Was this the best KNIGHT COMBAT we have seen ON SCREEN yet?

So, let's check the comments on my channel. Matt, please review the fight from Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Movie fight review, please.

Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. So, let's do a movie fight review of the latest mass fight from the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Hi folks, Matt East here, Scholar Gladiator.

My name is Matt Eastston. In case you don't know me, I run on this channel, Scholar Gladiator, where I look at all sorts of armor and weapons from history, military history, but I also teach people about sword fighting and occasionally I do movie fight reviews. So, I've received an absolute bucketload of requests to do the fight review of this fight from a Night of the Seven Kingdoms, a Game of Thrones story.

I'm a massive Game of Thrones fans. If you if you haven't seen my previous videos where I've looked at Game of Thrones movie fights or TV's fights, then check those out because I've got a whole bunch of them on the channel. But without much further ado, we're going to jump straight into this.

And just briefly before we jump into this, spoiler alert. If you haven't seen this yet, then you might want to wait to watch this. This is a massed combat.

I won't go into the backstory of why they're having it, but fundamentally this is a mass combat, which is something that used to happen. One of the most famous examples from history is during the Hundred Years War between England and France, the Battle of the 30 as it's known. Look that up.

You can Google it after you've watched this video. So, it starts off with a mounted lance charge between two teams essentially. And unfortunately, our hero Sir Duncan has received a lance strike to his side.

Now, an important thing to point out, which will color everything we look at in this review, is that he is only wearing male, aka chain mail, a whuk, as we'd call it. Now, this is hugely a variance with a lot of the other knights who are on the field who are wearing a mixture of male and plate. In fact, full plate armor.

And it has to be said absolutely, and this is a theme which I'll keep coming back to in this review. If you are just in male chain mail versus people who are in full plate armor, you are at a massive disadvantage. Yes, lances, swords, arrows, all sorts of things can go through chain mail.

Chain mail does protect particularly well against cuts and it's moderately protective against points, but nowhere near on a level as plate armor is. At this point, Sir Duncan seems really quite screwed. He's taken a lance thrust to his side and he's just been hit in the face in the helmet with a flail.

That ball on a chain is known as a flail. Now, I've done some videos recently talking about flails, so check those out if you haven't seen those already. And indeed, this sort of weapon, particularly at the end of a a chain like this, can have enormous velocity and would be really unpleasant to be hit in the face with no matter how good your helmet is.

Probably the most protective type of helmet that's ever been invented is a jousting helmet known as a frogmouth helm or we call them a frogmouth helm now. A type of helm which connects to the breast and back plate. And that means that it transfers the force to the curass the breast and back plate rather than into your face or into your neck or head.

Uh in this case Duncan hasn't got one of those because he's a hedge knight. He's fairly poor. He's only got male armor and a fairly simple helm on his head.

So his face, his neck, he would have taken a lot of impact force. And I guarantee you, no matter how uh protective this type of helmet is and how well fitted it is, some of that force will carry into the face from that ball at the end of that chain. So he's lying in the mud, but remember, he's got people riding around him.

Some of them have been unhored. Some of them had been wounded, perhaps even killed. So, he doesn't know how many of his teammates are left.

He's on the ground mostly at this point thinking about the fact that, as you'll see, he now can't see through his left eye and he's taking more hits on the ground. And you would. The problem with being in armor is you're not very quick at getting up off the ground.

You can get up off the ground, of course, especially when you're weighing wearing male armor like the Duncan here. uh in certain types of heavier plate armor and jousting armor on it might be more difficult, but fundamentally in an armored fight, you want to get your opponent on the ground. They're more vulnerable there.

You can get to more openings, stab them, do whatever, stamp on them um down on the ground, maybe even get bits of their armor off. You don't want to get on the ground. So, yes, learning ground fighting is a good thing to do, but you don't want to be spending more time on the ground than you can possibly do.

So, no BJJ if possible here, okay? You want to be getting up as quickly as possible, which the Duncan does, but he's taking hits in the process. So, when we're talking about armored fighting with swords, the point of the weapon, the thrusting point is really the most important part of the weapon.

You can't cut through most armor. You can't even cut through male armor most of the time. In fact, usually you can't cut through male at all.

You definitely can't cut through plate armor. So, the point is very important. But you'll notice Duncan there has taken a couple of hits from the flail.

Flails, axes, maces. These topheavy weapons, that's why the pole axe was so popular. These topheavy weapons can have a percussive and injuring effect on the opponent even through their armor.

Okay? It can knock you down. It can knock you off your horse.

It can smash you in the face. It can uh injure bits of your limbs through through the uh through the actual plate as well. But particularly the head.

The head is the prime target because you can concuss, you can daz someone, and of course, you can just knock them over and as I say, get them on the ground. So, in this particular fight, the fact that he's taken several hits to the head is really, really bad news. The interesting detail there of someone on foot who's been dismounted using their lance as a pole weapon on foot against someone who's charging at them on horseback.

Perfectly good thing to do. It's what we see in the combat treatises from the period. Uh for example, Fury Delivery shows techniques how to do this as to various other sources.

So, if you're on foot, yes, you're basically at a disadvantage. But if you've got your big broken lance to use, then indeed you can use someone's momentum of their horse against them and knock them off their horse and then get jump on top of them as soon as they hit the ground. Really important little detail there.

So, Duncan's instantly looking for either a sword or dagger at his belt. He needs something to fight with. Yes, you can wrestle, but a weapon can hopefully end the fight quicker.

[music] But as we see here, so much armored fighting comes down to wrestling. And yes, as I say, you don't want to be on the ground, especially with multiple opponents and horses charging around or on a battlefield. But if you've got no choice, if you end up rolling around on the ground, that's where your BJJ, that's where your jiu-jitsu comes in, your wrestling skills, abraari as the Italians would call it, or ringing as the Germans would call it.

This is where your wrestling skill really comes in. Yes. out wrestling the person, defeating them with wrestling, whether it's um you know, arm barring them, breaking their arm, whether it's just bludgeoning them on the ground or just simply as a way to get up off the ground as quickly as possible to find a weapon to use and to get out of the route of all of those horses charging past.

So absolutely the fact that wrestling is shown show it so explicitly in this fight is absolutely fantastic and many many armored knights throughout the 13th 14th 15th 16th centuries would have been wrestling around on the ground in the mud exactly like this [screaming] that is super super important. So yes, your wrestling skill is super important, but if there are weapons still around, you should always try and get to a weapon if you possibly can do because someone, even if someone's a better wrestler than you, if you can get to a knife, a dagger, a sword, an axe, what a broken lance point, anything that's around will give you an edge in the fight. And daggers of course have the potential to finish a fight potentially in one stab, but certainly very quickly.

Okay. And what we saw here absolutely was um was we saw the dagger come out and it went through Sedunk's male skirt. Okay.

Now, even if he'd been wearing plate armor on his upper regions, it's possible that this area down near his hips or groin would have only had male on it. So, even against someone in full plate harness, that still might be a weak spot. In his particular case, he could have stabbed anywhere because he's only covered in male.

Can you stab through mail with a dagger? Yes, you can. [clears throat] Me and Todd have proven it in multiple videos.

Uh, in fact, there's videos yet to come out where you'll see similar things as well. I have personally stabbed through authentic, riveted male dozens and dozens of times myself. If you do it the right way, you've got the right technique and application of force, and you're using the right weapon like a Ronald dagger, it will go through male armor.

In fact, this is what's called an eared dagger, but the blade is very like a RD dagger. So, this is an anti-armour dagger. It's not like a kitchen knife or something.

It's a proper dagger. Okay. So absolutely, he did the right thing.

Got to his dagger. Duncan's a bigger, stronger guy. He went for the dagger.

Targaryen there went for the dagger. Got it in. That's exactly what he should do.

And it's represented really perfectly. So again, as we saw there, the dagger is represented perfectly in this because it is an assist to the wrestling situation. So, um, Targaryen is essentially losing to Dunk in the wrestling match as he would do because he's smaller.

Uh, and which is not a universal truth, of course. There's, yes, there's the Gracies out there, but generally speaking, okay, bigger, heavier person is a big problem in wrestling. Uh, that's why the weight categories.

So, he pulled the dagger out, he used it, and by the very fact that he's pulled the dagger out, Saddun now can't concentrate on his on his wrestling. Number one, he's been wounded, which would have perhaps uh changed his mobility and what he can do. It certainly would have hurt a lot.

But more importantly, he's now mentally knows that there's a dagger in the fight. So, he is now concentrating on dealing with the threat of that dagger, and he can't be thinking about how to out wrestle the other person because he's got to get control over that weapon. [snorts] So again, this is a really, really important and historically accurate and marially valid way of representing this fight because in trying to control that dagger, he's had to grab it with his hand.

And this is something we see through countless crime reports, what are called defensive wounds, where someone grabs the incoming weapon. It could be a bottle, a hammer, a baseball bat, or in this case, a knife. and the person grabs it.

And very often you'll see wounds usually on the left hand for a right-handed person where they're trying to defend and grab and control the incoming knife is what's happened here. And the knife has gone through Dunc's hand like literally into it. Now you might think that's terrible actually.

Is it better that the knife go through his hand than through his torso into his lungs or or um you know like heart or whatever or neck anywhere that might be fatal. So better that it go through his hand. But moreover, he has actually now got some control over the dagger.

Terrible that he's got wounded in the hand, and that's going to impede his ability to use that hand perhaps forever, but certainly it's a better thing that he's got control over the dagger and isn't getting stabbed anymore in his vital points. Now, I actually really like that bit because it shows the randomness of this kind of melee or skirmish. The fact that Targaryen was knocked straight off, Sedunk down there was, yeah, okay, he'd grabbed the dagger, but the fact that Targaryen was knocked off was purely down to chance and luck of timing.

But absolutely, luck, as we know, in battle, in fights, in skirmishes, melees, and tournaments absolutely sometimes wins the day and certainly makes a big difference to the fight. Now, I have to be honest. This is the first bit really in this entire sequence that I haven't really liked, although there's a caveat to that.

And what did I lie like? So, obviously Dunc had to pull the dagger out of his hand there because it had gone through. And then he just drops it.

Now, when you're fighting in armor or if you're fighting in any weapon-based context, you're going any weapon you can get, you will want to have. You don't want to be disarmed because you're at a huge disadvantage against people who are armed. So, I logically would say that he absolutely should have kept hold of that dagger.

Okay? Like his brain would be thinking, "Find a weapon. Find a weapon.

Find a weapon. Oh, I've got a dagger out of my hand, but I've now got a dagger. " And I would have clung on to that dagger for dear life.

In armored fighting, even against a sword, even against a spear or a pole axe, a dagger is a great weapon because you can close distance more safely in armor. And daggers, therefore, because you can come close more easily without getting wounded in armor. Daggers are super super effective in armored fighting.

However, he just drops it. What's the caveat? The caveat is this guy, honestly, he's taken flails to the faces, been knocked off a horse, been stabbed in the side, received a lance in the side, stabbed in the hand.

He might not be thinking that rationally or calmly at this point. So I'll excuse him. So completely accurately a um sword thrust will go through chain mail.

Okay. Will go through mail. And I love the fact that they are using thrusts instead of just chopping away because chopping away it would hurt someone through the mouth, but it wouldn't really do them any real great injury.

It certainly wouldn't cut through the armor. Whereas a thrust will absolutely stab through mouth. So I love that they're using stabs um using the thrust.

And also I love the fact that Dunc gets as soon as he can to his sword because as I said before, you're going to be thinking need a weapon, need a weapon, need a weapon if you're disarmed. [screaming] Absolutely love that Dunc is using his left arm there. We absolutely do.

In European swordsmanship based on medieval and Renaissance sources, not only do we use the weapon in one hand, we use the other hand. Um, and for example, even in later Rapia, like musketeer period rapier, if a thrust comes in, you don't have to parry it with your sword, you can literally push it aside with the hand while thrusting with your own sword. But in medieval swordsmanship, we often use the left hand for striking, but also as we saw there, wrapping the other person's arm.

So if a strike comes in here and you've blocked it, as Dunc does, you wrap your arm over and you can arm bar, arm lock uh the person's what's called a liodoro metana in in Fury Deliveries treaties of 1410. Um, so you can wrap the person's arm and that means you've controlled their weapon arm while your weapon arm is free to either hit, pommel, and of course we use all parts of the sword, we'll get to that in a second, or thrust. So I love the fact that he's using his left hand actively and offensively.

[snorts] [cough] Now, if we were being super nitpicky, we could say that, okay, there is a lot of strikes going in. And I so far made the big point in this video that against armor, you predominantly want to thrust or grapple. Okay, that's what we see in the armored techniques from the treatises and manuals describing armored fighting at this time.

However, human nature comes in here and we know from numerous sources throughout history that people have a tendency to instinctively hit when they're exhausted, when they're panicking and stressed, scared. So, people tend to naturally do this anyway. So, even if it's not the most logical thing to do, we know people do it firstly.

Secondly, sometimes strikes can be effective. And one example is strikes aren't very effective against um plate armor, but they can be quite effective against people in male armor. And now, while Dunc has got a bit of plate on his arms and hands, he hasn't got barely any.

He's mostly dressed in male. And against someone dressed in male or chain mail, strikes are a lot more effective from their bludgeoning effect than they would be against someone in plate armor. So, the strikes against dunk are completely valid, I think.

And even the strikes against the plate timer, they can still have a sort of knock back or get away from me or concussive effect sometimes. So, as well of all as all of those strikes being sort of excusable, I still love the fact that they're predominantly showing the thrusts are what having the effect. So Targaryen is thrusting with his sword and it is successfully punching through the male armor of Dunk and wounding him.

Meanwhile, Dunc is swinging for the fences and not really doing anything to Targaryen because he's wearing plate armor. Uh and also, you know, Dunc is not supposed to be as highly trained and in any way and as professional as who he's fighting. So, we've got some storytelling in here as well.

As well as the fact it making martial sense and physical sense, it also makes sense in terms of the characters in the fight. In that instance, Targaryen throws his sword. He throws his sword into Dun's inner thigh.

I would describe it. Kind of inner thigh, crotch area. I think it's inner leg.

Now, a couple of things to mention about that. Firstly, throwing swords completely historical. Again, it's something we find in the period treatises.

You might think throwing away your weapon is a crazy thing to do, but remember you're wearing armor. You can grapple. In this case, he's got a shield.

You might have a dagger as a backup. There's all sorts of situations why throwing your sword might be a good idea in that moment. And the fact that he hit him in the inner leg where he's not really armored very well, it had a fantastic effect.

Secondly, the fact that it hit in the inner leg could be fatal. You've got massive great arteries on the inner legs. If they get severed, that could be the end of the fight.

Dunk could have been dead in under 30 seconds from blood loss. So, an incredibly effective thing to do, throwing the sword and then charging in and just basically battering. Was it a risk throwing away the sword?

Yes. Was it worth it? Potentially, yes.

So, something really important happened there. It wasn't that easy to see, but if you're paying close attention, you will have seen it. Targaryen pulls his sword out of Dunc's leg and because he's holding it with the hilt upwards, he then strikes like with a hammer, this is can be called a mortag or murder strike or whatever, straight into the his helmet and in fact the crossuard of the sword goes into the helmet slit.

It doesn't really wound him or only very slightly I think. But the fact is that this is a very historically documented and effective way of using a sword in close combat when you're fighting in armor because swords are balanced near the hand. That means if you turn them around and hold the blade obviously in a leather gloved gauntlet then the hilts, the crossuard and the pummel become hammers, become striking implements and they've got more momentum um because they're heavy at that end of the weapon.

[clears throat] And we're going to see that again because Dunc does exactly the same thing back, but he does it again a more with the using the crossuard, but he manages to get into the inner thigh kind of groin area of Tgaren. A very nasty place to wound someone. Might not be fatal, but it's very likely to put them on the ground purely through pain, but also you got a lot of veins and tendons up there as well.

Very, very sensitive area. Protect it well. Um, so yeah, absolutely.

Dunk also uses the murder strike. [clears throat] Now, we're going to skip quickly over this bit. Again, spoiler alert if you haven't seen this in the actual show yet, but uh so turn off now if you haven't.

But if you don't care or if you have seen it, essentially Dunk here passes out, but then there's a bit of a dream sequence thing and he comes back too again. And now he basically does a Rocky. And do you know what guys?

I think that after all of these years of me and other people out there criticizing the fact that heroes in these medieval and fantasy medieval shows take their helmets off and don't have helmets on at all. Even at the beginning, they finally listened to us. Hallelujah.

They've got these they've got the heroes and the and the baddies in helmets as described in the books. And lo and behold, they even lower their visors. Amazing.

Ridley Scott, take note. Wait a second. There was an actual legit technique there.

The blow comes down here, doesn't cut through the mail cuz it wouldn't, and he uses the half sword as a leverage point to throw his opponent onto the ground. This is a proper legit harness vector German long sword move. It's amazing.

Let's see it again. This is great. Look, it's proper harness fighting.

Fighting on the ground, bludgeoning. He's thrown the guy with half sword and now he's beating him to a bloody pulp with a shield and then with his fists getting him into a position of submission because remember this is a judicial duel to prove who is just, who is right, who is wrong. Fantastic.

He yields. He yields. There we have it, folks.

We don't need to see any more of the lastings. I don't want to spoil any more than I already have done. But this was absolutely epic and fantastic.

This is a fight you can watch over and over and over again. It's got so many good details in it. It's got some great horsework.

It's got the differentiation between the different types of armor being shown, the strong and the weak different types of armor and the different vulnerabilities to different armors. And it's really starkly different in this. Also, it's got tons of grappling.

It's got half sword throws. It's got mudge slag hitting with the back end of the sword from both people. It's got striking with a shield.

It's got use of the left hand. It's got an arm wrap. There's got to have been Hea people involved in this and I don't know who they are but if it was you then maybe post down below or send me an email because congratulations.

You have done one of the best fights that I have seen. Certainly one of the best armored fights I've seen on screen for absolutely years. So well done.

Um massive applause to you. I love this show. If you haven't watched it yet, watch it.

It's really really nice. I love Game of Thrones. I love the entire genre.

I'm really looking forward to the next season of House of the Drgon. I just absolutely uh consume it all. I absolutely love it.

And this has been a great great show and I'm really looking forward to the final um episode of this season and I really hope we're going to get more uh soon. Anyway, thanks a lot for watching. I have been Matt Eastston.

I will always be and I hope that you're subscribed and I'll see you back on the channel really soon. Cheers folks. Thanks for watching.

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