Author Topic: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)  (Read 13427 times)

GeekMan

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Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« on: September 30, 2010, 08:53:30 PM »
Ever since I finished the book I've been confused about a seemingly trivial, yet illogical and (in my eyes) inexcusable, point about the battles on the Shattered Plains.

The war has been going on for 6 years and not once have the Parshendi shot fire arrows at the bridges and bridgemen? How is it that the armies can't set up permanent bridges too far outside of their camps for fear of the Parshendi burning them down during raids, yet not once in 6 years have the Parshendi tried to burn the mobile bridges assaulting their plateaus? That makes no sense to me at all and I hope that Mr. Sanderson will address this in a later book because it made the assaults completely unrealistic to me.  I cannot imagine that the Parshendi didn't think of it, so what I'd like to know is why they never did it.  Honestly, after Kaladin started wearing their dead and they saw how the arrows were pulled towards him and embedded into his shield, how could they have NOT thought of shooting some fire arrows his way?

While we're at it, in the final battle at the Tower, the Parshendi jumped across the chasm and fired on Bridge 4.  Why didn't they ever do that before?  The bridgemen were always unarmed and basically undefended.  The Parshendi could have jumped across en masse and killed nearly all the charging bridge crewmen during every assault.  And it wouldn't have taken many Parshendi to do it, maybe 4 or 6 per bridge.  Kill 10 bridgemen and then leap back across the chasm.  Why didn't they ever do that?

And why didn't anyone think to assault a plateau from underneath?  Send a few hundred men into a chasm, they work their way around to the other side while the main army fights as usual and then, using ladders, they climb up behind enemy lines.  No one tried that, even once as an experiment, during 6 years of war?

And one last thing.  Why didn't anyone on either side have any siege weapons?  No arbalests, no catapults, nothing.  After all the years of fighting for what were basically towers surrounded by deep moats, no one thought of using a siege weapon to kill more foes?

Sorry for the little rant here, but this is one aspect of an otherwise awesome book that has had me pulling out my hair in frustration.  I really hope Mr. Sanderson has an explanation for all this, because I really want to know.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2010, 08:55:13 PM by GeekMan »
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brycex99

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2010, 09:07:20 PM »
I can address a few, but they're just my opinion.

Assault from underneath would be risky because of the highstorms flooding the chasm, and they were said to be at least 40 feet deep with some being over 100 feet I think.  That wouldn't be easy to climb up for anyone, especially not soldiers with weapons and all that.  It just wouldn't be a practical way to fight, especially for only a few hundred soldiers, and it would be slow. These battles were about getting to the Heart.  It wouldn't take long for the Parshendi to notice them, and everyone in the chasm would be screwed that hadn't already made it up, although, the ones who did make it up would probably already be dead, so... lose/lose.

Not sure that siege weapons would be very effective in a battle of this type, remember, they haven't really been trying to win for a long time.  It's all about mobility and speed to get to the Heart first.  A catapult would be pointless in this type of battle.

JustTee

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2010, 09:15:12 PM »
****POSSIBLE SPOILERS BECAME DEFINITE SPOILERS --- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED****


I would stress that a lot of your concerns from the Alethi point of view Dalinar is also annoyed with. Since the focus of their war has turned to primarily a game of speed-capture, seige weaponry would probably take too long to arrive at the battle field.

As far as assault from underneath - same logic. During the clean-the-chasm duty, they mention how easy it is to get lost in the chasms, and that getting to a specific chasm is very difficult and time consuming. By the time they reached the plateau, even if it were an easy climb, the gemheart would have already been taken.


As far as using fire on the mobile bridgemen...I think this goes towards something about the Parshendi that we haven't learned yet. Their is an odd sense of honor there, and there's definitely something...odd...about their behavior towards the bridgemen, even before Kaladin starts wearing their dead. Sadeas mentions how it was less effective to give the bridgemen shields, and that he wants to be able to focus the Parshendi arrow fire onto the bridgemen so that his calvary and foot soldiers aren't demolished.


A possible explanation -- the Parshendi are definitely a lot more similar to the Alethi than they realize. Look at their ability to utilize strategic withdrawl, their holding back of their shardbearers, and a few other moments in battle that seem to suggest they are more than simple barbarians. So to me, they understand that what the war has become is a skirmish over resources. Perhaps they feel that using fire on the bridgeman is either dishonorable, or that it would force the Alethi to really focus on destroying the Parshendi, instead of simply fighting for gemhearts.

GeekMan

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2010, 09:28:13 PM »
brycex99
OK, the attacking from below was a little forced on my part, but I still stand by the other points.  As for catapults not being useful, how about a few bucketfuls of Greek Fire (or similar)?  Surround the plateau, shoot burning pitch all over it and the Parshendi, wait for the flames to die and then waltz over to harvest the gemheart.  Seems like that might lead to a pretty decisive win to me.  Especially since the Parshendi jump over chasms and thus couldn't bring their own catapults with them to return fire.

JustTee
The Parshendi may have a sense of honor that prevents them from using fire on the bridgemen, but why not on Kaladin after he started wearing their dead?  It seems to me that the Parshendi saw Kaladin and the crew of bridge 4 as so vile that they were willing to change their tactics just for them by jumping across the chasm to fire on the bridgemen.  Somehow, I don't think using fire against them is too hard to see happening in the future.

The siege weapon idea may have problems due to transport if you're trying to get to the plateau first, but if you only need to get there before the Parshendi can escape with the gemheart then I don't see why it wasn't used.  As I said above, surround the plateau, shoot burning pitch all over it and the Parshendi, wait for the flames to die and then waltz over to harvest the gemheart.  Seems like a good idea to me.
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Yakaji

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2010, 09:33:30 PM »
The war has been going on for 6 years and not once have the Parshendi shot fire arrows at the bridges and bridgemen? How is it that the armies can't set up permanent bridges too far outside of their camps for fear of the Parshendi burning them down during raids, yet not once in 6 years have the Parshendi tried to burn the mobile bridges assaulting their plateaus?

A couple points.

One, I don't think the bridge crews have existed in Sadeas' present form for all 6 years.  If that were the case, it doesn't seem like we'd be reading as much as we did about the novelty of his tactic.  I can hardly believe all the other Alethi High Princes would sit by for six whole years and let Sadeas have free reign over the hunts without trying to counter with their own similar bridge crew setups.  As bad as Sadeas is, he still seems to have more honor and decency than some of the other High Princes.

Two, it's not clear to me how effective a tactic it would be to try lighting the bridges on fire.  The gemheart battles seem to happen pretty quickly, and I don't think you're really going to be able to do much damage to a bridge before its crew can get it in place and the troops can start storming across it.  Maybe you could burn it so the troops can't cross back, but except for [GIANT SPOILER] retreating across bridges never seems to be too big a deal.

Fire was an excellent weapon in ancient naval battles, but remember that (a) you're stuck on the burning boat once it starts burning, and (b) there's substantially more flammable stuff going into classical boats, like sailcloth and pitch.  Wood alone just doesn't catch on fire that quickly.

Inkthinker

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2010, 09:44:19 PM »
Plus you're assuming that the Parsh or the Alethi have something like pitch or naptha. Without that medium, using fire as a weapon is more difficult.

As for attacking through the chasms, bear in mind as well that in addition to getting lost or having trouble climbing up, down in the chasms is where things like chasmfiends live. A single chasmfiend of decent size could potentially rip hundreds of men to shreds (it took three Shardbearers to defeat the one that we see in Chapter 12). And we don't even know what else lives down there... wild axehounds, giant megapedes, who knows?

brycex99

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2010, 09:44:50 PM »
Geek, I wasn't necessarily meaning the weapons themselves would be ineffective, but rather the time it took to get them there.  Can't really force march a catapult.  Depending on how things go in the next book, we'll probably see more siege warfare, that is if the Parshendi are even enemies in the next book.

I still don't have a good idea on why the Parshendi wouldn't use fire on the bridge crews... do they use fire in other parts of the book? The Alethi had a fear of the bridges being burned, but had they actually been burned before?  Have they ever used fire on other living creatures?  I'm not sure what the Parshendi relationship with fire is, and I can't recall much being said about it off the top of my head.

As for the jumping across the chasms thing.. there are a few things that I'm not sure about.  Parshendi can clearly jump larger distances, but how large?  Can they jump a chasm that needs a bridge to cross? Can they jump in and out as much as they want? Even if they can, jumping across into the bulk of the Alethi army would surely be a suicide mission, even if they managed to kill some of the bridge crews.  If I were a military commander, I would say shooting arrows into the bridge crews is the most effective way to stop them, rather than needlessly risking 6 to 10 of my men per bridge on a jump across.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2010, 09:47:30 PM by brycex99 »

GeekMan

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2010, 10:28:05 PM »
Alright, the fire thing may be a moot point if there's no equivalent to Greek fire and as I stated earlier the attack from the chasm idea wasn't fully thought through on my part.  However, if the bridge crews were worried about fire, then I don't think it's too farfetched to believe that there's some Greek fire equivalent that could be used to burn attacking wooden structures.   But let's look at this from another angle.

If the bridges are made of wood and they're the most important thing needed by the Alethi to get to a plateau quickly and efficiently, then by definition they become the linchpin of every battle.  They are the one weak point in every attack made on the plateaus.  As such, both the Parshendi and the Alethi would focus their efforts on those bridges.  The Parshendi on destroying them quickly and the Alethi by protecting them.  So, with that established here's a few simple but effective ideas for both sides.

The Parshendi could use caltrops on the likely Alethi approaches which would disable the bridgemen, or at least slow them considerably.  They could use fire arrows on the bridges, and even if most of the bridges themselves didn't catch fire immediately, the arrows would still kill bridgemen and might set fire to other nearby bridgemen or even the bridges themselves causing them to collapse during the assault.  They could set up a simple spearwall on the opposite edge of the chasm (the attacker side) to slow the assault giving them more time to shoot arrows.  Lastly, and most simply, they could wait for the bridges to be placed and then push them into the chasm.  They are mobile after all.

The Alethi should have built the bridges with the thought of protecting the bridgemen by encasing them inside the bridge completely.  Then, the only thing the Parshendi could possibly shoot at would be their feet or the bridge itself.  The people inside carrying the bridge should also have been able to run directly over the chasm, those in front lifting their legs while those behind pushing the bridge over the chasm.  Each bridge would need to be longer and heavier, but with more men carrying it it would be quicker to get across.  And those who are in the front could climb out from the sides and defend the bridge until the cavalry made it across.  If people like Sadeas wanted to give the Parshendi something to shoot at then he could include an outer layer of slaves, murderers, etc, that could help carry the bridge and be the focus of arrows.

My ideas are simple and not fully fleshed out, but no matter how I look at it, it seems like the bridges would have HAD to be better protected than they seemed to be.  30 unprotected bridges running towards a chasm with no real support and the Parshendi never tried any other tactic than "shoot the bridgemen?" 

Am I the only one who thinks that this doesn't make ANY sense?
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Inkthinker

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2010, 10:30:44 PM »
Nope. Dalinar thinks so too.  ;D

Covered bridges would probably be too heavy to carry... the bridges as they are require a couple dozen men at minimum, and preferably around 30-40. At one point Kaladin begins to make suggestions for how to protect his men, even going so far as to use the bridge itself as a shield, but he soon discovers that bridgemen are not meant to survive, they're meant to draw fire. Sadeas (and anyone else using his type of bridges) wants the Parshendi to shoot the bridgemen, because then they're not shooting his troops.

Pushing the bridges off during the initial contact or after is a concern which is mentioned in the text. This is why the Alethi army provides return fire with their own volleys, to try and push back the Parshendi before they perform a cavalry charge. Heck, in the final push across they sometimes even use soldiers with shields, as seen in Kaladin's first battle.

Caltrops as a Parshendi defense aren't a bad idea in principle, assuming that the Parsh have them and that they're views on fighting don't somehow preclude the use of such a weapon. Plus you really have to watch out that you don't end up stepping on them yourself (though if you throw them onto the bridge and opposing plateau you should be alright, so long as you stay on your side. But so far they haven't used anything except axes and swords, until the battle at the Tower when they're seen to be using spears (and which is noted as Parshendi finally changing their tactics, which indicates they have a rigid viewpoint on how battles are conducted, for some reason).

Remember that most of the Alethi generals don't care all that much about survival rates if they can win more gems. Dalinar cares, which is why he uses a series of siege towers to cross the plateaus. But that's because Dalinar is thinking like a general at war, and the rest of the Highprinces are thinking like coaches or team owners in a sporting event. The Parshendi may be doing something similar, which is why they so rarely bring out their Shardbearers (instead of using them as much as possible)... perhaps the Parshendi don't see this as "war" either, and the humans might want to be grateful for that.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2010, 10:43:52 PM by Inkthinker »

GeekMan

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2010, 10:34:27 PM »
Nope. Dalinar thinks so too.  ;D

That's too funny!
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brycex99

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2010, 10:46:58 PM »
That's actually a good point Inkthinker... Dalinar thinks the whole war is just weird in a way.  Neither side is really acting "normal" when it comes to the fighting, and he spends a lot of time thinking about that in the book.

Still, other than the fire issue, I can't really see too much to question in terms of how the fighting went down throughout the book considering the attitude of the Alethi.

Tasslehoof

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2010, 11:13:58 PM »
Yeah, its mentioned often that the Alethi aren't trying very hard to just outright witn the war.  Also, like someone else said, it doesn't seem like the bridgecrews have been used for very long (I'd say less than a year for sure).

Parshendi aren't dumb, and neither are the Alethi, but neither side is trying to win the war either.
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GeekMan

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #12 on: September 30, 2010, 11:36:37 PM »
Alright.  Let's say I accept all the reasoning so far and believe that the war has actually become a giant game of capture the flag with "rules" both sides are following for their own reasons about how to fight.  For example; it's okay to shoot bridgemen with arrows, but not fire arrows and once the bridge is laid down they are to be ignored.  Fine.

Then why doesn't someone other than Sadeas try smaller bridges that armored and armed men carry to the chasms?  A ten-man team could carry a 30' walkway-type bridge while a few other warriors hold shields to deflect arrows.  Lay the bridge and the small group of men cross to create a staging area for more bridges and men.  Slower, larger bridges arrive later.  The smaller bridges could even interlock to make a larger bridge for more men.  That would be faster than a large bridge.

I don't know.  I guess I'm just having trouble comprehending how the bridges and bridgemen survive even ONE assault when in every other piece of fantasy I've ever read and assault like that would fail spectacularly.  As I said before, this is the one thing about the book that is causing me to pull my hair out in frustration.

I can't imagine why Dalinar hasn't gone berserk yet!
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ryos

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2010, 11:46:56 PM »
As for Caltrops, I'm not sure the Parshendi could make them. There are several indications in the text that their fine weaponry might be a relic of Natanatan. Where would they get the metal, and the fuel for the forge fires, when they're besieged in the middle of the shattered plains?

Actually, that's another thing. Where are they getting more arrows? Can wood be soulcast? I forget.
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Salkara

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Re: Shattered Plain War Questions (Possible Spoilers)
« Reply #14 on: September 30, 2010, 11:55:34 PM »
At several points in the book, the point is made that the Parshendi are not sophisticated warriors. Honorable, yes. Sophisticated, no. The answer you might be looking for is that they simply haven't thought to use fire in battle.