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Game of Thrones & A Song of Ice and Fire General Discussion

RoTt35 said:
In the show it's the opposite: Arthur > Prime Barristan > Old Barristan > Jaime
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For the books we know that according to GRRM, Arthur Dayne with Dawn > Barristan Selmy = Arthur Dayne

According to Daenerys, despite his age Barristan has not lost his skill with weapons: "Barristan Selmy remained behind. His hair was white, and there were crow's-feet at the corners of his pale blue eyes. Yet his back was still unbent, and the years had not yet robbed him of his skill at arms"

GRRM has already said in an interview that Jaime was the greatest swordsman in Westeros at the beginning of the books (27:26). Brienne said that no knight can beat Jaime with both hands, and Barristan said that Jaime was the best natural swordsman he had seen .

UchihaSlayer96 said:
Yeah, and we never got this gem of a statement on the show, unfortunately
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Without forgetting this statement where he says that he could beat Arthur Dayne despite the fact that he is stronger than him physically.

So yeah in the books he should be better than Arthur and Barristan in terms of skill. And even if we say that Young Barristan > Old Barristan in terms of pure skill (which is not necessarily true), Jaime would still be comparable to Young Barristan in skill
 
Yeah, not to mention his great physical strength, but even without Dawn he's still a guy on the same level as Barristan Selmy, who was the best swordsman in Westeros in his youth, it's still amazing.
 
In the books Arthur Dayne = great physical strength + skill comparable to Barristan Selmy + a magic sword.
I understand why Arthur was the deadliest knight in the Kingsguard of Aerys II
 
Yeah, Arthur Dayne is nuts.

But as far as the show is concerned, I feel like Oberyn is insanely slept on. He has the best skill feats in the show by FAR. He pretty much stomped Gregor, essentially the physically strongest human in the verse, with skill alone. If not for his emotions getting in the way, he was definitely getting that W.
 
UchihaSlayer96 said:
But as far as the show is concerned, I feel like Oberyn is insanely slept on. He has the best skill feats in the show by FAR. He pretty much stomped Gregor, essentially the physically strongest human in the verse, with skill alone. If not for his emotions getting in the way, he was definitely getting that W.
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Yeah, Oberyn is one of the most skilled warriors along with Arthur and Drogo. I would also like to see Barristan on his Prime who despite being in his 60/70's was still able to kill 15 warriors in a row. This would be my top 5 of the most skilled warriors of the show:
  1. Arthur Dayne
  2. Barristan Selmy (Prime)
  3. Khal Drogo
  4. Oberyn Martell
  5. Jaime Lannister (Prime)/Jon Snow/Grey Worm. I always have doubts in this position
 
I'd say that list is very good, but personally idk about having Drogo that high.
I mean, I get the whole hype with him having never been defeated and all. It's certainly impressive, but my issue with it is that we've never seen him tested against the top tier knights of the verse.
This wouldn't be much of an issue if he had more/better showings, but unfortunately we didn't get much. His only fight in the series kinda showed him getting tagged and wounded.

I have no doubt that in reality he was probably a top tier warrior, and probably insanely strong as well given his physical appearance, but his lack of showings would just make me a bit hesitant to have him this high personally.
 
True, but the problem is that it is difficult to compare a Dothraki with a knight since his fighting style puts him at a big disadvantage as we saw in Jorah's fight. Although Drogo has shown very good feats since he is far stronger and skilled than Dothraki bloodriders who can easily outskill and defeat Jorah Mormont, and also the fact that he has never been defeated in combat. So I don't think Drogo is out of the top 5, maybe putting him behind Oberyn is more accurate
 
UchihaSlayer96 said:
His only fight in the series kinda showed him getting tagged and wounded.
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To be fair the fight hadn't started yet, after that Drogo fought unarmed and easily dodged all the attacks like nothing happened, and all this while giving a monologue to his opponent
 
Ehh, true, but then again, Jorah is kinda just......sorta good? I mean, he's clearly a very skilled and relatively famous knight, but I don't think we have anything that suggests he compares favorably to the top tiers like Arthur, Barristan, Jaime, etc.
 
No, clearly, but if Arthur, Barristan and Jaime are "God Tier Knights" Jorah would be a "High Tier Knight" imo since he has shown a good skill in several fights and battles: the siege of Pyke and Yunkai, his fights as a gladiator, his battles against the Dothraki and Wights, etc.
 
Oh yeah, no, don't get me wrong. He's clearly excellent. I'm just not toooooo sure if being above him necessarily puts you in the top 5 is all.
But yeah, no doubt, Jorah and Drogo are definitely excellent warriors.
 
I'd probably need to think about it more deeply, but probably something like:

1) Arthur Dayne
2) Oberyn Martell
3) Prime Barristan Selmy
4) Prime Jaime Lannister
5) The Mountain/Hound

The order of this list can obviously change, as I believe pretty much everyone here can beat anyone on the list depending on the circumstances. The only placement I'm absolutely certain of is Arthur Dayne being #1.

For honorable mentions I'd have to include:
  • Drogo: Essentially for the reasons you discussed earlier.
  • Prime Ned Stark: A bit of an unorthodox pick, I know, but hear me out. Even while much older and pretty out of practice, he still crossed swords with Jaime pretty competitively. And while I'm sure Jaime would've won in the end, crossing swords competitively with him is just impressive no matter how we look at it. When we look at a much younger and in-shape Ned, things certainly start to look up for him. It's also pretty impressive that he managed to cross swords with Arthur Dayne. He was definitely outmatched, outclassed, and was certain to lose, but again, just impressive considering who we're talking about.
  • Brienne: I think this one's self explanatory tbh.
  • Arya Stark: via her skill set and somewhat scaling to Brienne.
  • Prime Bobby B: Just a powerhouse in terms of strength. Has a lot of hype and accolades around him. Killed Rhaegar, who was apparently extremely accomplished in his own right.
  • Jon Snow: He was already rather skilled as a fledgling in Season 1, so after all his development and battle experience, he's definitely a beast. Trading blows with and besting a White Walker is also impressive, even if he was on the back foot the whole time.
  • Bronn: Yeah, look, he's not particularly skilled or strong, but his fighting style is just so goddamn dirty that he can probably still beat most people on this list under certain circumstances lol.
  • Loras Tyrell: Just a super renowned knight known for his skill and whatnot, but unfortunately doesn't have that many impressive showings beyond kinda hanging with Brienne for a minute. Oh, and I guess besting Gregor in jousting.
  • Grey Worm: He has no particularly impressive scaling as far as I remember, but I think he has good feats when it comes to fighting hordes of enemies. He's also really good with stealth, and is probably the second best spear user in the show.
  • Jaqen: A better Arya, pretty much.
 
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Great list and analysis, I only disagree with Gregor since he is pure strength, unlike other warriors like Drogo, Sandor, Brienne or Robert who combine their strength with skill. I would also include Jaqen H'ghar in the honorable mentions since he is basically a more skilled and stronger version of Arya, maybe Daario Naharis and Jorah too
 
Oh no, Jaqen DEFINITELY belongs on that list. I just forgot about him lol. Lemme just edit him in.
Oh, and thanks!
As for Gregor, yeah, he's not skilled at all tbh, but the dude's just so damn strong to the point that even the most minor of slip ups means game over for you just ask Oberyn lmaaaao, so while your point definitely stands, I just think such a ridiculous advantage has got to count for something. And at the end of the day, he still knows his way around a sword since he matched Sandor for a hot minute, so he's not necessarily terrible in terms of swordsmanship.
Still, he's definitely not on par with the most skilled knights or anything. I believe that Oberyn's existence and Jaime's own belief that he can beat just about anyone through skill alone can attest to that.
 
After careful consideration, I think the Ice Dragons profile should be removed.
Since their existence is unproven (for the moment), the powers and abilities mentioned are also just sailors stories, and there is nothing to say that this is also true.
 
Should the Children of the Forest have Power Nullification since their magic and spells repelled the Long Night and everything the Night King was doing around the world?
 
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
After careful consideration, I think the Ice Dragons profile should be removed.
Since their existence is unproven (for the moment), the powers and abilities mentioned are also just sailors stories, and there is nothing to say that this is also true.
Click to expand...
I created that profile because I was interested in the character when I saw it on the ASOIAF wiki, I know practically nothing about the books but if you think it should be removed you can request it
 
LordTracer said:
Why do so many ASoIaF 9-Bs randomly scale to Maelys Blackfyre?
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Because all the fighters in the verse can fight with the strongest characters in the world and block some of their attacks. Flement Brax, who doesn't have particularly great skill or strength, who can spar with Lyle Crakehall, Barristan Selmy in his youth, who also doesn't have particularly great strength compared to Jaime, Arthur and Gerold, who can single combat with Maelys Blackfyre and kill him, Rhaegar who can also do the same with Robert Baratheon in his prime and hurt him, Beric Dondarrion with Sandor Clegane, etc and etc
 
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
Because all the fighters in the verse can fight with the strongest characters in the world and block some of their attacks. Flement Brax, who doesn't have particularly great skill or strength, who can spar with Lyle Crakehall, Barristan Selmy in his youth, who also doesn't have particularly great strength compared to Jaime, Arthur and Gerold, who can single combat with Maelys Blackfyre and kill him, Rhaegar who can also do the same with Robert Baratheon in his prime and hurt him, Beric Dondarrion with Sandor Clegane, etc and etc
Click to expand...
Why is like, none of this justification actually on the profiles? Literally every page except Barristan just says “Should be comparable to Maelys Blackfyre” without explaining why.

Also I find some of that explanation questionable. How exactly do you know that young Barristan doesn’t have great strength compared to Jaime? (Also why doesn’t Barristan have different keys for his young and old selves?)
 
LordTracer said:
Why is like, none of this justification actually on the profiles?
Click to expand...
It's just something I was going to do, but there were things I had to adjust, modify and add for the ASOIAF profiles, and there will be others. They're not 100% ready yet, it's a huge saga that I'm still working on for VSBW. But yes I will, soon.
LordTracer said:
Literally every page except Barristan just says “Should be comparable to Maelys Blackfyre” without explaining why.
Click to expand...
Only certain pages have this phrase, the characters that are considered the strongest physically, and they all have an explanation for most of them. But for some profiles I will have to delete this sentence.

LordTracer said:
How exactly do you know that young Barristan doesn’t have great strength compared to Jaime?
Click to expand...
With this statement
LordTracer said:
(Also why doesn’t Barristan have different keys for his young and old selves?)
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Because it's not something that I found necessary, like for Tywin, there's not really a difference. But I might add them if it's really important.
 
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
Only certain pages have this phrase, the characters that are considered the strongest physically, and they all have an explanation for most of them. But for some profiles I will have to delete this sentence.
Click to expand...
Uh, I checked every single page that links to Maelys’ page, and Barristan is the only one with any explanation. Every other page just says that they should be comparable with no actual reason.
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
With this statement
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Link doesn’t work.
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
Because it's not something that I found necessary, like for Tywin, there's not really a difference. But I might add them if it's really important.
Click to expand...
I would assume old man Barristan isn’t just as strong as he was in his prime.
 
LordTracer said:
That doesn’t mean Barristan isn’t physically impressive compared to Jaime, it just means he isn’t stronger than him.
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I never said the opposite
LordTracer said:
Also has Jaime even seen Barristan in his prime?
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No, but he didn't see Gerold Hightower in his prime either, but Gerold had the alias "The White Bull", probably via his strength when young and his ferocity, so his strength probably had a reputation
 
Ser_Hakim_Dayne said:
No, but he didn't see Gerold Hightower in his prime either, but Gerold had the alias "The White Bull", probably via his strength when young and his ferocity, so his strength probably had a reputation
Click to expand...
Then I’d be inclined to say Jaime’s only point of reference is old Barristan and he doesn’t know what Prime Barristan can do. Especially since GRRM said Prime Barristan was comparable to Arthur Dayne iirc, and Jaime considered Arthur stronger than him.
 
LordTracer said:
Then I’d be inclined to say Jaime’s only point of reference is old Barristan and he doesn’t know what Prime Barristan can do
Click to expand...
Barristan has so far never been known to have great strength compared to Gerold Hightower and Arthur Dayne, and Jaime himself is one of the physically strongest men in Westeros, so I don't know.
LordTracer said:
Especially since GRRM said Prime Barristan was comparable to Arthur Dayne iirc
Click to expand...
It was about a sword fight, he never talked about strength.
 
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