Game of Thrones: The Long Night

I will start every one of these posts off with this warning about spoilers. There will be plenty of spoilers. Seriously, if you have not watched the episode, do not read this post. I will also be mentioning stuff from the books. These are not straight up recaps of episodes, nor are they reviews. I will just mention the stuff I liked/disliked and probably give some opinions about what could happen next.

I think this was probably the most intense 82 minutes of my life. I was sweating and nervous throughout much of the episode. Hell, my heart was pounding when I watched it a second time.

I know people have complained about the darkness of the episode (which really was just a TV issue that you could fix by adjusting your settings), but I think much of the darkness was intentional. Or the scenes of Daenerys and Jon flying through swirling snow and not able to see. Remember, the night is dark and full of terrors. I thought not being able to at times helped amplify the tension. I kept expecting something to jump or fly out of the darkness at any moment.

I will not lie, I screamed in triumph when Arya stabbed the Night King. I did not expect it. I know it was predicted by so many people, but I honestly thought she would kill the undead dragon. I thought she would want to test her skills against something that no one else could kill. I am happy it did not go that way. Everyone focused so much on who was the Prince Who Was Promised or Azor Ahai, that they forgot about Melisandre’s prophecy to Arya. Or perhaps that is the theme of the show, stop worrying about birthright and who deserves to be the king or queen; instead focus on improving yourself so that when the time comes you are ready. Arya trained, she bettered herself, and when it was time to face death, she said not today.

I want to talk a second about how this show likes to mess with our expectations instead of conforming to them. If you read enough internet theories about what would happen, people seemed to think that Bran would be the one to save the day (he did!) by using his Three-Eyed Raven powers to destroy the Night King. Unfortunately, that was not the purpose of the Three-Eyed Raven. Sam tells us the purpose of Bran, he is the memory of mankind and the Night King wants to destroy that memory.

The reason I say that Brad did save the day is that he gave Arya the dagger that killed the Night King in practically the same spot where it happened. I think he even says something like “you’ll need it more than me.” Bran knew it would be her to kill the Night King, but he needed everyone to be in their position. Bran also provided Theon with the redemption and the words he needed to hear, a Stark telling him that he is a good man.

The deaths that happened were sad. House Mormont is pretty much gone, Jorah and Lyanna died. Other than that though, the deaths were kept to a minimum, which was fairly shocking. It was a good shock though. Why would I want to lose some of these characters? Granted, there were a ton of Dothraki slaughtered at the beginning, but who cares about them. Actually, it makes sense that they would die. Westeros was not going to be cool with Daenerys conquering the Seven Kingdoms with a barbarian horde.

I am excited for how the final episodes play out. I wonder if the Golden Company will break their contract and reveal that they have always been loyal to House Targaryen. I doubt it, but it would definitely be a great twist. Although, we would need a major history lesson. The show does not really focus much (if anything at all) on the Blackfyre Rebellion, so that probably means it is a non-factor.

And you know what that means? GRRM can do different things with the books…if he ever finishes them. I am even more excited for them now because I want to see if they end the same as the show.

The last thing I want to mention is the fandom. I think so often fans get wrapped up in theories and predictions. They meld the books and show together and come up with these elaborate stories that could happen. And when they do not pan out, they get angry and feel cheated. The clues for this ending to the Night King seemed to be there throughout the series. But people missed them because they were too busy focusing on Azor Ahai. I think I mentioned before that I thought that was a mistake since the show does not really talk about that prophecy as much as the books. I come up with my own theories and predictions, but it does not bother me when they are wrong. I just like to speculate. I do not get too invested them.

Now the battle for the Iron Throne truly begins.