Weapons masters and warfare historians rate 12 "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon" scenes for realism.
Roel Konijnendijk teaches ancient history at the University of Oxford's Lincoln College. He rates battle scenes and swords and buckles in "House of the Dragon" (2022), featuring Matt Smith.
Blacksmith Neil Kamimura rates forging scenes from "Game of Thrones" for realism.
Archer Jim Kent, aka Grizzly Jim, breaks down bow and archery accuracy in "Game of Thrones."
Evan Wilson is an assistant professor at the US Naval War College and an expert in 18th-century naval warfare. Wilson rates naval warfare scenes in "Game of Thrones" (2017).
Medieval-fortification expert Michael Fulton is an assistant professor of medieval history at Western University in Ontario, Canada. He looks at fortress defense scenes from "Game of Thrones" S2E9 (2012).
Jousting world champion Shane Adams rates horseback and jousting fight scenes in "Game of Thrones" for realism.
Toby Capwell is a medieval-weapons expert as well as an author, lecturer, broadcaster, and the curator of arms and armor at The Wallace Collection in London. Capwell assesses the accuracy of armor and weapons used in "Game of Thrones."
Dave Rawlings has over 15 years of experience teaching Western swordsmanship, and he teaches longsword at the London Longsword Academy. He looks at duels from "Game of Thrones."
Rebecca Simon, a piracy historian and professor of history at Santa Monica College, rates pirate battles from "House of the Dragon" E2 and E3 (2022), for realism.
Grizzly Jim
www.instagram.com/thatgrizzlyjim
Roel Konijnendijk
https://twitter.com/roelkonijn
Neil Kamimura
https://www.instagram.com/rpm_neil/
Shane Adams
https://www.extremejousting.com/about-us
Michael Fulton
https://westernu.academia.edu/MichaelFulton
Evan Wilson
https://twitter.com/wilsonevan
Toby Capwell
https://www.instagram.com/tobiascapwell
Dave Rawlings
www.londonlongsword.com
Rebecca Simon
http://rebecca-simon.com/
Roel Konijnendijk teaches ancient history at the University of Oxford's Lincoln College. He rates battle scenes and swords and buckles in "House of the Dragon" (2022), featuring Matt Smith.
Blacksmith Neil Kamimura rates forging scenes from "Game of Thrones" for realism.
Archer Jim Kent, aka Grizzly Jim, breaks down bow and archery accuracy in "Game of Thrones."
Evan Wilson is an assistant professor at the US Naval War College and an expert in 18th-century naval warfare. Wilson rates naval warfare scenes in "Game of Thrones" (2017).
Medieval-fortification expert Michael Fulton is an assistant professor of medieval history at Western University in Ontario, Canada. He looks at fortress defense scenes from "Game of Thrones" S2E9 (2012).
Jousting world champion Shane Adams rates horseback and jousting fight scenes in "Game of Thrones" for realism.
Toby Capwell is a medieval-weapons expert as well as an author, lecturer, broadcaster, and the curator of arms and armor at The Wallace Collection in London. Capwell assesses the accuracy of armor and weapons used in "Game of Thrones."
Dave Rawlings has over 15 years of experience teaching Western swordsmanship, and he teaches longsword at the London Longsword Academy. He looks at duels from "Game of Thrones."
Rebecca Simon, a piracy historian and professor of history at Santa Monica College, rates pirate battles from "House of the Dragon" E2 and E3 (2022), for realism.
Grizzly Jim
www.instagram.com/thatgrizzlyjim
Roel Konijnendijk
https://twitter.com/roelkonijn
Neil Kamimura
https://www.instagram.com/rpm_neil/
Shane Adams
https://www.extremejousting.com/about-us
Michael Fulton
https://westernu.academia.edu/MichaelFulton
Evan Wilson
https://twitter.com/wilsonevan
Toby Capwell
https://www.instagram.com/tobiascapwell
Dave Rawlings
www.londonlongsword.com
Rebecca Simon
http://rebecca-simon.com/
Category
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TechTranscript
00:00Yep, if someone has got their back to you and you have a spear, do stab them in the
00:06back of the leg.
00:07My name is David Browning of the London Longsword Academy.
00:09My name is Jim Kent.
00:10My name is Rilke Neyendag.
00:11Hi, my name is Neil Kamimura.
00:12Hello, my name is Dr. Rebecca Simon.
00:14Hi, I'm Toby Capwell.
00:15Hi, I'm Shane Adams, the owner of the Knights of Valor.
00:17Hi, my name is Evan Wilson.
00:19Dr. Michael Fulton.
00:20Today we'll be looking at Game of Thrones scenes and judge how real they are.
00:32He's got what we'll call a cant on the bow there.
00:34I tend to shoot with a little bit of a cant.
00:37It opens up the sight window as well.
00:39If your bow's up straight like that, generally the thing you're trying to shoot is going
00:43to be hidden by the bow, so I tend to drop the bow out of the way a little bit, which
00:47is what he's doing.
00:48So he's clearly pointing one way, but you can see the arrow on his hand pointing the
00:51other way.
00:52And a lot of people call that the archer's paradox.
00:54The archer's paradox is the fact that the arrow's pointing off to the left when you're
00:59actually pointing at the target at the right.
01:02That's the paradox, and it's the flexing of the arrow that makes it travel downrange.
01:08How could I kill this dude running away?
01:13It depends on the distance.
01:15I'm only really accurate up to probably about 30 metres.
01:21I'd get him eventually.
01:22See, I'd be zigging and zagging.
01:24I'd be serpentining.
01:28There is a type of archery called a clout, typically done by English longbow archers,
01:34which is long-distance shooting where you shoot at a flag in the ground, 180, 200 yards
01:42away, shooting up, shooting down, closest to the flag.
01:45So there are people that can shoot very, very well at long range.
01:49Medieval longbow archers could be pretty accurate.
01:53The bow looked like it had what they call pony limbs, where you've got the basic bow,
01:59and then you'd have another set of limbs that come off the front.
02:02So that limb is attached to that limb, and that limb is attached to that limb, and that
02:06gives you way more power.
02:08So it would be perfect for that kind of, you know, killing dudes running away kind
02:13of archery.
02:14I'm going to give it a nine for Game of Thrones, I think.
02:17Hello everyone.
02:18My name is Roelke Nijndijk.
02:19I teach ancient history at the University of Oxford.
02:26The coordination required to do this is completely impossible.
02:29There were battle formations where you would have shield balls in front and then spears
02:34sticking out to sort of drive the enemy back.
02:36Obviously, the Macedonian pikemen are the big famous example.
02:38There are Mesopotamian examples from like way back 2000 BC.
02:43It wouldn't work like this, though.
02:44You couldn't really form them in a circle.
02:46They would form up in blocks, and they would maneuver in blocks, and that's hard enough.
02:56Once you're fully surrounded, I mean, there's nothing you can do, really.
02:59You're in big trouble.
03:00You can try to break the spears.
03:01The Persians are known to do that against the Greeks.
03:04Their spears are longer, so they literally went up and snapped them in half by hand.
03:07But that's a desperation move, and it doesn't really get you anywhere.
03:10If you're in an encirclement like that of a proper pike formation, then you're just
03:14doomed.
03:15You probably surrender.
03:24Crushes in battle do happen, but most of the time when people do get crushed into a small
03:29space and the dead start piling up, it's because they're trying to run away and they can't
03:33escape because there's a river or a ravine or a wall, and they get stuck there.
03:38The panic of a trampole, they do depict that very well.
03:45When horses turn up unexpectedly, especially behind the infantry line, you would give up
03:49and run.
03:50There is almost no chance that that formation would hold.
03:53The very unrealistic thing in this scene is that no one knew that cavalry was there.
03:56It's possible to hide small units in woods or hollow roads or behind some geographical
04:01feature.
04:03The large force of cavalry is going to throw up a lot of dust.
04:05It's going to make a lot of noise.
04:06It's going to, you know, scare the birds and the animals.
04:08You know this is coming.
04:09I think this one does an interesting job of trying to give you the sort of visceral horror
04:14of a battle, and I really do appreciate that.
04:16The tactics are nonsense, but it does give a sense of desperation of some of these struggles.
04:21So maybe 5 out of 10, 6 out of 10.
04:28Again, they should have been digging ditches.
04:31Literally, all they do is just stand around carrying spears from one point to another.
04:35You should be digging ditches, many ditches.
04:38Once your first ditch is ready, build another one.
04:44The female characters, other than the ones who've been trained to fight, are basically
04:47just sort of hiding in the dungeon and not doing anything.
04:50In actual sieges, especially when it was this desperate, I mean, they would just be expected
04:54to contribute.
04:55You know, women, children, old men, everybody does something.
04:57Because there's always things that people can do even when they don't fight.
05:01Go and carry arrows and stones up to the people on the walls, go and put out fires, help with
05:07water and food, help with clothing and the wounded.
05:09There's no way you would just stick them away in a corner somewhere.
05:17These catapults are obviously in the wrong place.
05:18They should be on top of the wall.
05:19Like, why would you put them outside of the walls?
05:21They're going to be overrun.
05:22You can't move them out of the way quickly enough, so put them on top of the wall.
05:25That's where you put your artillery.
05:30So you can put your cavalry in front and it totally works if you don't expect your enemy
05:35to stand their ground.
05:37So putting your cavalry in front is a time-tested, you know, very common strategy.
05:41Totally works, unless you're fighting ice zombies who are not going to break and they're
05:45not scared of you.
05:46You're just wasting your cavalry.
05:48So it's the right tactic for the wrong moment.
05:51There are probably several battles and other battles in Game of Thrones where this could
05:54have worked really well.
05:55Should you find yourself fighting an army of ice zombies, so put your artillery on the
05:59wall, dig many ditches, just lots and lots of ditches.
06:04You can put, of course, your infantry in front if you want to confront them there because
06:08that means that you will have several stages to fall back on after that.
06:12You won't sort of blow everything all in one go.
06:15But put your cavalry away from the main line so that once the enemy is engaged, once your
06:21ice zombies are stuck against your line, you can then swoop in from the side where they're
06:25not expecting you and overrun them.
06:28I mean, it's not going to really necessarily win your fight against an army of ice zombies,
06:33but at least it means that you are fighting them in a way that they don't expect.
06:36At least you will have done something with your cavalry that made sense.
06:38But otherwise, I mean, obviously, it's all a bit silly, so, you know, what should we
06:43say?
06:44Five out of ten?
06:48Why not either let the archers handle it or send out a formation of guys?
06:53Let him try and break a shield wall on his own with only a little sword?
06:57He's not going to have a good time.
07:03Obviously, every time he has to fight someone, he stops.
07:06That's when he would get shot.
07:07And he has to do that several times and then find cover, which just happens to be there.
07:12He's immensely lucky.
07:13He's basically wearing sort of premium grade plot armor.
07:16Also, I'm begging movie makers to please stop it with the orders to the archers.
07:21This never happens.
07:22The knock-draw-lose thing, it's not real.
07:24Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
07:28The crab feeders men, the men in yellow, they actually have these swords and bucklers, which
07:33is a very particular style of combat, where they have these curved swords and these very
07:38small shields.
07:39Usually, they would have been made of metal, and you can actually use them both to guard
07:42yourself and to attack.
07:43So they have a very particular style of armor that you don't see in movies or TV series
07:47a lot.
07:53In terms of the fighting, it's just chaos.
07:56It's just running around, engaging the enemy one at a time, hacking at anything they can
08:00see.
08:01It's very exciting to watch.
08:02But this is not a battle.
08:03This is just a big mess.
08:04Two out of ten.
08:05Hi, I'm Shane Adams, the owner of the Knights of Valor, full-contact jousting company.
08:09I've been jousting for well over 25 years, so I have 20 international jousting championships
08:14under my belt.
08:19They hit, but it was just a glancing blow.
08:22There is no penalty for missing your opponent, but you're going to be behind in points.
08:27If you hit the target, whether it be a smooth plate or whether it be a target shield, you
08:33get a certain amount of points.
08:35And ultimately, if you unhorse your opponent in the full-contact style, that's the maximum
08:40amount of points.
08:41There's probably well over 19, 20, 25 different styles of jousting.
08:49Yeah, see that ridge around that shield?
08:51Bad news.
08:52You don't want a lip around the shield.
08:54You don't want any spot where that lance is going to connect and lock into the lip.
08:59You want to be able to deflect the lance away from your body.
09:02So, completely wrong shield.
09:09The jousting that was there, it was decent for a theatrical-style joust.
09:15If they were true knights, they wouldn't be holding their shields like that.
09:18They're leaving themselves completely exposed from the top of the shield to your throat, head.
09:23That scene where the horse actually does fall into the joust list, usually it would be the
09:29opposite way.
09:30So, the person would be getting hit coming off to the right side.
09:34Based on the fact that we do real full-contact jousting, we always drop the reins.
09:38So, that way there, if you get off balance, you're not going to be pulling your horse
09:43to the extent that you're going to be pulling your horse down onto the ground with you.
09:47I'm 265 pounds.
09:49Out of my armor, I'm 415 pounds.
09:52Riding a 2,000-pound horse, charging at 20, 25 miles an hour against the same opposing force,
09:59it's a car wreck.
10:01So, when we hit, there is a lot of force being generated.
10:05Both guys were not wearing proper equipment as far as gorgets to protect their necks
10:10because the lance could hit and come up and straight into your throat.
10:13You could tell right away looking at the tips of the lances.
10:17The hound's lance didn't have a cornel on it, didn't have like a tip on the end.
10:22It was a sheer point.
10:23Knights back in the olden days, the nobility were the ones jousting.
10:27They didn't want to go out there and kill each other.
10:29Again, to disperse the impact force on the knight's armor.
10:33It's like a cast fist put on.
10:35Well, if you don't do that, you have a scene possibly like this.
10:40And historically, that could have definitely happened.
10:44So, I'm a total Game of Thrones geek, and I love the show.
10:48However, I have to give it a 4.
10:51Hi, I'm Tobias.
10:53I've been riding horses and fighting in armor.
10:55I've taken part in competitions, armor combat, all over the world.
11:03If I could change one thing, I would change this.
11:06He's wearing his gorget on the outside of his breastplate.
11:10It doesn't matter if you're a knight or a warrior.
11:13It's a matter of keeping it.
11:15The fact that he's wearing a gorget on the outside of his breastplate
11:18He's wearing his gorget on the outside of his breastplate.
11:23The gorget is that neckplate.
11:25He should actually have plates covering his throat.
11:28The gorget has neckplates in here and it comes down and has this larger chestplate.
11:32That chestplate should be underneath the breastplate.
11:35The breastplate has a turned edge to stop things sliding up into your face.
11:40But if anything does get past, it hits the gorget.
11:43But in Game of Thrones, they habitually put them on the outside.
11:48And it's a howler that I just, I can't abide.
11:51Hi, my name is Neil Kamimura.
11:54I'm a bladesmith, blacksmith from Hawaii.
11:57My business name is T. Kamimura Blacksmith.
11:59It was established in 1932 Hilo from my great-grandfather.
12:09So the fact that he could take the handle off with two taps of a hammer, it definitely
12:14wouldn't have survived battle as you were hitting edge to edge.
12:19But at least they took the handle off on this one.
12:21Some of them are pinned and a lot of them are through and then the pommel is what holds
12:25it on.
12:26But you definitely can't just take it and be like, and then it comes off.
12:31You know what I mean?
12:39So when you're melting steel in like an open-faced crucible like that they were doing, one, there
12:45wouldn't be just like orangey flames, like it would be the most insane looking at the
12:51sun.
12:52That's one.
12:53Two, the actual crucible itself would need to be hot.
12:57That is just black.
12:59So it didn't heat up, but yet somehow the sword is melting on a black surface, which
13:05is the most ridiculous thing ever.
13:15Swords that were poured and casted like that were bronze.
13:20They weren't steel.
13:21It takes about 3,000 degrees to melt steel, that kind of steel.
13:26Bronze is a lower melting temperature.
13:28So that was a lot easier to melt and cast.
13:30But when they do cast it, it wasn't in an open face.
13:33On both sides was it casted so that you pour it in the top and it fills up and makes a
13:38perfect mold.
13:39The sword would look like a cookie on a baking sheet, you know?
13:42So that's just bulls**t.
13:45I don't quite understand how they got one sword and melted it and you somehow made enough
13:51to make two swords now.
13:54You actually lose mass as you melt steel like that.
13:59I would definitely give that a four.
14:03Hi, my name is Evan Wilson.
14:05I'm a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and I'm an expert in 18th century naval warfare.
14:17That's supposed to be sort of the bowsprit.
14:18That's the mass that sticks out the front of the ship.
14:21That's really essential to hold up most of the rigging of a ship.
14:24If you were to put elaborate metal claws on the front of it, you'd first of all probably
14:30not be able to sail the ship very well.
14:32Secondly, be very heavy on the front of your ship and cause your ship to go like this.
14:35You can run your ship into the other ship and then board it from there, but you do that
14:40by just clambering over your own bowsprit.
14:42You don't do it by staging an elaborate entrance in which you just made yourself a target.
14:47I mean, they stand there shocked that it's Euron, but just shoot him.
14:54Flaming arrows, I would say no.
14:57That's not something that would work, mainly because to make a flaming arrow work, you
15:01probably have to light it on your own ship.
15:03And fire is by far the biggest threat to ships.
15:06Wood, canvas, pitch, tar, like this stuff is really flammable.
15:10Firing flaming arrows at someone else's ship is much more likely to set your own ship on
15:13fire than to set the other guy's ship on fire.
15:15The fact that they correctly identify that one of the greatest fears for a fleet would
15:19be fire, and that would be the thing that would make Euron scary, I think is accurate.
15:25Hi there, my name's David Browning of the London Longsword Academy.
15:28I'm a full-time swordsmanship instructor.
15:40That's quite nice because in effect you have a very, very nasty version of a movement of
15:44conclusion.
15:45This is basically where in using a sword to parry here, we then do something with the
15:50offhand.
15:50If we were doing Verdadera, the idea would be to restrain the opponent's weapon hand
15:54so we can control it, and we can choose whether they live or die, and we can show mercy at
15:57this point.
15:58If you're doing this, this is lovely.
16:01He doesn't have to worry about the guy's offhand so much because the guy has both hands
16:04on the sword.
16:05There's a closure off of the line, and the guy giving him the distance because he doesn't
16:09have to move his feet.
16:10The guy's going to come and hit him anyway.
16:12He gets to push it aside.
16:13He gets to thrust through.
16:14He's got control of the opponent's sword still, and he gets to finish him.
16:17So that I actually quite like.
16:18That's pretty good.
16:20I'm not entirely sure holding your hand palm down with a longsword is a good way not to
16:24get the sword taken.
16:24Oh my goodness, this is terrible.
16:28There is so much bad in this.
16:30Again, we're back on this idea that if you've got a longsword, you have to do this with
16:34it, and it has to be wide and spinny, and it has to be these big moves.
16:37It's meant to be dexterous.
16:38You have this idea that there's basically half an L.
16:41The idea of being this kind of space here, rather halfway between here and here.
16:44You don't want to be more than this far away from your opponent with the point at
16:47all times.
16:48So if they drive you away, you're trying to find a way to get your point onto them.
16:52Most longsword is intrinsically trying to dominate a space very, very close into the
16:57core of your opponent.
16:59If they move you sufficiently around, you're immediately back at another opening.
17:02If they stay tight on the blade and the angle's tight, just enough to parry like so, you'll
17:06try and drive the blade in, still maintaining contact on that.
17:09All this wide around movement is complete nonsense.
17:15Okay, knocking the blade down and striking back up.
17:18Now, you could argue that this is almost a nodding in effect.
17:22The idea of beating someone's blade down and then hitting back up with the false edge.
17:27Here you see where the sword is sweeping wide and one person is standing with their point
17:30right in front of the other.
17:31You don't parry, then come back here.
17:33You stand here and you stab them immediately because the blade has moved out of presence.
17:37Well, that was good.
17:38Yep.
17:38If someone has got their back to you and you have a spear, do stab them in the back of
17:41the leg.
17:42That, again, redeeming feature, that's given another point.
17:53Women did actually fight judicial duels, especially in Germany.
17:57Women, you know, historically weren't knights.
18:00That's a fantasy element here.
18:02But they did fight judicial duels.
18:04And later, they fought civilian duels as well, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries.
18:09You may ask anything of me you desire.
18:11It is within my power.
18:13It is yours.
18:16Your grace, I ask the honor of a place in your Kingsguard.
18:21I like this because knights often did fight formal combats for other reasons beyond the
18:29legal procedure of a judicial duel.
18:32Sometimes they fought what were called deeds of arms, which were these kind of exhibitions
18:36fights, a lot like this.
18:38And it's just about the prestige and the fame, the celebrity aspects of knighthood, which
18:45is something Game of Thrones does really well.
18:48Today is not the day I die.
18:54Both sides in this judicial procedure are fighting with champions.
19:00Professional fighters who volunteered to act on their behalf.
19:04And that is absolutely a real thing.
19:06It's almost very much like having your own lawyer.
19:08This person will come and fight for you.
19:12I'm not sure quite this much exhibition jumping about is a good idea here.
19:17I'm a bit wary of anything that might give your opponent information about how you move
19:23and what you're capable of.
19:24I think it's potentially a good way of releasing your own adrenaline.
19:27If you stand there and you're very sort of like stoic and you're kind of, then all of
19:31that adrenaline is coursing through your system and it makes your reactions very, very jumpy.
19:34So it's almost like this feeling of freeing up your limbs, ready to fight.
19:42It seems like a spear with a wooden haft is a bad choice when you've got a seven foot
19:46tall guy with a big sword facing you.
19:49I guess you don't have to let him hit it.
19:51I do like that the majority of the deflections with the spear are ones which can be used
19:56are ones which accentuate the movement of the sword.
19:59There's good deflections.
20:00There's not these attempts to confront the weapon mainly, which is very, very good.
20:04There's not very much of this just direct threat, threat, threat,
20:07changing through from side to side to side.
20:11There is an awful lot of movement around the opponent.
20:14Cavendish talk about getting behind your opponent.
20:16Marazzo talks about walking to their shoulders.
20:19Like a modern fencing match, just up and down.
20:21With very few exceptions.
20:22You're categorically trying to get the best,
20:24most advantageous position that takes your opponent's arms out of their natural position of strength.
20:33The way that we portray people who are incredibly large in general forms of fiction is massively
20:40fiction.
20:41That person who is immensely strong has to be, for some reason, uneducated and unable to move.
20:47And this is not true.
20:48You get some absolute premium, huge athletes.
20:51Who move fast.
20:52Nimble.
20:53Yes.
20:53Terrifyingly fast and are intelligent and use that to their own advantage.
20:58It would be nice really to see a fight that represents that.
21:00Not only is this person huge, but they have studied their art.
21:04Oh no, you can't die yet.
21:06You haven't confessed.
21:10He clearly has made a mistake with all this gloating.
21:14You've got to keep your emotions under control.
21:17You've got to stop with the pride and the celebration prematurely.
21:22A knightly kind of mental preparation is about keeping a very even kind of dispassionate mindset.
21:30I'm gonna go for a seven and a half.
21:32I really, really like the way the spear moves.
21:34I hate the way the sword moves.
21:35I'd be willing to give it a six.
21:37Hi, I'm Dr. Michael Fulton.
21:40I'm an expert at siege warfare and medieval fortifications.
21:47So, knight attacks can take place.
21:52There's nothing to say that they didn't or that they shouldn't.
21:55Are they trying to go through a gate?
21:57There are three ways to overcome a wall.
22:01You can go over it, in which case you use ladders, siege towers, stuff like that.
22:06You can go under it, which is not a great strategy because then you're
22:10emerging on the other side one by one if you tunnel under.
22:13Or you can go through.
22:14And the best way to go through is actually to undermine the wall.
22:18Dig a big cavity underneath the wall.
22:19You prop up the wall above with wooden posts.
22:23You throw a bunch of combustibles in.
22:24All that support gets burnt out.
22:27The wall above falls down.
22:32Lighting arrows on fire like this, Hollywood loves to do it.
22:35Serves no practical value unless you're trying to set a thatched roof cottage on fire.
22:44So they kind of got up to the base of the wall here.
22:47This is a safe spot in so much as it's hard for archers to shoot arrows at them from here.
22:54But you can just drop some stones over on them.
22:56It's economical.
22:57If you consider that every arrow has to be made by hand, that's not a short process to make an arrow.
23:03So when they're throwing off all these volleys of arrows and shooting them off as fast as they can,
23:07that's not very efficient.
23:08You drop a bowling ball on somebody and it stops them in their tracks.
23:15Defenders exit a gate and try and attack the besiegers.
23:21That's reasonably common.
23:22The issue here is why.
23:25You would only do this if you needed to.
23:27Those attackers didn't have the numbers they probably needed
23:30to overcome these defenses to begin with.
23:33In the medieval period, leadership is directly tied to military performance and prowess.
23:41So for a commander, they have to be aware of what's going on
23:45if they are kind of a warrior figure, which the most effective military kings usually were.
23:51So having someone on top of the wall organizing things,
23:56definitely not beyond the realm of possibility.
23:58I don't quite see what they're going to accomplish once they reach the base of this wall.
24:04So I'm going to give this one maybe a three out of ten.
24:08Hello, my name is Dr. Rebecca Simon,
24:10and I'm a historian of the Golden Age of Piracy from the time period of approximately 1650 to 1730.
24:22This is not accurate to reality at all.
24:25Pirates were not known to feed people to any sort of animals.
24:30Now, there were a couple of extremely brutal pirates,
24:33George Louther and Ned Lowe, who sailed in like the late 1710s and early 1720s.
24:39And they were known to really brutalize their victims by
24:42cutting off body parts such as maybe their ears, part of the nose or their lips.
24:46And they reportedly would broil some of these parts and force their victims to eat their own body parts.
24:53These are the only two cases that I've seen where this has happened.
24:56And it was very much, again, the exception to the rule.
25:00And these stories very well may have been exaggerated
25:04because we only know so much about what actually happened on a pirate ship.
25:08But pirates never fed any victims to any animals.
25:19They're fighting against pirates who look to be land-based.
25:22They're not fighting these pirates at sea.
25:24They're fighting them in their pirate stronghold.
25:27Now, during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early stages from about like 1650 until about the 1670s,
25:32we do see a lot of land-based pirates known as buccaneers.
25:36And a lot of them were initially French pirates who were exacting revenge against the Spanish.
25:41They had a lot of rivalry in terms of plantation islands during that time.
25:44And so that is something kind of interesting to note, is that they're taking sort of a detail
25:48possibly from the early stages of the Golden Age of Piracy here,
25:52being that there are pirates fighting on land rather than at sea.
25:58Well, another thing to note is that the captain, he's not really engaging in battle very much.
26:03He's not fighting with the crew.
26:05That's common.
26:06Pirate captains were the ones to oversee the battle.
26:09They were the ones giving the order.
26:10I would give this clip a 1 out of 10.
26:12There's nothing accurate in this at all.