Let's Rewrite the Battle of Winterfell [ Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 ]

so the Battle of Winterfell it was the culmination of seven seasons worth of tension built around the walkers and the fact that that did are coming like winter spoilers are not just coming but spoilers are here in this video to be clear for the most part I really enjoyed this episode it's directing was phenomenal the atmosphere was tense and haunting and there were plenty of great moments but this was it this was helms deep this was the apocalypse and i came away from it underwhelmed which is a little bit odd for an apocalypse and while there were a number of small problems in the episode the core issue i felt was it being an underwhelming conclusion to specifically the night king story arc and i don't think was because one character should or should not have killed the night king but because one there were a number of questions and points of tension that were set up that never had any payoff and two things that were meant to be pay off in this episode didn't have sufficient set up the story was set up for us to learn more about the night king and make the walkers more interesting but it never did ancient magical or prophetic secrets were set up to be revealed but none were we expected bran to have a plan in this episode but he never did and even if there was foreshadowing that Arya would be the one to kill the night king no decisions of our main characters actively led up to or created to the moment in which I you could do this this moment was meant to be payoff for seven seasons worth of tension but there wasn't any sit up not really it feels like I could have done this at any point in the story as long as the night King just walked in things happened unexpectedly but not unexpectedly in a way that recontextualizes what we know and suddenly gives new meaning to past story elements which is the kind of unexpectedness you want so I'm going to take a leaf out of nantou b-movies this book and talk through how I would rewrite this episode with one major change and two minor changes that would make the night King way more interesting and more of a threat entered a few major twists that story desperately needs make our heroes smarter and give a clearer build up to this moment while aligning it with the culmination of an important character arc altogether making for a far more satisfying conclusion to the Walker storyline now there are roughly five different story threads in this episode so I'm having to limit to myself here but we do need some ground rules when it comes to these changes one because I don't know how the writers plan to use these characters in the future of the story the same characters have to live and the same characters have to die with one important exception bran brands gonna die and - I can't fundamentally change the premise of the episode this is where the knight King has to be defeated and the battle will take place at Winterfell I'm working with what they've given me in the show so with that sit the major change is this bran is the night king stay with me I will explain it and the minor changes are one the six major character deaths happen at different moments and the story and two are your ears barracks face when she kills the night king so let's go through it chronologically and I'll explain why and how these changes might improve the Battle of Winterfell also this video is brought to you by ha me you're probably expecting that now cuz I've done it for like 4 videos but I've got a book coming out it's called on writing and world building it compiles all of my own writing and world building content which you probably picked up on into a single easy to read easy to reference ticks it's coming out on May 30th but you can pre-order the e-book now for just 5 bucks down at the link in the description below thank you to the hundreds of you who already have it genuinely means the world and if you want to support me my cat and my content as well then there's a link to my patreon down in the description below I would love you to come join that community discord as well I'll see you there there are approximately 35 story beats in the Battle of Winterfell the first stack comprises one to ten from Sam walking in the quiet to Melisandre lighting the trench the second act from 11 to 26 when the night King raises the second wave of dead and the third act goes from Danny saving Jon to the end at b35 and the first date is actually really well done director Maguire support Nick utilized a number of horror tropes to very effectively build tension the absolute silence of the first debate not seeing the undead army and the darkness like a monster from a horror film in the second beat and the gruesome barrage akin to a monster leaping from the darkness it genuinely lifts my skin crawling and these beats one to ten of the first act taking up approximately 28 minutes of the episode will actually remain largely the same except for one structural detail Jorah will not die at the end defending Denny but immediately after the Dothraki charge that flanks the undead so in the episode draw returning from the failed Dothraki Church even when he was on the front lines is the first indication of one of the problems with the Battle of Winterfell plot Armour having characters come back from logically impossible odds that we never see unnamed characters come back from undermines the tension in the story because it feels like the danger is superficial for your main characters moving towards death to the beginning here does two things for the narrative it does away with plot armor while also maintaining the tension as the stakes are raised because the ninth King's first major victory in the battle is firmly grounded in a major character's death within the first 20 minutes and it would make sense for Dora's character his arc is done his story is one of learning to put his duty to Denny before emotional attachment which he does when he tells Denny to keep Tyrion as his hand in the previous episode you're advising me to forgive the man who stole your position a sharp contrast to how he told her that she could only trust him before dying defending Denny does not make this character arc more meaningful because he would have died for her back in season one and as another small change the Dothraki shouldn't be charging at the undead directly they should be flanking the whites I'm no battle strategist so my changes won't be focused on that but there is a good narrative reason to have the Dothraki flanked them instead of charged straight on the Dothraki charge Steen is used to establish the threats that the knight king poses and it does this by having a horde of flaming blade wielding cavalry that should be extremely effective against the undead swallowed up in a single haunting instant and it does this well for the most part but one question we have to ask is this is the threat of your antagonist established through the antagonist superior skills or through your hero's incompetence the Dothraki aren't truly defeated because of the knight Kings superior strategy they're defeated because the heroes send them front on into an enemy they cannot see and they don't use their speed and maneuverability to their advantage it's not exactly surprising they get mauled to death in this rewrite the Dothraki are still eviscerated but they flank the undead when the barish crashes into the unsullied pinning them from multiple sides while scout to watch them blink out like candles in the dark this means that when the Dothraki are entirely defeated even with their flaming swords it feels like the hero's put their best cards on the table and it still wasn't enough to put a dent in his army establishing the night king as a more foreboding threat not because of the hero's incompetence but in spite of their strategic thinking the first act then proceeds mostly as we see it with the addition of Jorah dying after the charge and dolores is not dying at this point this moment will happen later John and Danny obliterate hordes of the undead and there can be a moment where Jaime saves Brienne with that high-quality Lannister plot armor but it should be more subtle like the way we see our you save the Hound later on and they probably shouldn't be on the frontlines especially if their commanders because we see dozens of unsullied piled onto just like this and they're killed immediately it undermines the internal logic of the story to repeatedly see main characters escape situations they should die in just managing to retreat as Jorah dies Melisandre then lights the trench marking a small triumph for the defenders bringing the story into a new quiet and temporarily lowering the tension in this rewrite the knighting is more effectively established as a threat the heroes are smarter and the like applaud Armour heightens emotional tension every character that should have died has died so far the first act of the Battle of Winterfell closes the second act is the longest going from beads 11 to 26 and contain the midpoint and the darkest hour two crucial moments in the narrative while a lot of it will remain the same this is where a major change kicks in the second act opens with Theon and bran Co nervously tells him I just want you to know I wish I did things differently while brand tells them that those decisions brought you to where you are now where you belong home beginning that affirmation of him as one of the family but the weird thing is that in the episode when bran says I'm going to go now and they just walks off into nowhere the audience thinks bran is doing something important we see going what's this magical godlike internet tree man gonna do what kind of cavalry is gonna bring to the battle he's gonna do something cool and unexpected and we don't know that's interesting but by the end of the episode he just walked into some crows in this rewrite Theon is going to say I don't know if we can hold them off too bad we don't have any of that wildfire can you see what will happen and bran will say I see fragments things that were things that are and some things that have not yet come - wait that's Galadriel never mind he says something like that and sensing the magic or the ancient will of the weirwood beside him he then tells Theon that he cannot see a clear future for tonight but he believes he must go now but instead of bran walking into crows and this is the change bran greenseers back in time to before King Aerys went mad this change is going to work to address one of the major issues with the story overall sit up and pay off in season six the three-eyed crow takes bran back in time to show him numerous important moments in history all of which hold relevance in the story later on he learns of Jon Snow's true heritage which pays off Layana stark story which pays off but there are five story threads set up a brand that never bear fruit one the fact that he learned how the night king was created has not yet come in use he hasn't even really told anyone to the three-eyed crow warns him did not become too enamored with the past or you will become lost in it but if you stay too long your drum 3 he also warns brand that the ink is dry that you should not change the past but bran does attempt to do this anyway when he calls out to need at the tower of joy further before bran has this unusual vision which draws a direct parallel between the knight King and the mad Kings line burn them all burn them all and 5 bran is magically marked by the knight King who can see him in a green seer dream indicating they share some kind of magical relationship but why where does this come from and why is the knight King a green seer and a warg as well each of these five things are set up but the episode never gives a clear payoff to them this change will do that while also making the 19 story intensely more interesting by introducing a couple of twists so in this rewrite brand has a plan and this is to warn King Aerys of the coming threat decades before their arrival but as he tries to see the thought and Ares mind that they need wildfire to fight the walkers it goes directly wrong like his invasion of hodor's mind previously he drives the King to madness and he becomes obsessed with burning people burn them all beginning to feel his mind slip into the past just like the three-eyed crow warmed and seeing that he caused areas madness just like he caused hotels breakdown bran returns to the present exhausted this also brings an unknown story thread to the battle the audience can roughly predict that the defenders will be slowly beaten back but this storyline is wholly unknown we have no idea how brand story will play out here it introduces a wild card to the episode the second X then proceeds mostly as written with the night king doing some body building and making a bridge the undead swarming the walls and the situation growing more dire now an effective battle scene has two dimensions the external battle like here against the undead and the internal moral or person struggle for each character the beats leading up to the midpoint will be built from these internal struggles Brienne saves Jamie's life after he saved hers before proving that they can wholly rely on one another ru begins to realize that she is afraid of death itself that she has vulnerabilities and the hounds morale wavers as he begins to lose hope in the fight against the dead the night Kings forces then break through the gates in the white swarm the castle remember how I said that Joris death kept the stakes and tension high because the night Kings victory was grounded in a real carrot to death well imagine you have a graph mapping the tension of the battle in this rewrite every major rise towards the night Kings victory will be marked with one of the six major deaths in this race here it'll be Lana Mormont and much the same way as she dies in the show killing an undead giant what's important here is timing in this rewrite Lana's death is going to take place around the same time that we see Brienne choose to save Jaime and the Hound choose to save are you seeing named characters die at the same time that other named characters survive makes their survival more believable and crucially the emotional weight in these moments will come from seeing characters make hard decisions not from seeing them overwhelmed by whites which is what we see in the episode have Brienne choose between helping Layana and helping Jaime giving weight and consequences to her decision like how the Hound helping iya forces him to confront his fears they don't need to be constantly swamped with whites to make these moments meaningful and their cid having characters survive logically impossible odds that nan named characters never do undermines the tension because it feels superficial the characters like Bryan Jamie the Hound Arya the second-date now reaches the 19th beat of the episode at roughly 43 minutes the midpoint of the story where traditionally the heroes and villains have their first big confrontation here in the dragon fight between the night king and Dany and Jon this goes much the same except for one change the night king will attack them while they're blasting the undead it doesn't really make much sense of them to spend so much time searching for the night king and John should know not to follow him alone they should be spending every moments they can torching the hordes of undead however this does mean that like in the edge will episode the night King takes them by surprise which is why he gets the upper hand it's a near defeat for the living and we transition into our sneaking past a number of whites before being saved by beard on darien and the hound who has overcome his intense fear to fight for someone he respects aya the cows only intensifies for a hereis from here and burek is mortally wounded narrowly escaping ire in the hound dragged him into the room where they find Melisandre when IOC's Melisandre they share a tense moment and the red woman repeats the line from season 3 I see a darkness in you and in that darkness eyes staring back at me brown eyes blue eyes brown eyes blue eyes and green eyes that you will shut forever but the thing is that if this line is meant to foreshadow that I you will kill specifically the blue-eyed night king then the brown eyes and green eyes must also refer to specific people too so in this rewrite the hand is going to say whose eyes when she says it - which Melisandre says the brown eyes are still open this order from brown to blue to green is important though I adult and in this rewrite burek does not die immediately but he is an intense agony and he asks are you for the gift of death aya asks to be left alone with burek and as he takes his last breath we get an extended close-up focusing on Barracks eyes which you guessed it a dark brown and aya kills him oddly mal senator sort of just disappears at this point in the episode and somehow survives when the whole castle is overrun it makes a lot more sense for her to do what any normal civilian would and we're going to have her retreat further into the castles defenses and join those that cannot fight in the Winterfell crypts she's done her part and the scene ends there once again we return to bran who this time has traveled even further back in time to find out how the night king was stopped once before in the long night he watches a stark ancestor in the ancient gods would that Winterfell was built around the very place his body is right now the night is dark snow is falling and the Walker's approach this old Stark who brandishes a dragon glass blade of the first men but as the night King steps forward he stops he pivots he spots bran like he did once before in a green seed dream and brands mind begins to lose focus be careful not to become too enamored with the past or you will be lost to it he's starting to feel that again delving this far back with his green seer abilities is dangerous and he is forced to withdraw back to Theon if only just managing to do so he does not learn how the night king was driven back before the tension is momentarily tempered when John and Danny win a victory when the night King falls from Assyrian and drogon unleashes an inferno upon him the close of the second act is the darkest point of the story when hope is raised and thrashed almost immediately and our characters reached their lowest point not only does drag and fire not kill the night king but every victory they've paid for in blood is turned against them when he raises the dead around them this includes Jorah Liana and Berkner as well as the did underneath and the crypts the scene shifts to Arya we see barrack opened his white eyes but I you're immediately guts him the way she did the white in the library with the cat sport dagger the hound looks with horror when he sees the dead rising outside but aya is focused and we heard him utter the words brown eyes blue eyes glancing back at barracks body a scene cuts away there the second act closes we are now in the third act with story beats 27 through 2:35 taking approximately 20 minutes the shortest of the three acts immediately the tension is ramped up again even higher than before and every character is fleeing or pinned against a wall tormund Brienne Jaime eared grey worm Samwell the Hound Podrick but crucially we don't see Arya as the darkest moment in the story we need to ground it in another character death this is where we get the moment with Sam and ear that we had at the beginning we're here Lea just manages to save Sam's life before being gutted in the hid an instant later once again assuring the audience that nobody has pot armor grey worm finds himself fighting an undead Jorah while Bryan has to kill an undead Lyanna Mormont which he hates because nights are meant to defend women and children both of which Lana is and earlier in the episode she had chosen to save Jamie instead of Leanna she feels responsible for more months fate we also see the slaughter and the crypts play out which in the episode came across as a little bit hollow because in the previous episode there were six instances where we were told her the crevasse were the safest place in Winterfell foreshadowing that something horrible would happen there but none of missandei Varys answer or Tyrion died in this rewrite Melisandre is also down there miss Andi will ask her before they rise you are a red priestess and you not what do you see of the night and Melisandre will say something like I can see nothing in the flames only darkness and then as the crypts erupted with the dead Starks instead of Melisandre dying at the end of the battle she would die down here torn limb from limb by whites while terian and Sansa hide this gives consequences to the scene that it didn't have before and pay off to that foreshadowing in the episode beforehand interestingly one of the most significant moments and the episode is really easy to miss it's when Jon sees Sam pinned down but chooses to leave him any way to protect bran Jon's Ark is one of learning that love is the death of duty as a mom told him in season one and that in the end you're going to need to put duty first here being defending bran / Samwell in this rewrite - the scene is going to be drawn out and made into as difficult a decision as possible for Jon forcing him to abandon the one person he seems to care about more than almost anyone this x-s sit up and a needs pay off in the climax in the original episode John just confronts a dragon and it sort of leaves us wondering why did it matter that he had to choose duty over love if choosing Duty didn't really matter to the destruction of the night King in the end in this rewrite John makes it pass for Siri on and into the godswood at the last moment just before the Walkers themselves into the fray the story then switches back to brand who tells Theon you are a good man completing Theon's Redemption arc he's first redeemed as a Greyjoy and now he is red deemed as a stock for a third final and disparate attempt brand green Sears back to stop the night King either being created which he had seen before walking into the mind of the very man who becomes the night king in an attempt to persuade the children to stop but unwilling to listen they take and gag him realizing he has failed once more bran attempts to return to his body but this time he has gone too far and too deep the magic has taken him and he feels his mind slipping he cannot escape this man's body as he is stretched to the weirwood tree and as men die defending him in Winterfell the children plunder dragonglass dagger into his chest bran becomes the night king thousands of years in the past and is very attempt to stop him this change means that there is a lot of payoff to the setup beforehand and it makes the night King story a lot more interesting this twist recontextualizes past events it gives new meaning to brands arc it makes it a tragedy and it gives the night King character the kind of unexpectedness you want it explains why the night King can warg and his green seer abilities are as powerful as brands as well as why the to share a magical bond he is seeing himself it explains why the night King is so evil this is what happens when a green seer delves too deep we already know that bran has been losing himself that he is no longer fully human but something more or less not really not anymore and here the last parts of his humanity are lost as his mind has twisted by ancient old God rituals he becomes this green seer ghost twisted by dark magics against his will bound to his body there is no brand lift in the night king not really but knowing that his existence depends on brand taking action during the Battle of Winterfell the night King is just here to make it happen he is only doing what he knows is necessary his failures to change the past before have taught him the grim reality the ink is dry you cannot change the past in this horrific tragedy this is just what has meant to be brands life is the night Kings past and the reason the night king wants to kill bran is actually pretty simple to ensure that bran can never come back from the past to return to the present if a wargs body is killed their mind lives on in the body they're trapped in here being this man the 19 knows that he has to trap brands mind in that body forever and to do that he has to kill him but here's the thing green seers like bran and the night king can only see fragments of possible futures neither of them know what will happen from now on Theon will die almost exactly the same way as he did in the episode but instead of charging recklessly he waits as the night king approaches him he stands his ground but is no match and the Walker kills him where he stands with nothing standing between him and bran the night King draws his blade the background then comes into focus and we see an undead beric Dondarrion in this moment three things happen simultaneously Jon drops down from the weirwood tree above Valyrian steel blade raised in a similar way to how we see our you leap down towards him in the episode Arya wearing the face of a white beard on Darian bolts for the night King and the night King kills bran both of them are too late the night King sees as Jon Medea like he did I err in the episode but as he tries to pivot with his blade aya stabbed him in the back through his chest with cat's paw he shatters and her disguise falls away the army of the Dead collapses this fixes the moment that I was most underwhelmed with in the climax while there is some foreshadowing that I you would be the one to kill the night king that's not enough there isn't any build-up as to how she manages to do it obviously she has assassin skills but within the episode the decisions of John Denny and Arya don't create the scenario in which the night king can be killed there's no relationship of causality between this moment and the rest of the episode in this rewrite Jon and I you will make active and difficult decisions that collectively make this moment possible why didn't the wine state a tire amongst the mesmeric well whites don't seem to have any independent functions they're puppets they have to be ordered around otherwise that I do anything and the library scene established that they rely on hearing and sight they don't naturally know that the living are near we also see that whites keep their clear blue eyes when they are killed are you also knows that faceless magic makes you sound smell and feel like that person including a white using this knowledge that she gets from this moment that we see earlier in the episode she would know how to do this and this gives three thematic dimensions to the night King's death one John and I are always shared a special bond and having them killed and I came together is more meaningful it started with them parting and it ends with them coming back together - it means that John's carrot Rock pays off his willingness to leave Sam behind means they can defeat the night King and three are you stabbing the night king in the back while wearing a face is far more representative of her assassin skills it also means that I adjusts out of nowhere and a keen eyed viewer would realize that Barrack can't be among the whites that ire had killed him already and thus she must have taken his place berrak was the brown eyes that she would shut forever before shutting the blue eyes of the night king on top of us the question of what's the Lord of Light brought Birkbeck forests finally answered for Arya Arya spaceless main abilities means that she doesn't have to sneak past a wall of whites and walkers which she somehow does in the episode while I would have had a aware the face of a white Walker the rules are pretty clear that you need a dead face and the walkers chatter immediately even though the show did actually suggest one time that you can use a living person space like we see with IU's face in this rewrite I decided to stay closer to the rules of the book and the magic seems to make a faceless man appear smell and sound like whoever they're impersonating if I you uses barracks white face there is clear setup and there is clear pay off also for extra clarification the reason that the night king can be killed like this if you didn't know is that like destroying the one ring in the fires that created it the night king can only be magically unmade according to D&D by plunging a blade forged from dragon fire in to his heart before a weirwood tree the very same way he was created this is why Dragon Fire doesn't work but being in front of a weirwood tree and using this blade forged from Dragon Fire does and additionally many viewers didn't like that the azure a high prophecy was seemingly entirely ignored now personally I don't actually really mind that having a chosen one to kill the Dark Lord is very against the grain of Martin's writing in which he works to subvert fantasy tropes like this however John's participation in the knight Kings defeat means that whether the azure Ahai prophecy is true is left in true a Song of Ice and Fire fashion ambiguous some of the signs are never actually fulfilled for Jon with this the third act closes and the tension lowers into a new norm these changes make the defeat of the knight King more satisfying and his story is wrapped in secrets and twists of ancient magic the stakes remain high and it gives a more thematically resonant ending while giving each storyline more depth and weight by spreading the six states across the story but my question to you is how would you change the Battle of Winterfell and you don't have to obey the same rules I did who would you have died I delete Sam die when don't left them behind to give real consequences to that decision would you have done it over multiple episodes would you have the night king talk and what would he say let me know down below I said you can always come support me on patreon join the discord community thank you so much to the those of you who already do you make this this this job for me that I absolutely love possible the the book is coming out May 30 and if you haven't got it yet there's a link down to that below do you really you know thank you so much a few to support me it's it's and I say this every video but it is honestly the most amazing thing because it makes this job that I love so damn much that I get to be so creative with and it makes me so happy it makes it possible so thank you stay nerdy and I'll see you in the future

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 1,838,718

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, game of thrones, night king, a song of ice and fire, asoiaf, grr martin, season 8, the long night, episode three, jorah, white walkers, bran, fantasy, battle

Id: k7m6HP95EDM

Length: 31min 53sec (1913 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2019