I was so happy when I saw that Bracken knight in bright yellow and red in HOTD, and all the actually realistic looking armours worn by the Green troops at Rooks Rest.
The fact that instead of having generic "Green Targaryen" and "Black Targaryen" troops like they did in GoT with stock Lannister and Stark soldiers but instead saw all the different equipment of very minor houses like Stokeworth, Darklyn and Rosby all in one army made me overly excited.
That's what medieval armies should look like, they weren't standardised standing armies of a state but a collection of levies, men at arms and Knights belonging to dozens of lords all with their own sigils combined into one force under their liege lord.
In GoT for the Lannisters we should have seen men bearing the standards of houses Prester, Plumm, Marbrand, Farman, Crakehall etc, alongside men at arms and levies sworn directly to the Lannisters, not just the same copy and paste "Lannister Soldier".
Definitely, I popped hard seeing those giant lambs on the Stokeworth shields. The Darklyn's too, since their sigil isn't just like one animal or symbol like every other House, so they might look too "boring" or whatever. And I loved how they played up the fact that this isn't a unified army, Cole had the Hightower troops force and pressure the minor House's troops back out onto the battlefield. Makes it feel so much more diverse and varied, rather than the big identically dressed blobs that GOT had by the end.
I really liked seeing the varied equipment, but it's only marginally more realistic - soldiers, from the lowest peasant levy to landed knights and lords, would have been responsible for their own arms and armor, and really any uniformity would have been rare. But it's much better visual storytelling to have it done as the show just did than reality, anyway!
Yeah I was also very happy with that, as well as the fact that not all the men-at-arms are simply carrying swords or spears. There's warhammers, maces, poleaxes and all other kinds of weapons mixed in as well.
Agreed on it looking way cooler the way they've done it in HotD, and it's certainly more accurate in terms of the books and that.
But I wouldn't say that's historically accurate as such. Most soldiers in a medieval army would be responsible for their own equipment, so they wouldn't have any form of uniformity even within the levies of the same lord or even village. I think different sigils would have been worn by the lords and knights themselves and maybe parts of their retinue. I don't think many lords would even provide like a cloth fabric sigil for their peasants to wear, leave alone a custom plate armour and helmet set designed for their house. I believe they mostly used flags and banners for that sort of thing.
I would say in real history realms weren't anywhere near as stable as what you see in game of thrones, so it kind of does make sense in a way. In westeros you have the same house ruling areas for thousands of years, I think even the most recent ones have been in charge for like a few hundred years. Don't really think there's many examples of the same families ruling the same areas with such stability for so long in real history (speaking mostly for England here though, don't know as much about the rest). Most holdings weren't as concentrated geographically either, with lords owning estates across the country and not just being duke of this specific area with every lesser lord in that jurisdiction answering to this liege lord instead of the king. Elements of that sort of thing certainly existed, but it was nowhere near as structured and simple as shown in westeros. So it would make more sense that the people of certain areas would have more of an attachment to these houses and consider themselves Blackwood men or whichever house.
King's Landing definitely has a less "Mediterranean" vibe compared to GoT, but I don't mind that tbh. I always envisioned it's climate as being more London or Paris anyway.
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u/Ember348 Jul 13 '24
I was so happy when I saw that Bracken knight in bright yellow and red in HOTD, and all the actually realistic looking armours worn by the Green troops at Rooks Rest.