Just calling it now about Dany's and Jon's army

[Hodor's Dragon]

If you will read some military history, you will see that armies pretty much don't get obliterated unless they are unable to retreat after losing and then are captured or mass executed. No matter how decisive a battle is, at least 60% of the losing army survives, and that is a conservative number.

The episode focused on only a few places in a castle with hundreds of rooms and vast grounds. I see no reason at all to think that "obliteration" even approached the 50% mark. We certainly didn't see evidence of that. We saw two or three lines break and a few hundred or maybe 1000 people get killed.

[Argonath Diver]

The still shots released for episode 4 seem to show a pitifully small amount of people outside the gates to witness the mass cremation of all the dead. I agree that the show is reaching absurdist levels of logic, so poofing an army out of nowhere is very possible. I think in this case we'll see Winterfell's defenders mostly wiped out.

[Kaguya]

3 hours ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

If you will read some military history, you will see that armies pretty much don't get obliterated unless they are unable to retreat after losing and then are captured or mass executed. No matter how decisive a battle is, at least 60% of the losing army survives, and that is a conservative number.

The episode focused on only a few places in a castle with hundreds of rooms and vast grounds. I see no reason at all to think that "obliteration" even approached the 50% mark. We certainly didn't see evidence of that. We saw two or three lines break and a few hundred or maybe 1000 people get killed.

Are you really applying ‘history’ to a show about zombies and dragons?

[Hodor's Dragon]

1 hour ago, Kaguya said:

Are you really applying ‘history’ to a show about zombies and dragons?

That's a silly question. The books in particular are deeply grounded in history, and the show pays a lot of respect to medieval military science.

What do YOU apply to it if it's not history?

[Kaguya]

42 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

That's a silly question. The books in particular are deeply grounded in history, and the show pays a lot of respect to medieval military science.

What do YOU apply to it if it's not history?

Towards the end of the battle you can clearly see that most of Dany’s army is gone. We only really saw the main characters being overwhelmed. She has clearly lost 95% of her forces. Not 40%.

[ferrelhadley]

3 hours ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

The books in particular are deeply grounded in history, and the show pays a lot of respect to medieval military science.

It really does not. The books and show use medieval military as a stage prop for the politics. 

[Hippocras]

People...

While the books and series are indeed deeply grounded in real history, there is no historical precedent for armies of the dead, so not sure that applies here.

As for how much army is left, I guess that depends quite a bit on how much of an army the last few episodes require. I rather suspect the story REQUIRES that the army is very much depleted, because that will force our heroes to turn to more questionable tactics, which will be an important turn in the story.

[The Coconut God]

On 5/1/2019 at 6:12 AM, Gianna Dorenberg said:

Do they even need an army ?

They have Arya. I bet she can take on the golden compass all on her own, plus the mountain as well as Cersei.

Someone on reddit said that they only need three people to take King's Landing:

Davos to smuggle them into the city, Varys because he knows all the secret tunnels, and Arya to kill Cersei, take her face and order everyone to surrender. But I doubt the characters or D&D will think of that. They are idiots, after all...

[Hodor's Dragon]

10 hours ago, Kaguya said:

Towards the end of the battle you can clearly see that most of Dany’s army is gone. We only really saw the main characters being overwhelmed. She has clearly lost 95% of her forces. Not 40%.

Uh, no, you can't. I just rewatched the episode with this in mind. My initial description was spot on. The camera is only on a few spots. You have no idea what happened to the vast army, and it is absolutely not all destroyed on screen, as the cameras only followed a handful of locations. The parts of the army we were watching was shattered and put to rout on screen, but shattered and put to rout doesn't = everybody died. (Remember White Walkers are shit about taking out stragglers; the whole damned army walked past Sam who was hiding behind a rock in the daylight, and he lived.)

Put it this way. We know at least 22 people, 2 living dragons and one direwolf by name who were there:

4 Starks

2 Lannisters

Daenerys, Jorah, Varys, Missandei, Grey Worm

Gendry, Davos, Brienne, Gilly, Melisandre, Theon

Tormund, Edd, Sam, Berric, Lyanna M.

3 critters

I may be missing others.

Out of those 25 or more folks & critters, FIVE died in the battle, including 1 by a pointless suicide charge at the end, perhaps the last person to die. 1 more suicided for unknown reasons after the battle was over. What's the evidence that the overall force took a way higher casualty rate?

7 hours ago, Hippocras said:

<snip>

As for how much army is left, I guess that depends quite a bit on how much of an army the last few episodes require. I rather suspect the story REQUIRES that the army is very much depleted, because that will force our heroes to turn to more questionable tactics, which will be an important turn in the story.

This is probably true, and I wouldn't be a bit shocked if the army DOES turn out to have been devastated and shrunk to a handful of followers for "story-telling reasons." But it would be just as easy, and more realistic, if there were at least 20,000 left and probably quite a few more. There is certainly no visual evidence in the episode that the entire army was "wiped out" or anything remotely like that, and a result like that would be unlike any battle in earthly history.

[Stormking902]

I keep seein the Glovers pop up with potential men to pledge to Danny but why? 

For one the Glovers are a master house and can probably only field a few hundred me at best, and for two the Glovers are oath breakers and if he did show up Drogon would burn him alive or Jon would wet his sword with another traitors blood. 

Also I think it was mentioned that EVERY one who wasnt at WF before the battle are dead besides maybe the crannogmen are alive? 

[Steelborn]

On 4/30/2019 at 7:09 PM, The Bastard Dayne said:

Last Hearth lies in nearly a straight line between Eastwatch (where the Wall was breached) and Winterfell. 

Deepwood Mott is only slightly north of Winterfell, and miles to the west. If the NK was focused on reaching Winterfell and Bran, I can see his army attacking Last Hearth as it's in their path, but I see no reason why they would go that far out of the way to take out the Glovers.

 

They show this in the opening credits. The land getting frozen as the WW pass, east side of the wall > last hearth > winterfell. And doesn't Tormund say smth like this? It didn't seem like they wiped out all of the North just to get to Winterfell lastly.

[MagicPen]

This is D&D's way of fixing the initial problem: the Lannister army magically getting soldiers after the war of the 5 kings, like nothing happened.

[snow is the man]

I think they will say some troops were left at dragonstone and maybe casterly rock. However we saw that there should be NO soldiers in winterfell that aren't named characters.

[snow is the man]

On 5/1/2019 at 7:55 PM, Hodor's Dragon said:

If you will read some military history, you will see that armies pretty much don't get obliterated unless they are unable to retreat after losing and then are captured or mass executed. No matter how decisive a battle is, at least 60% of the losing army survives, and that is a conservative number.

The episode focused on only a few places in a castle with hundreds of rooms and vast grounds. I see no reason at all to think that "obliteration" even approached the 50% mark. We certainly didn't see evidence of that. We saw two or three lines break and a few hundred or maybe 1000 people get killed.

Yes through military history that is usually true. However that is because one army breaks and runs. Noone at the battle of winterfell ran and we saw that the dead were all over the place and except for a few named characters and some people in the crypt we didn't see ANY survivors.

 

I do study history and agree on your points. It's one of the reasons the unsullied are so coveted in my opinion. They don't run or surrended unless their told too. So they won't flee a cavalry charge but just get into position. They have no fear like regular people do where even though the logical part of their brain says that "if we stay in formation  we can repel this cavalry charge but running means death" it is often overrun in battles with that primitive part of the brain that is the fight or flight part mixed with the knowledge that a human should not stand in front of a running horse. 

 

So while you would usually have a valid point it doesn't work in this.

[snow is the man]

8 hours ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

Uh, no, you can't. I just rewatched the episode with this in mind. My initial description was spot on. The camera is only on a few spots. You have no idea what happened to the vast army, and it is absolutely not all destroyed on screen, as the cameras only followed a handful of locations. The parts of the army we were watching was shattered and put to rout on screen, but shattered and put to rout doesn't = everybody died. (Remember White Walkers are shit about taking out stragglers; the whole damned army walked past Sam who was hiding behind a rock in the daylight, and he lived.)

Put it this way. We know at least 22 people, 2 living dragons and one direwolf by name who were there:

4 Starks

2 Lannisters

Daenerys, Jorah, Varys, Missandei, Grey Worm

Gendry, Davos, Brienne, Gilly, Melisandre, Theon

Tormund, Edd, Sam, Berric, Lyanna M.

3 critters

I may be missing others.

Out of those 25 or more folks & critters, FIVE died in the battle, including 1 by a pointless suicide charge at the end, perhaps the last person to die. 1 more suicided for unknown reasons after the battle was over. What's the evidence that the overall force took a way higher casualty rate?

This is probably true, and I wouldn't be a bit shocked if the army DOES turn out to have been devastated and shrunk to a handful of followers for "story-telling reasons." But it would be just as easy, and more realistic, if there were at least 20,000 left and probably quite a few more. There is certainly no visual evidence in the episode that the entire army was "wiped out" or anything remotely like that, and a result like that would be unlike any battle in earthly history.

We saw the dead walking through winterfell towards the end with NO resistance. Arya is sneaking past them. Yes there are probably some survivors but given how the dead were just wandering around inside the building facing no resistance it seems that the survivors would be unlikely to number more then a hundred  (not including the people in the crypt). The only way I can see her having any number of troops that mattered was if she left some behind at dragon stone. Otherwise they would just have to pretend  somehow people survived.

[Hodor's Dragon]

1 minute ago, snow is the man said:

We saw the dead walking through winterfell towards the end with NO resistance. Arya is sneaking past them. Yes there are probably some survivors but given how the dead were just wandering around inside the building facing no resistance it seems that the survivors would be unlikely to number more then a hundred  (not including the people in the crypt). The only way I can see her having any number of troops that mattered was if she left some behind at dragon stone. Otherwise they would just have to pretend  somehow people survived.

Yes, the army broke. There was no resistance (in some places that we were watching). THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY ALL DIED. We saw people escaping from the field in large numbers as the Unsullied covered the exit - where did they go? We have no idea, but I see no reason at all to assume they were all slaughtered. Again, the camera only showed a handful of spots on a huge estate.

You're right about the Unsullied, they are fanatics and the ones who were assigned to the defense of the gates probably mostly died, but how many of them were assigned there? Even the gate guardians, once they became ineffective would've likely attempted to survive - their officers should've commanded them to. But everybody else ran at some point, you may be sure, and history tells us that most of the runners typically survive. 

And please don't just brush past the point of why all the named people survived with few deaths. Sure, lots of them were good fighters, but lots of those named characters were right in the thick of it and they survived. Why assume everybody else died when the only ones we know for sure mostly didn't? When we never saw anybody get cut off and massacred in a group?

One last point: you think all the Dothraki died? Think again. There's ZERO POSSIBILITY that 100,000 horsemen were blinked out by a wave of infantry, no matter how large, in a matter of a minute, as it appeared. What you saw was the magical cold and fog putting the torches out, NOT all the cavalry dying: that's nonsense, they were on horseback and could not as a matter of physics be swamped by infantry that fast. Now I'm sure plenty of Dothraki got waxed, probably most of them as a matter of fact, but heck we SAW quite a number of them running past the lines getting away a couple of minutes later and that was from a fixed camera in one spot! We would only have seen a small fraction of them because those dudes would run  in pretty much every direction except straight back where the enemy came from and they had horses, too. Something else might happen next week but in reality there have to be thousands of Dothraki left. They'll all have to cut their ponytails boo hoo because they lost but they will be breathing.

[snow is the man]

11 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

Yes, the army broke. There was no resistance (in some places that we were watching). THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY ALL DIED. We saw people escaping from the field in large numbers as the Unsullied covered the exit - where did they go? We have no idea, but I see no reason at all to assume they were all slaughtered. Again, the camera only showed a handful of spots on a huge estate.

You're right about the Unsullied, they are fanatics and the ones who were assigned to the defense of the gates probably mostly died, but how many of them were assigned there? Even the gate guardians, once they became ineffective would've likely attempted to survive - their officers should've commanded them to. But everybody else ran at some point, you may be sure, and history tells us that most of the runners typically survive. 

And please don't just brush past the point of why all the named people survived with few deaths. Sure, lots of them were good fighters, but lots of those named characters were right in the thick of it and they survived. Why assume everybody else died when the only ones we know for sure mostly didn't? When we never saw anybody get cut off and massacred in a group?

One last point: you think all the Dothraki died? Think again. There's ZERO POSSIBILITY that 100,000 horsemen were blinked out by a wave of infantry, no matter how large, in a matter of a minute, as it appeared. What you saw was the magical cold and fog putting the torches out, NOT all the cavalry dying: that's nonsense, they were on horseback and could not as a matter of physics be swamped by infantry that fast. Now I'm sure plenty of Dothraki got waxed, probably most of them as a matter of fact, but heck we SAW quite a number of them running past the lines getting away a couple of minutes later and that was from a fixed camera in one spot! We would only have seen a small fraction of them because those dudes would run  in pretty much every direction except straight back where the enemy came from and they had horses, too. Something else might happen next week but in reality there have to be thousands of Dothraki left. They'll all have to cut their ponytails boo hoo because they lost but they will be breathing.

If they were regular infantry then yeah you would be one hundred percent correct. No doubt about it. However the army of the dead was like world war Z zombies. And  as for everyone else I don't see where they could have run. By the end of the battle we saw the dead had surrounded winterfell and swarming the walls. And yeah it doesn't make sense that jaime would survive when he is supposedly a crappy fighter since he lost his hand but we do SEE him survive.  This wasn't a regular battle. We saw NOONE besides the characters left standing and ALOT of dead people.