Monday Smackdown: Todd van der Werff Gets Game of Thrones Wrong...
This is wrong!:
: Game of Thrones season 6, episode 9: 5 winners and 6 losers in the “Battle of the Bastards”: "Winner 1: Jon Snow...
...Well, obviously. Jon doesn’t just win the titular battle. He also effectively wins a battle against the entire dramatic apparatus of the TV show he lives in.... Jon also earned his win. Yeah, he was saved at the last minute by his half-sister and Littlefinger (more on that in a second), but he kept his troops rallied, even when they were surrounded on all sides by men with shields who were slowly killing all of them.... Yeah, someone else saves the day, but Jon gets everybody to the point where the day can be saved...
John Snow was so completely out-generalled by Ramsey Bolton that it isn't even funny. Yes, Wun-Wun and Petyr Baelish's acceding to Sansa's request and showing up with the knights of the Vale saves the day. But all John Snow did was to not die while his strategic, operational, and tactical decisions got his army of Stark loyalists and Wildlings slaughtered.
Think of it: A season ago, John Snow had three armies that looked willing to back him: Stannis's force, the Night's Watch, and the Wildlings. Now he is down to zero--and the surviving Wildlings have grave and justified doubts as to his competence as a general and leader. Petyr Baelish has the knights of the Vale. Sansa Stark has whatever Stark loyalists have kept their heads down. Jon Snow has a record of leading his forces into disaster. If you were Sansa Stark, de facto Warden of the North now, what rank and roll in your army would you give John Snow after that performance?
Petyr Baelish is the malignant snake who sold you to Ramsey Bolton for a marriage of sadistic torture and rape--perhaps in the hope that you could endure and outlast and that Ramsey would make a fatal mistake that would leave you Wardeno of the North, perhaps not--but Petyr was able to (a) raise an army, and (b) move his army fast enough to outpace Ramsey's scouts, and so (c) fight a battle on his terms with the advantage of surprise. He is, at least, competent as a logistician and a commander.
