Game Of Thrones Missed The Perfect Horror Opportunity In The Battle Of Winterfell
The Battle of Winterfell was chaotic and hopeless as it was, but D&D could have made it so much darker if they didn’t gloss over the most obvious opportunity.
Summary:
- The Battle of Winterfell was among the scariest sequences in Game of Thrones.
- When Sansa and Tyrion hid in the Winterfell crypt, the Night King revived the local deadmen to attack them.
- Surprisingly, the undead Starks never showed up, which wasted an opportunity to add that extra pinch of horror to the episode.
Forget about Arya killing the Night King and relieve the true experience of the Battle of Winterfell: the all-encompassing darkness, the unbearable cold, the screams of the living and the terrifying silence of the dead, the desperation of many good men dying all around and no hope of defeating the Night King’s ever-growing army…
The Battle of Winterfell was largely a horror episode, but it could have been taken one step further by adding the tiny detail many of us were expecting anyway.
The Winterfell Crypt Housed Many Familiar Faces
Don’t get us wrong, the undead in Game of Thrones were adequately terrifying as they were. But what’s scarier than the undead you don’t know? The ones you do!
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For centuries, all deceased Starks were buried in the Winterfell crypt… The place where Tyrion and Sansa decided to hide because it made oh so much sense during an all-powerful necromancer’s attack. Let’s admit it: immediately after realizing where they were, we all started expecting the undead Starks to show up.
The rotten, decomposed, but still recognizable thanks to the cold climate Ned, Rickon, and Lyanna Stark, among many others, would have been the final touch in this already nightmarish episode. The Night King resurrected the others, so why weren’t our familiar Starks among them? The crypt sequence was asking for them!
Fans Regret Not Seeing The Undead Starks
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Most Game of Thrones viewers were on the edge, terrified of seeing Ned Stark’s headless body walking out on Sansa and Tyrion and attacking them. It never happened, which benefited Sansa’s psyche tremendously, and now, fans think it was a huge oversight on the showrunner’s part and a missed opportunity.
“I totally thought they would show undead Ned, Rickon, Lyanna, etc attacking the living in the crypt and freaking out Sansa in the process, it would have made the situation that much more grim and chaotic. I guess Sean Bean was unavailable,” Reddit user BeaveVillage suggested.
While many supported their point, others took Sansa’s side and argued that thanks to D&D failure or reluctance to include the undead Starks, they could sleep much better. We wouldn’t have minded that extra horror kick in the already haunting Battle of Winterfell, but we also understand that such things aren’t for everyone.