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Army of Darkness (1993) and "The Long Night" from Game of Thrones are similar tales with stark differences.

Madflavor

Member
Last night I was sitting in my living room watching spooky films as I normally do this time of year, and Army of Darkness just happened to be the latest film I had the pleasure to once again experience. However during the final battle of the film, a thought had crossed my mind. The climax of the film is about an army of the living, defending their castle against a horde of undead. Sound familiar? Enter an episode of Game of Thrones known as "The Long Night", in which the Army of the Living form an alliance and defend Winterfell against an Army of Undead. There are some stark differences between these two stories however, and I couldn't help but compare and contrast them. Let's start with our heroes:

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First we have Ash Williams, a cowardly self interested idiot who wants nothing to do with saving others, but ultimately has no choice but to lead the battle, despite having no experience in the art of medieval warfare. Then we have our leading man and woman in Game of Thrones, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. Jon is an honorable, skilled and courageous man who selflessly defends the weak and has made it his life's mission to defeat the White Walkers. Daenerys is Queen of Meereen and believes herself to be the true and righteous ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. These heroes stand against pure evil in very similar scenarios. The Army of Darkness and The White Walkers vastly outnumber Ash and Jon and Dany's armies, and to make matter worse, the forces of evil are easily able to replenish their forces. Let's breakdown how our heroes plan to fight back against these vile creatures:

Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen
  • Forms a council of House Leaders and Officers to plan the defense of Winterfell.
  • Their army is estimated at 65,000 men.
  • All infantry and Catapults are placed outside of the Castle walls.
  • Cavalry are placed in front of the infantry.
  • A trench is built in front of the wall.
  • They have two dragons.
  • The women and children are locked into the crypts to keep them safe.
  • Protecting Bran the Three Eyed Raven is key. They put him next to the Weirwood tree and protect him with a few dozen Ironborne on the ground armed with bows.
  • They need to kill The Night King, leader of the White Walkers.

Ash Williams
  • Heeds no council and forms the defense plan on his own.
  • He has 60 men to defend Arthur's Castle.
  • Positions all of his soldiers on the Castle Walls and Courtyard.
  • Using his knowledge of engineering, he introduces his soldiers to gunpowder, fitting their arrows and catapults with them.
  • Rigs his car and turns it into an assault vehicle, complete with gyro blades.
  • Places his most competent men with the dopest armor in front of the Necronomicon, the book they need to protect.
  • Calls for aid from Henry the Red.
Their enemy?

The White Walkers
The Army of Darkness

The boards are set, the pieces are moving, so let's break down how each battle goes down:


Battle for Winterfell
  • The Red Priestess uses her powers to ignite the swords of all the Dothraki Calvary, which does not trigger the fuck out of their superstition and hatred of magic, and they all cheer.
  • The Dothraki charge away from the infantry and into total darkness. 50,000 Dothraki are immediately overrun and wiped out.
  • The White Walker army charges into the Army of the Living's infantry who are out in the open, and wash them over with a tidal wave of undead.
  • Jon and Daenerys ride their dragons and blown a couple streams of fire on the wights before flying away from protecting their soldiers and getting caught in a snowstorm.
  • The infantry are overrun and have to retreat back behind the castle walls.
  • Somewhere between 50,000 to 60,000 are dead within the first 10 minutes of the battle.
  • The Red Priestess lights up the trenches to create a barrier between the White Walker army and Winterfell, to give Jon's army a breather. They only get a few minutes before the Wights figure out how to bypass it.
  • Jon falls off his Dragon and prepares to have a 1 on 1 face off with his mortal enemy The Night King. The Night King cucks the audience from making this happen and raises all the surrounding dead soldiers to block Jon. Luckily for Jon the Wights forget how to run.
  • At this point complete chaos ensues and everyone is struggling in vain just to survive. It's not going well lads.
  • A Wight Dragon confronts Jon, he screams at it.
  • The Army of the Living lose. Arya Stark sneaks up and stabs The Night King. All the White Walkers and Wights die. The Army of the Living win.

Ash vs. The Army of Darkness
  • Waits for the undead army to get in range of his archers and catapults.
  • The Army of Darkness are besieged by explosive arrows and sacks lobbed by catapults, decimating their forces.
  • As the undead begin to batter at the gates, the soldiers bombard them with large stones.
  • Unfortunately the undead are able to breach the gate and begin to swarm the courtyard. The soldiers regroup into formation and are able to repel them for the time being.
  • Ash drives into the courtyard with his battlecar and begins to decimate the undead forces in the courtyard.
  • Ash gets distracted by pussy and crashes his car.
  • Henry the Red's forces arrive on Calvary to sweep through the undead's infantry, mowing them down.
  • Ash gives chase to the leader of the Army of Darkness known as Bad Ash. They have a big showdown and fight each other and our hero defeats the bad guy.
  • The Army of Darkness retreats in defeat. As an added bonus, Ash is able to restore relations between Arthur and Henry's kingdoms.

So the question we're left with is how did we get here? How did a hardware salesman from S-Mart manage to mount a vastly more superior defense against a horde of undead, than an alliance of some of the most well trained, brilliant strategists in Westeros, with over 100,000% more military power? This Halloween season I leave you Gaf with these thoughts of one of the grooviest films ever made, and one of the dumbest hours of television ever produced.


 
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