End Game vs the Long Night... why Thrones is still the GoT

What good are superhero blockbusters and fantasy lore if we can't debate them? Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed both of these final products, even if they were flawed and maybe even over-anticipated at times (Winter has been coming since my high school graduation in 2011 and the Avengers began their journey with the first Ironman film three years prior). One did wow me though, and the other came up short. Obviously spoilers do follow and if you haven't seen Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 or Avengers Endgame, stop reading now.

I'll start with the villains, because every writer knows or should know that heroes and protagonists are nothing without their villains. In my opinion, the evils of a story are usually more compelling than the saviors and you know you've succeeded in creating the ultimate villains when the audience finds themselves actually rooting for them to win, a la Joker in Dark Knight or Negan in Walking Dead. You know you were sad to see them both go, don't lie. Neither the Night King or Thanos reached that plateau for me. Both were more like a final exam you've been dreading for a whole semester, and it seems the Russo brothers (director team of Avengers Endgame) agreed, focusing on the theme of inevitability as a Thanos calling card. The writing for Thanos was weak throughout Infinity War and Endgame, yes he showed incredible might whether in hand to hand combat or with his ability to harness the infinity stones, but I never feared him. Maybe it stems back to the alien overlord factor and me being skeptical of a villain I'm not sure could ever exist, or maybe it's because Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch were able to kick him around like a hacky sack whenever they felt inclined to do so, but Thanos, the man who eliminated 50% of all living things in the entire universe did not scare me... and it's not because I'm some tough guy who knows no fear. I'm not sure if it was in the writing, the character bio, Josh Brolin's lackluster portrayal, or the fact that the best lines in the screenplays are all jokes, but somehow I felt one of the greatest evil masterminds in comic book history was lost in the shuffle of these two films. The Night King never speaks, and came up lame and careless in his final moments, but at least he brought death with him. His army embodied darkness, it created goosebumps on my arms and a twitchy shake in my leg. Thanos' army was as dull as him. The main reason I have to side with Thrones was clear though, the Night King's inevitability inspired breathtaking suspense and sheer terror in some scenes, I not only saw it in the faces of the GoT protagonists (we'll get to acting), I felt it in my bones.

Predictability... let's get this one out of the way quickly because I think most superfans would agree that both were relatively predictable with their key deaths or hero sacrifices. One major criticism I've heard with Thrones was that no one important died and the Night King was beaten too easily... um, did you not see three quarters of Dany's army wiped from the face of Westeros? Even so I agree that the deaths were expected, and while I'd argue that Theon and Jorah were both major characters in the books and the show, we could see it coming from a mile away. The reason I was okay with this and the Night King's relatively "Short Night?" There are two; one, I personally never saw him as the main villain of GoT, but rather another cog in this helter skelter character driven masterpiece of a realm... and two, and I understand reason one is kind of a cop-out, Jon always announced that this Great War would be all or nothing. You cannot stop the dead and the only way to win was to catch the Night King off-guard and cut the head off the snake. Personally, for all my Thrones fandom, I never saw it coming until Arya was seen flying through the air (despite it being a classic moment where all seemed lost). I expected it to be Jon or Dany that delivered the blow, or even weirdo Bran, and I felt that key surprise wasn't predictable at all, it shocked me. Endgame went a little differently. They decided to take a stroll down memory lane for the majority of the three hours, simply solving their problems by stealing their way through time (and causing no collateral damage with the only explanation being: that isn't actually how time travel works and back to the future was wrong). Now I'm no expert on time travel and I doubt they figured it out in the 80's either, but that seemed rather coincidental that all these supposed laws we've come to know are just wrong now because the Russo brothers say so. Anyway, moving past the going back in time solution being predictable, the sacrifices were perhaps even more predictable than Thrones. First off, as you had to know would happen, everyone who died in Infinity War besides Vision survived Endgame... even Gamora (although Starlord may have to woo her all over again, tough bid for Chris Pratt). Then, the only characters they felt okay killing off were conveniently the three actors that were ending their contracts with Marvel. Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans have been long since reported to be leaving the cast after Endgame, and Scarlett Johansson I believe has one stand-alone movie before ending her tenure. The setups were too easy also, similar to Theon volunteering to protect Bran, Tony Stark has the perfect life and wonders if he might lose it all by journeying back in time, he does. Don't worry though, he's given permission by his wife, Gwenyth Paltrow (who seemed completely uninterested in acting whatsoever in this film), because that's just who he is. Disney's payroll department should lose her check in the mail, as she ruined Tony's final scene and every other where she was asked to show emotion. Black Widow was also looking for purpose, and found it. Cap's ending was the most surprising of the three, and I actually thought the idea was a perfect ending for his character arc, but they lacked conviction in carrying it out. One brief moment of a slow dance with the only true love he'd ever known felt unsatisfying. It also brought up many more questions of how his new old double-negative of a life in the past should have altered many more timelines, but didn't because again, "that's not how things work with time travel." These fates were predictable, like GoT, but Arya's unknown destiny that the Red Woman revealed years ago without us realizing beat Doctor Strange giving a slow motion "1" gesture to Ironman every time.

That brings me to the nuts and bolts of each. We'll start with acting. I'm a believer that bigger names shouldn't play smaller roles, and that showed bigtime in the Avengers. Yes Downey Jr was superb and I also thought Jeremy Renner and Paul Rudd had good performances, but the lesser roles were noticeably bad, and the screenwriters didn't help with tired lines and zero flair for drama in their words. The combo produced a stale vibe, aside from the comedic lines (which Marvel always does well). This movie wasn't a comedy though, or at least it shouldn't have been, and the emotional scenes never moved the needle. I'll spare a breakdown of every character, but Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlet Jo (Black Widow), Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Mark Ruffalo (happy Hulk), Josh Brolin (Thanos), and Brie Larson (Captain Marvel, who with lazy writing was only in the film when the universe needed saving, then left for the rest) were all off their game, and the scenes between War Machine and Nebula were hard to watch. Honestly, the best acting performance in the whole movie may have been by the little girl that played Tony Stark's daughter, perhaps because she actually took her role seriously? The rest seemed like they had better things to do than share the screen in what was supposed to be a legendary all-time blockbuster. This one is no competition. The acting and writing in Thrones was impeccable throughout both episode 3 and episode 2 of season 8. I felt like I was with them in Winterfell, waiting on the dead, wondering if this would be my last night or even last breath on this planet. The conversations felt realistic, the emotions felt natural, and the vibe felt intensely accurate. As I said above, neither villain was the best, but the fear and panic portrayed by the role characters in Thrones amidst this chaotic battle made me fear the army of the dead and the long night. Whether it was the look in Grey Worm's (Jacob Anderson) eyes when he realized all his training as the bravest Unsullied still never prepared him for this moment, the love in Jorah's (Iain Glen) pain as he took a dagger for Dany, the wild pandemonium surrounding Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) throughout and how he weathered it, the anxiety shared between looks of Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), or the humility shown by Arya (Maisie Williams) when her confidence turned to survival after a blow to the head. Even major stars Jon (Kit Harington), Theon (Alfie Allen), and Dany (Emilia Clarke) seemed fully invested in making this episode as memorable as it needed to be (Clarke's agony after losing Jorah was chilling, while Harington and Allen's acceptance of their fate both in the charge and the stare-down with the dragon were defiant). Acting performances can save a plot and bring what the creator dreamt of to life. I feel the Thrones actors succeeded where the Avengers cast failed. PS... I could have done without Tony running into his father and Thor reminiscing with Mom, especially if the lines were going to be that cheesy.

One of my biggest complaints with Avengers was the music score. Aside from the final scene where they went back to their roots with the main Avengers theme, I thought the music felt off throughout. The scenes in the past were hokey and butchered into jokes with what felt like carnival music and arcade melodies. The fact that my girlfriend brought this up as well confirmed my suspicions that I wasn't completely out of my mind and that the musical scores were way off. I don't really remember much about the score in Thrones, and that's sometimes a good thing when shooting something so intense. It blended nicely and didn't take away from the scenes, more than likely it added to them (I was so on edge throughout the episode that I'm guessing the score was even better than I remember, drawing me in). The cinematography and special effects were things that equally impressed. Avengers always excels at this, and might even get its first win in this head to head as many complained Thrones was too dark. Keep in mind, in many of these battles in the books (like the one at the wall between the Knight's Watch and the Wildlings) much of the fighting is done in the pitch black of night. The long night has yet to be written but I guarantee they made it purposely dark, and for me that was key in making me feel as if I were on the front lines with the Dothraki and Ghost. What is more terrifying than charging headstrong into pure darkness never knowing whether you're going to live or die? Not much. The dragon scenes were also immaculately clean and impressively shot. Finally, the pacing and overall length. With Avengers, I felt there was a lot of unnecessary fluff building up to the final battle. The scenes in the past aside from a few jokes here and there didn't land for me, maybe I just think repeating things with slightly different spins isn't the best way to spend your series finale (like the clip show episodes in sitcoms, which were always the worst). The pace dragged on at times but did finish strong. For Thrones I do like to include episode 2, because it was the perfect set up to the war. You could combine 2 and 3 together and make a solid film out of it (almost two and a half hours). The show-runner and director managed to keep track of every character and create these epic scenes amidst the confusion (Arya in the library, Jon chasing down the Night King, different perspectives from Davos to Grey Worm to Sam to the crypt to Jaime and Brienne), almost as if they were chapters in one of Martin's novels. I really thought it was masterfully done and no easy feat. To be fair, Avengers was able to do something similar in the final battle and attempted to give everyone a role throughout, but I never found the plot lines to be as enthralling as GoT or even Infinity War.

I've already had this debate with some people who hated Thrones and loved End Game, so I'm aware everyone has their preference, but I think it's clear which way I swayed. I would probably rank End Game 4th out of 5 in terms of Avengers films (Civil War- 1, then Infinity War, the original, and Ultron last in that order), but I didn't hate it. My final rating would probably be an approximate 7 out of 10. As for the Long Night, there really isn't much I would change or complain about personally, my rating is a 9.5 out of 10. Comment with your own thoughts and ratings! I'd love to hear which way the masses side on this. At the end of the day, both of these series will go down in history as two of the most impressive and iconic film/tv works of our time, and I for one feel very fortunate that I was able to experience them both. I look forward to this Sunday...

Photo Credit: Forbes/HBO (left), Den of Geek/Disney (right)