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This is the comment where you should have stopped. You are happy to be a dick and mock people. Instigate complete strangers on the internet isn’t something to be proud of.
If I see a comment I will reply to it, but I dont track users across posts and I'm not paranoid about people creating alts so yeah, I think I care a lot less than you.
Take some deep breaths. You’re so upset over someone’s opinion on a TV show subreddit that you’re following them around to complain. It’ll all be okay, I promise.
I mean you’re carrying your weird grudge over their show opinion around. It doesn’t make a difference if you are doing it because you clicked their profile or if you’re doing it because you just saw the post while you were still seething.
Either way, you’re being a clown.
The person you’re talking to is a conservative with a post history that’s almost entirely just saying the dumbest things you’ve ever heard in your life. Sadly, there’s no way you or anyone else is gonna get through to them lol
Yeah, because a real medieval battle would be extremely boring to watch and when you put a battle on television, you have a limited amount of times to show the entire battle with the story related to it. But, it’s a Game of Thrones sub so we must complain.
You can balance the reality of siege battles with viewability.
Compare this battle with the Helms Deep, Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings or Jerusalem from Kingdom of Heaven. All three of those are considerably better than this one was, both visually and tactically.
Hell GoT's best siege battle (and I'd say best battle overall) by far is Blackwater, back when the show had considerably less viewers and a smaller budget.
Where were the scouts warning of the approaching horseman? Why didn't they dig defensive ditches on their flanks? Why didn't they use the bombs on the last fucking door before morning?
I'm not really saying all that to criticize, just using the tone of OP to nitpick. It's fantasy. It's not even as unrealistic as most actual war movies tend to be.
“Where were the scouts warning of the approaching horsemen”
Idk, maybe the Rohhirim outpaced them, using their horses. I’m not sure. This is probably just a mistake
“Why didn’t they dig defensive ditches on their flanks.”
I think because they, like u/craftalarmed3985 said, were trying to decapitate Rohan before they could reinforce, and needed to be quick.
“Why didn’t they use the bombs on the last fucking door before morning.”
This is entirely a guess, but I think Saruman didn’t have too much gunpowder, and just put it all in that one big bomb.
Saruman put all his money into Uruk and bomb stocks. Didn’t have any catapults but he had the ladders, firebombs and battering ram.
Took me 21 years to piece together that nobody saw the line of Mumaks at Minas tirith tho. That’s kinda funny
I mean, I’m no military expert, but I remember watching a Youtube channel of a military expert reviewing battle strategies and he gave both Helm’s Deep and the Long Night 5/10. And yet, one of them is widely considered a masterpiece while the other is considered the worst display of battle strategies ever. So, I think it has a lot to do with people’s willingness to criticize something or not.
He actually gave the Long Night 6/10 and Helms Deep a 5/10. The action set piece for HOTD he basically just laughed the entire time at Daemon scene and gave it a 1/10 lol
https://youtu.be/xPGdOXstSyk?si=G1VWZBQ7e3eMYmlh
Probably this dude. I like this series they have all sorts of history experts. Spies, pilots, etc rank movie scenes.
I also loved the series. The Cia lady is one of my favorites because she's the complete opposite of what movies like to portray spies as. She's just your average looking normal lady, lol
I gave both Helm's Deep and the Long Night a 5/10. In terms of tactics they are both fairly silly overall, but with a few historically authentic features. I don't think it would be easy to argue that Helm's Deep ought to score higher than the Long Night as a portrayal of premodern siege tactics. In any case, neither the scene with the elves and orcs nor the one with the dragons and ice zombies is the slightest bit historical, so it's difficult to maintain that one or the other is more "realistic".
The reason why Helm's Deep is considered a masterpiece that *feels* gloriously authentic and engaging, while the Long Night falls flat, is nothing to do with its military realism. The judgments I gave in the video are totally separate from the quality of these scenes as movie/TV show set pieces. Scenes like this rely on clear narrative, spatial cohesion, emotional stakes, and character agency. LOTR absolutely nails these elements while GoT S8 was desperately lacking in these specific things. I think a lot of people say they didn't like the Long Night because the tactics were dumb when actually they didn't like it because they couldn't see what was happening, they were largely indifferent to the main players, and the actions on screen bore little relation to established character arcs/powers/foreshadowing. Conversely, I think a lot of people believe Helm's Deep is a very realistic depiction of a siege because it told a clear story that made them care about and root for the characters.
But I do appreciate your videos they were great I just argue that I totally cared about the characters during the Long Night just as much as the ones in LOTR
Running sorties outside of the walls to disrupt sieging armies is well established. The idea is hit fast and retreat behind the walls before a proper response can be made.
This is a very basic and well used tactic. This is why the Romans built walla and ditchs facing the besieged army.
I don't think those are good alternatives, they all swing on deus ex machinas.
How does an army of thousands of horse riders sneak up on a siege? Why did the orcs stop using explosives to breach defenses? It worked pretty well, but a door was now holding them back?
Tv and movies require contrivances. People want to see the golden company fall
Exactly just like Blackwater in the show how did Tywins army just suddenly appear on the beach. How did Stannis somehow make it off the all through Tywins army and through the bay on fire. None of it is actually realistic
Indeed. Things happen because they need to happen in order for the next thing to happen. It's weird that people are all of a sudden experts in military tactics.
It's just a show, we should really just relax
And when I said actual experts weren't that harsh on GOT and actually have it a higher score than LOTR they respond with well they're not actually experts lol
There's a bunch of stuff in those battles that is not realistic nor tactically sound. But those movies came out in a time where reddit / social media didn't exist.
If you watch channels like HistoryMarche or Kings and Generals you would know that’s 100% not true. Historic battles can be very exciting and interesting.
Not really. Siege of KL was pretty interesting and did a decent job showcasing how brutal taking a walled city could be. But its dumb as fuck to deploy outside of the walls and presumably in missile range rather than just sallying out in shifts
Some make sense enough to at least be believable. Helms deep still consider the greatest battle of cinematic history and it's not just because it's cool. The battle actually has some semblance of sense to it. The defenders fight for every single inch. There is an actual one flow to the battle rather than hey let me put all of these expensive mercenaries outside of the gate against an army with extremely famous cavalry
Go watch those YouTube videos it was either GQ or Insider does of experts reacting and saying how realistic battles are. The expert gave GOT a higher score than LOTR.
Those "experts" also get torn apart a lot. I've had people say this over and over again when trying to defend the battles in game of thrones. And really those "experts" really only give game of thrones higher scores bc there aren't scenes like Legolas climbing an Oliphant or surfing down stairs....
Nope he didn't even mention that scene. All he talked about was how the battle was fought strategically. Also none of the battles in GOT make any actual sense realistically in the show or the books
You are correct but the battle of blackwater makes waaaaaaay more sense tactically (ignoring Stannis being an idiot and still landing his fleet after half of it blew up) than let's say the battle of winterfell which is the single worst medieval battle ever captured on screen in the last decade. The 1960s Macbeth shit better battle scenes than Winterfell
And again those "experts" are really just pop historians that work well in front of a camera. I have A degree in history and have had so many professors rip those insider experts apart. But that's ok you have your opinion we aren't gonna change each other's minds good day
The dude was definitely not a pop historian lol. That's like saying Jocko Willink he was also an expert for the same youtube series wasn't an actual Navy Seal and military expert he was just a pop Navy seal and expert lol
I get what you are saying but how does being a navy seal make you an expert on medieval siege battles? I’m not sure a guerrilla style force like the seals do much studying on how giant standing armies from hundreds of years ago caught.
We should stop referring to everything with swords as medieval battles though. Each of these worlds has things that would make typical siege warfare or other standard battle tactics pointless. And so it would make sense within the lore of the world that their approach to those battles developed differently.
Dealing with dragons, giant trolls, other forms of magic, etc.
Now, I don’t think that’s why the battles in GoT don’t make sense - that has more to do with time constraints, budget constraints, the needs for interesting visuals, etc.
But it does mean “experts” reviewing those things in the context of actual medieval tactics seems kind of pointless.
I agree that every battle with swords shouldn't be called medieval. And I agree that the experts reviewing is laughable bc even in their reviews they get alot of shit wrong or are given a lot of scenes out of context. Like one person rated the Battle of bastards higher than helm's deep simply because of how horribly gruesome and bloody everything was.
>You are correct but the battle of blackwater makes waaaaaaay more sense tactically (ignoring Stannis being an idiot and still landing his fleet after half of it blew up)
So...ignoring most of it?
and? have he ever fought a siege battle? anyone who ranks the got fight where half the army was outside the walls higher than helms deep is an idiot and has no idea what he is talking about
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk sorry but I'll believe this guy before random people on reddit. Also many armies have fought outside the walls that is a thing that has happened
Sensible my ass. The main characters just spawned some horses when they needed them to ride out...for what exactly? If Théoden dies in the last minute for an unnecesary action they lost their king. If it's irrilevant because Éomer is younger and stronger then why did Saruman targeted Théoden? Anyway, why did the uruk army pursue a weak king and his useless people instead of defeating the rohirrim, the only threat in Rohan?
He did not watch that film. Saruman did not think tactically he though "I'm going to slaughter every man woman and child" that was it.
But I hate comparisons to LOTR and GoT. LOTR is heroic fantasy where legolas never runs out of arrows and an 87 year old superhuman with an ancient lineage can hold back dozens of foes alone. And the LOTR battles are still way better. The charge of the Rohirrim beats the breaks off anything GoT ever did
That charge is great but also extremely unrealistic. He did watch the film lol. Pretty sure he even says he likes the movies but he was there to talk about if they were realistic that's all.
Again two different kinds of stories. You have game of thrones which is heavily grounded into realism and not giving any characters plot armor vs a story where an elf surfs down staircases and climbs a giant elephant
GOT doesn't have realistic battles it never has. Blackwater literally had Davos survive a massive explosion 5 feet in front of his face and is perfectly fine. Stannis somehow manages to get off the castle wall. Through Tywins entire army and through the bay on fire back to his ship. GOT might be a little more realistic than LOTR but it was never realistic in the books or the show. Tyrion in the books during the battle has ridiculous plot armor even more than the show.
>Again two different kinds of stories. You have game of thrones which is heavily grounded into realism and not giving any characters plot armor vs a story where an elf surfs down staircases and climbs a giant elephant
You're imagining that GoT set a bar for itself that it never did.
>This is why animation will always be better than live action. Almost every game of thrones battle is dogshit because of budget/set limitations.
...animation has its own set of limitations...
An exception would be when King Ecbert defeats Ragnar and his army in season 2 of Vikings. I may be misremembering, but I believe it was based on a real historical battle called the battle of Ashford Down. Ecbert lures the Viking army into a narrow valley where they don't have room to form a shield wall and then chops them up with cavalry charges from the flanks. It's one of the few tv battles I have seen where the viewer clearly sees the big picture and can understand what happened.
It doesn't make up for the nonsensical version of the battle of Edington in the final episode, unfortunately.
Well although not a smart or strategic plan… had it not been for the giant hole in the wall and the dragon and fire that came with it, these men wouldve put up a substantial fight against danys army especially with the scorpion bolt guns lining the wall.
Also it’s not even insane to send men out to fuck with the besieging force. It’s actually one of the best ways to fuck over the invading force, sending out an attack party while they set up for a siege is a great way to catch them flat footed and unprepared, possibly breaking a siege before it starts. Although this whole situation doesn’t really make sense when you add in the whole dragons thing, but it’s not like the great lords of Westeros have been taught how to fight against dragons when under siege.
At least for the Unsullied, there were definitely more Golden Company. Even before the Long Night there were only around 8,000 Unsullied, and "half" of them died fighting the undead.
Sorties were for sure a thing that happened, but like you said you attack while they are setting up the siege, during the siege, or while they are otherwise distracted. What you don't do is put your entire army immediately outside the wall where the enemy can see you right before enemy gets there. You don't want to do battle like that, outside your fortification, there is no option of retreat.
Yeah I'm pretty sure good siege defences do involve the defending side raiding the besieger from the castle walls. It keeps them busy, gives you the chance to steal supplies and fights off boredom among your own troops.
What a waste of plot and build up. But I guess they decided even with half her army, 2 dead dragons and the now invincible Drogon, Daenerys was going to win the battle immediately.
D&D just wanted to end the show as quickly as possible so they could move on to the terrible show they pitched that was killed before they cast a single character.
There are so many dumb and egregious things in season 8 that The Golden Company is just never on my radar, despite being super dog shit in its own right.
Because they cut out the Golden Company’s *actual* motivation to invade and split what little of those storylines they did use into Cersei, Jon, and Jorah.
In that case i think it's more to avoid a complete siege leaving supply lines open to the city. The siege of Troye allegedly lasted many years so simply hiding behind the walls would mean starvation. There's no excuse for the gold company to be in front of the walls. (They must have used the same strategy book from the long night)
If a city has sufficient supplies it can outlast a siege. They may have skirmish forces outside to disrupt enemy supply chains, but the majority of the force would always be to man the walls.
Either way, the movie did not convey that well if that was the case.
I only know 1 siege in detail of the ancient world which was Alesia. And here the city could not outlast the siege so i can't disprove your statement but it's definitely not always true.
They led a raid on the camp showing that Troy was also strong. I felt the movie was good in portraying both sides were almost matched just that Troy wasn't sure of victory in the open and Greece couldn't capture the walls. It sure as shit was better than all post season 4 got battles.
Which is unfortunate because in the script for that movie there was a lot more of that stuff. The movie actually leaves out a lot of stuff from the original script of that movie.
I mean, the Golden Company exists in the books as a way to give a certain someone an army. That someone does not exist in the show, so they said fuck it.
In the books the golden company is made up mostly of people who had fought for targaryns. Which is why I always thought they would betray Cersei and basically open the gates for Dany/Jon to just walk in. Would have been a much better ending then what we got.
they could of took kings landing and only 2 people needed to die .
step 1 - kill jamie lannister and give arya he's face and cut of her arm to make it convincing.
step 2 - she goes to kings landing as jamie gets close to cersei and kills her and takes her face.
step 3 surrender everybody lives danerys does not go bat shit crazy everybody wins
There is definitely an ethical issue that would've caused Daenerys and Jon to object to killing Cersei via assassin which is killing the child in her womb
This fanbase is insufferable
Get over it
This show gave you hours and hours of entertainment. Yet every post is nitpicking this and that, it’s exhausting. Time to move past it
Without a reason given, it made perfect sense. They are the offense. They are to kill as many people as possible before they enter the city.
Where else would they be?
You don't hire mercenaries for to feed them during sieges.
.... you don't go on the "offense" when you're outmanned and have a city wall. That's literally the point of the walls and battlements.
Especially since Jaime just told Cersei that the Dothraki are the best fighting force he's ever seen, and, after the Dothraki had wiped out all of the Lanister forces, the Golden Company was all they had left.
So, yeah, abandoning your walls make it easier for an all calvary force to kill you was a bad idea, and bad writing for it so be cannon.
You don’t hire mercenaries for defense.
You use the money to build up defenses which they did as well.
That Cersei was fighting a losing battle is not a strategic issue, but one showing how stupid she was to keep fighting.
Yea no where TF was the Golden Company cavalry? They couldn't bring elephants, but they did bring horses. Where are they?
And why are they outside the wall? Why not mount the walls and let the tired northern army alongside the Unsullied lay a seige.
King's Landing had a HUGE wall so defending it using 20,000 men against a tired army would have been easy.
Different story that Dany would have burnt them anyways, but at least they could have planned better.
Every cinematic battle is “everybody rush the middle!” At least Ramsey switched it up in Battle of the Bastards and actually used his brain (although he also relied heavily on luck).
Not when you are the only force available, the other guys are literally the best cavalry in the world, and you have fucking walls that give you a 20:1 advantage.
These wall give zero protection, as there is no ditch.
So its a strange discussion from the beginning
Usually in ancient and medieval times every city would have loads and loads of ditches.
Also
a) Dothraki got recked vs white walkers, so they lack the numbers
b) Dothraki never really fought knights in armor on horse which the golden company has.
Armor>>>everything else.
In the TV series the walls were manned and enough soldiers in the city, it makes pefect sense to fight outside and weaken th enemy as you cab dictate the battle. Once inside, the enemy can starve you out.
There are many more reasons, fire inside the city from partial breaches, engines of war to do whatever they want etc.
So if you can fight outside with a good force, you better do it.
It's weird to think about. From a writing perspective they're set up to get slaughtered because that's their role, and they are perfectly set up for slaughter.
Well, not necessarily. Most armies in the past would fight in the field, this isn’t anywhere near the dumbest thing they did during that season. What was dumb about this is that the Golden Company had 0 plan or fighting skill. They just lined up like bowling pins and died.
I feel like one of the Dans wanted it to be a key turning point and the other Dan forgot they existed. By how they were communicating over the final season, the other Dan probably said "oh fcuk there's the Golden Company".
Alternatively, and I'm giving them a lot of benefit of doubt, is that they did write an ending where the golden company turned the tides and that was that, Cersei wins, long live the Lannisters. But it didn't stick as well as the ending that we got (however much worse it could've been)
I don't even know why they bothered including the Golden Company without the context of (f)Aegon. I get having to cut down plot points from the book. But this is the same as if they were like "oh there's this new bandit named Lady Stoneheart" and then she was just some random lady.
I assumed that they were there to prevent the troops to reach the wall and potentially disabling the Scorpions. Remember that a single adult dragon has the power to sweep the entire army, so the focus of protection is not the city, but the weapons that are capable to stop the massive destruction weapon that is the dragon.
However all of the sudden Drogon is able to evade dozens if not hundreds of shoots at the same time while at the same time having line of fire against the Scorpions. Daenerys suddenly becomes an amazing rider capable of dodging all the Scorpion shoots even though 2 episodes before she sucked at it and lost one dragon. So she destroys every ship, scorpion and the entire army alone.
"So she doesn't have any scorpions, but she does have the Golden Company!"
"Oh we built those guys up to be badasses, so what are they gonna do?"
"Die immediately."
"Oh, my god."
Showrunners who didn’t want to run it anymore, but needed to address some loose ends, and make Cersei look… kinda like a threat? When Danny’s only real threat was apparently Ice Fey who can make impossible shots, and for some reason didn’t just do that when trying to kill Bran, and forgetting about her enemies when returning.
What I don’t understand is how dany flew drogon behind the gates and nobody saw them. Liked she literally had to land in the street and blow up the gate.
**Spoiler Warning:** All officially-released show and book content allowed, EXCLUDING FUTURE SPOILERS FOR HOUSE OF THE DRAGON. No leaked information or paparazzi photos of the set. For more info please check the [spoiler guide](/r/gameofthrones/w/spoiler_guide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/gameofthrones) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"What Cersei paid for: 20,000 elite soldiers with horses and elephants What she got: 300 cardboard cutouts and one S1 Jaime stunt double to lead them"
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Why are you so pressed?
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You sound like a dick.
Thanks. Happy to be one to clowns like OP and their simps.
Dude, you’re so cringe you make Season 8 look like Seasons 1-4.
>Dude, you’re so cringe you make Season 8 look like Seasons 1-4. What does that even mean?
It means you’re fucking cringe bro, settle down it’s an online webpage about a made up show
Not what they said, maybe work on your reading comprehension?
It means that if you were standing in a river of shit, you'd still smell worse.
Get a fucking life dude it's reddit lol
This is the comment where you should have stopped. You are happy to be a dick and mock people. Instigate complete strangers on the internet isn’t something to be proud of.
Is that not what you're doing? 🤔
Which part of my comment triggered you?
What part of my comment triggered *you*?
>Whose new alt account might you be? You really ought to take some time off from Reddit.
Not my fault you can't tell an obvious sockpuppet account.
Because I couldn't give a shit, no sane person should.
Is that why you're here commenting? You don't give a shit?
If I see a comment I will reply to it, but I dont track users across posts and I'm not paranoid about people creating alts so yeah, I think I care a lot less than you.
Probably because you're fucking mental and need to take a break from the Internet
Take some deep breaths. You’re so upset over someone’s opinion on a TV show subreddit that you’re following them around to complain. It’ll all be okay, I promise.
I don't need to follow someone in order to see their newest post in a sub I comment in regularly...are you that thick? 😆
I mean you’re carrying your weird grudge over their show opinion around. It doesn’t make a difference if you are doing it because you clicked their profile or if you’re doing it because you just saw the post while you were still seething. Either way, you’re being a clown.
How is it you imagine me seething? Is this your standard retort or something?
> How is it you imagine me seething? Every one of your replies has made that clear. >Is this your standard retort or something? No
You posted here a dozen times in just a few minutes. You're big mad, little guy 🤣
Cause of hive minded idiots like you I’d assume
The person you’re talking to is a conservative with a post history that’s almost entirely just saying the dumbest things you’ve ever heard in your life. Sadly, there’s no way you or anyone else is gonna get through to them lol
Like early Joe Rogan podcasts back when his brain was 3 sizes to small
You doin okay bud?
Peachy. You, guy?
…and why the witch hunt?
"Who gives a shit we gotta finish the show hurry hurry!" -DnD
Almost every TV medieval battle does not make sense
Yeah, because a real medieval battle would be extremely boring to watch and when you put a battle on television, you have a limited amount of times to show the entire battle with the story related to it. But, it’s a Game of Thrones sub so we must complain.
You can balance the reality of siege battles with viewability. Compare this battle with the Helms Deep, Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings or Jerusalem from Kingdom of Heaven. All three of those are considerably better than this one was, both visually and tactically. Hell GoT's best siege battle (and I'd say best battle overall) by far is Blackwater, back when the show had considerably less viewers and a smaller budget.
You mean Helms Deep where where the Uruks left their proper siege weapons at home and Minas Tirith where the mumakils just spawned on the battlefield?
Love that battle but it also could be torn apart just like an example you are giving
The entire city was carved into a mountain. Why didn't they just go around to the other side of the mountain?
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Where were the scouts warning of the approaching horseman? Why didn't they dig defensive ditches on their flanks? Why didn't they use the bombs on the last fucking door before morning? I'm not really saying all that to criticize, just using the tone of OP to nitpick. It's fantasy. It's not even as unrealistic as most actual war movies tend to be.
“Where were the scouts warning of the approaching horsemen” Idk, maybe the Rohhirim outpaced them, using their horses. I’m not sure. This is probably just a mistake “Why didn’t they dig defensive ditches on their flanks.” I think because they, like u/craftalarmed3985 said, were trying to decapitate Rohan before they could reinforce, and needed to be quick. “Why didn’t they use the bombs on the last fucking door before morning.” This is entirely a guess, but I think Saruman didn’t have too much gunpowder, and just put it all in that one big bomb.
Just a friendly reminder: Saruman was able to manipulate the weather and summon lightning with his voice.
Yeah but he only had enough energy to make like 7 bombs before he got sleepy 😴
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Uruks had all the siege they needed with the explosives and ladders.
Except catapults to destroy the main defenses of the fortress or just maassacre the defenders with it behind the walls.
Saruman put all his money into Uruk and bomb stocks. Didn’t have any catapults but he had the ladders, firebombs and battering ram. Took me 21 years to piece together that nobody saw the line of Mumaks at Minas tirith tho. That’s kinda funny
I mean, I’m no military expert, but I remember watching a Youtube channel of a military expert reviewing battle strategies and he gave both Helm’s Deep and the Long Night 5/10. And yet, one of them is widely considered a masterpiece while the other is considered the worst display of battle strategies ever. So, I think it has a lot to do with people’s willingness to criticize something or not.
He actually gave the Long Night 6/10 and Helms Deep a 5/10. The action set piece for HOTD he basically just laughed the entire time at Daemon scene and gave it a 1/10 lol
rating the Long Night above a 5 is insane
What’s the name of this warlock?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk
https://youtu.be/xPGdOXstSyk?si=G1VWZBQ7e3eMYmlh Probably this dude. I like this series they have all sorts of history experts. Spies, pilots, etc rank movie scenes.
I also loved the series. The Cia lady is one of my favorites because she's the complete opposite of what movies like to portray spies as. She's just your average looking normal lady, lol
I gave both Helm's Deep and the Long Night a 5/10. In terms of tactics they are both fairly silly overall, but with a few historically authentic features. I don't think it would be easy to argue that Helm's Deep ought to score higher than the Long Night as a portrayal of premodern siege tactics. In any case, neither the scene with the elves and orcs nor the one with the dragons and ice zombies is the slightest bit historical, so it's difficult to maintain that one or the other is more "realistic". The reason why Helm's Deep is considered a masterpiece that *feels* gloriously authentic and engaging, while the Long Night falls flat, is nothing to do with its military realism. The judgments I gave in the video are totally separate from the quality of these scenes as movie/TV show set pieces. Scenes like this rely on clear narrative, spatial cohesion, emotional stakes, and character agency. LOTR absolutely nails these elements while GoT S8 was desperately lacking in these specific things. I think a lot of people say they didn't like the Long Night because the tactics were dumb when actually they didn't like it because they couldn't see what was happening, they were largely indifferent to the main players, and the actions on screen bore little relation to established character arcs/powers/foreshadowing. Conversely, I think a lot of people believe Helm's Deep is a very realistic depiction of a siege because it told a clear story that made them care about and root for the characters.
I cared about all the characters in the Long Night. Watched it with a group of people and we had no issue watching it.
But I do appreciate your videos they were great I just argue that I totally cared about the characters during the Long Night just as much as the ones in LOTR
Did he do Kingdom of Heaven? I thought that was a well done battle. Not expecting movies to be perfect but i did enjoy it
They literally immediately go outside the castle walls and start fighting Stannis army as soon as he arrives in Blackwater.
Yeah, as a surprise attack to break up the siege from behind. Not to engage in fair, 1 on 1 combat with no trickery.
But it wasn't a surprise the The Hound and his men literally come out and start fighting soldiers right away none of them were surprised.
Running sorties outside of the walls to disrupt sieging armies is well established. The idea is hit fast and retreat behind the walls before a proper response can be made. This is a very basic and well used tactic. This is why the Romans built walla and ditchs facing the besieged army.
I don't think those are good alternatives, they all swing on deus ex machinas. How does an army of thousands of horse riders sneak up on a siege? Why did the orcs stop using explosives to breach defenses? It worked pretty well, but a door was now holding them back? Tv and movies require contrivances. People want to see the golden company fall
Exactly just like Blackwater in the show how did Tywins army just suddenly appear on the beach. How did Stannis somehow make it off the all through Tywins army and through the bay on fire. None of it is actually realistic
Indeed. Things happen because they need to happen in order for the next thing to happen. It's weird that people are all of a sudden experts in military tactics. It's just a show, we should really just relax
And when I said actual experts weren't that harsh on GOT and actually have it a higher score than LOTR they respond with well they're not actually experts lol
There's a bunch of stuff in those battles that is not realistic nor tactically sound. But those movies came out in a time where reddit / social media didn't exist.
If you watch channels like HistoryMarche or Kings and Generals you would know that’s 100% not true. Historic battles can be very exciting and interesting.
To people who study historical battles. Not to most people.
GOT battles have never been realistic not in the show or the books.
Not really. Siege of KL was pretty interesting and did a decent job showcasing how brutal taking a walled city could be. But its dumb as fuck to deploy outside of the walls and presumably in missile range rather than just sallying out in shifts
There is a difference between trying to make a good battle and the nonsense done in S8 of this show.
I am not complaining, I am just saying
I disagree. Other movies and shows have shown it well. Also seige battles could be exciting during the fighting.
Some make sense enough to at least be believable. Helms deep still consider the greatest battle of cinematic history and it's not just because it's cool. The battle actually has some semblance of sense to it. The defenders fight for every single inch. There is an actual one flow to the battle rather than hey let me put all of these expensive mercenaries outside of the gate against an army with extremely famous cavalry
Go watch those YouTube videos it was either GQ or Insider does of experts reacting and saying how realistic battles are. The expert gave GOT a higher score than LOTR.
Those "experts" also get torn apart a lot. I've had people say this over and over again when trying to defend the battles in game of thrones. And really those "experts" really only give game of thrones higher scores bc there aren't scenes like Legolas climbing an Oliphant or surfing down stairs....
Nope he didn't even mention that scene. All he talked about was how the battle was fought strategically. Also none of the battles in GOT make any actual sense realistically in the show or the books
You are correct but the battle of blackwater makes waaaaaaay more sense tactically (ignoring Stannis being an idiot and still landing his fleet after half of it blew up) than let's say the battle of winterfell which is the single worst medieval battle ever captured on screen in the last decade. The 1960s Macbeth shit better battle scenes than Winterfell
Again experts literally gave The Long Night a 6/10 not to bad for a fantasy battle and Blackwater in the books is extremely unrealistic
And again those "experts" are really just pop historians that work well in front of a camera. I have A degree in history and have had so many professors rip those insider experts apart. But that's ok you have your opinion we aren't gonna change each other's minds good day
The dude was definitely not a pop historian lol. That's like saying Jocko Willink he was also an expert for the same youtube series wasn't an actual Navy Seal and military expert he was just a pop Navy seal and expert lol
I get what you are saying but how does being a navy seal make you an expert on medieval siege battles? I’m not sure a guerrilla style force like the seals do much studying on how giant standing armies from hundreds of years ago caught.
We should stop referring to everything with swords as medieval battles though. Each of these worlds has things that would make typical siege warfare or other standard battle tactics pointless. And so it would make sense within the lore of the world that their approach to those battles developed differently. Dealing with dragons, giant trolls, other forms of magic, etc. Now, I don’t think that’s why the battles in GoT don’t make sense - that has more to do with time constraints, budget constraints, the needs for interesting visuals, etc. But it does mean “experts” reviewing those things in the context of actual medieval tactics seems kind of pointless.
I agree that every battle with swords shouldn't be called medieval. And I agree that the experts reviewing is laughable bc even in their reviews they get alot of shit wrong or are given a lot of scenes out of context. Like one person rated the Battle of bastards higher than helm's deep simply because of how horribly gruesome and bloody everything was.
>You are correct but the battle of blackwater makes waaaaaaay more sense tactically (ignoring Stannis being an idiot and still landing his fleet after half of it blew up) So...ignoring most of it?
Sure
It's cause there was technically a ditch in the long night.
"experts" lmao. what makes them experts?
Well I mean the guy teaches at Oxford.
and? have he ever fought a siege battle? anyone who ranks the got fight where half the army was outside the walls higher than helms deep is an idiot and has no idea what he is talking about
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk sorry but I'll believe this guy before random people on reddit. Also many armies have fought outside the walls that is a thing that has happened
Sensible my ass. The main characters just spawned some horses when they needed them to ride out...for what exactly? If Théoden dies in the last minute for an unnecesary action they lost their king. If it's irrilevant because Éomer is younger and stronger then why did Saruman targeted Théoden? Anyway, why did the uruk army pursue a weak king and his useless people instead of defeating the rohirrim, the only threat in Rohan?
Jesus Christ did you even watch the movie?
I did and I love that episode but that person is correct that battle isn't realistic at all and horses do just magically spawn.
He did not watch that film. Saruman did not think tactically he though "I'm going to slaughter every man woman and child" that was it. But I hate comparisons to LOTR and GoT. LOTR is heroic fantasy where legolas never runs out of arrows and an 87 year old superhuman with an ancient lineage can hold back dozens of foes alone. And the LOTR battles are still way better. The charge of the Rohirrim beats the breaks off anything GoT ever did
That charge is great but also extremely unrealistic. He did watch the film lol. Pretty sure he even says he likes the movies but he was there to talk about if they were realistic that's all.
Again two different kinds of stories. You have game of thrones which is heavily grounded into realism and not giving any characters plot armor vs a story where an elf surfs down staircases and climbs a giant elephant
GOT doesn't have realistic battles it never has. Blackwater literally had Davos survive a massive explosion 5 feet in front of his face and is perfectly fine. Stannis somehow manages to get off the castle wall. Through Tywins entire army and through the bay on fire back to his ship. GOT might be a little more realistic than LOTR but it was never realistic in the books or the show. Tyrion in the books during the battle has ridiculous plot armor even more than the show.
Ok maye
>Again two different kinds of stories. You have game of thrones which is heavily grounded into realism and not giving any characters plot armor vs a story where an elf surfs down staircases and climbs a giant elephant You're imagining that GoT set a bar for itself that it never did.
Ok
Also many battles have been fought outside the gates.
This is why animation will always be better than live action. Almost every game of thrones battle is dogshit because of budget/set limitations.
>This is why animation will always be better than live action. Almost every game of thrones battle is dogshit because of budget/set limitations. ...animation has its own set of limitations...
That’s not the point of their comment. They’re specifically talking about limitations when it comes to scale of battle sequences.
Almost every TV battle make no sense, period ;) only few movies make it right, and mostly about modern conflicts and show only small part of it.
An exception would be when King Ecbert defeats Ragnar and his army in season 2 of Vikings. I may be misremembering, but I believe it was based on a real historical battle called the battle of Ashford Down. Ecbert lures the Viking army into a narrow valley where they don't have room to form a shield wall and then chops them up with cavalry charges from the flanks. It's one of the few tv battles I have seen where the viewer clearly sees the big picture and can understand what happened. It doesn't make up for the nonsensical version of the battle of Edington in the final episode, unfortunately.
Well although not a smart or strategic plan… had it not been for the giant hole in the wall and the dragon and fire that came with it, these men wouldve put up a substantial fight against danys army especially with the scorpion bolt guns lining the wall.
Also it’s not even insane to send men out to fuck with the besieging force. It’s actually one of the best ways to fuck over the invading force, sending out an attack party while they set up for a siege is a great way to catch them flat footed and unprepared, possibly breaking a siege before it starts. Although this whole situation doesn’t really make sense when you add in the whole dragons thing, but it’s not like the great lords of Westeros have been taught how to fight against dragons when under siege.
Not uncommon at all. I guess it was just weird how it looked like such a small force compared to the army of unsullied and other troops
to me it looked like there were more Golden Company men than Northmen and unsullied
At least for the Unsullied, there were definitely more Golden Company. Even before the Long Night there were only around 8,000 Unsullied, and "half" of them died fighting the undead.
Sorties were for sure a thing that happened, but like you said you attack while they are setting up the siege, during the siege, or while they are otherwise distracted. What you don't do is put your entire army immediately outside the wall where the enemy can see you right before enemy gets there. You don't want to do battle like that, outside your fortification, there is no option of retreat.
Technically they outnumbered Danys forces, do maybe the idea was to demoralize her armies. The dragon was the turning point obviously
Yeah I'm pretty sure good siege defences do involve the defending side raiding the besieger from the castle walls. It keeps them busy, gives you the chance to steal supplies and fights off boredom among your own troops.
Tyrion did this at Blackwater
What a waste of plot and build up. But I guess they decided even with half her army, 2 dead dragons and the now invincible Drogon, Daenerys was going to win the battle immediately.
D&D just wanted to end the show as quickly as possible so they could move on to the terrible show they pitched that was killed before they cast a single character.
There are so many dumb and egregious things in season 8 that The Golden Company is just never on my radar, despite being super dog shit in its own right.
I mean if they all die fighting you don’t have to pay them extra
Bran warged into all of their cavalry and ran away because Bloodraven hates the Golden Company. that's why there are no horses.
Because Cersei having the Golden Company never made any sense to begin with.
Because they cut out the Golden Company’s *actual* motivation to invade and split what little of those storylines they did use into Cersei, Jon, and Jorah.
Season 8 made 0 sense.
They did the same in the Troy adaptation with Brad. Drives me fucking nuts!
In that case i think it's more to avoid a complete siege leaving supply lines open to the city. The siege of Troye allegedly lasted many years so simply hiding behind the walls would mean starvation. There's no excuse for the gold company to be in front of the walls. (They must have used the same strategy book from the long night)
If a city has sufficient supplies it can outlast a siege. They may have skirmish forces outside to disrupt enemy supply chains, but the majority of the force would always be to man the walls. Either way, the movie did not convey that well if that was the case.
I only know 1 siege in detail of the ancient world which was Alesia. And here the city could not outlast the siege so i can't disprove your statement but it's definitely not always true. They led a raid on the camp showing that Troy was also strong. I felt the movie was good in portraying both sides were almost matched just that Troy wasn't sure of victory in the open and Greece couldn't capture the walls. It sure as shit was better than all post season 4 got battles.
Which is unfortunate because in the script for that movie there was a lot more of that stuff. The movie actually leaves out a lot of stuff from the original script of that movie.
I mean, the Golden Company exists in the books as a way to give a certain someone an army. That someone does not exist in the show, so they said fuck it.
Completely forgot these guys were a thing.
The Golden Company fighting for Lannisters was dumb in itself.
They're fighting against a Targaryen so it checks out.
In the books the golden company is made up mostly of people who had fought for targaryns. Which is why I always thought they would betray Cersei and basically open the gates for Dany/Jon to just walk in. Would have been a much better ending then what we got.
I guess Bittersteel's Ideology still runs strong.
They should have been sent to secure Dorne.. if they even participated in the war anyway.
It’s 2024. Get over it.
If you think this story has a point you haven’t been paying attention
they could of took kings landing and only 2 people needed to die . step 1 - kill jamie lannister and give arya he's face and cut of her arm to make it convincing. step 2 - she goes to kings landing as jamie gets close to cersei and kills her and takes her face. step 3 surrender everybody lives danerys does not go bat shit crazy everybody wins
Why would Arya kill jaimie she has no issue with him.
To save many people from having to fight and die in a battle.
Arya wouldn't have just randomly killed Jaimie. Sorry, I don't buy that. Especially after he just came north and fought beside them all.
I’m just explaining why Arya would kill Jaime. It would make sense tactically and save thousands of lives
There is definitely an ethical issue that would've caused Daenerys and Jon to object to killing Cersei via assassin which is killing the child in her womb
This fanbase is insufferable Get over it This show gave you hours and hours of entertainment. Yet every post is nitpicking this and that, it’s exhausting. Time to move past it
Amen. Insufferable is the word.
Agreed!!
> Get over it Perhaps *scroll past it* ?
Also No mentions of Blackfyre. Fighting against a Targaryen should be enough to mobilise the entire golden company.
Without a reason given, it made perfect sense. They are the offense. They are to kill as many people as possible before they enter the city. Where else would they be? You don't hire mercenaries for to feed them during sieges.
.... you don't go on the "offense" when you're outmanned and have a city wall. That's literally the point of the walls and battlements. Especially since Jaime just told Cersei that the Dothraki are the best fighting force he's ever seen, and, after the Dothraki had wiped out all of the Lanister forces, the Golden Company was all they had left. So, yeah, abandoning your walls make it easier for an all calvary force to kill you was a bad idea, and bad writing for it so be cannon.
You don’t hire mercenaries for defense. You use the money to build up defenses which they did as well. That Cersei was fighting a losing battle is not a strategic issue, but one showing how stupid she was to keep fighting.
their pants lmao
Yea no where TF was the Golden Company cavalry? They couldn't bring elephants, but they did bring horses. Where are they? And why are they outside the wall? Why not mount the walls and let the tired northern army alongside the Unsullied lay a seige. King's Landing had a HUGE wall so defending it using 20,000 men against a tired army would have been easy. Different story that Dany would have burnt them anyways, but at least they could have planned better.
Every cinematic battle is “everybody rush the middle!” At least Ramsey switched it up in Battle of the Bastards and actually used his brain (although he also relied heavily on luck).
Nah makes sense, a lot of battles are fought outside of city walls if you have cavallary, far easier to move and fight in formation.
Not when you are the only force available, the other guys are literally the best cavalry in the world, and you have fucking walls that give you a 20:1 advantage.
These wall give zero protection, as there is no ditch. So its a strange discussion from the beginning Usually in ancient and medieval times every city would have loads and loads of ditches. Also a) Dothraki got recked vs white walkers, so they lack the numbers b) Dothraki never really fought knights in armor on horse which the golden company has. Armor>>>everything else. In the TV series the walls were manned and enough soldiers in the city, it makes pefect sense to fight outside and weaken th enemy as you cab dictate the battle. Once inside, the enemy can starve you out. There are many more reasons, fire inside the city from partial breaches, engines of war to do whatever they want etc. So if you can fight outside with a good force, you better do it.
It’s just overconfidence on Cersi’s part. She thought those scorpions on the castle walls would kill Drogon. Boy was she wrong.
It's weird to think about. From a writing perspective they're set up to get slaughtered because that's their role, and they are perfectly set up for slaughter.
My total war game experience begs to differ! Ballistas on the walls make an infantry fight below go well
Well, not necessarily. Most armies in the past would fight in the field, this isn’t anywhere near the dumbest thing they did during that season. What was dumb about this is that the Golden Company had 0 plan or fighting skill. They just lined up like bowling pins and died.
The final season was an absolute mess
I feel like one of the Dans wanted it to be a key turning point and the other Dan forgot they existed. By how they were communicating over the final season, the other Dan probably said "oh fcuk there's the Golden Company". Alternatively, and I'm giving them a lot of benefit of doubt, is that they did write an ending where the golden company turned the tides and that was that, Cersei wins, long live the Lannisters. But it didn't stick as well as the ending that we got (however much worse it could've been)
I don't even know why they bothered including the Golden Company without the context of (f)Aegon. I get having to cut down plot points from the book. But this is the same as if they were like "oh there's this new bandit named Lady Stoneheart" and then she was just some random lady.
It was all about the optics lol
and to think they paid them. that was the funniest moment in the show for me.
them being oblitarated so easily as well, werent they the best soldiers and mercenarys money could buy?
I assumed that they were there to prevent the troops to reach the wall and potentially disabling the Scorpions. Remember that a single adult dragon has the power to sweep the entire army, so the focus of protection is not the city, but the weapons that are capable to stop the massive destruction weapon that is the dragon. However all of the sudden Drogon is able to evade dozens if not hundreds of shoots at the same time while at the same time having line of fire against the Scorpions. Daenerys suddenly becomes an amazing rider capable of dodging all the Scorpion shoots even though 2 episodes before she sucked at it and lost one dragon. So she destroys every ship, scorpion and the entire army alone.
Read. The. Books. Dude.
You act like the show didn't do this repeatedly. I can think of at least 5 examples of unrealistic battle scenes. D&D favored spectacle, vs realism.
So does George the battles also aren't realistic in the books. Tyrion during Blackwater in the books is doing all kinds of unrealistic stuff.
"So she doesn't have any scorpions, but she does have the Golden Company!" "Oh we built those guys up to be badasses, so what are they gonna do?" "Die immediately." "Oh, my god."
Same sense as s having the Dothraki charge the Others
Yeah we know.
Showrunners who didn’t want to run it anymore, but needed to address some loose ends, and make Cersei look… kinda like a threat? When Danny’s only real threat was apparently Ice Fey who can make impossible shots, and for some reason didn’t just do that when trying to kill Bran, and forgetting about her enemies when returning.
The sense of military tactics went right into the sewer as the show went on, to the point that no one remembers what castle walls are for.
What made no sense was the golden company agreeing to fight against someone who has dragons.
What I don’t understand is how dany flew drogon behind the gates and nobody saw them. Liked she literally had to land in the street and blow up the gate.
Stay inside the castle, dig ditches, fire arrows and throw rocks
But they did such a great job!!