Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended

[ivaldo]

They have light outside the walls. They also have infantry support and potentially archers, and positions where they can hold the enemy rather than charging aimlessly at them with no hope of actually achieving anything.

What, more fecked than dead in about 20 seconds because they charged without knowing what they were doing and with nobody nearby to help them? Look at how much better the packed infantry fighting from defensive positions fared. The dothraki would have been more use in a support role on foot behind the unsullied, cutting apart anybody who gets through the gaps, helping to fight in hand to hand combat on the walls etc. That's 40 thousand more men helping to stop the dead breaching the walls.

Instead that 40k was thrown away for no reason, blindly. I don't get how you can possibly justify that as a sound tactical decision. The dothraki are superb individual warriors, either on horseback or on foot. In this situation the horses were not needed since it was a battle with no visibility in front of a defensive position. Dismount and keep them within the castle, it's not really that hard.

It is lazy. A competent commander does not make that decision, especially commanders who have great experience with the enemy they are fighting and how dangerous they are. There's a reason they didn't decide to march on the NK and fight him in the open field.

The Dothraki had flaming swords and didn't notice them until they collided. And if the the undead get within reach of the light from the walls, it's a little late to employ a mounted unit. We don't know what they wanted to achieve. Can you say categorically that a feigned retreat wasn't planned? That they didn't plan to use the trap they employed a little more effectively?

Yes. Because now they are fecked within 20 seconds and a big shiny new army for the night King to reanimate on your doorstep.

 

[RedTiger]

So did the eyepatch guy

He had name, it was Beric!

 

[Annihilate Now!]

I think the reason they didn't show it, is cause it would spoil the surprise. If you could see her coming, there'd be no suspense at the end.

I would think they could make a tension filled scene if we are seeing her trying to get there in time.

If they just wanted a surprise, they could have had Cersi appear from nowhere and kill him... I dunno, I just think it could have been done much better

 

[RedSky]

Yes fecking way. The unsullied are quite literally bred for battle. Their balls are chopped off to remove any urge that distracts from their sole purpose in life. At the battle of Qohor 3,000 Unsullied stop 20,000 Dothraki. There's no debate.

They're a mile away from the battle. Their sole job was to fight the Night King. They had zero chance of winning that battle any other way. Dragons or no dragons. Besides, the Night King literally catches them unawares, despite being on an equally enormous dragon.

Again, you're comparing them to an actual fighting unit. They're raiders that go into blood frenzies. And they're fighting hordes of the undead, a giant and a dragon. We don't know if the intent was to meet them or to gather intel or feign retreat. We don't know if they wanted the honour of attacking first. We aren't given enough information to make an informed decision.

If thats the case then great, perhaps they should have let the tv audience know that the unsullied were decent. Instead they made them fairly shit throughout all seasons while Dothraki slaughtered everyone they came into contact with.

Why would you send your entire force to gather intelligence? Why would you allow them to attack first with no support? Why not have both your fire breathing dragons to support them? It was clearly an intentional attack thinking about it because they had the catapult rounds prepared and fired them off. So why let them ride in while your dragons sit on a cliff? It makes no sense. From Jons perspective they knew they had a Dragon, possible giants, possible bears and an absolute feck ton of wights. We already saw that both dragons could burn a lot of wights and they were all massed together so a few bombing runs would do substantial damage.

Why not prepare the battleground beforehand and ensure that you could actually see what was coming at you?

Fair enough if you think sending them out is a valid strategy, I think it was hilariously bad and completely incompetent commanding and another example of shite writing which has been a fairly common theme for the last few seasons. I accepted this was the case last Season and rolled with it, but this is endgame now and it pisses me off that we've had 8 years of build up and we get shit like this. I don't seem to be alone in thinking this either.

 

[MadMike]

They got me then. But why would I, not an England fan, notice that was England in the WC?

England flags everywhere, a pub with a giant tv screen, blokes tossing beer in the air in excitement. Don’t need to be a fecking Clouseau to put two and two together.

 

[RedSky]

Seems to me they were pretty well informed they were attacking at that moment. They also have Bran. I think you're being pretty ambitious if you think a half dozen catapults are going to do the job from a mile away. And if you think it's stupid sending the Dothraki into the unknown, why the feck would sending your dragon in be any better?

It's better sending something to support an attack than just abandoning an army and hoping they'll be ok.

 

[MadMike]

I would think they could make a tension filled scene if we are seeing her trying to get there in time.

If they just wanted a surprise, they could have had Cersi appear from nowhere and kill him... I dunno, I just think it could have been done much better

Respectfully disagree. It would have been utterly predictable. The Cersei bit makes no sense, might as well get Captain Marvel to come down and rocket fist him.

 

[do.ob]

The Dothraki riding off into complete darkness to face certain death was one of the most stupid moments of the show and it far surpasses suspension of disbelief.
You face an overwhelming foe and you send in your forces one unit at a time, so they can get slaughtered? Come on..

 

[Berbaclass]

One thing that annoyed me was there were scenes where multiple characters were pretty much engulfed by the dead and next minute they are able to fight them one by one. Feck off.

Also

Spoiler

I'm so fecking pissed that they killed Jorah, one of the 3 characters I didn't want them to kill FFS

 

[Nanotron]

in the second episode of s1, Brans eyes open just as Ned kills Lady. Wonder what the relevance is there.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Actually just said this to my brother on whats app this afternoon

Spoiler

i think jon will kill bran in the next 3 episodes. I just think there's some unexplained connection between bran and the NK and that story isn't finished

Good point.

I think a lot of people in here need to think that maybe the Night King isn't completely dead yet

 

[ivaldo]

If thats the case then great, perhaps they should have let the tv audience know that the unsullied were decent. Instead they made them fairly shit throughout all seasons while Dothraki slaughtered everyone they came into contact with.

Why would you send your entire force to gather intelligence? Why would you allow them to attack first with no support? Why not have both your fire breathing dragons to support them? It was clearly an intentional attack thinking about it because they had the catapult rounds prepared and fired them off. So why let them ride in while your dragons sit on a cliff? It makes no sense. From Jons perspective they knew they had a Dragon, possible giants, possible bears and an absolute feck ton of wights. We already saw that both dragons could burn a lot of wights and they were all massed together so a few bombing runs would do substantial damage.

Why not prepare the battleground beforehand and ensure that you could actually see what was coming at you?

Fair enough if you think sending them out is a valid strategy, I think it was hilariously bad and completely incompetent commanding and another example of shite writing which has been a fairly common theme for the last few seasons. I accepted this was the case last Season and rolled with it, but this is endgame now and it pisses me off that we've had 8 years of build up and we get shit like this. I don't seem to be alone in thinking this either.

No, it is the case. They make plenty of references when Dany first acquires the Unsullied about how amazing they are. It doesn't take much to realise men bred and trained for the single purpose of organised combat would be better at it than a bunch of unruly tribesmen who spend their evenings fecking slaves and killing each other for a laugh.

If you're going to feign an attack, I don't think sending Sam and half a dozen peasants would cut it. The sole job of the fire breathing dragons was to stop the Night King. There was literally no way they could win that fight otherwise. As far as Dany and Jon was concerned, if you commit your dragons and lose them, you lose. All the battle was ever there for was to buy time. Fair enough if you think sending your own gaming winning piece in first was the way to go, but I think it's pretty stupid.

 

[Minimalist]

One thing that annoyed me was there were scenes where multiple characters were pretty much engulfed by the dead and next minute they are able to fight them one by one. Feck off.

Also

Spoiler

I'm so fecking pissed that they killed Jorah, one of the 3 characters I didn't want them to kill FFS

Pretty good comment on reddit along the lines of: I was devastated when Brienne, Sam and Jaime died... but the next four times they died not so much.

 

[ivaldo]

It's better sending something to support an attack than just abandoning an army and hoping they'll be ok.

As far as Dany and Jon were concerned, the dragons were the only reasonable way to kill the Night King, and you want to lead the line with them?

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

Great visuals, plot was hanging on by a thread though. Arya killing the nk was fine, its grown on me a bit as it was nicely foreshadowed and fits with the arc. it was pretty well handled all things considered, i was just completely surprised thats the way they were taking the plot.

My only major gripe was the very beginning of the battle, they had loads of trebuchets and fired them once then ran away, wasted the Dothraki
immediately, although it was for cinematic effect which was a cool scene. however theres a massive continuity error/scale problem in that Dany brought 100,000 troops to westeros, they didnt lose many unsullied taking carstelly rock, and lost even less dothraki killing the lannister army at highgarden. they must have had about 1000 dothraki at the battle? and maybe 2/3 thousand unsullied? allowing for casualties and whatever you want, they are missing like 40/50/60.000 troops that just disappeared from the show.

 

[Ubik]

Ahahaha I see some out there have started calling Arya a Mary Sue, how am I not shocked.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

I wish they'd shown arya actually making her way to the NK... Or at least something to set up the ending. Really felt cheap to me... Though i guess a lot of people will think it's cool so maybe I'm just a miserable git.

They explained this in the behind the scenes. They didn't want the audience to have Arya in mind so her attack would come as more of a shock. I think that absolutely was the right decision.

There were some things in the battle that could have been done better but Arya was not one of them. They nailed Arya's part for me. Showing her making her way to the NK would have ruined all the suspense of her attack and would have been poor TV imo.

 

[MrMarcello]

England flags everywhere, a pub with a giant tv screen, blokes tossing beer in the air in excitement. Don’t need to be a fecking Clouseau to put two and two together.

He who don't know nothing, must know something, eh?

 

[RedSky]

No, it is the case. They make plenty of references when Dany first acquires the Unsullied about how amazing they are. It doesn't take much to realise men bred and trained for the single purpose of organised combat would be better at it than a bunch of unruly tribesmen who spend their evenings fecking slaves and killing each other for a laugh.

If you're going to feign an attack, I don't think sending Sam and half a dozen peasants would cut it. The sole job of the fire breathing dragons was to stop the Night King. There was literally no way they could win that fight otherwise. As far as Dany and Jon was concerned, if you commit your dragons and lose them, you lose. All the battle was ever there for was to buy time. Fair enough if you think sending your own gaming winning piece in first was the way to go, but I think it's pretty stupid.

So your plan against the army of the dead which is a last stand battle. Is to commit your biggest chunk of troops on a feign attack at the very start of the battle completely away from the rest of your forces in the hope that.... the army of the dead would attack which they were going too anyway... I simply don't see it.

As far as Dany and Jon were concerned, the dragons were the only reasonable way to kill the Night King, and you want to lead the line with them?

Well they changed their plan super fast when whatever the Dothraki did whether planned or not failed spectacularly and provided the Night King with a nice army boost before the battle even began. I just don't see their need to go in with such a risky strategy right at the start. It doesn't seem like the type of plan Jon would agree with.

Anyway i'm done with this discussion because neither of us are changing our opinion. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I really hope I get the enjoy the remaining episodes. I'll be gutted if I don't, I love this show

 

[Shane88]

Someone on another forum I'm on pointed out that generally big characters don't die in the battles...

Battle of Blackwater:

Ser Mandon Moore
Davos’ son

Attack on Castle Black:

Pyp
Grenn
Ygritte
Styr (Thenn dude)

Hardhome:

Karsi (who was introduced that episode)
Another Thenn
A White Walker

Battle of the Bastards:

Rickon
Wun Wun
Ramsey

Winterfell:

Theon
Lyanna
Beric
Jorah
Edd
The Night King
The White Walkers, Viserion & entire Army of the Dead
The Dothrakis

Anyone missing off those lists? It says Viserion there but he was already dead as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, by comparison, last night had much bigger casualties than the other battle episodes.

 

[ivaldo]

So your plan against the army of the dead which is a last stand battle. Is to commit your biggest chunk of troops on a feign attack at the very start of the battle completely away from the rest of your forces in the hope that.... the army of the dead would attack which they were going too anyway... I simply don't see it.



Well they changed their plan super fast when whatever the Dothraki did whether planned or not failed spectacularly and provided the Night King with a nice army boost before the battle even began. I just don't see their need to go in with such a risky strategy right at the start. It doesn't seem like the type of plan Jon would agree with.

Anyway i'm done with this discussion because neither of us are changing our opinion. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I really hope I get the enjoy the remaining episodes. I'll be gutted if I don't, I love this show

They had traps and hidden dragons, i don't think it was a stretch to think they wanted to lure the Night King and co out earlier was part of their plan. What we know is clearly whatever they were trying didn’t work. We have basically no prior knowledge of what the plan was but there are several scenarios like a feigned attack or an over zealous Dothraki as plausible possibilities, and that’s enough for me to enjoy what was an visually epic scene.

Dany reacted poorly to it and Jon clearly tried to stop her from doing it. The plan was fecked from the off; doesn’t mean there wasn’t a plan there. We could even have seen a feigned retreat and then the dragons deployed to divide the charging force. There’s so many possibilities that makes it plausible, we just don’t know them.

 

[Maxii]

Unbelievable episode. One of the greatest things I’ve ever watched. Some miserable fecks in here though. I agree with some of the gripes, but to think some people thought that the episode was garbage? Cop the feck on. If that was garbage you’ll never enjoy another episode of anything ever again.

 

[Peyroteo]

Very weird to see so many people complaining about the lighting, never had any problem with it.

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

Little OTT at this bar. It's a fecking TV show not a walk-off homerun to win the Series or Ole scoring in the 90+3 against Bayern.

Spoiler

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

If you watch it closely, they all start cheering a couple of seconds before Arya stabs the NK and he shatters into broken ice glass.

It looks like an edit. Possibly England World Cup.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

So your plan against the army of the dead which is a last stand battle. Is to commit your biggest chunk of troops on a feign attack at the very start of the battle completely away from the rest of your forces in the hope that.... the army of the dead would attack which they were going too anyway... I simply don't see it.

I think you are looking at the battle wrong. They aren't trying to win a pitched battle against the army of the dead. As stated last episode their entire strategy is based on luring the alleged Night King against Bran.

I think people are assuming that they were trying to win a head to head fight. They weren't.

 

[2E_MUFC]

What amazing tv that was. What were people actually expecting with the NK? If he wasn’t killed then everybody else would of been? I still feel like there’s something there still with Bran I’m just not sure what yet. The one thing that was missing was some kind of sword fight between Jon and the NK in my opinion.

 

[RedSky]

I think you are looking at the battle wrong. They aren't trying to win a pitched battle against the army of the dead. As stated last episode their entire strategy is based on luring the alleged Night King against Bran.

I think people are assuming that they were trying to win a head to head fight. They weren't.

I'm really not looking at it wrong, i'm looking at it from the perspective of the soldiers. Would they be happy to see 40,000 of their comrades doing a suicide dash against the AotD at the very start of the battle? That's something you do when the situation is desperate and the battle plan has gone to complete shit. A last desperate assault (see Aragorn/Theoden at Helms Deep).

Perhaps their strategy was to provide the AotD with even more troops to ensure that the Northern Armies and Unsullied got wiped out so the Night King would get all cocky. (thats sarcasm btw).

 

[MrMarcello]

If you watch it closely, they all start cheering a couple of seconds before Arya stabs the NK and he shatters into broken ice glass.

It looks like an edit. Possibly England World Cup.

Yes, another poster kindly pointed that out. Barstoolsports got me but I doubt a bar could stream HBO, probably not permitted, and thus I played the fool this time around.

 

[LARulz]

It was explained. Night king wants to while out the race of man and Bran is the record keeper of all men

I am fed up of people saying this.

This not a reason for why the Night King and WW decided to wipe out mankind or whatever they were doing. And that's the point, we don't know WHY. We know he wanted to do something with Bran but no actual reason to anything. Why after 10k odd years did they decide to make a move? Did mankind do something wrong and they felt they had to destroy it to restart it? Did they just get bored of playing poker?

Killing Bran (not actually convinced he would have) to destroy memory of mankind is an action, not a reason. To not even be told why they have come back is pathetic.

They built them up as the ultimate bad guys - I still maintain we don't actually know if they were bad as we don't know why they were doing it. Humans fight for material things but they are therefore missing the wider picture and bigger threat. That's what I felt the show was about till last season. Jon kept saying he didn't want to be leader because there is a bigger threat, the red lady all the time kept saying the WW are a bigger threat, Dany/Stannis realising there will be no throne in a few years if they don't try and deal with the WW etc.

It's a fecking cop out by the writers who have butchered the show in the last 2 seasons

 

[2E_MUFC]

One slight complaint is I wish the ones who came out the tombs in the crypt were prominent characters from the past.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

I'm really not looking at it wrong, i'm looking at it from the perspective of the soldiers. Would they be happy to see 40,000 of their comrades doing a suicide dash against the AotD at the very start of the battle? That's something you do when the situation is desperate and the battle plan has gone to complete shit. A last desperate assault (see Aragorn/Theoden at Helms Deep).

Perhaps their strategy was to provide the AotD with even more troops to ensure that the Northern Armies and Unsullied got wiped out so the Night King would get all cocky. (thats sarcasm btw).

They already explained their overall strategy last episode: everyone knew fighting a pitched battle head to head against NK would result in a loss with everyone dying. They discussed their only winning strategy was to lure the NK to attack Bran in the Godswood.

Now could the writers have explained the specific tactics and strategems better? Absolutely. The Dothraki charge needed to be explained better.
Could some scenes have been shot better? Sure. It could have been less Hollywood and more like the books.

But ffs stop bringing up some battle from stupid LOTR movies. Its a completely different universe with different in-universe rules and the battles have completely different objectives (that was not sarcasm btw)

 

[Peyroteo]

I am fed up of people saying this.

This not a reason for why the Night King and WW decided to wipe out mankind or whatever they were doing. And that's the point, we don't know WHY. We know he wanted to do something with Bran but no actual reason to anything.

The show literally gave the reason... they were created to destroy mankind. Hence why they want to destroy mankind.

He didn't want to do 'something' with Bran. He wanted to kill him.

Why after 10k odd years did they decide to make a move? Did mankind do something wrong and they felt they had to destroy it to restart it? Did they just get bored of playing poker?

Because now they had a big enough army and there was one of the longest winters coming?

 

[Ian Reus]

One slight complaint is I wish the ones who came out the tombs in the crypt were prominent characters from the past.

Maybe they were. It was hard to tell with the blue eyes and skeleton frames.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

It was an amazing spectacle but it really underlined how stupid the show has gotten. The early series' strength as a story was that it followed a logical course where each 'event' only happened because it was a logical consequence of what had come before. Everything that happened, even if it was a shock, made sense in the context in which is happened and it gave the show a sense of gravitas. That episode was a demonstration of how far we are from that now.

At this point 1/2 of each episode is comprised of disparate events the writers reckon would be cool and the other 1/2 exists purely to tie those set-pieces together, no matter how nonsensically. The battle plan being clear garbage is a good example. If any of the competent commanders present at the battle had used their brains we wouldn't have got that bit where all the Dothraki swords went out. If they'd just defended the walls like anyone sensible would've done they'd have held out comfortably. In order for the set pieces to exist, it was necessary for the good guys to command the battle like a toddler playing a tower defence game.

 

[Sylar]

Watched it again after The initial hype of yesterday. Such a filler episode...

 

[2E_MUFC]

Maybe they were. It was hard to tell with the blue eyes and skeleton frames.

Could’ve been but I feel they would of made it more obvious.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

It was an amazing spectacle but it really underlined how stupid the show has gotten. The early series' strength as a story was that it followed a logical course where each 'event' only happened because it was a logical consequence of what had come before. Everything that happened, even if it was a shock, made sense in the context in which is happened and it gave the show a sense of gravitas. That episode was a demonstration of how far we are from that now.

At this point 1/2 of each episode is comprised of disparate events the writers reckon would be cool and the other 1/2 exists purely to tie those set-pieces together, no matter how nonsensically. The battle plan being clear garbage is a good example. If any of the competent commanders present at the battle had used their brains we wouldn't have got that bit where all the Dothraki swords went out. If they'd just defended the walls like anyone sensible would've done they'd have held out comfortably. In order for the set pieces to exist, it was necessary for the good guys to command the battle like a toddler playing a tower defence game.

Your suggestion is illogical though. Their goal was not to defend the walls and prevent a siege. Their goal was to lure the Night King out in the open with Bran as bait.

They already explained in the last episode that they couldn't have "held out comfortably". That was the whole point of last episode.

As I said they needed to explain it better but the suggestion that they "should have just defended the walls" like this was some bog standard siege is nonsensical and misses the point of the entire battle (Lure Out the Night King not Defend the Walls at All Costs).

 

[LARulz]

The show literally gave the reason... they were created to destroy mankind. Hence why they want to destroy mankind.

He didn't want to do 'something' with Bran. He wanted to kill him.

They were created thousands of years ago to destroy mankind but then disappeared to the point people thought it was myth.

The NK clearly had the resources to do this anytime he wanted, so why now? What was the trigger point (there were dragons between the time of their creation and now. Also he started the march south before Dany got her dragons).

To make them out to be some sort of 'they are evil just cos' is pathetic. No character in the show has been black/white or good/evil - so to make the NK just evil with a single thought and having no logic is poor writing

 

[RedSky]

They already explained their overall strategy last episode: everyone knew fighting a pitched battle head to head against NK would result in a loss with everyone dying. They discussed their only winning strategy was to lure the NK to attack Bran in the Godswood.

Now could the writers have explained the specific tactics and strategems better? Absolutely. The Dothraki charge needed to be explained better.
Could some scenes have been shot better? Sure. It could have been less Hollywood and more like the books.

But ffs stop bringing up some battle from stupid LOTR movies. Its a completely different universe with different in-universe rules and the battles have completely different objectives (that was not sarcasm btw)

Again, you've ignored my point. Explain to me how allowing 40,000 of your troops to charge directly at an unknown enemy is a good strategy to aid the 'plan' detailed in Episode 2. I've not seen one valid explanation as to how they all thought using a large size of their force to rush the dead would help entice the NK down to Bran? Why if that was the plan would they use only a few Iron Born to protect Bran in the first place? It simply doesn't make sense to me, none of them were even armed with Valyrian Steel. So you're guarding your prized asset with a handful of men none of which were armed with the top dollar goods. Meanwhile you commit probably at least a third of your army at your enemy straight away. It just doesn't make sense.

I don't think the writers needed to explain things better. If the Dothraki rode out without being ordered to then a simple "why are they attacking" shout from Jon to Daenerys would solve it. If they were ordered to attack then thats also a fine, again a simple line of dialogue would have fixed that in Episode 2 or even after they were crushed in Episode 3. You don't need to have a 10 minute war plan council, but having your audience accept that they would order the Dothraki to do what they did is a huge leap of faith.

Noted you don't like LOTR.

 

[Ian Reus]

They were created thousands of years ago to destroy mankind but then disappeared to the point people thought it was myth.

The NK clearly had the resources to do this anytime he wanted, so why now? What was the trigger point (there were dragons between the time of their creation and now. Also he started the march south before Dany got her dragons).

To make them out to be some sort of 'they are evil just cos' is pathetic. No character in the show has been black/white or good/evil - so to make the NK just evil with a single thought and having no logic is poor writing

Maybe he was waiting on the dragons coming back into the world.