The living overestimated the deads strength

[darksellsword]

I should start by stating that this was a flaw created by George RR Martin having one vision in mind and D&D having another one for the show. I don't believe George ever intended the NightKing to be a prominent other and leader , a gigantic achilles heel. I think it is reasonable to assume that the forces of the living are alligned with what will square off against the others in the books eventually. The first problem that creates is there are far too many able bodied warriors fighting for the living. If you have a very conservative estimate that the greatest army there ever was is roughly around 50 thousand. At the end of season 7  Daenerys estimates that the army of the dead is 100 thousand strong. That leaves us with the dead outnumbering the living only 2 to 1. You might say those aren't good odds but when you factor in the infirmity of the undead added to that the vast majority aren't equiped with armor or steel weapons(the bulk of his forces are made up of wildlings) compared to the living with its armor , obsidian weapons, Valyrian swords, range weaponary and Dothraki light cavalry used effectively two dragons offering airsupport all defending a fixed position impenetrable fortress The implausible and puzzling thing was Jon's claim that they wouldn't have a chance to beat them without pinning all there hopes on killing the Nightking. I would also like to point out that the NightKing armed his Giant with a club something that nobody on Jon's side thought to do with Wun Wun for the battle of the bastards. it's just another example of how superior forces have been nerfed to fulfil D&D's unexpected we almost lost bullshit quota

[Nerevanin]

I don't agree. The size of the dead army is pure speculation. It makes sense Jon&co. gathered everyone they could. The dead could be immediately raised up as wights. Another reason to have as many fighters as possible. Their plan was basically to hold the wights back for as long as possible so they can kill the NK in the meantime. The problem was that the fact that the death of the NK automatically causes the death of all the WW and wights was pure speculation. It worked but it was pure speculation. But that doesn't change a fact that gathering a big army was imo a good idea.

[darksellsword]

2 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

I don't agree. The size of the dead army is pure speculation. It makes sense Jon&co. gathered everyone they could. The dead could be immediately raised up as wights. Another reason to have as many fighters as possible. Their plan was basically to hold the wights back for as long as possible so they can kill the NK in the meantime. The problem was that the fact that the death of the NK automatically causes the death of all the WW and wights was pure speculation. It worked but it was pure speculation. But that doesn't change a fact that gathering a big army was imo a good idea.

The size of the undead army wasn't speculation, Daenerys had a birds eye view of the Nightkings army in broaddaylight. I wasn't raising the issue of the size of the army of the living as a problem bc it wasnt a good idea for them it just highlights the fact that George is expecting a larger battle in the books minus the option of killing a NightKing and ending the war with his death and the gathering of Daenerys forces is too intertwined with her story to be omitted. The result is you had the ridiculous and implausible scenario of a 1 shot kills all strategy on one hand but a safer and better strategy of using your large armys fortified position with superior armament on the other

[Nerevanin]

4 minutes ago, darksellsword said:

The size of the undead army wasn't speculation, Daenerys had a birds eye view of the Nightkings army in broaddaylight. I wasn't raising the issue of the size of the army of the living as a problem bc it wasnt a good idea for them it just highlights the fact that George is expecting a larger battle in the books minus the option of killing a NightKing and ending the war with his death and the gathering of Daenerys forces is too intertwined with her story to be omitted. The result is you had the ridiculous and implausible scenario of a 1 shot kills all strategy on one hand but a safer and better strategy of using your large armys fortified position with superior armament on the other

It was a speculation because Dany couldn't know if she saw the whole army.

I frankly don't understand the rest of your post so I opt not to comment it in any way.

[darksellsword]

2 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

It was a speculation because Dany couldn't know if she saw the whole army.

I frankly don't understand the rest of your post so I opt not to comment it in any way.

If you watch the episode beyond the wall it is pretty clear the Nightking brought everything he had to surround jon and his merry band of adventurers. It would be pretty absurd to think the Nightking only brought one hundred thousand to surround Jon for a laugh or to flex some muscle it was either the case that his army was on the march and happened upon Jon&co or it was a trap to kill and resurrect Daenerys dragon either way it was too large a force to just be there for a skirmish and risk losing everything but holding undead soldiers back in reserve. Don't worry about not understanding my post, somethings go over all of our heads

[MinscS2]

Daenerys saw "400.000 at least".

I don't think the living overestimated the strength of the AotD. The opposite seems more likely.
The episode makes it abundantly clear that more soldiers wouldn't have mattered if you look at the number of wights remaining in the end.

It was always gonna boil down to a "Kill the NK or loose"-scenario, something that will divide the fanbase for years to come. 

[darksellsword]

4 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

Daenerys saw "400.000 at least".

I don't think the living overestimated the strength of the AotD. The opposite seems more likely.
The episode makes it abundantly clear that more soldiers wouldn't have mattered if you look at the number of wights remaining in the end.

It was always gonna boil down to a "Kill the NK or loose"-scenario, something that will divide the fanbase for years to come. 

Daenerys said : "I saw them all",  Jaime said : "how many"  Daenerys replied " hundred thousand at least"

The show nerfed the power of the army of the living to make it appear as if they were doomed, it doesn't bear out in fact based on established strength and size of both armies and their abiliies to kill one another

[snow is the man]

If you go by the wight in season one then it takes ALOT to kill one of then. Jon stabs it three times and cuts it's arm off and it isn't even phased. Later one we see them crawling up walls and stuff as well and just swarming over enemy lines. And while it's not a part of the show they don't need to eat. That is a massive bonus for them. You saw at KL when all the leaders met up and jon and dany showed cersei that wight that they cut it in half and it didn't die. And while they didn't show it in the show obsidian doesn't make great weapons. Yeah it's incredibly sharp but it's incredibly brittle and would break after too much use. Their is a reason that noone used it in weapons after they got bronze. So the living get inferior weapons and the dead have no fear. The unsullieds greatest strength is that they are extremly disciplined and will do whatever their commanders tell them too. So when most men would run from a battle the unsullied wouldn't unless ordered too. The entire army of the dead are like this.  In truth the army of the dead was nerfed in that battle. Also in the books the horses are scared of the wights and wouldn't charge them like the unsullied did.  And horses in real life wouldn't have charged them either.

 

 

What I wondered is where all the dothraki went. Even if half of them died at the battle of the supply train or whatever it was there should still have been forty five thousand of them. There was far less then that at the battle with the dead. So where did they go. 

[D2procon]

Youre missing a key point. The Night king not only can summon his fallen dead but the dead of westeros army....... so no matter how little westeros army it takes to defeat the dead they will keep rising until westeros are wiped out

[Tyrion1991]

OP

I disagree because the Wights on the show are World War Z zombies with superspeed, super strength and are immune to the laws of physics. Stuff like punching swords through Jorahs armour and just rolling over a braced shieldwall without getting impales or crushed. They can also still use their weapons effectively. They made a total mockery of the army of the living in that battle.

Plus they had a lot more than 100,000 zombies. Dany and Jon burn an area larger than Winterfell when the Night King descends. If they had 50,000 just outside Winterfell and each dragon pass was killing thousands of packed zombies. You get the idea.

I don’t recall too much but Iam fairly sure that in the books the undead are traditional slow zombies. As a rotting corpse that’s been hacked apart and frozen should be. I think GRRM will lean much more heavily into the cold and starvation being just as great an enemy. I also think he won’t just have the non main character living be punching bags for over an hour.

[snow is the man]

4 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

OP

I disagree because the Wights on the show are World War Z zombies with superspeed, super strength and are immune to the laws of physics. Stuff like punching swords through Jorahs armour and just rolling over a braced shieldwall without getting impales or crushed. They can also still use their weapons effectively. They made a total mockery of the army of the living in that battle.

Plus they had a lot more than 100,000 zombies. Dany and Jon burn an area larger than Winterfell when the Night King descends. If they had 50,000 just outside Winterfell and each dragon pass was killing thousands of packed zombies. You get the idea.

I don’t recall too much but Iam fairly sure that in the books the undead are traditional slow zombies. As a rotting corpse that’s been hacked apart and frozen should be. I think GRRM will lean much more heavily into the cold and starvation being just as great an enemy. I also think he won’t just have the non main character living be punching bags for over an hour.

The problem the show had was inconsistency. In the first season the wights were alot like the books. They were slower but incredibly hard to kill. Shoving a spear through them wouldn't do anything and they had no fear and would never run. And I think in the books they were stronger then regular people as well. Also the WW were a bigger threat in the books then the show. In the books you have like six of them and the nightking. In the books they seem to be an entire race that talks to eachother and has armor that blends into the enviroment. Plus they make the air so cold it hurts to breath.

 

In the show the wights are able to be killed like regular people at hardhome but then turn invincible again unless burnt or hit with dragon glass. In the show they also ignore logistics completly unlike the books where they show that lack of food and supplies causes a real problem. Which even if there was a thousand WW that would mean they would have an army of over a  hundred thousand that only needed food for a thousand. That makes a big difference. Also in the books it is more accurate about battles where the battle doesn't end with everyone dying but when one side flees. This is what makes the unsullied so valuble. They wouldn't break. The dead are exactly like this only they seem to work telepathically (they are created through necromancy according to the red lady in the books) so the WW seem to direct them with their minds,

 

Then we see them turn into WWZ zombies when they attack brans cave. Remember the original plan was for dany and jon to wait with their dragons and only come out to fight the night king. However they had to attack because the army of the living was being swamped so early. Honestly we see everyone at winterfell besides some characters we know get killed. There was noone else there except some people in the crypts.

[Tyrion1991]

Yeah I vaguely remember the books giving the zombies super strength. Magic I guess. 

TBH I’ve never liked or cared for the Undead plot line in the books. When Ned died I couldn’t just dismiss it as “well one side has a clear advantage because plot”; it had a legitimate point to make. There isn’t really a point to be made of super strength zombies slaughtering normal humans. That’s just horror. The charm of the books is that what happens makes sense and doesn’t feel contrived. It doesn’t make sense that one faction is operating on another plane of existence whilst the other barely understands what magic is.

I mean they don’t need an Undead army. If they control the weather they could just make an eternal winter and kill everything as food runs out. 

 

[darmody]

It's impossible to say they overestimated it. Not when you see their reaction to the zombie horde literally turning into a wave and rolling over people. Or when they see the Ice Dragon burning a gaping hole in Winterfell with a single pass. 

Of course, in order for the main characters to survive this awesome power had to ebb and flow based on the needs of the moment. If the zombies who obliterated the Dothraki and the Unsullied were the same zombies smothering Sam inside the walls, they'd all be dead. 

As regards the Night King, they rated his power accurately. 

[darksellsword]

4 hours ago, snow is the man said:

If you go by the wight in season one then it takes ALOT to kill one of then. Jon stabs it three times and cuts it's arm off and it isn't even phased. Later one we see them crawling up walls and stuff as well and just swarming over enemy lines. And while it's not a part of the show they don't need to eat. That is a massive bonus for them. You saw at KL when all the leaders met up and jon and dany showed cersei that wight that they cut it in half and it didn't die. And while they didn't show it in the show obsidian doesn't make great weapons. Yeah it's incredibly sharp but it's incredibly brittle and would break after too much use. Their is a reason that noone used it in weapons after they got bronze. So the living get inferior weapons and the dead have no fear. The unsullieds greatest strength is that they are extremly disciplined and will do whatever their commanders tell them too. So when most men would run from a battle the unsullied wouldn't unless ordered too. The entire army of the dead are like this.  In truth the army of the dead was nerfed in that battle. Also in the books the horses are scared of the wights and wouldn't charge them like the unsullied did.  And horses in real life wouldn't have charged them either.

 

 

What I wondered is where all the dothraki went. Even if half of them died at the battle of the supply train or whatever it was there should still have been forty five thousand of them. There was far less then that at the battle with the dead. So where did they go. 

Obsidian was never used by men at any point as far as I know it was primarily used by the children of the forest, the reason obsidian kills wytes is because it is made of volcanic fire turned to stone Valyrian steel is believed to have ancient magic from old valyria and was originally forged with dragon fire, giving us two gigantic clues that anything fire related really is bad news for Wytes and the NightKing and why Drogon should've melted him with dragonfire, true obsidian it isn't a strong weapon when it comes to armor but as I've said the bulk of the Nightkings army is made up of rotting corpses with little to no armor and the army of the living remember only has to kill 2 Wytes per man/woman to survive. 

4 hours ago, D2procon said:

Youre missing a key point. The Night king not only can summon his fallen dead but the dead of westeros army....... so no matter how little westeros army it takes to defeat the dead they will keep rising until westeros are wiped out

I didn't miss that point friend, my point was that they could've easily killed enough wytes per man that it wouldn't matter who they raised from the dead the NightKing would still lose numerically

3 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

OP

I disagree because the Wights on the show are World War Z zombies with superspeed, super strength and are immune to the laws of physics. Stuff like punching swords through Jorahs armour and just rolling over a braced shieldwall without getting impales or crushed. They can also still use their weapons effectively. They made a total mockery of the army of the living in that battle.

Plus they had a lot more than 100,000 zombies. Dany and Jon burn an area larger than Winterfell when the Night King descends. If they had 50,000 just outside Winterfell and each dragon pass was killing thousands of packed zombies. You get the idea.

I don’t recall too much but Iam fairly sure that in the books the undead are traditional slow zombies. As a rotting corpse that’s been hacked apart and frozen should be. I think GRRM will lean much more heavily into the cold and starvation being just as great an enemy. I also think he won’t just have the non main character living be punching bags for over an hour.

None of what the army of the living did made sense based on "the long night" I was primarily making a point on Jon claiming it was impossible to beat them at the point of the war planning session they had in episode 2. The show writers planted a seed in the viewers heads to ignore everything that had been prepared and assembled to fight the NightKing and accept that all they could do in the end is squander their cavalry, stick their trebuchets out in front and only use them twice, build the worst trench possible and not do anything to make it flammable ie oil etc or make it deep enough that when a few Wytes fell into it that didn't create a bridge for the rest to cross.  a few archers firing from the battlements when there should've been thousands with skilled swordsmen standing behind them to protect them if the Wytes scaled the walls There are dozens of really great posts on this forum about how badly setup the forces of the living were. The whole thing was contrived not based on established facts or reason but because Dan& Dave decided it would be cool if Arya assassinated the NightKing

2 hours ago, snow is the man said:

The problem the show had was inconsistency. In the first season the wights were alot like the books. They were slower but incredibly hard to kill. Shoving a spear through them wouldn't do anything and they had no fear and would never run. And I think in the books they were stronger then regular people as well. Also the WW were a bigger threat in the books then the show. In the books you have like six of them and the nightking. In the books they seem to be an entire race that talks to eachother and has armor that blends into the enviroment. Plus they make the air so cold it hurts to breath.

 

In the show the wights are able to be killed like regular people at hardhome but then turn invincible again unless burnt or hit with dragon glass. In the show they also ignore logistics completly unlike the books where they show that lack of food and supplies causes a real problem. Which even if there was a thousand WW that would mean they would have an army of over a  hundred thousand that only needed food for a thousand. That makes a big difference. Also in the books it is more accurate about battles where the battle doesn't end with everyone dying but when one side flees. This is what makes the unsullied so valuble. They wouldn't break. The dead are exactly like this only they seem to work telepathically (they are created through necromancy according to the red lady in the books) so the WW seem to direct them with their minds,

 

Then we see them turn into WWZ zombies when they attack brans cave. Remember the original plan was for dany and jon to wait with their dragons and only come out to fight the night king. However they had to attack because the army of the living was being swamped so early. Honestly we see everyone at winterfell besides some characters we know get killed. There was noone else there except some people in the crypts.

The idiotic thing was Dany knew the dothraki were being sent out to blindly attack the enemy in the dark, she couldn't have expected anything other than mass casualties

2 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Yeah I vaguely remember the books giving the zombies super strength. Magic I guess. 

TBH I’ve never liked or cared for the Undead plot line in the books. When Ned died I couldn’t just dismiss it as “well one side has a clear advantage because plot”; it had a legitimate point to make. There isn’t really a point to be made of super strength zombies slaughtering normal humans. That’s just horror. The charm of the books is that what happens makes sense and doesn’t feel contrived. It doesn’t make sense that one faction is operating on another plane of existence whilst the other barely understands what magic is.

I mean they don’t need an Undead army. If they control the weather they could just make an eternal winter and kill everything as food runs out. 

 

They knew what they were facing, they had the weapons and the means to beat them, if anything it should be the army of the living that has the element of surprise, the Nightking hasn't faced dragonglass or Valyrian Steel in centuries and all of a sudden there is an army of thousands meeting him with it first thing when he gets passed the wall

2 hours ago, darmody said:

It's impossible to say they overestimated it. Not when you see their reaction to the zombie horde literally turning into a wave and rolling over people. Or when they see the Ice Dragon burning a gaping hole in Winterfell with a single pass. 

Of course, in order for the main characters to survive this awesome power had to ebb and flow based on the needs of the moment. If the zombies who obliterated the Dothraki and the Unsullied were the same zombies smothering Sam inside the walls, they'd all be dead. 

As regards the Night King, they rated his power accurately. 

The Wytes would never have overrun them like that if they had setup correctly and had two dragons endlessly doing scorched earth runs on the larger body of Wyte forces. Dany was sending her Dothraki out on a suicide charge with metal Arakhs if Mellisandre hadn't showed up and lit them on fire then they would've been piss in the wind even more so than they eventually were. Don't even get me started on undead Viserion. They had no plan at all for him. Jaime could have instructed them on how to make Qyburns scorpion for example or had some kind of dragonglass weapon made to try and take it down, nope just let that thing fly around burning the place down at will. This show is fan fiction of a song of ice and fire.

[D2procon]

23 minutes ago, darksellsword said:

 

I didn't miss that point friend, my point was that they could've easily killed enough wytes per man that it wouldn't matter who they raised from the dead the NightKing would still lose numerically

 

That doesn't make sense friend. Lets do simple math. Lets say we had 200 westerosi and 10,000 wights. lets say 1 westerosi takes out 20 wight. If half of westerosi dies lets say they get about 2000 wights.  NK raises them. Now we have 100 westerosi and 10,100 wights. Rinse and repeat.

[darksellsword]

1 minute ago, D2procon said:

That doesn't make sense friend. Lets do simple math. Lets say we had 200 westerosi and 10,000 wights. lets say 1 westerosi takes out 20 wight. If half of westerosi dies lets say they get about 2000 wights.  NK raises them. Now we have 100 westerosi and 10,100 wights. Rinse and repeat.

at the start of this thread I made a conservative estimate that the army of the living is just 50,000 when it could be easily argued that it's somewhere between 70k to 90k that is almost 1 living armored warrior with at least an obsidian weapon to kill 1 skinny undead skeleton that will explode the moment you stab it anywhere on its body. I think one of the most egregious shots in the whole episode is the tide of Wytes flowing over the unsullied. There isn't any bipedal being that can move in that kind of mass without falling on their asses, it actually looked like the ghost army from LOTR return of the king. It was all cringey. D&D literally told the director to throw out the rule book on everything that has been established for seven seasons. If you have that kind of nonsensical crap you might aswell have Gandalf come flying in on the back of an eagle because you didn't know that Gandalf exists in this world right?

[divica]

4 minutes ago, darksellsword said:

at the start of this thread I made a conservative estimate that the army of the living is just 50,000 when it could be easily argued that it's somewhere between 70k to 90k that is almost 1 living armored warrior with at least an obsidian weapon to kill 1 skinny undead skeleton that will explode the moment you stab it anywhere on its body. I think one of the most egregious shots in the whole episode is the tide of Wytes flowing over the unsullied. There isn't any bipedal being that can move in that kind of mass without falling on their asses, it actually looked like the ghost army from LOTR return of the king. It was all cringey. D&D literally told the director to throw out the rule book on everything that has been established for seven seasons. If you have that kind of nonsensical crap you might aswell have Gandalf come flying in on the back of an eagle because you didn't know that Gandalf exists in this world right?

Look, if they were on the walls of winterfell with arrows, trebuchets, trenches and burning oil to trow into the wights trying to climb the Wall they would be able to fight 10 times their number.

The dead would need viserion to make a hole in the walls and even then the ww would need to come forward to break the line of defense.

I think this is kind of basic for anyone that watches medieval fantasy… 

[darksellsword]

1 minute ago, divica said:

Look, if they were on the walls of winterfell with arrows, trebuchets, trenches and burning oil to trow into the wights trying to climb the Wall they would be able to fight 10 times their number.

The dead would need viserion to make a hole in the walls and even then the ww would need to come forward to break the line of defense.

I think this is kind of basic for anyone that watches medieval fantasy… 

 They wanted it to be at the point where all is lost only for Arya to come flying in out of nowhere to assassinate the NightKing. I hope the battle against Cersei ends with Jon choking her to death so everyone can sit and reflect on how hollow it felt bc Jon had absolutely no connection to Cersei just as Arya had nothing to do with the NightKing. 

[divica]

1 minute ago, darksellsword said:

 They wanted it to be at the point where all is lost only for Arya to come flying in out of nowhere to assassinate the NightKing. I hope the battle against Cersei ends with Jon choking her to death so everyone can sit and reflect on how hollow it felt bc Jon had absolutely no connection to Cersei just as Arya had nothing to do with the NightKing. 

I would like that, but there are so many characters that would like to kill cersei...

Like tyrion, Jaime, danny or arya… And they are all fan favorites… I think one of them will do it.

[darksellsword]

9 minutes ago, divica said:

I would like that, but there are so many characters that would like to kill cersei...

Like tyrion, Jaime, danny or arya… And they are all fan favorites… I think one of them will do it.

If they are going where all of the prophecy points in the books then it's Jaime that strangles Cersei for sure.