt anyone will need to help Arya since I don’t think things will play out anything like this in the books. D&D said in the talky bit after that they decided Arya would kill the NK (three years ago, apparently - that explains why they’ve had such a hard-on for Arya the last few seasons), and the NK isn’t really a character in the books. If we even get there. I used to be an optimist, but it’s been over a year since I tried to rationalise GRRMs writing pace and I doubt it’ll be possible to wrap everything up in the two planned books, so expect another 10 years at least (yeah, fuck me, George, but you ain’t gonna live forever).

[DeekyFun]

I really enjoyed the episode. I wish it wasnt quite so dark, as it really did make it quite hard to follow the action in those scene. I had assumed it was intentional, that the cinematography was literally showing us a battle between the light and the dark, and maybe also the utter chaos of battle.

Content wise I have no real complaints. I think having the conclusion focus on Cersi and tying up some of the character beats and political stuff makes sense, killing off half the cast or the major characters is more realistic, but not necessarily more interesting, at least for me. The main characters that died did so in service to their own arcs for the most part. Jorah was one of my favourite characters, but he had a good death, which worked for his narrative. I think we still have more to see from Jaime, Tyrion, Jon (Jeez, he really needs to stop charging towards things by himself).

Looking forward to seeing how it’s all wrapped up.

[LexW]

I get what you are saying re Arya, though “superhero” seems an rather odd complaint in a world of supernatural beings of which she is one (as are Jon, Bran, Dany, Melisandre, Jaqen and a number of others - Bran being far more powerful too), but you yourself mention the Azor Ahai theorists and there is no denying “Arya will kill the NK” has always been a minority theory. So unexpected for you? No. Unexpected for most viewers? Undoubtedly, I would say. You fit firmly in the category of people salty because their favoured theory didn’t play out (or hated theory did) as you explain with being disappointed to see Ayra come flying rather than being in the very holy shit moment. I don’t mean that in a cruel way. If I had favoured or hated theories I might feel the same!

And let’s not pretend anyone expected so many survivors!

I fully expect the Night’s King (not quite the Night King) to turn up in the next two books, but yeah I suspect it will play out rather differently, quite likely with Joramuns horn dropping the wall and no undead Viserion, or not until later. Does the brown, blue, green eyes prophecy appear in the books? I forget. If so I suspect we may still see NK down to Arya and before Cersei. If not then something very different may indeed happen.

[Skalpadda]

Not particularly salty about it. I think the last two seasons and the lenghty break have thoroughly checked my expectations and distanced the show from the books and the early seasons. And I did really enjoy the episode, enjoyed all three so far more than anything in season 7, but it’s a little disappointing to see the most egregiously fan-servicey thing I could think of actually happen, and in such a slapdash way.

Speaking of salt, I had a quick look at the ASOIAF reddit last night and it was surprising and hilarious how angry people were, mostly at how Jon never got to fight the Night King. I guess people really love them Azor Ahai prophecies.

Is Arya supernatural? I don’t think we’ve seen her warg in the show and the face stealing is kinda mystical (moreso in the show than the books where it’s explained, albeit not in much detail) but it doesn’t necessarily have to mean the characters using it has supernatural powers. The rest seems to be all about being a badass fighter.

I guess jumping in medieval canal water with a belly full of stab wounds without getting an infection might count as a superpower.

And let’s not pretend anyone expected so many survivors!

Hm, yeah, there was at least one shot for almost every named character where they were completly surrounded by wights and seemingly screwed (seriously, I think there were at least 20 of those shots), and then they all somehow survived anyway. I’m not sure giving people extra padded plot armour in a story that got famous for having bad things happen to people in bad situations regardless of story status counts as good subversion of expectations, but it was unexpected.

I thought the character deaths that did happen were very well done. I even felt a little for Dany for the first time in ages when Jorah died. And Theon, gosh, Alfie Allen did such an amazing job all throughout the series.

Does the brown, blue, green eyes prophecy appear in the books?

I don’t remember if it pops up somewhere, but I don’t think Arya even meets Melisandre in the books, does she? The bastard Mel wants to use in the books is some other Baratheon bastard, not Gendry.

[LexW]

but it’s a little disappointing to see the most egregiously fan-servicey thing I could think of actually happen, and in such a slapdash way.

This seems a little salty to me I don’t think many people would consider that beautifully arranged episode where she’s essentially escorted to her fateful meeting, and where she kills the NK in a particularly appropriate way - all street smarts and cunning, nothing supernatural or fancy or mystical in the final attack beyond the dagger being Valyrian steel, to be “slapdash”. Thousands of years of fancy asshole, immune to dragonfire, unstoppable by conventional warriors, undone by a cheap back-alley knife-fight trick.

Slapdash, to me, would be just having Jon chop his way through all the Wights and White Walkers and then just outfight the NK. It would be unearned, lack the good kind of irony, lack wit (Arya’s kill had wit and irony), and just seem like Jon was suddenly being badassified (something that, unlike Arya, he has never shown any signs of being - his only real talent seems to be that of being a pretty good face-type leader). Even worse Jon doing it surrounded by his buddies. I think I’d have thrown up in my mouth. That’s the opposite of what ASoIaF (the books) and GoT (the show) are about. That’s Avengers: Endgame-type shit, and it should stay in places like Avengers: Endgame.

Is Arya supernatural? I don’t think we’ve seen her warg in the show and the face stealing is kinda mystical (moreso in the show than the books where it’s explained, albeit not in much detail) but it doesn’t necessarily have to mean the characters using it has supernatural powers. The rest seems to be all about being a badass fighter.

Yes. Face-stealing is certainly supernatural and calling it “mystical” to try and say it isn’t seems a bit hair-splitting. On top of that she’s survived outrageous injuries and incidents, and as this episode emphasized, she is literally quieter in her movements than a drop of blood falling 18 inches. Which I can assure you no real-world human is, no matter whether they are a “badass fighter”! But in the end it all came down to a Syrio Forel or Cat of the Canals-style trick. Magic and ninja training got her there. The back alleys got the NK dead, though. In the books she can also warg but as you say I don’t think we’ve seen that in the show.

I’m not sure giving people extra padded plot armour in a story that got famous for having bad things happen to people in bad situations regardless of story status counts as good subversion of expectations, but it was unexpected.

I don’t think that’s necessarily what the show is famous for. How many of the main characters have died because they were in “bad situations” in a normal sense - i.e. in battle, in prison, etc.? Relatively few (Ned, Osha, Jeor Mormont are some examples). I think the vast majority of deaths in GoT come down to “This should be a reasonably safe situation but then…!”. Deaths like:

Going to a wedding
Taking a shit in your en suite bathroom
Going to well-defended church
Having a feast (multiple instances!)
Hunting boar (always a little dangerous but not usually fatal)
Safely on the boat home with dad
Going to your coronation
Sitting in your tent in the middle of your own army
Standing around in your own impregnable castle

I could go on. Now, this is major characters. Minor characters get killed in fights and battles and scuffles all the time, definitely. Major characters really usually die in a situation where they would not, personally, be expecting to possibly die. Even Stannis wasn’t killed in battle, but rather afterwards, having kind of escaped.

So it’s kind of a double-play. The subversion is broader expectation that, because it’s a massive battle with a “Final Boss” level enemy, and there are only four episodes left to go (including this one), and the show kills major characters, it’s necessarily going to kill a bunch of them. But close attention shows it fits the narrative pattern.

I mean, what we should look out for is situations in the next three episodes where everybody looks kinda safe, because probably they aren’t.

I even felt a little for Dany for the first time in ages when Jorah died. And Theon, gosh, Alfie Allen did such an amazing job all throughout the series.

Definitely agree on both counts.

I don’t remember if it pops up somewhere, but I don’t think Arya even meets Melisandre in the books, does she? The bastard Mel wants to use in the books is some other Baratheon bastard, not Gendry.

Good point, I don’t think it’s in the books.

[Skalpadda]

Slapdash, to me, would be just having Jon chop his way through all the Wights and White Walkers and then just outfight the NK. It would be unearned, lack the good kind of irony, lack wit (Arya’s kill had wit and irony), and just seem like Jon was suddenly being badassified (something that, unlike Arya, he has never shown any signs of being - his only real talent seems to be that of being a pretty good face-type leader). Even worse Jon doing it surrounded by his buddies. I think I’d have thrown up in my mouth. That’s the opposite of what ASoIaF (the books) and GoT (the show) are about. That’s Avengers: Endgame-type shit, and it should stay in places like Avengers: Endgame.

I agree as far as that would’ve been much worse, I just never really considered that Jon might actually kill the Night King (fight yes, kill no) even though judging by what I’ve seen on the internet the last two days lots of people seemed to have expected (and wanted, for some unfathomable reason) just that.

On the face stealing (and this is getting into semantics so not to be taken too seriously) we don’t know how the face changing works, whether the faceless men actually have some sort of actual power themselves, if it’s some strange technique or if they’re tapping into the God of Death somehow.

Anyway, when I called her a superhero I was more referring to the fact that she seems by far the most overpowered character in the entire show. She’s as good at sword fighting as Brienne (probably the best swordsman left in Westeros), with fantastic sneaking skills, face changing powers, she hasn’t really failed at anything since Braavos as far as I can recall, and she’s just generally murdering enemies and mowing down baddies like a frigging tornado. Oh, and the Wolverine powers and super-powered immune system she displayed in Braavos. It’s just a bit much.

Still, even though her character arc annoys me I can’t hate Arya, because Maisie Williams is an adorable little ball of charisma and it’s impossible not to be at least a little entertained when she’s on screen.

And ah, Arya’s blood, another scene that made me giggle, because I just thought “wow, Arya has really loud blood!”.

Going to a wedding
Taking a shit in your en suite bathroom
Going to well-defended church
Having a feast (multiple instances!)
Hunting boar (always a little dangerous but not usually fatal)
Safely on the boat home with dad
Going to your coronation
Sitting in your tent in the middle of your own army
Standing around in your own impregnable castle

I could argue that most of those were actually very obviously dangerous situations, the characters just didn’t know (or were too dumb to realise) it, but we did. I could have worded that better though, and should probably have pointed more to consequences rather than obvious immediate danger. And come on, they did go a little over the top with “Oh no, [CHARACTER] is completely surrounded by wights and about to get blenderized any second!” only to cut away and then show them just fine, somehow, later. I don’t think I exaggerated the number above.

[BillButNotBen]

Quick question as my memory is obviously failing, but where did Arya meet Melisandre in the tv show?

I watched it last night, mainly squinting to see what was going on, and I think I basically agree with everything that’s already been said.

The Dothraki charge into the dark might have been kinda dumb, but it was an awesome visual and pretty good way to emphasize what was coming.

There were several parts where I wasn’t entirely clear what was going on, which might be realistic for a night battle, and they did have some good visual shots, but it was also just confusing at times. Particularly with the dragons - i have no idea what happened to Jon’s dragon.

I agree that the plot armor was laughably think at some points. Which wouldn’t be a surprise in other shows, but felt a bit out of place in this one.
I really expected them to kill off at least a few more of the minor characters, if only just to avoid everyone going ‘but how did they all survive?’. Pod or Sir Brienne, Davos, Grey Worm, Tormund etc… seemed disposable.
Jorah and Theon went out well, though Jorah seemed like he should have died at least 4 times before that. Poor Ghost.

Why exactly they didn’t use their fire catapults and fire arrows more, I don’t know. But other than that, as a battle, it was pretty epic and they did a good job of just continuing to pile up the pressure and by the end when the dead were crashing through the rooves it was pretty unstoppable.
Of course, the downside to that was it became increasingly clear that the only way that any of them were getting out of it alive was for someone to ice the night king.

If it’d been a much earlier season, I wouldn’t have put it past them to have almost everyone die, but given recent seasons it was very unlikely to happen.
A bit surprised to have them get rid of the undead threat so early, though I guess people watch the show more for the character interactions and backstabbing than the big battles, so it kinda makes sense.

On the one hand they did a good job foreshadowing Arya becoming a badass and even the kind of moves with the dagger (the dagger that that started it all). On the other hand, they did maybe too good a job and this show used to not really foreshadow stuff.

It’d be funny if they killed half of them off in the next episode, but I think I’ve come to terms with the fact this isn’t that kind of show anymore. It’s more consistently good, but less randomly OMG.

I’m still entirely unclear on why the night king wanted bran so much, why it mattered if he got him, and what the heck bran was doing for most of the battle. Crow Simulator 2000 is a reasonable guess.
I was half expecting Bran to do a Scooby-doo I’m Arya ending at the end. Oh well.

Any battle against Cersi is going to be tricky now, given they basically are down to 2(?) dragons and 8 hero characters. If I was a general grunt in that battle and I somehow survived, there’s sod all chance I’d sign up for a trip to kings landing for another battle.

Going back a bit.

I would love it if the people of Westeros simply decided they’d had enough

I remember getting to the same point in the novels, where I realized that it didn’t really matter whether the Starks or the Lannisters won, the serfs were still screwed.
Then the whole Sparrows thing happened and I thought maybe they deserve to be screwed.

Anyway, for a tv show episode it was pretty impressive, despite a few niggles. They could actually have shown it on the big screen and it’d probably not have looked out of place… infact it might have been easier to see wtf was going on.

[Skalpadda]

Quick question as my memory is obviously failing, but where did Arya meet Melisandre in the tv show?

In the Riverlands, when Arya and Gendry get captured by the Brotherhood Without Banners. Melisandre turns up out of nowhere to take Gendry back to Dragonstone where she puts leeches on him because she needs king’s blood for her scrying. In the books it’s the Ghost of High Heart who freaks out a little when she sees Arya, but in the show Melisandre does a little ominous foretelling, the whole “eyes you’ll close forever” bit that’s referenced in this episode.

Poor Ghost.

Ghost is okay. He returns with Jorah, but yeah, I didn’t notice until I looked it up after the show. He also turns up for like a millisecond in the teaser for episode 4, so he’s still with us.

[LexW]

Any battle against Cersi is going to be tricky now, given they basically are down to 2(?) dragons and 8 hero characters

Meh if it’s Total War Warhammer they’ll be fine with 8 heroes and 2 dragons - that’s probably better than some doomstacks!

Re: Jon’s Dragon, Rhaegal, it crash-landed pretty hard and presumably decided it had had enough of this shit for one night. It isn’t dead though.

Of course, the downside to that was it became increasingly clear that the only way that any of them were getting out of it alive was for someone to ice the night king.

I was still kind of expecting the NK to turn Bran and this possibly lead to some kind of confrontation which might let people escape, but the options certainly narrowed pretty quickly. Indeed when the wind blew, which was actually presumably from Arya Ninja-Speed-Running (though there are alternate theories, some quite bizarre), I assumed a dragon was incoming for an airlift, snatching Bran from the jaws of disaster, perhaps picking up a few others on the way.

On the other hand, they did maybe too good a job and this show used to not really foreshadow stuff.

The show has foreshadowed the shit out of like, most things that have happened in it, but it’s usually really obscure 15-episodes-back stuff, whereas Arya becoming Faceninja has been a steady plot thread for several seasons. I feel like here, at the end of time, they can kind of get away with it though. It’s time for some payoff! I mean Cleganebowl. We were talking about that in like 2002, even if it only got a name in 2013. I still think it’s going to happen.

It’d be funny if they killed half of them off in the next episode

I expect next episode will be largely safe, but the last two? I would be very surprised if more than 50% of current top-tier characters survive that. Second tier will likely have a higher survival rate (for the record, Brienne, Pod, Tormund, Missandei, etc. would be second-tier, whereas all Starks, all Lannisters and Dany would be top tier).

I also expect GoT will continue to surprise-kill most major characters who die - i.e. via poison, brutal ambushes or assassinations, and evil magic.

I’m still entirely unclear on why the night king wanted bran so much, why it mattered if he got him, and what the heck bran was doing for most of the battle.

Why the NK wanted Bran? I would suggest it’s because the Three-eyed Raven (Bran) is the only one who can and probably previous has stopped the Night King, because 3ER can go back in time and mess with people, and see shit that happened, as well as seeming to have ability to understand how all the thread of fate weave together. It’s a reasonable theory that 3ER intentionally fucked up the battle to ensure that the NK was properly overconfident and smug so he would put himself in a position to get iced. This is the Hodor-creating dude, remember. He will brain-damage and get killed a kindly person just to make sure shit works out the way it does.

Why it mattered to the NK? The NK had one job, much like Sam. Only the NK’s job was to wipe humanity out entirely. That’s all he’s been trying to do for however long he’s been around (possibly 8000 years). He can’t achieve that job if a series of TIME TRAVELLING ASSHOLES (the Three-eyed Ravens) keep fucking up his plans. Him and The Master should probably have a pint sometime.

What the heck was Bran doing? Your guess is as good as mine. I agree that playing with his GoCrow was the most likely explanation based on the evidence we have, but they’d better fucking explain this before the show ends (I fully expect it to be in a brief montage sequence five minutes from the end of the last episode though).

There’s also no way Bran’s Plan is done, either, because it has unused parts. Particularly the fact that Bran absolutely insisted that Sam had to tell Jon that Jon was Aegon VI RIGHT THAT MOMENT before the battle, even though it didn’t matter at all before the battle. Bran is also clearly Not Done ™ with Jaime, who presumably has his part to play like Theon did.

Then the whole Sparrows thing happened and I thought maybe they deserve to be screwed.

Yes, though in the books the Sparrows are slightly less patently idiotic, and have more of an opportunity to argue their case.

[Skalpadda]

I don’t expect the Night King’s motivation for wanting to kill Bran will be developed any further in what little show we have left. Humanity isn’t really gone as long as it’s remembered and Bran is an ancient enemy who can see and remember anything, so he has to go. That’s probably all we’ll get.

Similar with Bran’s actions. I suspect the hurry to tell Jon is because they wanted that scene to happen. That’s mostly how the show has worked lately.

I would be very surprised if more than 50% of current top-tier characters survive that. Second tier will likely have a higher survival rate (for the record, Brienne, Pod, Tormund, Missandei, etc. would be second-tier, whereas all Starks, all Lannisters and Dany would be top tier).

I also expect GoT will continue to surprise-kill most major characters who die - i.e. via poison, brutal ambushes or assassinations, and evil magic.

Some random predictions just for fun:

Bronn kills Tyrion.

Jaime kills Cersei.

Yara kills Euron.

One of the Clegane bros kills the other.

Some more supporting characters will probably bite the dust one way or another, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that’s about it for major characters dying. They might also resolve the Jon and Dany “conflict” by just killing one of them off - it’s either that or they get married at the end.

The Iron Throne itself gets destroyed as a symbol of some new political situation at the end (breaking the wheel, yada yada).

I hope I’m completely wrong, and something revelatory/surprising/really clever would be very welcome, but I don’t count on it.

[BillButNotBen]

I kinda rewatched it, though mainly just to clarify a few things for myself (like why jon was standing and shouting in a dragon’s face… still not sure on that one).
On second viewing, it’s basically really good. Sure there are the issues with tactics, clarity and plot armour, but overall it’s a pretty stunning achievement for a tv show.

While things like the Arya-ninja were a bit overdone recently, each of those scenes were really well put together. The one where she’s sneaking silently through the library is crazy tense, and the timing/choreography for the jump-attack is really great. In ten seconds they go from ‘Bran’s fucked! to OMG Yay! to Shit no! to Hell yeah!’

The other thing I didn’t mention, and I’m not sure if anyone did here, is that the music was awesome. It does a really great job building tension throughout the whole episode, before breaking into almost calm/silence before the final denouement.
It’s very Dark Knight at times, with hints of LotR and something else that has slipped my mind right now.

[Shadoko]

Him and The Master should probably have a pint sometime.

Now I want a TARDIS to show up in the last episode.

In other news, I finally watched said episode and I have one thing to say, that dagger drop is indeed sick.

[Shadoko]

Also, re : the Dothraki charge. It didn’t sound too idiotic to me when I saw it. The previous battles in which they featured seemed to show that the Dothraki can’t be trusted as a legit shock cavalry force (heck they don’t even know how to charge properly). They’re best used as light cavalry, harassing the enemy and, well, doing, light cavalry things. But the thing is, what can a light cavalry do in such a battle ? You’ve got an enemy with basically no logistics nor supply lines, an enormous amount of soldiers, an extremely mobile super-unit that breathes fire, and leaders that are essentially unkillable unless you have a very specific, very rare weapon. There’s basically nothing a light cavalry can do there. It’s a given that the whole battle is going to be a muddy mess : there’s snow, it’s at night, it’s freezing cold and there’s an enormous amount of soldiers involved on both sides as well as a magical storm : even a disciplined cavalry force would have trouble doing anything constructive, like flanking the enemy or the like. In that context, sacrificing the Dothraki in one massive suicide charge with the hope of weakening the enemy doesn’t seem like a bad plan, really. An extremely cynical and desperate one, but not an awful one given the circumstances.

[LexW]

The previous battles in which they featured seemed to show that the Dothraki can’t be trusted as a legit shock cavalry force

??? Really? They seemed to do really good at the loot train battle. But either way it works out the same way. They would be useless inside the walls, even if there was room for their horses (which there isn’t), so sending them to smash into the enemy and maybe do some damage isn’t a terrible idea. Indeed, if you look at the density of wight forces in the previous confrontations, particularly Hardhome, particularly the initial forces, they’re actually such that Dothraki one-shotting them with flaming swords (and flaming swords absolutely should one-shot wights in both show and book lore - not White Walkers though) could cause them a serious problem.

But this was World War Z levels of zombie density. Nothing short of massive AOE weaponry or physical obstacles is really going to cope with that. They didn’t know that though, they couldn’t see it. And hell, even if they had been dealing with a lesser density, the White Walkers would have called Winter soon enough (as they did after the dragon strikes started) which would have dealt with the Dothraki.

[Skalpadda]

Well, they knew they couldn’t win in the field and the White Walkers can raise the dead, so sending thousands of men to get murdered by them isn’t a very good strategy for weakening them - quite the opposite. It was also never going to do much to achieve their main objective, which was to hold off the dead for as long as possible. Judging by Dany’s reaction it’s also hard to think sending them on a kamikaze run was intentional.

Light cavalry might be shitty against an undead army, but practically anything they could’ve done instead would have been better, including nothing at all. As an obvious suggestion, the walls were clearly undermanned, so park the horses (or eat them - a major food shortage was lamp-shaded in an earlier episode) and have them guard the walls, shoot fire arrows, whatever.

I suspect the reason the charge and killing all the Dothraki off is because it looked cool and gave us a scary initial scene, seeing the Dothraki get swallowed by darkness. They also probably didn’t want to shoot and animate lots of horses throughout the 1½ hours. And it did look cool, just don’t think about whether it made sense.

[Shadoko]

But this was World War Z levels of zombie density. Nothing short of massive AOE weaponry or physical obstacles is really going to cope with that. They didn’t know that though, they couldn’t see it.

Did they ? I was under the feeling that entire strategy was to lure the Night KIng in and kill him, hoping he would act like a video game boss and take all his minions with him. I mean it’s like battling the Reapers, the sheer density of enemies, their resilience plus the fact that the Night King can fucking resurrect the dead means that there’s no way to actually defeat them in a conventional battle. Heck, even a well-entrenched early 20th century army would have issue with the White Walkers. The only viable solution is to drown the fuckers in napalm then engage the NK and hope you kill him. There’s no viable strategy bar trying to sneak-kill him, and I feel like Daenerys and co knew that, so that that point, sensible tactics aren’t going to change anything. That’s how I explain the charge.

??? Really? They seemed to do really good at the loot train battle.

My memory is fuzzy, but didn’t they take lots of losses ? It kinda seemed like that during their charge, and the wights are a much scarier defense than the Lannister, even with a pikewall.

And in the end, yeah, rule of cool prevails.

Also, the death of Melisandre is quite touching, I thought. Felt like she was in some way removing herself from the world, at long last, as her goal had been attained. A fitting end for the character, I’d say.

[Skalpadda]

So, probably nothing more to come of Bran or the Walkers or any North stuff. The actual bigger existential threat was beaten in one, and we’re back to squabbling. It’ll be about what happens to Cersei and perhaps some Mad Queen Daenerys action to keep us interested. I’m back to hoping everyone dies, and they still might.

Dorne gets a shoutout. Wonder if it’s a last minute setup for some dorneus ex machina. Probably not.

I guess they just forgot that Euron exists, and the crazy scorpios.

And it’s a bit funny how they spend a huge chunk of the episode on worrying about how not to murder everyone in King’s Landing. Just send Arya, she’ll make pies of them in no time.