13

Before resurrecting the people who died in the Massacre at Hardhome in Game of Thrones S05E08, the Night King looks to his left (the right from the camera/viewer's perspective), and Jon Snow then looks in the same direction.

I've paused the movie (at approx 58 mins+, the very end of the episode), but I couldn't find anything specific they were looking at. What were they looking at?

Improve this question
1

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
24

I think it's just "for dramatic effect".
It's an indicator of where the next important action is going to happen, to the audience, via Jon's character.

We see the Night King looking out to Jon on the boat; close his eyes, turn his head, then look out over the devastation in Hardhome. We then get a Jon [almost] POV* shot of where the Night King is looking - that's movie-speak for "I'm looking at what you're indicating I should look at". A brief shot of Jon looking back at the Night King, as he turns back to face Jon, plus a couple of back and forth cuts for a tension builder… then the moment of resurrection.

The resurrection itself begins in cut-aways to blue-eyed close-ups, before moving out to POV again; always inter-cutting to Jon's reaction, until we cut back to Karsi then again the Night King . One more POV and we see them rowing away - defeated - against an increasingly-wide backdrop of Hardhome post-resurrection. A sign of things to come… and fade to black.

*Jon's POV [point of view] shots all actually include Jon in the shot, close and out of focus, so they're not "true" POVs, but they serve the same purpose - we see 'what Jon is looking at', giving the audience the clue as to also know to look there for the next plot point.
GoT is very cleverly shot, but it does include these 'obvious' audience pointers so we can keep up with what's about to happen. They do like the 'fast cut' setups, flipping from character interplay, to close detail, to scenic wides - all so we know where the action is taking place as well as being able to see detail of it.

Improve this answer
2
  • 6
    "Jon [almost] POV* shot" - A way to express this that's simpler than the extended footnote is to call it an "over-the-shoulder" shot.
    – V2Blast
    Feb 3, 2020 at 1:06
  • I could, for sure - but it's used as a POV quite definitely each time. The way they did it is far 'smarter' than OTS would imply, with it's "cheap cutaway during fluffed dialogue" potential ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 3, 2020 at 7:41
3

The night king is looking behind him, at the bodies he's about to revive. Jon looks at the bodies too, only a bit more over the entire area on the night king's left, since that's where most bodies are (the white walkers attacked from that side). Nothing more to it.

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Yeah, really. Re-watched the clip. Night king looks left, Jon Snow looks right (same direction). camera pans to where the most of the village is. Walkers rise. Most are where the camera panned. Doesn't seem like much of a mystery - it's just a setup for the shot which comes 60 seconds later.
    – VLAZ
    Feb 4, 2020 at 7:32

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .