SPOILER ALERT
If you read any further before seeing Season 8, Episode 3, it will ruin any surprises.
As stated in the Predictions thread, I didn't like this episode at all.
It was essentially one long battle scene. Dothraki get wiped out first. Then the Unsullied initially hold ground, but are beaten back by sheer numbers. There are just too many enemy, and not even the best fighter can overcome that volume. It's clear that it's just a matter of a very short time before even the most heroic defense will be overwhelmed.
Then out of nowhere, Arya makes a flying lunge at the Night King. He catches her at arm's length just before she gets him with a dragon glass dagger. She fumbles it, then catches it on the way down, and stabs blue eyes just above the knee. He fragments, and all of the Army of the Dead, including the blue-eyed dragon, disintegrate. Battle won.
WTH? That's not believable even in the context of fantasy literature. Arya sneaks through thousands of dead surrounding Bran and makes it, all alone, even through the last circle of White Walkers, all the way to the Night King, totally undetected? Really?
Then the trailer, with Danerys saying, "We've won the Great War, not we'll win the Last War," implies that she still has an army capable of doing anything at all. Dothraki are gone. Unsullied are at best a shadow of their former strength. Wildlings are decimated, and other parts of the alliance are in similar shape. Again, even by fantasy standards, how are we to believe there's anything left to fight with?
The second dragon might or might not be gone. Last we saw, he was struggling to take off with a bunch of wights riding and stabbing him. If they killed him, he's still dead, since the Night King can't raise him anymore. I'm betting he's still alive, but grievously wounded. Either way, I don't think he's an effective fighting force. Leaving Danerys with one usable dragon -- which is admittedly still one more than anybody else has.
And I was massively irritated by the dead Starks rising in the crypt. They didn't die by the Night King or his minions, and up to tonight there's been no indication that he can raise dead that his own forces didn't cause. So all that changes now? Please.
I'm glad the Night King is gone, and that a lot of central characters survived. But really, even by fantasy standards, that was an intellectually cheap way to get there.
I started watching when it was already on for 2-3 seasons. It took me a while to watch the full first episode. So don’t give up there.
