Tag: HBO

Battle

Game of Thrones S8E3

Wow…what an episode, what a battle! I had an exhausting Sunday full of big fights. I went to see Avengers: Endgame earlier in the day, then ended the evening with The Long Night. There was so much carnage and death. I did my rewatch during the day so it was more difficult to see anything. The only complaint I had of the episode was a common one, it was so damn dark! I was concerned my TV was trash and I was going to have to get a new one until I saw all the tweets after it ended, so that was quite a relief. Other than that it was an amazing episode, and if someone thought it was bad, that says more about that person than the episode…

There was a lot of fantastic camera work in this episode, very cinematic. We start from Samwell’s perspective as everyone is preparing for battle. Samwell is handed his weapon and walking through the grounds. As he passes Tyrion the camera switches and follows him preparing as he grabs a weapon and a sack of wine, war essentials. We get a few more camera hops following others as they prepare for the big moment all building tension. We pan up and see the dragons flying above to find Jon and Daenerys.

Daenerys’ big armies are lining up at the front, the Dothraki and Unsullied. Jorah is leading the charge with the Dothraki army and we see a lot of big players like The Hound, Gendry, Edd, Samwell, Podrick, Brienne, Jamie, Tormund and his wildlings. Melisandre randomly shows up and lights all the Dothraki’s swords on fire using the Lord of Lights power. It’s really funny to me to think of people back on the wall in Winterfell who have no idea why these swords are now on fire and just cool with it, since no one was expecting Melisandre to show up. After this spectacle, Melisandre enters Winterfell where Davos is waiting for her. He had previously told her if she ever comes back, he will execute her. Melisandre tells him he doesn’t need to do that as she will be dead by dawn, he lets her pass.

The whole purpose of the flaming swords from our perspective was to create an amazing visual of all these flames flying across the land to meet the army of the dead, back from Jon and Daenerys location. We never got to see anything past the initial clash but they were wiped out really quick. This was shown by each sword’s flame going out from a distance. I think it’s worth mentioning we spent 2+ seasons trying to get this army across The Narrow Sea and they were completely wiped out in 33 seconds. A few moments after all the lights went out some of the Dothraki survivors, horses, Jorah, and Ghost come running back past the Unsullied line to regroup.

Shortly after this the noises the army of the dead make can be heard as they are charging. The two lines crash and it turns to chaos pretty quickly. All sorts of shots of different people killing, and being killed. Jon, riding on Rhaegal and Daenerys, riding on Drogon are torching the horde from above. While this is going on Jon sees the other White Walkers and flies Rhaegal over to try and attack them. A big snow storm rolls in, presumably caused by The White Walkers and Jon loses them.

As the storm comes in Arya tells Sansa to go down to the crypt with the women and children, which she refuses to do. Arya gives her a dagger and tells her to go. Sansa says she doesn’t know what to do with it. Arya tells her to “Stick them with the pointy end”. This is the first instance, that I noticed at least, of moments and phrases coming full circle from the beginning of the entire series. This is what Jon told Arya when he gave her Needled and she said she didn’t know how to use it.

After this exchange we see more random cuts of battle. Samwell gets tackled to the ground by a wight (Wights are the name for the reanimated dead army). Edd saves him and as he pulls Samwell up from the ground, Edd is stabbed from behind and drops dead. We officially have our first “notable” death. Edd wasn’t a big character by any means but he has been around a long time and wasn’t just a rando soldier.


It doesn’t take long for the army of the dead to overrun the Winterfell forces; they start falling back to fortify inside the gates. Unsullied show how they are badasses, they sacrifice themselves to protect the retreat and will fall back when all other forces are safe. The plan is once all the troops get behind the wall and spiked trench that is surrounding winterfell, they will light the trench on fire and hold off the dead with that. When they get all the troops behind they can safely get back, Greyworm yells for trenches to be lit, Davos up on the wall lights two torches and waves them signaling to Daenerys. The problem is the snow storm is to heavy and she can’t see the signal. They try lighting with arrows and torches but it doesn’t take off. Melisandre walks out of the gate, puts her hand on a spike and says a prayer. The Lord of Light inflames the trench with fire and the dead stand along the other side of the fire motionless. Clearly the Lord of Light exits, it’s not some hokey fairytale or anything like that.

We get our first look in the crypts as we see Sansa and Tyrion discussing the situation. They reminisce on their marriage when Tyrion says maybe they should have stayed married. Sansa says he was the best of them (Lannisters) and he says that’s a terrifying thought. Sansa says it wouldn’t work between them since Tyrion would have divided loyalties with the Dragon Queen and her. Missandei overhears and says if there were no Dragon Queen they’d all be dead already and walks away angry. Tyrion and Sansa just getting their flirt on and Missandei has to rain on the parade.

We get our first look at Winterfell’s Godswood this episode where Bran is being protected by guards led by Theon. Theon tells Bran they lit the trenches and apologizes to Bran for everything. Bran reminds Theon that everything he did brought him to where he belongs “home”. Bran then says “I’m going to go now” and peaces out Warging into some ravens. Camera follows the ravens as they search for the Night King. The Night King reaches out to the camera “Bran’s perspective”; which cues the dead around the trench to start creating a dead body bridge over so the rest of the horde can cross. Everyone behind the trench runs into Winterfell as the dead pile up against the wall to climb over the top.

Soldiers and big players are defending the top of the wall for as long as they can, inevitably the dead breach the top. We have all sorts of great scenes of people fighting, including a cool one of Brienne and Jaime fighting back to back. Arya jumps in kicking ass with her staff, which we find out is meant to disconnect in the center and give her two weapons. While this is going on The Hound is having a moment where he is standing hiding in a doorway just zoning out, overwhelmed by the war. Arya is eventually overran and trying to get away. Beric is yelling at The Hound to snap out of it and help. The Hound tells Beric to fuck off, that they can’t win this. Beric points out Arya and tells him to tell her that. We see Arya run into the castle and The Hound looking concerned chases after to help.

Alright, this is may be my favorite scene of the episode. A giant wight bursts through the front gates smacking Lyanna Mormont to the side and is killing everyone around it. After a bit of that Lyanna gets up and screams charging at the giant. The giant picks her up and puts her in front of its face, while also crushing her in his hand. With the last bit of strength she has, she stabs the giant through his eye with a dagger killing it. They both fall to the ground dead.

Really neat scene comes up here that has very strong “Final Girl” horror movie vibes. Arya is in a library and there are a bunch of dead stumbling about as she is trying to make her way through the room undetected. The whole thing feels like a zombie movie. While it was a fun scene to see, it seems like they sacrificed a lot of character building for the sake of a “cool scene”. They have spent so long showing us how collected and calm Arya is, no matter the circumstance. All of that gets thrown away when they have the idea to do this scene and show her terrified and panicked. I’m not saying that it’s not a scary situation; but the way they have built her character doesn’t fit with this reaction. Alright, I’m done nitpicking! She eventually gets through the room and is still being chased through the halls when she runs into some other wights.

The Hound and Beric are walking through halls trying to find Arya. It doesn’t take them too long since a wight tackles Arya through a door. Beric throws his flaming sword at it and it lets Arya get up and run. When Beric is helping Arya up, he gets stabbed in the leg. He quickly turns into a human pin cushion as they are running through the halls as he gets stabbed multiple times. Beric puts his arms up in a doorway holding back the dead as he is being stabbed over and over. There is definitely some Jesus imagery in the way that he is standing with his arms outstretched like a cross, and having been resurrected multiple times.

The Hound and Arya get Beric into a room where he dies. Melisandre happens to be there and tells them that Lord of Light brought him back for a purpose, now the purpose has been served (again, seems very Jesus-y). Arya and Melisandre talk about when they last met. There was some serious foreshadowing the last time they met as Melisandre told Arya she would close many eyes…brown eyes…green eyes…blue eyes (hello Night King). They repeat this conversation now. For another call back Melisandre asks “What do we say to the god of death?” Arya says “Not today” which is an exchange she had with her fighting teacher Syrio Forel back in the first season.

The Night King breaks down the walls of winterfell with Viserion’s blue flames and the dead can flow in even easier now. They start attacking Theon and his men in Godswood around this time as well. Jon and Rhaegal swoop in and they all start fighting in an epic dragon “dog fight”. Eventually the Night King and Jon both fall off their dragons. Daenerys on Drogon try to destroy the Night King with dragon fire. After the fire fades the Night King is standing there smirking (Interesting how the Night King can ride dragons and not be hurt by fire, things only Targaryens are capable of). He throws an ice spear at them and luckily Drogon gets away. Jon witnessed this from a distance and after the fire didn’t work he started charging at the Night King to face him head on. The Night King turns around and raises all the newly dead soldiers.

The new wights raise all over winterfell. Outside surrounding Jon, inside the grounds, and who would have guessed it…the bodies in the crypts with the women and children! Chaos is breaking out everywhere, especially in the crypts dealing with the new wights. While we are jumping around seeing people fighting we see the rest of the White Walkers walking into Winterfell. I can’t believe how underutilized these guys were in this battle. There could have been some awesome lesser boss battles and they were like “nah, we will hang in the back”.

Jon is pretty separated from everyone now out on the grounds. He is completely surrounded by wights trying to fight them off the best he can, suddenly Daenerys is there and all the wights around him go up in flames. For some reason Daenerys and Drogon land on the ground while Jon runs to the castle to try to get to Jon. The dead start crawling up Drogon’s back and stabbing him all over, it looked really cool with all the wights looking like ants trying to take down a much bigger enemy. Daenerys gets thrown from Drogon as he flies off to get rid of the wights all over him. Daenerys is surrounded by Jorah is out there and begins protecting her.

Back in Godswood, Bran is still zonked out while Theon and his men are overran. It comes down to only him protecting Bran. The wights all stop as the Night King and his White Walkers come into Godswood. Bran calls out to Theon and tells him that he is a good man, and thanks him. Theon charges at the Night King, who grabs the spear and snaps it, then kills Theon. The Night King approaches Bran slowly as they stare at each other.

While all this is going on we are seeing cuts to the battle not going well for the living. Brienne and Jaime pinned against a wall fighting the dead together. Samwell stabbing everything around him ferociously. Jon is pinned in the courtyard by Viserion blowing his blue flame all over. Jon comes out from hiding and screams at Viserion out of desperation. Jorah becomes a human shield for Daenerys taking all kinds of stabs while they are killing wights. The war is looking very bleak.

The Night King is right up beside Bran at this point. He reaches back to grab his sword WHEN OUT OF NOWHERE ARYA COMES LEAPING IN! The Night King turns and grabs Arya by her throat and the arm she has a knife in. Arya pulls the ol hand switch and drops the blade in her left, catches in her right, and stabs. The Night King shatters into shards of ice, along with the other White Walkers. All the wights die, just as Viserion is about to blow fire on Jon (which isn’t as scary when you think about how he is a Targaryen and fire doesn’t hurt them). Arya looks at Bran who you’d think would be happy…but nope, just staring emotionless like a weirdo.

A couple shots are shown to wrap up some immediate situations. Jorah dies in Daenerys arms as Drogon comes and wraps his body around the two of them. We see shots of everyone who is alive, which is surprisingly a large amount of the main players. We really only lost like 3 notable people. Melisandre walks out of the room she was in with The Hound and takes off her cloak. She walks out of Winterfell and takes off her necklace, aging rapidly and collapsing out into the snow, cut to credits.

The longest continuous battle in film and tv did not disappoint. It will be really fascinating to see how the living can regroup to now go and fight Cersci and be done in 3 episodes. I have to say, I’m shocked they didn’t kill more notable people in this battle. I mean, I knew Jaime was safe due to the prophecy he will kill Cersei. There was no way they were going to kill The Hound because they want the Cleganebowl with him and The mountain. Other than that there was nothing surprising, maybe they are saving the surprises for the battle for King’s Landing. Still no idea how to sign off from these things so…bye!

Before the Afterwards

Game of Thrones S8E3

I really need to get better at writing about shows after they air sooner. The most important show on TV had an episode 3 days ago, and here I am FINALLY writing about it like a bum. Finding time to write about shows, while also keeping up on all the other shows you watch, is proving to be more difficult than I expected. I’m 7 episodes behind on other shows that have new episodes out, and when I could be catching up on them I’m writing. What a rough life I have, right? Feel like this is as good of an intro as any…let talk some Game of Thrones!

This episode is pretty much a straight continuation of last week’s episode. It’s all conversations, moving those chess pieces together for the big battle next week. Of course anyone in the future watching is just going to binge the whole season together, so it’s all going to feel like a 6 episode episode. In terms of live viewing though…episode one and two were definitely meant to be one block, with Battle of Winterfell next week, then “Afterwards” for episode four through six.

Show opens with Jaime on trial in front of Daenerys, Jon, and Sansa. Daenerys is pretty pissed off at Jaime killing her father The Mad King Aerys Targaryen. This is wild to me. She knows her father was insane at the end of his reign going around killing everyone for no reason. If my dad was going around setting people on fire and murdering them because he felt like it, someone stopping him probably wouldn’t be too upsetting to me. Daenerys seems all about punishing him, likely dragon fire because that’s her whole thing. Sansa appears to be in agreement too, until Brienne stepped forward to vouch for him. Making a really good point that Sansa wouldn’t be alive now if Jaime hadn’t sent her to defend Sansa based on a promise he made to Catelyn Stark. This changes Sansa’s mind and she is pro-Jaime. Comes down to Jon being torn between his sister (actually his cousin) and his lady (actually his aunt) and he sides with his Sister/Cousin, so Jaime is pardoned. When the meeting ends Jon is really cold to Daenerys, which she doesn’t understand; Jon still hasn’t told her about him being Aegon Targaryen.

We get a half episode rift between Daenerys and Tyrion because Jaime reveals in his trial that Cersei has no intention of sending her army to the north to help defeat the army of the dead. Daenerys is mad that Tyrion, who is Hand of the Queen because of his brains, was easily fooled by his sister. A little later we get a scene where Tyrion and Jaime get to talk in private. Tyrion thought Cersei’s pregnancy would change her, hence his trust in her. Tyrion wonders if the pregnancy was a lie too; which Jaime assures him it is not. The Daenerys being mad at Tyrion situation gets squashed when Jorah who would have been the Hand of the Queen if he had been around advises her to trust Tyrion, even though he has Jorah’s job.

I’m not exactly going chronological through this, mostly I will, but I’m going to group together pairings so this isn’t all over the place like the episode is. Which, for the record isn’t a criticism. This works well in the show to go around and see how these things develop, but will be easier flowing here grouped.

Here are a couple Arya/Gendry scenes. The sexual tension in this scene is just spilling all over the place. Arya comes to Gendry asking for the weapon she asked for in the last episode. Gendry brushes her off that she should be in the Crypt with the other women and children, which I’ll touch on later is a stupid place to keep non-fighters. To prove Gendry wrong Arya throws some spear heads across the room into the wall very threateningly. She asks about her weapon and he quickly says he will get right on it. Later on Gendry shows up and gives Arya her weapon. This better have some hidden power, otherwise the weapon she is so concerned about is the exact same spear head he was making attached to a staff. Gendry reveals to Arya that he is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Some chit chat and Arya casually asks how many people Gendry has slept with. This is all lead up to how Arya wants to fuck someone before she dies, and they do it; Much to the delight of all the fanfic nuts out there.

A pretty constant thread through the episode is AFTERWARDS. A good amount of the conversations in this ep are initial planning to what will happen after the war with the dead. This kicks off with Jaime talking to Bran in the Godswood. He apologizes for what he did, which Bran excuses by saying he did what he needed to do to protect his family. Jaime asks why Bran hasn’t told them what he did to him in the past. Bran says Jaime couldn’t help fight if he let them murder him first. Jaime asks what about afterwards (meaning after The Battle of Winterfell) which Bran answers with a how do you know there is an afterwards?

Daenerys finds Sansa to have a talk about their relationship. They seem to patch up their differences bonding over both being women leaders who have to work harder to garner respect. Sansa reveals she is hesitant of Daenerys because men are easily manipulated by women they love; meaning Jon being manipulated by Daenerys. Daenerys explains that her whole goal in life was to win the Iron Throne and she has paused that to come fight Jon’s war, then asking who manipulated whom? This seems to make everything better, and they are even holding hands smiling. Then the “afterwards” strikes again. Sansa asks what will Daenerys do after the war. Daenerys says she will take the iron throne, which Sansa asks what about The North? She explains that they lost The North once and took it back and they would never bow to anyone else again. Daenerys lets go of Sansa’s hands as tension is building. They are interrupted by the arrival of Theon who request to fight for the Starks.

The most hilarious example of afterwards is a conversation between Greyworm and Missandei. They agree they don’t want to grow old in the cold foreign land and want to go back to Missandei’s homeland of Naath and will sail there together. This is pretty much guaranteeing that Greyworm will die; or if they feel extra spicy Missandei will. DON”T MAKE MEANINGFUL PLANS BEFORE A BATTLE, YOU WILL DIE.

We know the battle is happening soon because Tormund and Beric return to tell Jon about Umber being murdered by the NIght King and is close to Winterfell. All the major players are involved in a battle plan meeting. Jon believes killing the Night King will cause the rest of the dead to no longer be able to animated and end the war; but others point out the Night King won’t expose himself to risk. Bran volunteers to be bait, telling everyone the Night King always knows where Bran is at and wants to kill him because he contains all memory of man. The endgame for the Night King is to erase all memory of man from the world. Jon’s brilliant idea is putting Bran in the crypts with the women and children to keep him safe. Let’s think about this for a second. A bad guy…who has the power to reanimate the dead…is coming for Bran, and the solution is to put him in a basement that is full of dead bodies? Sounds like a fool proof idea…. The actual plan is made to have Bran in Godswood with Theon as his guard to lure the Night King there to be killed.

Spread throughout the episode is what my cousin Andy, who I watched the episode with, called “A bottle episode”. We get six rando’s who at one point or another were all fighting against the Starks, now protecting their home sitting by a fire drinking. It’s a weird mix, but led to a number of great interactions. Tyrion, Jaime, Brienne, Podrick, Davos, and Tormund are all in this hang session. Best moment of the first scene is a story about how Tormund got the name Giantsbane. Just watch the episode for the story because reading about it won’t do it justice. We come back to the bottle episode later to what is probably the most heartwarming moment of the episode. Tyrion is saying how he thinks they will all survive the battle (guaranteeing they all won’t) and when everyone is laughing at this he lists everyone’s resumes of prior battles. When he gets to Brienne he calls her “Ser”, the name for knights. He corrects himself and Tormund is surprised thinking she was already a knight and doesn’t understand why women can’t be knights. We know Jaime has tremendous respect for Brienne as earlier in the episode he asks to serve under her as she is commanding the left flank in the battle. He mentions that you don’t have to be a king to knight someone; that a knight can also knight someone. He has Brieanne kneel before him, which she is reluctant to do. Having your life’s goal that previously was thought to be impossible presented before you can be a difficult thing to jump right into. Jaime knights her and everyone claps enthusiastically while she is tearful and smiling ear to ear. The last time we return to this scene is the setup for a montage of everyone preparing for the upcoming battle. Tyrion asks for a song, and nobody is volunteering. Podrick begins singing and we get cuts to Theon and Sansa talking, Arya and Gendry lying in bed together after getting it on, and Greyworm and Missandei kissing goodbye.

One last important moment squeezed in before the end. Daenerys finds Jon down in the crypts in front of Lyanna Stark’s statue. Daenerys says she can’t believe her brother raped her after all the stories she heard about how great he was. Jon reveals that her brother didn’t rape Lyanna, that he loved her, and they had a son right before she died. The child was given to Ned Stark to protect and that he is Aegon Targaryen. Daenerys looks pissssssed. She asks how he knows and he says Samwell and Bran told him. She is resistant to believe this because the source is his best friend and brother. Jon tells her he knows it’s true. Daenerys says if it were true, it would make him the last male heir to the house of Targaryen and he would have a claim to the throne. This shows that all her bullshit selflessness about her family name isn’t really true. While she does want the Targaryen name back on the throne, she wants it with her name, not Aegon/Jon. They are interrupted (another common theme this episode) by battlehorns. Last scene is the Night King and the other White Walkers with their army behind them standing across a field from Winterfell about to start the battle.

This episode a lot better to me the second time I watched it compared to the first time. I thought it was a whole lot of nothing before but you can really see the meaning and masterful writing when watching again. I’m pretty sure I said this last week too, or something similar, so the key must just be watch it all multiple times and revel in the brilliance of it. My top people who are going to die: Greyworm, Tormund or Brienne (not both), also Jorah doesn’t stand a chance. I’m a coward picking only secondary characters but whatever. I JUST finished this article two minutes before the new episode of Survivor is starting so going to have to cut it off here. Everyone enjoy the Battle of WInterfell next week, it’s going to be amazing!