Winter is coming
And if it's moving at 2 miles per hour in a generally southward direction in the seven kingdoms are about
3,500 Miles long, but it will take about
1,750 hours to get here. Dang! That's a lot of episodes!
(Channel intro)
Hello internet welcome to Film Theory, the show that promises to get its own HBO
subscription any day now...any day now.
I mean it would be kind of nice to watch new episodes of game of thrones and their full HD quality and not
in that 360p of other less savory
websites, but with new episodes are leaking every other day
HBO what do you expect me to do wait a full week?
I gotta binge! Okay,
So this is the part where I usually do a little segway catching you up on where the show is but whether or not you
Like it you are caught up with game of thrones because Twitter is dark and full of spoilers
But even if you've been avoiding Twitter because it's filled with more angry mobs than King's landing (Teach me the ways of the spoiler avoiding ways, O wise master)
Being caught up with the show doesn't mean a whole lot these days. In a show where winter took six seasons to come
Season seven has us ricocheting between events at a breakneck pace. We're gonna attack this castle Smash cut it's done
I'm going to cure you, bam. You're healed send a raven to the north. Oh, wait. Never mind, here is Jon Snow and yet
There's still a lot that has to happen before the end of the series John and Danny have to fall in love even though
They're totally cousins John stops calling them the white walkers and the night king because it's the
Worst branding ever and finally calls them it will finally get everyone's attention ice freakin zombies, then people finally believe him
But by then it's too late George R.R
Martin gives everyone a big middle finger just when a happy ending was on the horizon by killing everyone off with ice zombies
And leaving us with the final message of we didn't listen
*clip from south park plays "We didn't listen!"*
then in the final epilogue the lord of light swoops in to revive Ned stark or
Someone who doesn't look like him "and does not like him" but that raises the question
How will they fit all that stuff in? In reality game of thrones as the TV show has a big problem
Which is how the heck they're gonna get everything to happen in the few episodes that they have left
I mean for crying out loud
it takes half the show to say Daenerys" full title,*in high pitched, sped up voice* Daenerys Storborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt Queen of the
Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons*back to normal voice*, so how long is it gonna take to
Conquer all of Westeros and add even more titles for the stuff that she conquers well
Raise a toast to house Spoiler and prepare to spend the night in the Citadel because we're going in depth to uncover Westeros'
best-kept secret: that the Game of Thrones
Literally cannot finish in the time that they have left and that they're cheating their own canon universe to make it all happen
Not that the show needs any more exposing than it already has
I mean geez leave something to my imagination, Georgie. So what am I talking about here?
Well, like I said season seven is rushing through a fence fast enough to give you a whiplash in the process
they're breaking its own universe to speed up the pace of the show. At the beginning of season seven we find Cersei and
Humongous debt to the Iron Bank while more and more of our allies leave her for the younger hotter and slightly less
incestuous Gal Daenerys with casterly Rock the Lannisters historical source of income
Completely mined out circe's back is up against the wall
so when she has to pay her debts, as
Lannisters tend to do, she orders her army to leave casterly Rock to take Highgarden and asks the representative of the Iron Bank
"Give me a fortnight stay in King's landing as my honoured guest and when you return to Braavos
I swear to you my debt will be paid in full". So for one of the first times in the show
We're given a ticking clock with a very specific time frame for when something needs to happen.
Now, usually the show keeps things nice and vague
so they avoid
Problems like this and mostly we just kind of shrug and stop thinking about it the next time we see some Khal Drogo
pecs pop into frame or Daenerys set herself on fire this time though
We got you Georgie! According to Cersei in just a fortnight, which in case you're not up on your English time
Measurements is 14, days the Lannister army has to hoof it from casterly Rock to Highgarden then back to King's landing
You might have some quibbles about that sense, don't worry I'll address em', but the first question is how far casterly rock is from Highgarden
It's never directly stated in the show or the books exactly how far away these places are from one another
But there are official maps
So I gave myself some theorist cartography lessons and went to work.
The first thing I needed to get was a base measurement and for that I went to the wall
Which is basically the only landmark that has a specific measurement associated with it. George R.R Martin
specifically set the size of the wall at 300 miles or
482 kilometers in A 2008 interview and Jon snow reiterates it in chapter
48 of Game Of Thrones the book. It's even cited in the Game Of Thrones telltale game
"A 300-Mile Wall
And you're still in my way", in the show Samwell Tarly at one point claims that the wall is 500 miles across.
"We didn't 500 miles of Ice Walls 700 feet high to keep out men."
But we'll be nice and say that it was just the cold talking since no one ever
Corroborates that and frankly it would make this show's case even worse. It's also before he goes to Meister school
So, what's he really know well certainly more than Jon Snow.
"You know nothing, Jon Snow."
Using 300 miles as a baseline we can measure out raven routes, sailing routes, and of course marching routes
Casterly Rock and
Highgarden are connected by a winding road known as the sea road if you're thinking well that could have marched straight ahead instead remember that
An Army comes with all kinds of equipment and provisions and moving along the road is Gonna be significantly
Faster than marching through woods the road is about
660 Miles or
1062 kilometers long so we now know that the lannister troops are gonna have to march
660 miles in just two weeks which puts them at a breakneck pace of
47 miles a day or almost twice the length of a marathon for 14 days in a row I'll save you the
Speculating during the medieval, era. Which is a fairly close approximation to the world of game of thrones this would have been impossible
medieval Troop Movements were mostly limited by the
Logistics of feeding an entire army as it moved which meant that in hostile territory it was hard for a medieval army to move more
Than 10 miles a day because the head of the army had to forge the whole area around the road
But we'll say for the sake of argument that the casterly rock army is well
provisioned and since they're moving in friendly territory that they could move at maximum speed the
Maximum speed for an unmounted Army tended to be around 20 miles or 32
Kilometers a day well that number does go up to 30 miles a day for a mounted contingent
We know from the end of the episode the spoils of war that the majority of Lannister troops were
indeed on foot in the most extreme of
Circumstances that I can find for this period in Roman times troops were expected to be able to move 24 miles in about five hours
Though this was considered full pace with Sparingly used, and we never actually see the Lannister army running except away from Danny's sweet dragon
AAAWWWW SICK BURRN! (Quite literally)*air horns*
Literally, it's like third degree anyway even at this impossibly grueling pace for ten hours a day. They would just barely make it to
Highgarden before Cersei's deadline, and that's not even taking into account the journey back with the gold but don't worry internet
I've predicted your rebuttals in advance
Maybe Cersei was planning ahead and she had secretly sent orders to her troops to attack
Highgarden 2 or 3 weeks in advance except she didn't the morning that's iron bank comes
A-Knockin Circe's Bedchamber was a rockn with some sweet sweet brother Lovin
*sound of disgust*
I can't even say it sarcastically. It's just gross. "I'm the queen of the seven kingdoms. I'll do as I please"
Yeah, yeah, Cersei. Enjoy it while it lasts, but by betting old Jaime
She's keeping him from getting to Highgarden
and we clearly see him arriving with the troops don't you hate it when physics and geography get in the way of you dating your
Sibling me neither the distance from King's landing to Highgarden along the Rows Road is about 840 miles or about
1350 kilometers which means that to make it from King's landing to highgarden before the attack Jaime is Gonna need to leave the red keep
As soon as he gets out of bed that morning and start one of the most intense journeys of his life
Jaime is Gonna have to ride a hard 60 miles per day
well this wouldn't be impossible for someone on a racehorse do for a day or two for
14 days Straight this would definitely kill the force and almost definitely kill Jaime
Meaning that Jaime would have killed 14 horses between King's landing in Highgarden
And he would have arrived in a coma and he'd still be a few hours late and okay Jaime
I know you're a dedicated knight and all that but are you break the laws of physics?
Dedicated because even if you make it there take over highgarden that same day without dying, alongside, Olenna
you've only just
Captured the place you still have to get a raven back to King's landing on that same day a raven
They would have to be flying over 800 miles per hour to make it back the same day in order to meet Circe's insane
14-day deadline and that certainly means that no gold is making it back to the iron bank in that amount of time
So sorry George R.R
Jaime literally being in all parts of the map all the time in season seven has busted
you on this one even if Cersei had asked the iron bank representative to stay there a month
Everything would have had to have moved like clockwork, and they would still have barely made it on time
All right, so the situation is looking pretty bleak, but here's the thing guys. I love game of thrones
I don't want to show that Daenerys is genetically impossible because of inbreeding even though you should totally check out that episode shameless plug
I want to find a way to make this work, and it turns out
I have. Believe it or not there actually is a way to make all of this
Impossibly fast movement happen in the show to make it possible to fit everything that needs to happen into the final 10 episodes and no
It's not to somehow make westeros smaller, but you're kind of close. It's to make everything in westeros, bigger
What do I mean by that?
I mean that the way to make all of this time hopping fast travel work is to actually make every person tree and
Direwolf in Westeros twice as large as we think they are I know I know it sounds far-fetched
But stick with me here if every one is twice as large then movement speeds are twice as fast and while time frames like that
Fortnight are still really tight it goes from so far outside the realm of possibility that even marvel writers are skeptical too unlikely
but possible
And believe it or not there is
Actual evidence in the show that points to this maybe being true for a few episodes of series
But most notably the pilot exterior shots of winterfell used done castle while most of game of thrones remains purposely vague with its measurements
Winterfell specifically is given some measurements that suggests some pretty wacky
Proportions its outer walls for example are supposed to be 80 feet tall the walls at Dunn Castle are
39 feet Tall
Just half of what winterfell is supposed to have if you see people who look like normal people standing in front of a 39-foot wall
But then you're told that that wall is actually 80 feet you'll suddenly
Realize that either the wall is half the height
And you are lied to or that the people you're looking at are actually twice as tall as you thought they were
Since we don't have any normal Earth sized Humans as a reference point our brains just assumed that their dimensions are similar to our own in a highly hostile world with ice giants
dragons the size of Jetliners and a literal army of the dead
it's really not that far-fetched that humans might not be the dimensions that we think they are if
Everything scales up in westeros except for the measurements that we're explicitly given then it becomes clear how everything in this world is working
Westeros feels so small not because it's a small continent because
Everything in that continent is so big
It's like Rick and morty's tiny planet it explains troop movements
Which could theoretically move at 40 miles a day under normal circumstances and could move at full pace at 48 miles every five hours
Jaime traveling 60 miles a day is now a much more leisurely ride
And he could even pick up the pace a little without seriously straining himself or his horse the ravens could even move significantly faster
Delivering the orders to the troops faster and delivering the message of success faster
So no matter who you are even if you're Shaquille o'neal and yes Shaq
I know you're watching waiting desperately for the day that I do that Shazam
Theory you are quite a bit shorter than tyrion Lannister the dwArf Peter dinklage at four foot
Five inches would be inflated to eight foot 10 inches a full foot and one inch taller than the tallest NBA player and just
one inch shy of the tallest man in history
Ha and you thought that the mountain was just a nickname little did you know it's because he's literally the size of a mountain
So the next time you watch an episode know that to literally make this world function
We're looking at a very different set of proportions than we thought this whole time, but hey
that's just a theory a film theory and
Winter is coming
And you know what else is more reality breaking theories slash the throat of that subscribe button
faster than a stark at the Red wedding and help film theorists finally reach 5 million Subscribers strong
we are so close and we are coming for you honest trailers you and your sexy epic movie voice if you want more game of
Thrones well then check out
How Jorah is Gonna Save Westeros before the end of the series yeah?
Sir Friendzone himself squeeze the button on your left so hard
It's like Oberon's eye sockets, and I'll see you next week for even more death get ready
