Good cut. Complaining and speculation aside, it's a recurrent plot point that the wildlings are brave but lack the know-how to fight in a cohesive, smart way, so the trope Idiot Ball doesn't apply in the first place because it's in the nature to make tactical mistakes. Sieging the wall is a first for many if not all, and unlike the "kneelers", they don't have the literature to learn from previous clashes.
Edited by 83.60.24.237
Just to ask for other opinions; are Wargs supposed to be common knowledge? mfarah is claiming that it is, but I remember last season Bran learning it for the first time and he's the most well-learned Stark alive.
Yeah, I reeeeeeally don't think Wargs are common knowledge. Jon Snow didn't seem to know about them when he first saw the wildling warg, and he'd be as likely to know as anyone.
If the giants only loosed two arrows, that would be Idiot Ball. Because those were ridiculously effective. And if they didn't know they'd be ridiculously effective... well, that's also Idiot Ball, because not realizing that "giant spear being shot at high velocity does incredible damage" is stupid. That said, I assume that there were more shots fired and we just didn't see it... though I do wonder how that could be considering how effective they were and the fact the Night's Watch didn't, you know, die horribly.
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I agree. Especially with the warg issue. They aren't common knowledge- to the extent they are known of, it is usually as a superstition, and it's telling that while (probably) all of the Starks are wargs, none of them except Bran are aware of it.
And since Jon killed Orell, I'm not sure that means he should have expected there to be more wargs around (I'd think the opposite- he could have reasonably believed that he had eliminated the Wildling warg).
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
Well mfarah ignored the request and added the examples back in. Hollering for the mods now, let's avoid turning this into an edit war in the meantime. They also added the following two examples:
- Whoever thought of the whole wall climbing frontal attack. Seriously, unless the battle is already won these climbers are going to die when they come near the top. Exhausted and with no way to defend themselves and with no support from below (even giant archers are hardly precise enough to pick off defenders and not climbers, and if they are then again, WHY use climbers?) they are dead meat even without the scythe.
- Another issue: These climbers could have climbed the wall earlier in another spot and then either flanked the defenders (approaching on sides at top of the wall) or joined up with the Thenn assault. Letting them try a frontal attack is murder.
Countering in order:
- The whole point of the exercise was to test the defenders, which means throwing a lot at them at once and see how they handle it. The climbers were there to test the defences up top and see if that was the weak spot. Yes, they would be at a disadvantage if they got up there and had to fight right afterwards, but you wouldn't know that unless you tried it.
- See above (and "Another Point" is Word Cruft and contributing to Forum Talk), but Mance Raider doesn't know for certain how many men are at the top of the wall; Jon told him there were thousands manning the wall so from a planning perspective if you're going to test the defences you test them at their strongest point and observe. And in that regards the plan worked perfectly; by deploying the Scythe Mance now knows for certain that there are so few men up on top of the wall that they would resort to deploying the scythe rather than just letting them get to the top and overwhelming them.
The climbers were pretty pointless, I must say. They were just an extra distraction. He certainly didn't get any intel about the defenses from them deploying the Scythe... that seemed like a first resort, not a last resort. If it were a a one-time use weapon, then sure. But it seemed like it had a surprisingly quick reset time (in that it could be reset at all. When I first saw it, I assumed it was a one-time use thing).
I think chalking up bad decisions to "he was testing them" is a bad idea. It's speculative for one, and for another... testing them doesn't necessitate doing stupid stuff. That said, I think Hollywood Tactics fits a bit better for some of these instances.
Edited by 156.33.241.9 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Yeah, thinking on it Hollywood Tactics does fit better, especially as these are Wildlings who have never had any experience with proper tactics or training.
Yet another example added from a different troper:
Idiot Ball: Alliser Thorne is well aware that there is a not-insignificant force of wildlings south of the Wall, raping and pillaging and doing their best to try to draw the Night's Watch out. When this tactic fails, he is caught by surprise by their innovative and unexpected tactic of timing an attack on Castle Black from the south with a simultaneous attack from the north by the main wildling force, and leaves the greenest recruits to guard the rear, apparently without anyone in formal command in the event of such an attack.
I actually have to dispute this one (surprise surprise). You can't see anything on the North side from the South because there's a huge-ass wall blocking your entire view. The only reason why they pulled it off is because the Wildlings on the South Side had a Warg with them with an owl on the top of the wall specifically to spot the fire. You can't hold the idiot ball over something you honestly don't know.
Since it's bringing a lot of complaining into the page I left a note asking people to bring examples here first.
It still counts as an Idiot Ball because he knows they're there, yet he apparently has no contingency plan for dealing with an attack from the south. He doesn't know that wargs could be used to coordinate the attacks— he could have if he'd taken Jon's reports on his time with the wildlings seriously, but it's in-character for him not to so we'll set that aside— but there's nothing stopping them from agreeing, "We attack from north and south an hour after sunset on the first night of the full moon" or some such.
The wildlings would be idiots not to coordinate their attacks, therefore Alliser is an idiot for not anticipating it and planning accordingly.
Edited by 159.233.220.86
Yes, there could be any number of ways they're coordinating (also: a burning forest at night? It's going to be visible in the sky from the other side of the wall. The smoke will be visible, and the light will be reflecting off of the clouds and smoke).
He knew there were Wildings in the south. He knows the Wildlings are a united force. Sure, he couldn't account for Wargs. But thinking they wouldn't be able to do something like say "Hey. Attack in two weeks" is silly.
That said, I'm not sure how much he could do to plan for that as he was right in having the best and strongest atop the wall. But he should have had a plan or chain of command in case they did attack the south gate. It's pretty stupid, considering how competent he was overall the episode.
Also: Would Thorne putting Slynt in command of the wall count? The man was an idiot, and he was clearly freezing up already. If Thorne hadn't reconciled with Jon Snow already I'd say it's in-character, but it just seems like a surprisingly dumb move.
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I think you guys are discounting just how hard it is to coordinate between groups that have had no contact with each other for weeks/months with a giant wall in the way. Especially since these aren't some crack commandos, highly disciplined and trained to be the best in the world, the wildlings aren't renown for being tactical geniuses.
I'd also dispute that they can see the fire from the south side of the wall since well, we don't see the fire from the south side of the wall. The smoke won't be visible because hey, it's a 700-foot-high wall, if the wind isn't blowing south that smoke is going to be obscured by the giant block of ice, if it's a cloudless night then there's no light going to be visible, and the southern wildlings were absolutely reliant on a warg to see the fire.
Plus, the absolute second Thorne heard that the Wildlings were mounting an attack on the south gate he takes several men and goes there and arrives a solid minute before they break through. The guy is in a terrible position but the attack on the North with 100,000 wildlings is an absolute certainty, the number of wildlings to the south is an unknown and there is no guarantee that they have the numbers and means to launch an offensive since their prior tactics were trying to lure the Night's Watch out of Castle Black, which would indicate to a defender that they lacked the ability to assault it directly. He only has a hundred men (plus cooks, builders, and other non-combat personnel) at his disposal,
As for leaving Slynt in command up top, it kept him from fucking things up down below and he probably underestimated just how much of an idiot and coward Slynt was.
Again: it doesn't exactly take tactical genius to agree to something like, "we attack an hour after sunset on the first night of the full moon." Would it have been believable if the wildlings didn't make such plans? Sure, because they're not used to coordinating tactics and acting as an army. But it's equally believable that that they would, meaning that Thorne should have had some better contingency plan in place to guard the Wall's weakest point than "stick our greenest soldiers down there with apparently nobody in command, and then waste valuable time and logistical resources moving people back and forth between the top and bottom of the Wall when they attack".
Except you're trying to coordinate on a date that is months and months away with no guarantees that either side will be in position. Let's pick apart your example; "attack an hour after sunset on the first night of the full moon." Assuming that it's the next full moon then we already have failed because Mance's army is not ready to attack the wall in a month. For an hour, well that's a lot of guess work in a world without clocks. Suppose the southern raiders get a bit ahead of themselves and attack 50 minutes after the signal, they rock up and get massacred, then the Night's Watch just turn around and go back to manning the front of the wall. Sunset, that's great if it's a mostly clear day, what happens if the Gods see to it that it's a long stormy day? You have no frame of reference so the whole plan falls apart. You are severely understating how hard coordinating such an unprecedented and precise strike would be.
And as far as Thorne knows the Southern Raiders lack the numbers to mount an attack on the wall which was why they were trying to lure the Night's Watch out. These are tactics from a force that simply can't fight a straight up battle. And the wildlings aren't known for being tactical; Thorne's been a member of the Night's Watch for years and the idea of the tribes putting aside their differences and uniting was a tough one to swallow. Them showing uncharacteristic coordination and foresight would never cross his mind. Note that the second it does happen he personally heads down there and arrives a good minute or two before they breach the wall.
It's telling that in the book version there is no coordinated attack; the Southern force attacks on their own initiative independently of the main strike.
A fire that size would be visible on the other side of the wall. Ever been driving towards a big city at night? Notice that the sky glows around the city, even if it's perfectly clear? Not to mention it's making its own smoke, making it even more visible.
We're not saying he should've had the best people there, but it's incredibly sloppy for him to have absolutely no contingency. There didn't even seem to be anyone in charge down there.
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^ Exactly. Even if his contingency plan was just, "Hey, Pip, you've got the least-stupid-looking face of the greenhorns I'm leaving down here so you're in charge if the wildlings that we know are out there attack our most vulnerable front while I'm busy leading the main defense up there," he should have had one.
Especially since a siege of the magnitude we're talking about could take weeks if not months if not years. Even without precise coordination, he should expect that the wildlings south of the Wall might attack sometime during the siege.
Sorry, Shaoken, but it looks like you're alone on this one. I'm going to give it another day in case anyone else would like to chime in and then restore a modified version of the entry to the examples list.
Edited by 159.233.220.86
We know that the fire was visible on the south side of the Wall; we see it from Tormund's camp (right after the Thenn warg says "it's time").
While I'm no military tactician, it seems to me that what really put Ser Alliser in a precarious situation was that the attack from the south came while they were only preparing for the one from the north. When he was told that the southern gate was under attack, his response was "Now?" while looking at the northern army. Ser Alliser was presumably the most competent tactician (looks like the only one, even) at Castle Black, yet he (unlike Jon when he left the Wall some time later) didn’t leave any instructions as to how the Wildlings' tactics should be countered — because he did not know what those tactics were going to be.
And it's not like they were caught by surprise by the southern attack; they were firing at them way before the Wildlings fired any arrows or reached the gate. When the Wildlings did reach the gate, rocks were dropped almost immediately. Moreover, I'm pretty sure there was someone in charge there: the one telling them to draw and loose. All in all, I’d say they were fairly well prepared.
The timing could not have been worse from Ser Alliser's viewpoint: he evidently saw it as necessary to defend the courtyard personally (and from the looks of it, he wasn't that far off), but he also needed a good tactician at the Wall to evaluate the Wildlings' attack and decide what needed to be done when (this person would not need to be there all the time though — barring unforeseen developments, they would only need to tell someone else what to do and put them in charge, just like Jon did). This would present a problem if and only if there were Wildlings in the courtyard when the rest of their army started attacking the Wall — and in such a case, no plan was going to be much of a help.
In conclusion: Ser Alliser's plan was fairly good, given what he had to work with. It almost fell apart because Janos Slynt froze up, and because a situation arose that couldn't be dealt with satisfactorily, regardless of plan.
I’ll admit this is based on a fair amount of assumptions (and if someone with actual military expertise tells me I’m completely wrong about those matters, I’m not going to argue), but at the moment it is the only set of such that I can think of consistent with what actually happens in the episode.
Finally: in the interest of stopping the next Edit War before it even begins, I would suggest putting the modified version here first, that we may agree upon its phrasing.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
^ That's fair enough. I propose something short and simple like,
- Idiot Ball: Ser Alliser Thorne is apparently caught by surprise when Tormund, Ygritte, and the Thenns attack Castle Black from the south. As seen in a previous episode, he knew they were out there, and yet he had no contingency plan— as far as we can see, no one even in command— for the defense of the southern approach, their most vulnerable position, leading him to leave the defense of the Wall proper in less-competent hands during a crucial moment while he made the descent to the base.
Again, he's not caught by surprise by the attack, just really inconvenienced by the timing of it. Sam and Pyp discuss the defense of the southern gate while putting arrows for the archers there. Judging by the voice going "Draw!" and "Loose!", someone is in command (appointed or not) at the southern gate. He may very well have been killed by the time Ser Alliser arrives, but he was there doing some commanding.
If anything, this is a case of Between a Rock and a Hard Place/Scylla and Charybdis: The timing of the two Wildling attacks (one from the north and one from the south) forces Ser Alliser to either risk leaving the courtyard without an experienced battle commander when the southern gate is breached or leave the Wall in the hands of a less competent tactician before finding out exactly what the enemy is planning to do. He chooses the latter.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
^ Which he could have avoided if he'd realized that it was incredibly likely that wildlings would attempt to time their attacks as close together as possible and appointed an experienced battle commander to protect the weakest point which he had every reason to believe was under imminent threat. It's almost as if he didn't think of it because he was too busy carrying some kind of ball around.
The problem is not simultaneous attacks. It's the following sequence of events:
- Mance's army amasses north of the Wall.
- Tormund's band attacks from the south.
- Mance's army attacks from the north.
What experienced battle commander? The Night's Watch had recently suffered heavy losses north of the Wall (Lord Commander Mormont, Qhorin Halfhand, hundreds of Brothers...). Probably the best candidate after Ser Alliser was Janos Slynt, but he was a commander of law enforcement, not of an army (still, he was in command of 2000 men).
My point is that by the looks of it, Ser Alliser was both the only experienced battle commander and the only competent tactician (discounting Jon Snow, but not even he knew that beforehand, as he had never fought a battle before). Only by really fortuitous timing on the Wildling's end was Ser Alliser needed at both places at once — a few minutes would have made all the difference. It doesn't seem to me like there was anything he could've done to prevent that, only hope that it wouldn't happen. Note that his reaction upon being told that the southern gate is under attack is more along the lines of "Well, fuck" than "Wait, what?".
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
There was nothing he could do to prevent a simultaneous attack, but he could have done a much better job to prepare for it.
Scenario 1: "Both our northern and southern approaches are likely to be attacked. The north contains the largest enemy force, therefore that is where I, as the most seasoned battle commander, shall position myself. I shall position the next-best man [whomever he considers that to be, it's not really relevant] at the base of the wall to command in the event of an attack from that direction."
Scenario 2: "Both our northern and southern approaches are likely to be attacked. The south is the more vulnerable approach, therefore that is where I shall position myself. I shall position the next-best man at the top of the wall to command the main defense."
Either one would have been a valid strategy. What's not, and therefore what counts as an Idiot Ball, is,
Scenario 3: "Oh, shit! Wildlings are attacking exactly where it is totally obvious they will attack from, yet I am caught by surprise because I am an idiot! I have allowed my most vulnerable approach to be attacked without a clear command structure to organize the defense, and now I shall waste valuable time during the most critical moments of our defense riding an elevator so that I can command them myself!"
We're now going in circles making the same arguments at each other. If anybody has any actually new arguments or any input on the wording of the entry (currently-planned wording is in a previous post), now is the time.
Edited by 159.233.220.86
I think we've misunderstood each other. At the very least, we've focused on different issues.
Going from one place to the other when he was needed at both was a waste of time, agreed. He should've stuck to one of them, or moved at a time when he wasn't needed at either (not that there ever was such a time, but there could have been).
What I take issue with is the notion that the defense of the southern gate was poorly organized and/or ill-prepared. We see the preparations and hear the organizing. They got their asses handed to them because they were undermanned, not because they didn't know what to do (though Pyp, at least, didn't seem to know how to do it).
I would suggest phrasing it like this:
- Idiot Ball: Despite knowing well in advance that Castle Black will be attacked from both the north and the south side at the same time, Ser Alliser doesn't make up his mind about which side he is going to be at until the last minute, and thus wastes valuable time during the battle by moving from the top of the Wall to the courtyard.
^ I like it. Short and to the point. I'd only make one small change:
- Idiot Ball: Despite knowing well in advance that Castle Black is in imminent danger of attack from both the north and the south, Ser Alliser doesn't make up his mind about which side he is going to be at until the last minute, and thus wastes valuable time during the battle by moving from the top of the Wall to the courtyard.
I'd also make mention that it left a gap in the chain of command at the top.
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^ Makes sense.
- Idiot Ball: Despite knowing well in advance that Castle Black is in imminent danger of attack from both the north and the south, Ser Alliser changes his mind about which side he is going to command personally at the last minute, wasting valuable time during the battle moving from the top of the Wall to the courtyard and leaving Janos Slynt, who is caught utterly unprepared, in command of the Wall proper.
That last part makes it sound like leaving Janos Slynt in command was an idiotic move. I don't think it was; Ser Alliser couldn't have known that Slynt would be completely useless, and didn't really have much of a choice.
Maybe "[...] This has the side-effect of leaving Janos Slynt, who turns out to crack easily under pressure, in command of the Wall proper." would be better?
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
^ I don't know if it's accurate to say that Thorne couldn't have known Slynt would be useless. Maybe he couldn't predict the extent of Slynt's cowardice, but Slynt hadn't exactly made any secret of his inexperience, mocking the existence of giants and whatnot. Also, Slynt seems caught pretty off-guard when Thorne leaves him in charge; while Slynt had been acting as Thorne's de facto second-in-command, it seems clear that Thorne never formally let him know, "Look, you're my guy. Anything happens to me, you're in command." Maybe Slynt should have understood that and that counts as a secondary Idiot Ball for him.
Slynt expressed disbelief at the existence of giants exactly once, and then realized that it wasn't a joke. Maester Luwin stated that they were all dead, and he was (obviously) a learned man. As far as everyone who has never been north of the Wall knows, rumours of giants are just that. Even Ser Alliser, who was trapped north of the Wall for six months during the winter, has never seen one.
Slynt also made a point of how important he used to be in King's Landing, being the Commander of the City Watch. With those credentials (he was dismissed for political reasons, not due to incompetence) you'd expect him to be a competent leader. He's fairly obviously a Small Name, Big Ego kind of guy, sure, but he should be able to do his job.
"Slynt is not as good a leader as he makes out to be" is a reasonable assumption to make. "Slynt is unfit to lead the defense" is a questionable one, even if it turned out to be correct.
Idiot Ball means doing something uncharacteristically stupid for the sake of the plot. While some of this is a far cry from genius, I don't think it's quite stupid enough to count.
Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.
I have to agree on the Slynt thing, with his credentials anyone would assume that he would have to be at least competent enough to muster a basic defence like the one at the top of the wall. Apparently King's Landing under Slynt never had any riots or serious issues beyond killing a bunch of Bastards.
Adding a disputed (and currently commented out) example here to discuss.
Okay, thoughts in order:
So my vote is cut it all for the above reasons and leave it at that.
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