Post show Battle analysis

[DreadedNorwegian]

4 hours ago, King Onion Knight said:

Blame GRRM for the first 2 then? 

Guess so. Still, in the books we get a lot more battles not involvng horses saving the day, but the show has excluded all these (budget reasons I guess). Still sucks that all the battles the chose to actually show basically end up the same way.

[plastic throne]

13 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

B&W clearly built things from "we want to have this scene happen" as their starting point, and didn't do a good job of developing and justifying the path to what they wanted to have happen. The scene they started with was the end of the battle.

To get to the end of the battle, they butchered established characters, established relationships, and all common sense.

The writing was terrible. The execution of the script was good. The battles were visual masterpieces. But the writing was terrible - so terrible that it drags down everything else.

It would have been possible to get to a similar end of the battle without so much plot induced stupidity and plot holes. But that would have taken more writing effort to properly justify the path there.

 

Spot on. Only thing to add here is I wasn't even able to enjoy the visual masterpiece due to the writing. I rant and I rant the whole time. The only way to have some satisfaction out of this is getting the books in our hands.

[Kusanagi]

On 19/06/2016 at 8:09 PM, King Louis II (KLII) said:

Ramsey tactics were perfect. They did not account for the knights of the vale, which he has no idea of. He played Jon, since Jon is a terrible commander...

Oh! If only he didn't shoot his cavalry to oblivion! Or place his cavalry on the flanks and form a reserve contingent. Or send out scouts and spies to gather intell, esp. incoming army movements. 

These are the hallmarks of a highly idiotic moron commander.

[Kusanagi]

12 hours ago, plastic throne said:

It is possible, and up to this day labelled as one of the greatest battles, Battle of Cannae, in main role Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. One thing that did happen in the episode though, never happened in real life (because impossible and far fetched) and that is 10 meters high wall of corpses as a tactical maneuver to block your enemy's sight from behind and gain higher grounds. Christ, what was up with that xD

Yes!

When you are fighting against a larger army, trapping your opponent to make their number ineffective is number priority. In Cannae, Hannibal's army was smaller than the Roman's, even though his had a larger cavalry. You can try to put your strongest against their weaker and then defeat in details, like Alexander did. Or launch a surprise attack, like Nobunaga did. Or screen your strike force, lure enemy to a trap, flank and defeat in details, like Battle of Ain Jalut. At the very least, you need to put up a valiant defence to exhaust the enemy, then gather a strike force to attack their flanks.

If real life generals acted like Snow or Ramsay did, they would have no army, because every soldier would run for their life, if not out right frag their officers/lords. Jon Snow as a character has to show his skills in commanding an army, or else his troops would have not followed him. This is how Snow's character got butchered by a deus ex machina.

[tmug]

20 hours ago, WeCameFromNorth said:

I might be missing something, but if they had no reason, why they are even there? They were there before Jon even left Castle Black, if I remember correctly, and nobody really told them neither how many men Jon has nor what will happen on the battlefield. They are there because show logic, whatever it might be, put them there, and I start from that point. They are there, ready to fight for Sansa, in any given moment she tells them so.

Of course, there are other "stupid" characters in the books, like Tullys, who went into war because their keen were attacked. That was expected from Lysa to do, too, and you can’t say her reasons for not do that were reasons of sane person.

But anyway, I am for more cleverness and against stupidity always, and with all my heart. 

Yes LF offered the Vale army to Sansa early on while they were at Castle Black, she refused their help. At that point they don't have any obligation to help her or Jon. At that point do you really think they would rather line up along with Jon's disadvantageous cavalry charge strategy? Or just swoop in at the end to minimize their own casualties? I totally suspect that this was the Vale's strategy, probably to not even let Sansa tell Jon just in case his "honor" compelled him to use his newfound numbers to do something stupid like negotiate. They would be right to not trust Jon's judgement when going up against Ramsay.

17 hours ago, Chib said:

Wrong logic again, they were ready to fight for Sansa even before BoB They were there not for Jon.

When did I say the Vale came to fight for Jon? I just said they had no reason to fight, okay other than for Sansa, but they could have stayed out of the conflict altogether. Other than Sansa, it's not their fight.

17 hours ago, Chib said:

Even if Jon were there or not, they would just fight. It was Robin (and LF) told them to do so.

If they agreed to fight prior to BoB, they would be fighting on the battlefield along side Jon and if they did that, the Vale would not have been happy at the outcome, seeing that Jon would blow any strategy that they would have come up with.

17 hours ago, Chib said:

If there were no Jon, they might take it harder to win. And if they want an easy and an alliance with Sansa/Jon, co-operate with Jon and the wildlings do not harm at all. Like: "Ok, you lure him out, you run around, they run after you, and we will come in."

It was so much easier that way. There is no need for a sacrifice. 

LF knows that Jon would not agree to that, he is too "honorable" like his father. That is the equivalent of going up to a foe and stabbing them in the back while they aren't looking from Jon's perspective. You can see the look on Sansa's face when Jon challenged Ramsay to a 1v1 duel, she was like "OMG, now I know you don't know how to deal with this shithead Ramsay!" When she tells Ramsay, "You're going to die tomorrow" she totally knows that the Vale is already there but at that point there was no way in hell she was going to tell Jon though.

In my opinion, Sansa played this how Cersei or Margery would have played it (LF as well since he fights like these women too lol). "Oh army #1 didn't fare too well, well let's try army #2!" Call it stupid, bitchy, treason or whatever you want. In the end, she made sure that she wasn't going to lose. This is what she learned from women like Cersei, Margery and Littlefinger

[Maude Tyrell]

We all have to admit that if not for Petyr fookin Baelish Jon would've died (again). It's jus to aggravating that Sansa didn't tell Jon her plans on calling LF and the Knights of the Vale for support because clearly Jon doesn't think that Sansa understands any of the situation and that he doesn't really trust her. Sansa, on the other hand also doesn't know YET how to show Jon that she can also help. Bottom line is, they don't trust each other. If we can remember, this is the closest they've been since they left Winterfell where Sansa was still a bitch to him for being a bastard. In the episode 10 preview they've talked about trusting each other, I just hope they really do.

[Chib]

3 hours ago, tmug said:

Yes LF offered the Vale army to Sansa early on while they were at Castle Black, she refused their help. At that point they don't have any obligation to help her or Jon. At that point do you really think they would rather line up along with Jon's disadvantageous cavalry charge strategy? Or just swoop in at the end to minimize their own casualties? I totally suspect that this was the Vale's strategy, probably to not even let Sansa tell Jon just in case his "honor" compelled him to use his newfound numbers to do something stupid like negotiate. They would be right to not trust Jon's judgement when going up against Ramsay.

When did I say the Vale came to fight for Jon? I just said they had no reason to fight, okay other than for Sansa, but they could have stayed out of the conflict altogether. Other than Sansa, it's not their fight.

If they agreed to fight prior to BoB, they would be fighting on the battlefield along side Jon and if they did that, the Vale would not have been happy at the outcome, seeing that Jon would blow any strategy that they would have come up with.

LF knows that Jon would not agree to that, he is too "honorable" like his father. That is the equivalent of going up to a foe and stabbing them in the back while they aren't looking from Jon's perspective. You can see the look on Sansa's face when Jon challenged Ramsay to a 1v1 duel, she was like "OMG, now I know you don't know how to deal with this shithead Ramsay!" When she tells Ramsay, "You're going to die tomorrow" she totally knows that the Vale is already there but at that point there was no way in hell she was going to tell Jon though.

In my opinion, Sansa played this how Cersei or Margery would have played it (LF as well since he fights like these women too lol). "Oh army #1 didn't fare too well, well let's try army #2!" Call it stupid, bitchy, treason or whatever you want. In the end, she made sure that she wasn't going to lose. This is what she learned from women like Cersei, Margery and Littlefinger

 

Wrong all the way. Jon and supporters were SOOOO depressed that even 50 people they would take, let alone the whole Vale army.

And Sansa refused LF, she did not refuse Vale commander herself. So there is a chance that Vale army had no idea about Sansa's decision and change of heart.

Vale came for Sansa, and Jon is with Sansa, so technically fighting with Jon means fighting for Sansa. And they actually did that at the end of BoB. They just came late/Jon side started too soon.

D&D and cast did say the only reason Sansa did not tell Jon was because of mistrust. That's all. There is no strategy from the stupid girl. She might become like worse than Cersei 2.0 because at least Cersei can be MAD for her FAMILY. Sansa will be even worse if she continues this part.

[MilesJames]

On 6/20/2016 at 11:53 AM, Red Tiger said:

In these posters' defense, when Jon was gettin attacked left and right by riders, after somehow managing not to get any arrows in him and then he storms Winterfell without getting an arrow from the garrison in him, I did suddenly start to feel like he had some very nice plot armor.

Alexander the great always lead suicidal charges and never died in battle. Ofcourse he was a great commander unlike jon snow

[Kusanagi]

4 hours ago, MilesJames said:

Alexander the great always lead suicidal charges and never died in battle. Ofcourse he was a great commander unlike jon snow

Alexander led the Companion Cavalry personally, and that was one of the best organized, elite strike forces of the ancient world. He also had the best protected infantry units in that time period, and he used combined arms tactics. His charge could be risky, but he was never suicidal.

[Jarl Halstein]

On 2016-06-22 at 0:55 PM, Chib said:

I have posted this on another thread so I will just copy and paste it here. If it were me, the episode wouldn't have changed much, just some small details and it still makes sense:

"Sansa told Jon to wait for the Vale army but they're so slow as if they would never come. Ramsay threatens to kill Rickon and throw him to his dogs.

Jon: "We have to fight, we can't wait for the Vale, they won't come at this rate!"

Sansa: "No listen to me, this is a trap! Ramsay is just playing with us! Rickon is doomed. We must accept this. You have to wait for the Vale!"

Jon goes to battle anyway because he still wants to save his brother. And from then on everything can happen the same as in the shows, Jon gets emotional and almost dies with the wildings, Sansa rides out to call the Vale as they rushing in to save the day. Jon breaks the gate, beats Ramsay, then he saw LF and said something like: "What took you so long?" Then turn to Sansa and said something like: "I am sorry, I should have trusted you about the Vale etc."

Now you don't have to change any detail in the battle at all, just 2 or 3 dialogues at most. With this, Sansa would look less bossy, whiny, bitchy and backstabber at the same time this is also good as in the sense of empowering her maturity.  

That's pretty good. But I would also add a change that brings the heads-on battle the producers obviously wanted, but without it being caused by Jon Snow doing a Leeroy Jenkins attack that will get hundreds of people killed as they are forced to come save their commander or suffer a great moral blow. (Though keeping such a lunatic as their commander might cause another moral blow.)

How? I don't know - maybe see the enemy start executing civilians, one by one by one, until everyone in the Stark army agrees they must go over there and put a stop to it. That would be a pretty Ramsay thing to do, execute a long row of civilians, and it would be a pretty good reason for the Stark army to abandon their fortified position. They still shouldn't abandon their position, but it would be more reasonable than doing it because of the commander's suicide charge.

[Kytheros]

On 6/30/2016 at 10:41 PM, Jarl Halstein said:

That's pretty good. But I would also add a change that brings the heads-on battle the producers obviously wanted, but without it being caused by Jon Snow doing a Leeroy Jenkins attack that will get hundreds of people killed as they are forced to come save their commander or suffer a great moral blow. (Though keeping such a lunatic as their commander might cause another moral blow.)

How? I don't know - maybe see the enemy start executing civilians, one by one by one, until everyone in the Stark army agrees they must go over there and put a stop to it. That would be a pretty Ramsay thing to do, execute a long row of civilians, and it would be a pretty good reason for the Stark army to abandon their fortified position. They still shouldn't abandon their position, but it would be more reasonable than doing it because of the commander's suicide charge.

Or, after Rickon gets killed, Jon turns around to go back to his lines, and Ramsay sends his cavalry out to run Jon down while he's out in the open. Jon's horse may or may not still have been shot with arrows for this.  Then the Stark-loyalist cavalry still heads out to save Jon's ass from the Bolton cavalry - who should have beaten the Stark cavalry to Jon - a galloping horse is faster than Rickon on foot, and then Jon went closer still to the Bolton army before his horse got shot - but a returning Jon lets the Stark cavalry actually have the time to get to him before the Bolton cavalry catches him.

[abouththeotherknight]

On June 23, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Kusanagi said:

Yes!

When you are fighting against a larger army, trapping your opponent to make their number ineffective is number priority. In Cannae, Hannibal's army was smaller than the Roman's, even though his had a larger cavalry. You can try to put your strongest against their weaker and then defeat in details, like Alexander did. Or launch a surprise attack, like Nobunaga did. Or screen your strike force, lure enemy to a trap, flank and defeat in details, like Battle of Ain Jalut. At the very least, you need to put up a valiant defence to exhaust the enemy, then gather a strike force to attack their flanks.

If real life generals acted like Snow or Ramsay did, they would have no army, because every soldier would run for their life, if not out right frag their officers/lords. Jon Snow as a character has to show his skills in commanding an army, or else his troops would have not followed him. This is how Snow's character got butchered by a deus ex machina.

I agree. Jon attacking uphill, Romans utilized breastworks to funnel larger enemy calvary. Even utilizing his artillery from a flank or as a reserve once the armies were engaged picking off the rear or defending flanks. Jons army showed no discipline essential when facing larger armies. Haphazardly charging uphill at a larger better prepared army just seems out of place for any westerosi army with a long history of warfare. The free folk yeah I'm sure this was a common battle plan. Jon being raised by Ned I'm sure he got many lessons on battle tactics and strategy, look at his brother Robb's early successes on the battlefield.Jon should have read Ceasars Gallic commentary. There had to have been at least one ceasar caliber general ( Targareyns don't count they had dragons) in Westeros long history to study while he spent many a night on the wall. I'm just an armchair general with no real military experience just an obsession with Julius Ceasar and chronic insomnia.