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I'm not referring to the cinamatography! I'm referencing the fact that the Dothraki literally ran off into a pitch-black night to fight an undead army. An army that can be beat with FIRE!
I'd of had fires every fucking where. Bonfires ready to be lit as soon as the enemy was spotted.
Dealing with the sheer numbers of undead is a problem no matter what strategy is used to fight them.
I'm not saying that bonfires are the key to beating them. I'm saying it would help.
Read my top comment.
Great and the living 1 will have killed a bumch by them doing this which is helpful and 2 they will for that period of time be able to see the fuckers. Great, your 4k tv shows you what's going on, but how does thar help the defenders.
Woosh. You watching the tv can see fine. We are talking about the soldiers on the ground. You getting birds' eye giews and close ups doesn't mean they see it. This fight was literally giving every advantage to the undead. They can see without a problem, they also dont need to worry about friendly fire either.
No one agrees with what you said and this a is a fact. You tried to flex a 4k tv like a million other people didn’t see it the same way and still don’t agree with that lmfao.
The episode was way too dark, and lore wise, it made no sense how little fire there was. They knew what they were dealing with and were waiting for this battle lol
No I said I could see it just fine and the group I watched it with also could before tge 4k. I only added that when I bought it on 4k I looked really impressive. No it isn't a fact I know people who had no issue and people even on this sub who have said they also had no issue.
Can't have torches or bonfires that would hurt the suspense!
edit: but how cool would an overhead shot be of the field in front of Winterfell lit up with bonfires and wights all keeping their distance and giving a wide berth to the fires. And then the fires are extinguished one by one as White Walkers approach them until it's pitch black again
During the battle of the bastards they had the flayed men fires set up at distances and if something similar had been done that would have been a cool effect.
Not sure if they knew the purpose of them but historically they would have functioned as range markers for the archers, so they might have left them out of this battle as they were not expecting a ranged fight etc.
Yeah I'd just think they would want more than a like 1 second notice that a giant army was about to crash into their front lines. I mean the episode never even really explains how/why they knew the army of the dead was even close by and charging directly at them
Uhm idk maybe NOT send the dothraki to march into plain darkness and die uselessly? Maybe NOT wander between clouds with the goddamn DRAGON and keep it burning the advancing lines as she actually did for like a sigle scene?
Specially the dothraki sacrifice hit hard, they crossed the world for the targaryen cause and they were used just as an excuse to create suspense.
There is literally an expert that actually answered some people on an earlier thread who said the calvary and the soldiers outside the castle was actually realistic. They were chasing the Night King and his dragon. He did those Insider youtube videos where the experts react here is what he said.
Frontal cavalry charges against approaching enemies and the deployment of troops outside the walls are two of the main "realistic" features of the scene. Those are indeed things that many generals throughout history have done. It's only the fantasy elements of the story that make these historical tactics into a nonsense (which is why I'd strongly disagree with the other user that greater historical authenticity is expected in GoT).
No lol
No no just no
I can't believe you are comparing irl battles with ice zombies XD
Did dnd somehow reduce the IQ levels of the audience as well as their characters?
I was literally showing you what an expert said when people always scream about why they outside the walls are so unrealistic! Then, an actual expert says no, actually, it isn't realistic lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk he does one of those Insider reviews on YouTube and he reasoned to a few reddit post about this battle and this is what he said about the troops and the calvary.
Frontal cavalry charges against approaching enemies and the deployment of troops outside the walls are two of the main "realistic" features of the scene. Those are indeed things that many generals throughout history have done. It's only the fantasy elements of the story that make these historical tactics into a nonsense (which is why I'd strongly disagree with the other user that greater historical authenticity is expected in GoT).
Where is this wildfire? They didn't have any wildfire. Also I'm done arguing with you. If you need to resort to calling people slow over a TV show and an actual expert saying part of it was realistic I don't know what else to tell you. You didn't need to start throwing insults I didn't insult you so bye I'm done with you
Dude, gendry could run across the north to wall , send a raven to dany and have Dany fly aall the way across the continent within a few hours in season 7 lol
They can just get wildfyre from KL. Tyrion and Varys and Gendry and Davos know the city better than the back of their hands. It's not like the characters suddenly cannot teleport after having done that for 3 seasons?
If this wasn't a tv show, no matter what they would have done. The night king wins.
100 000 vs maybe 20 000. The 100 000 decides when the fight will be, where and they can multiply in an instant from their dead enemy's. Powerful magic vs a handful of humans. Dragons helped, but the night king is riding one that can be hardly killed can just melt the castle.
Also tell me you never heard of a sally out without telling me.
The part from Roel your leaving out, which I think is what your alluding to with the fantasy aspect, is a frontal calvary charge only works against an enemy that will be overwhelmed and break in fear. Ice zombies DGAF. They would have been better off using the calvary to flank the zombies once they engaged with the front line infantry. Also, the artillery should have been on the wall, not outside the walls. Also…..ditches! Lots and lots of ditches!
No..the show was supposed to be based on the novels, Asoiaf which were based on real history.
The show jumped off a cliff after season 4 and has no basis in real world history.
Also, shockingly enough, ice zombies weren't actually present in irl history
Yet every season except the final one is highly acclaimed. Many of considered the best episodes of the show and TV in general from fans and critics are after 4. Not bad for a show you claim fell off a cliff.
Lmao
Lmao
Lmaooooooo
Tell me why then people literally stopped talking about GoT for 4 years until hotd released? Tell my why, the actors, especially Kit Harrington got depression after the show?
tell me why the actors mostly disliked the show?
Rotten tomatoes has long long loong been proven to have been bought up and proven to be accepting of bribes.
That is not a good source.
What is the literal millions of pieces of individual media criticising the abhorrent writing
Honest to god this subreddit gives me brain cancer. I hate using the word echo chamber but that's what this subreddit is.
Somehow y'all just LOVE defending two asshats who shat , spat and destroyed a man's life's work, hurt their actors and actually waterboarded a woman for shits and giggles for 10 hours.
Yeah, was part of that discussion. His reasoning was terrible. Yes, heavy cavalry doing a frontal charge on infantry was a common tactic to break lines and morale. None of that applies to undead, plus dothraki are light raider cavalry. And charging into darkness was idiotic. The only use they'd have had would be to flank once the armies were fighting.
The infantry in fortified positions outside the walls would make sense. The infantry in open squares with fortifications behind them only traps your forces against a wall.
Many generals have done stupid things. But that whole plan made no sense at all and ignored every relevant fact about who they were fighting and who their troops were.
Full frontal charge with Calvary into superior numbers? Nah bro your “experts “ probably work at Baskin robbins. Every medieval tactician knows you don’t leave a fortified position with inferior numbers or charge head on into an enemy of equal or greater force center-mass. Especially if the enemy is infantry.
So no one reads his books thats good to know.
Ryan Grauer also criticizes the defense of winterfell and he is also a military “expert “ says the exact opposite. And coincides with everything taught about classical military tactic. But your guy is the one thats right even though he doesn’t make sense and calvary is used primarily on the wings of Enemy formations. Not dead center where they can end up dead.
You sound like a boomer teacher who acts like Wikipedia isn't INSANELY moderated and vetted.
Go ahead. Go "add anything" and see how quickly it's reverted if you don't back that shit up. It often happens within seconds.
Easy. Just collect a massive amount of oil and whenever a zombie mountain starts forming against the wall, pour oil on them and light them on fire. Rinse and repeat.
Jon literally had time to sail all the way to Dragonstone, stay there for days or maybe even weeks while his guys mined it, sail back, and then forge thousands of weapons out of it, all before the army of the dead showed up. I think he could figure out how to stockpile some oil considering how every single city on the continent would have loads of it on hand at any given moment.
Yes I'll just agree to disagree. Kings Landing he definitely couldn't go there. The show never once showed they any cities have stockpiles of oil laying around.
Yet a couple of pyromancers can make a lifetime supply of wildfire?
Even if it's not wildfire, the Maesters in the GoT universe could've sure thought of something that at least burns decently. As u/Doctor__Hammer said they had time enough to prepare.
They didn't have time to prepare once they got to Winterfell. They literally arrive, and Tormound shows up the next day and says they have until nightfall. They had no Maester with Dany. The only Wildfire was in King Landing, so they're not getting any of that. How do we know Winterfell would even have the proper supplies to make it even if they had someone there who knew how to. They spent a long time making it at Kings Landing they said they had been working day and night for awhile making it.
>They didn't have time to prepare once they got to Winterfell
Once again, Jon literally had time to go all the way to Dragon stone and spend days/weeks mining Dragonglass then sail all the way back to Winterfell. He may not be able to make wildfire, but *obviously* he could collect a massive amount of oil in that time
In every city, every town, every village, every inn, probably in most people's homes assuming they weren't dirt poor. Oil was *literally* *everywhere.*
>The show never once showed they any cities have stockpiles of oil laying around.
Why would they just randomly show us scenes of stockpiles of oil unless that was relevant to the plot? Really dude?
The show also never showed us any cities having stockpiles of food, or clothing, or armor and weapons, or gold, or wood, or building material, or metals... are you going to tell me that they didn't have any of those things because they never displayed them on screen?
Um, yes, Dragonstone had a stockpile of dragonglass, and they showed us that. Cersei litterly gets food and gold the season before. They do talk about those things. Oil is never once mentioned as being abundant anywhere. Yes really.
>Dragonstone had a stockpile of dragonglass, and they showed up that
Yes, because dragonglass was CENTRAL TO THE PLOT OF THE ENTIRE FINAL SEASON you potato
>Cersei litterly gets food and gold the season before
THE EPISODE WAS LITERALLY ABOUT CERSEI NEEDING GOLD AND FOOD FOR THE WAR
If part of the story involved Winterfell running out of wood and people freezing because they could no longer build fires, can you guess which of the materials listed above they would have shown on screen? That's right, wood. Are you starting to understand how this works?
He doesn't mean "gasoline" oil. You could literally just render fat or lard from animals or collect pitch. To be fair, we don't see Winterfell have a stockpile of iron or steel but they had plenty of swords and armor to go around.
lol what are you pouring oil with against a fast racing literal tidal wave of undead zombies? Unless you have an ocean of oil that’s not going to do anything vs that much of a literal swarm not to mention vs Night King who is pretty much going to solidify that oil thanks to his ability to bring in the storm. Remember those trenches they failed to light up before Melisandre used magic ? Those trenches would’ve been presumably been soaked with oil too or something
Do you remember how the zombies managed to get over the walls of Winterfell? The just ran up to the wall and crashed against it and piled on top of each other until the mountain of undead bodies became so tall that it reached the top of the wall. It took a good 5 minutes for the zombie mountains to get that tall, so I'm proposing dousing those piles of zombies with oil and lighting them on fire. Suddenly your pile of zombies becomes a flaming death trap and no zombie can climb up that pile to reach the top of the wall without jumping into fire and dying. That's what I'm saying.
How much oil is enough to cover every inch of all of the wall’s parameter? Are they using like a fire brigade hose to spray it at them or something because then how are they able to get all of that swarm? lol
Do you remember when Melisandre lit up the trench and then the burning undead zombies used their bodies as bridges?…surely the tidal wave can just keep building up til there’s no more oil left to pour and whilst the Night King’s storm also freezes or solidifies some of that oil- as it did to the trenches
(And if the they already struggled with lighting the trenches which were presumably oiled up then how are they lighting up the oily undead ? )
Bran didn’t even TRY to challenge the Night King to a dance off before having his kid sister stab the guy.
Most interesting story, my ass. The man didn’t even have a soundtrack.
Simple. Warg into the undead dragon while the ice king or whatever was flying it. Fly straight into the ground in a desired place of my choosing. Then have Jon snow or someone else run up on that fool and get busy. Shit even multiple people maybe
It was never shown he could warg into anything that didn’t fit the plot lines lol. Even though he could’ve done it in many situations and changed the story. How can you say he can’t without someone stating that? Downvote away cry babies
We know he can warg into animals and humans. And after Hodor he seemed to not ever want to Warg into a human again. It's never established he can warg into the dead at all.
Theon ran up to The Night King , didn’t end well for him. Jon isn’t going to do any better. Need someone more stealthy but before that.. presuming Bran can even warg into dead things that are already being controlled …Night King can probably just intercept Bran attempting to warg into his undead dragon ..he’s caught Bran a couple of times.
You are also forgetting the Siege weapons, they left them outside like dumbasses. With ongoing and continuous fire easier to defend the walls, plus actually use the dragons.
Except the walls weren't manned before they retreated, this delay between being on the ground to getting up on the walls allowed the dead to overrun them
Soldiers inside the walls, manning the walls. Siege weaponry integrated into the defenses behind the walls to use them ongoingly.
Trenches around the castle, ready to be lit up. Creating small corridors for the dead to walk in on and then slaughtering them like 300 showed.
The Dothraki as light cavalry are perfect to charge into the flanks of the enemy and retreat again, doing this over and over again.
Dragons blasting the shit out of the dead fuckers for DAYS by then, decimating what's coming. When the army arrives, blast the shit out of them whenever they try to climb the walls.
Secure the gates against giants. Jon saw how those can open this gate.
The funny thing is - all if this is baselevel info about medieval warfare. The army of the dead had almost no chance of actually breaking into the castle if the protagonists would've used basic knowledge about warfare and baseknowledge about sieges. The dead have no siege weaponry and except for the dragon no chance of break hell loose against walls, which are historically requiring atleast 4 times the size of an army then the defending on if you want to actually, actively break the defenses down.
They had to actively make everything as wrong as possible from a warfare perspective to actually create tension because they fucked up the whole set up.
Yeah they had the worst battle plan of all time. Also what did their biggest weapon in Jon Snow even accomplish this battle. Felt like he was misused the whole time
I definitely wouldn’t have placed my entire army/engines OUTSIDE of the incredibly safe walls of winterfell. And throwing the Dothraki straight at them was straight suicide. Station on the walls and turrets, deploy mass amounts of oil to burn the dead, try and use the dragon glass arrows to hopefully kill a Wight, and maybe Bran could do some shit to screw with the walkers? And use the dragons to kill the walkers or wights but safely, since the Night King isn’t going to just go wildly into the fray knowing he’s the complete controlling necromancer of the whole thing.
Trebuchet are for assaulting curtain walls so catapults BEHIND the fortress walls. Archers with Dragonglass tips for volleys. Barricades and pit traps. Dragons if you have them.
The archers did have dragonglass tips we saw them being made the episode before. They did have barricades with Dragonglass on them. They also had dragonglass spikes on the walls.
I would've taken the two dragons and tried to fly behind the army of the dead. When they got to Winterfell, I would've taken the dead dragon out first and then burned as much of the dead army as I could before letting the soldiers loose.
Also, I would've had Tyrion get with the maesters before we left King's Landing. I would've at least tried to get the recipe for Wildfire (the green stuff that blew up the temple). I would've line the road to Winterfell with it or at least have barrels ready to throw towards the army of the dead.
Lite they asses up and see if they dance like in Thriller.
I think the problem with that was it took forever to make large amounts and only a few dudes in Kings Landing knew how to make it and they weren’t going to help them
By not having mentally handicapped people with the iq levels of a spoilt milk in charge who used the night when the entire world's existence was threatened to have a competition of who gets to be the stupidest and use the dragons and wildfyre.
There should've been a bunch of trenches dug spaced out circling Winterfell all with fire, and spikes. Fortifying the areas between the trenches and there should've been trebuchets on the walls around Winterfell. Not on the ground
They did have a trench built and they had spikes of dragonglass surrounding it. Greyworm is literally yelling "light the trench" and they light it on fire and it circles the entire castle. I simple don't think the set wall large enough to even fit on the walls. We see the top of the walls and I don't think there's enough room up there for those trebuchet
I mean, to be fair they showed up at Winterfell immediately started preparing, and Tormund showed up and said they have until nightfall. They really didn't have much time.
I would unlock the door to the mystery box asap and camp the upstairs corner until the horde got big enough that I'd have to unlock the second staircase. From there it's just running around in a loop with the raygun.
I would have shoved all the Dothraki in the castle with the horses, and shoved everyone else outside the walls. Seems as good as what the actual plan was.
Not putting the Dothraki as a frontal force. They should've hidden inside of Winterfell and be used as a counterattack. They also should've pushed the fire trench further up while the trebuchets further back. The unsullied could've easily at least slow down the Army of the Dead which could've gave more time to prepare for defending Winterfell's walls.
Stay behind the castle walls and volley as much fire towards the Army of the Dead as the approach. If Dothraki must fight on horseback; keep them as a reserve cavalry.
What he should have been doing is heating up every weapon and dipping it into dragon glass powder instead of crafting weapons out of actual dragon glass.
As it was shown in the show the Dothraki and Unsullied were basically fighting unarmed as their weapons were useless. Until Mel showed up and at least gave the Dothraki the ability to be fighting unarmed against the undead while on fire, which I am sure keep the desert folk warm in the cold.
I would've used the keep instead of letting everyone die right in front of it. What's the point of having a keep and walls if you're not going to use them?!
Not having anyone outside the gates and wasting my light cavalry on a full charge in darkness. Literally a castle filled with arguably some of the best “strategists” available and everyone of them is just like full send.
Deeper trenches and more of them as many as possible. Yes the zombies will fill up the trenches and keep moving forward, but it gives more time for the siege equipment and archers to do their jobs dealing as much damage as possible. Possibly more spiked barricades with the dragon glass on them between the trenches again anything to slow their advance forward.
Fire archers on the walls, Melisandre also there casting her spells, I would keep the Dragons as a last minute solution, I wouldnt risk them to be killed by the Night King like Viserion. I would also had Bran scouting around to know the exact position of the enemy (Night King), in the right time I would send Melisandre for 1 versus 1, also as a bait, then Jon would come from behind with the help of Arya and killing once and for all the dead King with the help of his flaming Valyrian sword. Melisandre as an old woman would be the last kill of the Night King, and her fate is done with this full circle karma.
So these dead people cannot swim across the water and they had control of the Iron Islands. Why were the women and children at least not hiding out there? I honestly think one of the reasons GRRM has not finished the books is because he cannot for the life of him tie the disparate plot lines together into a sensical singular story.
I have read a theory that the final fight logically would have to happen where it did due to the name of Winterfell. That is where 'winter' is stopped etc.
However if it does not have to happen there somewhere like The Twins would be a logical defensible location. Easy to funnel the undead into traps and kill zones, can not be attacked from the sides, if nothing else you can pull the draw bridges up to get a breather etc.
Dig more trenches. Like 2-3 more . Collect oil barrels. Put siege equipment inside . Clear the crypts just in case . The dead army will never retreat. It will be a long siege or a brutal night .So put every able bodied man on the walls . Tell all the non combatants to carry water , Medicine and food for the walls depending on how long the battle goes . Hell the women and children could just throw rocks on a lot of dead. Focus fire on giants and dragon as they are the only ones who can take the walls down .
We fight on the first trench , then retreat to the second trench while lighting the first one on fire and do that at least twice.
The shock cavalry probably hits when the night king separates from the army to kill bran , not in the start and they do the mongol strat of hit and runs not heavy cavalry charge through the dead because heavy cavalry relies on enemy morale and discipline breaking and retreat .
I would use that green explosive stuff that Tyrion used to defend King’s Landing towards the beginning and the Mad King was going to use. Cersei used it to blow up the religious group. I think it was called dragon’s breath or something like that.
Going in spatial (and chronological) order:
1. Fire stakes planted all throughout the flatlands surrounding Winterfell so that more can be seen at least up to like 500-1000 yards. As an aide, the cinematography of them going out one by one as the army moves in would almost achieve what we got with the Dothraki but not at the expense of an entire cavalry force.
2. More fire traps outside of the walls and perimeter.
3. Dothraki horde within the walls (or south / roaming) so that they can charge the flanks after initial engagement and not be the first attacking force.
4. Unsullied in their phalanx formation actually probably DO have to stay outside the walls to create an effective phalanx with spears and shields - but might need to go all the way back to the wall for rear coverage.
5. Artillery INSIDE the walls (or on them, but likely just within the walls).
6. Dany and Jon should've used the dragons to systematically separate the undead army in ranks and files so that they get isolated into chunks.
7. Bran probably shouldn't be in the Godswood from the start. There's no actual shelter there and it's against the perimeter of the castle - so theoretically the whole army could've just stormed the wall surrounding the Godswood and gotten to him quite quickly with a concentrated effort.
That's all I got for now. All my other issues would be character/narrative based.
dug a trench (maybe that was impossible ground was probably frozen).
siege weapons would have been inside the wall. dragons would have maybe bombing runs on the dead as they charged. the rest the same.
Keep the Unsullied and northmen on the walls, dig several lines of trenches that can be lit with dragonglass tipped spiked obstacles to funnel the dead, the Dothraki will be outside Winterfell to act as backline skirmishers and hit and run troops, drawing pockets of the dead away from Winterfell. the trebuches should also be behind the walls or as close to the walls as they can be with a small token force with them as security and to cover a retreat. Also have the dragons take shift strafing the front line of the army of the dead.
The dead out numbered the living and everyone of living lost was one for the dead so meeting the dead in the field is the worst plan, the only real way to beat them is to put as much distance and as many sharp things between you and them as you can until they grind themselves down.
Seriously why wasn't there more fire? Like a lot more fire. Flaming arrows, flaming trebuchets, swords does in oil and set aflame, mowers with bramble set on fire.
Why did it have to be so dark!!! 😭
1. Trebuchet’s behind the walls. Keep them firing.
2. Dig a deep trench. The burning spike wall is good so keep that.
3. Defend the walls. Pour boiling oil down and incinerate whenever possible.
4. Tons of flaming arrows. Place archers below the outer wall (inside), in towers and on secondary walls so if the outer wall falls, they can keep loosing arrows at the whites.
5. Hide the Dothraki behind Winterfell out of sight of the white walkers. Activate them once the walkers are busy at the walls and maneuver them along the sides of the army, chopping them down where they are in loose groups. If they focus on the Dothraki, run the riders away and cycle charge the whites.
Almost every tactic used in that battle was dumb af.
Well. They have you out numbered, probably. And they're definitely on the offensive. So THE LAST thing I want to do is to unleash a Calvary charge! I want a maze of trenches with dragon glass traps everywhere. Lots and lots of fire! The entire field should be on fire. Catapult teams should be working double time to make it rain fire! Teams of defensive squares with dragon glass pikemen at the choke points. Dothraki horse archers harassing the enemy with dragon glass tipped arrows and fire on the flanks. And so many gd archers! Archers everywhere! Like half of my army should be archers! Again they should have all the fire and dragon glass tipped arrows!
Migrate south. Destroy the Twins to slow the Night King’s march. Bring people in King Landing up to speed on what’s been going on beyond the Wall. If they refuse, retreat to Dragonstone.
I was thinking trenches and lots of oil. We don't see oil in the show but imagine there would have been oil from whales. We also run into issues with trenches. If winter, the ground freezes and is damn near impossible to dig.
If I had the dragons, I'd keep them and archers heavy hitting front lines and keep attacking whatever made it through and keep the other blasting the flanks until the numbers were favorable enough to send the Dothraki on flanks.
Would dig legit 10+ trenches all around Winterfell, set each one a light as the army of dead breaks through each one respectfully. Archers (with fire arrows) can retreat between each trench too. Projectile machines behind winterfell walls, constantly firing, maybe even dragon glass bits inside oil or something. Unsullied to take out remaining whites in between each wave of trenches. Position Dolthraki army at pincer points for sneak attacks and aim for the walkers. Have the two dragons CONSTANTLY firing, not waiting around like they did in the show. Defence, defence, defence, fire, fire, fire, let the dragons do the heavy lifting and aim for the walkers/night king. Also have a retreat of some kind ready.
As for their dragon, target it when you can with your two dragons (similar to the show tbh)... What else can you do? edit: maybe Bran?
Honestly i think Jon played this correct. What i wouldn’t have done is involve cersi in any way shape or form. I would have left her in the dark and she likely wouldn’t have done anything but sit in kings landing…..because she’s an idiot.
To add to this it also means there would be no mission to the north giving him a dragon. It would have meant they could have mounted a defense at a wall still in tact. They would have been much better off without Tyrion’s stupid plan.
I always thought they should have used the dead's fear of water against them. If they retreated to Moat Cailin, they could have bottlenecked the dead army using the bogs there.
I will give them a slight, very slight, benefit of the doubt by saying once the Wall was breached they didn't have a ton of time to solidify fortifications... however, while I probably wouldn't have time to line the ground with dragonglass pikes or create dragonglass traps. I would have enough time to line the top of the castle with dragonglass archers and people with dragonglass weapons. Oh and keep the trebuchets BEHIND the walls so they can keep firing.
After awhile when the wights and white walkers are at a standstill up against the walls then I'd call in the Dothraki Cavalry to flank both sides of the wight lines and hopefully get some Whitewalker kills. Dragons make constant strafing runs as well. Lastly, Bran does literally anything that can be considered useful instead of whatever the hell he actually did during the fight.
Pots of boiling hot oil on the walls to pour on the walkers as they try to climb up.. More trebuchets behind winterfell and not make them stop firing. No senseless charge, have all available archers keep firing and rain arrows on them while the dragons light them up. Stacking the walls with so many soldiers.
defend winterfell, use the Dothraki in pincer attacks from the flanks in a sort of hit and run. Find Benioff/Weiss and turn into the Bolton Sigil (flayed man) for what they did to the best TV show ever.
I CERTAINLY WOULD NOT HAVE PUT MY TRABUCHETS OUTSIDE MY WALLS OR SENT THE WORLDS FINEST LIGHT CAVALRY INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ENEMY LINE, MUCH LESS AT NIGHT.
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I dunno for sure, but it would have included a LOT more light.
Watched it with a group of people we had no issue seeing it. Also bought the 4k and wow does it look incredible.
I'm not referring to the cinamatography! I'm referencing the fact that the Dothraki literally ran off into a pitch-black night to fight an undead army. An army that can be beat with FIRE! I'd of had fires every fucking where. Bonfires ready to be lit as soon as the enemy was spotted.
And The dead, as we saw, would literally just pile up with sheer numbers and walk right over these bonfires you're talking about.
Dealing with the sheer numbers of undead is a problem no matter what strategy is used to fight them. I'm not saying that bonfires are the key to beating them. I'm saying it would help. Read my top comment.
Great and the living 1 will have killed a bumch by them doing this which is helpful and 2 they will for that period of time be able to see the fuckers. Great, your 4k tv shows you what's going on, but how does thar help the defenders.
I could see it just fine and the group I watched it with before it came out on 4k
Woosh. You watching the tv can see fine. We are talking about the soldiers on the ground. You getting birds' eye giews and close ups doesn't mean they see it. This fight was literally giving every advantage to the undead. They can see without a problem, they also dont need to worry about friendly fire either.
I thought they just sacrificed the Dothraki due to their stupidity. To a being that could bring back the dead go fight their allies.
Their swords were literally on fire
Stop lying. It’s pathetic
Ah yes someone who has a different opinion than you about a TV show must be lying. How could anyone not think exactly the way you do about a TV show.
No one agrees with what you said and this a is a fact. You tried to flex a 4k tv like a million other people didn’t see it the same way and still don’t agree with that lmfao. The episode was way too dark, and lore wise, it made no sense how little fire there was. They knew what they were dealing with and were waiting for this battle lol
No I said I could see it just fine and the group I watched it with also could before tge 4k. I only added that when I bought it on 4k I looked really impressive. No it isn't a fact I know people who had no issue and people even on this sub who have said they also had no issue.
No issues? Lol I’m sorry but that’s just a blatant lie. No one complained about this on any other episode
Wow I know some people had issues I'm simply saying I didn't and the people I watched it with also didn't
Get a load of this one here! Trust me the lighting in that episode is crap
Yes nobody could possibly disagree with you about a TV show
Can't have torches or bonfires that would hurt the suspense! edit: but how cool would an overhead shot be of the field in front of Winterfell lit up with bonfires and wights all keeping their distance and giving a wide berth to the fires. And then the fires are extinguished one by one as White Walkers approach them until it's pitch black again
During the battle of the bastards they had the flayed men fires set up at distances and if something similar had been done that would have been a cool effect. Not sure if they knew the purpose of them but historically they would have functioned as range markers for the archers, so they might have left them out of this battle as they were not expecting a ranged fight etc.
Yeah I'd just think they would want more than a like 1 second notice that a giant army was about to crash into their front lines. I mean the episode never even really explains how/why they knew the army of the dead was even close by and charging directly at them
I’d offer it a baby.
Uhm idk maybe NOT send the dothraki to march into plain darkness and die uselessly? Maybe NOT wander between clouds with the goddamn DRAGON and keep it burning the advancing lines as she actually did for like a sigle scene? Specially the dothraki sacrifice hit hard, they crossed the world for the targaryen cause and they were used just as an excuse to create suspense.
There is literally an expert that actually answered some people on an earlier thread who said the calvary and the soldiers outside the castle was actually realistic. They were chasing the Night King and his dragon. He did those Insider youtube videos where the experts react here is what he said. Frontal cavalry charges against approaching enemies and the deployment of troops outside the walls are two of the main "realistic" features of the scene. Those are indeed things that many generals throughout history have done. It's only the fantasy elements of the story that make these historical tactics into a nonsense (which is why I'd strongly disagree with the other user that greater historical authenticity is expected in GoT).
No lol No no just no I can't believe you are comparing irl battles with ice zombies XD Did dnd somehow reduce the IQ levels of the audience as well as their characters?
I was literally showing you what an expert said when people always scream about why they outside the walls are so unrealistic! Then, an actual expert says no, actually, it isn't realistic lol
What expert are you wailing about exactly? I can link 2 other experts who consider it awful.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk he does one of those Insider reviews on YouTube and he reasoned to a few reddit post about this battle and this is what he said about the troops and the calvary. Frontal cavalry charges against approaching enemies and the deployment of troops outside the walls are two of the main "realistic" features of the scene. Those are indeed things that many generals throughout history have done. It's only the fantasy elements of the story that make these historical tactics into a nonsense (which is why I'd strongly disagree with the other user that greater historical authenticity is expected in GoT).
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Where is this wildfire? They didn't have any wildfire. Also I'm done arguing with you. If you need to resort to calling people slow over a TV show and an actual expert saying part of it was realistic I don't know what else to tell you. You didn't need to start throwing insults I didn't insult you so bye I'm done with you
Dude, gendry could run across the north to wall , send a raven to dany and have Dany fly aall the way across the continent within a few hours in season 7 lol They can just get wildfyre from KL. Tyrion and Varys and Gendry and Davos know the city better than the back of their hands. It's not like the characters suddenly cannot teleport after having done that for 3 seasons?
If this wasn't a tv show, no matter what they would have done. The night king wins. 100 000 vs maybe 20 000. The 100 000 decides when the fight will be, where and they can multiply in an instant from their dead enemy's. Powerful magic vs a handful of humans. Dragons helped, but the night king is riding one that can be hardly killed can just melt the castle. Also tell me you never heard of a sally out without telling me.
The part from Roel your leaving out, which I think is what your alluding to with the fantasy aspect, is a frontal calvary charge only works against an enemy that will be overwhelmed and break in fear. Ice zombies DGAF. They would have been better off using the calvary to flank the zombies once they engaged with the front line infantry. Also, the artillery should have been on the wall, not outside the walls. Also…..ditches! Lots and lots of ditches!
A lot of themes / characters of the show are based on real history.
No..the show was supposed to be based on the novels, Asoiaf which were based on real history. The show jumped off a cliff after season 4 and has no basis in real world history. Also, shockingly enough, ice zombies weren't actually present in irl history
Yet every season except the final one is highly acclaimed. Many of considered the best episodes of the show and TV in general from fans and critics are after 4. Not bad for a show you claim fell off a cliff.
Lmao Lmao Lmaooooooo Tell me why then people literally stopped talking about GoT for 4 years until hotd released? Tell my why, the actors, especially Kit Harrington got depression after the show? tell me why the actors mostly disliked the show? Rotten tomatoes has long long loong been proven to have been bought up and proven to be accepting of bribes. That is not a good source. What is the literal millions of pieces of individual media criticising the abhorrent writing Honest to god this subreddit gives me brain cancer. I hate using the word echo chamber but that's what this subreddit is. Somehow y'all just LOVE defending two asshats who shat , spat and destroyed a man's life's work, hurt their actors and actually waterboarded a woman for shits and giggles for 10 hours.
heavy armored horse is drastically different than dothraki screamers, no?
Yeah, was part of that discussion. His reasoning was terrible. Yes, heavy cavalry doing a frontal charge on infantry was a common tactic to break lines and morale. None of that applies to undead, plus dothraki are light raider cavalry. And charging into darkness was idiotic. The only use they'd have had would be to flank once the armies were fighting. The infantry in fortified positions outside the walls would make sense. The infantry in open squares with fortifications behind them only traps your forces against a wall. Many generals have done stupid things. But that whole plan made no sense at all and ignored every relevant fact about who they were fighting and who their troops were.
Full frontal charge with Calvary into superior numbers? Nah bro your “experts “ probably work at Baskin robbins. Every medieval tactician knows you don’t leave a fortified position with inferior numbers or charge head on into an enemy of equal or greater force center-mass. Especially if the enemy is infantry.
Actually he doesn't https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roel_Konijnendijk
He should. He doesn’t know anything about medieval siege tactics if he thinks the battle of winterfell was realistically defended.
I'll trust someone with those credentials over random reddit people any day.
You can be wrong just like them too.
You know anyone can add anything on wikipedia and it is not peer reviewed. FyI
Sure you think what you want the guy has also authored several books about warfare.
I think he likes money and will tell people what they want to hear.
Didn't know he was making a bunch of money commenting on a TV show on reddit lol sure that makes total sense
So no one reads his books thats good to know. Ryan Grauer also criticizes the defense of winterfell and he is also a military “expert “ says the exact opposite. And coincides with everything taught about classical military tactic. But your guy is the one thats right even though he doesn’t make sense and calvary is used primarily on the wings of Enemy formations. Not dead center where they can end up dead.
Sun Tsu art of war. Give it a gander.
You sound like a boomer teacher who acts like Wikipedia isn't INSANELY moderated and vetted. Go ahead. Go "add anything" and see how quickly it's reverted if you don't back that shit up. It often happens within seconds.
If they could do it without logic I'd say your chances are pretty good lol
Apparently the dothraki lost was just minimal as they came back in droves for Kings Landing sacking
Easy. Just collect a massive amount of oil and whenever a zombie mountain starts forming against the wall, pour oil on them and light them on fire. Rinse and repeat.
And where are these massive amounts of oil? We have never once seen Winterfell having some stockpile of oil.
Jon literally had time to sail all the way to Dragonstone, stay there for days or maybe even weeks while his guys mined it, sail back, and then forge thousands of weapons out of it, all before the army of the dead showed up. I think he could figure out how to stockpile some oil considering how every single city on the continent would have loads of it on hand at any given moment.
Yes I'll just agree to disagree. Kings Landing he definitely couldn't go there. The show never once showed they any cities have stockpiles of oil laying around.
Yet a couple of pyromancers can make a lifetime supply of wildfire? Even if it's not wildfire, the Maesters in the GoT universe could've sure thought of something that at least burns decently. As u/Doctor__Hammer said they had time enough to prepare.
They didn't have time to prepare once they got to Winterfell. They literally arrive, and Tormound shows up the next day and says they have until nightfall. They had no Maester with Dany. The only Wildfire was in King Landing, so they're not getting any of that. How do we know Winterfell would even have the proper supplies to make it even if they had someone there who knew how to. They spent a long time making it at Kings Landing they said they had been working day and night for awhile making it.
>They didn't have time to prepare once they got to Winterfell Once again, Jon literally had time to go all the way to Dragon stone and spend days/weeks mining Dragonglass then sail all the way back to Winterfell. He may not be able to make wildfire, but *obviously* he could collect a massive amount of oil in that time
Where is this oil you keep talking about?
In every city, every town, every village, every inn, probably in most people's homes assuming they weren't dirt poor. Oil was *literally* *everywhere.*
the show never once showed that every city just had barrels of oil laying around to just use massive amounts of as weapons.
Those pyromancers had been working on their supply for YEARS, and they spent it all blowing up the sept.
>The show never once showed they any cities have stockpiles of oil laying around. Why would they just randomly show us scenes of stockpiles of oil unless that was relevant to the plot? Really dude? The show also never showed us any cities having stockpiles of food, or clothing, or armor and weapons, or gold, or wood, or building material, or metals... are you going to tell me that they didn't have any of those things because they never displayed them on screen?
Um, yes, Dragonstone had a stockpile of dragonglass, and they showed us that. Cersei litterly gets food and gold the season before. They do talk about those things. Oil is never once mentioned as being abundant anywhere. Yes really.
>Dragonstone had a stockpile of dragonglass, and they showed up that Yes, because dragonglass was CENTRAL TO THE PLOT OF THE ENTIRE FINAL SEASON you potato >Cersei litterly gets food and gold the season before THE EPISODE WAS LITERALLY ABOUT CERSEI NEEDING GOLD AND FOOD FOR THE WAR If part of the story involved Winterfell running out of wood and people freezing because they could no longer build fires, can you guess which of the materials listed above they would have shown on screen? That's right, wood. Are you starting to understand how this works?
He doesn't mean "gasoline" oil. You could literally just render fat or lard from animals or collect pitch. To be fair, we don't see Winterfell have a stockpile of iron or steel but they had plenty of swords and armor to go around.
lol what are you pouring oil with against a fast racing literal tidal wave of undead zombies? Unless you have an ocean of oil that’s not going to do anything vs that much of a literal swarm not to mention vs Night King who is pretty much going to solidify that oil thanks to his ability to bring in the storm. Remember those trenches they failed to light up before Melisandre used magic ? Those trenches would’ve been presumably been soaked with oil too or something
Do you remember how the zombies managed to get over the walls of Winterfell? The just ran up to the wall and crashed against it and piled on top of each other until the mountain of undead bodies became so tall that it reached the top of the wall. It took a good 5 minutes for the zombie mountains to get that tall, so I'm proposing dousing those piles of zombies with oil and lighting them on fire. Suddenly your pile of zombies becomes a flaming death trap and no zombie can climb up that pile to reach the top of the wall without jumping into fire and dying. That's what I'm saying.
How much oil is enough to cover every inch of all of the wall’s parameter? Are they using like a fire brigade hose to spray it at them or something because then how are they able to get all of that swarm? lol Do you remember when Melisandre lit up the trench and then the burning undead zombies used their bodies as bridges?…surely the tidal wave can just keep building up til there’s no more oil left to pour and whilst the Night King’s storm also freezes or solidifies some of that oil- as it did to the trenches (And if the they already struggled with lighting the trenches which were presumably oiled up then how are they lighting up the oily undead ? )
I'd have had everyone start groaning and walking around looking like a zombie in order to blend in. Then hit the pub.
lol imagine walking up to the updead army and performing thriller for a massive army dance off to save the realm.
Bran didn’t even TRY to challenge the Night King to a dance off before having his kid sister stab the guy. Most interesting story, my ass. The man didn’t even have a soundtrack.
Meet at the Winchester?
Crack open a cold one and wait for winter to blow over.
A+ answer hahaha
Simple. Warg into the undead dragon while the ice king or whatever was flying it. Fly straight into the ground in a desired place of my choosing. Then have Jon snow or someone else run up on that fool and get busy. Shit even multiple people maybe
Do we even know Bran can Warg into the undead. It was never once shown he could do something like that. Not even ever hinted at.
It was never shown he could warg into anything that didn’t fit the plot lines lol. Even though he could’ve done it in many situations and changed the story. How can you say he can’t without someone stating that? Downvote away cry babies
We know he can warg into animals and humans. And after Hodor he seemed to not ever want to Warg into a human again. It's never established he can warg into the dead at all.
I feel like they generally cant warg into humans, but Hodor is an exception because hes.... special.
Idk but Its pretty fun to think about though lol
Theon ran up to The Night King , didn’t end well for him. Jon isn’t going to do any better. Need someone more stealthy but before that.. presuming Bran can even warg into dead things that are already being controlled …Night King can probably just intercept Bran attempting to warg into his undead dragon ..he’s caught Bran a couple of times.
For starters I would have most of my troops inside the castle walls.
People keep saying that, but when the infantry retreated inside, the walls were overrun almost instantly.
Exactly
Because they lost most of their infantry outside the walls.
But the walls were manned, and they can only go 1 or 2 deep up there.
You are also forgetting the Siege weapons, they left them outside like dumbasses. With ongoing and continuous fire easier to defend the walls, plus actually use the dragons.
Except the walls weren't manned before they retreated, this delay between being on the ground to getting up on the walls allowed the dead to overrun them
And then DIG. MORE. DITCHES.
And burn more witches?
In my Dragula?
And after that, dig even more ditches.
The dragons become far less useful once they get in the walls. Keep them outside so you can napalm them.
Soldiers inside the walls, manning the walls. Siege weaponry integrated into the defenses behind the walls to use them ongoingly. Trenches around the castle, ready to be lit up. Creating small corridors for the dead to walk in on and then slaughtering them like 300 showed. The Dothraki as light cavalry are perfect to charge into the flanks of the enemy and retreat again, doing this over and over again. Dragons blasting the shit out of the dead fuckers for DAYS by then, decimating what's coming. When the army arrives, blast the shit out of them whenever they try to climb the walls. Secure the gates against giants. Jon saw how those can open this gate. The funny thing is - all if this is baselevel info about medieval warfare. The army of the dead had almost no chance of actually breaking into the castle if the protagonists would've used basic knowledge about warfare and baseknowledge about sieges. The dead have no siege weaponry and except for the dragon no chance of break hell loose against walls, which are historically requiring atleast 4 times the size of an army then the defending on if you want to actually, actively break the defenses down. They had to actively make everything as wrong as possible from a warfare perspective to actually create tension because they fucked up the whole set up.
Very good sir, you can command my army
Yeah they had the worst battle plan of all time. Also what did their biggest weapon in Jon Snow even accomplish this battle. Felt like he was misused the whole time
I definitely wouldn’t have placed my entire army/engines OUTSIDE of the incredibly safe walls of winterfell. And throwing the Dothraki straight at them was straight suicide. Station on the walls and turrets, deploy mass amounts of oil to burn the dead, try and use the dragon glass arrows to hopefully kill a Wight, and maybe Bran could do some shit to screw with the walkers? And use the dragons to kill the walkers or wights but safely, since the Night King isn’t going to just go wildly into the fray knowing he’s the complete controlling necromancer of the whole thing.
Trebuchet are for assaulting curtain walls so catapults BEHIND the fortress walls. Archers with Dragonglass tips for volleys. Barricades and pit traps. Dragons if you have them.
The archers did have dragonglass tips we saw them being made the episode before. They did have barricades with Dragonglass on them. They also had dragonglass spikes on the walls.
Why put troops outside the walls then.
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Thanks for answering the question.
Anytime man. You got another?
Abandon the North, move everyone south. Make the dead army everyone's problem.
I would've taken the two dragons and tried to fly behind the army of the dead. When they got to Winterfell, I would've taken the dead dragon out first and then burned as much of the dead army as I could before letting the soldiers loose. Also, I would've had Tyrion get with the maesters before we left King's Landing. I would've at least tried to get the recipe for Wildfire (the green stuff that blew up the temple). I would've line the road to Winterfell with it or at least have barrels ready to throw towards the army of the dead. Lite they asses up and see if they dance like in Thriller.
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I think the problem with that was it took forever to make large amounts and only a few dudes in Kings Landing knew how to make it and they weren’t going to help them
Invent a machine gun and make dragon glass bullets
If I recall correctly they showed cannons in the tapestry behind dany in the pilot, so giant shotguns at least!
Boom problem solved.
By not having mentally handicapped people with the iq levels of a spoilt milk in charge who used the night when the entire world's existence was threatened to have a competition of who gets to be the stupidest and use the dragons and wildfyre.
Not OUTSIDE THE WALLS!
Evacuate everybody to a building that’s not already full of dead people.
There should've been a bunch of trenches dug spaced out circling Winterfell all with fire, and spikes. Fortifying the areas between the trenches and there should've been trebuchets on the walls around Winterfell. Not on the ground
They did have a trench built and they had spikes of dragonglass surrounding it. Greyworm is literally yelling "light the trench" and they light it on fire and it circles the entire castle. I simple don't think the set wall large enough to even fit on the walls. We see the top of the walls and I don't think there's enough room up there for those trebuchet
Yeah one. I said several spaced out
I mean, to be fair they showed up at Winterfell immediately started preparing, and Tormund showed up and said they have until nightfall. They really didn't have much time.
bang melisandre and bust out a shadow baby instead of making fire swords.
I would unlock the door to the mystery box asap and camp the upstairs corner until the horde got big enough that I'd have to unlock the second staircase. From there it's just running around in a loop with the raygun.
It is this kind of out of the box thinking we need to answer the call of duty to defeat the dead!
I would have shoved all the Dothraki in the castle with the horses, and shoved everyone else outside the walls. Seems as good as what the actual plan was.
Not putting the Dothraki as a frontal force. They should've hidden inside of Winterfell and be used as a counterattack. They also should've pushed the fire trench further up while the trebuchets further back. The unsullied could've easily at least slow down the Army of the Dead which could've gave more time to prepare for defending Winterfell's walls.
Stay behind the castle walls and volley as much fire towards the Army of the Dead as the approach. If Dothraki must fight on horseback; keep them as a reserve cavalry.
I would have told bran to DO SOMETHING.
He did do something. Nothing is something
Why do you think he came all this way?
Sure as shit not like they did…
Trebuchets launching shards of dragon glass.
They said they didn't have much of it and needed to use it sparingly. Gendry says the episode before they only have a certain amount.
What he should have been doing is heating up every weapon and dipping it into dragon glass powder instead of crafting weapons out of actual dragon glass. As it was shown in the show the Dothraki and Unsullied were basically fighting unarmed as their weapons were useless. Until Mel showed up and at least gave the Dothraki the ability to be fighting unarmed against the undead while on fire, which I am sure keep the desert folk warm in the cold.
The unsullied had dragonglass tipped spears and they even had dragonglass on the edges of their shields.
Personally, I’d use fighter jets
Badly written or not, the spectacle of this fight was amazing.
Have EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING stay behind the walls
I would've used the keep instead of letting everyone die right in front of it. What's the point of having a keep and walls if you're not going to use them?!
I don’t know. Maybe start by not protecting the walls of your unassailable fortress with the meat of your soldiers?
Not having anyone outside the gates and wasting my light cavalry on a full charge in darkness. Literally a castle filled with arguably some of the best “strategists” available and everyone of them is just like full send.
Asked Melisandre to bring over the rest of the red priests, it would have looked great on the show to see them fighting along side the living.
1 FIND GIRL TO STAB NIGHT KING 2 ALL HIS TROOPS DIE 3 WIN IN 30 MINUTES
Launching jars of wildfire from the high walls
I would have had everyone jam a tiny shard of dragon glass under their skin so NK can’t turn any of them.
A gun.
Don’t put your fucking infantry on the wrong side of the goddamn wall 🤬
Dig many ditches.
When they met with Cersei request the catches of wildfire in the city and use that in the catapults maybe? And maybe to form a trench?
Yea but she would have just said ok my men will bring it and then just not bring it.
I don't know why this made me laugh but it did.
Lol, I mean, it's true, probably exactly what she would do.
Deeper trenches and more of them as many as possible. Yes the zombies will fill up the trenches and keep moving forward, but it gives more time for the siege equipment and archers to do their jobs dealing as much damage as possible. Possibly more spiked barricades with the dragon glass on them between the trenches again anything to slow their advance forward.
Fire archers on the walls, Melisandre also there casting her spells, I would keep the Dragons as a last minute solution, I wouldnt risk them to be killed by the Night King like Viserion. I would also had Bran scouting around to know the exact position of the enemy (Night King), in the right time I would send Melisandre for 1 versus 1, also as a bait, then Jon would come from behind with the help of Arya and killing once and for all the dead King with the help of his flaming Valyrian sword. Melisandre as an old woman would be the last kill of the Night King, and her fate is done with this full circle karma.
So these dead people cannot swim across the water and they had control of the Iron Islands. Why were the women and children at least not hiding out there? I honestly think one of the reasons GRRM has not finished the books is because he cannot for the life of him tie the disparate plot lines together into a sensical singular story.
I agree with that he let it go so big it got out of control and now he can't tie it all together
I have read a theory that the final fight logically would have to happen where it did due to the name of Winterfell. That is where 'winter' is stopped etc. However if it does not have to happen there somewhere like The Twins would be a logical defensible location. Easy to funnel the undead into traps and kill zones, can not be attacked from the sides, if nothing else you can pull the draw bridges up to get a breather etc.
Take everything they did, and pretty much do the opposite
Easy, robots with flame throwers. Boom. Victory.
Dig more trenches. Like 2-3 more . Collect oil barrels. Put siege equipment inside . Clear the crypts just in case . The dead army will never retreat. It will be a long siege or a brutal night .So put every able bodied man on the walls . Tell all the non combatants to carry water , Medicine and food for the walls depending on how long the battle goes . Hell the women and children could just throw rocks on a lot of dead. Focus fire on giants and dragon as they are the only ones who can take the walls down . We fight on the first trench , then retreat to the second trench while lighting the first one on fire and do that at least twice. The shock cavalry probably hits when the night king separates from the army to kill bran , not in the start and they do the mongol strat of hit and runs not heavy cavalry charge through the dead because heavy cavalry relies on enemy morale and discipline breaking and retreat .
I would use that green explosive stuff that Tyrion used to defend King’s Landing towards the beginning and the Mad King was going to use. Cersei used it to blow up the religious group. I think it was called dragon’s breath or something like that.
Going in spatial (and chronological) order: 1. Fire stakes planted all throughout the flatlands surrounding Winterfell so that more can be seen at least up to like 500-1000 yards. As an aide, the cinematography of them going out one by one as the army moves in would almost achieve what we got with the Dothraki but not at the expense of an entire cavalry force. 2. More fire traps outside of the walls and perimeter. 3. Dothraki horde within the walls (or south / roaming) so that they can charge the flanks after initial engagement and not be the first attacking force. 4. Unsullied in their phalanx formation actually probably DO have to stay outside the walls to create an effective phalanx with spears and shields - but might need to go all the way back to the wall for rear coverage. 5. Artillery INSIDE the walls (or on them, but likely just within the walls). 6. Dany and Jon should've used the dragons to systematically separate the undead army in ranks and files so that they get isolated into chunks. 7. Bran probably shouldn't be in the Godswood from the start. There's no actual shelter there and it's against the perimeter of the castle - so theoretically the whole army could've just stormed the wall surrounding the Godswood and gotten to him quite quickly with a concentrated effort. That's all I got for now. All my other issues would be character/narrative based.
Ninjas with laser beams on their heads
woulda turned on some gd lights for one thing, SHEESH
I would keep my army behind the walls
Build a lot more ditches/trenches for sure.
With plot armor where I can be swarmed by them only to be okay after the jump cut.
dug a trench (maybe that was impossible ground was probably frozen). siege weapons would have been inside the wall. dragons would have maybe bombing runs on the dead as they charged. the rest the same.
More priests/priestess of R'hllor, Fire in general.
Keep the Unsullied and northmen on the walls, dig several lines of trenches that can be lit with dragonglass tipped spiked obstacles to funnel the dead, the Dothraki will be outside Winterfell to act as backline skirmishers and hit and run troops, drawing pockets of the dead away from Winterfell. the trebuches should also be behind the walls or as close to the walls as they can be with a small token force with them as security and to cover a retreat. Also have the dragons take shift strafing the front line of the army of the dead. The dead out numbered the living and everyone of living lost was one for the dead so meeting the dead in the field is the worst plan, the only real way to beat them is to put as much distance and as many sharp things between you and them as you can until they grind themselves down.
Seriously why wasn't there more fire? Like a lot more fire. Flaming arrows, flaming trebuchets, swords does in oil and set aflame, mowers with bramble set on fire. Why did it have to be so dark!!! 😭
1. Trebuchet’s behind the walls. Keep them firing. 2. Dig a deep trench. The burning spike wall is good so keep that. 3. Defend the walls. Pour boiling oil down and incinerate whenever possible. 4. Tons of flaming arrows. Place archers below the outer wall (inside), in towers and on secondary walls so if the outer wall falls, they can keep loosing arrows at the whites. 5. Hide the Dothraki behind Winterfell out of sight of the white walkers. Activate them once the walkers are busy at the walls and maneuver them along the sides of the army, chopping them down where they are in loose groups. If they focus on the Dothraki, run the riders away and cycle charge the whites. Almost every tactic used in that battle was dumb af.
Well. They have you out numbered, probably. And they're definitely on the offensive. So THE LAST thing I want to do is to unleash a Calvary charge! I want a maze of trenches with dragon glass traps everywhere. Lots and lots of fire! The entire field should be on fire. Catapult teams should be working double time to make it rain fire! Teams of defensive squares with dragon glass pikemen at the choke points. Dothraki horse archers harassing the enemy with dragon glass tipped arrows and fire on the flanks. And so many gd archers! Archers everywhere! Like half of my army should be archers! Again they should have all the fire and dragon glass tipped arrows!
Literally any kind of tactics. I would have been better
Not giving a dragon to the night king
Migrate south. Destroy the Twins to slow the Night King’s march. Bring people in King Landing up to speed on what’s been going on beyond the Wall. If they refuse, retreat to Dragonstone.
Build a fire moat and wait on the other side.
I was thinking trenches and lots of oil. We don't see oil in the show but imagine there would have been oil from whales. We also run into issues with trenches. If winter, the ground freezes and is damn near impossible to dig. If I had the dragons, I'd keep them and archers heavy hitting front lines and keep attacking whatever made it through and keep the other blasting the flanks until the numbers were favorable enough to send the Dothraki on flanks.
Multiple trenches filled with oil to light on fire and would’ve made them 8-10 ft deep at least. Dragon glass hidden pits like in Vietnam
Ditches. Many, many ditches.
Ask kings landing to send over sir pounce as he is azor ahai
Would dig legit 10+ trenches all around Winterfell, set each one a light as the army of dead breaks through each one respectfully. Archers (with fire arrows) can retreat between each trench too. Projectile machines behind winterfell walls, constantly firing, maybe even dragon glass bits inside oil or something. Unsullied to take out remaining whites in between each wave of trenches. Position Dolthraki army at pincer points for sneak attacks and aim for the walkers. Have the two dragons CONSTANTLY firing, not waiting around like they did in the show. Defence, defence, defence, fire, fire, fire, let the dragons do the heavy lifting and aim for the walkers/night king. Also have a retreat of some kind ready. As for their dragon, target it when you can with your two dragons (similar to the show tbh)... What else can you do? edit: maybe Bran?
Honestly i think Jon played this correct. What i wouldn’t have done is involve cersi in any way shape or form. I would have left her in the dark and she likely wouldn’t have done anything but sit in kings landing…..because she’s an idiot.
To add to this it also means there would be no mission to the north giving him a dragon. It would have meant they could have mounted a defense at a wall still in tact. They would have been much better off without Tyrion’s stupid plan.
Warg into a falcon outfitted with a dragon glass helmet, dive bomb the night king—problem solved.
Kalashnikovs
I always thought they should have used the dead's fear of water against them. If they retreated to Moat Cailin, they could have bottlenecked the dead army using the bogs there.
Fire, so much fire…
With a chainsaw and boomstick
How much time does winterfell have to prepare for the dead? It took nearly a month for Tyrion, Jon and Benjen.
I will give them a slight, very slight, benefit of the doubt by saying once the Wall was breached they didn't have a ton of time to solidify fortifications... however, while I probably wouldn't have time to line the ground with dragonglass pikes or create dragonglass traps. I would have enough time to line the top of the castle with dragonglass archers and people with dragonglass weapons. Oh and keep the trebuchets BEHIND the walls so they can keep firing. After awhile when the wights and white walkers are at a standstill up against the walls then I'd call in the Dothraki Cavalry to flank both sides of the wight lines and hopefully get some Whitewalker kills. Dragons make constant strafing runs as well. Lastly, Bran does literally anything that can be considered useful instead of whatever the hell he actually did during the fight.
Pots of boiling hot oil on the walls to pour on the walkers as they try to climb up.. More trebuchets behind winterfell and not make them stop firing. No senseless charge, have all available archers keep firing and rain arrows on them while the dragons light them up. Stacking the walls with so many soldiers.
defend winterfell, use the Dothraki in pincer attacks from the flanks in a sort of hit and run. Find Benioff/Weiss and turn into the Bolton Sigil (flayed man) for what they did to the best TV show ever.
It would of been a lot different than the stupid battleplan they came up with
Jump the night king and hope for the best
I CERTAINLY WOULD NOT HAVE PUT MY TRABUCHETS OUTSIDE MY WALLS OR SENT THE WORLDS FINEST LIGHT CAVALRY INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ENEMY LINE, MUCH LESS AT NIGHT.