Game of Thrones: Was it possible to have a satisfying ending to the Night King Arc

[CountAntonio]

So we knew for from the beginning if he died they all died and that was the only way to win the war.

He could have fought Jon Snow and been beat here.


Or could have been killed by Drogon's fire after the cool Dragon aerial battle here.


Or Brandon could have Warged into the zombie dragon and ate him or something.

Instead we got Arya ninja her way past a bunch of walkers and knife trick to one shot him ending a decade long story arc in a bit of whimper. My question is would any have these been better endings? Now I'm not saying we got the best possible ending cause it wasn't but since it happened I've tried to think of ways it would have been more satisfying and lived up to the decade long build up. Any ideas? Sometimes I feel the only appropriate ending would have been....

 

[Stalker]

Azor Ahai

 

[Kalentan]

Yes.

But it would have needed a whole season to just focus on it. The whole war against the Night King should have been a long and ongoing thing.

And yes, Jon fighting the Night King and killing him would have been far more satisfying.

 

[Ravelle]

Yeah, source material aside, there's a lot of ways to have a satisfying ending that makes sense. There were just a lot of nonsensical dumb decisions made.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

Fighting and losing to Jon Snow is the most cliche shit imaginable.

 

[Jodez99]

The best way to do it would have been to let the walkers be a force of nature that can't ever really be stopped. You kill the NK and save the realm for a few decades but they always come back after winter

 

[Avitus]

They completely abandoned the importance of killing the commanders to whittle down the horde and the importance of the Valyrian swords. If they had just honored that in some way, it would have been a lot better.

 

[Kalentan]

Fighting and losing to Jon Snow is the most cliche shit imaginable.

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Just because something is cliche doesn't mean it's bad. The set up had been there forever.

Trying to subvert expectations is how we ended up in this situation.

 

[Spacejaws]

They needed to give the Night King a better motive than he wants to kill Bran because he is the history of man or something. What the fuck.

 

[Voyager]

Jon doing something (anything) would have been a start. Not to mention the Prince who was promised actually meaning something.

 

[Linus815]

Just because something is cliche doesn't mean it's bad. The set up had been there forever.

Trying to subvert expectations is how we ended up in this situation.

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This.

I'd much rather have that over what we got, even if its utterly predictable... but so what? A lot of the best moments of Breaking Bad were moments you knew were gonna have to eventually happen, especially towards the end.

 

[Flaurehn]

So we knew for from the beginning if he died they all died and that was the only way to win the war.

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No we didn't, not a single wight died when Jon Snow killed that white walker in Hardhome, that "kill the leader -> kill the others" was added in season 7

 

[Lotus]

Fighting and losing to Jon Snow is the most cliche shit imaginable.

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You're right, but I get how miffed people are that Jon barely did anything of note in that fight given all the buildup. While I absolutely loved Arya being clutch, them doing the cliche thing wouldn't be this inherently bad thing either.

 

[Doomguy Fieri]

The pacing on the white walker threat was too screwed up. Any conclusion was bound to feel rushed. Their invasion was ominously looming for the entire series. Once they got started the whole thing lasted like 3 episodes. Never got any further than Winterfell. Lots of build up for what turned out to be a manageable bad guy.

 

[jviggy43]

No. Like most things in the show, by the time it got to wrapping everything up we already knew none of it would be satisfying. Also having Jon Snow do mostly nothing in the episode when the driving force of his story for most of the series had been this conflict was bullshit. Surprising audience members for the sake of surprise isn't any better than cliches.

 

[EscapingJail]

I mean they set up dragons being the the way to beat them, also the fire god was an option. But yeah it felt pretty offput for the ninja action to be the kill.

 

[Hydrus]

He should've been the end boss. All of Westeros destroyed and even thought they beat him, they still kinda lose and have to rebuild. A FF6 type of ending. A Jon vs NK ending fight with some time travel shenanigans from Bran to help beat him. IDK, anything was better than what we got. Literally anything.

 

[Lotus]

They needed to give the Night King a better motive than he wants to kill Bran because he is the history of man or something. What the fuck.

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In hindsight this shit was always gonna end up being quite disappointing. Like... the Night King doesn't speak y'all

 

[DigitalOp]

It would have been really interesting if Jon fought the NK and won but was gravely injured from the battle.

Then you can continue to the Dany-Cersei plotline and have people choking and teetering on wether Jon makes it out the show alive

 

[vsMIC]

the showdown would have been fine if there would have been some episodes concentranting on the night king ravaging the northern lands.

... and a bit more meaningful backstory.

 

[Amnixia]

He should have killed Jon. Then get pounced by an angry Arya who stabbed him in the heart.

 

[Steel]

With an entire season, sure. Boiling it down to a single episode was nonsense. The dead don't move during the day, so they could've drawn out the fight by having the heroes lose, retreat, and have to actually unite westeros to fight him.

Instead the White Walkers ended up just being a way to Thanos the Northerner, Unsullied, and Vale forces to build up tensions for the fight in the south.

 

[CountAntonio]

No we didn't, not a single wight died when Jon Snow killed that white walker in Hardhome, that "kill the leader -> kill the others" was added in season 7

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Was it? I don't remember that but maybe I just assumed that was the case.

 

[808s & Villainy]

The best way to do it would have been to let the walkers be a force of nature that can't ever really be stopped. You kill the NK and save the realm for a few decades but they always come back after winter

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I don't know if that would've been the best way, not to mention it was already established killing the night king kills them off. This just seems like it'd be needlessly hopeless. What would be the point of killing the NK if he's just another walker? What even makes him the NK if killing him has no effect?

They should have just made the conflict into an entire season or half a season. And have that hero who was hyped up for multiple season/books actually manifest in some way. It should have been a coordinated effort to separate the king from the other walkers, and slowly weaken him to the point he could be killed. It should have had to take some cunning or traps or combination of things

 

[Lotus]

With an entire season, sure. Boiling it down to a single episode was nonsense. The dead don't move during the day, so they could've drawn out the fight by having the heroes lose, retreat, and have to actually unite westeros to fight him.

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Now this I disagree with. Them all living to go and fight another day would be wack

 

[PeskyToaster]

It was as cool as when it was the Phantom Menace.

"I'll try stabbing, that's a neat trick."

 

[HellforLeather]

Have him be a real threat for more than 1 episode. Dude lost the first real battle he was in like a jobber. Also, Night King aside, that episode was just shit. How many scenes did they show where main characters were obviously being completely overrun, only to have them just be ok somehow a few minutes later.

Also, Arya's powers/abilities just seem like a crutch for shitty writing. One minute shes this bad ass ninja assassin...but then the next, shes not.

 

[Poppy]

considering all the magic bullshit that happens and r'hllor's followers being like100% right about the night king then i would hope that the answer to the night king would be azor ahai, otherwise whats the point of that whole exercise

 

[echoshifting]

They should have given him a win. The North should have fallen and they should have beaten him at the Neck or in the Reach or something. How he went down wasn't as bad as how quickly he went down

 

[CountAntonio]

Yes.

But it would have needed a whole season to just focus on it. The whole war against the Night King should have been a long and ongoing thing.

And yes, Jon fighting the Night King and killing him would have been far more satisfying.

Click to shrink...

The pacing on the white walker threat was too screwed up. Any conclusion was bound to feel rushed. Their invasion was ominously looming for the entire series. Once they got started the whole thing lasted like 3 episodes. Never got any further than Winterfell. Lots of build up for what turned out to be a manageable bad guy.

Click to shrink...

With an entire season, sure. Boiling it down to a single episode was nonsense. The dead don't move during the day, so they could've drawn out the fight by having the heroes lose, retreat, and have to actually unite westeros to fight him.

Instead the White Walkers ended up just being a way to Thanos the Northerner, Unsullied, and Vale forces.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I agree with all this. The really needed to be a focus for much longer than an episode.

 

[Inugami]

You want to make the white walkers end satisfying? First thing that had to happen was for winterfell to fall. The here's should have been forced back, and the Stark Homeland needed to be taken over. The white walkers where meant to be a threat to humanity, and they didn't even manage to be a threat to a fraction of a single continent.

You could never have a satisfying end to them without them first having been an actual threat.

 

[Steel]

Now this I disagree with. Them all living to go and fight another day would be wack

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I never suggested they all live. Having heavy losses would be the point, losing more important characters would drive home stakes. I'm just suggesting that putting everything in one single battle that only involved a few worn-down armies was nonsense.

 

[Kirblar]

I have a suspicion that whatever the book ending actually is/was would not have made good TV.

 

[Deleted member 6173]

We couldn't even have a satisfying ending to The Dark Knight. It was impossible to have one for GoT.

 

[adj_noun]

They needed to give the Night King a better motive than he wants to kill Bran because he is the history of man or something. What the fuck.

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Nobody told the night king a bedtime story in centuries and he's coming to find bran cause bran has the best story

NK ultimately defeated by Old Nan who was secretly Syrio this whole time

 

[Voyager]

I have a suspicion that whatever the book ending actually is/was would not have made good TV.

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The ending we got didn't make good tv...

 

[Blader]

They needed to give the Night King a better motive than he wants to kill Bran because he is the history of man or something. What the fuck.

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They're zombies. Their motive is to kill the living. Its only ever been that.

 

[echoshifting]

Man, that episode fucked the narrative in so many fundamental ways

 

[Kanann]

1. NK win Winterfell, move to south
2. Make him trash King's Landing
3. and heroes come to rescue later

 

[Sephzilla]

1) Jon fights the Night King and wins
2) The White Walkers win the battle and the survivors retreat south. The finale is a triple threat match for the Westeros Championship
3) The White Walkers kill everyone and the message of the show is that politics and infighting are stupid and lead to nothing productive.

I would have went with option 3

 

[HellforLeather]

I have a suspicion that whatever the book ending actually is/was would not have made good TV.

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....how it ended in the show wasn't good TV.

 

[Lonestar]

I would have liked to see something come about from the far north, where they had some form of civilization or structure, as shown in the episode with the baby getting turned. Maybe have the suicidal trek go there instead of simply wandering until you can find a wight to take to Cersei.

 

[adj_noun]

I mean they set up dragons being the the way to beat them, also the fire god was an option. But yeah it felt pretty offput for the ninja action to be the kill.

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I remember thinking the whole "hey this God actually seems to exist" thing was going to be very important.

 

[amusix]

First, the Night King Arc should have been resolved AFTER the War for the Throne. The squabbles of men should have been shown to be less important than man's unified struggle against impending doom. The fact that they made the throne the culmination of the show, rather than the danger that winter brings shows how out of touch the writers are (and, yes, that includes Martin, if that's the direction he is going).

 

[electricblue]

I don't know he wasn't much of a character. He needed more motivation and the feeling of inevitability while there didn't really land when almost every character survived the battle

 

[SpitztheGreat]

In hindsight, I think the show would have needed to be largely re-imagined from season 6 onward in order to do the White Walker storyline well. In reality, by the time we got to season 8 it was already too late. A re-imagined story arch that shifts the focus away from the Lannisters towards the WW beginning in season 6 would have given us more time to develop Bran, the powers of the Three Eyed Raven, the evolution of the Night's Watch & Free Folk, JON SNOW, and opened up ways to explore the Night King himself.

 

[HellforLeather]

3) The White Walkers kill everyone and the message of the show is that politics and infighting are stupid and lead to nothing productive.
I would have went with option 3

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For a long time thats what I theorized would be the ending. "Existential threats don't care about your politics" type of message....then the last two seasons came out and......

 

[Steel]

I remember thinking the whole "hey this God actually seems to exist" thing was going to be very important.

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My head-canon is that everything involving the Fire God was just Bran putting messages in people's head to set everything up and the preists had natural fire magic.

 

[Gunter]

I have a suspicion that whatever the book ending actually is/was would not have made good TV.

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1. There isn't an ending yet. That's one of the reasons the last few seasons of the show have suffered. DnD had to make up their own ending.
2. The Night King doesn't exist in the books. Yeah, that's right. He was made up for the show and they couldn't even figure out a good way of completing his story.

 

[Lotus]

I never suggested they all live. Having heavy losses would be the point, losing more important characters would drive home stakes.

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Yea I know that's what you meant, I'm saying that'd be wack too. They already lost once when they were totally ready for them with three dragons, a 2nd battle wouldn't be nearly as interesting for me and them winning then would feel more contrived.

Also I don't prefer the idea of the show ending with fighting the NK, because ice zombies that can't speak are boring. Of course the alternative also sucked, but that's due to a lack of proper buildup and foreshadowing.