RE: Game of Thrones final season
April 30, 2019 at 5:20 am
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2019 at 7:14 am by Homeless Nutter.)
I figured out why Jon sent the Dothraki to the slaughter. His girlfriend's first husband was a Dothraki. I don't think I'd be particularly fond of them either... 
But more seriously - the show creators needed to dispose of some dead weight, quickly and cheaply. The whole thing with the CG fire swords disappearing in the dark - it was actually pretty clever from the film-making standpoint, even if it made Dothraki look useless, and Jon and Daenerys - and whoever else planned this charge - look like dumbasses, which they very well may have been. The barbarian cavalry had to go, especially that - I'm guessing - extras are expensive enough, even if they're not on horseback.
Dothraki were pretty useless - out of their element, with crappy weaponry, that wouldn't work well against anybody, but other half-naked barbarians. Swords are not very good in medieval-style battle, especially against enemy in heavy armor, or the undead (since they're not valerian steel, nor obsidian, and the fire thing was apparently unplanned)... or anybody with a long stick, really. The kind of light cavalry, that was successful in the medieval times - like the Mongols, or the Tatars - usually used bows and arrows as their main weapons. And horses are famously useless, when it comes to defending castle walls. The undead don't seem to be scared of anything, so the psychological aspect of potentially being trampled by horses was probably lost on them.
There really wasn't much they could be used for. However, a much smarter option, from the tactical point of view - in my humble opinion - though much more costly to shoot, would have been to keep the Dothraki in the wings, wait for the undead horde to attack first, and then attack their flanks, while the enemy is stopped by burning pits and spikes, all the while pelting them with burning projectiles and dragon fire. Although - I imagine - ammo and arrows were in fairly short supply, and the dragons were meant to stay back, waiting for the Nightking to show up on his dragon - which plan they didn't stick to anyway, as soon as the barbarians got f*cked.

But more seriously - the show creators needed to dispose of some dead weight, quickly and cheaply. The whole thing with the CG fire swords disappearing in the dark - it was actually pretty clever from the film-making standpoint, even if it made Dothraki look useless, and Jon and Daenerys - and whoever else planned this charge - look like dumbasses, which they very well may have been. The barbarian cavalry had to go, especially that - I'm guessing - extras are expensive enough, even if they're not on horseback.
Dothraki were pretty useless - out of their element, with crappy weaponry, that wouldn't work well against anybody, but other half-naked barbarians. Swords are not very good in medieval-style battle, especially against enemy in heavy armor, or the undead (since they're not valerian steel, nor obsidian, and the fire thing was apparently unplanned)... or anybody with a long stick, really. The kind of light cavalry, that was successful in the medieval times - like the Mongols, or the Tatars - usually used bows and arrows as their main weapons. And horses are famously useless, when it comes to defending castle walls. The undead don't seem to be scared of anything, so the psychological aspect of potentially being trampled by horses was probably lost on them.
There really wasn't much they could be used for. However, a much smarter option, from the tactical point of view - in my humble opinion - though much more costly to shoot, would have been to keep the Dothraki in the wings, wait for the undead horde to attack first, and then attack their flanks, while the enemy is stopped by burning pits and spikes, all the while pelting them with burning projectiles and dragon fire. Although - I imagine - ammo and arrows were in fairly short supply, and the dragons were meant to stay back, waiting for the Nightking to show up on his dragon - which plan they didn't stick to anyway, as soon as the barbarians got f*cked.
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw