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.
,
This entry was originally posted at https://shapinglight.dreamwidth.org/3790782.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
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.
,
This entry was originally posted at https://shapinglight.dreamwidth.org/3790782.html. Please comment there using OpenID.