3. Bad screenwriting/the good guys are stupid. Maybe they didn't think that the Night King's powers would work over long distances but thinking he couldn't resurrect the corpses in the crypts is a big fucking assumption to make.
Well.... burial rites usually intend to prevent people from coming back as ghosts or the undead, so there's that. A burial is not just a way to remove a corpse, most ritual aspects usually revolve around pacifying the soul of the deceased to prevent it from doing shit in the world of the living. And if that's not an option (maybe cause the person died under terrible circumstances that can't be pacified) you bury them in a way to make sure they won't be able to come back. Like, you bury them beneath a bridge or at a crossroads. Or you bury them upside down, so they don't dig themselves up. Shit like that.
That is to say, I would have assumed that the corpses of the crypt are either "off limits" due to burial rites, due to them being dead a really long fucking time or since there's a massive statue on top of their graves.
It makes no sense from a narrative PoV to have the Night King be able to resurrect people in that crypt. At all. Either it makes no sense for them to hide down there or it makes no sense that he can resurrect these people, either way, it was stupid as shit.
I think Melisandre is right and that prophecies aren't set in stone, they're just playing the odds. Some visions are more likely than others.
Oh absolutely, where would the suspense be, if the prophecy would just be 100% correct.
But the one about Azor Ahai being reborn, which is the focal point of the entire show(!), turns out to be horseshot start to finish.
Arya was not born amongst salt and smoke. Her life has nothing to do with dragons. She has nothing that could be considered "Lightbringer". She has no connection to "A song of ice and fire".
From a strictly narrative point of view, with setup and payoff, it was weak as fuck, easily the dumbest thing they could have done. They might as well have had Gilly stab the Night King. Or the Hound. Or Jaqen H'Gar. Or fucking Littlefinger, who inexplicably returns alive for no reason.
It's the screen-writing version of madlips.
"And then, the Night King is killed by
____ (Character)."
No setup, no payoff. It's utter trash and I have no clue why they did it. Some Feminism bullshit? Subverting expectations? Just what the fuck was the intention of not only resolving the Night King plot this lamely but also this pointlessly?
I don't get it. Do these people hate the show they created that they want to make it end on such an asinine note?
Edit:
And here's the one thing that I just want to add:
Who really cares how the war over the Iron Throne ends? Seriously.
Even if Cersei won and killed off all remaining characters, that only means she'll be in power for like 20-30 years tops and then no matter how bad she was, even if she goes full "Mad King"-levels of crazy. . . she'll die. Someone else will take the throne. Oh sure, maybe there'll be a few decades of bullshit going on, but it doesn't matter. The big important thing was defeating the Night King. He's gone, anything else is so utterly unimportant, there is no point to it at all. Nothing is at stake, compared to the achievement of killing off the NK.
And since neither Dany nor Jon are "the promised prince", it feels like it's a 100% inconsequential who gets on the throne in the end.
There's nothing special about (say) Jon ending up the King of Westeros. He's just some random person after all.
I can't believe how little I now care for the conclusion of this show, with only one scene being to blame.
