Game of Thrones battles (tv & book)

Book battle:

Brienne or Tarth (regular sword) and Loras Tyrell vs. Mance Rayder and Jon Snow (with Longclaw without Ghost)

Equal armor

TV battle:

Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth (regular swords) vs. The Hound and Bronn of the Blackwater

Jaime has both hands

Who wins and why?

@tparks@princearagorn1@the_red_viper@rogueshadow@pierpat@shenkuei@erkan12@deadpoolvironfist@pope052

@fallschirmjager@jedixman@godzilla44@sophia89@i_like_swords

Can you add more specifics?

In the book battle if Mance and Jon are afforded equivalent armor to Brienne and Loras' plate it would be one hell of a fight. Mance and Brienne are both some of the meanest and scrappiest fighters around. Jon is a damn fine swordsman and although we don't really know the full properties of Valyrian steel, we do know it is lighter, stronger, and sharper. While it's not going to split open platemail, every cut will likely be of greater severity and with significantly less effort. Mance without plate is a problem because he wears ringmail which while excellent against a cut, absorbs far less impact and is almost useless against a solid thrust. I don't recall what armor Jon normally wears but without some form of plate (doesn't have to be full, splint mail would do) he does face a far grimmer fate, particularly if Mance is killed quickly due to his lack of adequate protection then Jon faces two opponents who could easily be his peers. As a side note Jon is still learning as well and at which point in the series he is having this battle matters greatly. I feel he has the capacity to outstrip Brienne and Loras in terms of growth and is probably already pulling ahead at this point.

In the TV battle I think you have a bit of a mismatch, assuming Jamie still has his sword hand. Brienne vs the Hound is a good battle and probably close to evenly matched in arms and armor, though Brienne often does not wear a helm and that may cost her the battle. Bronn is good but he's no equal to Brienne and certainly not Jamie, particularly since he doesn't even wear a helmet in the show and his armor is lacking in limb protection. Jamie vs the Hound goes to Jamie although the hound will put up a good fight. Brienne mauls Bronn though again due to his lack of adequate protection and her substantial strength advantage. Being able to punch someone in the face with a gauntleted fist should never be underestimated.

Book Battle:

Loras and Breinne win this. In the novel, Mance did spar with Jon and beat him, however, there were two notes on this, Jon thought Mance was Rattleshirt who is much smaller then Mance (he was under an illusion from Melisandre), so he was not prepared for how much stronger the blows were then what he was expecting, and he wasn't using Longclaw in that fight. IIRC, Jon muses that he would have won if he had Longclaw. (Granted this could be bruised ego talking.)

Thus, I am tempted to say that Jon >= Mance, however, Jon has never demonstrated as much skill as Breinne and both Breinne and Loras have superior armor.

Jaime was fond of Breinne, but he considered her to be superior to Loras (That said his opinion is dubious at best), so, essentially, it goes Breinne > Loras >(This could be debated further)=< Jon >= Mance. They should win 8/10 times if not more.

Movie Battle:

The only one here Bronn can beat is Jaime with only his left hand. Jaime with his right hand, the hound, and Breinne are all superior to Bronn.

Breinne defeated the Hound already, that said, their fight was very intense and close. If Jaime has his right hand, he easily dispatches Bronn then helps Breinne fight the Hound.

Jamie and Breinne should win 10/10.

@dhumraketu: @wut:

In the TV battle, Jaime is literally featless aside from fighting Ned Stark, who is old compared to him.

The Hound and Bronn win that one easily.

@eternityx: Bronn has beaten one featless knight.

In the battle of whispering wood, Jaime took out ten of their men although they are all featless. Robb avoided fighting him because he knew he stood no chance of beating him. He also easily dispatched the leader of Ned Stark's men in single combat.

In the battle of featless enemies, Jaime holds the advantage.

@wut:

Bronn also beat a bunch of guys in the battle of blackwater, not only that but we never saw how Jaime kill the 10 men, even Tyrion killed a load of people, we saw Bronn deal with 3 men at once.

@eternityx: Bronn did not fight three at once. He fought one after another in quick succession. This is not 3 at once. The only one who was shown to have been utterly dominating throughout the battle was the Hound.

Tyrion kills one soldier who was not even facing him. Yes, obviously Tyrion killed many. Unless we are counting his dragon fire tactic as a dueling feat now?

The fact that the attack was an ambush implies Jaime did not have time to gather his men. He killed ten men as they surrounded him and tried to capture him. Ten men beat three men, I am sorry, not to mention Jaime still has more feats.

@wut:

An off screen feat is not a feat that you can use, we don't know how he did it, Tyrion was also ambushed in one of his battles, he still killed men, Jaime could have done it in the same way.

Jaime has barely any kills at all on the show, in fact the only one I can think of is Jory Cassel.

@eternityx: Off screen feats count if they are talked about by other characters from a first hand account.

Saying Bronn killed a whole bunch of people that we didn't see or hear about. This wouldn't count.

Someone out right stating they and others saw a character put down ten of their men before going down is a feat.

Jaime Feats

Killed ten featless stark soldiers before he was brought down.

Easily Killed Jory who is not featless as he took down two watch members, and unlike Bronn, he did fight three at once.

Robb avoided him because he knew he stood no chance.

Bronn

Killed three featless men in quick succession

Killed the Knight of the Vale who was utterly featless.

I hear a lot of talk of Bronn having more feats then Jaime, but the evidence doesn't seem to support this.

Brienne Tosses the Hound off a cliff in the TV show in a rather excellent knock down drag out fight. She also defeats Loras in the tourney at Storm's End in both book and TV show.

Jamie's defeat of Ned Stark is not trivial. Ned may be a bit older but he is a significant opponent and a long way from decrepit. Jamie also nearly bests Brienne after months of captivity and near starvation despite lack of armor. Brienne has bested the Hound and it is not a stretch to believe a well fed, armored Jamie can best her or the Hound.

Bronn teaches Jamie to fight in the show and by the second time we see them training he has to resort to "underhanded" tactics to easily best him. Jamie with his right hand and having trained to fight all his life, having been able to disarm and nearly overcome Brienne in the situation above is more than a match for Bronn, especially since Bronn never puts on a decent suit of armor. Also it must be taken into account that while Bronn is used to fighting soldiers and knights of lesser renown, Jamie has grown up sparring with the best. He may be overrated, but he's still one of the best. Bronn is definitely capable of punching above his weight and could certainly give Jamie a fight, but I doubt he would win more often than not.

@dhumraketu: I had forgotten that Breinne defeated Loras in the tourney, but I agree she is superior to him as it were.

His shoulder was injured/infected, IIRC.

You do recall correctly it was mildly injured and getting infected. It's not enough to have really affected the outcome though. Adrenaline is more than enough to overcome any discomfort and he is not shown to have lost any functionality during the fight (it's also his left shoulder). For most of the sword fight they are equally matched though she eventually outclasses him. She gets him to his knees with a sword to his throat before he pulls a reversal by grabbing Oathkeeper with his bare hands and disarming her, leading to a series of kicks and punches that are nothing less than brutal. She bites off his ear, he pulls a short sword and she beats him with a rock in the head for six consecutive blows before he manages to get a few punches in. Then she nails him with another nine unanswered blows with the rock (I think there's a punch in there too) before the last one knocks him off the cliff. This isn't a pretty fight scene, it's a truly no holds barred fight to the death where they both believe they are protecting Arya. Brienne wins in terms of skill, ferocity, and brute force. It's a fairly decisive fight as well since both sides really have a number of chances to tilt the battle in their favor. There isn't much left unanswered except those bashes to the skull with the rock at the end.

My view on the book versus TV versions of the characters - as fighters, anyway:

TV Brienne vs Book Brienne: TV Brienne is significantly more formidable. In the books she's large, strong (stronger than Jaime) and skilled. She also wins Renly's melee. However, she has great difficulty with a Jaime who's been imprisoned for a long time and is very far from being a seasoned killer - in fact, I think she kills for the first time in A Feast For Crows, and dispatches average fighters with some difficulty. In the show, she dispatches average fighters with ease, seems like a seasoned killer, handles Jaime without any problems, and manages to defeat Sandor (who she'd almost certainly lose to in the book). TV Brienne is a much better fighter than Book Brienne.

• TV Loras vs Book Loras: TV Loras is again more formidable. He's described as one of the best fighters in the Seven Kingdoms, and fights at the Battle of the Blackwater in Renly's armour. In the books, on the other hand, he's a decent enough swordsman but not as good as his brother Garlan or as any of the really top fighters such as Jaime or Gregor. He is, to be fair, a great jouster.
• TV Mance vs Book Mance: Book Mance all the way - partly because TV Mance is played by a guy in his 60s :-) But Book Mance was described as the best of the rangers, and given the nature of Wildling culture, was probably a very formidable fighter. (He overcomes Jon with ease, depending on how good you think Jon is.)
• TV Jon vs Book Jon: They seem roughly equivalent - both determined and well-trained, but not top-tier fighters.
• TV Jaime vs Book Jaime: Book Jaime by a massive degree. TV Jaime is described as a great fighter, but we see precious little evidence of it. Book Jaime kills ten men at the Whispering Wood, and is almost a match for Brienne despite having been imprisoned and malnourished. TV Jaime just never looks very impressive.
• TV Hound vs Book Hound: Book Hound, largely because the TV version loses to Brienne. Having said that, of all the main cast, Rory McCann is the most convincing as a fighter on screen - he's terrific.
• TV Bronn vs Book Bronn: The book version is younger, but there's not a great deal in it.

So how would the fights go?

Brienne and Loras vs Mance and Jon: in the show - Brienne and Loras all the way. We're talking about two of the best fighters in the Seven Kingdoms vs an elderly man and an grumpy and shortish youth. Also Brienne and Loras (Jon's sword aside) would be better equipped. In the books... I'd kinda give it to Mance and Jon. Again, Brienne and Loras are better equipped but Mance is a truly formidable opponent with many presumed kills, Brienne and Loras are not that good, and Jon is an OK fighter with a Valyrian sword.

Jaime and Brienne vs the Hound and Bronn: this is actually pretty tricky. In the show, I think they're pretty evenly matched. A fully fit Hound is on TV Brienne's level... but we have to assume, from the pro-Jaime comments, that he's a bit better and is better equipped than Bronn. So... Jaime and Brienne in the show. In the books, the Hound and Bronn. Despite his self-description, I'm not convinced Jaime is much better than the Hound, and I'd put Bronn as significantly better than Brienne.

@coinbiter:

That's a pretty good analysis. Speaking entirely to TV here:

I would argue that Bronn is a bit overrated though because he really hasn't faced many worthy opponents. He's great at taking out people who make mistakes, his cunning is probably vastly superior to everyone except Mance here, but he has little experience with highly trained knights. He does dispatch the poor bloke in the Vale so he's not incapable. I would put him vaguely in the Hound and Brienne's peer group. The real problem is that he is at his best when he has circumstances to manipulate to his favor. In fact if you gave both sides 10 soldiers of equivalent skill it may change the outcome of the battle because while the combatants added are equal, it gives Bronn more circumstances to manipulate. He's the kind of guy who would shove his own man into one of Jamie/Brienne's men just to create a barrier to remove Jamie or Brienne from the melee temporarily to while he cuts down more chumps and crates a disproportionate scenario. Bronn is at his best as a force multiplier rather than a straight duelist. In fact I'd add that for Mance and even Jon as he matures. Jamie can command soldiers, but his claim to fame is as a duelist, and Brienne doesn't work well with others.

@coinbiter: @wut: @dhumraketu: I've fixed the OP. Also there are a few things that I want to address.

Firstly, in the show a The Hound used one hand for much of the fight, only using his off hand to throw wild punches.

Next, I do agree that Mance defeated Jon so handily due to him being enchanted and Jon not being able to comprehend the reach, however Mance is supposed to be the best the NW has to offer, growing up in the NW.

Jon is MUCH more than an OK fighter and honestly is superior to Loras. I see Brienne as being superior to Jon and Mance (barely) due to feats but Jon and Mance should both be superior to Loras with a sword.

I'll post a longer and more in depth response later.

@dhumraketu: I think that's fair. Also, it's worth remarking that although Jerome Flynn has given a very good performance, he's in his early 50s - and looks it. This means that television Bronn has experience and multiple kills on his side, but on the other hand, he might have difficulty against opponents younger than himself and, as is the case with the Hound and Brienne, significantly larger/stronger/better equipped.

Thank you for adding me -_-.

@penderor: I went through the battle calls phone book. Sorry to leave you out.

@cregan_stark: Its not really a problem. I was just suprised with amounts of tagged people here even thought some are not really that involved into GoT.

@penderor: yeah man no disrespect intended, I just added the phone book. You should have Sophia add you to it

@cregan_stark: Who is Sophia?

Anyway about the battles. Book version I might go with team 2. Jon Snow can beat either of the team 1 and mance should be at best stalemate Brienne or kill/stalemate Loras.

TV battle. Team 1 via Jamie Lannister.

@penderor: she started the call out phone book thread, she'll add you to the areas that you want and when people start threads on that subject then they'll call you out to give your opinion. You have to have 1,000 posts is the only real stipulation.

@cregan_stark: I hope I understand that.