MovieChat Forums > Game of Thrones (2011) Discussion > Wasn't the Battle of Winterfell rather S...

Wasn't the Battle of Winterfell rather STUPID?

posted 3 years ago by [deleted]
7 replies | jump to latest

I think GRRM painted himself into such a big hole when he proposed the idea of the White Walkers and the Night King, by having a race of immortal beings that could raise the dead, whether recently dead or long dead, and thus create a massive army for the WWs which would be more than a match for any living army, seeing as how the dead always outnumber the living... BUT... make it so that all anyone would have to do to completely eliminate that advantage would be to kill the lead WW, the Night King, with a very rare element, Dragonglass, and completely and 100% turn the tide of battle or even end the battle right there and then.

People point to this battle as to how futile it would be for the WWs if just one soldier with Dragonglass could sneak in and deliver the killing blow, but I don't see how else it could've been done, although how Arya Stark could sneak in to that orchard area with Bran and kill the Night King right there and then was baffling, although I did like the "dropped" Dragonglass blade and how Arya caught it on the way down and stabbed the NK right there and then. But I still think most of the battle was poorly executed.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

This has been a cheap dodge in horror, sci-fi, and fantasy movies for ages. There's no reason that killing the head vampire, alien queen, or Dark Lord should disable an unstoppable army of enemies, but it's a really common trope.

And it's never believable, but it is something writers use to pull impossible victories out of their asses, when they've stacked the odds against the heroes too high.

[–] Philhelm (517) 3 years ago

It depends on the circumstances. If the undead are fueled through necromancy, it isn't unreasonable for the skeletons to fall after the necromancer is dead.

[–] brux (14837) 3 years ago

That's funny, but if you watch the video "The Most Important Video You Will Ever See" on Youtube and make a few simplifying assumptions that is not really so true.

So, think about this, you start out with a population of "n" people. In the next generation you have 2^2 or 4, then in the next you have 2^3 or 8, then 2^4 of 16, but then some start to die, so when you have a population of 2^n, you have a dead population of ( (2^n) - 1 ).

That means in the simple scenario the people alive at one time are greater than the number of dead, by just 1 person. The people alive today on Earth probably outnumber the dead by a lot. but go back a couple thousand years and the number of people at any one time were pretty constant, that is our population never grew by very much because we were already struggling. Under those circumstances the dead would outnumber the living.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Well of course the dead outnumber the living, but the Others couldn't use just ANY dead person! They needed beings who were recently dead enough that they still had some viable muscle and tendon, so they could swing weapons without their limbs falling off. And they couldn't use anyone who'd been cremated, or buried at an inconvenient depth.

Of course corpses last longer in the North than in the rest of Westeros, but still, there were a limited number of recruits available to the Army of the Dead.

[–] brux (14837) 3 years ago

Honestly you've just explained well why watching these shows is a complete waste of time.

[–] spurtle467 (1558) 3 years ago

It was a badly executed battle, but by that point the writers had run out of source material and were rushing to get to the end. I wouldn't have even ended the Night King by that point if it was me. I'm not sure I would have ended him full stop. Either way the way it was depicted in series 8 felt like a cop out and lessened the impact of the following episodes just as Series 8 as a whole lessened the impact of the entire show.

[–] Philhelm (517) 3 years ago

I like how Stannis' army brought more snow to Winterfell than the Night King.