The Nights Watch: GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 EPISODE 3. April 29 UK. Spoilers after 2 am.

[OneInAMillionYou]

Come gather brothers and sisters of The Nights Watch. The Battle of Winterfell will soon be upon us.

Valar morghulis

Yes i agree laurie

I always wanted the final outcome to be that all the major contenders for the iron throne are dead at the end. As Cercei said in season one - in the game of thrones you win or you die.

Its actually a bit disappointed that both Jon and Danny are still alive. One of them should be dead at this point. The other then goes south and beats Cercei. Then ideally either dies of their wounds or is overthrown in a popular uprising so that the Democratic People's Republic of Westeros can be established. A plague on all their houses. Why are we even all so invested in who the "rightful" ruler is? Shouldn't a random ordinary person with talent and charisma have just as much chance of being selected as the eldest surviving member of some rich family?

TheInvestigator I haven’t watched the Watchers on the Wall for a very long time, so I can’t remember that much about it. I remember it being a very good battle though.

Sansa not having any guard still seems to me a bit, well, odd. She was on the battlements when the battle started and made her way to the crypts entirely alone. I get that they needed Brienne to have her near death moments in front of Jaime and vice versa, but hey ho. I guess they also needed a near-death conversation behind the Boromir statue between Sansa and Tyrion, which would have been far less effective if it had been between Sansa and a random guard.

I’m also wondering what’s the point of Jon anymore. He was supposed to be the central figure, the song of ice and fire, but he’s looking somewhat redundant now what with Arya and Dany doing all the actual important stuff.

Should have said Sansa too, what with ruling the North and all

I don't get the loose ends thing so much tbh. I've never been a fan of having NK as an important person before he was made, we know how and why he was made and I feel like that's enough really. Mystery is what made him so terrifying and I like that they've left us with question marks hanging over him, esp if they go on to do a prequel about him- would be pointless if we already knew everything.
Also r.e Milisandre, I think her story is pretty much complete too (I'd like to know her parentage), I think it's safe to assume the Lord Of Light kept her alive this long so that she could help in this fight, even though she was wrong about things they still played an important part in getting to where we are now. If it wasn't for Stannis, the wildling battle would have went down very differently and Jon would probably be dead (and not resurrected when he does die). She's done all she could now and it's time for her to die.

Where there not guards guarding the crypt doors? When they start screaming to let them in when the wights are attacking?

Anyone else disappointed with Bran's warging strategy?

If it wasn't for Bran the NK wouldn't have been killed. He would have stayed away and the whites would win.
I think he will probably do something to help the war against Cersei, or offer insight to something from the past, then live out the rest of his days in a tree.
The reason I hate Bran is Hodor, summer and that he's still so robotic despite Issac saying he wasn't going to do that this season

They will never mention the 3 eyeyed raven again.

I guess the Umbers and Karstarks were problematic for the Starks because despite their current loyalty they have betrayed the Starks very badly in recent years so it might be a relief they are gone. I am much sadder to see the end of house Mormont but going down fighting is in keeping with the attitude of Lyanna and her 60? fighting men since season 6.

It might well be as simple as a clearing of the decks - like getting rid of the Dothraki early on might be to solve some logistical/plot problems for later on - but I just thought the clear shot of Alys Karstark next to Theon felt pointed. So Lyanna's death was in keeping with her character, and also a big emotional beat in the episode, and young Umber was part of the build-up to the army of the dead arriving, but there was no obvious reason for Alys to be with Theon, other than to make sure her house also fell.

I'm wondering if there's something still to come in the whole 'the lone wolf dies and the pack survives' thing, eg Sansa tries to break the north away from Danaerys and finds herself standing completely alone, before having to build bridges with Jon and join forces once again.

They will, there's no chance those ravens flew for fuck all.

There is a theory that Bran ie using his powers to orchestrate everything that's going on. It's interesting.

www.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/comments/binsug

Yeah maybe. Then I guess he wants to kill Cersei and Jamie as they pushed him out if the window.

Phew!

What an episode - and what a long thread :)

I watched but as many of you have said it was difficult to always make out what exactly was happening. Will watch again when I get chance.

Am still unsure how many survived- not many.

Loved how Arya was the top dog though. She was amazing.

No, he knows that needed to happen for him to become the 3ER. Everything had to happen as it did for Arya to defeat the NK

OK, I’m going to try to voice what I think is the problem in the fandom with the Arya stuff, but I don’t know if I can express it very well. Here goes nothing...

The story GRRM is telling is a large and complicated one with multiple layers of foreshadowing and different prophecies which misdirect and, on other occasions, overlap. However, he is still telling a story about characters and their development. He has said on multiple occasions that he is telling the only story that matters - the one of the human heart in conflict with itself. To that end, the show has done a grand job with certain characters. Theon’s character arc was perfect. He died as Theon, protecting his home. Spot on.

Now let’s imagine Harry Potter and assume on the Half Blood Prince has been written. Imagine that the movie of DH part 2 comes out and, at the very last moment, it is Neville Longbottom who kills Voldemort. It was legitimately prophesied and foreshadowed and it was a perfectly acceptable story arc for Neville. But what does that then mean for Harry? What was the point of his story arc? What about Hermione, and Snape and Ron and all the other characters who were part of Harry’s story? I suppose Harry could then go on to be chief auror or something like that, but his story would seem somehow.... unsatisfying.

D&D mentioned that they decided about 3 years ago that Arya would be the one to kill the NK. It seems that they made this decision as everyone was expecting it to be Jon. Fair enough, their MO seems to be to totally surprise the audience with the utterly unexpected. I’m not bothered about the effect of this on Arya’s story arc, but the effect that this will have on Jon’s and his supporting characters will be more difficult to resolve.

It seems clear that there will be a point where Bran/Sam/Sansa will use the information about Jon’s parentage to oust Dany, but why would this be narratively satisfying at this point? If Neville was the one to kill Voldemort, why is Harry the hero any more?

I will wait and see...

I never saw Jon as the main hero, I think this is where a lot of the issue stems from. I think each person was a hero in their own narratives, and now we have finally seen all those narratives come together. We assumed Jon would be the one to take out the NK because he had faced him before, but that never had to be the case. I do think it will be interesting to see what happens with him now as the battle he has been building up for is now over.

I do think for a second he probably thought he dusted the Dragon by screaming at it

kungfupannda I did seem odd that they showed Alys with Theon. She hadn't volunteered at the pre battle strategy meeting and, unlike Lyanna, there has been no indication that she was a 'warrior' type. I can't work out what the purpose would be other than having the house gone. Either that or some scenes that would have made sense (ie: her volunteering) were cut.

I also didn't get the ravens scene. Was that just to get the NK attention? Or is there something still to play out.

Are they going to reveal to everyone that Arya killed the NK? Only bran and her were present after all. And why do they need any more fighting? Surely someone will point out that they just need to smuggle Arya South to kill Cersei. Sorted. No more death of innocent civilians...

either nowTV or Virgin cable doesn't have the data capacity to provide enough data at peak hours for things like this. We had to stop and restart 3 times when the picture quality got too bad

Now TV temporarily stopped twice in the first 20 minutes and then half way through the episode it stopped completely. When I tried to start it again, it had lost my place, reverting to a point 5 minutes earlier than where I had got to. Very frustrating.

Here's something me and DH thought of, last night.

The fate of Westeros will not be determined by any of the nobles, but a common sellsword (as in Varys riddle to Tyrion back in season 2).

Cersai handed the privy crossbow to Bron. It's already been used once to shift the balance of power in the series (killing Tywin). What would be more fitting than to have the final contenders* lined up and Bron needing to make the choice.

*It would be nice ironic if Bron gets to choose between the Lannister siblings, but it's more like to be between Cersai, John and Danearys.

sweetsummerschild that's definitely why the fans are upset.
Personally though, I'm glad Jon wasn't the hero. That's what was expected and GoT has always been about surprising and shocking you. I think Jon v NK in the show, would have been really cheesy and predictable. It wasn't so much Neville killing Voldemort, more like Ron or Hermione.
I'm surprised more people aren't happy that we watched Arya blindly fight with sticks for a whole season for a good reason. I think it might have played out better if they had known all along it would be Arya though, even though I still think it being her makes sense.
It's also great that the show haven't spoiled the conclusion to NK for the books, should we ever get to read it.

Jon just wanders around shagging and looking lost.

Arya trained for this shit.

I was slightly unsure about the Arya killing NK but because of how it was executed. It felt a bit Deux et machina having her suddenly leap out behind him. I get it wouldn't have worked if she had been shown killing the white walkers as the NK would have noticed earlier but the way she just vanished after talking to Melisandre and then reappeared at the last minute felt wrong. I think would have preferred to see at least some of her fighting to get to the gods wood. Like her and Jon both trying to get there and you don't know who will arrive first. But then I guess they were trying to keep the surprise that blue eyes meant NK as it could also have just been Melisandre pep talking her to keep fighting the wights.