Warfare Experts Rate 12 'Game Of Thrones' Scenes For Realism | How Real Is It | Insider

yep if someone has got their back to you and you have a spear do stab them in the back of the leg my name's David rolling to the London long sword Academy my name is Jim Ken my name is R can hi my name is Neil Kam Moro hello my name is Dr Rebecca Simon hi I'm Toby capwell hi I'm Shane Adams the owner of the Knights of Valor hi my name is Evan Wilson Dr Michael Fulton today we'll be looking at Game of Thrones scenes and judge how real they are [Music] he got what we call a can on the bow there I tend to shoot with a with a little bit of a can it opens up the sight windows up if your Bow's up straight like that generally the thing you're trying to shoot is going to be hidden by the bow so I tend to drop the the the bow out the way a little bit which is what he's doing he's clearly pointing one way but you can see the arrow on his hand pointing the other way and a lot of people call that the archers Paradox the Arch's Paradox is the fact that the arrows pointing off to the to the left when you're actually pointing at the the target at the right that's the Paradox and it's the flexing of the arrow that that makes it uh travel down range could I kill this dude running away depends on the distance I'm only really accurate up to uh probably about 30 mters I'd get him eventually see I'd be zigging and zagging I'd be I'd be Serpentine in there is a type of archery called clout typically done by uh English Longbow archers which is longdistance shooting um where you shooted a flag in the ground so of you know 180 200 yards away shooting up shooting down closest to the flag so there are people that can shoot very very well at long long range medieval Longbow archers would you know could be pretty accurate the bow look like it had uh what what they call Pony limbs where you've got the the basic bow and then you'd have another set of Limbs that come off the front so that limb is attached to that limb and that limb is attached to that limb and that gives you way more power so it would be perfect for that kind of you know killing dudes running away kind of archery I'm going to need game a nine for Game of Thrones I think hello everyone my name is r i teach ancient history at the University of Oxford the coordination required to do this is completely impossible there battle formations where you would have Shield balls in front and then Spears sticking out to sort of Drive the enemy back obviously the Macedonian Pikeman are the big famous example there are Mesopotamian examples from like way back 2000 BC it wouldn't work like this though you couldn't really form them in a circle they would form up in blocks and they would maneuver in blocks and that's hard enough once you're fully surrounded I mean there's nothing you can do really you're in big trouble you can try to break the spears Persians are known to do that against the Greeks their Spears are longer so they literally went up and snapped them in half by hand but that's a desperation move and it doesn't really get you anywhere if you're in an encirclement like that of a proper Pike formation then you're just doomed you probably [Music] surrender crushes in battle do happen but most of the time when people do get crushed into a small space and the Dead start piling up it's because they're trying to run away and they can't escape because there's a river or Ravine or a wall and they get stuck there the Panic of a trample they do depict that very well when horses turn up unexpectedly especially behind the Infantry line you would give up and run there is almost no chance that that formation would hold the very unrealistic thing in this scene is that no one knew that Cavalry was there it's possible to hide you know small units in in woods or Hollow roads or behind some geographical feature but a large force of Cavalry is going to throw up a lot of dust it's going to make a lot of noise it's going to you know scare the birds and the Animals you know this is coming I think this one does an interesting job of trying to give you the sort of visceral horror of a battle and I really do appreciate that the tactics are nonsense but it does give a sense of desperation of of some of these struggles so maybe five out of 10 six out of 10 again the they should have been digging ditches literally all they do is just stand around carrying like Spears from one point to another you should be digging ditches many ditches once your first ditch is ready build another one the female characters other than the ones who've been trained to fight are basically just sort of hiding in the dungeon and not doing anything in actual sieges especially when it was this desperate I mean they were just be expected to contribute you know women children old men everybody does something cuz there's always things that people can do even when they don't fight you know go and carry arrows and Stones up to the people on the walls go put out fires you know help with uh with water and food help with clothing and the wounded there's no way you would just stick them away in a corner somewhere these catapults are obviously in the wrong place they should be on top of the wall like why would you put them outside of the walls they're going to be overrun you can't move them out of the way quickly enough so put them on top of the wall that's where you put your artillery so you can put your Cavalry in front and it totally works if you don't expect your enemy to stand their ground so putting your Cavalry in front is a time- tested you know very common strategy totally works unless you're fighting ice zombies who are not going to break and they're not scared of you you're just wasting your Cavalry so it's it's the right tactic for the wrong moment there are probably several battles in other battles in Game of Thrones where this could have worked really well should you find yourself fighting an army of of ice zombies so put your artillery on the wall dig many ditches just lots and lots of ditches um you can put of course your infantry in front if you want to confront them there because that means that you will have several stages to fall back on after that you won't sort of blow everything all in one go um but put your Cavalry away from the main line so that once the enemy is engaged once your ice zombies are stuck against your line you can then swoop in from the side where they're not expecting you and overrun them I mean it's not going to really necessarily win your fight against an army of ice zombies but at least it means that you're fighting them in a way that they don't expect at least you will have done something with your covery that made sense but otherwise I mean obviously it's it's all a bit silly so you know what should we say five out of 10 why not either let the archers handle it or send out a formation of guys let him try and break a shield wall on his own with only a little sword like he's not going to have a good time a obviously every time he has to fight someone he stops that's when he would get shot and he has to do that several times and then find cover which just happens to be there he's immensely lucky he's basically wearing sort of premium grade plot armor also I'm begging Movie Makers to please stop it with the orders to The Archers this never happens the noct dra loose thing it's not real don't let anyone convince you otherwise the crap feeders men the men in yellow they actually have these swords and bucklers which is a very particular style of combat where they have these curved swords and these very small Shields usually they would have been made of metal and you can actually use them both to guard yourself and to attack so they have a very particular style of armor That You Don't See in movies or TV series a lot in terms of the fighting it's just chaos everybody's just running around engaging the enemy one at a time hacking at anything they can see it's very exciting to watch but this is not a Basel this is just a big mess two out of 10 hi Am Shane Adams the owner of the Knights of Valor full contact josting company I've been josting for well over 25 years I have 20 International josting championships under my belt they hit but it was just a a a glancing blow there is no penalty for missing your opponent but you're going to be uh you know behind in points if you hit the target whether it be a uh a smooth plate or whether it be a targ shield you get a certain amount of points and ultimately if you unhorse your opponent in the full contact style that's the maximum amount of points there there's you know probably well over 19 20 25 different styles of josting yeah see that Ridge around that Shield bad news you don't want a lip around the shield you don't want any spot where that l is going to connect and lock into the lip you want to be able to deflect the Lance away from your body so completely wrong Shield the josting that was there it was decent for a theatrical style J if they were true Knights they wouldn't be holding their Shields like that they're leaving themselves completely exposed from the top of the shield to you know throat head that scene where the horse actually does fall into to the J list usually it would be the opposite way so the person would be getting hit coming off to the right side based on the fact that we do real full contact josting we always drop the rain so that way there if you get off balance you're not going to be pulling your horse to the extent that you're going to be pulling your horse down onto the ground with you I'm 265 lb add my armor I'm 4115 lbs riding a 2,000lb horse charging at 20 25 mph again the same opposing force it it's a car wreck so when we hit there is a lot of force being generated both guys were not wearing proper equipment as far as Gores to protect their necks because the Lance can hit and come up and straight into your throat you could tell right away um looking at the tips of the lances the hounds Lance didn't have a Cornell on it didn't have like a tip on the end it was a sheer Point Knights back in the olden days uh the Mobility were the ones josting they didn't want to go out there and kill each other and the ends of the lances had cornells put on them again to disperse the impact force on the knight's armor it's like a a cast fist put on well if you don't do that you have a scene possibly like this and uh historically that that could have definitely happened I'm a total Game of Thrones geek and I love the show um however have to give it her her four hi I'm Toby capwell I'm curator of arms and armor at the Wilds collection in central London since I was a kid I've been riding horses and fighting in armor I've taken part in competitions armored combat all over the world if I could change one thing I would change this he's wearing his gorgette on the outside of his breastplate the gorette is that neck plate he should actually have plates covering his throat the gorette has neck plates in here and it comes down and has this larger chest plate that chest plate should be underneath the breastplate the breastplate has a turned Edge to stop things sliding up into your face but if anything does get past it hits the gorgette but in Game of Thrones they habitually put them on the outside and it's a it's a howler that I just I I can't abide hi my name is Neil kamiura I'm a bladesmith blacksmith from Hawaii my business name is t kamiura blacksmith Smith it was established in 1932 Hilo from my great-grandfather so the fact that he could take the handle off with two Taps of a hammer it definitely wouldn't have survived battle as you were hitting edge to edge but at least they took the handle off on this one some of them are pinned and a lot of them are through and then the pommel is what holds it on but you definitely can't just take it and be like and then it comes off you know what I mean so when you're melting Steel in like an open face Crucible like that they were doing one there wouldn't be just like orangey Flames like it would be the most insane looking at the sun that's one two the actual Crucible itself would need to be hot that is just black so it didn't heat up but yet the somehow the sword is melting on a black surface which is the most ridiculous thing ever swords that were poured and casted like that were bronze they weren't steel it takes about 3,000 Dees to melt steel that kind of Steel bronze is a lower melting temperature so that was a lot easier easier to melt and cast but when they do cast it it wasn't in an open face on both sides was it casted so that you pour it in the top and it fills up and makes a perfect mold the sword would look like a cookie on a baking sheet you know so that's just I don't quite understand how they got one sword and melted it and you somehow made enough to make two swords now you actually lose mass as you melt steel like that I would definitely give that a four hi my name is Evan Wilson I'm a professor at the US Naval War college and I'm an expert in 18th century Naval warfare that's supposed to be sort of the bow sprit that's the uh Mass six out the front of the ship that's really essential to hold up most of the rigging of a ship if you were to put elaborate metal claws on the front of it you'd first first of all probably not be able to sail the ship very well secondly be very heavy on the front of your ship and cause your ship to go like this you can run your ship into the other ship and then board it from there but you do that by just clambering over your own bow sprit you don't do it by like having staging an elaborate entrance in which you just made yourself a Target right I mean they stand there shocked that it's euron but like just shoot him flaming arrows I would say no that's not something that would work mainly because to make a flaming ER work you probably have to light it on your own ship and fire is by far the biggest threat to ships wood canvas pitch tar like this stuff is really flammable firing flaming arrows at someone else's ship is much more likely to set your own ship on fire than to set the other guy's ship on fire the fact that they correctly identify that one of the greatest fears for a a fleet would be fire um and that would be the thing that would make uron scary I think is is accurate hi there my name's David roning the London long sword Academy I'm a full-time swordsmanship instructor that's quite nice because in effect you have a very very um nasty version of a movement of conclusion this is basically where in using a sword to Parry here we then do something with the off hand if we were doing vereda the idea would be to restrain the opponent's weapon hand so we can control it and we can choose whether they live or die and we can show Mercy at this point if if you're doing this this is lovely he doesn't have to worry about the guy's off hand so much because the guy has both hands on the sword there's a closure off of the line and the guy giving him the distance because he doesn't have to move his feet the guy's going to come and hit him anyway he gets to push it aside he gets to thrust through he's got control of the opponent's sword still and he gets to finish him so that I actually quite like that's pretty good I'm not entirely sure holding your hand Palm down with a long sword is a good way not to get the sword taken oh my goodness this is terrible there is so much bad in this again we're back on this idea that if you've got a long sword you have to do this with it and it has to be wide and spinny and it has to be this big moves it's meant to be dextrous you have this idea that there's basically half an L the idea of being this kind of space here rather halfway between here and here you don't want to be more than this way far away from your opponent with the point at all times so if they drive you away you're trying to find a way to get your point onto them most long sword is intrinsically trying to dominate a space very very close into the core of your opponent if they move you sufficiently around you're immediately back at another opening if they stay tight on the blade and the angle's tight just enough to par like so you'll try and drive the blade in still maintaining contact on that all this wide around movement is complete nonsense okay knocking the blade down and striking back up now you could argue that this is almost a a nodding in effect the idea of beating someone's blade down and then hitting back up with the force edge here you see where the sword is sweeping WI and one person is standing with their point right in front of the other you don't Parry then come back here you stand here and you stab them immediately because the blade has moved out of presence well that was good yep if someone has got their back to you and you have a spear do stab them in the back of the leg that again redeeming feature that's that's given another Point women did actually fight judicial duels especially in Germany women you know historically weren't Knights that's a fantasy element here but they did fight judicial duels and later they fought uh civilian duels as well particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries you may ask anything of me you desire it is within my power it is yours your grace I ask the honor of a place in your King's God I like this because Knights often did fight formal combats for other reasons beyond the legal procedure of a Judicial duel sometimes they fought what were called Deeds of arms which were these kind of exhibition fights a lot like this and it's just about the prestige and the fame the celebrity aspects of Knighthood which is something Game of Thrones does really well today is not the day I die both sides in this judicial procedure are fighting with Champions professional fighters who volunteer to act on their behalf and that is absolutely a real thing it's almost very much like having your own lawyer this person will come and fight for you I'm not sure quite this much exhibition jumping about is a good idea here I'm a bit wary of anything that might give your opponent information about how you move and what you're capable of I think it's potentially a good way of releasing your own adrenaline if you stand there and you're very sort of like stoic and you're kind of then all of that adrenaline is csing through your system and it makes your reactions very very jumpy so it's almost like this feeling freeing up your limbs ready to fight seems like a spear with a wooden halft is a bad choice when you've got a s foot tall guy with a big sword facing you I guess you don't have to let him hit it I do like that the majority of the deflections with the spear are ones which accentuate the movement of the sword there's good deflections there's not these attempts to confront the weapon mainly which is very very good there's not very much of this just direct threat threat threat changing through from side to side to side there is an awful lot of movement around the opponent Cavendish talk about getting behind your opponent Moro talks about walking to their shoulders like a modern fencing match just up and down with very few exceptions you're categorically trying to get the best most advantageous position that takes your opponent's arms out of their natural position of the way that we portray people who are incredibly large in general forms of fiction is massively fiction that person who is immensely strong has to be for some reason uneducated and unable to move and this is not true you get some absolute premium huge athletes who move fast Nimble yeah terrifyingly fast and are intelligent and use that to their own Advantage it would be [Music] [Applause] [Music] lighting arrows on fire like this Hollywood loves to do it serves no practical value unless you're trying to set a thatch roof Cottage on [Music] fire so they've kind of got up to the base of the wall here this is a safe spot in so much as it's hard for Archers to shoot arrows at them from here but you can just drop some Stones over on them it's economical if you consider that every Arrow has to be made by hand that's not a short process to make an arrow so when they're throwing off all these volleys of arrows and shooting them off as fast as they can that's not very efficient you drop a bowling ball on somebody and it stops them in their tracks any man dies with a CLE sword Defenders exit a gate and try and attack the besiegers that's reasonably common the issue here is why uh you would only do this if you needed to those attackers didn't have the numbers they probably needed to overcome these defenses to begin with in the medieval period leadership is directly tied to military performance and prowess so for a commander they have to be aware of what's going on uh if they are kind of a warrior figure which the most effective military Kings usually were so having someone on top of the wall organizing things definitely not beyond the realm of possibility I don't quite see what they're going to accomplish uh once they reach the base of this wall so I'm going to give this one maybe three out of 10 hello my name is Dr Rebecca Simon and I'm a historian of the golden age of piracy from the time period of approximately 1650 to 1730 this is not accurate to reality at all Pirates were not known to Fe people to any sort of animals now there were a couple of extremely brutal Pirates George lther and Ned low who sailed in like the late 1710s and early 1720s and they were known to really brutalize their victims by cutting off body parts such as maybe their ears part of the nose or their lips and they reportedly would broil some of these parts and force their victims to eat their own body parts these are the only two cases that I've seen where this has happened and it was very much again the exception to the rule and these stories very well may have been exaggerated because we only know so much about what actually happened on a pirate ship but Pirates Never fed any victims to any animals they're fighting against Pirates who look to be landbased they're in they're not fighting these Pirates at Sea they're fighting them in their pirate stronghold now during the Golden Age of pirates in the early stages from about like 1650 until about the 1670s we do see a lot of landbased pirates known as Buccaneers and a lot of them were initially French Pirates Who were exacting revenge against the Spanish they had a lot of rivalry in terms of Plantation Islands during that time and so that is something kind of interesting to note is that they're taking sort of a detail possibly from the early stages of the golden age of piracy here being that they are pirates fighting on land rather than at sea well another thing to note is that the captain he's not really engaging in battle very much he's not fighting with the crew that's common pirate captains were the ones to oversee the battle they were the ones giving the order I would give this clip a one out of 10 there's there's nothing there's nothing accurate in this at all [Music]

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Length: 26min 29sec (1589 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 04 2024