Why so serious?

[Nakraal]

We have a huge coalition army with each soldier armed with a dragonglass weapons. Dragonglass instakills wights. When the living could withstand several injuries before going down, the wights are destroyed from even a scratch from dragonglass. 

And the same is true for White Walkers.

The Dead have a Dragon. But the living have 2.

The only unknown variable is the Night King. 

Why so gloom and doom from the characters about the outcome of the battle? 

[Ser Uncle P]

Sheer volume of numbers of Wights. Kill 1, 10 more replace from the swarm. 

If a living soldier dies, a WW can simply raise him as another Wight.  

The NK has done something not done since the days of the Dance of the Dragons i.e. taken down an adult dragon in its pomp. He has breached the wall, something utterly unprecedented. 

It's a wonder anyone is willing to stand against him at all!!

[Kajjo]

9 minutes ago, Nakraal said:

Why so gloom and doom from the characters about the outcome of the battle? 

The are outnumbered at least 1:10 and most probably not every soldier of the Living have a dragonglass blade.

As Jon Snow put it in E2: There are too many of them. Our enemy does not tire, does not stop, doesn't feel.

 

[nborders]

Well there’s the fact that every friend who dies in the battle becomes an enemy

[Kajjo]

43 minutes ago, nborders said:

Well there’s the fact that every friend who dies in the battle becomes an enemy

Quite a problem, yes.

And killing wights that a former friends is double-tough.

[Vuron]

The dead have no sense of self preservation.  They can simply rush the living in huge hoards and it doesn't matter if some die.  The living simply couldn't kill them fast enough before they are overwhelmed.

[chatty83]

They are completely outgunned as a already stated. They have fought them in several battles now and despite some small victories have essentially lost every battle to them.  Adding to that Jons army isn't great, many of them are just there to make up the numbers, aren't trained soldiers are likely to get massacred, the enemy have no sense of self preservation which makes for a tougher opponent when they don't care if they get killed and your men do.

Anyone killed joins the otherside in a constant game of stacking the odds against them and the main WWs have powers beyond humans.Throwing a dragon into the mix hasn't helped them at all.

They should lose badly and I expect them too for most of the battle, be interesting to see what they come up with to get the voctory, if they do of course.

[Erkan12]

1- The dead army doesn't get tired, the living army does.

2- The dead army's number will increase constantly during the battle, whoever they kill they will just add another soldier into their army. Which is why if you're fighting against them, you can't give heavy casualties. If you do, the dead army will become even powerful.

The only logical thing is going directly for the WW, and killing them.

Not sure about the Night King, valyrian steel and dragon glass may not even work on him, then they are doomed.

 

[ValarMorghulis1990]

17 hours ago, Kajjo said:

The are outnumbered at least 1:10 and most probably not every soldier of the Living have a dragonglass blade.

As Jon Snow put it in E2: There are too many of them. Our enemy does not tire, does not stop, doesn't feel.

 

Exactly this. It's more volume over anything else. 

[Jen'ari]

Isn’t the Army of the Dead roughly 100k strong?.

Im sure Danys army was something close to that?,add in all the Northerners too and surely they’re not that outnumbered?.

Or have the Army of the dead suddenly swelled their ranks that much?.

[John Suburbs]

23 hours ago, Nakraal said:

We have a huge coalition army with each soldier armed with a dragonglass weapons. Dragonglass instakills wights. When the living could withstand several injuries before going down, the wights are destroyed from even a scratch from dragonglass. 

And the same is true for White Walkers.

The Dead have a Dragon. But the living have 2.

The only unknown variable is the Night King. 

Why so gloom and doom from the characters about the outcome of the battle? 

I guess I've lost track here; the wights are susceptible to dragonglass? AIR, Sam took out a walker with dragonglass and Jon took out another with Longclaw. When did we see a wight die from a scratch of dragonglass?

[Remember]

9 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

I guess I've lost track here; the wights are susceptible to dragonglass? AIR, Sam took out a walker with dragonglass and Jon took out another with Longclaw. When did we see a wight die from a scratch of dragonglass?

In Kinds Landing

[Nakraal]

They are all armed with Dragonglass when they are attacked in the lake Beyond the Wall, before Danny comes with her dragons. 

[Daemon The Black Dragon]

5 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I guess I've lost track here; the wights are susceptible to dragonglass? AIR, Sam took out a walker with dragonglass and Jon took out another with Longclaw. When did we see a wight die from a scratch of dragonglass?

Yeah, wights are susceptible to dragonglass. Everyone was using dragonglass when they went beyond the wall, besides Jon and Beric. The Hound started fighting with Gendrys warhammer but switched to dragonglass, once he realized the hammer wasn't working. 

[Faera]

As others here have already said, sheer numbers means the odds are against the living. The wights do not tire and have no concern about whether they live or die. The White Walkers are also incredibly strong and quick, meaning they can pick off any humans their wights don't kill easily. There also appear to be a lot more White Walkers than we have previously presumed.

A fair portion of the Northern army consists of smallfolk who have not received sufficient training in arms nor ever seen battle. The AotD and the White Walkers are a terrifying sight to behold, so a decent chunk of even the seasoned fighters might panic and try to run away, making them easy targets. The moment a living warrior falls, it can rise a few moments later to kill their friends. If Night King is attacking from the sky, this means means anyone, anywhere on the field could be felled and brought back within moments. 

Odds are on not every single member of the the the living was equipped with dragonglass and instead will have to make do with fire or even conventional weapons to try and hack the the wights to pieces, which won't stop the body pieces moving (e.g. Jojen got fatally stabbed by a skeletal arm). The White Walkers themselves can wait until the lines are broken and the living are scattered, overrun by the pre-existing dead and the newly-dead-arisen before they even need to enter the fray. The White Walkers themselves can wait until the lines are broken and the living are scattered, overrun by the pre-existing dead and the newly-dead-arisen before they even need to enter the fray. 

Yes, the White Walkers are weak to dragonglass too but they are also wearing armour. In 'The Door', one of the Children of the Forest had used their dragonglass-tipped spear to stab the White Walker in the chest but it did nothing because the armour blocked it. So far, only Sam and Meera have ever successfully killed a White Walker with dragonglass; the former succeeded because the White Walker wasn't even wearing armour and the latter succeeded because she aimed for an exposed point in the White Walker's neck, after seeing the CotF failing to penetrate the armour with the (what I think was the same) spear.

The other two on-screen White Walker deaths were taken out by Jon using Longclaw. Valyrian steel, which it's fair to presume is much stronger, durable and magical enough to slice through the armour the White Walkers wear but barely anyone in this army has it. In fact, so few of them have Valyrian steel that it's like trying to put out a towering inferno with a watering can.

6 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I guess I've lost track here; the wights are susceptible to dragonglass? AIR, Sam took out a walker with dragonglass and Jon took out another with Longclaw. When did we see a wight die from a scratch of dragonglass?

Yeah, they retconned it for the show. In the Dragonpit scene last season, Jon "put down" the wight he caught beyond the Wall with dragonglass. I believe the people who went on the wight hunt to begin with also carried dragonglass because Jon was running around claiming that dragonglass could kill wights, not just White Walkers.

I can't remember if there was ever a case prior to S7 where people used anything other than fire to kill a wight. I don't recall Bran and co using it when they were ambushed outside the cave and Jojen died. From what I can remember, the best they could do was hack at them - I don't think they killed one outright with dragonglass. 

[Bastard of Bournemouth]

I suppose the NK/WW/wights could make/find ladders and siege towers seeing as they fashioned/unearthed convenient dragon-dredging chains, but surely the defenders should start off inside the castle? From there, just dragon glass the shit out of whatever tries to climb the walls, and have one Dragon on perimeter and the other one bringing the pain. 

[Error-504]

Actually Op has a point. yeah they are out numbered, but the numbers that we have been given, not terribly so. Not hard to think that the Unullied/dothraki/vale soldiers could each take out 10 undead each before they are killed. it's not that hard to kill them. 

But

There appears to be ALOT more WW's then ever faced before. Add to the fact I think the battle will be fought in near blizzard conditions, and then things atart to sway heavily in favor of the AotD. 

[dbunting]

9 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

I suppose the NK/WW/wights could make/find ladders and siege towers seeing as they fashioned/unearthed convenient dragon-dredging chains, but surely the defenders should start off inside the castle? From there, just dragon glass the shit out of whatever tries to climb the walls, and have one Dragon on perimeter and the other one bringing the pain. 

They have 100,000 plus men and horses (Dothraki alone) in their army, they can't all fit in Winterfell so they have to start on the outside.

I assume the NK army has picked up more soldiers along the way, every home and castle in the path between the wall and Winterfell is now theirs, not to mention graveyards.

 

[darmody]

On 4/22/2019 at 9:21 AM, Nakraal said:

We have a huge coalition army with each soldier armed with a dragonglass weapons. Dragonglass instakills wights. When the living could withstand several injuries before going down, the wights are destroyed from even a scratch from dragonglass. 

And the same is true for White Walkers.

The Dead have a Dragon. But the living have 2.

The only unknown variable is the Night King. 

Why so gloom and doom from the characters about the outcome of the battle? 

There could be a million zombies, bro. We don't know.

Every human they kill joins their ranks. 

We don't know what kills zombie dragons. 

Dragonglass falls apart easily. 

I dunno if everyone is armed with dragonglass. It's a large army, and Gendry seems to think you can forge rocks. 

 

The Knight King is indeed an unknown variable. But he's not the only one. Unless you think you know what Bran is all about. He could be a double-agent for all I know. 

[dbunting]

4 minutes ago, darmody said:

Dragonglass falls apart easily. 

 

Curious, where do you get this from? Last episode Arya questions the axe and Gendry sinks it into a wooden stump and it doesn't break. Arya also throws 3 glass daggers into a post and none of them break. The tips would be the easiest to break and they don't.