Spoilers Game of Thrones: The Final Season

[Miss Chicken]

I am also sick of people who are complaining that not enough named characters died during the Battle of the Long Night. Some of these people are the same people who compare this battle to the Battle of Helms Deep. Are they forgetting that no member of the Fellowship died at Helms Deep and the only person of note who died at Helms Deep was Haldir? 8 of the 9 members of the Fellowship made it through to to end of LOTR and the majority of the lesser characters did as well. But Reddit, Facebook and Twitter were not around when LOTR was released so I guess that is why there were so few complaints.

We have one more battle to go and I guess many of our favourites will die in that.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

I don't think that they're wilfully "lying", but their explanation is, well, pretty dumb. It doesn't fit with what was shown in the scene itself. We can see in the flashback sequence where the Night King was stabbed during his creation, and it's not the same place in which he was stabbed by Arya.

The best theory I've read was that the Night King wasn't just stabbed with Dragon Glass, the stone was actually implanted into his heart. Arya's blow wasn't to the heart, but still shattered the stone in his chest. That this happened next to the Weirwood tree may also have a part, since this is where he was created, and Bran felt it important to wait for him there.

Just another fan theory, but the most cogent one I've come across.

 

[DigificWriter]

I think people are misinterpreting what David and Dan meant with their "exact same spot" comments, taking them literally when they're not intended to be.

I don't believe that their comments were about the physical spot on the Night King's body where the Children stabbed him with Dragonglass, but the locale (aka "spot") (in a Godswood) in which he was transformed.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Well, it's magic so we can all just make up whatever illogical bullshit that makes us happy.

 

[Professor Zoom]

There doesn't have to, but there is.

Why?

 

[Kelthaz]

I am also sick of people who are complaining that not enough named characters died during the Battle of the Long Night. Some of these people are the same people who compare this battle to the Battle of Helms Deep. Are they forgetting that no member of the Fellowship died at Helms Deep and the only person of note who died at Helms Deep was Haldir? 8 of the 9 members of the Fellowship made it through to to end of LOTR and the majority of the lesser characters did as well. But Reddit, Facebook and Twitter were not around when LOTR was released so I guess that is why there were so few complaints.

Here is George's take on the death of Gandalf.

And then Gandalf dies! I can’t explain the impact that had on me at 13. You can’t kill Gandalf. I mean, Conan didn’t die in the Conan books, you know? Tolkien just broke that rule, and I’ll love him forever for it.

The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is a thousand times greater, because now anybody could die. Of course, that’s had a profound on my own willingness to kill characters off at the drop of a hat.

What power that had, how that grabbed me. And then he comes back as Gandalf the White, and if anything he’s sort of improved. I never liked Gandalf the White as much as Gandalf the Grey, and I never liked him coming back. I think it would have been an even stronger story if Tolkien had left him dead.

The whole point of Games of Thrones is to be a subversion of standard heroic fantasy like Lord of the Rings. To show what would really happen without all the plot armour and heroic cliches. To break the rules that say major characters can't die. By saying that LOTR took the same approach to character deaths proves that Game of Thrones should have killed more named characters.

 

[DigificWriter]

GRRM can afford to be much more subversive with the novels than David and Dan can with the television series because of the differences in expectation between the two mediums and the much wider audience that a television series has to cater to.

If David and Dan are too subversive and give us too 'bittersweet' of an ending, it will only serve to piss people off (something they're already having to deal with after killing the Night King when they did).

 

[crookeddy]

Why?

What do you mean why? Because the writers said so!

 

[Miss Chicken]

Here is George's take on the death of Gandalf.



The whole point of Games of Thrones is to be a subversion of standard heroic fantasy like Lord of the Rings. To show what would really happen without all the plot armour and heroic cliches. To break the rules that say major characters can't die. By saying that LOTR took the same approach to character deaths proves that Game of Thrones should have killed more named characters.

There is one major battle to come, and one more episode before that. More named characters died in this battle than died as a result of the Battle of the Bastards. How many did people want to see go? It looks like we will lose quite a few people in The Last War including major characters.

 

[Professor Zoom]

What do you mean why? Because the writers said so!

And it seemed definitive and extra. Yet, people are still adding more. Why?

 

[crookeddy]

And it seemed definitive and extra. Yet, people are still adding more. Why?

What are you talking about... Doesn't make any sense.

 

[Professor Zoom]

What are you talking about... Doesn't make any sense.

Why does Arya stabbing a magical being with a magical knife need any more explanation?

 

[LaxScrutiny]

Well, it's magic so we can all just make up whatever illogical bullshit that makes us happy.

You're on Trek BBS and you're questioning THAT?

 

[stj]

The notion that LOTR is standard heroic fantasy is nonsense. The only work I know of that tackles its fantasy in a fashion remotely similar to LOTR is Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. LOTR ends with Sam coming home. Of all the multitude of heroic fantasy novels I don't know of anything like this. They imitate superficial aspects of LOTR. Michael Moorcock and GRR Martin are terrible critics of LOTR, which they do not understand. It is kind of bizarre. You would think men with such reputations could at least have grasped there is very little magic in LOTR, which is not an accident.

 

[Professor Zoom]

The notion that LOTR is standard heroic fantasy is nonsense. The only work I know of that tackles its fantasy in a fashion remotely similar to LOTR is Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. LOTR ends with Sam coming home. Of all the multitude of heroic fantasy novels I don't know of anything like this. They imitate superficial aspects of LOTR. Michael Moorcock and GRR Martin are terrible critics of LOTR, which they do not understand. It is kind of bizarre. You would think men with such reputations could at least have grasped there is very little magic in LOTR, which is not an accident.

Very little magic!? It’s literally about getting rid of a magic ring.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

The notion that LOTR is standard heroic fantasy is nonsense. The only work I know of that tackles its fantasy in a fashion remotely similar to LOTR is Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. LOTR ends with Sam coming home. Of all the multitude of heroic fantasy novels I don't know of anything like this. They imitate superficial aspects of LOTR. Michael Moorcock and GRR Martin are terrible critics of LOTR, which they do not understand. It is kind of bizarre. You would think men with such reputations could at least have grasped there is very little magic in LOTR, which is not an accident.

Frodo having to deal with his own terror and choosing to use the Ring to hide from the Nazgul? Magic. A magic that some of us use day to day, or wish we had so simple a method. Magic that has a consequence, and the story shows us that this isn't the solution.

There is magic in this story, magic that many of us wish for, and lessons about the consequences.

 

[BlueStuff]

I am also sick of people who are complaining that not enough named characters died during the Battle of the Long Night. Some of these people are the same people who compare this battle to the Battle of Helms Deep. Are they forgetting that no member of the Fellowship died at Helms Deep and the only person of note who died at Helms Deep was Haldir? 8 of the 9 members of the Fellowship made it through to to end of LOTR and the majority of the lesser characters did as well. But Reddit, Facebook and Twitter were not around when LOTR was released so I guess that is why there were so few complaints.

We have one more battle to go and I guess many of our favourites will die in that.

First, this isn't Lord of the Rings; in fact early in the series, one of the most important distinctions between it and LotR is that its characters were not safe, did not have plot armor. That characters in GoT would not be able to take on hundreds of foes simultaneously and live to tell the tale.

Yet all of that has gone out the window in recent years. We literally see unskilled fighters like Sam and one-handed Jaime slay wave after wave after wave of the fearsome undead, despite being on the front lines and indeed, surrounded by the same ravenous revenants who'd torn minor unnamed characters to shreds in mere seconds. Even after the Night King raises the dead once again, this is no big deal - at episode's end there Jaime, Podrick, Brienne and co all are, easily swatting away random pockets of wights like they're Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep.

Suddenly a story that was supposed to subvert the fantasy tropes of LotR has become exactly the same. You say there's still one more battle to go and that major characters will likely die - I agree, they probably will. And yet, how absurd will it seem for these characters to die in a petty battle for the throne after surviving the final end-of-the-world battle with the forces of death?

 

[Miss Chicken]

The difference is that in the Last Battle they will be fighting against competent fighters able to use tactics not mindless wights who rely on only some sort of instinct. The only advantage the wights had was overwhelming numbers, they were not skilled fighters. The living also HD the advantage of being able to look out for each other which helped them out at times.

 

[DigificWriter]

First, this isn't Lord of the Rings; in fact early in the series, one of the most important distinctions between it and LotR is that its characters were not safe, did not have plot armor. That characters in GoT would not be able to take on hundreds of foes simultaneously and live to tell the tale.

Yet all of that has gone out the window in recent years. We literally see unskilled fighters like Sam and one-handed Jaime slay wave after wave after wave of the fearsome undead, despite being on the front lines and indeed, surrounded by the same ravenous revenants who'd torn minor unnamed characters to shreds in mere seconds. Even after the Night King raises the dead once again, this is no big deal - at episode's end there Jaime, Podrick, Brienne and co all are, easily swatting away random pockets of wights like they're Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep.

Suddenly a story that was supposed to subvert the fantasy tropes of LotR has become exactly the same. You say there's still one more battle to go and that major characters will likely die - I agree, they probably will. And yet, how absurd will it seem for these characters to die in a petty battle for the throne after surviving the final end-of-the-world battle with the forces of death?

In previous seasons, the deaths of significant characters didn't happen in battles, so expecting otherwise isn't actually consistent with what the series has done in the past.

 

[crookeddy]

Why does Arya stabbing a magical being with a magical knife need any more explanation?

It doesn't, but the writers gave one anyway, so now that's canon.