There
has been a lot of debate about whether the plot of the most recent episode of
Game of Thrones (Season 7 Episode 6), and specifically the sequence where there was
enough time for Gendry to run back to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, get someone there to send a raven to Dragonstone calling for help, and then for Danaerys and her dragons to fly to the rescue, is
plausible. Plausibility is an important part of the fantasy genre, because
it is far more rewarding to read a story (or watch a film) about
fantastical creatures and magic if the people in these stories are subject to the laws of physics just like
us, so I thought that I
would add my two cents’ worth.
A lot of the argument that has popped up online on this topic seems to be aimed at proving that the events could NOT possibly have happened, and that the series is therefore broken. I would like to approach this issue on the lines that since this is what we already know has happened, we should really just try to see if it might be plausible for these events to have taken place as depicted.
The basic argument against the plausibility of the story is as follows: -
A lot of the argument that has popped up online on this topic seems to be aimed at proving that the events could NOT possibly have happened, and that the series is therefore broken. I would like to approach this issue on the lines that since this is what we already know has happened, we should really just try to see if it might be plausible for these events to have taken place as depicted.
The basic argument against the plausibility of the story is as follows: -
- The distance from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to Dragonstone is around 1900 miles, based on evidence from a 'lore map'
- Ravens can be expected to fly at a speed of around 50 mph.
- The ravens would therefore have taken around two days to fly from Eastwatch to Dragonstone, allowing for rest periods and flight path diversions.
- The dragons would then have taken another two days to fly back to where Jon Snow and his party were surrounded by the army of the dead.
- The total time taken from when our heroes were first surrounded to their rescue would therefore be a little more than four days, because a further six hours must be added for Gendry to run back to Eastwatch before sending the ravens off.
I
think the main aim of those arguing that the storyline is unbelievable is
just to claim that the series is now broken (perhaps just to get clicks). The
argument itself is based on a series of lazy assumptions.
First, there is no reason to assume that Gendry ran for SIX hours to get to Eastwatch. The programme gives no indication as to exactly how far the Magnificent Seven (and their wildling helpers) trekked before encountering the Army of the Dead. We watch them leave Eastwatch at the end of Episode 5. In Episode 6, we see them heading north in daylight, and running into the wights after some time. How long did they trek for, and how far did they go? There are no night scenes between the time they leave Eastwatch and their encounter with the undead polar bear. But should we assume that they left Eastwatch at daybreak? Perhaps they took the time to have some breakfast before heading out? (I would have). And if you are going into enemy territory to try and capture an enemy soldier, would you not scout around rather than head directly north in a straight line? If we assume that they walked at a deliberate pace while scouting for the enemy, and include the time taken to fight the zombie bear, there is no reason to assume that Jon and his party would have trekked more than a few miles north of Eastwatch before running into the undead army (After all, we are told repeatedly that the Night King and his minions are coming to Eastwatch, not sitting around discussing the advantages and disadvantages of making the trip). So Gendry would not necessarily have run for SIX bloody hours in the cold. Now, we cannot know either way because the show does not tell us, but there is no reason to assume the least plausible scenario. Gendry's run could have been for just six miles, and taken 2 or 3 hours.
This brings us to the next lazy assumption, which is that it is approximately 1900 miles from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to Dragonstone. Now, I do not think that a map created by a fan can be used as 'evidence' for anything. The original maps drawn by George R.R. Martin do not give us any idea of scale. In fact, it is debatable whether or not they should be regarded as an accurate representation of the world in the first place.
The only reliable indication that we have about these distances is the complaint made in the very first episode by Cersei Lannister, that she had been travelling for a month from King’s Landing to Winterfell. Based on this, some people have come up with the hypothesis that this must be a distance of around 1500 miles, given that the royal train would have been able to travel around 50 miles a day. I think this is unrealistic, and has probably been arrived at by people who have extrapolated from their own experience of long-distance travel. If you are driving across the United States or Western Europe in the 21st century, it is a simple matter to take the distance from one town to another, factor in the average speed of your vehicle, and work out your expected travel time. Similarly, you can work out the distance between two cities based on the speed of your vehicle and the time taken to travel between them. Such calculations assume that the roads are all of a decent standard and that your means of transport can maintain a similar average speed for an extended period of time (as modern cars do).
This reasoning cannot just be extended to a medieval setting. A horse cart may achieve a speed of about 5 miles per hour, and maintain this for a day or two, but it cannot, without a change of fresh horses every two days or so, continue at this rate for a month. Horses are not cars or buses. They will get tired, and can fall ill or go lame. It is impossible to maintain a rate of 50 miles per day for a whole month. If you think it is, try hiking a distance of 20 miles a day, every day, on an uneven road, for a month, and see how long you can keep that up before getting pains in your knees, or your ankles or your hips. A more realistic travel distance for a train of horse carts, including time for rest and relaxation along the way, might be around 30 miles a day. This would give a more realistic distance of around 1000 miles from King’s Landing to Winterfell, which would also be in keeping with the description given by Roose Bolton to his bastard son Ramsay, that you can travel 700 miles in one direction, and 400 miles in the other, and still be in the North. A fair assumption then, might be that the entire North is about 1100 miles from north to south.
So, if the distance from King’s Landing to Winterfell is around 1000 miles, and from Winterfell to Castle Black is another 600 miles (giving a distance of around 1600 miles from the Wall to King’s Landing), I think it reasonable to assume a distance of around 1500 miles from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to Dragonstone, given that Dragonstone lies to the northeast of King’s Landing (at least in the map that comes with George Martin’s books), and should therefore be closer to the Wall than King’s Landing, at least as the crow flies. This means that the ravens may be expected to fly from Eastwatch to Dragonstone in 30 hours. I think it is fair to add on an extra 6 hours to allow for rest periods and flight path deviations.
This brings us to the next point, which is exactly how fast can those dragons fly? The fastest bird that we know of is the Peregrine Falcon, which can achieve speeds up to 240 miles per hour, although this can only be achieved when diving. Golden Eagles can achieve up to 200 mph in a dive. However, in level flight, the maximum achievable speed would be lower, so we should not allow such a high average flight speed for the dragons. I think that it is fair to allow them up to 60 miles per hour in flight, given that ordinary birds can achieve speeds of up to 50 mph, and even a cheetah can achieve a speed of up to 70 mph running on land. This would allow Danaerys and her dragons to reach Eastwatch in 25 hours, and an extra 6 hours can be added on for rest periods and flight path deviations.
In conclusion, we arrive at an estimate of around 70 hours for the entire process. 3 hours for Gendry to run back to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, another 36 hours for the ravens to fly to Dragonstone, and a further 31 for the dragons to fly to the rescue. If we allow 2 more hours for the Maester at Eastwatch to write a message, and for Danaerys to receive and read it, it seems reasonable to imagine that Jon and his party might have been sitting on that rock for around 72 hours, or just around three days. So, if our heroes run into the undead army on Monday afternoon, Gendry runs back to the Wall and gets there that evening. The ravens are then sent off and reach Dragonstone on Wednesday morning, so if Dany sets off right away, she can get up north to save Jon and his mates around tea-time on Thursday.
Human beings can easily survive for three days without food, while water would have been readily available, so the only question would be whether Jon and his friends could have survived for that long without any source of warmth. We know that they burned Thoros' body after the first night, but it would have been nice if the party had been shown starting a small fire, so that it would be clear why they did not freeze to death while waiting to be rescued. It could be argued, of course, that any audience is expected to 'know' certain things, without having to be told. We 'know', for example, that our heroes would not have walked around with a full bladder while on that rock. There is no need to include a scene that confirm this. But this is merely an example of shoddy screenwriting and directing, it is not an implausible plot element that would ruin the series as a whole.
First, there is no reason to assume that Gendry ran for SIX hours to get to Eastwatch. The programme gives no indication as to exactly how far the Magnificent Seven (and their wildling helpers) trekked before encountering the Army of the Dead. We watch them leave Eastwatch at the end of Episode 5. In Episode 6, we see them heading north in daylight, and running into the wights after some time. How long did they trek for, and how far did they go? There are no night scenes between the time they leave Eastwatch and their encounter with the undead polar bear. But should we assume that they left Eastwatch at daybreak? Perhaps they took the time to have some breakfast before heading out? (I would have). And if you are going into enemy territory to try and capture an enemy soldier, would you not scout around rather than head directly north in a straight line? If we assume that they walked at a deliberate pace while scouting for the enemy, and include the time taken to fight the zombie bear, there is no reason to assume that Jon and his party would have trekked more than a few miles north of Eastwatch before running into the undead army (After all, we are told repeatedly that the Night King and his minions are coming to Eastwatch, not sitting around discussing the advantages and disadvantages of making the trip). So Gendry would not necessarily have run for SIX bloody hours in the cold. Now, we cannot know either way because the show does not tell us, but there is no reason to assume the least plausible scenario. Gendry's run could have been for just six miles, and taken 2 or 3 hours.
This brings us to the next lazy assumption, which is that it is approximately 1900 miles from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to Dragonstone. Now, I do not think that a map created by a fan can be used as 'evidence' for anything. The original maps drawn by George R.R. Martin do not give us any idea of scale. In fact, it is debatable whether or not they should be regarded as an accurate representation of the world in the first place.
The only reliable indication that we have about these distances is the complaint made in the very first episode by Cersei Lannister, that she had been travelling for a month from King’s Landing to Winterfell. Based on this, some people have come up with the hypothesis that this must be a distance of around 1500 miles, given that the royal train would have been able to travel around 50 miles a day. I think this is unrealistic, and has probably been arrived at by people who have extrapolated from their own experience of long-distance travel. If you are driving across the United States or Western Europe in the 21st century, it is a simple matter to take the distance from one town to another, factor in the average speed of your vehicle, and work out your expected travel time. Similarly, you can work out the distance between two cities based on the speed of your vehicle and the time taken to travel between them. Such calculations assume that the roads are all of a decent standard and that your means of transport can maintain a similar average speed for an extended period of time (as modern cars do).
This reasoning cannot just be extended to a medieval setting. A horse cart may achieve a speed of about 5 miles per hour, and maintain this for a day or two, but it cannot, without a change of fresh horses every two days or so, continue at this rate for a month. Horses are not cars or buses. They will get tired, and can fall ill or go lame. It is impossible to maintain a rate of 50 miles per day for a whole month. If you think it is, try hiking a distance of 20 miles a day, every day, on an uneven road, for a month, and see how long you can keep that up before getting pains in your knees, or your ankles or your hips. A more realistic travel distance for a train of horse carts, including time for rest and relaxation along the way, might be around 30 miles a day. This would give a more realistic distance of around 1000 miles from King’s Landing to Winterfell, which would also be in keeping with the description given by Roose Bolton to his bastard son Ramsay, that you can travel 700 miles in one direction, and 400 miles in the other, and still be in the North. A fair assumption then, might be that the entire North is about 1100 miles from north to south.
So, if the distance from King’s Landing to Winterfell is around 1000 miles, and from Winterfell to Castle Black is another 600 miles (giving a distance of around 1600 miles from the Wall to King’s Landing), I think it reasonable to assume a distance of around 1500 miles from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea to Dragonstone, given that Dragonstone lies to the northeast of King’s Landing (at least in the map that comes with George Martin’s books), and should therefore be closer to the Wall than King’s Landing, at least as the crow flies. This means that the ravens may be expected to fly from Eastwatch to Dragonstone in 30 hours. I think it is fair to add on an extra 6 hours to allow for rest periods and flight path deviations.
This brings us to the next point, which is exactly how fast can those dragons fly? The fastest bird that we know of is the Peregrine Falcon, which can achieve speeds up to 240 miles per hour, although this can only be achieved when diving. Golden Eagles can achieve up to 200 mph in a dive. However, in level flight, the maximum achievable speed would be lower, so we should not allow such a high average flight speed for the dragons. I think that it is fair to allow them up to 60 miles per hour in flight, given that ordinary birds can achieve speeds of up to 50 mph, and even a cheetah can achieve a speed of up to 70 mph running on land. This would allow Danaerys and her dragons to reach Eastwatch in 25 hours, and an extra 6 hours can be added on for rest periods and flight path deviations.
In conclusion, we arrive at an estimate of around 70 hours for the entire process. 3 hours for Gendry to run back to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, another 36 hours for the ravens to fly to Dragonstone, and a further 31 for the dragons to fly to the rescue. If we allow 2 more hours for the Maester at Eastwatch to write a message, and for Danaerys to receive and read it, it seems reasonable to imagine that Jon and his party might have been sitting on that rock for around 72 hours, or just around three days. So, if our heroes run into the undead army on Monday afternoon, Gendry runs back to the Wall and gets there that evening. The ravens are then sent off and reach Dragonstone on Wednesday morning, so if Dany sets off right away, she can get up north to save Jon and his mates around tea-time on Thursday.
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| "Hang on a sec, I just need to..." |
Human beings can easily survive for three days without food, while water would have been readily available, so the only question would be whether Jon and his friends could have survived for that long without any source of warmth. We know that they burned Thoros' body after the first night, but it would have been nice if the party had been shown starting a small fire, so that it would be clear why they did not freeze to death while waiting to be rescued. It could be argued, of course, that any audience is expected to 'know' certain things, without having to be told. We 'know', for example, that our heroes would not have walked around with a full bladder while on that rock. There is no need to include a scene that confirm this. But this is merely an example of shoddy screenwriting and directing, it is not an implausible plot element that would ruin the series as a whole.
To conclude, I do not think that the plotline of Episode 6 strains credulity. Improvements can (and should) be made in future episodes, but the plausibility of the series as a whole is not irretrievably damaged. Assuming that the existence of fire-breathing dragons and undead hordes does not strain your credulity too much in the first place, of course.
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