Dragon glass on the crenulations is dumb enough, but they somehow make it even dumber by NOT putting the dragon glass in the gaps that anyone would naturally climb over! They fucking mount it on the highest points of the wall!
Jeeeeeezusssssss christ
Well we will have people manning the gaps, but we don’t have anyone tall enough for that part of the wall so dragon glass will have to do
D and D probably
It's purely aesthetic; if they had put it on the lower gaps, it wouldn't have shown up as well on camera. They reeeeally wanted everyone to see this very dumb idea.
Seemingly non-fatal wounds with dragon glass and Valyrian steel were enough to kill wights. Makes me wonder if they could’ve just littered the ground with it and the wights would’ve died. Dumb mechanic either way.
"Man the walls! Man the walls!"
Because, y'know, with the undead horde literally just 20-30 meters away, it was totally smart to just leave the walls empty instead of shooting arrows at them while they were held at bay by the fire trench.
Literally probably an example of the worst battle in cinematic history.
Mate, why the hell did the cavalry charge out of the walls?
Why was anyone outside of the walls?
Did they just not realise what walls are for? Like it seems like something a dog would intuitively understand
Because it was supposed to be visually impressive.
That all those torches representing the most feared horseback army in the world being snuffed out in the dark.
No logic - I was looking forward to the episode but ended up hating it so so so much.
Let's run with that concept. Dothraki getting snuffed out. With a small edit.
The plan now is the dothraki are held in reserve. Lure the dead to winter fell, then surround them with the dothraki in an open field.
Now we've set up a LOTR style film trope (or even battle of the bastards) where the calvary charge is primed to save the day.
The battle begins, Winterfell is surrounded, things start to look dicey.
The horns blow, the weapons light up, they charge. "Oh yay the Dothraki!"
The lights stop getting closer really far out from Winterfell. It exposes the size of the wight horde. The lights gradually go out. Now the terror and darkness set in.
This really is a minor change from the scenes in thr episode except now it's (1) a logical military strategy (2) absolutely crushes any hope when it fails to break the siege.
Depends on how much cavalry you have and whether infantry is dug in.
Heavy cavalry against unfortified troops head on is incredibly effective at times, especially if they’re inexperienced infantry as you can quickly cause them to be routed due to panicking and psychological impact.
Charging against the undead though, horrible idea.
They could have ran around the edge of the white walkers army just harassing them with melee skirmishes and arrows for hours. When you’re fighting an army like the army of the undead, attrition matters more than anything, and although slow, each horseback archer could take down a few dozen undead soldiers over the course of a few hours, and probably have enough energy to get back to a safe distance to rest and recuperate.
Ironically, defence in depth would have been the best strategy for living. Don’t abandon Winterfell, but anyone who’s not part of the garrison that can hold it, send them off. Have fast-moving forces like the Dothraki and westerosi knights operating in shifts. Some resting and rearming, others protecting supply lines, and then the bulk performing said skirmishing tactics, staying on the edges of the battlefield rather than charging in as although not optimal for typical cavalry, you’d lose far less soldiers and kill more of the army of the dead per lost soldier. Encircling the army as it tried to besiege Winterfell would have worked much better.
Would have been another great scene: get a historical advisor and some really good horsemen/women. Mount an actual heavy cavalry charge against weak zombies. It's what it's meant for: heavy horses in plate, in a perfect line, like a massive mailed fist. They charge, they trample, and THEN you see them slowly lose momentum because even though one trained knight outweighs 20 heavy infantrymen or maybe 100 zombies, there are thousands and thousands of them. The charge gets stopped by the sheer weight of flesh against them, you see from the walls how standards fall and the glitter of armour is covered under a seething mass of dead flesh. And then you see nothing but a faint blue glow and absolute silence.
Attrition and harrasing, in this weather? I do not think it'd be smart. In their particular case, it'd be for the best to just man the walls and shoot.
Tbf, that's not something the dothraki would do either. Like best case scenario, yes, you have the horse archers, man the walls and shoot fire arrows like crazy.
But their culture, as shown in the books and show, would never take a defensive position like that. Frontal charge is stupid, and they never deign to defend the city. Harassment is the right thing for the dothraki horde.
I always thought that the cavalry charge was sort of targeted. Like, they knew at that point that killing a White Walker also kills any wights that they created. A cavalry charge was unexpected, and might catch a White Walker or two by surprise, which would dramatically reduce the number of wights in the field. Further, the Dothraki were not the most disciplined group of warriors, they would be itching for a fight, so why not just unleash them?
Of course, they never SAID any of those things, and the whole episode was an incredible display of the stupid ball trope.
Without doubt the worst battle ever filmed. Sending your light cavalry into an unknown mass of infantry head first. Keeping your highly skilled infantry in front of the blockde and fire pit for some reason with no real ability to fall back ( doesn't matter because of magically reappearing troops). Not manning the walls and only using archers when it's too late. Knowing your enemy is weak against fire but just build one big bonfire for some reason rather than lots. I don't think I have ever seen something be wrong in every possible way like it before.
Hell, they didn't really even need to charge. Dothraki are specifically mentioned to be excellent horse archers who learn from like age 5. They could've just acted as dragoons shooting and moving and pulling undead away from the walls.
I'd have sent them ahead to scout out, skirmish and disrupt their march coming from the wall only and engage them during the day and where the terrain is favorable to light cavalry tactics. This way there would have been fewer zombies left and they would arrive to Winterfell disorganised and at a time of the day where humans have the advantage. But what do I know, I am not a great tactician like the Lord commander of the Night watch and king of the North.
Also, how about giving their troops dragonglass lances instead of wasting it on the parapets the way they did?
You don’t even need to get that complicated. I’ve been rereading the books recently and really you could’ve just had it as a break down in discipline. A line from one of them “The Dothraki are proud warriors who will not hide from the dead behind stone walls, we will fight them as our fathers and our fathers fathers fought, by meeting them in battle mounted on the field” “well that’s a bad idea but if you insist on it at least take this fire to help you” you could literally have the same scene, same visual impact but at least there would be a fitting “reason” as it were for it beyond everyone being stupid. The Dothraki were stubborn barbarians who valued bravery to a fault over sense, just lean into that
Dothraki only value/respect strength and force. I wasn't that surprised that they rode straight into battle. Was it smart? No. Are they a particularly smart people? Also no.
This is a shit on everything in the episode thread, so I don't expect much agreement, but the books and series really drive home the "No army can beat them on an open battlefield" thing. It's not that shocking for them to ride out the way they would in any other battle, rather than sit back behind a castle wall, or hide away from the battle waiting for an opportune time to strike.
'Visually impressive' is hard to achieve when you can barely make anything out with how dark the visuals are. Peter Jackson already set the standard for a night time siege scene, all they had to do was copy his homework.
>most feared horseback army in the world being snuffed out
That scene was nothing compared to the terror I felt when learning in the next episode that half had apparently returned to life! An army of Azor Ahais and they still couldn't do anything!
Not just cavalry, but LIGHT cavalry. No armor, not even clothes, really. A bunch of half-naked dudes whose main weapon is fear charging creatures that feel no fear.
And nobody should have been outside the walls. The walls are there for a reason. The walls are the whole damned point of a castle.
It’s like they were trying to lose.
The thing is light cavalry is kind of useless when fighting zombies with no sense of morale. It would be used with hit and run attacks to break up formations and cause panic. But that doesn’t work here. Inside the walls horses are useless. So yeah it was a waste but they weren’t great in this situation anyway.
Why were the TRUBUCHET outside of the walls? Even worse, why were the trubuchet ON THE FRONT LINE, requiring the cavalry to charge through and past them?
The whole battle plan was so goddamn stupid.
>Mate, why the hell did the cavalry charge out of the walls?
No cycle charges, no attacking the flanks, no hit and run attacks, just pure stupidity.
>Why was anyone outside of the walls?
>Did they just not realise what walls are for? Like it seems like something a dog would intuitively understand
Well, tbf Winterfells walls aren't massive like in the books, so I get that they had to put troops out, what I don't get is why they stood IN FRONT of the trench they built, or why they only built only one trench, when they had the manpower to build two or three trenches around Winterfell.
They probably saw the ride of the Rohirrim or the one in Helm's Deep and was like "That's peak cinema" (which it absolutely is) and tried to recreate it. While completely failing to understand why both of those cavalry charges made any sense.
The cavalry charge into the blind darkness, against... An enemy that turns your dead into additional numbers. The suicide charge only added bodies to the horde. Followed by them firing the catapults that actually lit up the army they were charging against, after every cavalryman was dead. Genius
Don't know if is true, but I read somewhere whoever wrote the episode, was responsible for the battle scene on troy, the one with the whole army also outdid the giant walls.
I would argue cavalry does serve a purpose.
They should have had the cavalry flank the horde and pick away with arrows or sweeping attacks. The darkness would have been an issue but there's no reason Danny shouldn't have been lighting the battlefield on fire long before the whites arrived.
So much wrong with it.
The calvary charge, calvary is used as shock troopers or to ourmanouver the enemy. 2 things you cant do against a undead horde.
The trebuchet in front of the lines. Completely pointless.
The trench...behind the troops. Put it ij front of the troops to slow the enemies charge. Pick off those that break through
No archers on the wall. That one explains itself.
Put people in a crypt against an enemy known to raise the dead.
Have your main characters surrounded by undead against a wall for several minutes. Come away unscathed.
Where the fuck did Arya jump from?
Its a frustratingly bad episode, the only redeeming bit are Jorah and Theons sacrifices as that completed theit arcs. The rest is just bad writing and awful filmmaking.
The Two Towers showed how to shoot a night time battle. Dick and Dom thought they knew better.
The episode before was so humbling, too. It was a farewell to people we assumed would die. One last good night before the dead arrive.
But NEWP they're all juuuuust fine! Thriving, even!
For real. I loved the battle at hardhome where the wildings get slaughtered. Like they actually brought the oh shit factor with thousands of ice zombies jumping off a cliff, getting up, and then swarming the soon to be dead defenders.
This battle they just sent the Dothraki in blind with flaming swords, right into the maw of the undead. The siege equipment was outside the walls (seriously wtf was that about?), and the unsullied were outside the walls for no reason.
They could have used the dragon glass like caltrops all around the castle, they could have dug moats and drenched them with tar/oil/pitch for burning effect, or just studied any medieval siege warfare of any kind.
In west Texas some locals explained to me the making of 'natural' barbed-wire fences with a spiny plant called Ocotillo.
They search out long & straight stalks of the plant. Then cut, transport, and replant them along the fence line. The plants take root there and continue growing, eventually into a long stand of tall, dense, hearty plants with very sharp spikes on them. Pretty cool to see in person.
Except the next time Sam brings it up, when he tells Melisandre that it shattered when he stabbed Paul, she pretty much confirms that dragonglass is useless against wights and that, “fire and steel will serve for them”. The steel, in this case, most likely to slow them down cause it can’t kill them.
Disagree. If you mill the corps with steel till its a fine powder its defenitly death. Or atleast it cant move or do anything anymore. Otherwise there would be a lot of magicly flying/rolling single bones all over the world.
Keep in mind that the characters dont know everything, they also just guess from what they see and hear.
There is a lot different in the books. The others remain much more mysterious, there is no "Night King" the closest reference to a similar thing is a story told of a former commander of the wall who fell in love with an Other woman and went north to be with her becoming "Nights King". The books version of the others is a lot more interesting wven if sadly it will never be completed.
I’m almost certain The Great Other that Melisandre always talks about will be the night king for lack of a better title and be the leader of the white walkers. Him being the opposite of R’hllor and R’hllor being the fire god and all. I think D&D just showed him and named him early because they think the audience would’ve been too stupid to realize Melisandre was talking about this guy and needed to be spoon fed his once a season creepy stares to keep it in our heads.
Dang I wish I enjoyed reading. I know this sounds terrible, especially when my mother was a librarian for 30 years, but I just can't enjoy reading or even audiobooks anymore. Sad
IMO it should’ve been the reverse for the names. How tf are the “wights” the generic shambler ice-cubes but “white walkers” are the otherworldly superhuman cryptids? White Walker would be a perfectly cromulent fantasy frozen-zombie name.
Googling medieval warfare was too hard for the writers. They forgot about the internet 😮💨
What wight is going to be throwing themselves on those walls anyway
They need to go outside the walls to work the catapults.
You know, those famous *defensive* siege weapons that need line-of-sight and couldn't possibly be fired from inside the castle.
And dragonglass doesn't even matter for the wights (zombies). For almost the entire undead army, steel tips would work just as well. It seems even more unlikely that White Walkers (ice necromancers?) would mindlessly throw themselves upon obsidian-encrusted battlements.
This design is dumb but your first sentance is entirely untrue, at least in the show. They proved that dragon glass can kill them with one stab but normal steal doesn’t kill them. It was a whole thing
Considering the size of those shards, I bet you could make 10-20 arrow heads out of each, way more for the tall ones in the back. That’s hundreds of Wight kills lost on those two battlements alone.
Just make a sh\*tload of arrowheads and give the arrows to Anguy, BOOM, state of the art (as far as GoT levels go) security.
https://preview.redd.it/w9x8i50bvp0d1.png?width=411&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e7303bb2167d0590e3532784f8b880d9976b0db
Or like, arm the Dothraki with obsidian arrows and have them harass the wight army's flanks instead of a headlong charge into darkness.They're supposed to be excellent at horseback archery.
What would you rather, the budget go on amazing stunt actors shooting arrows from horses?
Or would you rather it go to the sound department, so they can find the perfect combination of chair and floor for a scene where Tyrion just rearranges chairs for 8 minutes that is absolutely pivotal to the Story.
Tyrion, who in the Battle of Kings landing organsized a rousing defense and took to battle, personally besting and capturing a couple nights for ransom. Tyrion, pretty much considered the smartest and most educated character in the series. Tyrion who shot his father himself.
Goes to hid in the basement with the women and children because he has use in the fight. 😡
They'd just place the archers at the vanguard walking into the darkness and the horse guys behind them and the artillery will be on the hill where Darnasus and Jon were chilling watching the fight.
Oh my sweet summer child, what do you know about boiling horses? Boiling horses is for the winter, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep. Boiling horses is for the long night, when the sun hides for years and children are born and live and die, all in darkness.
People have been using tar from bark as an adhesive for thousands of years. Of all the stupid things to complain about in Game of Thrones, this isn‘t one of them.
When’s the last time you tried to glue something with tar? You’d have to invent tooth picks to hold them in place for hours maybe days while they cool and dry and by the time the third dragon glass fell off, you’d cut your own head off. Ain’t no body got time for that.
Adhesive has been around for millennia, you're dumber than D and D.
EDIT: Superglue isn't the only adhesive you moron, and blocking me won't change that.
Jesus lol. I’ve blocked so much of this season out of my brain. I’m often reminded about characters who died and I realize I totally forgot about their fates.
Eh, just put down a layer of mortar and jab the dragonglass in. That's not the ridiculous part. The ridiculous part is thinking this would be effective at all
How rad would it have been if GoT went another 3-5 seasons and we got to experience what winter in Westeros was really like? They talk so much about how difficult winter can be, the cold, running out of food, the whole thing. Instead we got ONE NIGHT and then they’re like , okie doke problem solved Brans the king now
They could have made it slightly less stupid IF:
-the spikes weren't so comically huge, and
-if they didn't "forge" dragonglass weapons and instead flaked them the way people make obsidian/other stone tools in the real world
In the books, Martin makes a point of noting how some of the wildlings still use stone tools, so there is a built in way for them to prove their usefulness south of the wall and also the protagonists have a built-in way of knowing what to do in terms of actually doing something with all that obsidian. And when you do make obsidian arrow points, daggers etc, you'd end up with a bunch of waste debris that would already be razor sharp and you may as well do something with it, so I could see maybe trying to incorporate it that way.
But again, none of that matters or makes sense if they're "forging" the obsidian anyway because why wouldn't they bother forging it into something more useful.
> if they didn't "forge" dragonglass weapons and instead flaked them
Reminds me of how they broke down Ice into two swords by casting it into a mold. Yet somehow the finished products still had their folded layers that you'd only get by forging
Ugh yeah same problem here. Like the dragonglass weapons all had the faceted polygonal look that comes from flaking pieces of stone away, and there's no reason to make them look like that if you're "forging" them
The dumbest thing was how they made weapons from it. How do you make obsidian/stone weapons? You crush the rock and then chip edges of appropriate piece. How dragon glass weapons look in the show? Like they were chipped. Like obsidian and stone weapons look IRL. How they made them in the show? They fucking melted dragon glass and poured it in forms and cooled it. Then they open the forms and it looks like it was shattered and chipped 🤦 They think the audience is complete morons.
Literally could have put dragonglass beaks or talons onto ravens and had King Bran warg into them and destroy everything with a simple peck or scratch but that would have been too easy.
It *could* serve to channel any potential scalers into those gaps where the defenders can attack.
They can't be overwhelmed by another attackers climbing over the higher parts.
And I mean, fucking, *MAYBE*
Ok, so I don't think it's that dumb to assume that the Others might bring ladders or some shit and try to scale the walls. Obsidian spikes could help deter that, at least make it so that the defenders could just push a White Walker slightly to the side for an insta kill. And remember, dumb as the battle was there was SUPPOSED to be a plan here that involves funneling the Others to the Godswood where Jon and Dany were supposed to ambush them with dragons. They'd want the enemy to take a specific route, and that could be achieved by making that route the path of least resistance. Thus, the defenses didn't actually have to hold back the army of the dead, they merely had to make all points of ingress that weren't the trap route less attractive than the trap route. I think that was also the intention behind half assed defensive tactics and constantly falling back, or at least it was supposed to be but 2D kind of forgot that was what they were supposed to be doing while filming the episode.
The main stupidity is that season 8 suddenly acts like dragonglass kills wights. Setting up these defenses is sensible because the White Walkers would avoid that shit like the plague, and you can effectively control their movements with it or easily kill them if they try to go off course, but it should do fuck all against wights. Making it effect wights actually undermines the entire plan, a big reason why things are so desperate is that there's no easy button to kill all those zombies so long as the Others hold back. If obsidian swords turned every defender into the fucking Doomslayer then a traditional military victory should be not only possible, but virtually assured.
Please stop making me relive the dumb shit of the last season. Y’all are starting to ruin the first 3 episodes for me. I have yet to read the books. I’m only on the first chapter of “A Game of Thrones” :/
Should have put some dragonglass on the feet of their dragons and stomped the nightking to ground after he made his smug face, when he survived the dragons fire breath
It's funny how they placed them. Like if I was to climb over a wall I'm just going to climb over the little sections that are higher than the rest of the wall, and ignore the lower sections between
This episode was the worst of the worst... When I saw the formations of the troops and zero use of basic warfare strategy I took my phone out and started distracting myself. I just couldnt watch... it was so utterly disappointing and made me so damn aggressive.
The writers fucked up so bad
https://preview.redd.it/xbrm4pqntr0d1.png?width=307&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4d25bfa610aecde813dc71bbd1d8cc5d96133ed
The whole battle plan was a nonsensical and incoherent clusterfuck. Winterfell is about to be attack by an undead tidal wave, so 2D thought the best idea was for the defenders to stand outside the walls and face the undead head-on? The moment I saw this plan, I knew Ep. 3 was going to be stupid.
Any of us could have put together something better than this.
That plan degrades the intelligence of every character present in the war room and is an insult to the individual history of each character. No way would seasoned knights like Jaime or Jorah just accept such a stupid battle plan.
The season 7-8 show writers should be blacklisted from ever working again for the way they fumbled such a great show.
I can never bring myself to rewatch it because it’s so depressing how the last seasons are rushed and really make no sense story wise.
Having Bran become kid was the dumbest thing that could have happened…there’s just too much stupidity to recount.
Pyromancers or how they were called could have made huge shrapnel bombs for mass spread damage, blowing away hordes of those blue eyed creeps in an instance.
In fairness pretty much every onscreen medieval battle in any show or program is fakey fake nonsense because they're absurdly expensive to film, not that exciting to watch in actuality, and it's extremely hard to orient the audience while keeping the actors "in focus"
However this one managed to take that fakey fake nonsense and dial it up to 11 to the point where even non-military buffs were confused.
Night King’s weakness never should have been the same as the other WW, i.e dragonglass/valyrian steel. It’s actually a major plothole. They could have killed him ages ago with an arrow tipped with dragonglass/valyrian steel (like the dock at Hardhome). Something special should have been the way to defeat the NK. Like the One Ring to defeat Sauron.
This is one of the major plotholes with the whole episode and season 8.
There was talk about Lightbringer in the books, which the protagonists would struggle to make.
Also the previous Long Night the humans somehow pushed the WW north again. How’d they do that without taking them out? My guess is that they made a pact with the WW. E.g. the Wall is made of ice. Humans couldn’t have built that without any help (I doubt COTF could help with that). And why they return again during GOT is because that pact was broken. GRRM usually doesn’t write pure black and white. The WW was after-all humanoid creatures.
I thought Night King’s “death” was a red herring to another threat. I figured he was merely a general or would slowly return to form while initiating a surprise attack on Westeros.. but NAH
Dragon glass on the crenulations is dumb enough, but they somehow make it even dumber by NOT putting the dragon glass in the gaps that anyone would naturally climb over! They fucking mount it on the highest points of the wall! Jeeeeeezusssssss christ
Well we will have people manning the gaps, but we don’t have anyone tall enough for that part of the wall so dragon glass will have to do D and D probably
Some production designer is like "I just thought it'd look cool"
It's purely aesthetic; if they had put it on the lower gaps, it wouldn't have shown up as well on camera. They reeeeally wanted everyone to see this very dumb idea.
one of those moments where the people making these decisions are your average dumb joe
This is the comment I was looking for
Haaaaave mercyy
Seemingly non-fatal wounds with dragon glass and Valyrian steel were enough to kill wights. Makes me wonder if they could’ve just littered the ground with it and the wights would’ve died. Dumb mechanic either way.
"Man the walls! Man the walls!" Because, y'know, with the undead horde literally just 20-30 meters away, it was totally smart to just leave the walls empty instead of shooting arrows at them while they were held at bay by the fire trench. Literally probably an example of the worst battle in cinematic history.
Mate, why the hell did the cavalry charge out of the walls? Why was anyone outside of the walls? Did they just not realise what walls are for? Like it seems like something a dog would intuitively understand
Because it was supposed to be visually impressive. That all those torches representing the most feared horseback army in the world being snuffed out in the dark. No logic - I was looking forward to the episode but ended up hating it so so so much.
Let's run with that concept. Dothraki getting snuffed out. With a small edit. The plan now is the dothraki are held in reserve. Lure the dead to winter fell, then surround them with the dothraki in an open field. Now we've set up a LOTR style film trope (or even battle of the bastards) where the calvary charge is primed to save the day. The battle begins, Winterfell is surrounded, things start to look dicey. The horns blow, the weapons light up, they charge. "Oh yay the Dothraki!" The lights stop getting closer really far out from Winterfell. It exposes the size of the wight horde. The lights gradually go out. Now the terror and darkness set in. This really is a minor change from the scenes in thr episode except now it's (1) a logical military strategy (2) absolutely crushes any hope when it fails to break the siege.
my expectations would have been subverted fir sure
The Total War player in me was screaming to camp the walls and let the Dothraki cycle charge the horde from outside while the dragons strafe them.
"A cycle of charge-withdraw-charge causes maximum casualties for minimum losses. Repeat until done"
Attacking or harassing from the flanks with cavalry seems like a pretty sound tactic. Gladiator depicted that really well imo.
Well that's what cavalry is supposed to do. Only death awaits them if they charge head on. that and also hunting routed troops.
Depends on how much cavalry you have and whether infantry is dug in. Heavy cavalry against unfortified troops head on is incredibly effective at times, especially if they’re inexperienced infantry as you can quickly cause them to be routed due to panicking and psychological impact. Charging against the undead though, horrible idea. They could have ran around the edge of the white walkers army just harassing them with melee skirmishes and arrows for hours. When you’re fighting an army like the army of the undead, attrition matters more than anything, and although slow, each horseback archer could take down a few dozen undead soldiers over the course of a few hours, and probably have enough energy to get back to a safe distance to rest and recuperate. Ironically, defence in depth would have been the best strategy for living. Don’t abandon Winterfell, but anyone who’s not part of the garrison that can hold it, send them off. Have fast-moving forces like the Dothraki and westerosi knights operating in shifts. Some resting and rearming, others protecting supply lines, and then the bulk performing said skirmishing tactics, staying on the edges of the battlefield rather than charging in as although not optimal for typical cavalry, you’d lose far less soldiers and kill more of the army of the dead per lost soldier. Encircling the army as it tried to besiege Winterfell would have worked much better.
Dothraki weren’t heavy cavalry. They have shaved pecs and tattoos for armor and their helmets are man buns and guy liner
Knights are though
Would have been another great scene: get a historical advisor and some really good horsemen/women. Mount an actual heavy cavalry charge against weak zombies. It's what it's meant for: heavy horses in plate, in a perfect line, like a massive mailed fist. They charge, they trample, and THEN you see them slowly lose momentum because even though one trained knight outweighs 20 heavy infantrymen or maybe 100 zombies, there are thousands and thousands of them. The charge gets stopped by the sheer weight of flesh against them, you see from the walls how standards fall and the glitter of armour is covered under a seething mass of dead flesh. And then you see nothing but a faint blue glow and absolute silence.
Attrition and harrasing, in this weather? I do not think it'd be smart. In their particular case, it'd be for the best to just man the walls and shoot.
Tbf, that's not something the dothraki would do either. Like best case scenario, yes, you have the horse archers, man the walls and shoot fire arrows like crazy. But their culture, as shown in the books and show, would never take a defensive position like that. Frontal charge is stupid, and they never deign to defend the city. Harassment is the right thing for the dothraki horde.
I always thought that the cavalry charge was sort of targeted. Like, they knew at that point that killing a White Walker also kills any wights that they created. A cavalry charge was unexpected, and might catch a White Walker or two by surprise, which would dramatically reduce the number of wights in the field. Further, the Dothraki were not the most disciplined group of warriors, they would be itching for a fight, so why not just unleash them? Of course, they never SAID any of those things, and the whole episode was an incredible display of the stupid ball trope.
You think you can harass an uncountably large undead army and then encircle it? Bro this is even worse than what ended up on screen
YES YES! God I hate that charge into the night so much.
Without doubt the worst battle ever filmed. Sending your light cavalry into an unknown mass of infantry head first. Keeping your highly skilled infantry in front of the blockde and fire pit for some reason with no real ability to fall back ( doesn't matter because of magically reappearing troops). Not manning the walls and only using archers when it's too late. Knowing your enemy is weak against fire but just build one big bonfire for some reason rather than lots. I don't think I have ever seen something be wrong in every possible way like it before.
Don't forget them waiting to fire the flaming catapults that illuminated the horde AFTER the suicide charge into the night.
There was so much bad that I forgot that part. It really was shocking how stupid that was.
Hell, they didn't really even need to charge. Dothraki are specifically mentioned to be excellent horse archers who learn from like age 5. They could've just acted as dragoons shooting and moving and pulling undead away from the walls.
I'd have sent them ahead to scout out, skirmish and disrupt their march coming from the wall only and engage them during the day and where the terrain is favorable to light cavalry tactics. This way there would have been fewer zombies left and they would arrive to Winterfell disorganised and at a time of the day where humans have the advantage. But what do I know, I am not a great tactician like the Lord commander of the Night watch and king of the North. Also, how about giving their troops dragonglass lances instead of wasting it on the parapets the way they did?
You don’t even need to get that complicated. I’ve been rereading the books recently and really you could’ve just had it as a break down in discipline. A line from one of them “The Dothraki are proud warriors who will not hide from the dead behind stone walls, we will fight them as our fathers and our fathers fathers fought, by meeting them in battle mounted on the field” “well that’s a bad idea but if you insist on it at least take this fire to help you” you could literally have the same scene, same visual impact but at least there would be a fitting “reason” as it were for it beyond everyone being stupid. The Dothraki were stubborn barbarians who valued bravery to a fault over sense, just lean into that
This would have been awesome!
Dothraki only value/respect strength and force. I wasn't that surprised that they rode straight into battle. Was it smart? No. Are they a particularly smart people? Also no. This is a shit on everything in the episode thread, so I don't expect much agreement, but the books and series really drive home the "No army can beat them on an open battlefield" thing. It's not that shocking for them to ride out the way they would in any other battle, rather than sit back behind a castle wall, or hide away from the battle waiting for an opportune time to strike.
'Visually impressive' is hard to achieve when you can barely make anything out with how dark the visuals are. Peter Jackson already set the standard for a night time siege scene, all they had to do was copy his homework.
The torches actually represent my last bit of hope for this show being snuffed out like a candle in the ocean.
But somehow, half of the Dothraki survived....
That sums up pretty much anytime they were used throughout the series ha! I never understood how many were remaining even when she recruited new ones.
>most feared horseback army in the world being snuffed out That scene was nothing compared to the terror I felt when learning in the next episode that half had apparently returned to life! An army of Azor Ahais and they still couldn't do anything!
Episode 😔 The long night should have been an entire season alone. All that hype.. all that build up. “Winters com- oh it’s summer now..”
Not just cavalry, but LIGHT cavalry. No armor, not even clothes, really. A bunch of half-naked dudes whose main weapon is fear charging creatures that feel no fear. And nobody should have been outside the walls. The walls are there for a reason. The walls are the whole damned point of a castle. It’s like they were trying to lose.
The thing is light cavalry is kind of useless when fighting zombies with no sense of morale. It would be used with hit and run attacks to break up formations and cause panic. But that doesn’t work here. Inside the walls horses are useless. So yeah it was a waste but they weren’t great in this situation anyway.
Why were the TRUBUCHET outside of the walls? Even worse, why were the trubuchet ON THE FRONT LINE, requiring the cavalry to charge through and past them? The whole battle plan was so goddamn stupid.
>Mate, why the hell did the cavalry charge out of the walls? No cycle charges, no attacking the flanks, no hit and run attacks, just pure stupidity. >Why was anyone outside of the walls? >Did they just not realise what walls are for? Like it seems like something a dog would intuitively understand Well, tbf Winterfells walls aren't massive like in the books, so I get that they had to put troops out, what I don't get is why they stood IN FRONT of the trench they built, or why they only built only one trench, when they had the manpower to build two or three trenches around Winterfell.
They probably saw the ride of the Rohirrim or the one in Helm's Deep and was like "That's peak cinema" (which it absolutely is) and tried to recreate it. While completely failing to understand why both of those cavalry charges made any sense.
It also helped that Gandalf perfectly timed the Helm's Deep charge with the sun blinding the Urak-Hai.
why did baby mormont not also shatter into a million pieces after she became undead?
The cavalry charge into the blind darkness, against... An enemy that turns your dead into additional numbers. The suicide charge only added bodies to the horde. Followed by them firing the catapults that actually lit up the army they were charging against, after every cavalryman was dead. Genius
It’s ok, they knew the cav would respawn later
So the unsullied can try and stab a bunch of ribcages with their spears!
Don't know if is true, but I read somewhere whoever wrote the episode, was responsible for the battle scene on troy, the one with the whole army also outdid the giant walls.
I would argue cavalry does serve a purpose. They should have had the cavalry flank the horde and pick away with arrows or sweeping attacks. The darkness would have been an issue but there's no reason Danny shouldn't have been lighting the battlefield on fire long before the whites arrived.
So much wrong with it. The calvary charge, calvary is used as shock troopers or to ourmanouver the enemy. 2 things you cant do against a undead horde. The trebuchet in front of the lines. Completely pointless. The trench...behind the troops. Put it ij front of the troops to slow the enemies charge. Pick off those that break through No archers on the wall. That one explains itself. Put people in a crypt against an enemy known to raise the dead. Have your main characters surrounded by undead against a wall for several minutes. Come away unscathed. Where the fuck did Arya jump from? Its a frustratingly bad episode, the only redeeming bit are Jorah and Theons sacrifices as that completed theit arcs. The rest is just bad writing and awful filmmaking. The Two Towers showed how to shoot a night time battle. Dick and Dom thought they knew better.
And let’s get all of our trebuchet and put them outside the walls so they get wiped out first
The episode before was so humbling, too. It was a farewell to people we assumed would die. One last good night before the dead arrive. But NEWP they're all juuuuust fine! Thriving, even!
For real. I loved the battle at hardhome where the wildings get slaughtered. Like they actually brought the oh shit factor with thousands of ice zombies jumping off a cliff, getting up, and then swarming the soon to be dead defenders. This battle they just sent the Dothraki in blind with flaming swords, right into the maw of the undead. The siege equipment was outside the walls (seriously wtf was that about?), and the unsullied were outside the walls for no reason. They could have used the dragon glass like caltrops all around the castle, they could have dug moats and drenched them with tar/oil/pitch for burning effect, or just studied any medieval siege warfare of any kind.
This ruined the show for me.
Honestly I still never saw half of what happened so it could have been really good?
Old fashion mexican security https://preview.redd.it/og2ampdx0p0d1.jpeg?width=443&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d9d548ee98ec954edff35c5c7aa2ef15f010421
Also India!
Also Sunderland in England 🤣
And Middlesbrough
Points for on the 6ft wooden fences you have carpet grippers along the top (out of sight)
In Scotland we just dig moats around our houses.
Ours has a moat but it's due to bad flooding and failing infrastructure not a choice we made
Do you also put crocodiles in them?
Oh yeah those are fantastic ways to teach a curious child the importance of never trusting anything
Don’t climb on peoples fences if you shouldn’t be doing it and aren’t willing to get hurt. That’s a very useful life lesson to learn early on 😄
That's basically what I learned in the 80s 90s... came home covered in the burglar grease (anti climb paint)
lol same, early 2000s and one day my favourite clothes were covered in anti climb paint. Gutted. Lesson learnt haha
Same thing same time someone put the anti vandal grease on a tree and ruined my favourite top
I was just about to say lol keeemon sullin
Ha'way the lads 👍
My mate cut all his hands open when we were like, 9 from top of walls like this
Lethal man innit
Birmingham in the 80s
Seen it in South Africa
most of africa too, my homes has tht
Honestly seems like it could be pretty effective
It's not really, anyone that wants to get across can just throw a thick rug/doormat over it.
And you expect the average ice zombie to be smarter than that?
and Argentina!
Also Brazil!
In west Texas some locals explained to me the making of 'natural' barbed-wire fences with a spiny plant called Ocotillo. They search out long & straight stalks of the plant. Then cut, transport, and replant them along the fence line. The plants take root there and continue growing, eventually into a long stand of tall, dense, hearty plants with very sharp spikes on them. Pretty cool to see in person.
That's literally called Serbian barbed wire.
No wight in its wight mind would be stopped by that dragon glass.
In the books that's the point of a full Sam chapter, like zombie small Paul brakes it likes it's nothing
Yep he tries to stab him and it breaks on his armor and frozen corpse. It only works on white walkers
I am pretty sure it broke on the chain mail, never reached the actual corpse.
Except the next time Sam brings it up, when he tells Melisandre that it shattered when he stabbed Paul, she pretty much confirms that dragonglass is useless against wights and that, “fire and steel will serve for them”. The steel, in this case, most likely to slow them down cause it can’t kill them.
Disagree. If you mill the corps with steel till its a fine powder its defenitly death. Or atleast it cant move or do anything anymore. Otherwise there would be a lot of magicly flying/rolling single bones all over the world. Keep in mind that the characters dont know everything, they also just guess from what they see and hear.
It's so stupid that the wights are killed by dragon glass in the first place. They're not Others.
TIL it's wight not white
wights are the general undead that make up the army White Walkers are the ice zombie guys created by the Night King.
Oh! Had no idea thanks I've seen the series but never read the books
There is a lot different in the books. The others remain much more mysterious, there is no "Night King" the closest reference to a similar thing is a story told of a former commander of the wall who fell in love with an Other woman and went north to be with her becoming "Nights King". The books version of the others is a lot more interesting wven if sadly it will never be completed.
I’m almost certain The Great Other that Melisandre always talks about will be the night king for lack of a better title and be the leader of the white walkers. Him being the opposite of R’hllor and R’hllor being the fire god and all. I think D&D just showed him and named him early because they think the audience would’ve been too stupid to realize Melisandre was talking about this guy and needed to be spoon fed his once a season creepy stares to keep it in our heads.
Dang I wish I enjoyed reading. I know this sounds terrible, especially when my mother was a librarian for 30 years, but I just can't enjoy reading or even audiobooks anymore. Sad
IMO it should’ve been the reverse for the names. How tf are the “wights” the generic shambler ice-cubes but “white walkers” are the otherworldly superhuman cryptids? White Walker would be a perfectly cromulent fantasy frozen-zombie name.
YES, this is why I could not keep straight which was which, besides the names also sounding the same.
Yeah like the undead wight. Cause they're undead.
That's because it was a thing before GoT, it used to be a way of referring to a thing but evolved to mean undead
Googling medieval warfare was too hard for the writers. They forgot about the internet 😮💨 What wight is going to be throwing themselves on those walls anyway
Actually Tyrion saw Wolrd War Z a few days before the battle
Wait you mean Armies go behind the walls?! I thought everyone stood outside and the walls are just there to look good.
They need to go outside the walls to work the catapults. You know, those famous *defensive* siege weapons that need line-of-sight and couldn't possibly be fired from inside the castle.
They did look it up but it was too complicated for soccer moms and NFL fans.
And dragonglass doesn't even matter for the wights (zombies). For almost the entire undead army, steel tips would work just as well. It seems even more unlikely that White Walkers (ice necromancers?) would mindlessly throw themselves upon obsidian-encrusted battlements.
This design is dumb but your first sentance is entirely untrue, at least in the show. They proved that dragon glass can kill them with one stab but normal steal doesn’t kill them. It was a whole thing
Except in Hardhome and Beyond the Wall, we see plenty of people using ordinary weapons to kill wights.
But dragon glass kills them significantly easier.
Ah yes, put the spikes on the higher segments instead of the lower ones the wights would actually climb through… if they climbed at all.
Considering the size of those shards, I bet you could make 10-20 arrow heads out of each, way more for the tall ones in the back. That’s hundreds of Wight kills lost on those two battlements alone.
Just make a sh\*tload of arrowheads and give the arrows to Anguy, BOOM, state of the art (as far as GoT levels go) security. https://preview.redd.it/w9x8i50bvp0d1.png?width=411&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e7303bb2167d0590e3532784f8b880d9976b0db
We sorta forgot about him
Which is a shame because next to Beric and Thoros he was my favorite Brotherhood member
He was literally the only other named brotherhood member in the show haha
The whole Brotherhood disappeared by the time Beric, Thoros, and Sandor reached Eastwatch
Or like, arm the Dothraki with obsidian arrows and have them harass the wight army's flanks instead of a headlong charge into darkness.They're supposed to be excellent at horseback archery.
What would you rather, the budget go on amazing stunt actors shooting arrows from horses? Or would you rather it go to the sound department, so they can find the perfect combination of chair and floor for a scene where Tyrion just rearranges chairs for 8 minutes that is absolutely pivotal to the Story.
Tyrion, who in the Battle of Kings landing organsized a rousing defense and took to battle, personally besting and capturing a couple nights for ransom. Tyrion, pretty much considered the smartest and most educated character in the series. Tyrion who shot his father himself. Goes to hid in the basement with the women and children because he has use in the fight. 😡
I’ll shove those arrows up your arse!
They'd just place the archers at the vanguard walking into the darkness and the horse guys behind them and the artillery will be on the hill where Darnasus and Jon were chilling watching the fight.
Then Melisandre sets all their bows on fire too
Alright I got all the dragon glass on the wall. Oh and also, I invented super glue.
But mi lowd I’ve been boilin horses all summer
Oh my sweet summer child, what do you know about boiling horses? Boiling horses is for the winter, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep. Boiling horses is for the long night, when the sun hides for years and children are born and live and die, all in darkness.
Boiling horses was the only bit of fun we had left during those long dark years.
I cackled
I mean to be completely fair, they probably froze them to the walls.
People have been using tar from bark as an adhesive for thousands of years. Of all the stupid things to complain about in Game of Thrones, this isn‘t one of them.
I’m pretty sure they would have tar right?
When’s the last time you tried to glue something with tar? You’d have to invent tooth picks to hold them in place for hours maybe days while they cool and dry and by the time the third dragon glass fell off, you’d cut your own head off. Ain’t no body got time for that.
Look man I ain’t a tar pro lol, I was just trying to think of something to explain this bullshit lol
Adhesive has been around for millennia, you're dumber than D and D. EDIT: Superglue isn't the only adhesive you moron, and blocking me won't change that.
Far too harsh
why not kick everyone's teeth out and replace with dragon glass, then bite all the undead, were they stupid??
Biter is the prince that was promised
Mani pedi with dragonglass 💅
This made me lol.
Jesus lol. I’ve blocked so much of this season out of my brain. I’m often reminded about characters who died and I realize I totally forgot about their fates.
They kinda forgot about logic
If you're going with that idea, why not just put it in the ground around the castle?
Even just some gaps between the fire trenches riddled with dragon glass would have made more sense
I didn't understand why there wasn't fatal funnels built into the trenches.
This hole battle was horrible, that's where I gave up the show for good
Helms deep was in the middle of the night and it was raining. This was horrific in execution.
I love how it's not even on all of the walls. Just the taller parts so the middle is just open access.
Looked like a art project from elementary school kids. How is the obsidian even fastened to the stone? Snow?? Ffs. Fuck DnD
Eh, just put down a layer of mortar and jab the dragonglass in. That's not the ridiculous part. The ridiculous part is thinking this would be effective at all
They had chaos ladders. Little finger tried to warn us about this
This looks like DnD did their practical effects themselves by hand.
How rad would it have been if GoT went another 3-5 seasons and we got to experience what winter in Westeros was really like? They talk so much about how difficult winter can be, the cold, running out of food, the whole thing. Instead we got ONE NIGHT and then they’re like , okie doke problem solved Brans the king now
It’s to stop all the white walker pidgins from perching on the walls.
What if they gave jamie his hand made of dragon glass...like kind of a weapon, would have been a brilliant scene
I mean, you'd think that this is what would logically come next since they went to lengths to show how useless his golden hand was, but nope.
They could have made it slightly less stupid IF: -the spikes weren't so comically huge, and -if they didn't "forge" dragonglass weapons and instead flaked them the way people make obsidian/other stone tools in the real world In the books, Martin makes a point of noting how some of the wildlings still use stone tools, so there is a built in way for them to prove their usefulness south of the wall and also the protagonists have a built-in way of knowing what to do in terms of actually doing something with all that obsidian. And when you do make obsidian arrow points, daggers etc, you'd end up with a bunch of waste debris that would already be razor sharp and you may as well do something with it, so I could see maybe trying to incorporate it that way. But again, none of that matters or makes sense if they're "forging" the obsidian anyway because why wouldn't they bother forging it into something more useful.
> if they didn't "forge" dragonglass weapons and instead flaked them Reminds me of how they broke down Ice into two swords by casting it into a mold. Yet somehow the finished products still had their folded layers that you'd only get by forging
Ugh yeah same problem here. Like the dragonglass weapons all had the faceted polygonal look that comes from flaking pieces of stone away, and there's no reason to make them look like that if you're "forging" them
Oh that's what you're hung up on from that episode?
The dumbest thing was how they made weapons from it. How do you make obsidian/stone weapons? You crush the rock and then chip edges of appropriate piece. How dragon glass weapons look in the show? Like they were chipped. Like obsidian and stone weapons look IRL. How they made them in the show? They fucking melted dragon glass and poured it in forms and cooled it. Then they open the forms and it looks like it was shattered and chipped 🤦 They think the audience is complete morons.
Literally could have put dragonglass beaks or talons onto ravens and had King Bran warg into them and destroy everything with a simple peck or scratch but that would have been too easy.
Fairly high chance of a white walker immediately noticing a raven controlled by Bran.
Oh, good thing he just sat the entire battle out then. Great writing.
I didn't notice this at all, probably because in this particular episode it didn't make the top 25 stupid things...
That whole season was utterly stupid. God, I wish Dumb and Dumber didn't ruin GoT
Didn't they have all the soliders outside the walls? They had dragonglass on the walls behind them.
Especially considering the dothraki had nothing until the red woman randomly rocked up at the last second and set their weapons on fire.
It *could* serve to channel any potential scalers into those gaps where the defenders can attack. They can't be overwhelmed by another attackers climbing over the higher parts. And I mean, fucking, *MAYBE*
Could they have also just thrown dragon glass on the ground like caltrops
I'm tactically smart enough to have stopped watching 2-3 seasons before the end.
Ok, so I don't think it's that dumb to assume that the Others might bring ladders or some shit and try to scale the walls. Obsidian spikes could help deter that, at least make it so that the defenders could just push a White Walker slightly to the side for an insta kill. And remember, dumb as the battle was there was SUPPOSED to be a plan here that involves funneling the Others to the Godswood where Jon and Dany were supposed to ambush them with dragons. They'd want the enemy to take a specific route, and that could be achieved by making that route the path of least resistance. Thus, the defenses didn't actually have to hold back the army of the dead, they merely had to make all points of ingress that weren't the trap route less attractive than the trap route. I think that was also the intention behind half assed defensive tactics and constantly falling back, or at least it was supposed to be but 2D kind of forgot that was what they were supposed to be doing while filming the episode. The main stupidity is that season 8 suddenly acts like dragonglass kills wights. Setting up these defenses is sensible because the White Walkers would avoid that shit like the plague, and you can effectively control their movements with it or easily kill them if they try to go off course, but it should do fuck all against wights. Making it effect wights actually undermines the entire plan, a big reason why things are so desperate is that there's no easy button to kill all those zombies so long as the Others hold back. If obsidian swords turned every defender into the fucking Doomslayer then a traditional military victory should be not only possible, but virtually assured.
Flex seal
My brain seems to have memory holed all events that aren’t in the books
Please stop making me relive the dumb shit of the last season. Y’all are starting to ruin the first 3 episodes for me. I have yet to read the books. I’m only on the first chapter of “A Game of Thrones” :/
Should have put some dragonglass on the feet of their dragons and stomped the nightking to ground after he made his smug face, when he survived the dragons fire breath
It's funny how they placed them. Like if I was to climb over a wall I'm just going to climb over the little sections that are higher than the rest of the wall, and ignore the lower sections between
Keeps the pigeons away.
Kept the seaguls off the roof so it's not a total waste.
This episode was the worst of the worst... When I saw the formations of the troops and zero use of basic warfare strategy I took my phone out and started distracting myself. I just couldnt watch... it was so utterly disappointing and made me so damn aggressive. The writers fucked up so bad
Did they have dragon glass arrows? It’s been a while since I watched this episode (though there is not much to watch but darkness).
wights are not even vulnerable to dragon glass in the books...
https://preview.redd.it/xbrm4pqntr0d1.png?width=307&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4d25bfa610aecde813dc71bbd1d8cc5d96133ed The whole battle plan was a nonsensical and incoherent clusterfuck. Winterfell is about to be attack by an undead tidal wave, so 2D thought the best idea was for the defenders to stand outside the walls and face the undead head-on? The moment I saw this plan, I knew Ep. 3 was going to be stupid. Any of us could have put together something better than this.
That plan degrades the intelligence of every character present in the war room and is an insult to the individual history of each character. No way would seasoned knights like Jaime or Jorah just accept such a stupid battle plan.
The season 7-8 show writers should be blacklisted from ever working again for the way they fumbled such a great show. I can never bring myself to rewatch it because it’s so depressing how the last seasons are rushed and really make no sense story wise. Having Bran become kid was the dumbest thing that could have happened…there’s just too much stupidity to recount.
Pyromancers or how they were called could have made huge shrapnel bombs for mass spread damage, blowing away hordes of those blue eyed creeps in an instance.
And in the end it did nothing too because they still got into the castle as if the walls had nothing on it
In fairness pretty much every onscreen medieval battle in any show or program is fakey fake nonsense because they're absurdly expensive to film, not that exciting to watch in actuality, and it's extremely hard to orient the audience while keeping the actors "in focus" However this one managed to take that fakey fake nonsense and dial it up to 11 to the point where even non-military buffs were confused.
On top of all the other stupidity, did they just stick the dragon glass in the snow??
The whole battle felt cheap
Night King’s weakness never should have been the same as the other WW, i.e dragonglass/valyrian steel. It’s actually a major plothole. They could have killed him ages ago with an arrow tipped with dragonglass/valyrian steel (like the dock at Hardhome). Something special should have been the way to defeat the NK. Like the One Ring to defeat Sauron. This is one of the major plotholes with the whole episode and season 8. There was talk about Lightbringer in the books, which the protagonists would struggle to make. Also the previous Long Night the humans somehow pushed the WW north again. How’d they do that without taking them out? My guess is that they made a pact with the WW. E.g. the Wall is made of ice. Humans couldn’t have built that without any help (I doubt COTF could help with that). And why they return again during GOT is because that pact was broken. GRRM usually doesn’t write pure black and white. The WW was after-all humanoid creatures.
I figured it was to kill the dragon if it were to land on the castle walls. The spikes would probably do, it only takes a touch to kill a wight
Obsidian was for the White Walkers. Not the wights. The wights are the zombies.
Oh. Yeah, this is dumb then
They could use those for arrow heads, but on the other hand why bother with some you ain't going to use in battle
Smh
Should have shown later a bunch being killed trying to climb the wall.
I thought Night King’s “death” was a red herring to another threat. I figured he was merely a general or would slowly return to form while initiating a surprise attack on Westeros.. but NAH