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Surprise surprise, no One Piece related discussion this week. One Piece is on break this week and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about another beloved series of mine, Game of Thrones/ A Song of Ice and Fire. The latest episode was a polarizing one. Season 8 episode 3 titled “The Long Night” was an event the series spent building up to since it started. I’m going to talk about some of the complaints that have been going around as well as my personal opinions on the episode.
So, the meme of the night for the episode was that no one could see anything. Personally, I had no issue watching the episode. I always watch in a dark room with a decent display but I do understand why some would complain because the entire episode was much darker than usual. I think it was intentional, not being able to clearly see what was approaching or going on put the viewer in the shoes of our heroes in that they were also disoriented.
One thing I do praise this episode for is the overall directing and score. There were a lot of breathe taking shots and scenes that were beautifully executed which, coupled with an amazing score, drove the emotional factor in well. After my immediate watch I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, which is a good thin:, I like when I watch or read something, and it makes me care that much. However, the more I sat with the episode and thought of what happened, I got a little pissed.
The show veered off from the storylines from the books a long time ago, expecting it to somewhat follow those storylines at this point is pointless, but when the show tries too hard to subvert the expectations of story lines they have been building up to, it leaves a bad taste in the fans’ mouths. I know subversion of expectations is a staple in the series but in the past, the subversions made more sense and were better established. It feels as if they decided to do what they did just for shock value.
This whole conflict with the Night King has been built up side by side with Jon Snow since season 5 at the Battle of Hardhome. Jon’s whole story line was being set up to be resolved in a confrontation with the Night King, not seeing ANY payoff whatsoever with that build up is very disappointing. I’m not saying he deserved to kill the Night King, all I’m saying is we should have at least seen the two fight. The Night King didn’t fight at all in this series, an 8000-year-old Ice creature with ample experience was nothing more than an evil for the sake of evil plot device used to immediately defeat the biggest threat known to man. The author if the ASOIAF books, George RR Martin, said he doesn’t like the concept of pure good vs pure evil in his stories, not everyone is realistically pure good or evil. The show runners veering off from one of the key themes of the series when it came to the Night King was disappointing.
This may seem like I’m mad Arya was the one to kill the Night King, I’m not. The problem I have is that what the show was building up to did not reflect the outcome. People will probably bring up what Melissandra said about shutting blue eyes but I honestly think that was shoe horned in just because it was a convenient excuse for her to give the final blow. I would have at least wanted to see Jon having SOME part in a confrontation with the Night King. Maybe as they are fighting it seems as if Jon will loose and Arya comes in and helps Jon AND THEN gives the final blow. Satisfying most people.
Another disappointment were the White Walker Generals. They literally did NOTHING, just stand there. Why didn’t the show let them fight our main cast 1 on 1? There were plenty of generals to go around. All our main cast did was fight fodder wights. Having the generals distracted with battles with the main cast would have made the final scene make more sense. How do multiple White Walker Generals not react or do anything when Arya comes for their King? It’s just convenient writing to resolve a plot point as quick as possible. Bran didn’t do anything this battle either, he could have warged into Ghost or something, idk, there’s a lot that could have been done to make what they intended to do make more sense. Oh and the fact that barely any main characters dies was a shock, all this build up of an unstoppable force and even Sam survives??? Ooookay.
I can go with the disappointments, but I’ll stop here. I’m hoping there’s more to this White Walker story line than what we saw but there’s only 3 episodes left so I doubt it. I am still looking forward to the rest of the season but after this White Walker threat, everything else feels meh. Read the books. The story is very different and much better executed. Maybe I’ll talk about the differences in the future.
TO BE CONTINUED X
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