Game Of Thrones: How The Battle Of Winterfell Should Have Gone

The Battle of Winterfell has come in for some criticism since the episode aired but, by and large, if you’re going to throw together the biggest battle scene in film and TV history, all in the midst of a 7 season + narrative arc, you’re not going to please everyone.

But still, heading into the rest of the season it does feel like certain things maybe just didn’t work. There’s unanswered questions, characters who feel like spare parts and heavy emotional moments we just sort of have to accept not ever seeing. And not just because of the lighting issues.

Right so, first of all, this is the greatest threat the world has ever known and it’s supposed to be virtually unbeatable, but saying that on TV isn’t enough. Oooh we can’t win, oooh they’re an unstoppable, that’s fine but it’s not enough to just say that, you need to show us.

Fundamentally a lot of people watched that opening battle scene and thought ‘wait, why would you just charge the Dothraki headfirst into them?’. Nobody sat at home is an expert in medieval warfare and yet we all could see that was dumb.

The flickering lights visual is stunning, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t make the enemy scary if you’re just chucking men at them pointlessly. What is scary though, is if you clearly do everything right, and it doesn’t work...