( Annoying af trope ) When the good guys possess perfect defensive position/advantages that was completely ruined by someone's sheer stupidity, pettiness, or selfishness

[u/Routine_Phase_8980]

I understand that these scenes must happen in order for the plot to continue but they still make me angry till today whenever I think about them because of how easy it could've been avoided. I doesn't mean these scenes are necessarily bad written, just hella hard to watch.

The Jerusalem Wall / The Singing Crowd (World War Z): Israel literally anticipated the zombie apocalypse and built a flawless, massive wall that kept everyone 100% safe. It was the ultimate safe haven. But then people inside started celebrating and singing on a microphone so loudly that it triggered a zombie pyramid, they didn't even stop until the first zombies started coming through. They have less survival instinct than an amoeba.

Ephialtes (300): The Spartans had the perfect phalanx formation at the Hot Gates. They were slaughtering the Persian army with minimal casualties and could have held them off for so much longer. Then this guy gets his feelings hurt because he can't lift a shield, throws a tantrum, and tells Xerxes about the secret goat path.

Grandma Jong-gil (Train to Busan): The survivors fought through hell and literal waves of infected to secure a safe train car. Sure, the crowd inside was selfish for locking them out at first, but everyone was finally safe inside. Then this grandma, fueled by grief and spite over her sister, decides to open the door and let the infected flood the entire car, killing everyone.

[u/jokerhound80]

That's always been my biggest gripe. Before their swords are lit on fire only Jorah is even capable of killing any of the enemy. The entire charge was mass suicide and feeding fresh corpses to the Night King.

[u/animated-journey → u/jokerhound80]

The entire charge was mass suicide and feeding fresh corpses to the Night King.

Plot twist: they carefully avoided the horde, then turned off their lights and faked their death, as a way to surprise the Golden Company later at King's Landing.

5D chess move!

[u/LarrySupreme → u/jokerhound80]

Jon's sword is Valyrian, but yeah, it was goofy. Wasn't a fan of all the Dothraki regenerating and teleporting to Kings Landing either.

[u/jokerhound80 → u/LarrySupreme]

Jon wasn't in the cavalry charge.

The stark troops are at least shown wiedling obsidian weapons. The dothraki are explicitly shown with only their arakhs.

[u/Other-Grapefruit-880 → u/jokerhound80]

The Targaryen castle is on an entire island made out of:

Dragon glass.

The deadites are killed instantly by:

Dragon Glass

You’d think the dragons would have been used to fly a few loads of the stuff up for, you know, the most important showdown of all time.

Or just fly to the nearest beach to breath fire on the sand and make, yeah, the only weapon that kills the only enemy they have.

Just an opinion.

[u/Omagga → u/Other-Grapefruit-880]

Isn't there a whole sequence of them making dragonglass weaponry before the siege?

[u/Omagga → u/jokerhound80]

From a showmaking perspective, I suppose they want to really emphasize the unstoppable dread of the undead horde, but Jon already knows that firsthand. So strategically, he would want to save the Dothraki for a Helms Deep style cavalry charge after the siege is already underway and the horde has hopefully been weakened.

But then back to the showmaking aspect, we lose the emotional beat of "Holy fuck it is doomed." I imagine they could have the Dothraki be overzealous and not accept that any foe could ever withstand their death-charge, and even though Jon begs them not to, they charge anyway? But then that's like disloyal to Dany, but if they're infighting about the whole "Actually Jon is the true heir" thing, maybe she doesn't trust him either, and it could work that way

[u/jokerhound80 → u/Omagga]

It really just doesn't work. It's insulting to the audience to expect them not to think about how stupid it is. Even with Jon being an awful commander who never really wins a battle we can all immediately tell that even he wouldn't be so absurdly stupid.

We've spent 7+ seasons at that point seeing how much of a threat the white walkers are. They've already easily killed a dragon. The Dothraki suicide charge achieves absolutely nothing from a showmaking or storytelling perspective.