Game of Thrones Seasons 7-8

[keg in kc]

About to hit the 5000 post mark on the old thread, the first season 7 trailer today seems like the right time to start the final Game of Thones thread.

I'm going back to the original rules pre-2015. I don't think we need supervision or bannings. Just don't be a dick. Post anything you find online that hasn't aired yet inside of spoiler tags. That's pretty much it. I think we can all handle that...





For future us, 2015 thread is here: Link

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Re: the number of named survivors, that surprised me also. But a few things... someone has to survive, and it makes sense that the best trained/most skilled would be the ones winning clear...

You're a history buff, yes? You kinda know that's not right.

Granted, this isn't exactly modern warfare, but it's melee combat with dragons and the undead...so it's close enough to assign it a lot of similarities to WWI. And I think the takeaway from WWI and pretty much all close combat that we have a strong historical record for is that survival is little more than blind, dumb luck.

And the Battle of the Bastards tried to show that, though not quite as well. That scene right after the merge where Jon and others are wandering through and someone would just get blasted by a random horse was a perfect demonstration of the luck factor involved here.

Moreover, Jaime, Sam and Davos are shitty fighters. The wildings, unsullied and Dothraki are not. So even if I'll give some credence to the idea that better fighter = better chance of winning here, Jamie, Sam and Davos ought not still be alive.

I'm honestly fairly disappointed in this episode. I'll re-watch it on the OLED rather than gut my settings on my LCD downstairs that I have set for sports (high color stuff) and maybe even keep my HBO Now for long enough to make sure I get my Fiber installed to give it it's best chance at impressing me. Maybe I'll appreciate it more if I get the visuals better. But from a strictly storytelling standpoint, I was pretty disappointed. They passed Martin and lost the stomach for this.

Brienne should've gone down protecting Jaime (perfect way to finish the character arc). Grey Worm should've been out there with his men and serves no further purpose in this story apart from living happily ever after with Misandai.

And maybe a little less foreshadowing? I have no idea how anyone was surprised by Arya's RKO out of nowhere there - they didn't so much foreshadow that as they just flat out told you it was going to happen. And when Arya was the only name character we weren't getting updates on in the final crush, it made it that much more obvious. Of COURSE Arya was going to kill him. And no, they weren't gonna have EVERYONE die with 3 episodes left to go. I mean we were literally 15 seconds away from every major character dying and every major character apart from Arya was clearly in peril.

So yeah - that was obvious.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by otherstar

That could very well happen. Emilia Clarke has gone on record saying that the end of GoT really messed with her. Given that I've heard that the ending is bittersweet, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a blood bath to see who wins the iron throne and Jon (or Arya) kills Dany because she asks the Starts to bend the knee (which Sansa will NOT do).

Watch Dany go crazy and kill Sam.....

[Shag]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

Watch Dany go crazy and kill Sam.....

That would certainly be a way to kickstart the Jon vs Dany thing, and get Jon over his internal struggle to oppose Dany, which we all know is coming.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

In the history of warfare, horse soldiers were effective for a few reasons:

Shocking formations and forcing cracks and breaks in formation due to human reactions and self-preservation.

Using mobility to pick at flanks and break formations, again due to human reaction and self-preservation.

That stuff doesn’t work against a mass of undead thralls that have no self-preservation sense.

But they were MOSTLY effective due to speed. That's something people forget about old school 'formation' combat - most of the casualties didn't come during the engagement, but rather during the route. That's when you'd loose your cavalry and they'd mow down fleeing soldiers. The number of soldiers killed after formations would break and run was just staggering. To run those numbers up you need to be able to overtake fleeing soldiers - that's where Cavalry was at its strongest.

And while the WW aren't gonna flee, the major cavalry advantage is still there and that's speed/stamina. You don't lead with your damn cavalry. Especially not when you're pretty sure you have pretty strong flanks and at the very least an entrenched center. The Dothraki should've been held in reserve to encircle; they had the speed advantage and plenty of open space.

And while the NK does seem to have some degree of telepathy, he's not omniscient. You can make him feel like he's winning and still maintain a reserve component somewhere (which they essentially did with the Iron Born around Bran).

I understand that they weren't trying to win the thing outright but rather were attempting to delay and pull out the NK, but they also weren't trying to just kill their own forces off quickly and leave themselves with only a faint hope of Dues Ex Ninja showing up and saving the day. That thing really didn't go according to script and it didn't in large part because the script was fundamentally flawed.

The only thing that seemed to work was dismounting him but obviously that fell to shit once dragonfire didn't hurt him. So was that their only end game? Get the shit kicked out of you long enough to put him on the board, ground him somehow and then burn him up? With Plan B being Jon running after him with longclaw in the hopes of taking him on 1v1?

Just seems like they could've had a better safety net to work with had they not wasted their cavalry and then set up their delaying force in front of their defensive structures.

[arrowheadnation]

I still say the talk that Tyrion and Bran had in private is going to factor in somehow.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

But they were MOSTLY effective due to speed. That's something people forget about old school 'formation' combat - most of the casualties didn't come during the engagement, but rather during the route. That's when you'd loose your cavalry and they'd mow down fleeing soldiers. The number of soldiers killed after formations would break and run was just staggering. To run those numbers up you need to be able to overtake fleeing soldiers - that's where Cavalry was at its strongest.

It's important to remember that Dothraki aren't the cavalry that's often thought of when we think of European medieval style battles. It's arguable that the term cavalry doesn't fully represent just how different the mongols used horseback warfare compared to their European counterparts. The Dothraki's main influence in battles were the mongols. Outside of a couple of exceptions, the mongols operated entirely on horseback - and while they did use infantry siege techniques in a couple of instances (primarily through the conscription of other forces), in field battles they were reliant on horseback.

This is consistent with Jorah's description of the Dothraki too in Book 1

"[The Dothraki] are better riders than any knight, utterly fearless and their bows outrange ours. [...] The Dothraki fire from horseback, charging or retreating it makes no matter, they are full as deadly.

Part of the Dothraki strategy has always been to engage, retreat, encircle, and adapt as needed. The plan was to stall, and the hope was that the Dothraki could encircle, retreat, and stall as necessary. They had never fought an army like the army of the dead. No one was, no one had ever engaged them in a battle before. They got flat out ambushed and the tactic to stall didn't work.

Sure, Dany could have risked taking Drogon for an old school BBQ, but risking a WW javelin takes out one of her two biggest weapons in the battles opening salvo would have been devastating, especially since the only path to winning was always going to be taking out the NK.

And while the WW aren't gonna flee, the major cavalry advantage is still there and that's speed/stamina. You don't lead with your damn cavalry. Especially not when you're pretty sure you have pretty strong flanks and at the very least an entrenched center. The Dothraki should've been held in reserve to encircle; they had the speed advantage and plenty of open space.

This is possible, but it may have been very difficult to encircle the AOTD with the sheer number of forces they had. At the end of the day, it's tough for me to look at this battle through a conventional medieval lens. They never would have been able to "beat" the WW in a conventional fashion, the plan, for better or worse, always had to be to kill the NK.

Now, I think criticizing D&D for allowing the WW to be killed through a Queen Bee is completely fair. That was a major deviation from GRRM (the WW don't have the show NK, and always have loomed over as more of a symbolic representation of death that should diminish the importance of the throne itself).

The show still could land that point, but they have an awful lot to cover in the last 4 hours of screentime.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by otherstar

That could very well happen. Emilia Clarke has gone on record saying that the end of GoT really messed with her. Given that I've heard that the ending is bittersweet, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a blood bath to see who wins the iron throne and Jon (or Arya) kills Dany because she asks the Starts to bend the knee (which Sansa will NOT do).

I could see them pulling that off if that's the way they go.

What did Jon's great uncle tell him? "Love is the death of duty."

Jon had to choose between The Night's Watch and Ygritte, he chose the Night's Watch.
Jon has spent a lot of the universe bringing people together. He's given up power, compromised, and pardoned people. He even told Theon that he didn't have to choose between being a Stark and a Greyjoy.

What happens if Dany tries to make him choose between the Starks and her? People say that Mad Queen Dany is too much to go for with the time remaining - but I disagree. That part of her has been present throughout the series. Has she ever, ever, ever seemed comfortable with a future where she wasn't on the Iron Throne? Tyrion suggested (and outright told her) that she was better off in Essos. No one knew her in Westeros, and she really had something in Essos. She claims she wants to break the wheel - but in her mind, does breaking the wheel mean ending the feudal system or breaking everyone who stands in her way? She crucified the masters (rightfully so), let her enemies (literally) cannibalize each other in Season 2, and was begging Tyrion to allow her to burn King's Landing despite the reputation of her father (she ended up BBQ'ing her enemies anyway).

This part of her has always been there. Always. My roommates binged the show for the first time from Feb-Apr, and that was a prediction they both had (Dany going Madqueen) after watching it in one sitting. I'll be interested in how she responds if Grey Worm and Missandei when/if they approach her with the idea of sailing away after she wins. If Dany reacts poorly, that could be the foreshadowing to what Dany's wanted all along - power, as GW and M's conception of who they've been following will have been wrong for a long time.

[GloucesterChief]

Sheer numbers would actually be a disadvantage to the army of the dead. You are looking at an army that has no ranged troops, no cavalry, no siege equipment, and no officers. They can attack and stop and that looks like the limit of their tactical ability. Should of been easy to draw them in and crush them against the walls of winterfell. The wights in the middle can do nothing but wait to get cutdown. That is how you get the Night King to commit to the battlefield.

[Fish]

Good rundown of the severe flaws in battle strategy. As stated in the conclusion, we can't expect things to be completely realistic in a show like this. But this battle and the way they went about it was just so starkly different from previous battles in terms of realistic outcomes and characters overcoming completely impossible odds. An ounce of common sense would have made this episode so much better...

The whole thing was just a cluster**** of bad strategy and tactics, though:

• Having ALL of the cavalry—light cavalry, at that—blindly charge to their deaths unsupported into a literal fog of war, straight down the center, in no particular formation, without even knowing where the enemy was or having special wight-killing weapons, apparently, until Melisandre showed up. All against an enemy that is incapable of feeling the fear a cavalry charge, Dothraki or otherwise, would normally create.
  
  
• Only one line of trenches, spikes, and other obstacles constructed at all. Oh, and the single trench being no more than a few feet wide and deep, and not getting lit until the middle of the battle, long after the infantry have been swamped, when it should have been flaming from the get-go.
  
  
• Placing what seems to be nearly all of their total infantry in front of said obstacles, with only narrow corridors for retreat (shit, were there even any?).
  
  
• Placing the entirety of the elite shield-and-spear wielding infantry on the front lines, spaced apart instead of in phalanx formation, and sacrificed to guard the retreat of the general foot soldiers.
  
  
• The trebuchets—the superior siege weapon—firing exactly once, positioned outside the castle, in front of BOTH the infantry and obstacles, so that they are the first things overrun.
  
  
• The dragons, two honest-to-R’hllor WMDs, not being used to light up the fields until after the enemy has crushed through their front lines.
  
  
• Having literally no other way to signal the dragon riders besides Davos waving a torch on the wall, in spite of them using war horns at the end of the previous episode.
  
  
• Waiting until AFTER the wights have started crossing the trenches to “man the walls,” instead of having archers already there continually shooting the dead while they were just standing around.
  
  
• Not apparently having dragonglass arrowheads, which would’ve arguably been the most efficient use of the stuff.
  
  
• No boiling oil, pitch, or other incendiaries thrown down onto the wights scaling the walls, nor pole-arms and shields available on the wall to defend the crenelations.
  
  
• No guards posted in the crypts, or even just weapons made available for the people there, despite all the fuss made in season 7 about making sure that the civilians—including women and children—were trained to defend themselves, and showing said women and children practicing with these weapons as recently as the previous episode.
  
  
• Daenerys landing Drogon on the ground and not burning the dead, and then not immediately taking off again after failing to do that.

It’s not like we needed some incredibly complex battle tactics, just some common sense. There were multiple experienced field strategists and combat veterans there: Jon, Tyrion, Varys, Grey Worm, Jorah, Davos, Jaime, Beric, Sandor, Royce, Theon, Tormund, Edd, and presumably a bunch of Northern lords and Dothraki captains. I’m all for suspense, but it’s lazy writing to artificially create it by having the good guys make arbitrarily dumb decisions, when they should very clearly know better.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by Fish

Good rundown of the severe flaws in battle strategy. As stated in the conclusion, we can't expect things to be completely realistic in a show like this. But this battle and the way they went about it was just so starkly different from previous battles in terms of realistic outcomes and characters overcoming completely impossible odds. An ounce of common sense would have made this episode so much better...

I'll go to my grave about the Dothraki argument - but the other points are all fair. Arguably points like these can be applied to almost any cinematic battle. This doesn't excuse Game of Thrones, simply because the first two battles we saw (Blackwater and WOW) as well as the S1-2 battles that were described had such stellar, historically and logically grounded plans from both sides (as well as thematically sensible twists). This elevated our expectations for battles on the show, and it makes sense that those were the battles that had the most influence from GRRM, who was a professor of history for decades before he began ASOIAF.

The battles since Season 4 have all had leaps of logic and logistical problems, which makes complete sense since D&D have been largely on their own. From a filmmaking perspective they've been excellent (since they are filmmakers). Hell, my wife's fitbit logged 55 minutes of exercise during that episode. However, the sound historical logic we saw in the first four seasons has more or less gone to the wayside.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by arrowheadnation

I still say the talk that Tyrion and Bran had in private is going to factor in somehow.

Maybe Bran clued in Tyrion to Dany's path. Tyrion becomes the Queen Slayer.

[Sassy Squatch]

Originally Posted by Fish

Good rundown of the severe flaws in battle strategy. As stated in the conclusion, we can't expect things to be completely realistic in a show like this. But this battle and the way they went about it was just so starkly different from previous battles in terms of realistic outcomes and characters overcoming completely impossible odds. An ounce of common sense would have made this episode so much better...

What the hell is boiling 'anything' going to do to an army of undead? If anything it makes them even worse to fight.

[GloucesterChief]

Pitch can be lit on fire. Oil can be lit on fire and makes things slippery. Water makes things slippery plus muddy.

[Sassy Squatch]

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief

Pitch can be lit on fire. Oil can be lit on fire and makes things slippery. Water makes things slippery plus muddy.

Only thing that helps at all there is lighting them on fire.

[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by Superturtle

Only thing that helps at all there is lighting them on fire.

When the only way they can get up the walls is climbing over each other making things as slick as possible helps a lot.