That episode was exciting to watch* but a bit of a let down in terms of the overall narrative.
*And dark, literally
I must agree. I can't see any value in the whole strategy of deploying all those poor guys outside the walls to die stupidly. Couldn't they feed them all? Is that why they threw their lives away pointlessly? Or perhaps John Snow was demonstrating his usual tactical genius as seen at the Battle of the Bastards? It would have made far more sense to keep everyone within the walls, and had the flaming moat closer to the structure. Also, given that they know their enemy by now, why nothing to sweep the walls clear of zombies as they climb up? I think a big log thresher or two swingling back and forth might have been very useful.I thought that was abysmal, couldn't see what was going on for most of it, piss poor tactics from both sides, prioritisation of surprises over any actual storytelling. Can't believe I renewed my NowTV subscription for this... this is what happens when you experiment with legal downloading.
...piss poor tactics...
I disagree. The goodies had to provoke a fight, or the Whites would simply have surrounded Winterfell just outside the fire ditch, then starved them out.
The Dothraki appeared to charge spontaneously, with no order having been given. That was suboptimal, but it broke the logjam.
The goodies' air superiority could have been better employed.
maximus otter
Yes, I was expecting realistic battle strategies in a show about dragons, giants, fire magic and undead hordes too.
Yeah but with that logic then arm them with Death Stars and ray guns?
Fantasy still has to have a basis in some sort of reality. That's why people like Tolkien, Donaldson, Abacrombie, etc sell books.
I still thoroughly enjoyed the episode but, given how ridiculous fragile the White head honcho was - just so much as a scratch from a splinter of dragon glass destroys him, shouldn't he have stayed away from the action?
The hordes of dead seemed to be winning the battle quite easily without his personal intervention.
It wasn't a scratch - Arya stabbed him in the heart with dragonglass, destroying the splinter of dragonglass that the Children of The Forest put there to turn a human into the Night King.