"Hiding your military forces from a siege doesn't exactly make for pulse-pounding television." Actually yes, yes it does. See the Battle of Helms Deep, which the writers claim to have taken inspiration from, yet apperently learned _nothing_ from.
It was so annoying. Since where I live there are a lot of castles and (previously or currently) walled towns and cities, I am aware of the many histories to do with sieges and battles regarding them, and all of them are more or less, we were behind the walls. Depending on which story, some end with and then we all starved for a year until allies came, or and then the enemies filled the moat, or and then we were betrayed, or and then the enemy managed to breach the wall and killed everyone, but zero start with, so we left all out warriors outside for shits and giggles. I am not even remotely interested in military history or strategy (as in, on its own, packed up in a good story, yes) so it's not even specialized knowledge or anything. I can't imagine there was literally no one in the writer's room who questioned this.
"I don't know... what specific consequences the Battle of Winterfell will have for the characters so I don't want to make grand changes that will completely alter the story." This video was made in a more innocent time.
2 things I'd add: I'd find it more fitting if the unsullied wouldn't scream in agony (references their past set up as unfeeling, disciplined soldiers) and if it would show (even if it's just for a few seconds) the wights initially breaking on the unsullied shield wall (which would be inspired by 300).
As much as I liked the fact that the undead are basically an uncaring wave pushing each other forward and washing over the Unsullied I like your idea more and was expecting the same. The Unsullied being a good counter to the undead as they are hardened humans ready to stand and die, and actually stopping the undead is a cool image. Plus we could get some screen time of the front lineup acting as shields and the second/third using the spears to actually thrust over/through to kill the undead. All of this would be similar to the Battle of the Bastards and the characters could of drawn influence from it. Also similar to 300 as you say.
It was beutiful cinematically. If we had never seen the undead, or assumed it was a small force or such, it would of been perfect to suddenly see them overwhelmed (assuming they would charge at night). I can head cannon the idea they wanted to break up the enemy forces, horribly under estimated their ability to take a charge, but it still sucks.
@@Swarm509 You can headcanon it only if Jon is even more stupid than previously believed and everyone else who went on the wight hunt contracted amnesia.
I think the way they could have made it work would have been if the Dotrakis had decided by themselves to do this and just go for it. Then Dany and Jon would see this from where they are and would say "what the Hell are they doing?"
All I can picture now is the trench full of dead pushing through the dragonglass covered spikes and Unsullied in a perfect formation spear thrusting over and over to kill them as they trickle though and pile up in the trench. Throw in some Roman style relief of the frontline fighters (so we get to see some cool movement through the ranks and even drive home further how disciplined these guys are) and it would be amazing TV. It will make it even more incredible once the undead break through the ditch and begin to zerg swarm the soldiers. I'm a sucker for troops in formation.
@@gertmoelders8809 You sound like you know how they did it, but nobody has any idea how the Romans did it. The only mentions in source material are about "shifting ranks/formations". HBO: Rome is as good interpretation as any other and from all that I have seen, it is the best one. In other words, stuff it, or provide some sources.
The idea of the marker and the early success of the cavalry charge are very good. The original battle was too one sided (until the very end) and thus uninteresting. We wanted to see ups and downs, some confrontation,. and your version delivers
When you have gear that is suited for defeating your fire, along with dragons that are super effective against the undead. Along with a bit of brain power. It seems it would be realistic to have up or downs. To be believable. Given the undead forces would then need to adapt and change their plan. That and what happens when a white walker is destroy? Oh yeah part of the army is destroy along with it. Killing commanders of the enemy army is a traditional military tactic. Given that is how they well in the original version of this. BY killing the enemy's king. Only more so due to being lucky as heck, rather then having brain power. Given killing the high ranking officials in an army or leader, is traditional. It has happen in war and battles many times before. Thebes fighting against sparta, have made the spartan flee and rout, due to killing their officials, commanders, generals, kings. Which in this case would be the Night King and the White Walkers. Given they are the ones commanding and leading this army. Yeah i think the old age tactic of cutting off the head of the snake, would apply here. Which in this case would be even better. Given you don';t have to mop up the enemy, just slay their leaders and everything is taken care of for you.
@@forestelfranger When the wight commanders are behind a literally tidal wave of flesh how are you suppose to get to them? And if your dragons are occupied clearing out cannon fodder on the ground they can't deal with the Night King. The concept of all the Night King has to do is send ONLY the base undead mob and you lose completely flys over your head. No matter how impeccable a defense you play you will exhaust your troops and you cant indefintly defend against a siege where you have limited supplies and no support coming to help.
@@Xarencey it can be seen as impossible without the characters looking dumb, like helm's deep. Small changes like the protagonists doing slightly better isn't really much of a stretch because the wights are weak as just normal soldiers, numbers make them a threat so having the army do better then get overwhelmed is better than not having any plan at all
@@Xarencey when a dragon can get several "kills" on the undead just in seconds, while the troops await up in the walls, one can asume the generals are forced to fight themselves, and there's the time a catapult or ballista or a drake may try to kill them. Winterfell is known to held against very superior forces and only the mob wouldn't be able to do it. Plus, it's not a common siege, the mob just attack, don't wait until starving their enemies which is the way to effectively win against a fortified enemy. So forced to attack with everything has to take, by all meanings, ups and downs. The point is the battle plan by the livings has to be enough smart to hold half of the episode, and only then the Arya's semi - deus ex machina would have been suit as a desperate plan
I like your editions, especially about the military tactics. However, I would've included the scene with the need for Melisandre to light the trenches, with a major change: in my version, she would've sacrificed her life by needing to spend all her magical 'life power' or whatever kept her alive on lighting up the trenches. I think it would've been a much better ending for her than to just walk out into the dawn and throw her medal in the snow. It could've been satisfying enough for Davos as well.
I was really expecting her to walk into the trench and burst into flame. After all the people she burned for the Lord of Light he finally needed her to burn for him. That would be fitting for Davos as well.
I'm still not a fan of it. Why not just light the trenches before the battle? This makes a lot more sense and requires less suspension of disbelief, which is always good. Her role was always the fulfillment of Nissa Nissa and the creation of Lightbringer anyway. There were multiple hints in the books and even the show that this was the case, but the showrunners seemed to have forgotten about her backstory.
One thing I hated was that only Melisandre showed up when we saw numerous red witches in Essos talking about the Great War. I had hoped that a whole bunch of them showed up to join the fight. But no. Oh well.
Definitely imagining a one-shot of Grey Worm fighting for survival and the Unsullied getting massacred, followed by surprise fire and a dragon roar as the camera quickly pans up to follow Jon and Dany.
It would've actually been absurdly hilarious to see undead dothraki horses bumrushing right into Winterfell after that undead giant broke through the gate.
Imagine a similar scene to Jon but only with grey worm. I like the point of view style when in a battle as you live through it with someone you care about
Those are some great edits you created in this video and I wish I could have seen your version instead of the mess I had to see. Please go on creating such great content, I'm sure I'll watch it and thanks for all the fantastic videos you already have created, especially the ones about Bojack. Talking about Bojack, I wished the creators of our favorite animated anthropomorphic horse show would at least write the dialogue for GoT, not like in Bojack but with the same level of quality.
I think Bran should have died. He passed his story to Tyrion. Have Sam go to the library while it catches on fire, to save books, to tie in to the importance of "remembering", and that we have to make personal sacrifices to save our common memory and experiences, not only our lives, otherwise it would be another form of death, and you can't expect magic to do it. Once Bran dies to kill the NK, it is up to us to remember, not a wizard.
Nono Nono other 3-eyed raven and now Bran is manipulating our entire story (which this season isn’t even half over). He wasn’t just sitting there, the ravens served multiple purposes, including being tricked by that was all he did the entire time.
@@shannond7437 I don't think so, I think they just thought it would be weird if he just stayed there with his eyes opened and nothing to do or say, but didn't know what to do with him.
Thinking back to the tv series Rome, I was disappointed that they didn't show the battles and only the aftermath (save for one big battle). Seeing how GOT botched up battles, I can now sympathize with this approach Rome took. If you can't do a good thing right don't do it at all and show the tension and dread of the aftermath.
1:49 As a massive Total War fan, I laughed hard at this. Great edit, with one objection: the Dothraki couldn't have held the undead hordes back enough to create a bottleneck for the artillery to fire upon, they'd be swarmed and killed in seconds. If TW has teached me anything, it's that putting your light cavalry at the front is a good way to have it killed. Infantry holds lines, cavalry harasses and flanks the enemy (and you can't really flank an undead horde, so have the Dothraki fire dragonglass arrows with hit-and-run tactics).
As expected, your military edits make more sense than what the show gave us. I like the Walkers chanting up a blizzard. Putting everyone on inside Winterfell would be the smart thing to do but the castle set used in the show undermine this. In the show, Winterfell is just too small. Winterfell's outer walls should be 80 feet high, the inner walls 100 feet high and a moat between them. Make the moat a fireput. Put archers on the walls with dragonglass arrows (dragon glass stops the dead also). If the dead can get over the outer walls, set the moat on fire. By the time the dead get acroos the moat and over the inner walls we will be well into season 9 and this would really screw up the pacing so yean, put the Dothraki and the Unsullied outside and move things along.
I see your changes & raise you specially made extended, fireproof , dragon glass spears for the unsullied that are purposely made for the unsullied to reach over the fire trenches and kill the front and secondary lines of wights standing in front of the fire trenches
I love this videos and am learning a great deal. So Thank you. I am interested in going to school for writing but have held myself back because I am severely dyslexic making writing hard but I love story telling, character development, and world building. I have studied acting and hope it will help in writing. sorry not much info something I am bad at. anyways I was hoping you would do a fix-it or Editor rewrite for the whole of season GOT season 8. But just as you have with your Rewrite of the battle of Winterfell video work with in what the show give you. one because the are very fun video and two I am learning a lot from just the Winterfell ones. again thank you for making the video.
I've read Martin talk about lock-step phalanxes that fought the dragon lords, but the unsullied never showed us that fighting style, troy showed how easy it was to shoot a battle like that and make it look great and a shield-wall would have been a great idea vs a zombie horde no? once the gates are down and they pour through into the courtyard a wall of men and spears while heroes hold out on the walls but die one by one... how did they fuck this up? other big question no one picks up on, what happened to the heavy knightly charge from the vale?
Dude the show writes must be ashamed of themselves that an unprofessional/no screen writing experience person like you can come up with much more interesting and realistic idea!
Yeah I'm not sure about the fire blast from Grey Worm's perspective being the last thing we see from his viewpoint. He either 1) dies, charred to an unrecognizable crisp, and we get a very unsatisfactory ending for Greyworm or 2) is saved at the last second by dragon fire, which was one of last season's biggest complaint with the northern expedition, and we continue not fearing for our favorite characters' lives.
Perhaps it makes sense though. A friendly fire incident due to the blizzard is exactly the kind of consequences we are sorely missing. It's perfect Martin, and should have been a thing.
Yeah, the next editor, throwing hollywoodlogic on the sourcematerial, I´m excited? vor starts: If you don´t want to look this like idiotball, you have to show the preparations. 1. men the walls! With Archers every man or woman in possession of a bow (especially Dothraki beginns immidiatly to make Dragonglas arrowheads. 2. draw more and shorter trenches! If you dont have the time and only the excact length of trench we have can be digt, and set on fire, fine, use fiery trenches to denied the undead Terrain, make withdrawpoints, channel dem into dragonfire fueled traps. 3. First order for all command :"avoid loses, nobody is allowed to die!" heaviest armored Knights in the front, against the undead, everybode without proper armor stays within the castle. 4. the horses on this battlefield are a weapon for the opponent retreat most of them from the north immidiatly. 5. the dragons Jon takes his dragon bevor the castle and lights the trenches as soon as nessessery with the dragonfire. Danny secures the perimeter with her bigger dragon (size does matter) 6. After the field war: "retreat your elite, the knights and unsulied, behind the wall, let the unsulied take there new position on the wall, guarding the frontarchers (armored) retreat the light archers (unarmored) to the secondary defences let Jon clear the wall from undead, when they start to pile up against he wall. 7. Bran does perfektly well as he does. he is evacuating every living being in the way of the night king. But please bring him inside, somewhere warm. 8. The weak. They are a weapon to the enemy! seperate them. If you can´t evacuate the most of them along with the horses, at least gather them together in small groups in the smaller rooms of winterfell, let an armored guard, or an dothraki (good bondingmaterial) guard them inside barricaded chambers. So, you are prepared, don´t wait for the NightKing, dig up more trenches, gather more woodand save the weirwoodtree. if it is of no relevance, or the knightKing wants it intakt also, fine. otherwise it may inspire the troops afterwards, a symbol for life
If your only edits were to stop the insane, mind-numbingly idiotic Dothraki suicide charge and to take the catapults *off* the front lines, it would already be enough to earn a thumbs-up. I would love to see this rewrite on screen, *particularly* the White Walkers calling forth the blizzard, as I, too, am a complete sucker for evil chanting.
Really interesting video. I wonder how long these edits would make the run time though? The writers are clearly on fast forward with Season 7 and Season 8 and they're episodes have been boiled down to bullet points, rather than having the time to spend on much exposition or character beats. Would they have been better off extending the episode time? Or just sticking to 10 episodes as usual like the did between S1-S6?
Hi there man, love your videos. Can u make a video about description in books? With giving some examples. How a writer can understand his/her description is too much or not enough?
He has another video about the very first chapter (Prologue) of Game of Thrones which pretty much deals with this problem. He presents how George R. R. Martin uses a good technique for giving a good description about the White Walkers without really saying much about them directly. Using the description of the tiny phenomena the characters can experience in their environment etc. The title of the video is "How George R.R. Martin Writes the White Walkers".
Dothraki are light cavalry. They do light attacks. No armour because they don't need it when they catch their prey off guard and it keeps their horses as fast as possible. Heavy cavalry, like knights, do what the Dothraki did in both versions. But the pincer move, like Stanis at the Wall and your edit, is better than a full frontal charge for some guys in light leather padding.
So far, these edits seem very sensible, though the decision about having the dothraki 'herd' the wights between the distance markers stick out to me. I don't think the white walkers, and certainly not the wights themselves, would care much about the dothraki coming towards them, even with firery weapons. It's impossible to herd creatures which don't see you as a threat and/or obstacle, and wights are mindless, highly disposable and greatly outnumber the dothraki, leading me to believe they would simply charge on uncaring of the dothrakis' attempts to direct them. I mean, when faced with trenches of fire AND the walls of Winterfell, they're basically shown to just pile onto each other to make a bridge of bodies for the rest of the wights to use, seemingly all by order of the white walkers. There's plenty of reasons to believe that they'd use the same technique against the dothraki. Furthermore, after the dothraki are overwhelmed, they would turn into wights themselves, effectively adding to the army and therefore not making much of a difference. I don't suppose it's going to change much in the grand scheme of the plot, since the dothraki will be slaughtered either way, but to me, the logic behind this particular edit seemed somewhat flawed, especially seeing as the characters who've seen wights and how they behave should know that this is likely to happen. This is also part of the reason why I think so many fans, myself included, were largely disappointed with this episode, since even the show didn't take this fact into account. It nullified everything that would've made the battle so much more dire and interesting - because how do you fight something like that? How do you prevent your own forces becoming part of the opposing army while still fighting it with the intend to win, or at least survive? They had the oppertunity to make something different and clever here, but went with something that not only seemed generic, but completely defied logic and made the characters' knowledge from previous encounters with this enemy seem downright pointless. It made it into a regular, run-of-the-mill zombie flick, with the characters' dumb decisions/planning making their survival seem unjustified. Thanks for the video :) I'm very much enjoying the content of the channel!
They should not have Winterfell as a last resort, they should’ve let Bran escape with a convoy of wagons taking the civilians to riverlands along with evacuating the locals further south and the army of the living holds the castle killing as many as they can until they are forced to retreat on horseback south, and the army would take the direction toward White Harbor and since the Night King wants Bran they wouldn’t run them army down and instead continue to pursue Bran through the Riverlands which then could save a lot more people once Cersei is forced to allow everyone entry into Kings Landing, how Cersei will let them in it doesn’t matter if she is either going to let them in because there’s no hiding from this or the hero’s are forced to kill her before making their final stand and since Kings Landing has taller walls and by this time the white walker army won’t be as powerful due to the losses at winterfell and hardly any bodies along the way since many were evacuated toward Kings Landing the living would have a chance to finish off their entire army or better chances to get to the Night King since he’d try to kill Bran out of desperation
The army of the dead is basically a steamroller. Who cares about tactical finesse when you have 100,000 fearless soldiers who, up to this point, have basically been immune to their enemies's weapons. Yes, we saw the dragons north of the Wall, but other than Jon's and Beric's swords, none of the others could put down the wights permanently (we saw the Hound 'kill' the same Wight a couple of times there, before it finally went through the ice). Based on that, there is no way they would be funnelled between your markers. The Night King can see and feel through the eyes of every individual in his army. That's how he was able to stop them in front of the fire trench quickly, until he figured out how to pass it. This is why he had that stare down with Jon at Hardhome. After Jon kills the walker there, the camera cut to the Night King and we see him blink several times. He obviously felt the Valyrian steel as it destroyed his minion. This does spell danger to him under special circumstances, as we shall see. When the armies clashed, and those wights who were killed by dragonglass or Valyrian steel stayed dead, in addition to the dragonfire burning thousands, the Night King had to recalculate. The wights themselves are incapable of being anything other than a battering ram, so he had to commit himself to the fray where normally he would not. Taking out the dragons became his priority #1 as they could do so much damage to his army. He did succeed in that, forcing Rhaegal down, but was thrown from his own mount by Drogon, meaning once more he had to commit himself to seeking out Bran. I don't like your idea of the massed chanting of the white walkers bringing the storm. It lessens the power of the Night King somehow. And, on the storm, it blinded Jon and Dany on the dragons so much that they almost took each other out at one point. Dany couldn't see the signal from Winterfell to light the trench, which is why Melisandre had to do it. As for the Dothraki charge, I can understand people's frustration with it. The problem is that there isn't a whole lot to be done with them, which would be consistent with their cultural attitudes. The Dothraki are (understandably) rather arrogant; everybody in Essos appears to fear them, paying them tribute rather than face them. Places they do raid have their gods hauled off to Vaes Dothrak as totems to Dothraki superiority. We saw in the argument between Robb and Rickard Karstark how much value some place on being in the vanguard of the army, the place of honour. No way would the Dothraki have accepted being posted as archers on the walls as I saw suggested by someone on another video. As for bringing the whole army inside the fortress, Winterfell is a big castle, but I doubt very much if it could contain some 40,000 plus men arrayed for battle.
This would have been much more compelling. I know they wanted to show that the White Walkers were a force of nature and Moxie and Strength meant nothing... but at what cost?
The problem is... If they retreated south from winterfell and the wights got there.. The dead army would probably be more than a million strong.. Completely unstoppable. Lol
I can’t say I like your edit because your tried to stay close to the source. I think you likely need to start from scratch. This whole season was trash on top of trash and the plot holes left open are big enough to March the undead army through it.
I feel like while the dothraki charge seemed stupid in hindsight it served its purpose to make the nk seem even more terrifying. I think maybe it could've been included but not as a tactic used by the leaders but instead by the dothraki themselves
"Hiding your military forces from a siege doesn't exactly make for pulse-pounding television."
Actually yes, yes it does. See the Battle of Helms Deep, which the writers claim to have taken inspiration from, yet apperently learned _nothing_ from.
This is true they just need a plot device for the enemy forces to breach the walls. Like a zombie dragon or something
@@ataridc Or a zombie giant or two.
It was so annoying. Since where I live there are a lot of castles and (previously or currently) walled towns and cities, I am aware of the many histories to do with sieges and battles regarding them, and all of them are more or less, we were behind the walls. Depending on which story, some end with and then we all starved for a year until allies came, or and then the enemies filled the moat, or and then we were betrayed, or and then the enemy managed to breach the wall and killed everyone, but zero start with, so we left all out warriors outside for shits and giggles. I am not even remotely interested in military history or strategy (as in, on its own, packed up in a good story, yes) so it's not even specialized knowledge or anything. I can't imagine there was literally no one in the writer's room who questioned this.
"I don't know... what specific consequences the Battle of Winterfell will have for the characters so I don't want to make grand changes that will completely alter the story."
This video was made in a more innocent time.
2 things I'd add:
I'd find it more fitting if the unsullied wouldn't scream in agony (references their past set up as unfeeling, disciplined soldiers) and if it would show (even if it's just for a few seconds) the wights initially breaking on the unsullied shield wall (which would be inspired by 300).
As much as I liked the fact that the undead are basically an uncaring wave pushing each other forward and washing over the Unsullied I like your idea more and was expecting the same.
The Unsullied being a good counter to the undead as they are hardened humans ready to stand and die, and actually stopping the undead is a cool image. Plus we could get some screen time of the front lineup acting as shields and the second/third using the spears to actually thrust over/through to kill the undead. All of this would be similar to the Battle of the Bastards and the characters could of drawn influence from it. Also similar to 300 as you say.
The dothraki charge, whilst good looking cinematically, was otherwise painful to watch...
It was beutiful cinematically. If we had never seen the undead, or assumed it was a small force or such, it would of been perfect to suddenly see them overwhelmed (assuming they would charge at night).
I can head cannon the idea they wanted to break up the enemy forces, horribly under estimated their ability to take a charge, but it still sucks.
@@Swarm509
You can headcanon it only if Jon is even more stupid than previously believed and
everyone else who went on the wight hunt contracted amnesia.
the mindless charge was devoid of any intelligence, other than providing a visual spectacle.
I think the way they could have made it work would have been if the Dotrakis had decided by themselves to do this and just go for it. Then Dany and Jon would see this from where they are and would say "what the Hell are they doing?"
All I can picture now is the trench full of dead pushing through the dragonglass covered spikes and Unsullied in a perfect formation spear thrusting over and over to kill them as they trickle though and pile up in the trench. Throw in some Roman style relief of the frontline fighters (so we get to see some cool movement through the ranks and even drive home further how disciplined these guys are) and it would be amazing TV. It will make it even more incredible once the undead break through the ditch and begin to zerg swarm the soldiers. I'm a sucker for troops in formation.
Swarm509 the Romans never did that the way HBO: Rome showed it
Can someone explain to me why the Bolton forces appear more disciplined than the unsullied?
@@gertmoelders8809 You sound like you know how they did it, but nobody has any idea how the Romans did it. The only mentions in source material are about "shifting ranks/formations". HBO: Rome is as good interpretation as any other and from all that I have seen, it is the best one. In other words, stuff it, or provide some sources.
Great video! Though it makes me a little sad to know how badass this episode could have been with a little bit more creativity.
The sad part is, it's not even really so much creativity as it is just plain logic. It's kind of baffling that what we got actually made it to air.
The idea of the marker and the early success of the cavalry charge are very good. The original battle was too one sided (until the very end) and thus uninteresting. We wanted to see ups and downs, some confrontation,. and your version delivers
The problem is any ups and downs would be totally unrealistic or unbelievable. There is no way to win against the army in any traditional war effort.
When you have gear that is suited for defeating your fire, along with dragons that are super effective against the undead. Along with a bit of brain power. It seems it would be realistic to have up or downs. To be believable. Given the undead forces would then need to adapt and change their plan. That and what happens when a white walker is destroy? Oh yeah part of the army is destroy along with it. Killing commanders of the enemy army is a traditional military tactic. Given that is how they well in the original version of this. BY killing the enemy's king. Only more so due to being lucky as heck, rather then having brain power. Given killing the high ranking officials in an army or leader, is traditional. It has happen in war and battles many times before. Thebes fighting against sparta, have made the spartan flee and rout, due to killing their officials, commanders, generals, kings. Which in this case would be the Night King and the White Walkers. Given they are the ones commanding and leading this army. Yeah i think the old age tactic of cutting off the head of the snake, would apply here. Which in this case would be even better. Given you don';t have to mop up the enemy, just slay their leaders and everything is taken care of for you.
@@forestelfranger When the wight commanders are behind a literally tidal wave of flesh how are you suppose to get to them? And if your dragons are occupied clearing out cannon fodder on the ground they can't deal with the Night King. The concept of all the Night King has to do is send ONLY the base undead mob and you lose completely flys over your head. No matter how impeccable a defense you play you will exhaust your troops and you cant indefintly defend against a siege where you have limited supplies and no support coming to help.
@@Xarencey it can be seen as impossible without the characters looking dumb, like helm's deep. Small changes like the protagonists doing slightly better isn't really much of a stretch because the wights are weak as just normal soldiers, numbers make them a threat so having the army do better then get overwhelmed is better than not having any plan at all
@@Xarencey when a dragon can get several "kills" on the undead just in seconds, while the troops await up in the walls, one can asume the generals are forced to fight themselves, and there's the time a catapult or ballista or a drake may try to kill them. Winterfell is known to held against very superior forces and only the mob wouldn't be able to do it. Plus, it's not a common siege, the mob just attack, don't wait until starving their enemies which is the way to effectively win against a fortified enemy. So forced to attack with everything has to take, by all meanings, ups and downs. The point is the battle plan by the livings has to be enough smart to hold half of the episode, and only then the Arya's semi - deus ex machina would have been suit as a desperate plan
Evil chanting?? This is my favorite rewrite already.
They used distance markers in the movie Kingdom of Heaven. It was daylight and they put paint on rocks. I think that is a great idea.
I love how half of this professional editors changes are just like "we're going to change this so it's good and not bad"
I like your editions, especially about the military tactics.
However, I would've included the scene with the need for Melisandre to light the trenches, with a major change: in my version, she would've sacrificed her life by needing to spend all her magical 'life power' or whatever kept her alive on lighting up the trenches. I think it would've been a much better ending for her than to just walk out into the dawn and throw her medal in the snow. It could've been satisfying enough for Davos as well.
I was really expecting her to walk into the trench and burst into flame. After all the people she burned for the Lord of Light he finally needed her to burn for him. That would be fitting for Davos as well.
I'm still not a fan of it. Why not just light the trenches before the battle? This makes a lot more sense and requires less suspension of disbelief, which is always good. Her role was always the fulfillment of Nissa Nissa and the creation of Lightbringer anyway. There were multiple hints in the books and even the show that this was the case, but the showrunners seemed to have forgotten about her backstory.
One thing I hated was that only Melisandre showed up when we saw numerous red witches in Essos talking about the Great War. I had hoped that a whole bunch of them showed up to join the fight. But no. Oh well.
This edit is going to be imprinted in my memory for ep 3 now. Well done!
Definitely imagining a one-shot of Grey Worm fighting for survival and the Unsullied getting massacred, followed by surprise fire and a dragon roar as the camera quickly pans up to follow Jon and Dany.
The people on horses. Lets give the undead more bodies to attack with. ON MEEEE!!
It would've actually been absurdly hilarious to see undead dothraki horses bumrushing right into Winterfell after that undead giant broke through the gate.
Best episode improve I've seen so far... Thanks!
Imagine a similar scene to Jon but only with grey worm. I like the point of view style when in a battle as you live through it with someone you care about
I didn't know Helms Deep wasn't pulse pounding
Dude ur videos are so damn good
“What specific consequences the battle of Winterfell will have for the characters” lol
Those are some great edits you created in this video and I wish I could have seen your version instead of the mess I had to see. Please go on creating such great content, I'm sure I'll watch it and thanks for all the fantastic videos you already have created, especially the ones about Bojack.
Talking about Bojack, I wished the creators of our favorite animated anthropomorphic horse show would at least write the dialogue for GoT, not like in Bojack but with the same level of quality.
Now that both her miilitary advisors Baristan and Jorah are dead, Daenerys will order the knights of the vale to charge at king's landing walls.
D&D: "Dany kind of forgot that cavalry is useless against stone walls.."
Oh if only
I completely agree with these military edits. Way more logical and definitely way more interesting that what we got.
I think Bran should have died. He passed his story to Tyrion. Have Sam go to the library while it catches on fire, to save books, to tie in to the importance of "remembering", and that we have to make personal sacrifices to save our common memory and experiences, not only our lives, otherwise it would be another form of death, and you can't expect magic to do it. Once Bran dies to kill the NK, it is up to us to remember, not a wizard.
Nono Nono other 3-eyed raven and now Bran is manipulating our entire story (which this season isn’t even half over). He wasn’t just sitting there, the ravens served multiple purposes, including being tricked by that was all he did the entire time.
@@shannond7437 I don't think so, I think they just thought it would be weird if he just stayed there with his eyes opened and nothing to do or say, but didn't know what to do with him.
@Nono Nono I’ll agree to disagree. Bran has purpose, and this will come back around. They are leaving him vague and us unknowing on purpose.
Finally someone else said Distance Markers! thats one huge gripe I have over the episode
Thinking back to the tv series Rome, I was disappointed that they didn't show the battles and only the aftermath (save for one big battle). Seeing how GOT botched up battles, I can now sympathize with this approach Rome took. If you can't do a good thing right don't do it at all and show the tension and dread of the aftermath.
1:49 As a massive Total War fan, I laughed hard at this.
Great edit, with one objection: the Dothraki couldn't have held the undead hordes back enough to create a bottleneck for the artillery to fire upon, they'd be swarmed and killed in seconds. If TW has teached me anything, it's that putting your light cavalry at the front is a good way to have it killed. Infantry holds lines, cavalry harasses and flanks the enemy (and you can't really flank an undead horde, so have the Dothraki fire dragonglass arrows with hit-and-run tactics).
They should have hung the cinematographer out in front of the trenches as bait - the whole episode was so dark it was incomprehensible!
Now I'm even sadder
I wonder why we didn't get to see another ice spear
As expected, your military edits make more sense than what the show gave us. I like the Walkers chanting up a blizzard.
Putting everyone on inside Winterfell would be the smart thing to do but the castle set used in the show undermine this. In the show, Winterfell is just too small. Winterfell's outer walls should be 80 feet high, the inner walls 100 feet high and a moat between them. Make the moat a fireput. Put archers on the walls with dragonglass arrows (dragon glass stops the dead also). If the dead can get over the outer walls, set the moat on fire. By the time the dead get acroos the moat and over the inner walls we will be well into season 9 and this would really screw up the pacing so yean, put the Dothraki and the Unsullied outside and move things along.
I see your changes & raise you specially made extended, fireproof , dragon glass spears for the unsullied that are purposely made for the unsullied to reach over the fire trenches and kill the front and secondary lines of wights standing in front of the fire trenches
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.
I love this videos and am learning a great deal. So Thank you. I am interested in going to school for writing but have held myself back because I am severely dyslexic making writing hard but I love story telling, character development, and world building. I have studied acting and hope it will help in writing.
sorry not much info something I am bad at. anyways I was hoping you would do a fix-it or Editor rewrite for the whole of season GOT season 8. But just as you have with your Rewrite of the battle of Winterfell video work with in what the show give you.
one because the are very fun video and two I am learning a lot from just the Winterfell ones.
again thank you for making the video.
Night King during season 8
"Ight imma head out."
I've read Martin talk about lock-step phalanxes that fought the dragon lords, but the unsullied never showed us that fighting style, troy showed how easy it was to shoot a battle like that and make it look great and a shield-wall would have been a great idea vs a zombie horde no? once the gates are down and they pour through into the courtyard a wall of men and spears while heroes hold out on the walls but die one by one... how did they fuck this up?
other big question no one picks up on, what happened to the heavy knightly charge from the vale?
My god i wish you wrote episode 3 so badly
Dude the show writes must be ashamed of themselves that an unprofessional/no screen writing experience person like you can come up with much more interesting and realistic idea!
I will give you the the trebuchets! I think many others make us all excellent battle planners in hindsight!
Yeah I'm not sure about the fire blast from Grey Worm's perspective being the last thing we see from his viewpoint. He either 1) dies, charred to an unrecognizable crisp, and we get a very unsatisfactory ending for Greyworm or 2) is saved at the last second by dragon fire, which was one of last season's biggest complaint with the northern expedition, and we continue not fearing for our favorite characters' lives.
Perhaps it makes sense though. A friendly fire incident due to the blizzard is exactly the kind of consequences we are sorely missing. It's perfect Martin, and should have been a thing.
Kingdom of Heaven was a good example of this.....it even had a few GoT actors in it...
Yeah, the next editor, throwing hollywoodlogic on the sourcematerial, I´m excited?
vor starts:
If you don´t want to look this like idiotball, you have to show the preparations.
1. men the walls! With Archers
every man or woman in possession of a bow (especially Dothraki beginns immidiatly to make Dragonglas arrowheads.
2. draw more and shorter trenches!
If you dont have the time and only the excact length of trench we have can be digt, and set on fire, fine, use fiery trenches to denied the undead Terrain, make withdrawpoints, channel dem into dragonfire fueled traps.
3. First order for all command :"avoid loses, nobody is allowed to die!"
heaviest armored Knights in the front, against the undead, everybode without proper armor stays within the castle.
4. the horses on this battlefield are a weapon for the opponent retreat most of them from the north immidiatly.
5. the dragons
Jon takes his dragon bevor the castle and lights the trenches as soon as nessessery with the dragonfire.
Danny secures the perimeter with her bigger dragon (size does matter)
6. After the field war: "retreat your elite, the knights and unsulied, behind the wall, let the unsulied take there new position on the wall, guarding the frontarchers (armored) retreat the light archers (unarmored) to the secondary defences let Jon clear the wall from undead, when they start to pile up against he wall.
7. Bran does perfektly well as he does. he is evacuating every living being in the way of the night king. But please bring him inside, somewhere warm.
8. The weak. They are a weapon to the enemy! seperate them.
If you can´t evacuate the most of them along with the horses, at least gather them together in small groups in the smaller rooms of winterfell, let an armored guard, or an dothraki (good bondingmaterial) guard them inside barricaded chambers.
So, you are prepared, don´t wait for the NightKing, dig up more trenches, gather more woodand save the weirwoodtree. if it is of no relevance, or the knightKing wants it intakt also, fine. otherwise it may inspire the troops afterwards, a symbol for life
If your only edits were to stop the insane, mind-numbingly idiotic Dothraki suicide charge and to take the catapults *off* the front lines, it would already be enough to earn a thumbs-up. I would love to see this rewrite on screen, *particularly* the White Walkers calling forth the blizzard, as I, too, am a complete sucker for evil chanting.
Really interesting video. I wonder how long these edits would make the run time though? The writers are clearly on fast forward with Season 7 and Season 8 and they're episodes have been boiled down to bullet points, rather than having the time to spend on much exposition or character beats. Would they have been better off extending the episode time? Or just sticking to 10 episodes as usual like the did between S1-S6?
Hi there man, love your videos. Can u make a video about description in books? With giving some examples. How a writer can understand his/her description is too much or not enough?
I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as SB, but I tend to prioritise relevance and what is needed to build atmosphere, as far as detail is concerned.
He has another video about the very first chapter (Prologue) of Game of Thrones which pretty much deals with this problem. He presents how George R. R. Martin uses a good technique for giving a good description about the White Walkers without really saying much about them directly. Using the description of the tiny phenomena the characters can experience in their environment etc. The title of the video is "How George R.R. Martin Writes the White Walkers".
"...or what specific consequences the battle will have for the characters." Um...none it turns out.
Dothraki are light cavalry. They do light attacks. No armour because they don't need it when they catch their prey off guard and it keeps their horses as fast as possible.
Heavy cavalry, like knights, do what the Dothraki did in both versions. But the pincer move, like Stanis at the Wall and your edit, is better than a full frontal charge for some guys in light leather padding.
Thank you 🤯
So far, these edits seem very sensible, though the decision about having the dothraki 'herd' the wights between the distance markers stick out to me. I don't think the white walkers, and certainly not the wights themselves, would care much about the dothraki coming towards them, even with firery weapons. It's impossible to herd creatures which don't see you as a threat and/or obstacle, and wights are mindless, highly disposable and greatly outnumber the dothraki, leading me to believe they would simply charge on uncaring of the dothrakis' attempts to direct them. I mean, when faced with trenches of fire AND the walls of Winterfell, they're basically shown to just pile onto each other to make a bridge of bodies for the rest of the wights to use, seemingly all by order of the white walkers. There's plenty of reasons to believe that they'd use the same technique against the dothraki. Furthermore, after the dothraki are overwhelmed, they would turn into wights themselves, effectively adding to the army and therefore not making much of a difference.
I don't suppose it's going to change much in the grand scheme of the plot, since the dothraki will be slaughtered either way, but to me, the logic behind this particular edit seemed somewhat flawed, especially seeing as the characters who've seen wights and how they behave should know that this is likely to happen. This is also part of the reason why I think so many fans, myself included, were largely disappointed with this episode, since even the show didn't take this fact into account. It nullified everything that would've made the battle so much more dire and interesting - because how do you fight something like that? How do you prevent your own forces becoming part of the opposing army while still fighting it with the intend to win, or at least survive? They had the oppertunity to make something different and clever here, but went with something that not only seemed generic, but completely defied logic and made the characters' knowledge from previous encounters with this enemy seem downright pointless. It made it into a regular, run-of-the-mill zombie flick, with the characters' dumb decisions/planning making their survival seem unjustified.
Thanks for the video :) I'm very much enjoying the content of the channel!
They should not have Winterfell as a last resort, they should’ve let Bran escape with a convoy of wagons taking the civilians to riverlands along with evacuating the locals further south and the army of the living holds the castle killing as many as they can until they are forced to retreat on horseback south, and the army would take the direction toward White Harbor and since the Night King wants Bran they wouldn’t run them army down and instead continue to pursue Bran through the Riverlands which then could save a lot more people once Cersei is forced to allow everyone entry into Kings Landing, how Cersei will let them in it doesn’t matter if she is either going to let them in because there’s no hiding from this or the hero’s are forced to kill her before making their final stand and since Kings Landing has taller walls and by this time the white walker army won’t be as powerful due to the losses at winterfell and hardly any bodies along the way since many were evacuated toward Kings Landing the living would have a chance to finish off their entire army or better chances to get to the Night King since he’d try to kill Bran out of desperation
I like your edits. It gives the Dothraki and other minorities more to do than just saving the white main characters.
Bro dont bring race politics into game of thrones. Get out of here with that shit
Goddamn it I want to watch this
+1 for quoting Patrick.
We cannot lie. Fixing this mess of a battle is easy as fuck. But THIS FIX, this is just "valyrian steel" / 10.
The army of the dead is basically a steamroller. Who cares about tactical finesse when you have 100,000 fearless soldiers who, up to this point, have basically been immune to their enemies's weapons. Yes, we saw the dragons north of the Wall, but other than Jon's and Beric's swords, none of the others could put down the wights permanently (we saw the Hound 'kill' the same Wight a couple of times there, before it finally went through the ice). Based on that, there is no way they would be funnelled between your markers.
The Night King can see and feel through the eyes of every individual in his army. That's how he was able to stop them in front of the fire trench quickly, until he figured out how to pass it. This is why he had that stare down with Jon at Hardhome. After Jon kills the walker there, the camera cut to the Night King and we see him blink several times. He obviously felt the Valyrian steel as it destroyed his minion. This does spell danger to him under special circumstances, as we shall see.
When the armies clashed, and those wights who were killed by dragonglass or Valyrian steel stayed dead, in addition to the dragonfire burning thousands, the Night King had to recalculate. The wights themselves are incapable of being anything other than a battering ram, so he had to commit himself to the fray where normally he would not. Taking out the dragons became his priority #1 as they could do so much damage to his army. He did succeed in that, forcing Rhaegal down, but was thrown from his own mount by Drogon, meaning once more he had to commit himself to seeking out Bran.
I don't like your idea of the massed chanting of the white walkers bringing the storm. It lessens the power of the Night King somehow. And, on the storm, it blinded Jon and Dany on the dragons so much that they almost took each other out at one point. Dany couldn't see the signal from Winterfell to light the trench, which is why Melisandre had to do it.
As for the Dothraki charge, I can understand people's frustration with it. The problem is that there isn't a whole lot to be done with them, which would be consistent with their cultural attitudes. The Dothraki are (understandably) rather arrogant; everybody in Essos appears to fear them, paying them tribute rather than face them. Places they do raid have their gods hauled off to Vaes Dothrak as totems to Dothraki superiority. We saw in the argument between Robb and Rickard Karstark how much value some place on being in the vanguard of the army, the place of honour. No way would the Dothraki have accepted being posted as archers on the walls as I saw suggested by someone on another video.
As for bringing the whole army inside the fortress, Winterfell is a big castle, but I doubt very much if it could contain some 40,000 plus men arrayed for battle.
This would have been much more compelling.
I know they wanted to show that the White Walkers were a force of nature and Moxie and Strength meant nothing... but at what cost?
Well done.
Bruh i like this
Do you have your script in a file? could you UPLOAD PLEASE??
The problem is... If they retreated south from winterfell and the wights got there.. The dead army would probably be more than a million strong.. Completely unstoppable. Lol
@Lachlan yea but NK came after most of his army died. Imagine having to fight like 100,000 more wights. Lol.
Cool
Now rewrite season 7 and 8 with first fighting Cersei and then the threat from beyond the wall.
I can’t say I like your edit because your tried to stay close to the source. I think you likely need to start from scratch. This whole season was trash on top of trash and the plot holes left open are big enough to March the undead army through it.
I feel like while the dothraki charge seemed stupid in hindsight it served its purpose to make the nk seem even more terrifying. I think maybe it could've been included but not as a tactic used by the leaders but instead by the dothraki themselves
Your pronunciation is killing me...
Doath-rack-ee?
Mell-i-ssan-dray?
call hbo
Mediocre. Dulls the action and introducing random new elements like chanting to the walker is stupid.