So the White Walkers have been chasing Bran this whole time? An awesome times to mention that would be when they are not on the doorstep. Why not put him on a dragon and take him somewhere away from all the civilians? The books, of course, have done the work of establishing why Winterfell is as good a place as you are going to find to fight them, but the show has not earned that. If we're not allowed to complain about characterization being different from the books, they are not allowed to rely on information only established in the books. Despite all the times they do that, like by saying that Tyrion is smart or Cersei is evil. Even though Tyrion has been an utter failure as a politician ever since he shot his father and Cersei didn't actually DO things like massacre her husband's children, torture innocent men into false confessions to frame Margaery for adultery and three children for sexual deviance, turn a loyal vassal over to a necromancer for experiments, plot the murder of her daughter's 13 year old fiance under the next best thing to guest right and rape her friend.

So now, facing the approaching army of ice demons who raise the dead, where are they hiding all the vulnerable civilians, women and children? The crypts. We haven't seen how the White Walkers raise the dead. We don't know if they need to see or touch the bodies, and for all we, and the characters know, they can just sing a song or wave their hands and all the corpses in the area crawl out of their graves and join their army. Again, in the books, there is groundwork laid to presume magical protections in Winterfell, plus the hot springs which make the whole castle a less than salubrious enviroment for the Others, but there has been no mention of that on the show.

I don't know how I feel about the way they knighted Brienne. It was well-acted on the parts of Gwendolyn Christie and Whatshisname, but that's never really been GoT's problem. They clearly wanted it to be a big moment with everyone applauding, even though some of them, like Tyrion & Davos have very little acquaintance with Brienne to care and Tormund's only been creeping on her, without doing much getting to know her. From a wildling perspective, he should have been all "Who gives a FOOK about knighthood, yer a warrior, fook all the shites who think you need to be called Ser to matter." Because telling people why the things they care about are stupid is a major theme on this show.

Anyway, I just think if it has to be Jaime who knights Brienne, it should be his own idea, and his own recognition that she's worthy, not hearing a bunch of people state that position and realizing he can actually carry it out. And while I'm nitpicking, given what Barristan says about the quality of the knight who knights you being important, I'd rather be knighted by Davos. Who was in the room. Just saying. It's actually possible to service more than one character arc in a single scene, you know. I just think that might be a nice cap on Davos' arc about his insecurities and worthiness to the position and heights to which he has been raised, for someone with more "noble" options, to prefer Davos' honor to a great lord's.

And on the subject of knighthood? Why not knight all the fighters, if they really think the end of days is upon them? It could inspire that "we're all in this together" mentality. It's the sort of thing that might boost the morale of ordinary soldiers, and inspire them to higher levels of courage and dedication. At the very least, they'll get the consolation prize of dying as knights, rather than lowly guardsmen or in Pod's case, mere squires. And on the off-chance that they survive the battle, yeah, you'll have a bunch of guys running around who did not traditionally earn their knighthood, but on the other hand, they will have faced the army of the dead, and if that isn't worthy, what is? If anyone would have that idea, it would be Beric Dondarrion, who is present at Winterfell, and did the same thing in the books with the Brotherhood.

Oh, and apparently, Sansa and Theon are a thing now?

Don't get me started on Arya and Gendry. Maisie Williams should not be filming scenes like this, she looks ten. And has been on the show since junior high. People who knew her as a child decided to write a scene where she has to take off her shirt and show side-boob. And they decided to precede that scene with Arya bringing up Melisandre's dick-leech like she's jealous that Melisandre & the leeches got to Gendry's junk before she did.

Grey Worm & Missandei are talking about retiring to an island somewhere. So which one of them is about to die?

Speaking of retirement and surviving the battle, Daenerys is way too fixated on the Iron Throne for someone facing down the apocalypse. I am really hoping this leads to a moment where she realizes she needs to give that sort of thing up, where she has to make a tangible sacrifice of her ambitions or dreams in order to effectively fight the Walkers, but I simply have no confidence in the writers to get that right. If the big battle is going to be over the next two episodes or so, that leaves the two longest episodes in show history afterwards for her to claim the throne. And given how heavily they are raising issues between Jon & Dany that can all be resolved by a marriage, it looks like that's the plan, for their wedding to be a grand triumph like Aragorn & Arwen. And that's wrong. You don't get resurrected from the dead to sit on a throne adjudicating disputes. You don't walk into a pyre and walk out with magical dragons under a magic comet, before starting your trek through a desert to a place of visions, and end up a political figure.

GRRM wrote these books as a deconstruction of typical fantasy stuff, where the hero slays monsters and gets the crown as a reward. He has said regarding the ideas he wanted to explore, "What is King Aragorn's tax policy?" Jon's plot in aDWD is all about his doing that kind work. He's concerning himself with supplies, with funding, with organization and administration. Unlike the show, he never draws his sword as Lord Commander, except for an execution, not to be a Big Damn Hero at Hardhome. Similarly Dany's plot in the same book has her doing politics and all the performative aspects of rulership in Meereen, to the detriment of her ideals and against her nature. Martin has made it clear what kingship is. Robb is all the action hero one could wish in a king, and it's not enough to save his kingdom. Stannis is great at administration and organization and he's clearly being set up to fail at the prophecy stuff. Dany's last chapter in DWD has her come to the realization that "a dragon plants no trees." These two heroes are not being set up to rule peacefully and happily ever after. Rand doesn't rule the world after Tarmon Gaidon. Frodo can't enjoy the Shire because of what he went through to save the world. Best case scenario, they retire to Dragonstone or some equivalent of Avalon while the rest of the world goes on without them. But it had better written well, or it will feel like a cheat. Stannis isn't even the hero, but over in his plotline, we keep getting hammered with things like "Sacrifice is never easy...or it is no true sacrifice." Or the image of a crown burning the head of the man wearing it, and the constant drumbeat of hard duty. In a world where Davos has to keep putting everything on the line, again and again, where his sons are burned at the Blackwater and he keeps ending up in cells for his loyalty and offers up his life to make his king see the right path, how do Jon & Dany get to end slavery and save the world with minimal losses and live happily ever after together on the throne of a continent with pet dragons on which to fly around? It's made pretty clear that dragons are a cheat code in the world of aSoI&F, as we see the slow downfall of the Targaryen dynasty and erosion of its power from the loss of their dragons. That kind of cheat code has to be for saving the world, otherwise it's not fair that the "heroes" just get to rule easily because they have the nukes, not in a series that keeps harping that you have to pay to be good and success comes at a cost.

I don't think the show understands any of that. They don't even realize what an obnoxious bully they are making Daenerys into, with her smug comments about her dragons and her convert or burn ultimatums. She was fine sitting down to parlay across from the Kingslayer last season and offering a truce to fight the White Walkers with him and his family...but now that she's got him in her power, and doesn't risk losing the support of his house's armies, she starts talking about her fantasies of torturing to death the man who "murdered" her father. The show doesn't seem to care about Daenerys' relationship to her family's legacy. They had her give a token acknowledgement that her father was a bad guy at the end of season six when she's allying with the Greyjoys, but she's sure not owning that legacy, and has moved on to insistence on her rights. Remember how that was Stannis' position when he was first introduced and he had to hit rock bottom and be brought to the realization that he was approaching the subject with the wrong attitude, that he has to do the job regardless of whether or not he gets the recognition and acclamation that come with the post? Is there time with four episodes left on the show to go through Stannis' two book arc?

Because that's the most consistent theme in her portrayal this season - Sansa's suspicion is a personal attitude problem that Dany should not have to put up with and she is supposed to be impressed at all Dany has done for love, and her actual concern about her people's freedom and history of abuse at the hands of House Targaryen and other occupants of the Iron Throne never gets addressed. Dany is acting out of love, so she deserves Sansa's affection in return! WTF is this even?

It really seems like this show prioritizes mentioning issues, rather than addressing what they mean and how they develop the characterization. We've only had Jon be told about his heritage and tell Dany in turn. The way Jon recites Lyanna's story doesn't tell us anything about how Jon feels about Lyanna or the revelation of their relationship, it is merely phrased that way so the relevance to him comes as a sudden surprise to her. Her reaction is not about the relationship between her and Jon or what it says about her family and his, it's that he has a claim to her throne. Which only reinforces that with the end of all life marching on their location, she is preoccupied with her status. Great, if they are building to her recognizing that flaw in herself and correcting it, or having it drag her down to tragedy, but I don't see that going anywhere.

The book series title is "A Song of Ice and Fire". "A Game of Thrones" is only the set up, the distraction and preoccupation that keeps the people in charge from recognizing the threat to all life that is established on the first pages. But the show has chosen to name the whole thing "Game of Thrones". Not even "a" Game, just "Game", like it's all there is, and the most important thing going on. And that's how Dany is acting. That's what the script suggests and the promotional material, that the real conflict and question of the show is "who will win the game" and who will get the prize of the throne. The fight against the White Walkers is just there to prove the chops of the good candidates. That battle is upon us and Cersei has been seeded as the antagonist for after the enemies of all life have been dispatched.

I get they are two different things. I just don't understand how, with those kind of stakes in the source material, the writers chose to settle for so much less.