[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by Frazod

Yeah, the whole we have a strong, fortified position, so let's line up most of our troops outside it thing is a bit confusing.

I felt like they rolled about a 12 on their Tactics roll, too. But after thinking about it more ... the goal of the battle at the castle wasn’t to repel the wights and win. It was all about killing the Night King. That was a delaying tactic.

The Dothraki, the Unsullied, and those who died outside the walls... pawns that had to be sacrificed to get the king to come forward.

Think of it like the survivors of the battle at Gondor rushing the gates of Mordor. It was a distraction.

Originally Posted by DaFace

Actually, it seems pretty clear to me where the divide is here. If you look at the book-reader subreddit, you'll see that everyone's pretty much pissed. In the show-watcher subreddit, reactions are generally positive. So there's your explanation. Book readers are irritated because so many of the key points are being shit upon, but show watchers don't care about that stuff as much.

I read the books in a blink in 2007 (seriously, like one month) and I don’t agree with the criticism of the writing.

The whole point of Martin’s story is that traditional tropes and key points don’t matter.

The heroic son avenging his father with brilliant battle tactics and honor? He dies.

The wise wizard/witch knowing the future and perfectly setting a prophecy into motion? She misunderstands and is wrong about a bunch of things (still fulfills her purpose though).

The clear inheritor(s) of the prophecy not ultimately being the one(s) to slay the big bad.

Etc.

Originally Posted by The Franchise

My only beef with the episode last night.....was that I was waiting for more characters to die and they didn't.



Also.....talk about neutering an entire army (literally and figuratively). The Unsullied are ****ing worthless. All of their "training" and all they were good for was basically a wall to hold back the wights so everyone could escape?

In the history of warfare, horse soldiers were effective for a few reasons:

Shocking formations and forcing cracks and breaks in formation due to human reactions and self-preservation.

Using mobility to pick at flanks and break formations, again due to human reaction and self-preservation.

That stuff doesn’t work against a mass of undead thralls that have no self-preservation sense.

The traditional charge, shock, wheel tactics of horse warriors would simply not work against an uncaring mass of thralls.

Same thing with the Unsullied phalanx. Shield walls were great against human enemies who didn’t want to just throw themselves on the spears. Against an enormous mass of undead, it just would get slowly buried.

Originally Posted by DaFace

It didn't really even make sense in the context of the rest of the battle. The Dothraki were defeated in...what...15 seconds or so? You know, the group that is famed for its effectiveness and brutality on horseback. But then everyone else lasts over an hour?



I agree that it was a cool look and set an ominous tone, but it didn't make any sense, either tactically or in terms of the outcome.

If the tactics were to preserve as much of the army as possible, sure. Though who could have known what tactics would work and how many of the dead there were?

If tactics were to convince the NK he was winning and it was safe to sally forth to take Bran... different story.