Okay... well... spoilers will be here. If you want to avoid spoilers... this blog post isn't for you.
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I finally saw episode 3 a couple days after it aired. Well... I saw maybe 10% of it. The creators decided to make it so dark that if you didn't have all other sources of light completely blacked out, you had zero chance of seeing what was going on. I'm guessing they were going for making it dark so that it would convey what the characters are experiencing better... tension from not being able to see the scary monsters. But... they over did it. A lot. Like: who thought this was a good idea? It was so dark that in spending all my time squinting and straining my eyes, I didn't get engaged in the episode emotionally at all. I spent all my time trying to figure out what the heck was going on. There has to be a happy medium... visible so I can watch the show, and dark enough to have some mystery and build a little tension.
That's one problem. The next problem is that the episode sucked. For a lot of reasons. Let's start into horrifically stupid choices...
Stupid Choice #1: Keeping Bran anywhere near Winterfell
So, they knew that the Night King was after Bran with great determination for some reason guessed at by Sam Tarley who suggested it might be because the Three-Eyed Raven has all the memories and killing him would be a way of destroying the history of the living. Whatever. Bran is still the Night King's target right?
What should they have done? Days before the undead reached them, Bran should be have been whisked away (possibly by a dragon who could make the trip quickly, but horses would be fine) to a boat to head for one of the islands with a castle way out in the ocean. This accomplishes two things. First, if the Night King continues to Winterfell and wins, at least he doesn't get Bran, and when he goes after Bran, he can't take his army with him. The only military asset he has that can go after Bran is the dragon... and as we've seen, they're not invincible. Balista or even dragon glass bows and arrows with some strong castle walls would probably be enough to survive a ranged assault by the dragon and to kill it if it comes in close enough to tear down walls. And if the Night King was motivated enough to go after Bran first... Winterfell is safe. But, the Night King would be smarter to just finish up at Winterfell before going after Bran.
Stupid Choice #2: Keeping the non-combatants anywhere near Winterfell
Aren't there a bunch of castles further south with recently murdered leaders that likely could use an influx of leadership and workers? Sansa could have lead those people. Why would you hide in a crypt? With no weapons? I mean... why?
Just send the vulnerable people away. They had that option. The Night King would eventually go after them if Winterfell fell, but there's a chance of survival by not being in the stupid crypt. It also removes the worry that the fighters at Winterfell might have had around protecting the crypt. Once the keep is breached, they can leave and fight on whatever ground is most convenient... or try to run away... or whatever. With the civilians there, the fighters were stuck more than they had to be.
Stupid Choice #3: Sending the cavalry into the darkness to attack the undead army.
What the hell kind of flabbergasting stupidity do you have to have to send a huge chunk of your fighters to die? This whole battle is being fought to help as many people survive as possible. You know the undead army is enormous and your horse riders aren't even close to the undead numbers. And you can't see the enemy... you're sending your people into the unknown... no intel beyond "there are way more undead than horse riders". I'm appalled at this one. Just dumb.
Those horse riders should have been split up. Some to go with the refugees further south, and very few held in reserve off to the side of the battle and hidden from view if possible. After the huge number of traps and the huge amount of fire from the good guy dragons, and after the majority of the undead army is gone or in the castle, the horse riders sweep in and start demolishing undead from behind... and maybe have a shot at the leadership.
Stupid Choice #4: Crappy Traps
The fire wall was the most effective obstacle they had. Great. But it didn't work for long. During the time it was keeping the undead from advancing would have been the perfect time for the dragons to make their primary appearance. Undead charge the castle and are subject to the large number of traps. Those who make it to the castle are stopped by the fire wall. The dragons slaughter almost the whole undead army that's just standing there. Then the dragons likely have to deal with their undead sibling... but if that was the opening move... hurray!
I feel like the good guys had time enough to do more with things that would disable an undead. Heck... a ton of bear traps all over the field on the way in. The undead become much less mobile.
Something.
Stupid Choice #5: Not setting up defense points inside the keep, and being determined to hold the keep
Yeah... protecting the walls is important... but... the bad guys have a dragon too, and castle walls won't last forever... especially if the undead giants are there to break down the main gate. Once inside, you want fortifications that allow archers to fire freely while behind a row of spear wielders who are themselves behind a low stone wall so attackers have to get over it. Have the best melee fighters prepared in the choke points in hallways once you give up the wall, and have more fighters behind them to help if someone gets injured.
And... have an escape route. Since you were smart enough to send away the civilians and Bran, you don't actually have to hold on to the keep at all. Your goal is to destroy as many of the undead as possible with as few of your own people dying as possible. If things are going that badly, you have all the defense points have a way to retreat inward until everyone is at the escape tunnel. The undead army is choked into the hallways facing this one front and they can't get to the huge number of survivors escaping. Make it possible to close and bar a door to slow them down more. Have horses (as many as possible) ready at the end of the escape tunnel and as well hidden as possible.
Stupid Choice #6: Ending the big threat of the entire series in one episode that isn't the last episode
The writers messed up fairly significantly. The Night King has been this slow build menace for the entire series. He IS the climactic bad guy of the series. Or, he's supposed to be. With Arya killing him and all his undead just automatically falling... what are we left with? The battle against Cersei? Really? I mean... she's a pretty good character, but... what? What are we going to do for the rest of the episodes? The existential threat is gone.
What should have happened is that Bran was removed to that relatively safe island where the undead army couldn't get to him. Then the Night King has a longer term goal. He never gets involved in the fight at Winterfell... it's just another stop on the way, and with my idea of escape options, the undead army can win without killing most of the good guys. The good guys run away with new fear about how crazy the undead army is.
With Winterfell fallen, one of Cersei's allies is next (the bank people maybe), and the undead army slaughters the unprepared people... and Cersei no longer has her source of money. It's her first wake up call that she's going to have to get involved. And the undead army grows with all the dead from that banking place.
Meanwhile the good guys are trying to figure out what to do. From the first battle, and recounts from others, the Night King hangs back for the most part and doesn't have nearly as many of his undead near him. They come up with a plan to attack him when he has launched another battle against someone else. They try it but find one of the lieutenants instead. They kill him, and the army he was commanding loses potency and the people being attacked manage to win.
The Night King realizes they figured out the biggest weakness to the undead armies, and is more careful. The battles happening all over the place now have better guards for the lieutenants.
King's Landing gets hit in an episode near the end. Cersei flees and the Iron Throne is empty and in ruins. Huge numbers of people have died. Cersei runs into the good guys. You have a moment for character development and she offers help, knowing the world is ending.
The Night King finally sets his sights on Bran. The final episode shows that the Night King has been busy gathering ships, and he manages to get a decent sized army to the island. The final stand is there. The Night King is foiled a few times, but he also manages to kill some major characters. His dragon is defeated. And then when he is finally face to face with Bran, the real final fight occurs. It takes more than one stab to kill the Night King, and it takes real effort to bring him down.
When the fight is over, and the Night King is dead, his minions lose some power and the tide of battle shifts to the good guys winning. At the end, you have the major players in the game of thrones all in one room. None of them knows what will happen, but they all have an agenda. Cersei and Daenerys most of all.
The series ends with a conversation between liked characters that survived about how the Iron Throne is gone and each kingdom is on its own. Life will continue. We'll get a little info about each character that wraps things up. And there won't be one ruler on the Iron Throne at the end. The whole journey was about how chaotic it all is. And we get to end the series knowing the big scary bad guy got defeated, but that everyone else would pretty much go back to being who they were... fighting, scheming, and so on.
