Dothraki, Literary device or genuine military might?

[Don't Wake the Dragon]

Something that has always bugged me about ASOIAF is the Dothraki, are they intentionally two dimensional? Now they are intrinsically linked to Dany's Westorosi, (or so the latter chapters of ADWD would have us believe) invasion I wonder are they meant to play a big part in the wars to come (pun intended) or have I missed the point and they are merely a way of showing Dany's fire and blood persona? My first thought with the Dothraki was maybe they could be a Mongol type military force, yet we have no mention of generals, army formation, or even, as far as i can remember, any great battles they have won. If i have missed a previous topic of this nature i apologise, and feel free to point out if the answer is obvious, either way I'll be thankful of the input!

[Universal Sword Donor]

Literary device imo, and a very transparent one at that. 

From GRRM: "The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures... Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes... seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy. So any resemblance to Arabs or Turks is coincidental. Well, except to the extent that the Turks were also originally horsemen of the steppes, not unlike the Alans, Huns, and the rest."

It's been broken down in many other threads but the Dothraki are superficially like the Mongols, but they lack armor, proper organization, no siege equipment, and many many other things. People far more qualified than I have broken down the difference, so if you search the forum (via google or the search function), I am sure you can find quite detailed arguments against them and some for them, though I don't believe them.

[Don't Wake the Dragon]

Ok I've never read that quote thanks for that, although I can't help but think would something so superficial have so many influences from proper armies, but then, what do I know? I'm now off to search more thoroughly, thanks for the help!

 

[WSmith84]

The problem is, we haven't yet seen the Dothraki go toe-to-toe with any decent army. If they did engage in a pitched battle with a Westerosi army they should, by all logic and reason, be torn to absolute shreds. It should be an effing slaughter. But George might have them emerge victorious, ignoring the Dothraki lack of armour, weapons, tactics, leadership etc. Maybe he's setting them up to fall, or maybe he wants them as a genuine threat. We just don't know yet.

[Dorian Martell]

18 hours ago, Don't Wake the Dragon said:

Something that has always bugged me about ASOIAF is the Dothraki, are they intentionally two dimensional? Now they are intrinsically linked to Dany's Westorosi, (or so the latter chapters of ADWD would have us believe) invasion I wonder are they meant to play a big part in the wars to come (pun intended) or have I missed the point and they are merely a way of showing Dany's fire and blood persona? My first thought with the Dothraki was maybe they could be a Mongol type military force, yet we have no mention of generals, army formation, or even, as far as i can remember, any great battles they have won. If i have missed a previous topic of this nature i apologise, and feel free to point out if the answer is obvious, either way I'll be thankful of the input!

I would argue that because they only exist in books they are a literary device and not  genuine military might.  In story though they are extremely badass. Whole cities would rather buy them off then face them in battle. 

17 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

The problem is, we haven't yet seen the Dothraki go toe-to-toe with any decent army. If they did engage in a pitched battle with a Westerosi army they should, by all logic and reason, be torn to absolute shreds. It should be an effing slaughter. But George might have them emerge victorious, ignoring the Dothraki lack of armour, weapons, tactics, leadership etc. Maybe he's setting them up to fall, or maybe he wants them as a genuine threat. We just don't know yet.

We don't need to see them fight an army. We have the stories of them doing so, and the fact that most free cities just buy them off says they are pretty mean. They have numbers and fierceness.

[Damsel in Distress]

It depends on how you look at it.  There are actually only a few knights in Westeros.  Most of their soldiers are part-time and barely trained.  In other words, Westeros has few warriors.  Whereas just about all of the Dothraki male are warriors.  The Westeros nobles would be forced to barricade themselves in their castles and if the Dothraki can maintain the siege for a reasonable amount of time, they will win handily.  The Westeros soldiers will not face the Dothraki in open battle. 

[Aenarion]

1 hour ago, Damsel in Distress said:

It depends on how you look at it.  There are actually only a few knights in Westeros.  Most of their soldiers are part-time and barely trained.  In other words, Westeros has few warriors.  Whereas just about all of the Dothraki male are warriors.  The Westeros nobles would be forced to barricade themselves in their castles and if the Dothraki can maintain the siege for a reasonable amount of time, they will win handily.  The Westeros soldiers will not face the Dothraki in open battle. 

Ye gods, not that again. Okay, a TON of people have discussed this to no end. The people for point to multiple different POV's stating that the infantry often have mail armor and professional weapons (pikes, swords, etc), rather than the image of the peasant taken to fight at the Lord's behest. The people against say "Septon Meribald gave his speech about peasants drafted to fight". Frankly, I'm more inclined to believe the commanders who have to accurately judge their armies than a camp follower who was forced to fight. If you think about it, the armies seem much more like the professional armies of the late middle ages (where villages would pool their wealth and provide only a very small amount of highly equipped soldiers, and armies often had armor and excellent weapons).

 

Though the Dothraki are spoken of with terrible fear by all the POV's, the truth is that if it were not for GRRM's plot armor they would FAIL terribly. The Dothraki have little to no tactics against infantry beyond "ride them down". While that works with untrained peasants, against professional (or even semi-professional) pikemen with good armor they would fail terribly. Any army that holds agains the charge (which the Westerosi are MORE than capable of, facing much worse cavalry charges than the Dothraki could ever dream of) will massacre the dothraki in the subsequent melee. We see this when we are told of the small army of unsullied that held the gates of a Free City against a massive number of Dothraki. Those were Hoplites, meaning that they are at least 3 to 4 generations of warfare behind the Seven Kingdoms. Against a modern Westerosi army, the Dothraki would be routed just as badly, if not worse.

Next up, we have the point that Dothraki wear no armor. Bowmen are dangerous against ANY army even with armor (see the battle of Agincourt for a real world example). Against an army that is completely unarmored, they are a recipe for routing an army before they even get to the first melee. Once the cavalry hits the infantry (what is left) the lack of armor is even more telling, as they will suffer more casualties, cause less casualties, and do far worse in the melee following the charge. This is further magnified by the fact that the Dothraki have araks, spears, and bows. They do NOT have the heavy lances that enable knights to break infantry with a charge. Finally, even if Dothraki are extremely skilled, plate armor will make a huge difference. ONce it is a duel between a mounted knight and a mounted dothraki, the dothraki being a better rider counts for little, as both will need to get their horses close enough to hit each other. At that range, any knight can take the arak on his shield, and kill the dothraki with his longsword/mace/axe.

Finally, we have the lack of tactics from the Dothraki. THey will charge into the infantry at the first chance they get (especially if the Westerosi cavalry is hidden or behind the infantry). Once they get stuck in, they will need time to get out of the melee. Time that the Westerosi could use to have their cavalry flank the Dothraki and slaughter the Dothraki between a hammer and an anvil. Even worse, the Dothraki would be killed the moment they had to try and ford a river (See the Battle of the Fords to, and imagine that the enemy is not a brutal Westerosi knight, but a Dothraki whose idea of tactics is "Charge the infantry until they break"). Where the Westerosi have experienced commanders who know how to use their forces well (Jamie, Randyll, Garlan, Stannis, Edmure), know tactics, and would be able to counter the Dothraki.

Frankly, I think that without GRRM's INCREDIBLE plot armor, the Dothraki would fail horribly as an army. Comically enough, we may see that in the near future? I could certainly believe GRRM having the Dothraki wreck the slave soldiers of the Masters, then failing amazingly when they reach Westeros. At that point, I can see Dany saying, "Well, fuck you Dothraki! I HAVE DRAGONS!" Then she would burn her enemies and send the Dothraki off to get wrecked somewhere.

[Abdallah]

After rereading A Game of Thrones one important thing to note is that Dothraki bows outrange Westerosi bows. So they can run away from cavalry and pin down Infantry. For the Infantry they would move into a smaller condense group. The Dothraki lack heavy cavalry but if Dany can get heavy cav from elsewhere they can perform like the Pathian Horse Archer/ Cataphract combo like at Carrhae.

[Aenarion]

One thing we do not know is if Dothraki can outrange Westerosi bows from horseback. It's a lot harder to shoot a bow accurately from horseback (especially charging) than on foot. It may be that the statement is true while standing, but end up having a shorter range from horseback to shoot accurately.

[Joy Hill]

Maybe Dany will command the Dothraki to raid villages rather than fight Westerosi armies. 

It's made clear that the wildlings don't stand a chance against disciplined armies. I don't think the Dothraki would fare much better.

[The Marquis de Leech]

17 hours ago, Aenarion said:

Frankly, I think that without GRRM's INCREDIBLE plot armor, the Dothraki would fail horribly as an army.

Thank you. Martin has a preference for drama over logic, and the Dothraki are part of that.

[The Fresh PtwP]

I think Dany/Tyrion are going to change how the Dothraki fight. Converting them more into light calvary/mounted bowmen which they would honestly be pretty beast at. Otherwise yeah "realistically" they would get roflstomped by any Westerosi infantry or horse that stood it's ground. 

Honestly I feel the change has been building up too with the little info that Dothraki bows are nice, or that everyone mentions they have no tactics...I just hope the scene isn't forced

Dany: "So instead of always riding them down...why don't you guys kinda ride to the flanks and rain arrows with your sweet bows."

Dothraki1: Hmm never thought of that

Dothraki2: Yeah that could work!

Dothraki3: Khaleesi is wise!!!

Me: *cringe intensifies*

Pretty much if(when) Dany or Tyrion teach these guys fundamental warfare i'm throwing my book. I'll go get it again in a couple minutes but that shits going across the room

[blckp]

far as GOT history goes, heavy armored army was no match for dothraki , 80k dothraki massacred130k heavy armored sarnari army

 

as for possible invasion to westeros only jorah and robert said something about it, and both said dothraki will utterly destroy westerosi army in open confrontation

 

as for real life history there is plenty of example with mongols and others

[The Fattest Leech]

24 minutes ago, The Fresh PtwP said:

I think Dany/Tyrion are going to change how the Dothraki fight. Converting them more into light calvary/mounted bowmen which they would honestly be pretty beast at. Otherwise yeah "realistically" they would get roflstomped by any Westerosi infantry or horse that stood it's ground. 

Honestly I feel the change has been building up too with the little info that Dothraki bows are nice, or that everyone mentions they have no tactics...I just hope the scene isn't forced

Dany: "So instead of always riding them down...why don't you guys kinda ride to the flanks and rain arrows with your sweet bows."

Dothraki1: Hmm never thought of that

Dothraki2: Yeah that could work!

Dothraki3: Khaleesi is wise!!!

Me: *cringe intensifies*

Pretty much if(when) Dany or Tyrion teach these guys fundamental warfare i'm throwing my book. I'll go get it again in a couple minutes but that shits going across the room

Why Tyrion? Tyrion isn't so great at battle strategy as he mentions during BoBW.

Barristan Selmy is already there and already training who he can the ways of Wetserosi battle techniques. George has already said that Dany and Tyrion will spend most of Winds apart.

Daenerys, when she returns, will have to first figure out how to get a hoard of Dothraki #1 onto a boat with their horses (that is a shitload of space, supplies and food) and also #2 to get them across half the known world without them puking their guts out. Rodrick Cassel got sea sick and he only went a small fraction of the distance and did not have any religious superstitions about sea water.

Of course Dany will get what she needs for fighters, not saying she won't, but I don't expect it to be easy and it may only be her closest bloodriders that follow her. If the Dothraki land and go to fight without any light armor at best, and not knowing the land, climate and terrain differences, the different sigils of who is loyal- who is foe... this could be a bit of a clusterfuck.

 

http://www.ew.com/article/2014/06/26/george-r-r-martin-winds-winter-te

“Well, Tyrion and Dany will intersect, in a way, but for much of the book they’re still apart,” he says. “They both have quite large roles to play here. Tyrion has decided that he actually would like to live, for one thing, which he wasn’t entirely sure of during the last book, and he’s now working toward that end—if he can survive the battle that’s breaking out all around him. And Dany has embraced her heritage as a Targaryen and embraced the Targaryen words. So they’re both coming home.”

[Lord Lannister]

There's a reason the Dothraki don't rule all of Essos.

[Aenarion]

43 minutes ago, blckp said:

as for real life history there is plenty of example with mongols and others

Not really. The Mongolians had the following (huge) advantages over the Dothraki:

1) Wore heavy armor. Most Mongolian cavalry had heavy leather/silk/metal armor that was made in such a way that it would trap arrows without any major damage and was able to turn swords easily. Their horses also had this armor. In fact, nearly the entirety of Ghenghis Khan's Mongolians had this sort of armor. They were faster than their enemies because Europeans had steel plating on themselves and their horses. On top of that, European horses were bred for size (to increase the impact of the charge) rather than endurance or speed (as the Mongolians bred them). They also rapidly applied changes to their weaponry and armor that were shown to be beneficial. Anytime that something was demonstrated to the Khan or his local subordinate in charge that was superior to their current weaponry it was adopted as quickly as possible (leading to rapid upgrades to their weapons, armor, tactics, etc).

 

2) TACTICS!!!!! Dothraki tactics consist of "Charge at enemy. Engage in melee until we die or they die". Orders were obeyed to the letter instantaneously. They also had several sets of standardized tactics, such as riding to the sides of the enemy to shower them with arrows, feigned retreats into ambushes, and hammer/anvil tactics. This, and a penchant for rewarding innovation, gave them a BIG advantage over most commanders they faced during their time. The Dothraki have not innovated their tactics beyond "CHARGE" for a centuries.

 

3) Discipline. The Mongolians had INCREDIBLE discipline in their army. There was absolutely no glory-hounding, no changes to the plan once it had been set into motion, or disputing command on the battlefield. Mongolian discipline was unrivaled for centuries. This, combined with their revolutionary (for their time) tactics gave them a huge advantage over any enemy. The Mongolians had an INCREDIBLY strict hierarchy of succession, especially on the battlefield. Their armies had leaders from units as small as 10 soldiers to as large as 10k. Each of these had multiple levels of leadership that were extremely strict, and had clear succession.

 

4) INFANTRY! While the Mongolians were mostly cavalry, they often had infantry contingents, and used allied infantry at the same time. They used combined arms to give them advantages over enemies that relied purely on one type of unit or another. The Dothraki believe that infantry are unworthy, and have no unmounted contingent. This means their army (which is entirely light cavalry with bows and swords and spears) is extremely one dimensional.

 

5) Numbers. Mongolians often had armies of 30k under their generals roaming the field. They often outnumbered the small local lords that would oppose them by significant margins. When they did NOT, they often had the advantage of tactics and discipline to overcome a disparity of numbers.

 

The Dothraki have NONE of those advantages. THey are technologically inferior to the Westerosi, perform no tactics beyond "CHARGE!!", have little discipline to speak of even on the battlefield, use a one-dimensional army, and will NOT outnumber the Westerosi once all is said and done without some nice little Plot Finnageling from GRRM.

 

IN SHORT,

GRRM made the Dothraki for drama, not a as well thought out military force. Without his intervention, they would fail. The Dothraki are, in NO WAY, equivalent or equal to the Mongolians that created the largest empire this planet has known.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

4 minutes ago, Aenarion said:

[snipped for length].

Loved your post, Aenarion! It backed up your opinion really well. Not to mention was very informative

I don't have much to add, namely that we needn't assume that GRRM will necessarily make the Dothraki win over Westerosi armies. Maybe Dany will realise after getting to Westeros how ill-equipped they are or something.

[YOVMO]

On August 12, 2016 at 9:24 PM, Dorian Martell said:

I would argue that because they only exist in books they are a literary device and not  genuine military might.

So yeah, this was pretty freakin' hilarious.

 

On August 12, 2016 at 7:49 PM, Don't Wake the Dragon said:

Something that has always bugged me about ASOIAF is the Dothraki, are they intentionally two dimensional?

I never understood why people think of the Dothraki as two dimensional. In their savagery they never grew the need for or ability to lie which makes them seem simple, but if you listen to a lot of the myth that Dany's handmaidens / man in the canoe diddlers say it seems that they have a rich tapestry of belief. 

The fact that we do not get a more full sense of who the Dothraki are has to do, in large part, to the langue barrier. I mean, imagine if I dropped you into a totally foreign place with a culture totally different from yours and you had no common language, just a 12 year old translator who has been a slave and the broken english of two of the native girls and another transplant (Jorah) who is also biased because of his love for you. The fact that the Dothraki don't come across as being multi dimensional is basically due to the same prejudice that makes the ghiscrari think westerosi are savages and 2 your limited access to their psychology.

[NutBurz]

A few considerations the way I see it.

-There´s a technological disparity between Westeros and the Dothraki that, in my view, might be due to GRRM implying the advantage of Nation-states over City-States. Even though Westeros never got around to organizing a standing national army, the period of estability under a same jurisdiction allowed the Houses to grow big and strong instead of killing each other every now and then - this latter has been happening in the books and the bad effects on population and military forces are already clear.

Dothraki are more like Scythians than Huns and Mongols in terms of armor, and that reflects their opposition, but they apparently have reached composite bows to use on horseback with a long range. That might be a little contradictory since there´s a tendency to improve armor and survivability first, but a lack of mining and smithing skills, and resources, might explain that.

In any case, Westeros vs Dothraki in terms of weaponry would be something like late-medieval Europe vs 100 BC steppe nomads. 

 

-I´m not sure we have enough evidence on Dothraki tactics and the Khals´ abilities as generals. If GRRM intends to mirror the tradition of the asian steppe warriors, then there´s no reason to believe they will not suddenly prove to be much smarter than antecipated, like europe kept repeatedly learning throughout ancient and classical history. Time and again they presumed that "the horselords had no real strategy but charge screaming" and were proven wrong by clever usage of the terrain and the fact they were aware they were being underestimated.

 

-Their sheer numbers can be very intimidating, and they will be on the side of the large, unified army with a dragon queen, so their effectiveness might simply come to be irrelevant.

[The Drunkard]

Most of the Essos armies seem pretty bad. The Unsullied have quite primitive equipment and tactics, and the castration is going to leave them physically weaker than many other soldiers. A lot of the sellswords and slave soldiers (at least those outside Meereen) are ridiculous, with their chained-together soldiers, soldiers on stilts, bikini armour and daily rotating command structure.

The Golden Company and some of the more professional groups (like the Second Sons or the Tattered Prince's group) are the only ones that should be able to compete with Westerosi armies, but I expect it won't be written like that.