Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-5014364-20150621151627

They spent time earlier in the season having Roose explicitly point out that it makes no sense for them to attack Stannis directly, because they are in a restored strong castle with six months of supplies, winter is fast approaching, and they can just wait for him to freeze to death. Stannis won't survive a long siege.

Then in the season finale we just have Ramsay and their cavalry charging his army directly.

Now I've put too much credit to Benioff and Weiss before (I honestly thought Barristan's death was a fakeout, and 1% of me says that door isn't entirely closed yet, you never know...)

However, I keep coming to the fact that:
 * 1 - Roose emphasized they should just wait out a siege
 * 2 - Roose curiously isn't present in the actual battle

It doesn't matter that the snowstorm briefly let up, they were going to wait for months.

Yes Stannis's army shrank from 6,000 (half mounted) to around 1,300 infantry....but even so, Roose kept insisting that they need every man they have because if the entire North revolts against them, they don't have enough men to fight them all.

Maybe Ramsay was just seizing the opportunity. If you look at how many forces are on screen, you've got 1,300 exhausted Baratheon men, but only around 2,000 Boltons - they look like there's more than there actually are, because they're mounted...though cavalry are worth more.

And the confusing choice to not show the battle itself.

Part of me wonders if this was a bit of a fakeout, to make viewers think the Boltons were unbeatable.

I doubt they'll actually do this, BUT they could...

That is, Roose didn't give Ramsay permission to launch an attack, because he just wanted to preserve every single man he had within Winterfell.

And we didn't see the battle, because Stannis actually put up a damn-the-odds fighting the last stand, and the Boltons actually took significant losses that hurt them in the long term. (Which is what seems to be happening in the novels, more or less)

So like, in the Season 6 premiere, Ramsay walks up to his father back in Winterfell expecting to be congratulated, but instead Roose punches him out, knocking him to the floor, and berates him that he lost about a fourth of their men in his victory - men he didn't need to lose like that when he could have just waited out Stannis, but now his impulsiveness has damaged them (and how we hear that the Valemen are coming..)

I doubt Benioff and Weiss are smart enough to do this but...

....I keep coming back to that Roose was opposed to attacking, and then wasn't present when Ramsay actually did attack. 