Frankly I don't see how any of them could have survived - the episode itself was an hour and 20 minutes or so, but it depicted a battle that went on for hours. Even the most hardened warriors would have eventually tired from the constant onslaught - Sam and Davos in particular would have been toast fairly quickly.

But, it is what it is. This has mostly been GoT for Dummies since they ran past the books. It's still enjoyable, but in a dumb fuck comic book movie kind of way.
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Nope. At least that's not how it works in the books.

EDIT: Not the way it works in the show either. See the Battle of Hardhome.
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It was dark yeah but the hard cuts is what threw me off more, sometimes esp. the dragon scenes, it was just kinda hard to follow along with what was going on.

I can't lie, was disappointed in this episode...just way too many conveniences and the plot armor was thick as hell in this one, more so than a lot of other episodes. With the rules they've established, there's no way Brienne, Jaime, Pod, Sam, Gendry, etc. should've made it out.


I'm one of the few though that has thought if you're going to push them as this ever looming threat that comes to fruition and they're insurmountable and always adding numbers with the dead...just go all the way with it. Have them sack Winterfell, he brings everyone back, and they go to King's Landing.

I really think they backed themselves into with the whole White Walkers and Night King...in the end it was just like like eh well what was the point lol.

Another big question I have is that if Arya was always destined to kill TNK and Melisandre knew this, what was the point of bringing Jon back...? To rally the troops to fight the WWs? To take the throne?
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I’ll nerd out and defend some “plot holes” for a minute...

Re: the NK knowing where Bran was at all times, I don’t think you have to interpret that literally as he always knows exactly where Bran is. I think the correct interpretation is that the NK can always find Bran by concentrating on the mark.

Prior to Bran’s warg flight, the NK was a little busy:
1) flying a dragon
2) commanding a mass horde of undead thrills telepathically
3) coordinating all battle efforts

Sure, he could have homed in straight to Bran, but there were a lot of other things going there. If you’re not really into fantasy and have not read/watched a lot of I, I get the confusion.

Re: the writing, I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea it has gotten worse. It has gotten different. Situations have become more life and death, more serious, and there’s less subterfuge and hidden meaning.

Re: the timeline and how people survived so long, we see the events sequentially, but I would believe that many of those are happening simultaneously. There’s too much to show and too many moving pieces to time it up sequentially, IMO.

Re: the number of named survivors, that surprised me also. But a few things... someone has to survive, and it makes sense that the best trained/most skilled would be the ones winning clear... it makes sense the wights would be less efffective when the NK was doing other things and focused less on them... and it would a very thrones-y thing to let favorites survive the big battle and then pick them off in less perilous situations.

Re: Gendry getting tired from swinging his hammer... he’s a blacksmith and has been doing that daily for several years. He probably has better stamina than anyone else out there.
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One of my big problems with the whole NK thing and Jaime even talked about this last week and again with the rules they've established, he never exposes himself.

Why on earth would during that battle then....? Especially knowing that if he dies, all the WWs are gone...

I mean any one of his generals could've killed Bran...I just HATE it when writers go against things they've already laid in foundation for no reason.
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Once the NK was engaged, the only way to “realistically” end the episode or at least the battle, was to kill him off. There was no reasonable way to hold him off for a retreat South and that’s not what Northerners are about anyway. And if he wasn’t killed, there is no way any living could survive. I can understand why some have some gripes with the episode but I though it was awesome. I thought there was a semblance of realism in the NK losing his only huge war. Kind of like a number one seed getting knocked out in OT of the first round. I though the big twist was the fact there was no big twist. How often does anything go to plan on GOT?
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That and he rowed a boat for like 3 seasons so his stamina is off the charts
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...and ran back from north of the wall to get Dany at speed and time that would make Usain Bolt jealous. :-)
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You guys know how awesome we all thought last week's episode was? With all of the main characters talking about the battle? It sure was awesome to see some character arcs fulfilled because we knew that some of them were going to die in the next episode. Except not a single one of them died, despite the fact that some of them literally had 15-20 wights surrounding them that just somehow never managed to kill them.

And you know the prophecies setting up Jon as being Azor Ahai? It was never confirmed, so you could conceivably say that it was Arya all along. Except in the post-show breakdown with D&D, they basically said that they did it because they thought it would be fun.

It's just bullshit lazy writing. I had hoped the show would help me feel a sense of closure since it seems like GRRM never will finish the books. Instead, I kind of feel cheated that we're being fed this half-assed, predictable version of GOT that doesn't even feel like the books anymore.

Bleh. I'll stop ranting. I'm just really irritated at the fact that they're just going to end this thing and not even bother being true to some of the things that made the story great in the first place.
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Yep. That's pretty much all it is.
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Actually, it seems pretty clear to me where the divide is here. If you look at the book-reader subreddit, you'll see that everyone's pretty much pissed. In the show-watcher subreddit, reactions are generally positive. So there's your explanation. Book readers are irritated because so many of the key points are being shit upon, but show watchers don't care about that stuff as much.
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Hubris.

It is someone's downfall in a lot of literature. Whether good or bad, I do think the show did a good job of projecting the idea the NK had won by that point, so he let his hubris get the best of him.
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Yeah, Sam for being a weak fighter. Tormund and greyworm because they were constantly on the front lines. I get that they had to preserve some of the characters. But they had an opportunity to kill off some easy targets and they didn't. Disappointing. But plenty of chances for people to still die in the final episodes.
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I mean I guess I can buy that....it just annoys the shit out of me when writers work to lay foundations, build on them, and then just go against them because well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯....
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GoT Avengers - the Age of the Night King.
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