shapinglight | Game of Thrones Season 8 Ep 3

Watched this last night.

Spoilers behind cut.

This was the episode in which my (always unrealistic, and no doubt very icky to some) 'shipper hopes crashed and burned forever. Or rather died in a welter of blood and fire. I suppose Jorah died how he would have wanted to, defending his beloved Dany to his last breath, but I'm still very sad about it. Not least because, with him gone, there's no one left who Dany respects enough to really listen to. I'm afraid that in the remaining episodes her character flaws, now unchecked, are going to play right into Cersei's hands.

Jorah apart, there were far fewer notable deaths in this episode than I was expecting - Theon, of course, finally getting the redemption he craved, Beric, Edd, Lyanna Mormont (upset about that one too, but she was completely awesome in her last moments), and most notably Melisandre. I'll never forgive the character for what she did to Shireen, but she did well in this episode and I realised (rather belatedly because it hasn't changed) how much I love her creepy musical theme - though the music in this show is always wonderful.

I'm also pretty upset about the Dothraki. I knew Dany was bringing them to Westeros to get them all killed, and she did. Same with the Unsullied, though I think at least some of them (and Greyworm - hooray!) survived the battle.

And it was a bloody big battle, and often very confusing due to how dark everything was. Not quite too dark to see, but frequently dark enough to make following the action difficult. I suppose that does help viewers to see things from the characters' perspectives. Also, they did break the full-on battle stuff enough with other things to stop it getting all a bit too much- like with Arya, Beric and the Hound in the halls of Winterfell, and with scenes down in the crypt (where I'm not sure how anyone managed to survive at all).

Yes, so all in all, I think they did good, though I'm a bit sad that Cersei won't ever have to face the Night King now and will continue in her smug belief that they were (mostly) making it up. I also don't see how Dany can possibly have enough troops left to take on Cersei now, even if the people of 'the North' agree to follow her, which isn't by any means certain. And of course the whole Dany/Jon thing is still completely unresolved.

As for the climax - Arya being the one to kill the Night King - I understand there's been a fanboy backlash about this and some are now saying Arya's a Mary Sue and it's all feminist bullshit. Which has to be the sourest bunch of grapes I've come across recently, given Arya's character arc over eight seasons.

They're probably just pissed off that their pet theory about Bran being the Night King turned out to be a load of bollocks.

Trivial stuff (though again there wasn't much of it): I'm glad, judging by next week's preview that Jon's dragon seems to have survived the battle (it didn't look good at one point). Ghost also.

In fact, if no one is left alive at the end except two dragons and a direwolf, I'll be fine with that.

ETA: As I said on

beer_good_foamy's review, what happens in this episode - the total defeat of what everyone assumed was the overall series villain mid-final season, rather reminds me of season 4 of Babylon Five (which could well have been the last), where the Shadows were defeated (or at least persuaded to go away) mid-season and the rest of it was spent reclaiming Earth from its proto-fascist government. In fact, it reminds me of that so much I'm tempted to try to find out if Benioff and Weiss were B5 fans as kids, but I've no idea how you'd go about that.

I also agree with

beer_good_foamy that, given how useless Bran was in the battle (beyond being bait), and the Night King's demise, it does feel like there's been very little pay-off for the mythology behind the series, which is what Bran's role as Three Eyed Raven is all about - the Children of the Forest, the First Men, etc, etc. However, I suspect that Benioff and Weiss are a lot less interested in this than GRRM himself, hence the short shrift it got.
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Jesus. We're doomed as a species, aren't we?

Yep. Undoubtedly. :(

As I said on [personal profile] beer_good_foamy's review, what happens in this episode - the total defeat of what everyone assumed was the overall series villain mid-final season, rather reminds me of season 4 of Babylon Five (which could well have been the last), where the Shadows were defeated (or at least persuaded to go away) mid-season and the rest of it was spent reclaiming Earth from its proto-fascist government. In fact, it reminds me of that so much I'm tempted to try to find out if Benioff and Weiss were B5 fans as kids, but I've no idea how you'd go about that.

You needn't spend time on doing that. The reason isn't copying B5 (although they might still be fans of course) it is that the Knight King was never the overall series villain. The story of this show is about who gets to rule Westeros out of the original protagonists, everything to do with the Knight King is what's known as a Gate Guardian. Basically, for a protagonist to be ultimately successful they have to prove their worth against a series of Gate Guardians. The final denouement will then be between the protagonists (Danny and Jon) and antagonist (Cersei). That is why Cersei wasn't around for this battle - the antagonist needs to be kept back for the final conflict. You will be able to tell who is going to win by watching for which protagonist overcomes their personal moral difficulties first - that person will lose. The last protagonist still with a moral arc to complete will win. Danny clearly still has a big moral arc to finish. I don't even know what Jon's arc is - but then I don't watch the show. If he doesn't have a moral arc at all, then he is just another gate Guardian for Danny. The only real variation still left is whether this is going to be a tragedy or not.

And as for how I am so confident about all this - it comes from having read a few books on screen writing theory. Once you've done that you realise just how formulaic all storytelling is, and the magic goes right out of it :/

Oh and over on beer-good-faomy's journal you were all wondering about all the Dothraki being killed and the implications. That is standard stuff as well. You can't have the protagonist going into the final conflict with the odds too great in their favour - it makes things dull. So they would always need to lose the bulk of their forces somehow before facing Cersei. Fairness, just deserts, race, etc don't come into the calculation, it's just about the writers adjusting the odds.

I do realise the Dothraki being the ones to die is nothing to do with race. Not deliberately anyway. However, it's an unfortunate fact that Dany's army that takes the brunt of the Night King's attack is composed of the only non-white characters in the show.

And in fact, the show has made it a teeny bit about race in these last few episodes, in that Dothraki and Unsullied were viewed with a great deal of hostility by the people of Winterfell, who of course had never seen anyone like them, when they first arrived.

Would have been a bit weird if they hadn't reacted in some way.

Oh I get that it will come across as racial to most viewers, and will probably cause upset and hurt to some. Unavoidable, unfortunately. They can't stay in Westeross because of the balance problem and it would be a ridiculous story if they all sailed back home happily ever after.

Well, okay then. The Night King thing has been building from the very first scene of the very first episode, though.

Well either it was poor storytelling where the writers can got so en-mired in the structure of the story they forgot how it would come across to normal viewers. Or they were going for surprise value precisely because it had been building so long. I think the later. They want exactly the reaction you have had. I think they are now going to raise the tension every episode and you will soon not care less about the Night King because you will come to see that he was actually not relevant to the fundamental matter of who should rule. What's left isn't just tidying up, it is the real meat of the big question.

As for the climax - Arya being the one to kill the Night King - I understand there's been a fanboy backlash about this and some are now saying Arya's a Mary Sue and it's all feminist bullshit. Which has to be the sourest bunch of grapes I've come across recently, given Arya's character arc over eight seasons.

They're probably just pissed off that their pet theory about Bran being the Night King turned out to be a load of bollocks.

Sigh.

Yeah, I read that as well. I was relieved it wasn't Jon Snow who did it. I honestly don't get the theory that Bran is the Night King -- that makes no sense. I read it and I thought, okay these people don't think logically, because the Night King was created over a 1000 years prior to Bran's birth.
And to be honest, Jon Snow sort of struck me as a bit of a Marty Stu, he can't die. The man has more lives than a cat.

I agree with beer good foamy, we're doomed as a species.

I agree with beer good foamy, we're doomed as a species.

Probably, for the sake of the planet, the sooner the better.

Personally, I'm surprised we haven't destroyed ourselves yet...probably too stupid to figure it out?

Anyhow, agree with you -- as long as the dragons and the direwolf survive, I'm good. I stopped shipping the characters a while back.

I agree that with all the "omg it will be worse than the Red Wedding" posts online, the deaths in this episode were kinda low-stakes, apart from Jorah. We all knew Theon wasn't going to make it. Everyone else had a name but not a lot of connection to the audience.

And after Jorah gave Dany the whole speech about Tyrion and listening to him, I had a bad feeling. That was like his "I'm retiring tomorrow" speech.

And after Jorah gave Dany the whole speech about Tyrion and listening to him, I had a bad feeling. That was like his "I'm retiring tomorrow" speech.

I had somewhat that feeling too, and I always thought he would die somewhat the way he did, but I did think he would make it till almost the end of the season.

Poor Jorah. :(

Edited 2019-05-04 14:02 (UTC)

Game of Thrones Season 8 Ep 3

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