‘Game of Thrones’ S8E3: ‘The Long Night’ (Analysis).

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death.

In the ranks of Game of Thrones battle sequences, The Long Night far outstrips the battles of the Blackwater, Hardhome and the Bastards with its magnificent, ferocious dance of  death and its sadistic refusal to make us feel remotely better when the dawn comes.

Please bear in mind that this review will contain spoilers.

Political status quo.

Winterfell.

Oh, my sweet summer child. What do you know about fear? Fear is for the winter, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides for years…in that darkness, the White Walkers came for the first time.

Once again, there is no King’s Landing this week, and our heroes are mercifully too busy fighting the White Walkers to spend much time scheming. Winterfell is a hellscape. The descending, freezing mist makes it impossible for the dragons to see where they are going. The dead stand in rows as far as the eye can see…but the eye can’t see a thing. All we have is the dreadful possibility of what that darkness could hold, the suffocating horror of constant fire, and the endless onslaught of enemies, knowing that eventually, the characters will tire, and most probably die.

In spite of all this, it’s impossible to lose sight of the fact that Jon is the true king of Westeros. Daenerys and Jon ride dragons together and fight together, but there is a moment, when Jon is thrown to the ground, when Daenerys could easily have killed him if that had been her intention. Could it be that she isn’t willing to do ‘anything’ for the Iron Throne after all?

Best scene: Arya kills the Night King.

Background to the scene.

Up until this point, Season 8 has largely neglected Arya’s character development. We still have no idea what she thinks of Daenerys and Jon, or whether she wants the North to remain a free and independent kingdom. She also hasn’t done anything more significant than make excessive use of her left eyebrow and lose her virginity in a scene straight from the pages of fan fiction. The Long Night amply restores Arya’s street cred, as is evidenced by the formidable Faceless skills she demonstrates in the terrifying scene within the corridors of Winterfell. The episode also finally reveals to us what Beric Dondarrion’s lives have been for, and above all, what Arya’s life has been for.

In Season 3, Melisandre made a prophecy: ‘I see a darkness in you. And in that darkness, eyes staring back at me. Brown eyes. Blue eyes. Green eyes. Eyes you will shut forever. We will meet again.’ When Melisandre reappears, and invokes the prophecy with a wonderfully subtle emphasis on ‘blue eyes’, it becomes clear to us that Arya is the key to defeating the White Walkers.

The scene itself.

A masterpiece of agonising suspense, this scene gradually and mercilessly strips hope from us. Outside the walls, Jon has tried and failed to kill the Night King, who has responded by waking the dead, including those in the crypts. Daenerys is on foot, attempting to defend herself alongside Ser Jorah with a weapon she’s never used in her life. Within the walls, the dead keep coming. Jaime and Brienne, and the fighters of Winterfell, are overwhelmed by them: the dead don’t tire, don’t stop, don’t feel. In the crypt, Sansa and Tyrion stand at the edge of death in mutual admiration and respect. In the godswood, Theon dies a hero’s death, completing his redemption arc, and Bran and the Night King remain, staring at each other with a dreadful inevitability. We have plenty of time to wonder ‘Arya, where the fuck are you?’  before she throws herself at the Night King’s back with such extraordinary speed that it looks like she’s come out of nowhere (which, of course, she has). The Night King’s ruthless but rushed reaction when he takes her by the throat shows us that he has made Tyrion’s old mistake: he has underestimated his enemies. It’s not quite over, though. Some hideous sound effects, and Arya dropping her Valyrian steel dagger, indicate in graphic detail that he’s suffocating her with one hand, and for one second, we’re horribly afraid that she’s going to meet the same fate as Lyanna Mormont earlier in the episode. Then, in an agonising mix of elegance and inevitability, we see Arya’s hand catch the dagger as it falls and plunge it into the Night King’s stomach.

It’s obvious now what it was all for: what Syrio was for, what Jaqen was for, what the Faceless Men were for, what Arya’s whole life has been for. She’s been kept alive for this one, extraordinary purpose, and Beric Dondarrion was brought back six times so that he could keep her alive long enough to fulfill her destiny.

Best scene: Honourable Mentions.

Melisandre arms the Dothraki.

The small, barely perceptible figure at the edge of the Dothraki screamers is quite terrifying when one does not know who or what it may be. But when we realise that it’s Melisandre, and she sets the Dothraki arakhs alight, and the flames roar out in the darkness from horizon to horizon, it provides one of the most spectacular opening sequences the show has ever seen. One cannot help but think of Gandalf’s words in The Return of the King when the signal beacons of Gondor are lit – ‘hope is kindled’ – and this dazzling display of light in the face of unending shadow is a moving and effective way of lifting the viewer’s spirits. This, of course, makes the snuffing out of each individual light all the more terrifying when it comes.

Sansa contemplates suicide.

Sansa and Tyrion had some wonderful scenes together in this episode. Being a Tyrion/Sansa shipper myself, my heart danced at her earnest declaration that Tyrion was the best of her husbands and I rather wanted to murder Missandei for letting her own insecurities intrude on something that has absolutely nothing to do with her.

When Sansa and Tyrion were trapped together behind a sarcophagus as the dead Starks came alive, and Sansa took out that fucking dagger, I sobbed. Extraordinary acting from Peter Dinklage and Sophie Turner, particularly the respectful and chaste way that Tyrion kisses Sansa’s hand, allows the two characters to say what they want to without words; Tyrion: please don’t do it, I respect your decision to be true to yourself, I admire it, I won’t stop you, but please, don’t do it, Sansa: I am grateful for your decency, your respect, and the way you made my hellhole of a life a bit easier; but I’m going, I’m going now.

The fact that they have survived this trauma together also changes their dynamic and makes their emotional understanding of each other much more intimate. Personally, I think the story will be narratively stronger if Sansa and Tyrion develop a close friendship rather than a romance, but my soppy fangirl heart wants them to fall in love and be together forever.

Random ramblings.

I am devastated about Lyanna Mormont, but her death is an admirable way for the show to hold its core values of brutal realism. A girl that age would not survive such a battle. I really appreciated her sendoff, though, as it is a fitting tribute to an extraordinary girl and Queen of Sass.

Ser Jorah is the second character to complete a redemption arc in the course of this episode, and dies what we all know he would consider to be a good death: defending the queen whom he loves more than life. The depth and honesty of Daenerys’ grief is heartbreaking, and is felt by her dragons, who curl themselves around her and Jorah in sympathy. Jorah is the only person left who has been with Daenerys from the beginning; the only one who still remembers her days as a Khaleesi on the Great Grass Sea, and she’s probably going to take his death even worse than she might have expected when surrounded by hostile Northerners.

I am sad Melisandre is dead. She did some horrible shit (i.e. burning Shireen Baratheon alive), but gradually worked her way towards an uneasy, if spectacular redemption.

Thoughts on Next Week

Badassery is coming, woooooooo!

‘We have won the great war; now we will win the last war,’ Daenerys says, and I am inclined to agree with her. After defeating the Night King, Cersei is going to look like child’s play. Which of course is going to make everyone overconfident and lead to Cersei winning graaaaaaa.