The Clash of the Queens

[Karmarni]

16 hours ago, Moseh Khayim said:

Daenerys is looking way too strong at the moment, so a twist is bound to happen. I'm hoping she loses at least one of her dragons. Also, I think her Unsullied and Dothraki will turn out to be useless, leaving her with mainly a Martell/Tyrell alliance and 1 or 2 dragons.

I do believe in the books that Dany will have to lose a dragon. Perhaps we get a new dragonrider who isn't up to the task? 

It does seem like she is unstoppable, so the show needs to bring out a weapon/arsenal of some sort that reduce her army to a more 'manageable' one.

The Dothraki and the Unsullied are strangers to cold weather, plus the Dothraki can't have brought all their horses with them. They're going to need to find supplies somewhere. I suppose given the shows lead up with Varys, Olenna and Ellaria that they will look for replenishment in Dorne.

[A spoon of knife and fork]

I think that Dany's alliance with the Dornish Snakes will fail once Tyrion realizes they murdered his niece.  Or, she'll lose Tyrion which would be far worse (and I don't think she would trade Tyrion for the Dornish troops - they are building up that these two are endgame allies).  

Civil war in Dorne will give Cersei some time to build an alliance/defense, and weaken Dany's army somewhat.  In addition to Euron and the Freys/riverlands there's the possibility of Stormlanders (Maybe led by Tarly - yes I know he's a Reach house in the books but they could easily make him a Stormlander in the show) joining her, since at this point there is no House Baratheon so the region is likely in Chaos.  

I like to think that Jaime will abandon Cersei and join up with Tyrion/Dany.  

It would be a fun twist if someone like Arya is the one who actually kills Cersei, not Dany, Tyrion, or Jaime.  

[dsug]

It's like a dream of mine for Cersei and Daenerys to actually meet. I doubt it'll happen but the thought of seeing Lena and Emilia onscreen together would be amazing. My TV would explode. 

[Cron]

On 9/13/2016 at 0:51 PM, Larger than Average Finger said:

So long as the dragons are alive and at her disposal, no one south of the wall could withstand Dani for any length of time.

That's the biggest issue with keeping the story interesting, which is why I expect it to change.

I strongly agree with you on this.  What we saw Dany and her three dragons do to the fleets in Slaver's Bay was absolutely staggering.  She crushed them in minutes, and they were basically helpless; Dany and her dragons took NO damage at all.

I've got a bad feeling they are gonna get "Nerfed" though (basically meaning, downgraded in power to make other conflicts more "exciting").  Unfortunately, it's a sign of weak storytelling, but I've got a feeling that's what's going to happen, cuz it's the easy way out, and we've already seen extremely implausible things in fights and battles since they veered off of canon material (e.g., Jon's survival at the Battle of the Bastards when he clearly would have died many times over if it was "real," and Arya getting stabbed multiple times in the abdomen shortly before engaging in a chase through the streets and final battle with Waif)

[Nocturne]

1 hour ago, Cron said:

I strongly agree with you on this.  What we saw Dany and her three dragons do to the fleets in Slaver's Bay was absolutely staggering.  She crushed them in minutes, and they were basically helpless; Dany and her dragons took NO damage at all.

 

If the show makes the Westerosi knights just as dumb as the unsullied that fought against her sure. But what we saw so far from the dragons is that:

They don't fly all that high.

They tend to come down on the ground.

They tend to focus way to much on one single target, as opposed to doing a field of fire.

All you need is 20 good men, and a few scorpions and you can take them down quite easily. Hopefully she will be more smart in using her dragons when she arrives in Westeros.

[Ashes Of Westeros]

5 hours ago, Nocturne said:

If the show makes the Westerosi knights just as dumb as the unsullied that fought against her sure. But what we saw so far from the dragons is that:

They don't fly all that high.

They tend to come down on the ground.

They tend to focus way to much on one single target, as opposed to doing a field of fire.

All you need is 20 good men, and a few scorpions and you can take them down quite easily. Hopefully she will be more smart in using her dragons when she arrives in Westeros.

A dragon could be killed through an eye. Besides that they can kill each other, I assume there could be some rivalry between Drogon and other two and dany can't really control them.

[Cron]

11 hours ago, Nocturne said:

If the show makes the Westerosi knights just as dumb as the unsullied that fought against her sure. But what we saw so far from the dragons is that:

They don't fly all that high.

They tend to come down on the ground.

They tend to focus way to much on one single target, as opposed to doing a field of fire.

All you need is 20 good men, and a few scorpions and you can take them down quite easily. Hopefully she will be more smart in using her dragons when she arrives in Westeros.

Wow.

With respect, I think you're making very broad conclusions from very limited information.

Don't fly all that high?  They were flying low to strafe the opponent, which they did. Further, my memory is that in that episode there are some shots of Dany and the dragons flying QUITE high (although I'd have to watch again to be sure)

Tend to come down to the ground?  Yeah, when it's safe, not in the middle of a battlefield.

Tend to focus on a single target?  Uh, they annihilated an entire fleet of hundreds of ships, as I basically said, without taking ANY damage.

20 good men and a few scorpions?  This is radically contrary to what we've been told about GRRM's dragons, and what we've seen.  Aegon conquered all of Westeros with 3 dragons.  Jorah says, at one point, that no army (an entire ARMY) is worth 1 dragon.  And I believe it, based on what we saw in Slaver's Bay.

[Nocturne]

9 hours ago, Cron said:

Wow.

With respect, I think you're making very broad conclusions from very limited information.

Don't fly all that high?  They were flying low to strafe the opponent, which they did. Further, my memory is that in that episode there are some shots of Dany and the dragons flying QUITE high (although I'd have to watch again to be sure)

Tend to come down to the ground?  Yeah, when it's safe, not in the middle of a battlefield.

Tend to focus on a single target?  Uh, they annihilated an entire fleet of hundreds of ships, as I basically said, without taking ANY damage.

20 good men and a few scorpions?  This is radically contrary to what we've been told about GRRM's dragons, and what we've seen.  Aegon conquered all of Westeros with 3 dragons.  Jorah says, at one point, that no army (an entire ARMY) is worth 1 dragon.  And I believe it, based on what we saw in Slaver's Bay.

Yes they don't,  show Dany's Dragon not the ones we learn from the books. And yes you should re-watch the scenes because you clearly missed:

Drogon descending into the pits when it was clearly not safe for him to be there, and proceeded to take a lot of damage in the process, as opposed to just staying in the air and burning the harpies up.

In the battle for Meereen  we clearly see Dany and her Dragons just flying a bit above the the slaver ships, clearly in rage of scorpions. They focused fired on ONE single ship for a prolonged amount of time even after that ship was destroyed. In that time they could have easily been target from any of the other ships around them.

The 20 good men was an exaggeration on my part of course, but the Dornish showed that dragons can be killed, much bigger and much smarter dragons + dragon riders than Dany has/is.

I fully agree that a dragon is invaluable if its in the hands of a smart rider, what i was saying is that what we have seen so far is that Dany and her Dragons can easily be countered by a smart army.

[Cron]

17 minutes ago, Nocturne said:

Yes they don't,  show Dany's Dragon not the ones we learn from the books. And yes you should re-watch the scenes because you clearly missed:

I've not yet been able to review the episode, but my memory is still strongly telling me that there are some camera shots of the dragons much higher up.  In any event, though, even IF my memory of that one scene is playing tricks on me and all the views of the dragons in that scene were low, it is simply incorrect to infer from that that they CAN'T fly high, cuz we know they CAN.  

When Dany escaped from the PIt on Drogon, it is not my understanding that she and Drogon were simply skimming low over the land all that way.  I'd have to check a number of other scenes to be sure, but I'm confident we've seen Drogon up high other times as well...in fact, here's one such scene for sure:  Remember when Tyrion and Jorah were on the boat, and they saw Drogon fly by high up in the sky?  My memory is that he was in fact quite high.

17 minutes ago, Nocturne said:

Drogon descending into the pits when it was clearly not safe for him to be there, and proceeded to take a lot of damage in the process, as opposed to just staying in the air and burning the harpies up.

If your point here is that Drogon wasn't very smart to go down into the pit, I suppose you could be right, but Dany wasn't riding him at the time, so hopefully she and Drogon would BOTH be smart enough for him to not do that again (we know from Tyrion that dragons are actually much smarter than other animals, possibly smarter than humans; they are not just he equivalent of huge, flying, fire-breathing horses).  Just cuz Drogon, alone, once made the mistake of doing that once does not mean we can now expect it from him and  Dany regularly.

You make a decent point here about the damage Drogon took (fair enough, yes, you are right, he was injured), BUT, he was not fully grown, either. Why does this matter?  B/c as the dragons get bigger, their scales get thicker and tougher, and they are much harder to penetrate, as I strongly understand it.  My memory is that, per the showrunners, the dragons, at the end of Season 6, are nearly as big as they are going to get in the show (at least Drogon, that is, cuz he was growing while he was free and the other two were not), but even then (at the end of Season 6) Drogon was clearly much, much larger than he was when Dany escaped the Pit on him.  By the time they are fully grown (next season, probably), their scales/armor should be thick enough that I don't think injuring them will be nearly so easy.  Remember, Aegon conquered all of Westeros with three dragons.  I honestly don't think it's anywhere NEAR as easy to cross off a dragon as you seem to think.

17 minutes ago, Nocturne said:

In the battle for Meereen  we clearly see Dany and her Dragons just flying a bit above the the slaver ships, clearly in rage of scorpions. They focused fired on ONE single ship for a prolonged amount of time even after that ship was destroyed. In that time they could have easily been target from any of the other ships around them.

I already addressed the altitude issue.

Regarding the rest in this quote from you:  My friend, Dany and her 3 dragons clearly and indisputably defeated not one, not two, but THREE enormous naval fleets simultaneously.  The commanders of those fleets surrendered to her.  Is it your opinion that they surrendered merely b/c she burned just ONE of their ships???   No way.  I understand that for time and money (CGI) reasons we weren't shown the full scale of the carnage, but Dany and her 3 dragons indisputably defeated 3 enormous fleets all at the same time, and that is why they surrendered to her.  They were helpless.  She ruined them.  She and her dragons took NO damage.  She rocked their worlds, plain, pure and simple, period.  No contest.

17 minutes ago, Nocturne said:

The 20 good men was an exaggeration on my part of course, but the Dornish showed that dragons can be killed, much bigger and much smarter dragons + dragon riders than Dany has/is.

I fully agree that a dragon is invaluable if its in the hands of a smart rider, what i was saying is that what we have seen so far is that Dany and her Dragons can easily be countered by a smart army.

"...and her Dragons can easily be countered by a smart army"???  Easily??   Uhhhh, that's not even remotely what the history of Planetos tells us.  Not even remotely.  Again, Aegon conquered all of Westeros with 3 dragons.  Look at what was done at Harrenhal.  Jorah tells us there is no entire army worth one dragon, and I believe him.  Plus, all the stuff I just said above about what happened at Meereen.

But hey, don't get me wrong, I think I've already said up above I strongly believe they ARE gonna get "Nerfed" (powered down, so later fights are more dramatic, rather than us just watching a string of battles where Dany crushes anyone foolish enough to try to oppose her), cuz otherwise, unless three ice Dragons show up, Dany could pretty much take over the whole planet if she wanted to, based on what we've seen and what we've been told.

("Nerfing" is something we see a lot in storytelling, unfortunately.  I think it happens cuz writers have so much fun creating a super powerful character, and then, if they stay true to what they've already told us, everything that follows would be "no contest."  I love superhero movies, but this is very common there.   Example:  Give me Superman's powers and I would neutralize Lex Luthor so fast that the whole movie would be about 3 minutes long, maybe less.   Same with the Flash.  Unless his opponent is as fast as the Flash himself, his opponent would have NO chance, Flash would defeat him literally before he could blink an eye, much less move a limb.  So the writers have to "Nerf" them down, to make things challenging, and I believe this will be done with Dany's dragons, too)

[JonSnow4President]

8 hours ago, Cron said:

 

Regarding the rest in this quote from you:  My friend, Dany and her 3 dragons clearly and indisputably defeated not one, not two, but THREE enormous naval fleets simultaneously.  The commanders of those fleets surrendered to her.  Is it your opinion that they surrendered merely b/c she burned just ONE of their ships???   No way.  I understand that for time and money (CGI) reasons we weren't shown the full scale of the carnage, but Dany and her 3 dragons indisputably defeated 3 enormous fleets all at the same time, and that is why they surrendered to her.  They were helpless.  She ruined them.  She and her dragons took NO damage.  She rocked their worlds, plain, pure and simple, period.  No contest.

 

I haven't watched Season 6 a second time, and won't until right before season 7 (and even then, I might not, but I want to be an informed ranter, not one who has forgotten half of the last season immediately preceding it).  My take away from that scene was that they surrendered after seeing the power of the dragons, after ONE ship was destroyed in a show of force. 

I won't pretend to go into their effectiveness (I think they weren't intended to be used otherwise), but easily is a ridiculous claim.  They do need to be part of a coordinated effort so an army with ranged weapons can't focus entirely on them though.  Daznak's pit was not exactly a lopsided fight against a bunch of questionably effective freedom fighters.

[Cron]

15 hours ago, JonSnow4President said:

I haven't watched Season 6 a second time, and won't until right before season 7 (and even then, I might not, but I want to be an informed ranter, not one who has forgotten half of the last season immediately preceding it).  My take away from that scene was that they surrendered after seeing the power of the dragons, after ONE ship was destroyed in a show of force. 

I won't pretend to go into their effectiveness (I think they weren't intended to be used otherwise), but easily is a ridiculous claim.  They do need to be part of a coordinated effort so an army with ranged weapons can't focus entirely on them though.  Daznak's pit was not exactly a lopsided fight against a bunch of questionably effective freedom fighters.

I respect your view, especially since I know you to be a thoughtful poster here, BUT...

...if those fleets surrendered after just ONE of their ships (out of hundreds that they had) was destroyed, then in my opinion they surely must have been some of the biggest cowardly wimps in the history of warfare.

I cannot imagine, in what we call "the real world," a fleet of hundreds of ships attacking a foreign city having just ONE of their ships destroyed,and surrendering.

But hey, let's assume they DID surrender after having just one of their ships destroyed...then what would THAT tell us?  Answer: That the dragons, as I've already stated, were so overwhelmingly powerful that it was obvious even to the opposing military commanders that they WERE IN FACT going to be annihilated, and so they surrendered.

Either way, the dragons were overwhelmingly devastating, and the attacking commanders knew it and openly admitted it by surrendering.

[dsug]

Maybe Cersei will blow up the city if her army tries to surrender to Daenerys. Like "Oh my whole army is a bunch of traitors, let me bring them all down with me." 

[JonSnow4President]

19 hours ago, Cron said:

I respect your view, especially since I know you to be a thoughtful poster here, BUT...

...if those fleets surrendered after just ONE of their ships (out of hundreds that they had) was destroyed, then in my opinion they surely must have been some of the biggest cowardly wimps in the history of warfare.

I cannot imagine, in what we call "the real world," a fleet of hundreds of ships attacking a foreign city having just ONE of their ships destroyed,and surrendering.

But hey, let's assume they DID surrender after having just one of their ships destroyed...then what would THAT tell us?  Answer: That the dragons, as I've already stated, were so overwhelmingly powerful that it was obvious even to the opposing military commanders that they WERE IN FACT going to be annihilated, and so they surrendered.

Either way, the dragons were overwhelmingly devastating, and the attacking commanders knew it and openly admitted it by surrendering.

There's something to be said for preparedness or a lack thereof, but I agree that dragons are very powerful.  However, they need to be employed in a manner differently than shown, otherwise they are vulnerable to a disciplined force with scorpions or good archers.  (Hit and run style tactics obviously drop the risk to minimal).  

The main weapons of the ships they were destroying appeared to be catapults/trebuchets hurling burning pitch in a siege style setting, rather than ballistae or other weaponry capable of providing accurate fire and projectiles capable of harming dragons (does anyone think burning pitch is going to hurt one?) Personally I found the battle so laughable that I don't want to extrapolate out a lot from it, but those tactics won't (read as shouldn't) fly against a disciplined force with scorpions, archers, and ballistae.

If those things keep coming in on the dragon equivalent of strafing runs though, they'll be about as indestructible as an F-35 fighting the Taliban.

[Cron]

2 hours ago, JonSnow4President said:

There's something to be said for preparedness or a lack thereof, but I agree that dragons are very powerful.  However, they need to be employed in a manner differently than shown, otherwise they are vulnerable to a disciplined force with scorpions or good archers.  (Hit and run style tactics obviously drop the risk to minimal).  

The main weapons of the ships they were destroying appeared to be catapults/trebuchets hurling burning pitch in a siege style setting, rather than ballistae or other weaponry capable of providing accurate fire and projectiles capable of harming dragons (does anyone think burning pitch is going to hurt one?) Personally I found the battle so laughable that I don't want to extrapolate out a lot from it, but those tactics won't (read as shouldn't) fly against a disciplined force with scorpions, archers, and ballistae.

If those things keep coming in on the dragon equivalent of strafing runs though, they'll be about as indestructible as an F-35 fighting the Taliban.

Great conversation, I don't thinkk archers would be of any use against Dany's dragons at this point (unless they got 'em in an eye, I guess) and you might be right about their vulnerability to large piercing projectiles...but maybe not.

In fiction, dragons are often portrayed as having nigh-impenetrable (yeah, I said it, "nigh-impenetrable, HAR!) armor/scales, even to "heavy projectile  artillery" (my words).

As I mentioned above, I strongly presume that as Dany's dragons get bigger, their scales are getting heavier and thicker, and at the battle of Meereen Drogon is freaking huge.  (Theres one shot in particular that gives us a great understanding of his size, we see Dany from a medium distance away on Drogon's neck, and to me she looks as small as a mouse on the neck of a large man, or maybe even a horse.  Drogon is HUGE.  Many of the shots don't give a good sense of the scale, but that one does for sure.  In fact, I paused it there for a minute or so and really looked at it; Drogon is enormous)

Also worth considering:  My strong memory is that GRRM has said that "his" dragons are better than LOTR's dragon(s), and Smaug, as you may know, is a total monstrosity.    The mountain dwarves and those city-folk are HELPLESS against Smaug, except for that one spot of vulnerability in Smaug where a scale is loose or missing or something.  Those people in LOTR had penetrating, large scale projectile weapons, and they were helpless, b/c of Smaug's massively thick scales, which are like thick armor.

[dsug]

This is completely random but i very much hope at some point we see Daenerys get thrown from her dragon. I have no reason to want to see this other than that I think it would be cool. 

 

and if these alleged filming rumors are to be believed, we may actually see it