someone asked you earlier what time of day did the battle of the blackwater take place, which got me thinking there’s probably pros and cons of time of day right? renly and stannis’ battle that didn’t happen was supposed to take place at dawn for the sun advantage, but there’s gotta be a stealth advantage to a night battle, yeah? what’s the real world medieval analogue to this question

There is a stealth advantage, definitely, although there’s a tradeoff in that it’s extremely difficult to coordinate the movement of military units at night and it’s very easy to get lost.

The best historical example of this is the NIght Attack at Târgovişte, masterminded by none other than Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Dracula.

While formally a subject of the Ottoman Empire – Vlad had been a hostage of the Sultan growing up, had sought refuge in the Empire when his father had been murdered by a usurper, and had twice been backed by the Sultan in invasions of Wallachia to take back the throne – Vlad didn’t want to pay taxes to the Sultan, especially the tax on non-Muslim citizens of the Empire, and rather fancied the idea of ruling Bulgaria, and decided to ram the point home by having tens of thousands of Turks impaled on spikes when he invaded said kingdom.

This naturally angered Mehmed II, who decided to invade Wallachia and annex it to the Ottoman Empire outright – no more half-measures of coddling the local aristos. The war between Vlad and the Ottomans was a brutal counter-insurgency campaign, with the Ottoman’s superior heavy infantry and artillery slowly grinding its way through Wallachian territory while Vlad’s cavalry ambushed them and then retreated, poisoned the wells and food and evacuated the population and livestock, and sent people suffering from tuberculosis, syphilis, and the bubonic plague into the Turkish camp to infect them.

The Night Attack came at the the regional capital of Târgovişte, where the Ottomans were enamped waiting to besiege the city. According to one source, Vlad actually disguised himself as a Turk and walked into the camp looking for the Sultan’s tent – while there, he learned that Mehmet had ordered his soldiers to remain in their tents. Vlad then launched a series of night attacks aimed at killing or capturing the Sultan himself, but got the wrong tent. A chaotic, bloody brawl ensued, and although the Ottoman army was not dislodged and the Wallachians had to withdraw, the combination of casualties and low morale took its toll, and the Turks soon withdrew from Wallachia, although notably both sides would declare victory.

Moral of the story: do not pick a fight with Vlad Tepes unless you’re ready to fight dirty.

More Book News!

Hey folks, just wanted to let you know that the second paperback is now available on Amazon.com! With Volume II done and dusted, we’re optimistic that Volume I should be heading to print soon, so that you’ll be able to have the whole series on the shelf right next to your well-worn copies of A Song of Ice and Fire. As before, I have an ask for all of you: if you’ve not had a chance to get your…

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Is the Common Tongue English?

For all intents and purposes, yes, because GRRM is not an Oxford philologist.

What do you think of The Soiled Knight and why do you think GRRM elected to go with a one off POV for Arys Oakheart rather than making Arianne the POV?

Because I think he wanted to make Arys sympathetic and not make Arianne too unsympathetic, because if the chapter was Arianne seducing someone she thinks of as a bit of a dope and doesn’t give a damn about just so her cockamamie scheme can go forwards…

goodqueenaly:

racefortheironthrone:

goodqueenaly:

Today I was watching a documentary about the Great Fire of London in 1666. I had known it was pretty devastating, but I didn’t realize how hellish it actually was – particularly the strength of the fire itself. The combination of inadequate firefighting tools and stoking wind meant that at its strongest the fire raged at well over a thousand degrees – hot enough to melt the iron bars at Newgate Prison and make the stones of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral literally explode.

But the thing that struck me most was the very real danger the fire posed to the Tower of London, when the blaze changed course after its third day. After all, there were 9000 barrels of gunpowder stored in the Tower. I’m not a physicist or chemist or skilled in whatever branch of science would be capable of analyzing this problem, but an inferno of that scale meeting that load of gunpowder … well I suspect it would have been a pretty horrific explosion.

The reason I mention this at all is because I thought of the Jade Holocaust immediately upon hearing about this. I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM draws heavily on the Great Fire of London, and particularly the threat to the Tower (that, thankfully for England, never materialized) for when Daenerys attacks the capital. Fire raging, a confusing and hellish inferno, and then the wildfire gets ignited and BOOM. Goodbye King’s Landing, goodbye Iron Throne, goodbye Aegon VI.

You might be surprised about the resilience of King’s Landing to a jade inferno…

One of my favorite quotes from Ben Aaronovitch:

That does suppose, however, that King’s Landing doesn’t turn quasi-radioactive in the combination wildfire-dragonfire explosion.

True. If it goes all Thin Place, the value of the real estate might turn negative.

goodqueenaly:

Today I was watching a documentary about the Great Fire of London in 1666. I had known it was pretty devastating, but I didn’t realize how hellish it actually was – particularly the strength of the fire itself. The combination of inadequate firefighting tools and stoking wind meant that at its strongest the fire raged at well over a thousand degrees – hot enough to melt the iron bars at Newgate Prison and make the stones of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral literally explode.

But the thing that struck me most was the very real danger the fire posed to the Tower of London, when the blaze changed course after its third day. After all, there were 9000 barrels of gunpowder stored in the Tower. I’m not a physicist or chemist or skilled in whatever branch of science would be capable of analyzing this problem, but an inferno of that scale meeting that load of gunpowder … well I suspect it would have been a pretty horrific explosion.

The reason I mention this at all is because I thought of the Jade Holocaust immediately upon hearing about this. I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM draws heavily on the Great Fire of London, and particularly the threat to the Tower (that, thankfully for England, never materialized) for when Daenerys attacks the capital. Fire raging, a confusing and hellish inferno, and then the wildfire gets ignited and BOOM. Goodbye King’s Landing, goodbye Iron Throne, goodbye Aegon VI.

You might be surprised about the resilience of King’s Landing to a jade inferno…

One of my favorite quotes from Ben Aaronovitch:

Honestly, the worst part of Jean Grey’s resurrection is the treatment of Madelyne Pryor and Rachel Summers after her return.

comradepitrovsky:

racefortheironthrone:

Agreed.

While Inferno has its charms, it did do Madelyne Pryor dirty, turning someone who had been the Australia X-Men’s “guy in the chair” into a crazy vengeful ex.

But the biggest missed opportunity was Rachel. I would argue that Claremont didn’t really know what to do with Rachel – hence the really abrupt twist of her trying to kill Selene (one of his worst villains, imo) to Wolverine trying to kill her to teach her that killing is wrong (???), to her going into the Mojoverse – until he started writing Excalibur.

Though, to be fair, Excalibur is a blast.

Oh, absolutely. I just wish there hadn’t been the awkward transition.

Honestly, the worst part of Jean Grey’s resurrection is the treatment of Madelyne Pryor and Rachel Summers after her return.

Agreed.

While Inferno has its charms, it did do Madelyne Pryor dirty, turning someone who had been the Australia X-Men’s “guy in the chair” into a crazy vengeful ex.

But the biggest missed opportunity was Rachel. I would argue that Claremont didn’t really know what to do with Rachel – hence the really abrupt twist of her trying to kill Selene (one of his worst villains, imo) to Wolverine trying to kill her to teach her that killing is wrong (???), to her going into the Mojoverse – until he started writing Excalibur.

How would you go about adapting Dark Phoenix Saga for the movies? Because the story has a number of problems chief among them that the ending (Jean killing herself) was not what Claremont/Byrne wanted and was put forth by Jim Shooter? And the story was retconned back and forth, and the fact that the Phoenix story is not really connected to the X-Men mutant metaphor. XMen 3 for all its flaws hit upon that problem and came up with a bad solution? But those problems still exist.

Good question!

I’m on record as really liking the Phoenix Saga. As for the critiques of it: honestly, I think that was a rare stopped-clock moment where Jim Shooter was right about the necessary consequences of Jean’s death; while I like Kurt Busiek a lot, I think the way that Jean being a clone was handled was very awkward and I would have gone with her just literally being reborn following the mythology of the phoenix, but I still think it led to some good material (the Wyngarde/Madelyne fake Phoenix stuff); and finally, I don’t think the lack of an mutant metaphor is a problem but rather a strength, that the X-Men aren’t limited to the allegorical.

As to the movies…well, I think my critique can be reverse-engineered: for Phoenix to land, you need to devote a substantial amount of time to Jean Grey and Scott Summers before the Saga starts, so that the audience is invested enough in the characters and their relationship to land. Likewise, for that to work, you have to make the ensemble nature of the X-Men work, so that Scott and Jean don’t get overshadowed by Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine, etc. And that requires a good writer and director, and I don’t know that we have those.

Do we know how the weather in the Reach compares to weather in the North during Westerosi wintertime? Presumably, southron regions are still relatively warmer than northern regions, but I don’t believe GRRM specifically addresses the issue.

Here’s what GRRM has to say:

And, by the way, does it snow in the South during the winter?

Yes, some times, in some places. The Mountains of the Moon get quite a lot of snow, the Vale and the riverlands and the west rather less, but some. King’s Landing gets snow infrequently, the Storm Lands and the Reach rarely, Oldtown and Dorne almost never.

So the Reach rarely has snow even during the winter.