Weapons Expert Reacts To House of the Dragon Fights, Weapons, Armor 

Hope you enjoyed watching the video! And a massive thank you to Matt Easton for all of his HEMA and battle expertise. Want to match more from Matt? Make sure to check out his channel! ru-vid.com/show-UCt14YOvYhd5FCGCwcjhrOdA

They said they intentionally made the jousting armor ridiculously ostentatious and nonfunctional, to show how decadent they’ve become due to going 60 years without a major war

Finally someone gives credit for how awesome A Knight's Tale was

Regarding Daemon's open helmet: It's customary in Westeros to hold back against royals(kings, princes) in tournaments for fear of injuring or even killing them. By wearing an open helmet Daemon forces his opponents to hold back even more or harming a prince.

In GRRM's world, the term Longsword is usually misapplied to mean a long but single handed arming sword. Daemon wields the famous sword Dark SIster, which is a Bastard sword with a slender Valyriansteel blade originally made to be used by a woman.

Interesting historical fact: Horse Armor was the first DLC in history.

so what I'm gathering from his final thoughts is that GoT might have actually learned from their mistakes.

The reason they are running is A: to save Daemon and B: to surround and trap the crab feeders army before they can retreat into the caves. So they have to run.

Always love when this dude shows up

Lets see him react to Malenia's Waterfowl Dance.

on the battle against the crabfeeder it makes sense for them to sprint, the objective of the velaryon army is to prevent the pirate army form retreating into the caves, the pirates are also not keeping a formation because Leanor and his dragon may arrive at any time so they need to kill Daemon asap, if they do they win the war and force the Velaryons to retreat

Daemon is crazy enough to joust with an exposed face. A few nutters have in the real historical past, and daemons as crazy as they come lol Also the battlefield is too broken up with debris and ship parts for proper unit cohesion, they're trying to get the pirates stuck into a melee before they can get back into their caves

Always love to see Mr. Easton talk about penetration and the flail he has in his study. And Vegetis.

I'm disappointed he didn't talk about Corlys Velaryon's axe, but it was used in the video footage.

What do you think of the design of the king's guard armor, especially over the chest. The way the banding comes together seems ideal to catch a point and insure it is guided in for a solid thrust. Reminds me of the big V or chevron reinforcement on jousting armor to take the tip off the chest and to the shoulder away from the face but when the show designers turned it upside down it has the opposite effect and seems very dangerous

When is someone going to make a movie or series where Matt Easton plays a sword combat trainer. I'd watch it in a heartbeat. As long as he's also off screen trainer.

Dunk and Egg has the potential to be a 10 episode class on 15th century/ Westerosi weapons.

Why's it making a metallic sound? It's an Ironwood Bannister of course 😉👌

it's worth noting that most of the original wasn't about the fights. They didn't prioritize them for that reason until about season 4. There's even a battle in season 1 (I think) where they just skip right past it.

What about the noblemen carnage during the tournament? Bye to the future of so many houses... Hilarious

That stop thrust followed by the power assisted downward cut was just *chef's kiss.

Always a pleasure when Matt is on these segments!

the velaryon army was running to surprise the crabfeeders so they couldn’t escape to cave

@14:29 In the books, this is actually Criston Cole's choice of weapon.

I'm surprised by how much Matt liked these. Nice hear of these improvements.

Love my boy Matt Easton, these shows need to hire the bloke seriously

Hi. Nice video, btw Chair in backgeound is just gorgeous.

"Who doesn't have a flail sitting around in their study?" - cracked me up

Been waiting for this one.

Love these videos

I've been watching the Highlander tv series lately, and have been wondering what our expert here thinks of the sword fights in the show. Some are obviously limited by the low skill levels of their guest stars, but some are quite interesting, particularly a series of fights involving an antagonist who has an old fashioned hook hand.

One correction: We have copious documentation of folks jousting with a loose helm/open face, or no helm at all. People be cray-cray the same way they will engage in countless other forms of deadly combat without a helm, so too with jousting. Indeed, many soldiers of all types throughout history have been willing to forego, or willingly compromise their head/face protection for the ability to see, hear, speak and breathe more easily. On the one hand, helmets are without a doubt the most important bit of kit you could ever have. One bonk to the head, and you're done. However, they also rob the wearer of many of their most vital senses. The only reason they use such overbuilt helms in jousting is because the rider doesn't actually have to do anything but look forward and go along for the ride. They aren't really "fighting" in any 3D, dynamic sense.

This was a great breakdown, thanks.

Since, “A Knight’s Tale.” That is my go-to background movie, always on during laundry.

8:45 not to mention that this type of helmet (a great helmet) is 13th century thing, while their armour looks about century or two more advanced.

Dragon rider is who matters at the end. Not the dragon. Doesn't matter how big the dragon is. Rider must be experienced. Look at how small Moondancer is and what she does to Sunfyre.

If you shoot at a spinning or turning person the arrow won’t penetrate as deeply as a still target. Hang a roast beef on a string and spin it , and shoot it wile it’s spinning. It would make a great video Matt. Do you have a bow Matt ? We never see it if you do ?

The fights have been better than GoT, so have the hero weapons. The weapons in GoT looked like something from Marto and the stage combat looked like a renfaire. Those aspects are far improved.

Narratively speaking, the fact that the kids aren't wearing helmets may also indicate how needlessly cruel sir Criston was when he had the kids start sparring with each other.

18:01 Yup and having the knees bent also helps you lunge forward more quickly and explosively

Sword expert reacts to The last duel maybe....

Not doubting their authenticity, but I'd be worried about stabbing armour or another hard surface with the eared dagger displayed- there doesn't seem to be a lot to stop the hand slipping up the dagger on impact and causing injury to the user. Much rather have something more substantial personally!

Cool to have Matt on IGN, love the HEMA community and how this is being brought more mainstream. Hope to see Skallagrim, Shadiversity, Metatron, etc on mainstream channels too

I’ve always figured a flail was used for laying about from horseback. That on foot you would use a fixed mace.

It was Morbin time.

love that roll

6:02 did you notice when he says you are more likely to fall over due to running a dude actually falls over?

Matt Easton! Wohooo! 🥰

MORE MATT EASTON MATTS OUR GUY

around @5:13 the Arrows stopped because he was wearing plot armor, that's the reason why it didnt go through his body as much as it would and all injuries are 100% non-lethal.

Well done

More respect for the series after hearing this! Wow...

It's Valyrian leather, its as strong as chain mail

great technical term, higgledy-piggledy

17:35 I'm not sure if Cole meant this as a comment on stance or pride in general.

16:09 Ned Stark sparring with a dwarf

Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon will always have better combat than Rings of Power.

Even once firearms were a thing, one generally didn't just sprint as fast as possible. There's a lot of ground to cover, and if you're too tired to fight effectively when you get there, that's bad. Full-on sprinting for as far as possible didn't really come in until guns that could shoot fast enough to make every second crossing the open field highly dangerous. An ordered advance, followed by a charge at the last moment where you have just enough distance left to get up to speed before encountering the enemy is usually the much better tactic.

Makes sense that the troops went running because it was their Prince and a dragon rider, who went in to drag out the crabfeeder

Body armor with no helmet or gauntlets could be weight/endurance training

technically speaking his valyrian sword should have broke the chain off criston morning stat

Bro that was a flying knee which is a devastating move

Mr Easton!

“Who doesn’t have a flail sitting around in their study?”😂

“Higgaldy piggaldy” 6:10

thats it, im going to create the "higglety pigglety formation"

Have him analyze the rest of the episodes.

higgeldy piggeldy is now my phrase of the day

Really more historically accurate than the last duel?

Hey! Matt on IGN?!

Splintered lances lead to the deaths of several medieval kings.

6:45 Yup. The showrunners wasted a moment to build up a true Westorosi armored force facing rebels. Could have really made the Valaereon men at arms as a formidable force.

Higgledy- piggledy :D

Why didn’t he cover the kid fight 🤔

GOT still wide shots with the peerformers performing iss just better for me

If a guy was galloping full force and hit you with a massive lance in a gap in your plate armor in a joust, would mail armor really make much a difference? I’ve seen experiments where arrows have no problem penetrating mail, so would a lance be any different?

The Italian call them "mulignan"-Tony Soprano

now lets see what this guy says about the fight scenes in rings of power

Moulinette Rouge was a very different movie.

Higgledy piggledy

"unit cohesion" in battle.....watch "The Last Kingdom" with shield walls.

Great video, really, but please can we stop the "high tech" sound effects? It didn't work in 2005, even less today.

The group of experts and historians from the Insider video need to have some words with you. All these expert video that so many channels do always contradict the other experts in other videos, and usually half of them can wrap their heads around that some of the film or games or whatever are done for dramatic effect not realism, the other half do like this guy. But again the ditches guy rom the Insider video said the kock loose is completely false and didnt happen so idk

We can excuse running and losing formation because it's GRR Martinworld, not reality

If we believe Thucydides, Greek hoplites would frequently charge the enemy on foot during their advance, and it seemed to work for them. Just ask the Persians.

I'm looking for a way to learn swordsmenship..

In the Dameon on the beach scene it bothers me that the enemy come at him one after another, allowing him to take down each one singly.

Daemon only wears armour for the looks of it.

Just realized Eamon beat Criston with a sword while sparing him in a flail...foreshadowing?

Okay, but.. I;ve never heard of this 'eared' dagger. What are the ears for?

Isn't this the guy who Otto ordered the hanging of during Ep 9? Bro tried to snitch

Me thinks a decent historically based drama wouldn't go a miss.

Now do a reaction to Ring of Power

Oil is how you deal with people in caves

Not even a mention of Corlys' dane ax Mat? Im dissapointed.

Lots of people making fun of this one guy and all those bows and they don't hit. Actually it is very difficult to hit a moving target. Just ask a hunter or if you have tried to shoot clay pigeons.

To be fair, they wouldn’t have had practice swords to train the hobbits

Surprised he was fine with the Crab Feeder's men attacking Daemon one at a time 🙄. They had plenty of time to surround him.

In game of thrones they have a tourney and one of the guys dies cause a splinter goes through his neck.

Can someone confirm that "higldypigldy" is a legitimate English saying? (Please say yes)