‘The Long Night’ Does Not Make Sense

Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 3, ‘The Long Night‘, is the unwanted gift that keeps on giving. Articles, podcasts and commentary videos keep flooding the internet. Disillusioned people can’t stop talking about how they loved the epic battle while watching it, and then, after ten minutes of dopamine wearing off, realized the episode did not make a lick of sense.

We have to tread lightly, dissecting this massive letdown (for all the wrong reasons), given that there are three episodes left, but not too lightly. From start to finish, the story beats are nonsensical. Let’s begin.

Setting Bran Down In The Godswood

As I pointed out in my blogpost ‘Winter Is Bumming: The Night King Should Have Won‘, the stakes were totally unclear. What would’ve happened if the Night King had killed Bran? Why set Bran down in the godswood in the first place and not somewhere else – like, you know, somewhere far away from the castle? Draw the Night King to an unpopulated area (won’t be hard to find in Westeros) and ambush him. Why in the world keep Bran in Winterfell? Did they want a battle they couldn’t win?

The Dothraki And The Army Of The Dead

We don’t see who gives the order, but the Dothraki suddenly start charging in the direction of where the White Walkers presumably are. Also with them: Jorah Mormont and direwolf Ghost. There’s a lot of debate about this crazy move, but I don’t really mind the Dothraki enthusiasm. They’ve gone without a proper fight for so long and can’t help themselves. No, my problem is with the fact that they don’t have a clue about where the army of the dead is, exactly. And whether they’ll encounter wights, huge ice bears, even huger ice spiders, ice giants or ice dragons. They’re not just going in blind, they don’t even know if they’re going in at all.

What Killed The Dothraki?

The Dothraki get surprised by… I’m not sure. Wights standing on top of each other? That’s the only explanation. We see the Dothraki ride up against some sort of wall. There’s a shot of one of the riders, looking up at the camera, freaking out, as if a giant is looking down at him. But the Night King only has one giant, who couldn’t have wiped out all the Dothraki soldiers singlehandedly. It has to be wights standing on top of each other, which is just silly.

The Main Characters Cannot Die

So the wights easily kill off the Dothraki using circus acrobatics, but are incapable of killing the main characters who are all on the frontline of defense? We should’ve known, though. Gendry provided most of them with so-called ‘plot armor’. The Hound can’t die, because he’s still gotta fight his brother in the long awaited ‘Clegane Bowl’. Jaime can’t die, because he’s still gotta kill his sister Cersei, since he’s the ‘Valenqar’. Sam can’t die, because he’s still gotta go back to the Citadel and write down all the historical events he’s personally witnessed in a book called ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’. Tormund can’t die, because he’s the comic relief. Daenerys can’t die, because she’s still gotta fight Cersei. And Jon can’t die, because he’s still gotta fight Daenerys.

Tyrion & Sansa

The most cringeworthy moment happened below Winterfell, in the crypts. Tyrion and Sansa were forced to marry once, for like twenty seconds, until Sansa ran off with Littlefinger. They never consummated the marriage and were both very unhappy with the arrangement. But for some reason, while dead bodies break out of their coffins all around them, they’re imagining a life where they could be together? As a couple? Are you kidding me? In the midst of trying to stay alive, people generally don’t think about romantic relationships. The one and only priority here is to survive. Also, the romance comes out of nowhere. Since when do Sansa and Tyrion have a crush on each other? And if we were to believe Sansa, the only reason why they should hold off on jumping into bed together, is Tyrion’s allegiance to Daenerys. Are you kidding me?

Lyanna Mormont vs. The Giant

It’s pretty badass, how Lyanna Mormont takes down the giant. However, I don’t understand what the giant is thinking. He comes in and starts swiping the floor. Crushes everybody who’s in his way. But for some reason he picks up Lyanna and… looks at her. He must’ve noticed more than one tiny human being during his life (and life after death), so why is he so mesmerized by her? The camera moves in closer, and it looks like he wants to eat her. Is that a thing? Do giants eat people? Even if they do, in the next shot his mouth is not open wide anymore, so that can’t be it. He’s picked up Lyanna, because he wants to be stabbed in his eye, is that it?

Drogon vs. The Night King

Daenerys orders Drogon to barbecue the Night King, only to find out that he’s fireproof. Notice the music? It’s a clear reference to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) walks through a blaze of fire, caused by the truck that blew up around him. That’s pretty cool. Anyway, if dragonfire doesn’t kill the Night King, why not go for the more obvious solution? I’m not saying it would’ve worked, but she should’ve at least tried to tell Drogon to eat him. The Night King is probably made of some unchewable icy material, but still. Dragonteeth could potentially wound him a little, maybe?

Theon

Why, Theon, why? You’re surrounded by hundreds of wights. The Night King and his generals are waiting until you step aside. Why make a run at the Night King like some crazy kamikaze pilot and sacrifice yourself? Why not stay as close to Bran as you can, until the very last second? You want to be a hero? This is not what heroes do. This is pointless.

The Night King

Speaking of the Night King: what was he thinking? He starts off on his dragon, hovering above Winterfell, doing conductor things with his hands. Then gets bumped off by Daenerys, falls to the ground. He eats fire, scares off Daenerys, puts a few wights in front of Jon to slow him down. Why doesn’t he call Viserion back to him after that? Why doesn’t he fly off to find a nice place somewhere in the fog and wait out the battle? We’ve seen countless times before that the Night King is not in a hurry. Just wait until every living person is dead. Then, and only then, come down again and kill Bran – if that’s really something you want to do yourself. Instead, he steps into the godswood too early and pays the price for it.

Arya

Did it make sense that Arya was the one to save the day (or night)? I don’t really have an opinion on that – because, again, I believe the Night King should have won. But if he had to die, it should’ve been by the hands of Jon, ever since his staredown with the Night King back in season 5. But Jon would also have been very predictable. It may have worked if they reserved a ten minute scene in which Jon and the Night King had an epic sword fight. An awesome, well directed, brilliantly choreographed sword fight scene to the death, preferably without music. Maybe. However, it’s clear this decision was made by Benioff and Weiss – not George R.R. Martin. Which is odd. One of the biggest plot points was changed, in favor of… what exactly? Thanks, George, for the outline. So this is how the White Walkers will be defeated in the books? Well, nah. We like Arya. We’re going with Arya on this one. Thank you, though.

It all makes no sense whatsoever.

Winter Is Bumming: The Night King Should Have Won

As the whole world has seen or heard by now: the Night King has been defeated. Game of Thrones got rid of its main antagonist, three episodes before the end. For eight seasons, Arya had been practicing really hard to become ambidextrous (and invisible), and caught the Night King off guard. Winter came, saw and got stabbed. It should’ve gone the other way: the Night King should have won the long night. Here’s why.

At the end of season 8, episode 3, ‘The Long Night’, everything seemed lost. The main characters were outnumbered a kazillion to one. Bran and Theon were surrounded by wights. The latter went kamikaze on the Night King, because… He wanted to look heroic? It made no sense to sacrifice himself this way. He was quickly taken out. The Night King walked up to Bran.

At this point in the episode, I thought: holy shit. The Night King is actually going to win. He will wipe out Bran and everybody else who’s still standing. A ballsy move by the writers. There’s no way out. There’s no rabbit coming out of the hat. That’s what I thought.

And then the rabbit came flying in.

Anticlimax

I was rooting for the Night King. Not because I wanted Bran to die, but the story would progress further. Tension would build up even more. With Arya killing him, everything sort of rewinded back to normal, with one exception: the absence of the big scary threat from beyond the wall.

Where do we go from here? Daenerys’ army has shrunk to lover/nephew Jon, five soldiers, a one handed Lannister, a dwarf, a eunuch and two wounded, hungry and pissed off dragons. Say goodbye to the Iron Throne. Who cares about that uncomfortable seat in King’s Landing anymore anyway? The North sure doesn’t. There is hardly any North left.

Does the audience care about Daenerys’ aspirations to be queen? I think not. Is she going to fight Cersei, Euron and the Golden Company? I think not. So I have no idea what the show has in store for us next. Maybe they’ll pull another rabbit out of the hat, but it’s gotta be a big one, because fans all over the world are furious.

What would’ve happened if the Night King had won?

I don’t see how Game of Thrones could recover. It would have been so much better if the Night King had won. Now that would have been a real shocker. But then we immediately run into trouble, because what would’ve happened if he’d killed Bran?

Think about it. Really think about it. Why did he come for Bran? Why did he need to take out Bran specifically? It’s not like when you kill Bran, you kill every human being. Right? The only tidbit of information we have came from Sam. The Night King wanted an endless winter. And Bran. Because Bran has an unfiltered connection to history.

If Bran had died, nothing would’ve changed. There is no difference between Bran being capable of looking into the past but hardly saying anything to anybody, and Bran being dead. So the stakes of keeping Bran alive were totally unclear. Nobody knew – and by the way, no one made the argument – why they couldn’t just give Bran to the Night King, and avoid a battle they couldn’t possibly win.

Just roll him out of the castle, point his wheelchair north, put a big blue bow on him if you wish, and let the Night King take him.

This idea should’ve at least been brought to the table. I can picture someone like Tormund make this argument. (Maybe he was out to buy some giant milk.)

Escape to Essos

Let’s not dwell too long on the Bran/Night King relationship. We might still get a few answers. Let’s think about what would’ve happened if the Night King won the battle.

Everyone would’ve died and be made into an undead soldier. Only a few characters manage to escape. Daenerys, Jon, Arya, The Hound and, let’s say, Varys, hop on a dragon and flee. The only safe place is somewhere in Essos. Braavos, Pentos, Qarth – a sunny place to lay low and regroup.

Meanwhile, the Night King takes over Westeros. His army gets bigger and bigger. Cersei has to do something. She’s got Euron, the Golden Company, but that’s just not going to cut it. So she releases Ellaria from the dungeons, to try to create an alliance with Dorne. They need to work together to save the entire continent.

Ellaria returns home, but has no intention of sending her troops to King’s Landing. In Essos, Daenerys gives birth to Jon’s baby. The Iron Throne is no longer an object of affection. They’re happy where they are. However, assassins come after them, when word gets around that their baby is the Prince(ss) That Was Promised.

The Prince(ss) That Was Promised

Jon and Daenerys have to flee again, with the help of Arya, The Hound and Varys. But assassins are on their trail. They’re also being tracked down by Ellaria, who tells them that King’s Landing has fallen. Cersei’s been turned into the Night Queen.

The attempts to kill the baby continue. Ellaria gets killed first. Then Daenerys. Jon is heartbroken, until he’s also killed. Luckily (or is it fate?) their baby survives.

Varys volunteers to take the baby somewhere secret, somewhere safe, to raise him/her on his own. Arya and The Hound, both still consumed by revenge, are fine with that. They make a pact to go back to Westeros and try to kill the Night King and Queen.

With Arya and The Hound boarding a ship, and Varys sneaking away with the baby in his arms towards a beautiful sunrise, Game of Thrones ends.

The Perfect Ending

It wouldn’t have been a perfect ending, being a bit open and all, but it still would’ve been interesting. Let’s wait and see how my ending compares to the actual ending, just three weeks from now.

Surprise, Surprise: Nobody Likes ‘The Long Night’

First and foremost: ‘The Long Night’, season 8, episode 3 of Game of Thrones, is a magnificent example of filmmaking. Director Miguel Sapochnik outdid himself with this epic battle. Every scene, no, every shot, is a special effects shot. The pacing is perfect, the tension palpable, there’s dragons, Ghost the direwolf, a giant, the Night King, a lot of fire and a massive icy storm front. Still, many fans of the show (and books) were disappointed.

Don’t believe the ‘official’ reviews of any tv show or movie, because the big outlets have lost their credibility. They can never be too critical, because pop culture magazines (in print or solely as a website) need their exclusive access. Their access can be revoked with a single email. So they have to walk a very narrow line between giving honest reviews and pleasing production companies.

As a reader, you can’t tell if and when they wander away from that line, therefor their opinion pieces are no longer credible. To get an accurate idea about the common consensus about any movie or tv series episode, you’d best scan the message boards.

Message Boards

And this is what the message boards say: people don’t like ‘The Long Night’. I can understand why, and it’s not just Game of Thrones‘ fault. The show seems to have caught a virus called ‘subvert expectations’. In the last few years, writers of tv series (and movies, especially sequel movies) are setting things up, but never deliver a decent payoff. They say it’s because they want to surprise the audience, and in order to do that, they throw all their setups out the window, and deliberately jump the shark.

This current sickness in Hollywood is best illustrated by J.J. Abrams, who basically said a movie is nothing more than a ‘mystery box’. His idea of telling a story is giving the audience a truckload of mysteries to chew on, without any intention of solving them, because J.J. does not work with a plan. He – and many others – work with their whims instead.

The Dagger

Even though George R.R. Martin had outlined the story of ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ after Benioff and Weiss had run out of books to adapt, there are so many mysteries left, so many threads still dangling, that will never be explained. As Weiss said in Game Revealed (the short documentary about the production process of ‘The Long Night’), the audience just has to figure things out for themselves – when talking about the dagger that killed the Night King.

This appears to be the writers’ motto; throwing a lot of stuff against the wall, making the fanbase guess what it all could mean, and then abandoning it. We’re not going to tell you what it means, na na na na na.

Who is the Night King?

In terms of setups that will likely never be explained: the Night King. Who is he? We’ve seen how he was created (by the Children of the Forest, with dragonglass), but why? And why him? Why did he wait so long to make his move? What role did Craster’s babies play? What did he want with/from Bran? Sam told us the Night King just wants an endless winter and kill everybody because he doesn’t like history.

Really? That’s the only explanation we’re ever going to get?

Maybe not. There’s a prequel series in the works, that will focus on The Long Night (the first one), so we might get some answers in a few years time.

Hope

But I think many of the fans are done hoping. They’re done with the pointless foreshadowing. Look at episode 2, ‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms‘. The interactions between Grey Worm and Jaime, Jaime and Brienne, Grey Worm and Missandei, Arya and Gendry. Their scenes all seemed to foreshadow something, specifically during this week’s big battle. But no. We hardly saw any of them – except for Arya.

Arya was chosen to be the hero. Benioff states that having Jon kill the Night King didn’t feel right. It’s interesting what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t mention George R.R. Martin. Maybe because he doesn’t want to spoil the end of the book series? Or maybe because he wants to hide the fact that he’s been picking and choosing from Martin’s outline?

Ice Spiders

And then there was the expectation of ice spiders that wasn’t met. The audience didn’t just make up ice spiders; Benioff and Weiss planted that idea in our heads, back in season 1. Now, I can understand you would abandon that idea along the way. The ice spiders were nothing more but a footnote in Old Nan’s stories. However, if you indeed decide not to include them in the show, why bring them up again in season 5 (in the episode ‘Hardhome’)?

That’s a clear sign of the virus called ‘subvert expectations’. To make your audience expect something, and then just drop it completely.

Bran

Maybe I’m talking out of turn. The show’s not over yet. There are three more episodes to go, in which we might receive all the payoffs we are eagerly waiting for. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Are we going to get an explanation of what exactly Bran was doing during the attack on Winterfell? He warged into a raven, but why? Now, my guess is Bran did a little bit of time traveling. Putting ideas into people’s heads. Pairing Arya with Jaqen H’ghar, for example, so she’d be persuaded to go to Braavos and learn how to be the perfect assassin.

I have no reason to think this. The episode just showed us ravens and told us to figure it out for ourselves.

It all comes down to this: the clock is ticking. The fans are getting anxious. Three more episodes and none of the big questions have been answered. The show’s running out of time. That’s probably the reason nobody likes this episode; people want answers, not violence. No matter how well directed the episode was – and maybe in time they’ll learn to love it – but at this point in time, it has done whatever the opposite of satisfy is.