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Listen Talking The Venture Bros Podcast Season 6 Episode 8, LIVE this Wednesday #venturebros

The finale of season 6 of Venture Bros. gets the Graphic Policy Radio treatment! All obscure references explained! From defunct NYC nightclubs to Edgar Allan Poe to super-powered Nazis. Listen to our resident experts discuss the episode LIVE tonight at 10pm ET. Join pop culture and history experts Steven Attewell (whose secret identity is that he’s an actual historian) and Elana Levin (who’s…

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I don’t disagree.

That’s why he sent Beric with the royal banner. 

Sorry, I thought I had covered this. 

I could see a scenario where the Vale takes the North easily, sweeps down into the Riverlands aided by rebellion, and then drives on a weakened King’s Landing before anyone can do anything. But I can also see a scenario where the carefully husbanded strength of the Vale is squandered in the North due to the weather, the supply lines, guerrilla resistance, etc. and never even makes it south of the Neck. 

It depends on a bunch of factors:

1. Weather. Given that it’s winter, you could have a scenario where the Vale boards its 35,000 men onto ships to try to land on the east coast of the North and the entire fleet is lost in one big storm. You could also have a scenario similar to Stannis’ where the march from the east coast to Winterfell turns into a death march. Or you could have an easy sail up the White Knife, a quick march to Winterfell, and no problem.
2. Supply. Bigger armies give you battlefield punch and strategic flexibility, but they require huge amounts of food or they start to starve and then disintegrate. And since it’s winter in the North, they’re not going to be able to live off the land. So the Vale would need to bring a lot of food with them and protect their supply lines. 
3. Political support. If the North looks at the Vale as Queen Sansa’s allies come to liberate them from Bolton tyranny, then taking the North shouldn’t be that difficult beyond the logistics of moving manpower. But if the North sees the Vale as its historic enemies come to conquer them, then the Vale’s going to fight a lot of battles it doesn’t want to. Not that it can’t win those battles, but the whole point is to husband its strength and rack up a lot of victories quickly before the real clash.

And all of this then replicates with each Kingdom you’re trying to take. 

Here’s the ultimate thing about the Vale: 35,000 knights sounds like a sound bet, given how weakened and divided everyone is. But there aren’t any reserves after that, and a couple battles that go the wrong way can wipe it off the map completely – look what happened to Jaime’s army and Robb’s army and Stannis’ army and what’s happening to Renly’s army. 

Interesting question. I don’t know of any examples of genre adaptations where they redo them after there’s been a big budget one, the only thing I can think of is cases like LotR, where there was the animated movies and then the big live-action movies. We’ve seen lots of cases of people trying to followup big successes with imitators or spinoffs, but not literal remakes. 

Unless there’s a larger trend of remakes being really successful, I doubt you’re going to see a live action remake. Too much of a budgetary risk for too little of a potential payoff. 

What you could maybe see is an animated series – that would be different enough from the show where you could pitch it as it’s own thing, animation would allow you to do things from the books that the show couldn’t do, production costs would be lower, etc. 

So here’s what happens with the Whispering Woods. Jaime’s been chasing Marq Piper and Karl Vance with a couple hundred men, and then Brynden sends in a couple hundred men in Tully colors for Jaime to chase. Jaime chases them, Brynden’s outriders bushwhack his outriders, and then withdraw. 

Jaime now knows that there’s a larger force than just the couple hundred he’s seen so far, so he decides to go with the tactic that worked at the Golden Tooth and under the walls of Riverrun: overwhelming numbers. The Riverlanders may know the terrain, but if he can throw in enough manpower he can make up for that, using his sheer weight to counter their ambushes, prevent escapes by blocking routes, etc. And because it’s all cavalry, his larger army is still just as mobile. 

It’s not necessarily a terrible plan for counter-insurgency, as long as the only thing he’s got to worry about is guerrilla bands of Riverlanders. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know the Starks are there. 

Both?

warsofasoiaf:

Depends on the soldiers and the terrain. Ideally, attackers want a three-to-one advantage over defenders. However, you’re going the wrong way about it. You don’t want to fight the Golden Company in a setpiece battle. You want to bait them forward, pick off their scouts and foragers ala Marq Piper and get them stressed and starving on unfamiliar soil. Their elephants, horses, and incredibly well-trained troops eat a lot meaning that their supply corps is their weak link.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

And being more cynical – attrition. The Golden Company is 10,000 men and unless they get support, they’re not going to get more. Westeros can raise 400,000 men. If you can inflict significant casualties, even if you’re losing every battle, you will wear them down. 

You mean before the rebellion that involved the Greystarks?

We also know that Bolton power once extended up to the Last River, where the Umbers now rule, and down to the Sheepshead Hills, where the Manderlys now rule – given the scale of territory we’re talking about, they must have sub-infeuded their fiefdoms to various vassal Houses.

Naming specific houses is hard, because I think the Starks eliminated a lot of them in the process of subduing the Boltons – hence the creation of the Wolfs Den and Karhold as a way to project Stark power on the Bolton’s northern and southern flanks by planting cadet branches in the east of the North. 

In terms of Stark allies? Well, given that the Umbers got a bunch of the Bolton’s northern land, I’d say the Umbers. The Hornwoods are also a good bet. (Which would provide another reason why Ramsay targeted them) The Cerwyns, the Glover, and the Tallharts would also be good bets.