Wow.
Just – WOW.
What an epic battle. It has been years in the making, and we’ve been setting up the piece for a couple of episodes now, but the battle between the White Walkers and the people of the 7 kingdoms finally came out.
Warning Spoilers below
What a Long Night
The opening of the episode set the tone perfectly for the rest of the episode. We went about 12 minutes bouncing between most of the main characters, those who’s lives would be in peril for the next 80 minutes, and not even a word was said.
It was such a smart way to open such a big battle. While I knew what was coming, and I was already nervous, the silence almost put me on edge.
To follow up the silence with a trip to the front line right on the edge of darkness was almost too much for me.
Then as if out of nowhere, Melisandre shows up. I couldn’t remember the last I had actually seen her at this point. But she rides in and no one really bats an eye at her for a while. Maybe they were all focused on the coming flood of ice zombies so much, they didn’t care that a witch had walked right in front of them.
But with the red-headed witch came help from the Lord of Light. In a show of hope, she grasps one of the Dothraki swords and ignites it. Then all of the Dothraki swords burst to life as well. For the first, and not even close to the last,
The writers mention in the after credits section that this entire episode is a battle, and it’s the longest episode ever. They had to do things to keep it interesting so it wasn’t just fighting the entire time. This is a long fight and there’s no levity. So they do things to change it up.
Tidal Wave
The first phase of the battle was insane. The Dothraki, with their swords on fire, charge forwards towards the dark – and the episode was full of
I’m not sure they meant to go so dark that people had to adjust their settings on the TV, but I do think that they meant to keep it dark so that you didn’t know what was happening. The men on the field had no idea what was going on, and this was one way to convey that to the audience.
As the Dothraki charge, they become engulfed in the darkness. You get sparks of something towering and tearing at the horde.
The camera returns to the front lines and we start to see the Dothraki swords being extinguished one after the other. This horde of warriors that were the best and bravest of fighters, gets destroyed in
A wave of white-walkers, crawling over each other, creating a tsunami of death.
I didn’t think that anyone would have a chance at surviving this battle.
Throughout the entire battle, we see these important figures like Brienne and Jaime being overwhelmed. Still, they survived the night. I thought for sure they were all dead, but I was mistaken once again.
The battle felt like there would be no victory for our characters the entire way through. When you have a character like the Hound that has done so much damage over the years in battle, and see him retreat and be scared and hopeless, it shows how devastating the battle was looking.
Still, most of the characters held their ranks and fought.
The Dragons
Once again, Jon Snow did nothing this week. He rode his dragon into battle, and tried to burn up some of the white walkers, but there were so many it didn’t amount to much.
A blizzard started up which impaired their vision. It was never really made clear, but it was implied that the Night King had brought the blizzard.
Still, the Aunt and her Nephew tried to do what they could to deal with the wave. The dragons ended up doing damage to everyone, but they did help end the tsunami.
About the halfway point, the Night King finally made his appearance on the back of his own captured dragon. The dragons and their riders all fought in the air for a moment before the action turned to the ground.
Jon saw the Night King
In one of the coolest/cruelest scenes saw Dani sweep in on her dragon to save Jon, but then have her dragon swarmed by the newly made frost army. It looked like the dragon had stepped in a pile of ants as these men crawled and stabbed all over it.
Dani fell or jumped off so that the dragon could fly and knock off the ants. She and Jon were now all alone in different locations to fend for themselves. Until poor Jorah came to Dani’s rescue.
The Crypts
Well, I called it last week, but I envisioned something worse than what happened.
When the Night King summons the dead to fight for him, the Starks in the crypt
Tyrion had been itching to get out on the battlefield, but he didn’t really do anything once the battle showed up but hide. He has really become frustrating. I hope that he gets the send off that he deserves. Right now, they seem to be setting up a rekindling of a marriage that has been dead for a while now with Sansa.
Sansa says that it will never work because he has pledged himself to the Dragon Queen, to which Missandei says that they wouldn’t have to worry about it if the Dragon Queen wasn’t here because they’d be dead.
Mic dropped.
Resident Evil Arya
Arya has always been one of my favorite characters way since season 1. It has been such a journey as she has transformed into the badass that she is now. But after the buildup to the battle, the focus on her new weapon, and her confidence, I was slightly underwhelmed by her.
When the red witch showed up, she and Arya shared a moment. Again, with my rewatch going on, I had recently passed up the spot where they had met for the first time and Mel took Gendry. I wasn’t sure if they had interacted since then, but I figured the glance had more to do with Mel taking away Arya’s boo.
Once the fighting broke out, Arya kicked some but for a while with her bow, saving The Hound with a well-placed fire arrow even. When the wall was breached, Arya took on some of the white walkers with her new weapon. The weapon let me down. I was expecting some type of projectile.
Then Arya hit her head, and completely seemed out of character.
Arya seemed to be fleeing from battle through her old home. She headed through the library, but we don’t really know what her plan was or what her final destination was. As different as this part of the episode was, I felt like this part came out of nowhere.
This part was well done though. It felt very much like a zombie movie as Arya ducked, dipped, dived, and dodged her way through the library until there were too many to dodge. Then she ran again.
It was good that she did too though because she ended up coming in contact with The Hound and Beric. Beric ended up risking his 7th life to save hers. This brought them back in contact with Mel who reminded Arya that she has shut the eyes of someone with brown, green, and -blue eyes.
Once the line was said, I knew who kills the Night King. I was floored. I always figured it would be
Redemption Song
Meanwhile, during the battle, Theon and Bran sat in the Godswood doing – something? I think they played bait for reasons…
Theon does his best (and he actually does well) to protect Bran from the incoming horde. Theon tries to apologize to Bran because that’s what everyone does now. Notice how no one really apologized to the cripple boy for years before now? Everyone just tried to kill him for years and now he’s the one that everyone needs.
Bran gives Theon what he’s been looking for since Ned Stark died: acceptance. Bran tells Theon that he did a good job and that he is a good man.
Theon then charges at the Night King with a spear and dies almost instantly. Theon has really suffered through so much since he turned on the Starks in season two. I’m not sure it’s enough to actually redeem him fully, but he does make an effort.
The Night King continues his trek towards Bran because of reasons again. They mentioned that they need to kill the Three-Eyed Raven to help end Men, but they don’t do anything to destroy books,
Just when you think Bran is about to get gutted, Arya springs out
The Night King and all his men turn to ice chips just like half the Marvel Universe last year.
In The Meantime
In between everything, there were some epic moments and I have some lingering questions. The MVP of the night (other than Arya) has to go to Lady Lyanna Mormont. The frost giant busted through the doors of Winterfell sending her flying. To which she picked herself up and launched a knife at the Giant, taking him out as she was squeezed to death.
I’m going to take a moment here for all the confirmed dead that we know about…
- The Night King – Stabbed by Arya
- Melisandre – suicide by old age once her necklace is taken off?
- Theon Greyjoy – defending Bran and winning back his manhood.
- Lyanna Mormont – taking out the giant
- Ser Jorah Mormont – defending his friendzone spot.
- Ser Beric Dondarrion – gave his life for Arya
- Edd Tollett – Saved Samwell and then got stabbed through the eye
Viseron – Turned into ice chips will playing Jon Snow wack-a-mole.
There are questions about Ghost. The dire-wolf helped lead the attack with the Dothraki at the beginning of the battle and was never seen from again. Is he still alive? We never got any kind of resolution there.
Also, we only see one dragon at the end of the episode. I assume that both dragons are still alive.
What’s next?
The Night King is dead and the threat from the north is gone.
I don’t want to say that was easy, because it wasn’t. Many people died, the army is cut to shreds, Winterfell is in ruins, and
Still, for 8 years were leading up to Winter coming. The closing scene of last season was the dragons punching a hole in the wall. We used two episodes to set up the fight, and now it’s done. I feel unsatisfied with it all.
The episode was awesome and well done, but what?
Now we’re left with Cersei in Kingslanding and who will sit on the throne, but for such a major plot point to be gone in one episode still feels weird to me.
But I trust that they have a plan.
I would also like to get a full count of who is actually dead. I doubt any major would have died without us seeing it, but that plot armor is thick these days. Much thicker than it used to be.
I feel like Martin will handle the ending in a different way. I don’t think as many will make it through the battle. Still, I’m sure it’s hard for the writers to know where to take the story without the books.
Regardless, it was still a tense battle and great episode. I can’t wait to see what happens next, looks like we’ll be recovering from this battle and checking in on Kingslanding next week.
