Game of Thrones S8 E3: The Long Night

It wasn’t looking too good for our heroes at the Battle of Winterfell. The White Walkers had outmaneuvered the fiery defenses, neutralized the dragons and invaded the castle. The Night King was approaching Bran and about to do something horrible to end everything.

Then Arya appears out of nowhere, shivs the Night King with Valyrian steel, shattering him and destroying the entire army of White Walkers. This girl, who once tried to subsume her own personality into “no one,” saves her ancestral home and saves the whole shebang. Arya Fucking Stark, ladies and gentlemen. God, that was stunning and exhilarating. Between that and Avengers: Endgame (more on that tomorrow), it was a weekend of fist-pumping and yelling at screens.

That was a surprisingly low body count, at least for the marquee characters. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think we only lost Lyanna Mormont, Jorah Mormont, Theon Greyjoy, Dolorous Edd, Beric Dondarrion and Melisandre. There was such a fog of war that it was hard to tell what was going on through most of the battle. I kept checking to see if people were OK (thank God for Brienne’s shock of blond hair as it helped keep tabs on her). I was afraid Sansa and Tyrion would die when they started exchanging meaningful glances, and for only the second time in Game of Thrones history, there was some piano in the score. But most of the characters made it, despite the foreshadowing last week. Of course, there are three episodes left and they could all still die.

Those who did die got some great sendoffs. Lyanna Mormont dies brutally but like a badass, with the youngest and smallest cast member stabbing a reanimated giant in the eye. Theon finally redeems himself by saving his adopted brother and gets absolution before he dies. Poor Jorah finally gives his life to save his beloved khaleesi.

It was interesting to see Daenerys at loose ends without her dragons. She’s a forceful leader but she’s not a hand-to-hand combatant, although she did acquit herself pretty well with the dragonglass. Along the same lines, it was interesting to see how helpless everyone in the crypts was. Varys, Sansa, Tyrion and Missandei are brilliant people but not trained in the sort of fighting this episode needed (Tyrion has fought and led in battle before but he’s been diminished lately). Of course, Samwell’s actual job is hand-to-hand combat and he folded here. Jon wasn’t much of a factor either.

Speaking of non-factors, what is the point of Brandon Stark? I was convinced he was going to do something badass against the Night King but then he just didn’t. It was amusing that he was dithering around and then his younger sister just cut the BS and ended it. Without meaning it, Bran has caused so much misery, so I’m hoping there will be a payoff down the line for this kid and what he means to the series, or else the latest senseless casualty will be Theon and the Ironborn dying for no reason.  

“The Long Night” was hard to watch in the sense of the whole battle being spatially disorienting and dark. The play of darkness and fire was creepy. It was the first battle in the series to be filmed as horror, particularly with the scene with Arya evading the White Walkers in the library.

This was a great way to bring back Melisandre and take a deeper look at her character. She’s done awful things—getting Shireen killed was one of the most unforgivable things in a series of full of them—but she’s also resurrected Jon and gave a powerful boost in this battle. It was interesting that Melisandre’s initial efforts, like many of her efforts, failed in the end. She lights the sickles of the Dothraki but minutes later, it doesn’t matter, as the fires wink out in the distance as the White Walkers overwhelm them. (It was kind of tone-deaf that the Dothraki and the Unsullied, largely non-white, took the heaviest casualties). She lights the spikes on fire but then the White Walkers find a way around them. Melisandre’s real contribution was to inspire Arya with a great callback on what you say when facing down death: “Not today.”

It was an interesting choice to show the big battle halfway through the season, not killing that many main characters. My first thought was, “What do we do with the last three episodes?” Personally, I’m fine with this. I’ve never been as interested in the White Walkers as I have the machinations of power and the conflicts between families, and I welcome a showdown with Cersei, who is much more interesting than the Night King. We’ve been told for so long that nothing will matter when winter comes, so defeating the White Walkers so decisively was kind of a brilliant way to show that all the petty conflicts between the different families still do matter.

I nominate Arya Stark for Queen of Westeros.