Sie tainment

Senin, 29 April 2019

'Game of Thrones' Episode 3 recap: Say hello to the god of death - CNN

You did it! You survived the Battle of Winterfell. And man, was it dark. Yes, it was "little girls being liquefied by giants" dark, but it was also just ... dark dark. Could barely see a thing. Half of those epic scenes of war ended up looking like a bunch of rats fighting in a shoebox.

Thankfully, the Lord of Light deposited his No. 1 hype girl Melisandre back on Winterfell's doorstep just in time. In the tense minutes before battle, she provides one of the best visuals of the episode by igniting the arakhs of the Dothraki army, who raise their flaming weapons aloft and ... are promptly swallowed up by the Army of the Dead 20 seconds later. When it comes to unsettling battle sounds, the shrieks of dying men and the clang of cold metal against armor are nothing compared to the creeping silence that spread whenever the AotD mowed over a new group of unsuspecting future recruits.

At some point, Jon and Dany realize that dragons are a much more efficient way of taking out maximum wights with minimum effort. However, once aloft, their flying weapons of mass destruction swiftly encounter a new and confusing opponent: clouds, and among them, the Night King, ready to make his dramatic entrance.

With the dragons disconnected from ground control and the Night King bearing down on ground zero, the rest of Winterfell's forces realize the grave error of their strategy and retreat back into the castle, but not before losing dear Dolorous Edd. Nominative determinism (and an opportunistic wight) finally got the better of him.

What follows is just a bunch of chiaroscuro carnage specifically engineered to make you feel every bad emotion at once: The Army of the Dead breach Winterfell's fire fortifications. Lyanna Mormont, Lady of Scowls, goes down like a real one at the hands -- or rather, in the hands -- of a wight giant. Beric dies protecting Arya who is, to put it mildly, FREAKED. OUT. Yes, she said she was looking forward to seeing this face of death, but something tells us she wasn't expecting quite so many faces.

Meanwhile, in the godswood, Theon and the Ironborn stand ready to defend Bran from the approaching Night King. Bran, always grateful that so many are willing to lay down their lives for him even though he's never super clear on why or to what end, exits the game to go warging in some crows.

However, the Night King's approach is stalled when Jon, riding Rhaegal, confronts him and the undead Viserion. Watching the two dragons tangle in mid-air under the moonlight is a magical scene, in part because it is actually visible and not shot through ten pairs of gas station sunglasses. Eventually, the Night King bails and a series of extremely creepy, significant stuff happens: First, Dany tries to roast him, literally, but when the flames clear, there he stands. Then, as Jon approaches, Longclaw in hand, he actually smiles. The Night King smiles! Please scrape that image off the top of our brains immediately.

Of course, you'd be smiling too if you were about to raise a brand new army of dead people, which is what the Night King does, "Hardhome" style. This particular move plays poorly for Tyrion, Sansa, Varys, Missandei, Gilly and the group of red shirts hiding in the very safe crypts. You know what crypts have in them? Dead people! And Game of Thrones is not afraid to have those dead people punch through straight stone for the sole purpose of making you wet your pants in shock.

By this point, everything has quite literally gone to hell. The dead are running around chopping up the living. Everything's on fire. Jorah Mormont dies fighting alongside Dany, and the sight of Drogon curling up next to his dead body has stolen the very last tear your body can produce. The Night King and the White Walkers finally reach the godswood and sweet Theon Leeroy Jenkinses himself into an inevitable death at the Night King's hands.

Arya Stark's sex scene on 'Game of Thrones' is a big deal

It's here. It's happening. It's all terrible. Bran, having returned from his trip on the Crow Flight Simulator, has a significant staredown with his mortal enemy. Do they know what the other is thinking? Do they know how this ends? The Night King reaches for his weapon. Death is here to claim the living. And yet...

Surprise! The Night King doesn't even get a hand on his piece before Arya's on him like a cat falling out of a tree. For a brief second, it looks as if he's going to choke the life out of her, but she pulls a sleight of hand and stabs him with her Valyrian steel dagger.

Poof! The Night King shatters. Poof! So do his guards and his dragon. The dead fall by the thousands. Arya, the Thanos of Winterfell, has saved the day.

As the sun rises on the ravaged castle, there's still one death left to fulfill. Melisandre, running critically low on lighter fluid, steps out among the bodies into the snow-covered field beyond, removes her magical necklace, and drops dead. Whatever you thought of the Red Woman, she got one thing right: The night was very dark, and very full of terrors.

Burning questions

Why didn't they keep all of the armies close to or inside of Winterfell and let Dany and Jon mow down a majority of the AotD, saving tens of thousands of lives? Oh, it was cloudy? Excuses, excuses.

Alternatively, why did Bran have to chill in the godswood? He didn't use weirwood tree magic as far as we know, so they could have done all of this out in an open field instead of putting Winterfell through the undead wringer.

Are Davos and the Hound just going to split custody of Arya Stark? Does she now have two adoptive dads?

Will we ever find out what Melisandre's magic necklace was all about?

Are the dragons going to eat all of the dead people? Some of that meat's kinda old...

Are we actually done with the Army of the Dead? That's it?

Burning questions, but in all caps

IS GHOST OKAY?!

ARE BOTH THE DRAGONS OKAY?!

IS BRAN EVER GOING TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING?!

WHY WAS THE NIGHT KING IMPERVIOUS TO FIRE?!

Melisandre: "What do we say to the God of Death?"

Arya: "Not today."

The last time these two dangerous women saw each other, Melisandre was carting away Arya's boy Gendry and promising they would meet again. Arya's no longer the prickly, aggressive little girl she was, and she seems to instantly recognize and appreciate the significance of the Red Woman's appearance. What strange people. What a satisfying interaction.

Best scene

They were all bad. These were all bad scenes and none of them were pleasant. Perhaps the Hound finally overcoming his fear of fire to fight alongside Arya, and Arya felling a wight that was about to attack him. It's always nice when their murderous tendencies turn out to be mutually beneficial.

Death count

Let's make some generous assumptions:

10,000 Dothraki (the full army) +

8,000 Unsullied (more than half their full number) +

7,000 Westerosi knights and infantry (more than half their full number) +

200 assorted other unfortunate people in the crypts and in battle +

1 Edd Tollett +

1 Lyanna Mormont +

1 Beric Dondarrion +

1 Jorah Mormont +

1 Theon Greyjoy +

1 Melisandre of Asshai +

0 wights (what's dead may never die, remember?) =

25,206 dearly departed souls. RIP.

Stray observations

Melisandre really leaned in with her final prediction when she repeated her original Season 3 prophecy about which eyes Arya will shut forever: "Brown eyes, green eyes, BLUE EYES. GLOWING BLUE. LIKE, AN UNDEAD EERIE NIGHT-KINGY BLUE. JUST A GUESS."

Thank the Seven the crypt resurrection scene didn't include any dead Starks we knew. Our fragile well-beings could not have handled an undead headless Ned.

Here's the big one guys: Think about the dagger Arya used to off The Night King. It was the dagger used in the initial assassination attempt against Bran in Season 1. The dagger that eventually makes its way to Littlefinger. The dagger Littlefinger returns to Bran, and Bran gifts to Arya in Season 7, Episode 4. It was a weird gift at the time, mostly because Bran is weird. But now, it looks like the dagger's journey was much more intentional than originally suspected.

One bold prediction

We haven't seen the last of winter -- or its soldiers

The Night King and the Army of the Dead are one of the series' biggest mysteries. You really think they neatly wrapped this up in a bow in one single confrontation? Then what of all of the visions of a Kings Landing covered in snow and ice? What of all of the new tantalizing information about the Night King and his abilities? No, it's not over...is it?

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to give the correct character name for Lyanna Mormont.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/entertainment/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-3-recap-trnd/index.html

2019-04-29 10:30:00Z
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'Game of Thrones' Episode 3 recap: Say hello to the god of death - CNN

What follows is just a bunch of chiaroscuro carnage specifically engineered to make you feel every bad emotion at once: The Army of the Dead breach Winterfell's fire fortifications. Lyanna Stark, Lady of Scowls, goes down like a real one at the hands -- or rather, in the hands -- of a wight giant. Beric dies protecting Arya who is, to put it mildly, FREAKED. OUT. Yes, she said she was looking forward to seeing this face of death, but something tells us she wasn't expecting quite so many faces.

Poof! The Night King shatters. Poof! So do his guards and his dragon. The dead fall by the thousands. Arya, the Thanos of Winterfell, has saved the day.

Burning questions

Why didn't they keep all of the armies close to or inside of Winterfell and let Dany and Jon mow down a majority of the AotD, saving tens of thousands of lives? Oh, it was cloudy? Excuses, excuses.

Are Davos and the Hound just going to split custody of Arya Stark? Does she now have two adoptive dads?

Will we ever find out what Melisandre's magic necklace was all about?

Are the dragons going to eat all of the dead people? Some of that meat's kinda old...

Are we actually done with the Army of the Dead? That's it?

Burning questions, but in all caps

IS GHOST OKAY?!

ARE BOTH THE DRAGONS OKAY?!

IS BRAN EVER GOING TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING?!

WHY WAS THE NIGHT KING IMPERVIOUS TO FIRE?!

Melisandre: "What do we say to the God of Death?"

Arya: "Not today."

Best scene

Death count

Let's make some generous assumptions:

10,000 Dothraki (the full army) +

8,000 Unsullied (more than half their full number) +

7,000 Westerosi knights and infantry (more than half their full number) +

200 assorted other unfortunate people in the crypts and in battle +

1 Edd Tollett +

1 Lyanna Mormont +

1 Beric Dondarrion +

1 Jorah Mormont +

1 Theon Greyjoy +

1 Melisandre of Asshai +

0 wights (what's dead may never die, remember?) =

25,206 dearly departed souls. RIP.

Stray observations

Thank the Seven the crypt resurrection scene didn't include any dead Starks we knew. Our fragile well-beings could not have handled an undead headless Ned.

One bold prediction

We haven't seen the last of winter -- or its soldiers

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/entertainment/game-of-thrones-season-8-episode-3-recap-trnd/index.html

2019-04-29 08:55:00Z
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‘Avengers’ fans rough up man who ‘loudly’ spoiled the ending: report - Fox News

Fans eager to see the new Avengers movie didn’t take too kindly to a man who reportedly spoiled the ending for them.

The man, who had walked out of the “Avengers: Endgame” and loudly revealed the ending, was roughed up by queuing fans outside a theater in Hong Kong, according to Taiwanese media. A photo from the scene shows a man sitting on the ground while appearing to be treated for his wounds. No additional photos were released.

The incident came after “Endgame” directors the Russo Brothers published an open letter on social media urging fans not to spoil the ending for those who haven’t seen it.

'AVENGERS: ENDGAME' SPOILERS TWEETED OUT BY NFL PLAYER LE SEAN 'SHADY' MCCOY SPARK OUTRAGE

“When you see Endgame in the coming weeks, please don’t spoil it for others. The same way you wouldn’t want it spoiled for you,” the Brothers wrote.

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“Avengers: Endgame,” marks the final installment of the Avengers franchise. The film grossed more than a $1 billion in its opening weekend, according to box office results.

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2019-04-29 08:06:10Z
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'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 3: In Memoriam - The Washington Post

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHzUGtiNbTM

2019-04-29 07:00:08Z
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5 pieces of Game of Thrones history that paid off at the Battle of Winterfell - The Verge

HBO’s Game of Thrones is a dense series with a huge weight of history behind its story. So in practically every episode, something happens that could use a little explanation. Every week, The Verge will dive into a scene or event from the latest episode of the series and explain how we got here. Whether you’re basically a Game of Thrones maester or you need a little reminder about previous events, we’ll try to help you keep your history straight.

Oh boy. Game of Thrones’ longest episode ever, “The Long Night,” features a spectacle that was billed as a battle unlike any other ever seen on television. (Depending on your TV setup, it may literally have gone unseen — seriously, this was a darkly lit hour and a half, which sparked an endless wave of online complaints from viewers struggling to figure out what was going on.) It was a frantic episode of TV that mostly focused on the play-by-play of the war against the undead. So instead of our usual weekly lore breakdown, this week we’ll be looking at some of the smaller moments seeded throughout the show’s past that finally paid off here.

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3, “The Long Night”

Brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes

Okay, so lets start with this episode’s big event here: Arya kills the Night King. But while she seemed to pop up out of nowhere to stab the dreaded leader of the White Walkers, her role in this story has been seeded for years, with her Faceless Man training and the foreshadowing of her Valyrian steel dagger giving her all the tools she needed.

But as the episode reminds us, the foreshadowing for the big kill goes back even further — all the way back to season 3, episode 6, when Melisandre first meets Arya and issues a prophecy: “I see a darkness in you. And in that darkness, eyes staring back at me: brown eyes, blue eyes, green eyes. Eyes you’ll shut forever. We will meet again.”

As it would happen, the reunion she promised came at the Battle of Winterfell. And the blue eyes Arya would shut forever were the Night King’s, along with every other wight and White Walker, all of whom stemmed from him.

The Red Woman and the Onion Knight

But where did Melisandre suddenly come from? The enigmatic Red Priestess of R’hllor (aka The Lord of Light) reappears this week after largely doing nothing for the last two seasons, once she fulfilled her task of resurrecting Jon Snow at the beginning of season 6. That was also when we learned Melisandre is far from the young woman she appears to be. Her magic is tied into her jeweled necklace — when she removes it, she resumes her true form of an incredibly old woman.

Her magic has also tended to be somewhat erratic over the series, perhaps due to her advanced age: while she was able to bring back Jon Snow and murder Renly Baratheon with a shadow-baby, her other attempts at spellcasting and communing with her god have been less successful — like when she had Stannis kill his only daughter, Shireen, to ensure a military victory against the Boltons, which he then failed to secure. Shireen’s murder (and the lackluster advice Melisandre gave Stannis) are chief among the reasons that the normally calm and kind Ser Davos promised to kill Melisandre.

These trends return in this episode too: Melisandre is able to ignite the Dothraki warriors’ blades easily, but spends crucial seconds trying and failing to ignite the trenches around Winterfell to block the wight onslaught later in the battle. And by the end, it seems her strength has been exhausted, or she feels her purpose has been fulfilled: she removes her necklace one final time, and walks out to her death in front of the gate of Winterfell at the end of the battle.

Theon Greyjoy’s apology tour

While Bran Stark’s overall battle plan is extremely enigmatic — like basically everything Bran does and says at this point in his role as the mystical Three-Eyed Raven — one part of his strategy is clear: he's relying on Theon Greyjoy for his personal defense as the forces of Winterfell try to lure the Night’s King into a trap.

On the surface, that may seem like an odd move, given that back in season 2, Theon betrays Bran, who was serving as the acting Lord of Winterfell in the absence of his brother, Robb Stark, who went to fight as King in the North in the War of the Five Kings. Theon sells Bran out to ingratiate himself with his estranged father, Balon Greyjoy, though that doesn’t work, because Balon is kind of a dick.

Regardless, Theon seizes Winterfell, breaking the trust of the family that fostered and raised him. But he saw no joy in his conquest: House Bolton gained control of Winterfell and the North, leading to Theon’s season-long arc of abuse at Ramsay Bolton’s hands.

But at least Theon could say he didn’t kill Bran or his younger brother Rickon, who died later anyway, at Ramsay’s hands. Instead, he secretly set them free. And between helping Sansa escape Ramsay, saving his sister Yara, returning to Winterfell to fight against the undead, and defending Bran with his life, Theon eventually earned Bran’s praise and a sense of redemption, even taking on the Night King himself.

The seven lives of the Lightning Lord

Beric Dondarrion isn’t a wight, but he’s perhaps the closest thing: where Jon Snow died and was brought back just once, Beric was resurrected by his friend, the Red Priest, Thoros of Myr six times. His final death presumably came this episode, given that both Thoros and Melisandre are now dead.

Throughout the show, Beric has assumed that the Lord of Light has been returning him to life all these times for some grand purpose. This week, we found out what that was: Beric managed to save Arya’s life against a group of wights, keeping her fighting so she could kill the Night King, seemingly for good.

That may seem anticlimatic, given how fast it all happens, and that he doesn’t even live to see the effect of his sacrifice. But his protection of Arya does speak to something more significant — consistency between the prophecies Melisandre had from the Lord of Light and those Thoros had. Together, they have a dramatic theological impact on the world of Westeros as a whole, implying that there is a greater power at work, with some sort of divine plan.

The Night King’s demise

The Night King is dead, killed not by dragonfire or some other esoteric magic, but by a Valyrian steel blade to the chest. And while it may seem like mere chance that Arya was able to succeed where all other attempts to destroy the Night King failed, there may be more to it than that.

Back in season 6, episode 5, Bran has a vision where he experiences the creation of the Night King by the Children of the Forest. He was originally intended as a weapon to destroy mankind, which was infringing on the Children’s land and destroying their sacred Weirwood trees. But the Children’s plan spectacularly backfired.

In that vision, Bran sees a man stabbed in the chest by a dragonglass dagger right next to a Weirwood tree, creating the Night King, the original White Walker who would birth all the other White Walkers and wights.

It no coincidence that similar conditions were present when Arya killed the Night King: a stab to the chest in front of a Weirwood tree. Looking closely at the fatal moment, it seems that Arya even stabs the Night King in the same place he was wounded to enact his original transformation.

In fact, given Bran’s seemingly advanced foretelling abilities, and the fact that he gave Arya the dagger back in season 7, it’s entirely possible this entire battle was merely the final move in a long-running plan on his part to lure the Night King into the conditions that could allow Arya to destroy him once and for all.

Wherefore are the Weirwoods?

But that gets us to the piece of lore that didn’t ever pay off: the Weirwood trees themselves. The entire run of Game of Thrones has been alluding to some greater power in the Weirwood, including the popular theory that Bran could somehow use them to burn the wights to death. But after all the foreshadowing and flaming spirals, after the revelation that the Weirwoods can destroy wights, after the setups connecting them both to Westerosi religion and pre-human magic… those clues seem to have gone exactly nowhere. It’s easy to imagine an ending where Bran activates the latent magic of the Weirwoods and destroys the Night King once he’s lured onto sacred ground. That would be its own form of tying the Night King’s death back to his birth. But apparently not. That was a lot of buildup for surprisingly little payoff.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/29/18522087/game-of-thrones-got-season-8-hbo-battle-of-winterfell-night-king-death-weirwoods-melisandre-arya

2019-04-29 06:03:21Z
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Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3: who died and who lived - Vox.com

The third episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth season, “The Long Night,” promised an epic battle, and it delivered: The Battle of Winterfell was an intense fight, and of course not everyone made it out alive.

Here’s the list of everyone who did and everyone who didn’t — starting with the fallen.

Major spoilers follow.

The Battle of Winterfell was dramatic and bloody, but it didn’t take out nearly as many of our favorite characters as we were dreading. Here’s who didn’t make it.

The Night King

This one may be surprising given how indestructible Game of Thrones’ head ice zombie has seemed at many points throughout the show. But in “The Long Night,” he proved dazzlingly easy for consummate assassin Arya Stark to take out. In the episode’s climax and most thrilling moment, the character routinely described as Death walking discovered he wasn’t the only death god in the room.

Melisandre

Surprise! The Red Witch turned up just as the battle was starting in order to lend crucial aid to Team Living — and after the dust had settled, she chose to end her unnaturally extended life. We saw in season six that Melisandre was actually much older than she appeared, and that her power of immortality seemed to be contained in the mysterious red amulet she wore around her neck. Following the Battle of Winterfell, apparently sensing that her work was done and undoubtedly still feeling loads of guilt for the death of Shireen Baratheon, Melisandre calmly walked onto the battle plain, took off the amulet, and shuffled off this mortal coil.

Theon Greyjoy

In a death that surely surprised no one, Theon, who tasked himself with protecting Bran in the godswood, nobly sacrificed himself by charging the Night King in Bran’s defense. But Bran told him he was “a good man” first, so he died at peace.

Lyanna Mormont

Little Lady Lyanna died in classic defiant kid style — taking out a huge zombie ice giant. She then sadly (but dramatically!) came back briefly as an ice zombie herself.

Ser Jorah Mormont

Ser Jorah surely died living out his dearest fantasy: protecting his queen and the love of his life, Daenerys Targaryen, from a horde of wights. She, in turn, cried over him a lot in his final moments. Well done, mate.

Lord Beric Dondarrion

After enjoying a few pleasant reunions before the battle, Beric, who once led the Brotherhood Without Banners and also wound up on Arya’s kill list for a stint, fought alongside Arya and the Hound until the bitter end, ultimately sacrificing himself to rescue Arya from a band of wights.

Edd Tollett a.k.a. Dolorous Edd

The former commander of the Night’s Watch remained loyal to his brothers even in the heat of battle, rescuing Samwell Tarly from a wight only to become wight-fodder himself seconds later, in the episode’s first gut-twisting farewell to a familiar character.

Viserion

Dany’s former favorite sweet ride, Viserion, was killed and then revived last season as an undead ice dragon. But despite laying down some cool (pun intended) fire, he bit it when Arya’s dagger turned the Night King into shards.

Virtually every single Dothraki, and countless Unsullied

Because the Dothraki hordes were on the front lines of the battle, they were all but wiped out. The Unsullied were next in line. Though most of the major characters (including Grey Worm) remained unharmed, for the nameless characters of color, “The Long Night” was a massive bloodbath, made even worse given that so many figures who were so crucial in forging Daenerys’s path to the Iron Throne seemed to be completely disposable in the end.

An astonishingly high number of characters survived this episode, from side characters that many fans had totally written off like Grey Worm to pretty much everyone in the Winterfell crypts — even though there was a brief Dead uprising there, too.

So here’s the much happier list of characters we know survived the battle:

Jon Snow

Though he was pleasingly useless through most of the fight and had several extremely close calls, Jon still lived to see another episode.

Daenerys Targaryen

Despite having a bafflingly terrible battle plan and winding up separated from her dragon and fighting for her life amid a crowd of wights, Dany made it out alive thanks to the bravery and sacrifice of her pal Ser Jorah.

Jaime Lannister

Fighting bravely alongside Brienne, Jaime ultimately was just fine.

Brienne of Tarth

Both Jaime and Brienne had a few close calls during the battle, but when the ice army shattered to pieces, they were still standing.

Arya Stark

Game of Thrones’ erstwhile Arya Underfoot proved to be the key to the entire fight — and she’ll live to tell the tale.

Bran Stark

Despite randomly warging away for like half an hour to follow the Night King around for no apparent reason, Bran came back to himself just in time to watch Theon die, say hi to the Night King — and then watch Arya ice the Night King, for real. Kid never even broke a sweat.

Sansa Stark

Though Sansa originally wanted to be where the fighting was, Arya ordered her to go hide in the crypts — which proved the safest place for her, in spite of the Dead rising there, too.

Tyrion Lannister

Tyrion was also in the crypts, where he got to spend a couple of lovely moments bonding with Sansa over how useless they both were in the battle — and while he was prepared to die protecting the others, in the end, he (thank goodness!) didn’t have to.

The Hound

If you were one of the many Game of Thrones fans whose dearest wish going into the Battle of Winterfell was to see the Hound and Arya saving one another’s lives and fighting together like old pals before both walking away in one piece, this episode delivered. Though the Hound did freak out and nearly gave up at one point, watching Arya fight with all her might inspired him to dive back into the fray. Well done, Ser Sandor.

Gendry

We barely got to see Gendry fight, but from what we did see, the dude can handle himself. It seems he came out of the battle with nary a scratch.

Davos Seaworth

Davos was another character who barely got to see any action. He was standing tall as the ice melted.

Samwell Tarly

Sam has come a long way, and despite his clear terror, he kept fighting bravely through the battle. Lucky for him, he also fought near several other much stronger soldiers, including Edd and Jorah, who saved his neck and later lost their own.

Gilly

Gilly and her son waited it out with the others in the crypt, and was safe.

Grey Worm and Missandei

These two lovebirds both survived — Grey Worm managed to remain safe above ground, while Missandei stuck it out in the crypts.

The tiny and defiant bread line girl from the previous episode

We know you were wondering; yes, the cute kid who said she’d defend the crypts is also just fine — though she did wind up covered in blood, she’s unscathed.

Drogon and Rhaegal (Dany’s remaining two dragons)

Drogon suffered a hell of an attack from the wights during the battle, and retreated in order to literally shake off a cadre of wights and perhaps heal his wounds. But he didn’t seem to be too injured, and he was well enough to fly, so we’re calling him safe until we see evidence to the contrary. Rhaegal seemed to make it through totally uninjured.

Ghost (Jon’s direwolf)

Ghost showed up in the opening scenes of the episode, charging into battle alongside the Dothraki. But he then apparently peaced out along with Jorah and some of the other riders who returned. We’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing him again.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the Hound as Gregor Clegane; the Hound is Sandor Clegane.

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https://www.vox.com/2019/4/29/18522076/game-of-thrones-long-night-who-died-battle-of-winterfell

2019-04-29 05:46:22Z
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Game of Thrones S8 Ep 3 - "The Long Night" Review - IGN

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Move over, Endgame.

By Laura Prudom

This review contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, episode 3, titled “The Long Night." To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our Season 8, episode 2 review, and check out our predictions about who lived and died in the Battle of Winterfell to see if our guesses were right.

Game of Thrones promised us something unprecedented for the third episode of Season 8, and it delivered in ways we never could have expected.

Still, it’s impossible not to feel a little underwhelmed, given the hype for this episode, that we only got seven notable character deaths (and let’s face it, Beric, Edd, and Jorah might as well have been wearing red shirts from the moment we heard this battle was coming). Theon and Melisandre also served their narrative purposes in a way where I wasn’t surprised (or particularly devastated) to see them go, and although Lyanna's death here was clearly intended to be the fan-favorite exit that really twisted the knife, according to the showrunners she was originally designed to be a one-scene character, so it obviously doesn’t affect the show’s endgame.

Not that I wanted to lose any beloved characters, of course - but the fact that the episode spared all of the core cast did kind of undermine the stakes of an otherwise monumental endeavor. There were times when Brienne, Jaime, Sam, Tyrion, and Sansa, in particular, were completely surrounded and overrun, and yet their plot armor proved too thick to penetrate. That doesn’t mean some of them won’t die in the final three episodes, of course, but for a confrontation as heavily foreshadowed and long overdue as the final fight with the Night King, the episode did have echoes of “Beyond the Wall,” where characters made questionable decisions because the plot dictated it, and yet managed to survive despite the odds for exactly the same reason.

Still, in terms of sheer scale, “The Long Night” easily overshadowed the ambition and tension of “Battle of the Bastards” and “Hardhome,” which were also directed by Miguel Sapochnik. If we were measuring the episode based on technical difficulty alone, it would be an easy 10 (which is probably why our reviewer for previous seasons, Matt Fowler, gave both “Hardhome and “Battle of the Bastards” a perfect score).

I was tempted to do the same here, just because “The Long Night” is such a spectacular achievement in filmmaking - it certainly puts many of the MCU and DC movie universe’s climactic battles to shame, and could easily be measured against the intensity of the Helm’s Deep sequence in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - but I had to deduct points based on some of the contrivances of the plot.

Where did Bran go after he warged into the ravens to spy on the Night King? We don’t see him taking a peek at the villain’s progress at any point afterwards, and yet he’s still zoned out during most of Theon’s final fight. What was the point of checking in on the Night King in the first place if Bran didn’t even attempt to warn Theon or Jon what ol’ pointy-head was up to? Why were Jon and Dany MIA for long stretches before they engaged the Night King, when their dragons easily could’ve been defending the battlements when the wights started to overrun the walls? Where the heck was Ghost after charging right into a wall of wights that wiped out most of the Dothraki? How did Arya get through all those zombies and White Walkers to actually get the drop on the Night King? And why was it so dang dark? (Visually, not even plot-wise.)

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These aren’t dealbreakers that completely undermine the logic of the show the way “Beyond the Wall” did, but for an episode so meticulously crafted, they’re frustrating distractions designed to heighten the tension for the audience without making much sense in the world of the battle - and that’s especially true of the low body count among our protagonists. In the past, George R.R. Martin wasn’t afraid to kill his darlings, and that lent A Song of Ice and Fire (and thus early seasons of Game of Thrones) some unpredictability, but while “The Long Night” flirted with that sense of peril several times, it stopped short of ever delivering the killing blow.

Still, building on “Battle of the Bastards” before it, “The Long Night” captured the frenetic disorientation of a warzone better than anything else on television, while also shifting up the tone and momentum to keep viewers on their toes. Arya’s harrowing attempt to navigate a wight-infested library felt like something out of early seasons of The Walking Dead (back when that show still knew how to build tension) - and the horror movie-esque silence of the scene only heightened the dread, so much so that I was holding my breath right along with Arya as she attempted to escape unnoticed. There’s something especially poignant about the notion that the ancestral home of the Starks - the hallowed halls where Jon, Arya, Sansa, Bran, and Theon grew up - became the site of such terror and destruction; a subtle nod to the innocence they’ve lost over the course of the series.

And by utilizing long, tracking one-shots (or at least very effective approximations utilizing some sneaky hidden cuts) and giving us a character’s-eye-view of the fight, Sapochnik once again put us on the ground during this life or death melee, masterfully portraying the claustrophobia, chaos, and carnage in a way that won’t easily be forgotten.

There were artful and indelible images that will stand as some of the show’s most iconic when all’s said and done: from Melisandre’s spectacular spell to light the Dothraki’s arakhs betfore the battle (and the haunting shot of those fires ominously going out in the distance when the Dothraki reached the wights) to the poetic “dance of dragons” between Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion as they brutally fought in the skies above Winterfell.

The subtler character beats lent even more weight to the brutal action scenes: Tyrion and Sansa’s tender moment in the crypts; The Hound’s literal panic attack (followed by his decision to protect Arya regardless of his own fear); Beric’s dogged determination to hold the wights off to give them both a chance to escape, given how contentious their relationship used to be; Jaime and Brienne fighting through hordes of wights to defend each other; Daenerys picking up a sword for probably the first time in her life to help Jorah; and Theon’s doomed charge towards the Night King just to buy Bran a few more seconds. These are characters who have already faced insurmountable odds, and indeed, who have been on opposite sides of the war in the not too distant past, and yet here we saw them united in a battle not just for the fate of Winterfell, but all of Westeros.

I can’t think of a bigger crowd-pleasing moment in the history of the show than Arya killing the Night King. Certainly there are deaths we’ve rooted for in the past, like Joffrey and Ramsay and Walder Frey, but honestly, this episode almost earned a 10 out of 10 purely for giving Arya such a showstopping scene - not least because, for one brief moment, it seemed as if the Night King was going to snap her neck like a twig.

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Some fans might have expected - at least since Hardhome - that the final showdown would be between Jon and the Night King (Kit Harington and Maisie Williams apparently did), but it was a delicious subversion for Jon to make the typical heroic run towards the Night King, only for the villain to effectively turn his back on him like an insignificant gnat that wasn't worth acknowledging, leaving a horde of reanimated wights to do his dirty work.

The fact that Arya killed the Night King with a move that she also deployed against Brienne back in their sparring scene in Season 7 was a great touch, along with her use of the Valyrian steel catspaw dagger that practically started the entire conflict at the heart of Game of Thrones, when Littlefinger tried to frame the Lannisters for the assassination attempt on Bran back in Season 1. It's a fitting culmination of Arya's years of training and trauma - that even though she was unable to save her father from Joffrey, or her mother and brother from the Freys, or the butcher's boy from the Hound, she could at least protect Bran when he needed it most. If you think back to the scene of Ned Stark watching Arya train with Syrio Forel way back in Season 1, and hearing the clang of real metal swords in place of their wooden training weapons, he perhaps foresaw this fate for his daughter and seemed troubled by it - but at least now we know there was a purpose to all of it, in spite of the pain.

It seems impossible to think that after years of foreshadowing the threat of the White Walkers - from the very first shot of the series, in fact - they were pretty much dispatched in one episode, without us ever learning anything about the Night King’s motivations or the mythology of the White Walkers beyond what was revealed by the Children of the Forest seasons ago. It wasn’t easy, by any means, but it also didn’t feel quite as hard-won as it should’ve.

Perhaps that’s why, beneath all the undeniably impressive spectacle and special effects, the episode feels a little anticlimactic. (Unless, of course, the show is about to reveal some bigger, more ancient supernatural threat behind it all - but that would feel like kind of a cop-out after seeing the entire Army of the Dead disintegrate like so much Infinity Gauntlet dust).

In some ways, it’s fitting that the final battle for the future of the Seven Kingdoms will come down to humans and their choices - Jon, Daenerys, and Cersei and the lengths they’re willing to go to for the pursuit of power. But after the epic scale of this episode and the many battles that have come before it, will Game of Thrones’ endgame still be able to shock us? We only have three more episodes before we’ll know for sure. Check out our breakdown of the preview for Season 8, episode 4 here.

The Verdict

In terms of sheer spectacle, no other episode of Game of Thrones rivals the scale or ambition of "The Long Night," with Miguel Sapochnik expertly balancing the many character plot threads while building a tangible sense of dread. Still, for such a long-awaited showdown with the Night King, episode 3 can't help but feel a little anticlimactic, especially after so many key characters survived what was supposed to be an unwinnable battle. We're relieved so many of our favorites lived to fight another day, but a few more casualties would've made the victory even sweeter.

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https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/04/29/game-of-thrones-s8-ep-3-review

2019-04-29 05:40:00Z
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