ASOIAF/GOT ASOIAF Ideas, Recs, and Discussion thread

[Shipmaster Sane]

How much of the average Feudal Lord’s armies really are just random barely trained & barely equipped peasants?



Like Septon Meribald once was

By percentage of men? A lot. By value in fighting? Not nearly as much. Also, the lower down the Feudal totem pole you are, the bigger percentage of your army is peasant levies.

In real life? Absolutely not. The "Dirt peasant with a shovel army" is almost pure myth. Most medieval soldiers were, at the very least, trained semi-professionals with their own armor and weapons.

In Game of Thrones? It's hard to say. One description suggests its the "dirt peasants meme" doing the fighting, but other descriptions suggest more realistic medieval armies. Nevermind the show, where it's 99% dark ages berserkers rioting on one another with zero organization.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Nevermind the show, where it's 99% dark ages berserkers rioting on one another with zero organization.

Dark Age Berserkers, yeah kinda describes em given their obsession with war-crimes 24/7

How exactly do even the Smallfolk populations recover, both physically and mentally given that whenever enemy soldiers come in they proceed to wreck the place and torture and kill people for fun

 

[Deleted member 88]

In the show, the Lannisters have a professional standardized army that apparently requires being strafed by dragonfire at least three times and near complete encirclement by Dothraki to break.

While that was dumb, its not as dumb as Septon Meribald's speech. Where peasants with sticks are thrown at GC knights.

The Starks, Lannisters, Tyrells, Tullies are all rich enough to afford good men at arms and landed knights. As well as vassal lords and their support.

Throwing untrained peasants into war is stupid. Because they die. By the boatload. At best peasants can be simple levies or used to defend villages, but in actual war? Their next to useless.

Unless of course your Westeros-where lords are sadistic and get pleasure out of sending their peasants to die.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Throwing untrained peasants into war is stupid. Because they die. By the boatload. At best peasants can be simple levies or used to defend villages, but in actual war? Their next to useless.

Cheap=/=Good

How do they train Men-At-Arms fast enough though? Compared to learning how to use a gun, melee requires more skill and physique

At most I expect them all to be using pikes, not be trained and equipped in and with much else

 

[Deleted member 88]

Men at arms likely come from the lower nobility. Or upper layers of the peasantry. But you have be trained in your weapon, have discipline beat into you, among other things.

Its not something that can be done easily. Men at arms and vassal knights are not mass armies. They require upkeep, pay, maintenance, and so on. The Lannisters and Starks seem to have professional or semi professional officers. Jory Cassel or Vylarr. Being "captains of the guard".

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Men at arms likely come from the lower nobility. Or upper layers of the peasantry. But you have be trained in your weapon, have discipline beat into you, among other things.

Its not something that can be done easily. Men at arms and vassal knights are not mass armies. They require upkeep, pay, maintenance, and so on. The Lannisters and Starks seem to have professional or semi professional officers. Jory Cassel or Vylarr. Being "captains of the guard".

I think it’s been said that GRRM sorta exaggerated the extreme level of warcrimes and all those large masses of “broken men” to make an Anti-War theme

How do you think the Smallfolk recover though when it looks like pretty much every single peasant gets raped, tortured, robbed, killed, left homeless etc?

 

[Deleted member 88]

Martin emphasizes the anti war theme often at the experience of realism.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Martin emphasizes the anti war theme often at the experience of realism.

Kinda ironic but I think people equate edgy with realism

 

[Deleted member 88]

That's not a new observation.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

That's not a new observation.

I know

Say, how do you think Giants could live in the Seven Kingdoms without being exterminated?

There must have been a problem with coexistence given they’re all vegetarians

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Cheap=/=Good

How do they train Men-At-Arms fast enough though? Compared to learning how to use a gun, melee requires more skill and physique

At most I expect them all to be using pikes, not be trained and equipped in and with much else

Roman's raised professional armies fairly quickly when they needed.too y'know.

 

[Deleted member 88]

The Medieval world doesn't have the same sort of logistics or manpower pools.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

The Medieval world doesn't have the same sort of logistics or manpower pools.

It does in Westeros.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

In the show, the Lannisters have a professional standardized army that apparently requires being strafed by dragonfire at least three times and near complete encirclement by Dothraki to break.

While that was dumb, its not as dumb as Septon Meribald's speech. Where peasants with sticks are thrown at GC knights.

The Starks, Lannisters, Tyrells, Tullies are all rich enough to afford good men at arms and landed knights. As well as vassal lords and their support.

Well, the armies in the show are for some reason willing to accept unbelievable levels of attrition, and break pretty rarely, but even the professionals among them tend to devolve into mindless savages the second they make contact with the enemy.

I swear, we see literally the entire adult population of the Wildlings dead three or four times.

Like, they tell us how many are left, and thats all thats left, they give us a number at one point, and tell us that the entire number is in one place, then we see them literally butchered to a man until it's like, Tormund alone. Next battle they have the same number left.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Like, they tell us how many are left, and thats all thats left, they give us a number at one point, and tell us that the entire number is in one place, then we see them literally butchered to a man until it's like, Tormund alone. Next battle they have the same number left.

That's just begging for a parody where some dude screams questions about how this is even possible?
"HOW?! HOW?! YOU SAID THAT IS ALL OF THEM! THEY ALL DIED! WHERE DID THESE WILDLINGS COME FROM?!"

 

[Deleted member 88]

Well, the armies in the show are for some reason willing to accept unbelievable levels of attrition, and break pretty rarely, but even the professionals among them tend to devolve into mindless savages the second they make contact with the enemy.

I swear, we see literally the entire adult population of the Wildlings dead three or four times.

Like, they tell us how many are left, and thats all thats left, they give us a number at one point, and tell us that the entire number is in one place, then we see them literally butchered to a man until it's like, Tormund alone. Next battle they have the same number left.

I'd blame the latter on D&D simply not caring anymore. Like when they said the Dothraki were gone and they all respawned for King's Landing.

I'm not sure what you mean by mindless savages upon contact. In the battle of the bastards-stark and Bolton soldiers kill each other, but that's to be expected. Can you clarify on that?

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

I'm not sure what you mean by mindless savages upon contact.

I think he means to say the armies throw all caution and tactics in the wind, and just try to kill as many of the other side as possible.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Again, D&D seem to think that to have engaging drama you have to throw out even semi realism.

When...you don't?

The Long night battle-could have been written in a way that didn't make the protagonists fucking stupid and still had high stakes.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

I'd blame the latter on D&D simply not caring anymore. Like when they said the Dothraki were gone and they all respawned for King's Landing.

I'm not sure what you mean by mindless savages upon contact. In the battle of the bastards-stark and Bolton soldiers kill each other, but that's to be expected. Can you clarify on that?

In real battles, men dont just riot into each other in a disorganized mosh pit, completely overrunning each others lines, screaming and waving swords until both armies are completely mixed together, stabbing at random in a big sea of nonsense.

Consider the battle of the Bastards, where the big ace-in-the-hole strategy that the boltons used to more or less slaughter the starks with impunity was a spear formation that would have been laughed out of the bronze age, but because it was literally -any- formation, -any- amount of organized fighting, it dominated.

 

[Deleted member 88]

In real battles, men dont just riot into each other in a disorganized mosh pit, completely overrunning each others lines, screaming and waving swords until both armies are completely mixed together, stabbing at random in a big sea of nonsense.

Consider the battle of the Bastards, where the big ace-in-the-hole strategy that the boltons used to more or less slaughter the starks with impunity was a spear formation that would have been laughed out of the bronze age, but because it was literally -any- formation, -any- amount of organized fighting, it dominated.

Yeah. Well I suppose there was the wall and blackwater-where it was a siege battle. But I recall in the blackwater-Tyrion's sally eliminated one of the rams and Baratheon forces around it and then the sallying force was attacked by Baratheons from elsewhere-and they clashed on an organized line. With the wall the fighting was sporadic with the mass of the action being Tormund and Ygritte's raiding party from the south, that was chaotic. Albeit more sensibly in that case.

By Season Six though, any logic or sense of cohesion had gone out the window.