Headscratchers / Game of Thrones (Telltale)

• Much focus is given on Gared Tuttle's impending knighthood versus his friend Bowen and the knighthood status of numerous House Forrester characters is mentioned. Except, the North (unlike five of the other Seven Kingdoms) doesn't usually knight its cavalrymen. This is due to knighthood being conferred via a Seven-specific religious rite. It's not impossible the Forresters could be a Seven-worshiping Northern House but it's pretty damn rare.
  • Did they use the word "knight" though? I remember Gared getting promoted from a squire to a warrior, probably one of Lord Forrester's personal retainers, seeing as how Gared was his squire.
  • Gared does swear "Seven Hells," though this doesn't necessarily mean anything.
  • The fact that the Forresters are a Forest Ranger family, this might indicate that they worship the old gods, as would their northern heritage and loyalty to the Glovers and, thus, the Starks.
  • It is never explicitly stated that Gared would become a knight. If he tells Bowen about the promotion, Bowen calls him mockingly "ser Gared the Great", but lord Gregor only promises that Gared will be "equal to any man who serves house Forrester".
  • After replaying the first episode with this entry in mind, I believe the original poster is wrong about the knighthood status of many characters. The only, and yes, only prominent knight/Ser in the first episode is Ser Royland Degore, and the game indeed does not explain why he is a knight - but the in-game codex certainly does (he was knighted by king Robert after the siege of Pyke). The other characters (above squires) are simply men-at-arms. Also I remember the term "northern armored lances" was mentioned in the books directly in comparison to southern knights.
• How did Mira Forrester become a handmaiden to Margaery Tyrell? The Tyrells are the most social family in all of the Seven Kingdoms while the Forresters are Stark bannermen. Likewise, wouldn't Cersei have taken her as a hostage the moment she came to King's Landing the same way Sansa was?
  • It's explained in the Codex. Lady Forrester comes from the southern House Branfield. Even though she, like Catelyn, has well adapted to the North, she still wants her daughter to experience the more courtly life of the South. As for why she isn't a hostage, well, for one, she's the handmaiden of the King's fiancee and, unlike Sansa, she isn't directly related to a convicted traitor.
  • The other related element is that Mira is part of Margaery's retinue, and she was not present in King's Landing when Eddard Stark was executed. She arrived later, with Margaery, after Renly was killed. Since she is associated with Margaery, she could not be apprehended without crossing the Tyrells, which is not something Cersei is in a position to do without a politically acceptable excuse (though she will go to great lengths to make such an excuse.) By contrast, Sansa was part of Eddard's retinue, and when he was executed had no one left to protect her, and no one left to offend by taking her hostage.
• On that note, am I wrong or is the series misusing the term "handmaiden"? Handmaiden, both in real history and, if memory serves, in Westeros, implies low social status, surely lower that would be suitable for a nobleman's daughter. Mira's position should be more properly termed "lady-in-waiting", right?
• Why would Mira ever answer Cersei Lannister by saying Margaery is where her loyalty would lie? The King and Queen don't rule jointly in Westeros. Saying your loyalty would lie with Margaery is the equivalent of saying it would lie with the First Lady.
  • Cersei is being a dick by putting putting Mira in a Morton's Fork scenario for her own gratification. If Mira professes loyalty to Margaery, Cersei has an excuse to censure her. If Mira swears loyalty to Joffrey, Cersei can accuse her of being duplicitous and put her on the defensive, scrambling to assert her sincerity. Either kind of answer she gives, Cersei can later use Mira's oath sworn before the court to either hold her to her word or imprison her for breaking it, depending on how the situation shakes out. Plus it lets her watch Margaery potentially squirm and fishes for excuses to undermine her support, which is Cersei's actual objective.
  • Swearing loyalty to Margaery would be nothing like swearing loaylty to the First Lady (over the President presumably). The closest equivalent would be the President asking his wife's bodyguard "if an armed man attacks me and my wife, which one of us would you save?". It's Cersei's intention to force Mira choose an answer that "betrays" her greatest benefactor - clearly she doesn't believe Mira would be brave enough to say otherwise.
• The new characters and situations as a whole is a headscratcher to me. I mean, the game is great and all, but it seems to want way too much to show us aspects of the main series that don't quite fit via the use of expies. There's the deal with knighthood mentioned above, but also the fact that the whole Forrester family structure greatly resembles the Starks, and even the "Sentinel" situation, a clear copy of the Hand of the King. I get that they couldn't use the main houses and characters, but still wanted to give us an experience close to the TV show/books, but the way it's done is kind of silly.
  • I'm a little confused about the Knight Sentinel thing myself. As Castellan, Duncan should be the guy in charge of the castle because that's what a Castellan is. It's in the name. As Master of Arms, it's Royland's job to be in charge of the Forrester's military forces. You don't really need someone above either. That's what the Lord is for.
    • I took it as the Sentinal being their own position of Castellan. It seemed likely to me that Tuttle was Steward and Ser Royland the Master-at-Arms, and that Tuttle had previously been Sentinel/Castellan, but now that the new lord was in command he had to choose his castellan/regent.
  • To be fair to the developers, the Forresters being like the Starks isn't entirely unbelievable given they're a Northern house with Southern ties and a justification for such (the Ironwood trade). While they overdo it in places like the near-identical appearance of Talia to Sansa and Ryon to Rickon, the families being similar doesn't stretch my disbelief too much.
  • Besides I think it's kinda the point. Most people know what happens to the Starks and they are quite beloved by the fans, so it's a ploy by Telltale to actually indulge people's desire to play the Starks WITHOUT actually being the family. The Sentinel thing is more akin to show what the house cares about, or what it needs, since whose advice is more preferable and what should be the focus. I personally don't like it since it's a cheap way to create tension and intrigue.
• In the show, Tyrion Lannister as Master of Coin is an empty hollow title. Tywin Lannister takes over all duties of the Small Council for himself and mostly just assigns Tyrion it as busy-work. The Master of Coin is usually a very prestigious position (as Littlefinger showed) but that's not the case given Tywin's distaste for him. In the game, Tyrion acts as if this is a position of great authority. See Adaptational Badass.
  • Worth noting that the case of the Forresters is one of the few where his position actually WOULD have some weight.
    • To elaborate on the above point: Tyrion is playing "the Game" on a much higher level than the Forresters could ever aspire to. They're a minor House struggling for survival; he was until recently acting as the second-most powerful man in the Kingdom. To him, Master of Coin is an insult. To the Forresters, he's STILL one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom.
  • Then again we mostly see Tyrion dealing with the position while under scrutiny of his father or people of great caliber like Lady Olenna, in the game we are dealing with people that are not strong enough to have that much influence over Tyrion, so it helps show how much power he truly has.
• How the hell did Ramsay Snow get those soldiers into the keep if you bar them from entry? Gameplay and Story Segregation? That's what a portcullis is for people.
  • He probably had at least one mole inside Ironrath all along, and had them arrange for other soldiers to be granted entry.
  • From what I can tell, you don't appear to actually bar them entry; you just meet them at the gates instead of waiting for them to come inside the hall.
  • But the gate closes AFTER Ramsey comes in. The soldiers are all stuck outside. What is irritating is that this is never addressed. There would be no one willing to let in a bunch of potentially dangerous soldiers of Whitehill. If they at least hinted at the possibility of a mole, then it would be drama. As it is, the soldiers just appear in the hallway for no reason.
    • Turns out, actually there is a mole.
• What is Beskha's ethnicity? Is she Ghiscari? Dothraki? From some Free City?
  • Well, she seems to have some sort of history with Meereen, which could indicate Ghiscari. Slaver's Bay seems like sort of a melting pot though - she could be Lhazareen or even Asshai'i for all we know.
• Asher wants to fight the Whitehills with an army of mercenaries. But the thing is, mercenaries don't fight for free, you need to pay them first. Asher doesn't seem to have much funds with him, neither does Malcolm, and Forresters are not in the condition to pay anyone, especially if Rodrik gave away half of the ironwood to secure the alliance with Glenmores. So, how is Asher planning to hire those sellswords exactly?
  • Well, Asher's struggles seem to be somewhat parallel to Daenerys's, so my guess is that there will be a lot of wandering around Essos, and somehow this will end up with him getting the loyalty of a few minor mercenaries. He doesn't have a khalasar or dragons to aid him on his journey, sure, and certainly he won't be conquering any major cities for funds, but he could always come across some treasure, call on some old favours, make some promises.
    • The game addresses this problem directly. The Forresters are hoping for Mira to acquire the capital that they need. If she can secure an ironwood deal with the throne (which they need to rebuild the fleet after the battle of Kings Landing) it will give them enough of an economic shot-in-the-arm to afford a company of sellswords.
    • In the end, Asher gets his warriors by promising them a cut of plunder, which seems to satisfy them.
• Why were both Gared and Britt sent to the Wall? Britt said he was sent there for the murders he committed against Gared's family, but Gared was sent for then defending himself against the murderer? Either Britt should have been able to get out of it with Bolton influence, or Gared should be released thanks to Britt's guilt.
  • Duncan sent Gared to the wall without lord Ethan's permission, with a secret quest for the North Grove, and the player even has options to either chew Duncan out for doing this (for making the house look weak) and/or pretend to the Whitehills that Ethan doesn't know what happened to Gared. For Britt, it's easy to imagine hundreds of different reasons, but the most obvious one would be that lord Whitehill wanted to make himself appear as clean as possible in the "case", and Britt had outlived his usefulness so lord Whitehill got rid of him as a precaution. The another very popular theory is Britt was sent to the wall with a secret mission (like Gared).
  • If a recruit of the Night's Watch hasn't yet taken his vows, it's not hard to imagine situations where they might get released if another "guilty man" is sent to the wall for their crime. It would probably depend on who is in command and the current state of the Night's Watch (if they're even more starved for manpower than usual etc.). However Gared had already taken his vows so he was in it for the rest of his life.
• This is a minor issue, but when Gared points out that he is a deserter and thus no longer a member of the Night's Watch, Sylvi responds "Once a Crow, always a Crow." But Mance Rayder, who she wants to flee to, is also a Night's Watch deserter and the Wildlings have no problem with that.
  • She's a hypocrite? Or an inverse case of no true Scotsman? People are happy to make exceptions if it means staying somewhere safe and as part of an army that could be your last chance to live. Most likely she was not really that serious about it. She admits she has never met a Crow before. She might not even know about Mance's past since Cotter and her avoid others when they can.
  • She and Cotter aren't a part of Mance's army and it's possible they don't agree with forgiving him.
• Less or barely more than a dozen pit fighters follow Asher, how the hell is he expect to fight a house with hundreds of men with a dozen of pit fighters and 40 bannermen.
  • Not on the field, but pit fighters would make mincemeat of soldiers one on one. The obvious solution would be to force the Whitehills to fight in a situation that breaks up their formations and leaves them isolated from each other
  • Do we know the Whitehills' actual strength? We are talking about extremely minor houses who have suffered losses in the War of the Five Kings. We could be describing a fight between groups measured in the dozens rather then the hundreds.
    • This. Remember, it only took 20 men to fully and properly garrison Ironrath. Yes, garrisons tend to be small by their nature and intended function, but this is an occupying force that is unwelcome. Given that the two Houses are about the same size originally, there's probably only dozens of armed men serving both at the best of times. This is hardly the best of times for either, which is the only reason the Whitehills are really able to cause the Forresters such problems in the first place: they know they have the extra men (and Bolton support, initially) enough to bully and use gunboat diplomacy, but not enough to be absolutely certain they'd win a straight-up fight. Which is why Ludd was attempting to supplement his House's income to pay for more men so there'd be no question who'd crush who. It's also why they resort to the sneak attack on Asher and Rodrick once the Boltons decide to stay out of the matter entirely; that wasn't a battle, it was an assassination attempt.
  • Actually, it is made very clear that the Whitehills have 10 times the men the Forresters have
• More questions regarding the Lord-Sentinel thing. First, how come we never hear about who Lord Gregor's Sentinel was? I can't really imagine anyone other than Duncan or Royland in the role, but if they indeed were the sentinel, one would think they'd have pointed it out at some point (to Ethan at least, as a way to strengthen their claim to the position). If it was somebody else, how come nobody mentions this man? Secondly, how come Rodrik isn't allowed to make the choice of sentinel himself? From the way it was described in the first episode, I got the impression that each new lord chose a sentinel, whether the previous holder of the title was dead or not (or in other words, that the previous holder lost the title once the lord that gave it to him died). So, once Rodrik takes over, shouldn't he be allowed to make his own choice? I get the meta reason - it would feel redundant for the player to make the same choice twice - but in-game there doesn't seem to be any justification for it.
  • Presumably, Gregor's Sentinel was killed at the Red Wedding, along with Gregor himself. It seems that Royland and Duncan are the only sensible choices, but that's because most of the household was killed, we don't know anything about the House dynamics before the RW. We never hear of this person because, really, there's no reason to. As for why Rodrik doesn't get to choose his own Sentinel, he probably didn't want to strain his relationship with whoever Ethan chose any further, so just decided to keep true to his decision.
• The North Grove must never fall Gared. I know it could be a giant grove of ironwood trees or an ancient fortress but Gared I need you to sneak off from the night's watch who will then name you traitor and carry it back to Ironrath on your back.
  • I think we're SUPPOSED to take away from these scenes that Duncan isn't as competent as he appears to be.
  • Well now we at least know that it has both a source of renewal for the ironwood trees, a small yet very dangerous army, and another potential lord (which is helpful, since they're dropping like flies). Still, betraying the Night's Watch is very risky, and I question if joining them was truly necessary.
    • Well, it was for Gared, for reasons totally unrelated to North Grove.
  • Becoming a Ranger of the Night's Watch is the only way you're going to venture beyond the wall. Technically you could perhaps sail around it, or climb over like the Wildlings, but for Gared and most people that is not an option. Betraying the Night's Watch was really the only option while Lord Whitehill had it in for Gared.
• I'm confused about something. The traitor, no matter who it is, says that Rodrik has been making House Forrester look weak. However, the traitor has actively been working against House Forrester to weaken the House's position. So...they are justifying their work to damage and/or destroy House Forrester by saying Rodrik is already doing it. I don't get this. Insane Troll Logic, much?
  • It's possible that the traitor was steadfastly loyal to the Forresters when Gregor was Lord, but became increasingly disillusioned and bitter when Ethan did not make him Sentinel. The traitor may have seen betraying the Forresters as a way to gain the power and recognition he feels Ethan unjustly refused him, albeit while serving a different House. The reasons he gives to Rodrik for betraying the House are therefore simple excuses for his lust for power. Alternatively, the traitor could have genuinely believed that Rodrik was leading the House to ruin, and decided to cut his losses and join the Whitehills while he still could.

• For a pig farmer turned squire, Gared is absurdly badass at least by Go T standards. He should have had no more martial training than Podrick, but routinely wipes the floor with several much more experienced opponents at a time. This sticks out like a sore thumb as he is otherwise a more or less salt-of-the-earth peasant and acts like it.
  • At the beginning of episode one, Lord Forrester promotes Gared to a full-on warrior, no longer a squire. The Northmen don't have knights, since Knighthood is connected to the Faith of the Seven, but Gared is thus on an equivalent level to a newly-minted Knight, Trained in martial combat for years and recognized as a capable warrior. He was born a pig farmer, but it's made clear in dialogue that he won the peasant lottery of life by managing to get taken as a squire by the Lord and getting this training as a proper soldier. Squires get one-on-one in-depth martial training. Peasant militia soldiers, such as the likes of Britt and many Night's Watchmen, get a weapon shoved in their hand - perhaps the first time in their life - and do basic drills under a master at arms. It's no stretch that a squire whose training is complete would be a much more effective combatant than the average man-jack with a sword.
  • Also, Podrick is not exactly a typical squire, having poor training before we meet him, and then serving Tyrion Lannister, who is by no means a warrior capable of training him in combat.
• Where exactly did Eleana and Roderick have comfort sex after Arthur's death that she had to get up with the bedsheets to go find her clothing? She walks out of the room in nothing but a sheet.
  • These are actually two separate events. Elaena makes mention of it having been a few weeks. The timeline of the game, just like the books and show, is much more accelerated than it first appears. Which still raises the question, what were they doing the night before that her clothing was elsewhere in the holdfast?
  • Foreplay.
• okay, it is safe to assume that the Forresters expect to go into a true war with the Whitehills, their greatest hope of winning is getting an army of sellswords in order to make up for their lost army, correct? The problem is, Asher hire some Pit fighters instead of a real professional Sellsword army? Pit fighters are good in one on one fights, but the upcoming battles that they are expected to fight in the Forresters' service aren't going to be 1 on 1 battle, they are going to be 10 on 1 battles, which is no doubt one of the biggest reasons why Ironrath falls. Asher hire some Awesome, but Impractical fighters instead of those who really would help in a long-term war. Is he really that much of a fool, or does he just trust Beskha a little bit too much?
  • I think at some point in episode two they mentioned that all of the actual sellsword armies they know of are currently employed, so they don't have the choice of getting professional sellswords. It is possible that there are more armies, but they are most likely too far away for Asher to be able to reach them in a reasonable amount of time.
  • It's not impractical in the hands of a commander who can adequately predict or choose the battlefield to maximize his advantage. When you ambush Whitehill inside the hold, you are doing exactly that, confining his men to more restricted environments where one pitfighter can slaughter soldiers piecemeal.