lunabee34

First the stuff I liked which is just about everything LOL:

The battle is epic. The visual image of Melisandre lighting all the Dothraki swords and that wave of light rushing toward the zombie horde and then winking out is amazing. Same with the trench finally being lit around the keep. The sheer scale of it is overwhelming and extremely well done. I could do with a little less flying on the dragons in the mist, but overall, the battle is a winner for me. It slowly becomes clear that nothing they can do will be enough, that none of their plans are going to actually work, that the castle will be overrun, and that they’re all going to die. It is harrowing and tense and one of the most nerve wracking battle scenes I’ve ever seen. Watching it, I feel like I did in the first two seasons of The Walking Dead before I got inured to zombie attacks, but this battle is on such a massive scale vs Rick and co face a zombie horde that TWD seems meager in comparison.

Losing Edd hurts the most. He’s the last of Jon’s core friends in the Night Watch. Pip and Grenn are gone and now Edd. :( I knew Lyanna Mormont was gonna die the second she refused to go in the crypts, but damn does that girl go out in style, brave to the last. I think we all knew Jorah would die protecting Dany since like three seasons ago, so that is no surprise, but it’s well done. Theon’s death is satisfying. Bran tells him he’s home where he belongs and that he’s a good man, and I think Theon believes he’s dying a good death (and, damn, did he River Tam up all those zombies coming after Bran).

I am so stoked about everything with Arya. Love her being badass and fighting the zombies in front of Davos in a scene also reminiscent of River Tam; love her skulking about the overrun palace and trying to stay alive. Love Beric and Sandor saving her and Melisandre revealing that Beric’s sole purpose in being brought back to life is to save Arya’s life. I cannot tell you how fucking psyched I am that Arya kills the Night King. Not Dany, not her dragons—a Stark of Winterfell!! “Not today” indeed.

Also super stoked about the Tyrion/Sansa scenes in the crypt. I feel like the show is telegraphing a romance for them, and I am very okay with that. That scene where they’re holding hands behind the tomb and then make a go of it together—well, let’s just say that ships have sailed on much, much less fuel (and few have been scored so beautifully as they sailed LOL).

Now for the things I liked less:

I am disappointed that the battle with the White Walkers is over so soon. I really expected Winterfell to be overrun and the Night King to get to King’s Landing. Mostly, I wanted Cersei to have to be exposed to her folly; I wanted her to see the destruction of the zombie horde and realize that she’d been wrong not to help the North. I also think we’re not going to get any more information about who the Night King is and why he wants to destroy the world which is something I was looking forward to knowing more about. Finally, keeping the battle in the North means that the North is obliterated without any equivalent destruction in the South; pretty much everyone who is alive in the North is at Winterfell at the start of the battle, and most of those people are dead now. The odds are stacked against the survivors in a battle against Cersei. Also, when everything is done and someone’s on the throne who’s figuring out how to run the kingdom, independence for the North is going to be a hard sell for so few. Of course, now that the Night King is dead, maybe the abnormal winters are dead, too, and they’ll just have regular winter in the North and more people will want to live there, even expanding north beyond the Wall if it’s more livable. Maybe what’s left of the Wall will melt.

I am also disappointed that no one in the crypts rises to the challenge we all saw telegraphed from the first mention of putting all the vulnerable people down there last episode. I expected at least one or two to get a zombie.

And some predictions/speculation:

Dany is in a really precarious position. All the Dothraki are gone. Almost all the Unsullied are gone. She has no more army. She’s a girl with two dragons. And two dragons is not nothing, but it’s not enough. If she can’t make what’s left of the North fight for her, all thirteen of them left living, she has no chance of sitting on the Iron Throne at all. I want the aftermath of this battle and this loss to Dany’s growth, and I want her and Sansa to have a genuine understanding between them.