Posted on 04/30/2019 8:28:29 AM PDT by C19fan
This post contains spoilers regarding the third episode of Game of Thrones’ eighth season.
Game of Thrones’ much-anticipated Battle of Winterfell is over — and all I can say is “whoa.”
Actually, that’s not true. “The Long Night” was a great episode, but I’m not the only one pointing out that the military strategy and tactics on offer — especially by the Army of the Living — were pretty awful. The opening Dothraki charge was ill-advised at best. There seemed to be few defenses on the walls of Winterfell. And why didn’t Jon or Dany use their dragons to burn more giants and White Walkers?
Meanwhile, the Army of the Dead used their overwhelming numerical advantage to bust through the Living’s ranks and ransack Winterfell. It left me and others wondering: Couldn’t the Living have set up their defenses so much better?
To find out, I called two military experts: Ryan Grauer, an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Mick Cook, an Australian combat veteran who fought in Afghanistan. Together, they agreed that Jon and Dany’s military tactics were wanting — and in some cases downright horrible.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
Jon Snow has sucked as a military commander from the very beginning!
You mean a bastard cast off and a tart who lived in the desert playing with eggs weren’t Patton?
It was written by a liberal jerk off whose idea of battle formations was formed by Hollywood, not West Point.
Filing under:
Examples of people who need to get a life.
It was a typical hollywood plot line. The living had to almost lose before a miracle win. And they made you watch for 80 minutes to see that.
Stick them with the pointy end...
However, when one side gets to re-animate all the dead from both sides to fight on, one wonders how much military tactics really matter. The key was to get NK to the (Bob) Weirwood and then have someone there with some valerian steel. That they almost failed in this as well, was what was truly surprising.
While I have enjoyed the series, I do not take it seriously enough to worry too much about how realistic the battle strategy is or isn't. I would be more bothered if the battle had purported to be a real historic one and wasn't (see Battle of Stirling in Braveheart).
“... real historic one and wasn’t (see Battle of Stirling in Braveheart). ...”
Yeah that was a howler!
I thought Bran was going to shank the NK with an obsidian dagger... which was why he wanted him to get close.
You know, like finally do something worthwhile...
But he’s “The Three-Eyed Raven” after all, so...
I thought the night king used good tactics when you would have expected nothing more than brute force. Making the wind and clouds to impair the dragons, the methods used to get across the channel and up the castle walls were pretty impressive.
The Night King underestimated Arya and her Valerian steel dagger though didn’t he! The night king was overconfident.
“Game of Thrones’ Battle of Winterfell: 2 military experts explain Jon and Dany’s sloppy plan”
i’m surprised they could see the battle enough to analyze it, since the whole damn thing was shot in pitch black.
we could see almost nothing that was happening until we went back and watched it again with TV brightness cranked to 100% and contrast cranked to 75% ... the whole episode was a slap in the face to we fans by self-absorbed, pretentious, egotistical film makers ...
They were using Bran as bait.
“Making the wind and clouds to impair the dragons, the methods used to get across the channel and up the castle walls were pretty impressive.”
it was my impression that all of those were indeed nothing more than brute force ...
Rule #1 in any battle plan: Make sure you have Arya on your side.
I was not bothered by the darkness. I was not able to see every detail of the battle, but I think we were only meant to see little glimpses of clarity out of the chaotic whole. It also is a way to disguise the small numbers of the participants. The same technique was used in the opening of the movie Excalibur - lots of darkness backlit with flames in the background. Makes it appear more people (or undead) are there than there are.
The crappy look had a lot more to do with the decisions made by HBO and the streaming providers regarding compression rates than decisions made by the filmmakers. It's going to look a lot better on Blu-Ray.
The big battles have always been a weakness for GOT. That’s where they lean towards standard Hollywood story telling, following the expected beats. And that means the good guys have to keep losing until the “right” time. Which generally involves bad tactics. Battle of the Bastards was terrible, made worse by the fact that they went through all the trouble of having character tell Jon not to do all the normal Hollywood crap, only to have him do it, and win anyway thank to a normal Hollywood “unexpected” ally (OK Jon didn’t expect them, everybody who’s seen more than 5 movies that involve that kind of battle knew they were coming).
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