The Battle of Winterfell
The Darkness
Yes, it was very dark. Even with most of our lights off, there were some parts of the episode where we could hardly see what was going on. I feel like this was partly intentional, to reflect the overpowering mood of the Night King. Some of the scenes were made more powerful by the fact that you couldn’t tell where the threats were or what side was running towards you.
But there were definitely some parts where it felt like the post production colour grading just wasn’t right. I feel like enough people have complained about it that we might see this addressed for the Game of Thrones blu-ray release, but time will tell.
The Red Lady
She finally showed that her power was legit. I’d spent a long time wondering if she was faking her way to the top, even with her illusion necklace. But at least she finally showed that she could set a lot of stuff on fire, so that was cool. I’d have liked to see a bigger demonstration of the Lord of Light (shooting dragonfire out of her fingers maybe over the top though), but that was fine.
The Dothraki
The spectacular build up of the Dothraki as terrifying fighters was a bit of an anti-climax, no? It was an awesome moment watching those lights go out, but for them to get snuffed out like a bunch of nothings – after a few seasons of build-up – was kind of disappointing.
Deaths
I was expecting some more important people to go, but they all went out with style. Jorah went defending the woman he loved. Lyanna went out like the total freaking badass she was. Theon finally got his redemption. But I’d consider them 3rd tier characters. There were no real shocks.
That Arya Moment
FUCK. YES. And so much of it was foreshadowed. Bran gave Arya the dagger in that spot. She snuck up on Jon in that area. She stabbed the Night King in the same place he was stabbed to create him. She used the same dagger drop move on Brienne way back in Winterfell. Bran said “nobody could kill the Night King” and Nobody did, since a girl has no name. This was definitely the highlight of the episode for me. And now she can add a few hundred thousand more people to her bodycount. Well done.
Dragons
The dragons weren’t as effective in battle as I’m sure everyone wanted, but I get it. You can’t make it too easy. But I was hoping for a moment where the undead dragon caught up with Daenerys and had some conflict about what it was going to do. I was wondering if Jon could survive the blue fire blast in the same way that Daenerys can take the regular fire. Unfortunately we got none of that and to be honest, the dragons might as well have not showed up.
Azor Ahai
Last thing. I’ve seen people talking about the profecy of Azor Ahai never coming to pass. But this has made me wonder. We’ve already seen non-gendered words automatically assumed to be male over female, so it seems possible to me that this could be a mistranslation of Arya’s name (or her other nickname “‘Arry”). It might never be mentioned again now the Red Lady is gone, but could there be something else here? Time will tell.
The Darkness
Yes, it was very dark. Even with most of our lights off, there were some parts of the episode where we could hardly see what was going on. I feel like this was partly intentional, to reflect the overpowering mood of the Night King. Some of the scenes were made more powerful by the fact that you couldn’t tell where the threats were or what side was running towards you. But there were definitely some parts where it felt like the post production colour grading just wasn’t right. I feel like enough people have complained about it that we might see this addressed for the Game of Thrones blu-ray release, but time will tell.The Red Lady
She finally showed that her power was legit. I’d spent a long time wondering if she was faking her way to the top, even with her illusion necklace. But at least she finally showed that she could set a lot of stuff on fire, so that was cool. I’d have liked to see a bigger demonstration of the Lord of Light (shooting dragonfire out of her fingers maybe over the top though), but that was fine.The Dothraki
The spectacular build up of the Dothraki as terrifying fighters was a bit of an anti-climax, no? It was an awesome moment watching those lights go out, but for them to get snuffed out like a bunch of nothings – after a few seasons of build-up – was kind of disappointing.Deaths
I was expecting some more important people to go, but they all went out with style. Jorah went defending the woman he loved. Lyanna went out like the total freaking badass she was. Theon finally got his redemption. But I’d consider them 3rd tier characters. There were no real shocks.That Arya Moment
FUCK. YES. And so much of it was foreshadowed. Bran gave Arya the dagger in that spot. She snuck up on Jon in that area. She stabbed the Night King in the same place he was stabbed to create him. She used the same dagger drop move on Brienne way back in Winterfell. Bran said “nobody could kill the Night King” and Nobody did, since a girl has no name. This was definitely the highlight of the episode for me. And now she can add a few hundred thousand more people to her bodycount. Well done.Dragons
The dragons weren’t as effective in battle as I’m sure everyone wanted, but I get it. You can’t make it too easy. But I was hoping for a moment where the undead dragon caught up with Daenerys and had some conflict about what it was going to do. I was wondering if Jon could survive the blue fire blast in the same way that Daenerys can take the regular fire. Unfortunately we got none of that and to be honest, the dragons might as well have not showed up.Azor Ahai
Last thing. I’ve seen people talking about the profecy of Azor Ahai never coming to pass. But this has made me wonder. We’ve already seen non-gendered words automatically assumed to be male over female, so it seems possible to me that this could be a mistranslation of Arya’s name (or her other nickname “‘Arry”). It might never be mentioned again now the Red Lady is gone, but could there be something else here? Time will tell.With only 3 episodes to go there’s still a lot of secondary stories that we haven’t got closure on yet. Is Gendry being a Baratheon important? It’s nice that it’s created a new Baratheon/Stark allegiance between him and Arya, but is that all we get? I’d like to see more of this explored. Are we getting Cleganebowl in King’s Landing? LET’S GO, Game of Thrones!