Alotta guys are out there saying that Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones was the best episode of television, ever.  Well, who am I to disagree?  It was awesome, no one can deny that.  And probably the only competition is the prior GOT episodes from past seasons with major battles, like when the wildlings assaulted the Wall, or the Battle of the Bastards, or Hardhomme, when the skeletons just rained down over the cliff and overwhelmed the Night’s Watch.  Those were awesome too, you guys.  I mean, in that battle for the Wall, you had giants riding in on fucking MAMMOTHS, which are extinct, the last time I checked.  People forget that.  

So yea, I’m not going to quibble over which of the GOT battle episodes was best.  I will admit I had a rager pointing north the entire battle scene with the dragon and the Dothraki’s and Bronn manning the ballista.  But I do have a couple of complaints, because I don’t think the battle was realistic.

SPOILER ALERT, obviously, dumbass.

Before I get into my complaints, I have to note my favorite running gag, that has only come up three times in the entire series.  When Davos and Jon were walking down the stairs, John asked Davos “How many men do we have the North?  10,000, less?”  Davos responded, “Fewer.”  Jon, confused, responded, “What?!?”

They pull this one about once every other season.  It started when Davos told King Stannis that he didn’t mind having the ends of his fingers cut off, because it was “four less” fingernails to clean.  Stannis, the original grammar Nazi, corrected him.  “Four fewer fingernails to clean,” he told him.  Davos didn’t even know what he meant.

In another show, a Night’s Watch guy advocated letting the wildlings die, because it would mean “less enemies for us.”  “Fewer,” Stannis told Davos, sitting in the crowd.  “What?” Davos asked, not understanding WTF Stannis was talking about.  

Well, apparently Davos has learned something along the way, because “fewer” is applied to things you can actually count, like fingers and men, but “less” is applied to things you can’t count, like time or water, or things like that.  Admittedly, this exchange was less interesting than the huge battle scene, but there are fewer scenes I have enjoyed more that the Davos grammar corrections.

One more point before we get to the battle.  Bronn is the fucking best.  If I had to pick one guy to hang with from Game of Thrones, it would definitely be Bronn.  Tyrion would be a close second, because he is funny as hell and he would bring the wine.  But I’m going with Bronn, because he might even be funnier, and you never know when having a sellsword as a good friend can come in handy.

Anyway, the Tarly kid rides up before the big battle, and Jamie calls him “Rickon.”  The kid corrects him, saying his name is “Dickon.”  Bronn laughs in his face.  Nothing like a good Dickon joke for no reason.  Ok, so on to the battle.

Allow me to be the first to admit that we have been waiting for this battle since the first season, maybe the first episode of the first season.  From the very beginning, it was hinted that the Dothraki horse warriors were going to back the Targaryen kids, whether it was Dany or her brother, and help them retake the throne in Westeros.  The entire SERIES has been leading up to that.  And we got that payoff on Sunday night.  HUGE!

And other than the dragon, I think it would have been a fair fight.  If you study medieval warfare, and I have (by that I mean I’ve played a lot of the Civilization V and Age of Empires computer games over the years), you know that the pikeman beats the horse soldier, who beats the foot soldier, who beats the archer, who beats the pikeman.  Kind of the rock-paper-scissors of computer games.  So Jamie and the Lannisters had the pikemen (guys with long spears), and Dany had the horsemen, the Dothraki.  So that would have been a fair fight, with the edge probably going to the Lannister pikemen.  Didn’t turn out that way, because dragons.

Add the dragon, and it was a rout, obviously.  But WHERE THE FUCK WERE THE OTHER TWO DRAGONS?  Why weren’t they there burning shit up? No one is asking this fundamental question.  I don’t think you lose a single horse warrior if you start this shit up with all three dragons.  Doesn’t even make sense.  Do they need to have a rider?  Of course not, because all three dragons burnt up the boats after that scene when Dany told the three slave traders to go fuck themselves, and Greyworm killed two of the slavers with a single swipe of the knife.  Dafuq were those other two dragons doing??

Ok, now let’s talk tactics.  Here is where I got so pissed off due to my superior knowledge of medieval battlefield tactics.  Jamie’s men are getting burnt the fuck up by the dragon.  So what does he do?  He calls all the archers together to take a shot at the dragon as he gets in range.  They do, and of course the arrow volley bounces off the dragon’s chest.  Well, of course it did.  That’s not how to do it.  When contesting an aerial, you don’t concentrate your anti-aircraft in one spot, where said aircraft can take them out with one blow.  Of course not.  You spread them the fuck out, where any single one of them can take out the flyer, and the entire antiaircraft corp is never at risk from a single air attack.  Is it me?  Isn’t this obvious?

Back to the other side, why the hell would Dany and the dragon burning up the wagon train?!?!?  That is food and supplies (and good wagons) you could take home with you to feed your own people.  That made absolutely no sense.

And I have another reason that Dany is going to lose because she is an idiot.  Dany and the dragon came swooping down for a burn run, and Bronn blasted a missile right past her earlobe on the approach.  Seeing they had this super weapon, what does Dany do?  She comes flying down with the dragon exactly the same way, to give Bronn another shot, when he, of course, wings the dragon.  Really???  Use your goddamn brain for me one time.  Serpentine.  Mix it up.  Fly figure 8’s or something with that beast.  So simple.  Ugh.  Dany is absolutely going to ruin everything if she keeps doing stupid shit like that.

Finally, gotta comment on Jamie’s charge at the end.  First off, who do you think he was charging at, Dany or the dragon?  Apparently there is room to disagree, according to the internets.  I assumed it was the dragon, but like always, I am willing to entertain alternative viewpoints.  But here’s the thing, Jamie and his horse were running along the edge of a lake or river or whatever, when the dragon turned his head and blasted the fire to roast him.  Someone (obviously Bronn) saved him, by tackling him off the horse into the water where, right before the credits rolled, he was sinking in at least 10 or 20 feet of water, with heavy armor.  

Uh, Jamie was riding along the beach.  There isn’t water that deep right next to where he was riding.  It wasn’t SeaWorld.

So you are saying, Jesus Christ, you idiot, there were fucking fire breathing dragons in that show, and you are worried about REALITY?!?!?  

Uh, yea, I am.  That’s the thing.  You only get so many variables.  Ok, you get animals like dragons and a new world where dead people become zombies.  I am ALL IN on that.  But the exchange is, I get to keep something, some reality that I can count on.  Like the fact that when you ride a horse on the beach, the water next to the horse is only a couple inches deep.  You get to make up dragons, but you have to leave the normal stuff alone.  That’s just my way of thinking.