Game of Thrones: 8.02 - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

[Al Jackson]

He has the power to kill a yak. From a hundred yards away. With MIND BULLETS!!

I wondered about that.

 

[anno]

Yak? Are we getting mixed up with Gnu of Thrones?

 

[zmunkz]

This isn’t exactly the thread for it, but so far I think this ending theory is still on track after 2 episodes:

 

[Koopa]

dany/jon won't die next episode. one of them probably will before it's over. but it's too soon. whichever will die at the end will be the last death on the 'good' guys side.

@video above. saw a few videos from this guy. not a big fan. he always claims spoilers and/or leaks and/or insights and it usually ends up as nothing being really said.

 

[zmunkz]

I don’t really know his channel, but I thought that particular video was a good summary of some theories that revolve around the Night King and how the last war ended (as the key to how this one will end).

 

[Judderman]

My gods that was a slow episode. The reason is not with the pace but the fact that we know too much. We already know more than the characters do themselves, hence the endless explanations and non-revelations.

Could we have had a more disappointing episode?
With this short season we need action and surprises, and some good conversation but just the key ones. Not every character who is still alive in the north. Well, I did complain after the previous episode that there wasn't enough story telling and interesting dialogue since the show overtook George, but having a 2nd meeting up episode and people just having nice chats was not the way to do it. Unless you are going to have a long season. There was some amusing bits for sure, but strongly hinting at who is going to die by talking about future plans or seeing each other after the battle etc is nothing special. At least we further saw Dany Breaking Bad. Frustrated by both Sansa and Jon I think we have seen for sure that she is going to have to be killed or put in her place in the next 4 episodes. Perhaps after she tries to kill Jon or Sansa. If she does play nice at the end all this nasty stuff she has been showing the last few seasons would be for naught.
I did wonder for a moment if Sansa would have Jamie and his new Knight killed, but she saw her chance to gain more support. After that I was waiting for something to happen for the rest of the episode.
I hope this trap of the Night King is not going to be resolved in a silly way. Odd that the Iron Islanders would be the bodyguard. But surely we are going to see a lot of action next episode! Has to be a classic battle episode.
Still no sign of the red sorceress.

 

[Mr Orange]

Nah, Cleganebowl in the penultimate or final episode for suresies.

yeah you could be right on that one

So with the caveat that I am diabetic and may have had Easter chocolate when I watched and my partner Michelle who was sat on the same couch still insisting it never happened,was I The only one who saw Ghost?

yeah he appeared once or twice. I think with the dragons getting bigger the direwolf cgi budget has been slashed in the last couple of seasons. no dragons in this episode so I guess they had some spare dosh to get ghost out of the kennel. although I think that means he's a goner next episode.

dany/jon won't die next episode. one of them probably will before it's over. but it's too soon. whichever will die at the end will be the last death on the 'good' guys side.

not sure about that. I think dany being gone and someone (Jon?) trying to get the dothraki and unsullied to fight for him would be a good plot twist. I do think she is going to go bad some time soon for sure.

 

[Al Jackson]

Could we have had a more disappointing episode?
With this short season we need action and surprises, and some good conversation but just the key ones. Not every character who is still alive in the north. Well, I did complain after the previous episode that there wasn't enough story telling and interesting dialogue since the show overtook George, but having a 2nd meeting up episode and people just having nice chats was not the way to do it. Unless you are going to have a long season. There was some amusing bits for sure, but strongly hinting at who is going to die by talking about future plans or seeing each other after the battle etc is nothing special. At least we further saw Dany Breaking Bad. Frustrated by both Sansa and Jon I think we have seen for sure that she is going to have to be killed or put in her place in the next 4 episodes. Perhaps after she tries to kill Jon or Sansa. If she does play nice at the end all this nasty stuff she has been showing the last few seasons would be for naught.
I did wonder for a moment if Sansa would have Jamie and his new Knight killed, but she saw her chance to gain more support. After that I was waiting for something to happen for the rest of the episode.
I hope this trap of the Night King is not going to be resolved in a silly way. Odd that the Iron Islanders would be the bodyguard. But surely we are going to see a lot of action next episode! Has to be a classic battle episode.
Still no sign of the red sorceress.

I have no problems with more character development and setting the scene for the big battle* … in this episode.
Alas, my problem is that with only 3 episodes (after the next) there is not enough time left for the elaboration of an elaborate story.
The novels always presented a Blivit problem, pounding 100 pounds of prose narrative into a five pound visual narrative bag.
At this point there are about 100 plot threads being pounded into 6 5 lb episodes... like, will Essos's story be totally forgotten?
There are several major characters , story wise, that seem to have to be there to have a satisfactory conclusion even if that all die in episode 6.
(Tell ya to me the whole Stannis story is getting to seem more like a shaggy dog tale, don't want to see that happen again.)

*Funny, I say a review of one of the big comic book super hero ensemble movies , last year, that said that the cast and characters were so good they wished all the action stuff was no there!!

 

[Culhwch]

At least we further saw Dany Breaking Bad. Frustrated by both Sansa and Jon I think we have seen for sure that she is going to have to be killed or put in her place in the next 4 episodes. Perhaps after she tries to kill Jon or Sansa. If she does play nice at the end all this nasty stuff she has been showing the last few seasons would be for naught.

My wife mentioned while we were watching and it was something that I hadn't necessarily thought of, but there's more than a bit of both Margaery and Cersei in Dany. She doesn't want to be a queen, she wants to be the queen. If she was truly for the good of the Seven Kingdoms, as she often claims, then she'd compromise where compromise was the best option. Allowing Jon to retain the King in the North mantle, for instance, and still coming to his aid. The North is lucky Jon isn't Sansa, or they'd be on their own and really screwed.

It can go two ways, I think, before the end. Dany can show that she is truly her father's daughter, and will need to be put down, or somehow she'll have a revelation that the best thing for the kingdom is not her complete and unquestioned rule. I'd bet on the latter, but I'm not sure how they'll get there from here.

 

[Koopa]

I'm not sure about that. In the books she has been depicted as a tyrant in the making from basically the start as well.

 

[Dave]

She was portrayed in this TV series as a victim; of no importance in comparison to her brother, and as a child bride to an uncivilised barbarian. Her power came not from birthright but from being Mother of Dragons. She was slightly more fair and just in places where there had been no fairness or justice before at all. However, she is clever and emotionally intelligent, and she knows her own mind. It is that certainty of mind and inability to compromise that will make her a tyrant, but Jon Snow has tempered that a little and will continue to do so more if they both should survive.

 

[Judderman]

Dany was portayed as a victim only very early on. She soon showed her ability to adapt. She had apparent compassion for slaves, but that could be seen as a step of her path to rule. She has shown her cruel side for quite a long time. Her reaction the death of Viserys ,in season 1, and various people she had burnt etc over the years. In fact ironically with her lack of reaction, perhaps even satisfaction, over executions you could call her the Ice Queen. It wouldn't surprise me that much if the Night King somehow got in her head and persuaded her to stab someone in the back. But it seems he only has mental contact with Bran. If Dany doesn't attempt something major against Jon or Sansa I will be disappointed. Actually if she doesn't do something bad it could almost be seen as a twist as the possibility has been telegraphed for so long.

Al you are right about the action sometimes being the worst bit in films. But superhero movie big end fights tend to be CGI garbage. I think GOT at least does a good job of a fight or battle scene.

 

[Bagpuss]

If she was truly for the good of the Seven Kingdoms, as she often claims, then she'd compromise where compromise was the best option.

But of course, for Dany, compromise has never been the best option, nor is it the option that she has ever taken. Even when she has apparently compromised, she has always walked it back to be something that suits her own interests. Dany can't compromise. Even if she claims it as being "for the good of the Seven Kingdoms", then that "good" always is linked to her own interests. Always. It's the way she is. She is simply not an altruistic character.

 

[Heather Myst]

This is the best show on television and I loved this episode. I cried when Sansa hugged Theon and when Brienne was knighted.
They made such a point of being safe in the crypts that I'm thinking that little orphan girl that Gilly and Davos were talking to is going to kill a White Walker.

PS Sansa is a boss!

 

[Mr Orange]

They made such a point of being safe in the crypts that I'm thinking that little orphan girl that Gilly and Davos were talking to is going to kill a White Walker.

yup, I didn't realise just how much they mentioned the crypts being safe until a review I read mentioned it. so, definitely not a safe place to be. also, they're sharing those crypts with a whole lot of dead people. and what does the night king like turning dead people into??

 

[Al Jackson]

This is the best show on television and I loved this episode. I cried when Sansa hugged Theon and when Brienne was knighted.
They made such a point of being safe in the crypts that I'm thinking that little orphan girl that Gilly and Davos were talking to is going to kill a White Walker.

PS Sansa is a boss!

Except for The Expanse GoT is really the only TV I go out of my way to see. I mean I have watched TV since 1951 so there is a fun-fatigue threshold for TV I passed a long time ago. GoT pulled me in from the get go even tho I had not read the books, I had read GRRM's other stuff and like it, I have read the books now. HBO sure had a reputation for production design , I loved the 'density' of detail and the over all tone, and D&D sure can write dialog tho helps that GRRM has so great stuff. I don't know of anything else like it on TV (The Expanse is a different animal)...
I like HBO's ROME and Deadwood too , other examples of quality visual narrative.

 

[Khuratokh]

I love that Jaime was defended by Brienne and his brother, but eventually he was pardoned by the Warden of the North by saying "We need all the men we can get." It's true, but they need weapons to fight the dead, or then they'll have to make extra-ordinary things to stop the advance. And although I said weapons, they need men to use them. It's just the Kingslayer isn't the same man he used to be, and what good is to have an enemy general - nobody trusts - leading the men, if they don't trust him?

Should Jaime be given a spear instead of his ancestral sword to be send to be part of the Unsullied army?

Jaime's and Tyrion's reunion was far better and long time full fillment of the wishes and Tyrion rightly grilled his brother for him being ignorant. "You always knew what she was, but you didn't care," he said. But was exactly the same message Three Eyed Raven gave the Prince Brave.

Then again the reunion with Brianne went in same time as it seems every one in Winterfell has a beef with the Kingslayer. They all expected more of him than what he was able to deliver. He then confessed to Lady Brianne: "That I'm not the fighter that I used to be," almost as if he was asking for forgiveness.

There is no forgiveness for him standing besides Cercei and not doing enough to stop the monstrosity from becoming reality. In a way I wish they would have taken his eyes instead of his hand to teach him humility. As a blind man, Jaime would have been forced to hear the world as it is instead of experiencing normally.

Sansa said, "Men do stupid for women. They are easily manipulated."

Well, ain't that the truth?

Later on Tyrion confessed on Eve of the Battle for the Winterfell that: ",their father would be disappointed to find out that they were going to end their days by defending Winterfell." That is another truth. He would be supremely pissed.

Maybe more so that Jaime knighted Lady Brianne. And she went to claim that "No woman can be knight. It's a tradition." I am ready to forgive everything that Jaime has done in the past for the moment he gave to the Knight of Seven Kingdoms. It made smile and cry at the same time.

The boy who lived surely has been been busy, but everyone else he underestimated Arya. Then again, for being a boy, he didn't even see how impressed she looked, when Genrdry demoed one of the axes.

He tried his best to tell the girl that the Dead are lethal, "like Death," he said. Yet, even then he was ready to abandon his "couple of thousand of these" project for Aryas special weapon. Doesn't the girl understand how long it can take to make functional weapon?

It took him more than a day to get the weapon done and at the end it was kind of nice that Arya gave her virginity to the Unknown King. All that time he could have been making weapons for the final battle, but in the light of the humanity it's right that he got the Girl.

Why did he had to come to Winterfell and how did he arrive not soon after Jaime to the Winterfell, even though he was farther away than Jaime when he left King's Landing? Does the Iron Island's have a teleporter?

This scene with an orphan girl and Davos made me cry so much. The girl looked much like the dead princess and I thought for a second that gods were playing with Sir Davos. It was as if he was given a visit by a cherub before the final fight.

"Our enemy doesn't die. Doesn't stop. We cannot beat them in straight line. There's too many of them to fight. So what can we do?" Oh man, the horde is coming and there's nothing to stop them other than semi-magical weapons and two dragons. This is sort of dream situation that zombie survivalists loves to dive into, but yeah, the way they set up the table shows that there's not much of a chance of winning anything. There simply are too many and we don't know for sure of how many the NightKing can resurrect. All we know that every man who dies by their hands raises up as Dead.

Luckily they have the Three Eyed Raven, an undying God, a memory of the past and the present, possibly the future. And he claimed that the only way to stop the Dead is if the NightKing comes to finish the ultimate task, and begin his "endless night."

One thing though, I don't understand what good the Crypt is going to do, if the Dead overruns the castle? All the Living above will be turned. No second chances. So, aren't those people going to be trapped in there, with nowhere to go? If that is the case than why don't they head south and eventually try to get a boat to sail over the Narrow Sea?

Surely if all of this happened before, some of them became evacuetees and eventually hated migrants. Grey Worm was correct about that when he tried to get his love to flee back to where they came back.

My worry is that hiding in the crypt with all the late Starks, from an entity that can raise the dead, might turn out to be a spectacularly bad idea.

 

[Judderman]

They made such a point of being safe in the crypts that I'm thinking that little orphan girl that Gilly and Davos were talking to is going to kill a White Walker.

I thought that orphan girl was a reminder to Davos about Stannis Baratheon's daughter, due to the facial scars. Not the same disease but he seemed upset to see her. So perhaps he will try to protect her at some point.

 

[Heather Myst]

@Judderman,

I think the music they played during that scene with Davos and the girl was the same song that Shireen used to hum.

 

[ctg]

My worry is that hiding in the crypt with all the late Starks, from an entity that can raise the dead, might turn out to be a spectacularly bad idea.

Exactly, it is the last place I would be. In fact, I'd be somewhere South, trying to get a ship somewhere. But, if I would be forced to stay in the Winterfell, the crypt would be out of the question. I'd rather be heating oil, watching those flying napalm throwers roasting the Dead, while wishing for an ellusive wizard to come battle with the necromancer.