Winterfel, TLj...is this ''fair'' to complain that battles are illogical in fiction ?

[Afrospinach]

Yes, it is fair to complain when series beloved by many due to its intricacies and unpredictability, becomes a Disney production.

I do find it a little ironic that this "unpredictability" became so contrary long before they left the books it was a predictable institution in and of itself. Oberyn was never going to win that fight, because it was written by RR Martin. Did not need to see the episode to know, lo and behold, predictable again. That last thing that was genuinely surprising to me was the annihilation of the Tyrells. You might have known it was coming but not like that.

Army of the Dead - "We have one weakness, if the enemy kills the Night King, we'll all die."

"So let's put the Night King in harms way. What could go wrong?"

So leveling the place and having him surrounded by white walkers who are almost unkillable after everyone outside was dead was in harms way?

I have the same issue are most people with the current writers but the comments in this thread do make me think that they are at least half decent.

[sarahtasher]

Factually wrong on every single fucking account.

(You know, just like you don't have to have a medical degree to know anti-vaxxers are full of shit.)

That Jon Snow is not pulling together a very good anti-zombie battle plan is forgivable. No one thinks he is the sharpest mind of the drawer and he have a very limited skill as commanding armies period. He still ignores staples of medieval warfare, such as having both ends of his tiny battle line hanging ''in the air'', ready to be flanked.

[Ozyorkbourne]

They knew they had to sacrifice people and time to get the Night King to expose himself. They wanted to find him, go 2 dragons against 1 and then kill him when he went for Bran, which they theorized would kill all of them.

Defeating the whole army was never the plan; they knew they couldn’t.

Catapults in front of the infantry. I don't care about the piss poor use of dothraki or even people saying "they had to buy time" because sacrificing 100,000 cavalry in a single blind charge isn't how you do that, but fuck that. Catapults... in front of your infantry. That single thing embodies everything wrong with that episode. Have dozens of Northern Lords and combat veterans, still put siege in front of your 'shield wall' of tiny shields that's supposed to counter the endless dead. Drives me mad.

[Netherling]

Uh, explaining this is tiresome - same shit over and over, just like in the GoT thread. Just saying my peace and leaving. People have their own opinions and see what they want to see...

You can either have some of your forces die quickly, letting the Night King enter your Keep, or you can have everyone stay behind the walls and live longer, but everyone eventually dies and the Night King still enters.

The fighting in the field was a distraction and Bran was bait.

Imagine if you guys were there...

Jon: “We need the Night King to feel he can enter Winterfell and go after Bran”.

MMO-Champion: “Okay, let’s keep everyone inside Winterfell then”.

Jon: *facepalm*

This is a stupid argument. They weren't just trying to lure the NK in and if they were, it was still stupid: they couldn't have known that ALL the wights would die. There aren't only two options: front lines and inside the keep; the rest of the army could have been kept much further away to keep them safe. The NK doesn't know the size of the North's army, so why not just have a smaller force to defend Winterfell? That would lure him in and waste fewer lives. Ultimately, the majority of the forces (Unsullied and Dothraki) were completely wasted for no good reason.

[sarahtasher]

Catapults in front of the infantry. I don't care about the piss poor use of dothraki or even people saying "they had to buy time" because sacrificing 100,000 cavalry in a single blind charge isn't how you do that, but fuck that. Catapults... in front of your infantry. That single thing embodies everything wrong with that episode. Have dozens of Northern Lords and combat veterans, still put siege in front of your 'shield wall' of tiny shields that's supposed to counter the endless dead. Drives me mad.

It's less the idea itself (that trebuchet would not work very well as anti-personnel weapons) that the execution that struggle-as you said, it's not like real life medieval people were unfamiliar with the concept of basic field defences, such as stakes hedges.

[Th3Scourge]

Yes - they literally sent half their forces off to die for no reason at all. What the fuck did they spend all their time doing in the days/weeks leading up to this battle with not making a bigger trench full of dragonglass? Instead, lets put out best troops - unsullied and Dothraki on the OUTSIDE of a castle with trebuchets IN FRONT of troops.

This was probably twice as bad as the season 7 episode "beyond the wall". Amazingly there are idiots that defend this crap because "WeReN't YoU sHoCkEd?!1"

Hollywood has this obsession with subverting expectations. It only works when the audience is invested in the moment. Nothing about that episode had me invested.

[Independent voter]

So leveling the place and having him surrounded by white walkers who are almost unkillable after everyone outside was dead was in harms way?

I have the same issue are most people with the current writers but the comments in this thread do make me think that they are at least half decent.

I'm amazed that you can't see the Army of the Dead's vulnerability! If the Night King dies they all die. He's a huge target. Seems pretty simple to me.

So why not protect the Night King? Since he's the only vulnerability you have? Leave him on the dragon, flying above it all.

[horbindr]

yeah totally fair to complain about. sure you got to exaggerate and be a bit theatrical and that's fine, but it's a big plus if w/e you are depicting is at least rooted in how it's done IRL.

i think they did some stupid stuff in that battle, but i'm no military genius so i also don't feel like i can really judge it fairly. but often enough something happens in a film or series that i am an expert on, e.g. my own language or stuff related to my job or hobbies, and if they completely mess it up it's very hard to keep suspension of disbelief going. so big plus for anything that at least tries to root stuff in reality.

[Aurondarklord]

Oh it's totally FAIR, but that doesn't always mean you're RIGHT. As they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

[horbindr]

Oh it's totally FAIR, but that doesn't always mean you're RIGHT. As they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

sure seemed everything went according to plan except for minor details until the walls were breached.

[uopayroll]

This is a stupid argument. They weren't just trying to lure the NK in and if they were, it was still stupid: they couldn't have known that ALL the wights would die. There aren't only two options: front lines and inside the keep; the rest of the army could have been kept much further away to keep them safe. The NK doesn't know the size of the North's army, so why not just have a smaller force to defend Winterfell? That would lure him in and waste fewer lives. Ultimately, the majority of the forces (Unsullied and Dothraki) were completely wasted for no good reason.

You need to rewatch the second episode then, specifically the five or so minutes where they describe/explain the plan.

[korijenkins]

Yes it's fair, maybe not with Star Wars (because most of those battles are illogical) but in GoT, they prided themselves on realism for 4 seasons. If a character messed up, they died, or were punished for their mistakes.

To make a battle tense, they came up with elaborate plans, and the tension came from whether or not it would work. You do NOT make a battle tense by sacrificing half your army immediately, positioning your other half BEHIND the defenses you specifically built for THAT battle, and not using your best weapon (dragons).

You also don't make a battle tense by throwing your own established rules out the windows (ie, wights burn, as if they're made of pitch).

There may be a battle that takes place at Winterfell between the wights and the "living" forces, but it will not happen anything like this (because GRRM isn't a fucking idiot)

[CritFromAfar]

Yes it's fair, maybe not with Star Wars (because most of those battles are illogical) but in GoT, they prided themselves on realism for 4 seasons. If a character messed up, they died, or were punished for their mistakes.

To make a battle tense, they came up with elaborate plans, and the tension came from whether or not it would work. You do NOT make a battle tense by sacrificing half your army immediately, positioning your other half BEHIND the defenses you specifically built for THAT battle, and not using your best weapon (dragons).

You also don't make a battle tense by throwing your own established rules out the windows (ie, wights burn, as if they're made of pitch).

There may be a battle that takes place at Winterfell between the wights and the "living" forces, but it will not happen anything like this (because GRRM isn't a fucking idiot)

That's probably when most people would have started questioning the writing of the episode.

[Wilian]

Yes it is, it's fair to complain that things are not logical. Now you can argue that it's okay they're not realistic and that's fine. But logical? Pls.

[therealstegblob]

Defeating the whole army was never the plan; they knew they couldn’t.

This is what everyone doesn't fucking understand. All of these keyboard strategists complaining about their battle tactics when they don't seem to grasp the fact that the whole point was to draw out the Night King. I mean, I'm not defending the battle at all because it was a fucking horrible episode with terrible, terrible editing and a total pisspull ending that even Arya's actor, Maisie Williams, thought was ridiculous, but people are going a little overboard with trying to pull the episode apart.

The army of the dead wasn't going to siege the castle and starve the living out, it didn't have to. If the battle were being even somewhat realistic, the army of the dead would've completely killed everyone in like an hour. But this is Game of Thrones, where the heroes can struggle against a dozen zombies for 30 minutes and then be okay later. I guess?

If you had an unstoppable death army 100k+ strong and the ability to simply rez your dead enemies to replenish your already unstoppable tide of death minions, why the fuck would you sit around and jerk yourself off waiting weeks/months/years for them to starve off? People are dumb.

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And yet no-one is yet to point out a single valid problem with the battle... so damned obvious hey.

That's some next level ear-covering, yikes.

[Tiwack]

Only if you're going to say reality is much worse than fantasy dragons and zombies. It's theater and it's bound to be inaccurate as 95% of warfare is training/waiting. It never translated well to cinema because it's up to the director to depict and portray it as they like for the/their audience.

[therealstegblob]

Uh, explaining this is tiresome - same shit over and over, just like in the GoT thread. Just saying my peace and leaving. People have their own opinions and see what they want to see...[/I]

Look, I get what you're trying to do here and I recognize your point, but the issue is that it all comes back to one stupid trope: that killing the Night King wins the whole war. The very fact that this is setting the battle up for some kind of stupid "we need to lull him out of hiding u guyz" tactic is really dumb and, ultimately, it's all just a very transparent excuse to have a way to neatly and quickly destroy the entire army of the dead and all the white walkers in one swoop.

People wouldn't have been nearly as angry about some of this if the battle, in its entirety, weren't so fucking stupid and didn't hinge so heavily on a single stupid plot device.

[KainneAbsolute]

So we dont have the right to watch clever (still with some flaws) heroes versus clever enemies?

[Lazuli]

I was honestly bored the entire fight, that's not really why I watch GoT. I've never once criticized the show but dothraki charge and burning trench were some of the dumbest shit I've seen. Why didn't they use archery on horseback with dragon class arrow tips and have the trench be first line of defense with a defending force behind it?.. I mean I'm not even a battle specialist and this is the most obvious shit in the world. Multiple trenches, first one overcome move to 2nd light it and defend again, repeat.

There were no flanks at all? Arya becomes ultra instinct and instant transmissions to the night king after barely escaping a few wights? Like what? I was totally expecting arya to be bran in disguise with a flashback of him having to sacrifice his face with some timey wimey shit mixed in. But no, she tony jaa'd that motherfucker into oblivion lmao.

[I Push Buttons]

This is what everyone doesn't fucking understand. All of these keyboard strategists complaining about their battle tactics when they don't seem to grasp the fact that the whole point was to draw out the Night King.

The whole point was that the Night King would have been drawn out regardless of how the battle went. Their entire 'strategy' was built upon the premise that the Night King was fixated on Bran and wanted to kill him to destroy the memory of men... That he would presumably go for Bran during the battle and that's when Jan Sneau and Dragonlady would spring their trap and go for him.

Given that, why would they not try to put up the best possible defense they could and, you know, actually value their own lives? Not even hiding in Winterfell and forcing the dead into a siege, just not engaging the dead out in an open field and instead engaging them from behind the trench?

There was never any assumption that the Night King would only show himself when the dead were winning by being lulled into some false sense security or anything like that... They even start off their battle plan with Jan Sneau saying 'we can't beat them in a straight fight'... Only for them to then proceed to engage the dead in a straight fight and get slaughtered. Jaime says something like 'he would never expose himself if he's that important' and Bran like, 'Ye he will, he wants me'... There was no 'Ye he will, if he's winning!', nothing like that is ever even hinted at, let alone stated... The exact opposite is stated, Bran says "We need to lure him into the open before his army destroys us all"... So they literally threw all their lives away with a nonsensical battle plan for legit no reason.