On April 29 2019 22:16 Laurens wrote: I can believe that Arya is the one that kills the NK in the books too. Otherwise what is the point of her entire arc? She's trained to be an assassin, this is a pretty big topic in 2 of the books. It was written in the stars that she would either assassinate Cersei or another major character. My money has always been on Jaime as Cersei's killer so that means Arya has to assassinate someone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this entire battle is somewhat similar in the books, except more major characters will die. Brienne and Grey Worm for instance.
There’s no NK in the books. It’s all fan fiction
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
On April 30 2019 01:35 Longshank wrote: Just watched the e3 behind the scenes clip in which one of DnD says that the idea of having Jon kill the NK 'didn't seem right to them' so they decided on Arya. Whatever plot guidelines they were given by GRRM they seem to have been pretty fucking vague.
It seems clear they're operating more on a "Draw two circles, now draw the rest of the owl" type of guidance than anything detailed.
On April 30 2019 01:22 Plansix wrote: Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
It was horribly lazy writing and piss poor by any standard. This is the equivalent of taking your king in chess and waltzing it into enemy territory when they still have their queen / rooks / bishops on the board. From a purely strategical point alone nothing made sense and it was absolutely abysmal. It puts pageantry and feelings above good writing/content.
I expected Hollywood writers to fuck this up because after the source material ran out, of course they would fuck it up. They've fucked up some major things the past two seasons. But this was awful. Arya being the one to kill the NK? Entirely plausible since they made her a magic ninja assassin. But making the Night King and his posse complete and utter retards? Absolutely dogshit writing. The field commanders in this fight are absolute dogshit and their actions have to be intentionally retarded to move the show forward.
The show will still be entertaining and it will have been a great series overall. But it is absolutely telling throughout where GRRM's writing ends and Hollywood's writing begins.
I think that's true, you can tell where the GRRM influence starts to wane, but I think that's less to things like this and way more to do with the characters becoming increasingly one dimensional/stereotypical. Watching seasons 1-3 again the characters just feel so much more alive and nuanced than they do now.
On April 29 2019 22:16 Laurens wrote: I can believe that Arya is the one that kills the NK in the books too. Otherwise what is the point of her entire arc? She's trained to be an assassin, this is a pretty big topic in 2 of the books. It was written in the stars that she would either assassinate Cersei or another major character. My money has always been on Jaime as Cersei's killer so that means Arya has to assassinate someone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this entire battle is somewhat similar in the books, except more major characters will die. Brienne and Grey Worm for instance.
There’s no NK in the books. It’s all fan fiction
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcNYk3GQic
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
The tension was built when it seemed like there is nothing which can stop the NK anymore, then arya came out of nowhere, the NK managed to grab her and for a splitsecond we thought that's it for her. There was barely any tension in how they executed the NK assassination. I am not sure what you are even talking about at this point. That is exactly why a lot of people are so unimpressed with this ending, it wasn't deserved and it lacked tension.
This isn't about realism in combat, this is really just about simple narrative structures. If we had seen her trying to catch him offguard for example a litle before, some crosscutting between him marching towards bran or even better some form of communication between bran (3ER) and NK while she somehow makes it close enough for this jump, then there would have been tension when he just catched her. They also should have played that moment longer on top of that, it was released way too fast. I get that you are always happy with everything for some reason, in a sense i'd like to be able to feel the same way, i just wonder what these writers would have to do for you to be disappointed. Writing isn't arbitrary, there are certain techniques to make things satisfying and work, they really broke a lot of that with this ending :/
On April 29 2019 22:16 Laurens wrote: I can believe that Arya is the one that kills the NK in the books too. Otherwise what is the point of her entire arc? She's trained to be an assassin, this is a pretty big topic in 2 of the books. It was written in the stars that she would either assassinate Cersei or another major character. My money has always been on Jaime as Cersei's killer so that means Arya has to assassinate someone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this entire battle is somewhat similar in the books, except more major characters will die. Brienne and Grey Worm for instance.
There’s no NK in the books. It’s all fan fiction
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcNYk3GQic
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
The tension was built when it seemed like there is nothing which can stop the NK anymore, then arya came out of nowhere, the NK managed to grab her and for a splitsecond we thought that's it for her. There was barely any tension in how they executed the NK assassination. I am not sure what you are even talking about at this point. That is exactly why a lot of people are so unimpressed with this ending, it wasn't deserved and it lacked tension.
This isn't about realism in combat, this is really just about simple narrative structures. If we had seen her trying to catch him offguard for example a litle before, some crosscutting between him marching towards bran or even better some form of communication between bran (3ER) and NK while she somehow makes it close enough for this jump, then there would have been tension when he just catched her. They also should have played that moment longer on top of that, it was released way too fast. I get that you are always happy with everything for some reason, in a sense i'd like to be able to feel the same way, i just wonder what these writers would have to do for you to be disappointed. Writing isn't arbitrary, there are certain techniques to make things satisfying and work, they really broke a lot of that with this ending :/
Arya trips and falls, dying on a rock. That would have disappointed me. Or they just kill off a bunch more characters because it is all the show knows how to do to keep things interesting, the night king lives and we wonder “Will they make peace with Cersi to be the Dark Lord, I mean, Night King?” That also would have been pretty dull. Really, anything that strings alone a villain for an unreasonable period of time, Bolton style, would have been a bummer.
On April 29 2019 22:16 Laurens wrote: I can believe that Arya is the one that kills the NK in the books too. Otherwise what is the point of her entire arc? She's trained to be an assassin, this is a pretty big topic in 2 of the books. It was written in the stars that she would either assassinate Cersei or another major character. My money has always been on Jaime as Cersei's killer so that means Arya has to assassinate someone else. I wouldn't be surprised if this entire battle is somewhat similar in the books, except more major characters will die. Brienne and Grey Worm for instance.
There’s no NK in the books. It’s all fan fiction
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcNYk3GQic
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
The tension was built when it seemed like there is nothing which can stop the NK anymore, then arya came out of nowhere, the NK managed to grab her and for a splitsecond we thought that's it for her. There was barely any tension in how they executed the NK assassination. I am not sure what you are even talking about at this point. That is exactly why a lot of people are so unimpressed with this ending, it wasn't deserved and it lacked tension.
This isn't about realism in combat, this is really just about simple narrative structures. If we had seen her trying to catch him offguard for example a litle before, some crosscutting between him marching towards bran or even better some form of communication between bran (3ER) and NK while she somehow makes it close enough for this jump, then there would have been tension when he just catched her. They also should have played that moment longer on top of that, it was released way too fast. I get that you are always happy with everything for some reason, in a sense i'd like to be able to feel the same way, i just wonder what these writers would have to do for you to be disappointed. Writing isn't arbitrary, there are certain techniques to make things satisfying and work, they really broke a lot of that with this ending :/
I think we really experienced different episodes For me the final sequence with Jon trying to reach Bran built up tension, to the point where Arya killing the NK happened the the highest point of this tension. I don't know, I guess I watch these types of shows more with the eyes of a child enjoying a fantasy story, rather than trying to pick it a part..
Are we 100% sure that NK died for good, I mean he is certainly not coming back till the end of the show, but he might be able to revive somewhere somehow for the burning sword prophecy which is somewhere in the future
On April 30 2019 02:04 DwD wrote: With so many main characters surviving this battle I cant even imagine the makers are gonna let Cersei win so yeah its probably over.
Directed by Ryan Johnson .
The long Winter lasted ~3 Weeks or something like that? Subverted expectations!
Melissandre even did a Luke Skywalker... Seriously, how can you make that shit up?
On April 30 2019 02:04 DwD wrote: With so many main characters surviving this battle I cant even imagine the makers are gonna let Cersei win so yeah its probably over.
No, but she might at least take more important people with her than the NK did. In fact, she already has come to think of it because:
Cersei blowing up the Sept > entire NK army's attack on Winterfell in terms of notable casualties.
NK: Beric, Theon, Lyanna, Jorah
God-pimp Cersei: Margery, Kevan, Mace, Lancel, High Sparrow, Loras, Pycell and Tommen (indirectly)
pretty crazy to think about actually. :p
On April 30 2019 02:05 M2 wrote: Are we 100% sure that NK died for good, I mean he is certainly not coming back till the end of the show, but he might be able to revive somewhere somehow for the burning sword prophecy which is somewhere in the future
I think he's about as dead as Littlefinger sadly :/
The lone hope I have is that the finale actually goes something like this: the living learn nothing from this and besides Cersei's selfishness, in the end there's great infighting between Sansa, Dany, and Jon in vying for the throne and autonomy of the North. Meanwhile, it turns out the mark he placed on Bran is how he'll be reborn and he assimilates Bran then begins rebuilding his army while everyone is fighting/recovering. It could be plausible, remember the baby from season 4 and how other Walkers are made just by the NK's touch?
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcNYk3GQic
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
The tension was built when it seemed like there is nothing which can stop the NK anymore, then arya came out of nowhere, the NK managed to grab her and for a splitsecond we thought that's it for her. There was barely any tension in how they executed the NK assassination. I am not sure what you are even talking about at this point. That is exactly why a lot of people are so unimpressed with this ending, it wasn't deserved and it lacked tension.
This isn't about realism in combat, this is really just about simple narrative structures. If we had seen her trying to catch him offguard for example a litle before, some crosscutting between him marching towards bran or even better some form of communication between bran (3ER) and NK while she somehow makes it close enough for this jump, then there would have been tension when he just catched her. They also should have played that moment longer on top of that, it was released way too fast. I get that you are always happy with everything for some reason, in a sense i'd like to be able to feel the same way, i just wonder what these writers would have to do for you to be disappointed. Writing isn't arbitrary, there are certain techniques to make things satisfying and work, they really broke a lot of that with this ending :/
I think we really experienced different episodes For me the final sequence with Jon trying to reach Bran built up tension, to the point where Arya killing the NK happened the the highest point of this tension. I don't know, I guess I watch these types of shows more with the eyes of a child enjoying a fantasy story, rather than trying to pick it a part..
Well no i agree that the tension was building when the nightking was marching and there was crosscutting to jon for example. The problem was that the actual assassination had no tension going for it itself, we simply didn't know that arya will try. Which is why i suggested that we should have seen her as well, with crosscutting between her approaching and the nightking somehow communicating (and if only through stares^^) with the 3ER. Then they could have played the catching of her a little longer as well. (obviously this only is one possible execution and for this very particular arya jumping on the NK plotpoint, there would have been a lot of other ways). In a sense this was a deus ex machina (which isnt completely true because there was some foreshadowing that arya will kill him, but the HOW was just really random and abritrary)
From what the show runners have said, GRRM has given them the highlight reel of what happens. The death of the night king is likely one of them and Arya seems like a safe bet for murdering him.
On the inside the episode segment they said they determined who kills nk about 3 years ago. It sounds like something they made on their own. In any case in a vaccumn I thought the ep was absolutely amazing. It just felt so hopeless. The dead literally rushed at winterfell like a wave. So much of the army died. The dothraki and unsullied basically dont exist anymore. The north is all but cleansed. Maybe a handful of Vale lords and Riverland folk remain. I also dont like that it was arya but what can you do....
It is hard to tell because have said there are limits to what they can talk about when it comes to what GRRM has told them is in the books and what isn't. I wouldn't doubt it either way. It is entire possible that GRRM didn't have a resolution to the Night King, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
There is no night king in the books, they made it up to give the army of the dead a clear leader. Now maybe they will have some hierarchie in the books as well, but so far it doesn't seem like there will be that one guy you have to kill to resolve everything.
While i don't like it to be that generic, i understood why they did it and it gave us great scenes as well. But you cannot end it in this way, it is literally arya jumping at him from nowhere with a big gotcha moment. There are a million ways to make it more satisfying, and a lot which would work better if you really want arya to do it as well.
Personally, I didn't see that as a problem. Her character has been all about sneaking by stuff for a while and the White Walkers have never been that "quick" or perceptive. They have always been a slow moving opponent that was immune to most human weapons, giving them this terminator like dread to them. Someone like Arya quickly moving past them seemed reasonable. Plus that moment is the one where I was pretty convinced they were going to lose and have to retreat. It was nice to be surprised with a villain getting murdered for once.
Ok, so she is completely stealthy and a godmode assassin. Why does she fucking jump and scream while flying towards him, giving away all the surprise, instead of just stealthily backstab him? Why the forced tension. Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcNYk3GQic
Well first of all, its a battle field so it is doubtful any amount of screaming and flying would have been that loud. Second, Arya is real short and likely wanted to stab the Ice Boi in the neck Third, it a TV show and tension is the name of the game. And shot composition. They wanted to have a moment where you were convinced Arya is going to die, but then she does the cool hand trick she did before and shivs ice boi good and proper. If you thought that was forced, well that is your opinion. I didn't have a problem.
Or to put it another way, I stopped caring about the realism in combat when people with swords didn't also use shield because it looks cooler. Or when Jon Snow fought that man with two knives with his sword in the hut of impossibility high ceilings and amazing floor space.
The tension was built when it seemed like there is nothing which can stop the NK anymore, then arya came out of nowhere, the NK managed to grab her and for a splitsecond we thought that's it for her. There was barely any tension in how they executed the NK assassination. I am not sure what you are even talking about at this point. That is exactly why a lot of people are so unimpressed with this ending, it wasn't deserved and it lacked tension.
This isn't about realism in combat, this is really just about simple narrative structures. If we had seen her trying to catch him offguard for example a litle before, some crosscutting between him marching towards bran or even better some form of communication between bran (3ER) and NK while she somehow makes it close enough for this jump, then there would have been tension when he just catched her. They also should have played that moment longer on top of that, it was released way too fast. I get that you are always happy with everything for some reason, in a sense i'd like to be able to feel the same way, i just wonder what these writers would have to do for you to be disappointed. Writing isn't arbitrary, there are certain techniques to make things satisfying and work, they really broke a lot of that with this ending :/
Arya trips and falls, dying on a rock. That would have disappointed me. Or they just kill off a bunch more characters because it is all the show knows how to do to keep things interesting, the night king lives and we wonder “Will they make peace with Cersi to be the Dark Lord, I mean, Night King?” That also would have been pretty dull. Really, anything that strings alone a villain for an unreasonable period of time, Bolton style, would have been a bummer.
Ok completely 'arbitrary' deaths of major characters would be worse than this, i agree with you there. But that cannot really be the standard About more major characters dying, well it would depend on the execution and implications. That is kinda the point of this argument in the first place, some are satisfying, others are not.
EPT
.
