The Long Night on ‘Game of Thrones’ Was Dark, But Not So Full Of Terrors.
A show that once prided itself on not pulling its punches was surprisingly tame in one of its biggest episodes to date.
In the weeks, months really, leading up to this episode, the cast and crew behind it had been hyping up importance to the season and the sheer scale of the battle that was to come. I had even seen the phrase “Helm’s Deep-esque” thrown around prior to the episode airing, and that it had taken a grueling 55 nights of shooting to complete. So to say my expectations were high, would be an understatement.
To the show’s credit, “The Long Night” started out brilliantly. It had a good amount of tension, had visual spectacle, and there were quite a few breathtaking shots; almost everything involving fire looked excellent.
However very quickly it started to feel like the we were heading into “Beyond the Wall” territory, and by that I mean the writers from the start of the battle were putting characters in situations where they should die, but they didn’t. I’ll never forget the confusion I felt when Tormund was swarmed by a horde of wights and managed to get out of it unscathed in the penultimate episode of last season. Moments before I had felt genuine fear that one of my favorite characters was about to dieandohnoohnoohno — sike!
The Hound comes in with a clutch last minute save. “Did you really think we were going to kill your favorite character after we put them in a completely hopeless situation? Ha! We got you that time huh?” is what it felt like the writers were saying to the audience. Before “Beyond the Wall” ended the same set-up and (cheap) pay off situations would happen two more times. Something Games of Thrones has come to rely on when since they ran out of books, as outlined in this video essay.
These same situations would happened repeatedly on Sunday night’s episode as well, Brienne being quite literally buried underneath a mass of wights, but of course she was in no real danger as Jaime just stopped by to rescue her, no big deal. It became clear after Sam was allowed to live after laying down on the ground and crying while occasionally stabbing a wight, that this episode lacked teeth, it had no intention of killing off anyone important, even after the previous episode had set this one up perfectly to do so. The writers had no intention of treating the army of the dead like the threat the show had built them up to be over past 7 seasons.
Which would be fine, it this wasn’t Game of Thrones. Zach Kram at The Ringer wrote a great in-depth article on this, but here’s his main point: “Game of Thrones succeeds in large part because of its ever-present consequences, which allow its vast and meticulous plot to follow a cause-and-effect structure that feels seamless rather than forced.”
Or it did. Now characters are allowed to charge straight into an army of white walkers and make it back alive. They’re allowed to charge at dragons with nothing but a spear or sword and live.They’re allowed to get buried under a mass of wights and come out with no serious injuries. I am not asking for every episode to have a kill count as high or as shocking as the Red Wedding. What I am asking for is that the writers make their story make sense, because at this point, putting these characters in so many life or death situations and having them all come out alive seems like forced plot convenience.
If there are no consequences, then there can be no tension. During the climax of the episode, when Ramin Djawadi’s fantastic score is playing, we cut to several situations happening at once. Brienne, Jaime, and Pod are being swarmed by a World War Z-like horde of white walkers, and somehow are staying alive, Jon is running from an undead Viserion, until he decides to scream in the dragon’s face for some reason. These moments should feel tense, should feel like we’re about to lose one of these characters. (And we should) However, as there is no longer any realism in the show, these moments came across as manipulative and trite, leaving me only care about what was taking place in the Godswoods. (Which is an entirely different discussion to be had)
Who knows, perhaps I’m being unreasonable and the writers are saving the all major deaths, and consequences for these last three episodes. (That’s 4 hours total that we have left!) Perhaps now that the Night King is out of the way, we’ll be treated to great writing about the politics of Westeros once more. (I’m going to count on in since they’ve not been able to even do that correctly since Season 4) It’s just quite frustrating that Cersei Lannister is going to be responsible for more major deaths than the Night King. He, who was responsible for the first Long Night that last generations. Thrones for the past two seasons has made it clear to the audience that ‘The Great War’ was the only war that mattered, and that it didn’t matter who sat on the Iron Throne in the end. To switch gears at the last second, and drop several character’s core storylines is not subverting expectations, as Dan and David would have us believe. It’s just bad writing, plain and simple. ‘The Great War’ for humanity’s survival was fought and won in a single night, and it seems as if it will have no lasting consequences besides a handful of secondary character’s deaths. (Jorah and Theon, you will be missed) So, why should I be worried about ‘The Last War’? Why should any viewer?
