#warg powers

First: what the fuck happened to Alys Karstark? She went to the godswood along with the Ironborn to protect Bran. She was there with them. Theon was the last man standing before the NK showed up. Did Alys die with the Ironborn, or did she escape somewhere before the snow zombies piled in? Can anyone see any sign of her in the Ep4 preview? Because if she died, then is there anyone left in House Karstark?

Maybe she’s in this one?

See the girl sitting next to Lord Royce?

Is that Lady Karstark right there? 

And if that’s her, then how did she escape the godswood alive?

Second: Bran waits until Theon tells him they’ve lit the trench. Then he wargs into the ravens. Which suggests Bran feels safer, knowing the trench is lit. Then he doesn’t come back to his body until the wights have already overrun the godswood and killed all the Ironborn except for Theon, and the NK and his squad are standing right there. We should be wondering what exactly Bran saw through those ravens that kept him occupied for such a long time.

Now the big thing I want to talk about is this: upon a second viewing, I realize Dany contributed a shitload more to the battle than Jon did. Still not nearly as much as she could’ve done? But the problem isn’t really with Dany, it’s with the plan they made in the first place.

The plan was apparently to let the minions on the ground deal with the wights while Jon and Dany fly around on the dragons and focus on chasing the Night King. And then Dany started deviating from the plan once she saw the Dothraki get obliterated by the army of the dead. So now we should ask: why was that the plan? Why did they think it was a good idea to start with the Dothraki, being their entire cavalry, charge into the dark at the army of the dead? Why not start with having the dragons torch as many of the wights as possible before they overrun the castle?

The nearest explanation I can find for the plan is that they underestimated the size of the wight army. The episode reads like the entire alliance simply failed to factor in just...how...fucking. MANY. of those damn things were coming for them. The White Walkers literally had unlimited mindless bodies to burn. That was their advantage. 

The plan was for Jon and Dany to prioritize the Night King, and that would take care of the zombies. The plan presupposed that dragonfire would be an effective weapon against the NK, first. The plan treated the wight army like a distraction around the NK, second. The plan didn’t anticipate the NK using a blizzard as a weapon, third. It failed to take into account that the crypts are full of dead bodies, and their enemy is a guy who reanimates dead bodies, so maybe that wasn’t the smartest place to stash their non-combatants.

Several times throughout the episode, Dany brings Drogon close down and torches a bunch of wights. And I’m like, yes, Dragon Queen! Do more of that! The NK has a magical ice-javelin that he’s already used to kill one dragon, but wights cannot fight back against a dragon in flight. Prioritize the wight army, and that weakens the Night King. 

More on that business later.

Down in the crypts! 

First, did anyone else notice Varys taking the little girl’s hand? That was so sweet. Aww, Teela’s gonna be the new captain of his Little Birds.

Bigger than that, though: the dynamic of Tyrion and Sansa in the crypt is fascinating. They’re both embarrassed to be there. Sansa is ashamed to let Tyrion see her hiding with the women and children, and Tyrion is ashamed to let Sansa see him hiding with the women and children. They both really WANT to be part of the fight, and they hate feeling useless. Their conversation is all about helping each other cope with that feeling of uselessness. 

Then there’s that silent exchange as they’re hiding behind the tomb and getting ready to take action. Sansa’s uncertain, but Tyrion’s smile for her, and his kissing her hand, says: go get ‘em, my lady. Tyrion’s encouragement makes the difference. Sansa still values Tyrion’s intellect. (1)

But thank goodness Arya got there first, and it seems Sansa didn’t get a chance to use the dragonglass dagger. She still has it, though. 

And I’ll say it again: I can’t help but feel like Tyrion’s talking about how he could see something that makes a difference is relevant to more than just the present scene. Speaking of Tyrion, I’d like to point out that in Ep2, Tyrion argued that the six of them in that room together could actually live to tell about the battle. And I’ll be dipped in shit, he was right! All six of them are still in one piece. Since it was established in Ep2 that Dany is giving Tyrion one last chance to use his mind for her benefit before she makes him a dragon-snack, it seems like they’re setting Tyrion up to figure out something that makes the difference for everyone. 

Another thing from battle: after Edd dies, and Sam is getting mobbed yet again, Jorah comes to his aid. Jorah saves Sam’s life using Heartsbane! And now Jorah’s gone, whereas Jon still has Longclaw, so someone else will have to wield Heartsbane. 

Melisandre’s death made perfect sense to me. She knows she’s done as much as she could ever do to avert the greatest catastrophe, and she knows she’s done some atrocious things in the interests of the prophecy. And now she’s done. Time to go.

Back to the battle! 

Yeah, I still think Ep3 was a false conclusion. I think the Long Night has been postponed, not cancelled altogether. I think there’s still work to be done before the War Against the Dead is won. Which is not to diminish Arya’s achievement! The time she bought the alliance is absolutely necessary. I don’t doubt she fuckin’ saved all their lives with her sick moves. Just saying she bought them time, and that time is not infinite. You never say never to the God of Death. Only: not today.

So here’s what I think is happening, following a second viewing:

1. We will find out this Sunday what Bran saw through those ravens. And it will be, basically: there’s more where they came from. There are still other White Walkers beyond the Wall, and more snow zombies with them. (Insert some magical kludge of “the NK and his squad were south of the Wall, so the ones still north of the Wall were unaffected by his destruction.” And now one of those WWs just got promoted to the new NK.) They brought more than enough bodies to burn at Winterfell, and they still have more bodies to burn. 

2. Sam will get a chance to swing Heartsbane at a WW or six.

3. Sansa will get a chance to use that dragonglass dagger from Arya.

4. Tyrion will be the one to figure out how to use the Mad King’s wildfire caches against the rest of the snow zombies. 

5. The dragons will play a bigger part in finishing off the threat, and they probably end up dying in the process.

6. Jon will end up sacrificing himself to cancel the apocalypse, in a way that only a guy who’s been resurrected can do. 

For all my pointing and laughing at Dany and Jon and the dragons for their underwhelming performance in the battle, I gotta say they showed up for the fight. Dany brought the Dothraki and Unsullied to the field. The Dothraki...didn’t accomplish much, but they died trying, and that means something. The Unsullied were rock-solid awesome. Dany and Jon flying the dragons around the Great Turbulence turned out not to be nearly as efficacious as they thought it would be, but they put their lives on the line and they gave it their all. 

You know who’s really got some ‘splainin’ to do?

Bran, that’s who.

Not that I expect him to roll his chair into a cavalry charge. He could’ve used his magical powers to learn something crucial, something that would’ve made a difference to the battle, and oddly enough he DID use his magical powers for...something? 

He warged into some ravens. And the ravens flew off and saw...the Night King riding Viserion.

IOW, they saw what we were going to see anyway via Jon and Dany. 

By the end of the episode, Bran has contributed nothing to defeating the White Walkers except to serve as bait so Arya knows where to find the Night King. Surely the 3-Eyed Raven has something a bit more relevant to offer than just daring the bad guy to come and get him? 

If the ravens didn’t show Bran anything beyond what we saw of the battle, then, what the fuck? Shitty storytelling does sometimes happen on Game of Thrones, but this isn’t shitty storytelling, this is just WEIRD. Why bother to show the warging, if he didn’t use those ravens to do something the alliance wasn’t already doing, or learn something they didn’t already know? It would’ve actually made more sense if Bran DID just sit there and serve as bait.

So I’ll tell you where I think the warging fits in. I think Bran had the ravens fly up beyond the Wall, and they DID show him something the alliance doesn’t already know, and it’s crucial. Next week, we’ll learn what Bran saw from those ravens, and it’ll show us the Night King’s getting daggered wasn’t the end of it. Arya bought them some time, and that time is absolutely necessary, but there’s still more work to do and their declaration of victory is premature.