Game of Thrones season seven trailer.

[SCRawl]

That was the Blackfish, Brynden Tully. Bronn wasn't there.

Was it? I recall this scene, and it was a bitch to find.

Oh, ffs, for some reason I was thinking of the funeral scene. Mea culpa, you were right.

[LaCroix]

A bit later in the linked video, Bronn nails a charging man in the eye with an arrow to save the PTSD'ing Hound. So he is certainly no stranger to projectile weapons.

[LaCroix]

By the way - anyone else noticed the look of glee in both Arya's and Brienn's faces after their fight ends in an epic dual kill? As if they could not be any happier to have found each other - a woman who knows how to fight.

[SCRawl]

By the way - anyone else noticed the look of glee in both Arya's and Brienn's faces after their fight ends in an epic dual kill? As if they could not be any happier to have found each other - a woman who knows how to fight.

Sure. I also noticed that even with a blunt sword Brienne would have seriously injured or killed Arya if she had connected with some of those strikes, especially after she started getting frustrated.

[Titan Uranus]

Brienne also pretended that a smallsword-alike with a what appears to be a triangular cross-section could cut her, even while wearing armor.

[JLTucker]

Fans are saying Cat Stark showed up in the latest episode while Arya and Brienne are dueling. "Mother" is said by one of the characters and in the background a woman walks past a doorway in a dress similar if not the same as what Cat would wear.

Link: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_598b5 ... 6b8bb0a846

[SpottedKitty]

Brienne also pretended that a smallsword-alike with a what appears to be a triangular cross-section could cut her, even while wearing armor.

Not so surprising as all that — IIRC a triangular cross-section was actually used in RL way-back-then specifically to punch through armour. Although, on the gripping hand, it was generally just used for daggers, so something like Needle would be a bit on the long side, and there is the minor tactical problem of first having to knock your armoured opponent on their tuchis so they'd sit still while you found a rock and used it to hammer the dagger through a weak point in their armour. This is not a one-stab-and-they-fall-over technique.

[Terralthra]

Not so surprising as all that — IIRC a triangular cross-section was actually used in RL way-back-then specifically to punch through armour. Although, on the gripping hand, it was generally just used for daggers, so something like Needle would be a bit on the long side, and there is the minor tactical problem of first having to knock your armoured opponent on their tuchis so they'd sit still while you found a rock and used it to hammer the dagger through a weak point in their armour. This is not a one-stab-and-they-fall-over technique.

Smallswords of the late 17th-early 18th century frequently had triangular cross-sections, for better thrusting through light armor and resistance to flexing on the parry vs. heavier swords. Needle is a bit shorter than the average smallsword, but not that much. Smallswords had no cutting edge to speak of, so there would be zero chance of doing much damage with a slash, but smallsword (and sidesword/rapier before them) users practiced targeting joints and weaker points in armor. Aria's thrusts to the neck, armpit, and thigh-joint are typical for that, though the slash at the broadside of the thigh would be pointless.

[Simon_Jester]

Still, doesn't take a tactical genius to use the dragon to strafe the pike line then let your light cavalry mop up the stragglers. Too many Dothraki and horses wasted breaking that line.

It was pointed out in an earlier Game of Thrones discussion thread that massive hordes of poorly disciplined, hungry Dothraki are kind of a liability for Daenerys as the winter settles in south of the Neck. Getting a bunch of them killed crushing her enemies' armies isn't necessarily a bad thing for her, though it seems a bit cold for Dany to come up with an observation like that. Tyrion might think of it.

That said, WAAAAAAY too many Lanny soldiers stood their ground when a fucking dragon just oblierated over 50? doods in one strafing run. This continues to be a point that annoys me: the cohesion of troops during outside context appearances. But those that are running seem to only be doing so because they are on fire. The rest hold because..... all the money they get paid?

If it was gunpowder-age troops I could see it; they had stupid levels of troop cohesion trained into them, even when being randomly blasted and killed by fire they couldn't do anything about. Medieval troops? Eh, varies.

[LaCroix]

Smallswords of the late 17th-early 18th century frequently had triangular cross-sections, for better thrusting through light armor and resistance to flexing on the parry vs. heavier swords. Needle is a bit shorter than the average smallsword, but not that much. Smallswords had no cutting edge to speak of, so there would be zero chance of doing much damage with a slash, but smallsword (and sidesword/rapier before them) users practiced targeting joints and weaker points in armor. Aria's thrusts to the neck, armpit, and thigh-joint are typical for that, though the slash at the broadside of the thigh would be pointless.

I'm assuming she did it because she had a live weapon and it was only training, so she slashed instead of stabbing at the openings. #headcanon

[LaCroix]

If it was gunpowder-age troops I could see it; they had stupid levels of troop cohesion trained into them, even when being randomly blasted and killed by fire they couldn't do anything about. Medieval troops? Eh, varies.

Lannisters are supposed to be some of the best trained troops that are. You see their tight formations in the advance at Highgarden. Even their equipment speaks for high cohaesion (Spear and shield) being the focus of their combat style. The moment their formation falters, they show how badly they fight in one-on-one context. (I think that is why the Dothraki mentions it, and most likely why they lost so bad against the Starks in Season one - they don't do well in ambush situations where they can't form up.)

Why are they staying in line even after the attack? The dragon is not their only problem, he swooped over and would take a while to come back, and most likely not to their spot, one might rationalize - but the long line of Dothraki charging at them means that if they break line, they will be overrun, for sure. You can't run from a dragon, and you won't survive trying to run from a mounted charge. Holding fast and trying to take as many of them with you and hope for the best was the tastiest shit sandwich left on the menu.

[Titan Uranus]

I'm assuming she did it because she had a live weapon and it was only training, so she slashed instead of stabbing at the openings. #headcanon

You need to train as you would fight, otherwise the training is counterproductive, it causes you to develop muscle memories that will betray you in battle.

Brienne should have just ignored the cuts, and "killed" Arya repeatedly, just like Podrick. It not only makes sense from a rational standpoint, it also makes sense from a story standpoint for Arya to be a great killer, but only an above average fighter. How much training has she actually had? A few months with Syrio (not using smallsword techniques), a year or two at the house of black and white (not focused on fighting, and what sparing she did was with quarterstaffs), and whatever little she was able to train on her own in seasons 2-5? By all rights she should be worse than the average man-at-arms, much less one of the best fighters in Westeros. And that's just about training, I'm not even factoring in that she is a tiny girl.

Not so surprising as all that — IIRC a triangular cross-section was actually used in RL way-back-then specifically to punch through armour. Although, on the gripping hand, it was generally just used for daggers, so something like Needle would be a bit on the long side, and there is the minor tactical problem of first having to knock your armoured opponent on their tuchis so they'd sit still while you found a rock and used it to hammer the dagger through a weak point in their armour. This is not a one-stab-and-they-fall-over technique.

Rondel daggers did indeed have a triangular cross-section to stab through armor. This does not apply to cuts, you cannot cut anything with a triangular blade, not even bare skin.

Needle is far too long and delicate for armor piercing work, even if you used a "half-sword" (more like a quarter-sword, I bet) technique to cut the stressed part of the blade down to the length of a rondel dagger, needle would still have far too fine a blade to puncture anything more substantial than winter clothing. Look at pictures of rondel daggers, look at how substantial they are, and how the flat base seems designed to allow you to hammer the spike home.

Needle is barely more substantial than a small-sword, which it is pretty clearly based upon. Small swords were used because they were light, fashionable, and made it rather hard to kill someone. They are dueling swords, not battlefield weapons. There is a reason that their militarized version, the spadroon was approximately twice the weight and sharpened.




Regarding the Lannister troops, I think that in any realistic universe they would have run. It does not matter how well-trained they are, they are not trained to deal with dragons, and they have no possible defense against them. Even ignoring human psychology, how could they possibly win? Even if they defeat Dany's ragged Light Horse, and hold the field, so what? They cannot persue and cannot defend themselves against dragonfire. The logical option is to run for King's Landing.

If you don't ignore human psychology, things get worse, while I agree that they would fall back on their training, and probably prepare to receive the charge (though they should do so from behind the wagons.) The moment men start getting burned alive by monster that they can see but not harm, a monster that features prominently in all sorts of songs and stories, a monster against whom all of Westeros could not stand for one hundred and fifty years, they should damn well run. Any chance is going to seem better than certain death by fire.

[TheFeniX]

It was pointed out in an earlier Game of Thrones discussion thread that massive hordes of poorly disciplined, hungry Dothraki are kind of a liability for Daenerys as the winter settles in south of the Neck. Getting a bunch of them killed crushing her enemies' armies isn't necessarily a bad thing for her, though it seems a bit cold for Dany to come up with an observation like that. Tyrion might think of it.

True, but she still has a war to win first. Thinning out her own troop numbers THIS early on is not a great move and I don't think it's part of her plan. I will grant the the Dothraki are likely the ones to VOLUNTEER to just YOLO a pike line. They aren't the brightest bunch and have little fear of death.

They might follow Danny, but it's also likely they are big on "Tell me what to do, don't tell me how to do it." So, "Go fite dem doods" and they do that the Dothraki way: suicidally.

If it was gunpowder-age troops I could see it; they had stupid levels of troop cohesion trained into them, even when being randomly blasted and killed by fire they couldn't do anything about. Medieval troops? Eh, varies.

Maybe, maybe not. Titan Uranus beat me the the punch here. They could do something about it because no matter what you were still fighting other people on a generally level tech field. There might be more or they might have an edge in some areas, but I can't recall any situations where gunpowder age humans were running into nigh-invulnerable dragons.

Even the armored cavalry the Native Americans ran into when the Europeans landed in the Americas were still human, just like them. But these are actual dragons we're talking about.

Infantry have pushed mounted machine-gun encampments due to needing an objective and stuff of that nature. There's an objective, a goal.But if a modern army platoon ran into a tank with soldiers to back it and had nothing on hand to even damage the tank, I wouldn't expect them to just scream and run. But I would expect a rather hasty retreat as they have no other options. Now, imagine they ran into classic depiction of a Werewolf and it's just maiming dudes left and right while they pump round after round into it and it doesn't even slow down?

If the Lannister soldiers are well trained, then they know how fucked they are. They find themselves WANTING to let the Dothraki into their lines and turn it into a melee where they are better armed and armored and banking on Danny not roasting her own soliders with them. They seem to have no idea the ballista exists. No one attempts to man it until Bronn shows up. This was stupid on many levels as was them being ambushed at all by the Dothraki by not having on soldiers up on the hills to look and see a sea of half-naked dudes on horseback coming at them. This is basic scouting, something a well trained army should have in spades because deciding when and where to fight is just as important as how well you fight.

Now looking at the psychological impact of a dragon showing up in a world where they exist and are the ultimate weapon. The last guy who road into Westeros with them owned the place afterward and setup a legacy. And they got a front row showing of their invulnerability when an entire volley of arrows went all "Hobbit Cartoon Smaug" and just bounced harmlessly off a Dragon's belly.

What do you do here? Even trained and experienced military? Honestly, though. The lack of scouting really makes me question the intelligence of the entire Lannister everything. Especially considering how close Dragonstone is to KL.

[JLTucker]

Armies seemingly move around the world with no need for supply line.

Lol. More than 60 days passed in the first three episodes of season one. This type of stuff has been going on since the beginning.

[ray245]

Armies seemingly move around the world with no need for supply line.

Lol. More than 60 days passed in the first three episodes of season one. This type of stuff has been going on since the beginning.

Skipping between timelines doesn't resolve the magic supply line problem.

[Elfdart]

Brienne also pretended that a smallsword-alike with a what appears to be a triangular cross-section could cut her, even while wearing armor.

Not so surprising as all that — IIRC a triangular cross-section was actually used in RL way-back-then specifically to punch through armour. Although, on the gripping hand, it was generally just used for daggers, so something like Needle would be a bit on the long side, and there is the minor tactical problem of first having to knock your armoured opponent on their tuchis so they'd sit still while you found a rock and used it to hammer the dagger through a weak point in their armour. This is not a one-stab-and-they-fall-over technique.

I thought the point of sparring was to practice one's moves, so whether this weapon or that one could really cut through armor is irrelevant. You want to be in the habit of blocking something being swung at you.

Anyway, I saw someone post this on another site:

Dickon



Dickoff

[Kingmaker]

you cannot cut anything with a triangular blade, not even bare skin.

Nitpick: practicably true of a hollow-ground smallsword blade like needle, but there are plenty of examples of triangular cross-sectioned cutting swords (e.g. backswords, sabers, messers).

I thought the point of sparring was to practice one's moves, so whether this weapon or that one could really cut through armor is irrelevant. You want to be in the habit of blocking something being swung at you.

You actually don't want to waste time parrying something that's not going to harm you. You want to riposte immediately rather than give your opponent a second shot.

[JLTucker]

Armies seemingly move around the world with no need for supply line.

Lol. More than 60 days passed in the first three episodes of season one. This type of stuff has been going on since the beginning.

Skipping between timelines doesn't resolve the magic supply line problem.

You act like this show is hard fantasy. It's not. Who cares about the supply line?

[The Romulan Republic]

"Hard fantasy" seems to me an oxymoron, unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning.

Edit: And having seen the Brienne vs. Arya fight... pretty good, but partly ruined by having creepy, smug Littlefinger in the scene. Can someone please kill him already?

[Titan Uranus]

Armies seemingly move around the world with no need for supply line.

Lol. More than 60 days passed in the first three episodes of season one. This type of stuff has been going on since the beginning.

Skipping between timelines doesn't resolve the magic supply line problem.

You can assume that the supply wagons are off-screen.
I mean, in reality you are correct, the writers have no conception of how wars are fought, and so they don't know when supply lines should limit the armies, but frankly there are very few fantasy series which even attempt to depict supply issues, and the ones that do will ignore those that contradict the story. Even if the technical details, like supply issues, inform the story they are going to be and should be fudged if it makes the story better.

"Hard fantasy" seems to me an oxymoron, unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning.

Edit: And having seen the Brienne vs. Arya fight... pretty good, but partly ruined by having creepy, smug Littlefinger in the scene. Can someone please kill him already?

Hard fantasy is fantasy which attempts to rationally consider the implications of fantastical elements, I've seen it applied to everything between The Black Company and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Nitpick: practicably true of a hollow-ground smallsword blade like needle, but there are plenty of examples of triangular cross-sectioned cutting swords (e.g. backswords, sabers, messers).

I've never heard non-fencing sabers referred to as having a triangular blade. I suppose that they do, but at that point any single-edged sword has a triangular blade. I've only heard "triangular blade" applied to swords which have too large an angle to take an edge on any of the sides.

[ray245]

You act like this show is hard fantasy. It's not. Who cares about the supply line?

So why should anyone care about sieges and grain either? My original point was the writers clearly gives zero shit about world-building. So why should the audience be expected to care when characters suddenly spout lines about sieges and grain?

You can assume that the supply wagons are off-screen.
I mean, in reality you are correct, the writers have no conception of how wars are fought, and so they don't know when supply lines should limit the armies, but frankly there are very few fantasy series which even attempt to depict supply issues, and the ones that do will ignore those that contradict the story. Even if the technical details, like supply issues, inform the story they are going to be and should be fudged if it makes the story better.

You should read who I was originally replying to in order to get a better context of my statement. I was responding to SCRwal who thinks that the Drogon burning grain wagons is a stupid decision by Daenerys. I was pointing out that it doesn't matter whether those grain were burnt to the ground or not because GoT is a series whereby grain and food are never a major issue for armies.

If Daenerys armies are suddenly starving, I won't attribute this as a case of internal storytelling consistency because she burnt all the grain in this battle. Instead, I will think that D&D are pulling DRAMA! from their ass because they want to create more artificial tension for the "good guys".

[JLTucker]

Lol. The Writers don't care about world building while they adapt a series overflowing with world building. You're an idiot, Ray.

[Titan Uranus]

You should read who I was originally replying to in order to get a better context of my statement. I was responding to SCRwal who thinks that the Drogon burning grain wagons is a stupid decision by Daenerys. I was pointing out that it doesn't matter whether those grain were burnt to the ground or not because GoT is a series whereby grain and food are never a major issue for armies.

If Daenerys armies are suddenly starving, I won't attribute this as a case of internal storytelling consistency because she burnt all the grain in this battle. Instead, I will think that D&D are pulling DRAMA! from their ass because they want to create more artificial tension for the "good guys".

I understand your point, and I agree that the story is little more than a couple of writers smacking action figures together, I just think that's the case of the vast majority of novels, movies, and tv shows; all you can hope for is that the joyful squeals and prettily painted models are interesting to look at and listen to, most of the time. It's one of the reasons that I tend to like video games more than non-interactive media, video games tend to have more consistent internal worlds. The same is true of historical works.

What I'm confused by is why you seem to think that this wasn't always true of GoT.

[SpottedKitty]

Edit: And having seen the Brienne vs. Arya fight... pretty good, but partly ruined by having creepy, smug Littlefinger in the scene. Can someone please kill him already?

I've seen some speculation in YouTube comments that Arya's Little List™ will soon be one name longer... briefly.

(Come to think of it, how much does Arya know about what he's been up to since she had to run from King's Landing?)

[ray245]

Lol. The Writers don't care about world building while they adapt a series overflowing with world building. You're an idiot, Ray.

Just because someone is adapting a book material filled with world-building doesn't mean they care about world-building itself. Plenty of writers enjoy the drama aspect of a franchise over the world-building aspect. Or is this too hard for you to comprehend without resorting to petty name calling?

I understand your point, and I agree that the story is little more than a couple of writers smacking action figures together, I just think that's the case of the vast majority of novels, movies, and tv shows; all you can hope for is that the joyful squeals and prettily painted models are interesting to look at and listen to, most of the time. It's one of the reasons that I tend to like video games more than non-interactive media, video games tend to have more consistent internal worlds. The same is true of historical works.

What I'm confused by is why you seem to think that this wasn't always true of GoT.

I'm saying this is always true in GoT. World-building in the TV series has never been its strongest point. If anything, I think GoT tends to resort to "villian buff" way too often at the expense of good storytelling. For a series that is harping on "anyone can lose/die", the "villains" tend to have a lot of plot shields.

Ramsay gets his magic 20 good men, Euron with his magic fleet and Cersei with her magic luck. Dramatic tension feels unnatural and artificial as a result.