By Abby Koch–After all the buildup over the years, Game of Thrones fans have finally gotten the battle that we have been waiting for. A lot of major characters were in jeopardy due to how the odds were stacked against the living. The battle itself is the biggest one that has ever been on television and definitely had audiences nervous at some points.
The entire episode revolves around defending Winterfell, where the journey began. Audiences bounce around the twenty something characters to see how they are doing against the hordes of undead. The bouncing around can be a little bit jarring and I lost track of what characters were doing occasionally. But I also think that is the point of being so shaky with tracking characters due to how uncertain it would be if they would survive.
The biggest problem with the episode is that it is extremely dark and hard to see the action. Whenever dragons spit some fire or when Melisandre does her fire magic to the Dothraki blades, I cheered for the fact I could actually see what the heck was going on.
The other big complaint is that I feel like the writers weren’t as risky with killing off fan favorite characters in this episode. There were quite few characters I feel like could have been killed off in this battle, like Tormund or Greyworm, that would not have hindered the story with their death, but rather progressed it. Of course the hesitation to kill off fan favorites may be because the writers of the show have run out of material from George R.R. Martin to actually be shocking.
I know a lot of fans were devastated with the heroic death of Lady Mormont, but Jorah’s death had more impact for me. Jorah is a character that we have watched since season one and him going out by protecting Daenerys was most appropriate. Plus, Jorah has been a favorite for me since the beginning and I was bawling my eyes out when he died.
The battle itself was intense from the beginning and always had a slight feeling of dread throughout the entire episode. Audiences were lead throughout Winterfell to intense spots of fighting and cued in to the fear of not seeing tomorrow. There were moments that audiences could get their hopes up for a victory but the Night King’s army would retaliate.
One of those big moments of dread was the Night King reviving every single dead person on the battle field and within Winterfell. This a good moment of intense dread due to how many living troops are left to fight the dead.
Due to how dark the episode was, audiences could lose that feeling of dread. The biggest example of this was any scene that involved the dragons going up against the undead dragon. It lost any tension it had with me because I could not tell who was attacking who.
The episode does have its fair share of unexplained events or actions by characters. This left me and many audiences with more questions than answers. It was almost frustrating that there wasn’t any explanation about what happened or what a character was doing.
The Battle of Winterfell has its memorable moments but it does have flaws story wise and how the episode was set up. There were times that it was predictable who would survive, which is a contrast to past seasons. The battle will be remembered for a long time but it is not as memorable as some other battles in TV or movies. I give this episode 7.5/10 Valyrian steel knives.
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