Game of Thrones, Season 6

[Kyberwulf]

Yeah, bre won because she had the best kind of armor.... plot armor.

[Lethologica]

Yeah, bre won because she had the best kind of armor.... plot armor.

So in one breath you say Brienne hasn't had any impressive fights since her opening appearance, and in the next you say Brienne's victories require plot armor as an explanation, implying that they are implausibly impressive. Pick one, because the statements are incompatible. Or pick neither, that would be fine too.

[Kyberwulf]

I suppose by that logic. Harry Potter is an Exceptional Wizard. The best ever.. right?

[Lethologica]

I suppose by that logic. Harry Potter is an Exceptional Wizard. The best ever.. right?

No--by that logic, Harry Potter must have had plot armor, since he won some implausibly impressive fights. Which is literally true.

[SuperPanda]

Sansa is supposed to grow beyond victimhood at some point. In the books this occurs sooner, but the show yanked her back a few steps by merging her storyline with the Jeyne Poole storyline. I assume that will happen this season, but with D&D at the helm, who knows.

When I saw this line my first thought was that "Sansa has taken the prestige class "Damsel in Distress." Its class features include a knight in Shining armor and all of the tragedy she can endure. Also for a moment it explained why Danny seems to be being railroaded away from Westeros - the DM isn't ready for her to join the other party.

[Kyberwulf]

Now I want to see a Game of Thrones edition of DM of the Ring.

[Eldan]

Who did Eddard Stark rejoin the round as? Stannis? Davos?

[McStabbington]

Who did Eddard Stark rejoin the round as? Stannis? Davos?

Maester Cressen. Then Mance Rayder. Dude is ridiculously unlucky.

I don't want to go over Brienne again; no matter who she beats or how many mooks she takes out at once (in that last fight, four), some people are just not going to respect her. But I did think it very touching how this truly is the storybook moment that Sansa always hoped for. She was the princess in the castle, and Brienne is the true knight in shining armor. The story's been going out of its way to subvert her expectations at every turn, but here, they finally played it completely straight for her.

[GAZ]

Did she? I have it differently in mind.

It seemed to me that following Drogo's death, Daenerys was to be sent with the others Khal's widows. But she stept into Drogo's pyre with her eggs instead.
Next morning, she stepped out unburnt with 3 dragons and got the remnants of Drogo's Khal. Those who did not left to create a new Khalasar. Mostly the cripples and other weaklings but luckily her 3 Khas.
She managed to create a Khalasar out of that because they had respect for her not being ashes and having dragons.
She almost died in the desert, quickly lost one or two of her three bloodriders but found Qarth. Where she managed to enter without having to show her dragons. Big scene really.
Note that she probably could have entered Qarth without having dragons, but probably as a slave rather than as a host.

The biggest credit I can give to Daenerys was the more or less clever move "I sell you one of my dragons for your army... And use the army to kill you and get the dragon back". It sure is a one-shot move, but it worked quite well and is the only moment she did something smart by herself against her councillors.


Yep, she should know these words even if she's not supposed to use those. I'm totally with GAZ here.
Anyway the scene kinda reminded when Sandor saved her from rapers.
It's clearly more impressive than when Petyr saved her from Lysa.
But I like Petyr's scene though. It reminds when Tyrion saved her from Joffrey and Meryn f* Trant.

Dany won over Drogo by holding herself better than Viserys, by being a champ at eating entire horse hearts, and by taking control of their lovemaking. Her bloodriders were supposed to take her to Vaes Dothrak and make her join the Dosh Khaleen, but she won them over by walking into a funeral pyre and walking out as not just the Unburnt but also Mother of Dragons. Those are things Daenyrs did way back in Season 1 that earned her the loyalty of some Dothraki horselords. If she can't at least match those feats again without help from Ser Friendzone and Mercenary Captain Bedwarmer then what good is she as a potential queen?

Okay, admittedly we are playing on somewhat different fields (I am a fan of Book-Sansa), but you are not being fair here, at just about any level. I cannot say exactly which moment you are talking to about deflecting hostility, but I have seen the show enough to know that Sansa was doing something critically important with Tyrion: she was opening up and trusting him enough to have a relationship with him. Not a "relationship" relationship, of course, but a relationship. This was something she needed, and it was something that deeply humanized her. Trust is hard when you are a victim of domestic violence, and her act of trust was both poignant and heartbreaking, especially in how it got immediately undercut by the Red Wedding.

Second, while I'm mad about what happened with Show-Sansa precisely because I'm a fan of Book-Sansa, you are misreading at the strength Show-Sansa showed. That wasn't Theon's hero moment. That was a victim who had spent five seasons ducking her head and deflecting blows saying "You know what, screw this. I've taken all I can stand, and I can't stand any more. So throw your best shot." That is a critical part of the rehabilitation process for any domestic violence victim: to see themselves as being able to stand up and take the best punch someone else has and keep right on going, to outright deny an abuser rather than deflect or redirect them. If Theon helped her out with this, it does not detract from that moment of strength at all.

And finally, and I can't stress this enough, those words that Sansa was stumbling with? Those are the customary words you speak to swear a knight into your leal service. Sansa is a Stark. The Starks are of the North. The North keeps the Old Gods. Knights are sworn by the Seven. The show has been on for six years, and in those six years, we've seen exactly one Northman who is also a knight. He's currently dying of greyscale while traveling to Vaes Dothrak, and Sansa has never met him. I would expect Sansa to have trouble with the words because that's not a Northern custom. The only reason I'd expect she might have a clue how to answer is because she's also the daughter of Catelyn Tully, a Southerner by birth who kept The Seven. So the stumbling over the words, and the little assist from the squire who assisted Tyrion Lannister, and learned mastery of etiquette but little else from the man? That was a perfect character moment.

Sansa's MO in both the books and the show has always been "Courtesy is a lady's armor." This was a lesson she was taught by Septa Mordane. Oh yeah, Sansa had a Septa for a tutor and governess. She knows all that Southron gobbledygook. She ate it up. Knights and chivalry are Sansa Stark's official jam. This was vital when Joffrey and Cersei and others were always looking for reasons to wrong Sansa, so she made absolute certain to never give them one. Because of hiding her true feelings and always displaying proper courtly manners, Sansa survived the nest of vipers that killed her lord father.

This tactic doesn't really work if you explain it to your enemies, but Sansa laid it bare for Tyrion at one point. Maybe it was a "sweet" "relationship" moment for Sansa and Tyrion, but it wasn't earned because Tyrion hadn't done anything to earn Sansa's trust. Not raping someone isn't the same thing as earning their trust. Joffrey looked pretty good to Sansa at first too, which is how she learned to be so guarded in the first place. Of course show-Sansa was giving unearned concessions to Tyrion before he even declined their marriage bed when she knelt down at their wedding while book-Sansa stayed standing.

This all serves to make Sansa look worse and fan-favorite Tyrion to look better and establishes what I feel is a pattern of undermining potential Sansa triumphs to make another character look good at her expense. Tyrion, Littlefinger, Theon, and in this particular instance Podrick look good while Sansa looks dumb. She straight up looks dumb for forgetting the words to accept the leal service of a noble knight, aka the exact thing she has literally always dreamed of doing. We saw Sansa at lessons with a septa. We saw Maege Mormont as head of her house and as one of Robb's bannermen. We know that Sansa knows this stuff and that it's not unheard of to have a lady ruler, so why can't she do this one little thing on her own?

[Rodin]

The one thing that the show has really bugged me on is Jaime's character arc. He became one of my favorite characters in the books, a misunderstood dude who was still a bit of a bastard but changing for the better as the loss of his hand gave him humility. Show Jaime is kinda ping-ponging all over the place, because he keeps trying to follow the arc of book-Jaime while the show throws a steady stream of puppies for him to kick. He's a much nastier person as a result, and the change isn't really for the better.

I also keep thinking he needs to be playing midfield for Liverpool - he's a dead ringer for Steven Gerrard.

On Dorne...I dunno. It's evident that there's two massive plotlines they wanted to cut out.

Spoiler: Book spoiler

Show

Myrcella getting her face scarred in the rebellion, which required a lot of new characters and took for-freaking ever to conclude, and the new Targaryen kid that invades, which really felt like it came out of left field in the books and was one my more loathed plot developments.

I can understand cutting both of those out - it eliminates quite a few characters and a lot of needless fluff. The problem is that what they wrote instead is just terrible. It's the worst part of the show and I can't really fathom why their reaction to the audience hatred from last season was to extend that. I can only think the actresses for the Sand Snakes had already been contracted for two seasons or something.

[GAZ]

Now I want to see a Game of Thrones edition of DM of the Ring.

That's funny. When I was arguing about how much courtly etiquette Sansa and Podrick know I kept getting recurring thoughts of "Knowledge (nobility and royalty)" and "roll Diplomacy." Then I saw this post. Now, I am remembering an old issue of Dragon magazine that had a guide to campaigning in Westros. I want to see if I can go find that now.

Who did Eddard Stark rejoin the round as? Stannis? Davos?

Definitely Davos. Still honorable, still a good father, still Hand of the King, he's just learned a few lessons about moderation and is toning it down for this character.

[McStabbington]

Sansa's MO in both the books and the show has always been "Courtesy is a lady's armor." This was a lesson she was taught by Septa Mordane. Oh yeah, Sansa had a Septa for a tutor and governess. She knows all that Southron gobbledygook. She ate it up. Knights and chivalry are Sansa Stark's official jam. This was vital when Joffrey and Cersei and others were always looking for reasons to wrong Sansa, so she made absolute certain to never give them one. Because of hiding her true feelings and always displaying proper courtly manners, Sansa survived the nest of vipers that killed her lord father.

This tactic doesn't really work if you explain it to your enemies, but Sansa laid it bare for Tyrion at one point. Maybe it was a "sweet" "relationship" moment for Sansa and Tyrion, but it wasn't earned because Tyrion hadn't done anything to earn Sansa's trust. Not raping someone isn't the same thing as earning their trust. Joffrey looked pretty good to Sansa at first too, which is how she learned to be so guarded in the first place. Of course show-Sansa was giving unearned concessions to Tyrion before he even declined their marriage bed when she knelt down at their wedding while book-Sansa stayed standing.

This all serves to make Sansa look worse and fan-favorite Tyrion to look better and establishes what I feel is a pattern of undermining potential Sansa triumphs to make another character look good at her expense. Tyrion, Littlefinger, Theon, and in this particular instance Podrick look good while Sansa looks dumb. She straight up looks dumb for forgetting the words to accept the leal service of a noble knight, aka the exact thing she has literally always dreamed of doing. We saw Sansa at lessons with a septa. We saw Maege Mormont as head of her house and as one of Robb's bannermen. We know that Sansa knows this stuff and that it's not unheard of to have a lady ruler, so why can't she do this one little thing on her own?

. . . I don't really know that this a "tactic", nor is it someone with an ounce of common sense wasn't already aware of. Everyone knew exactly what Sansa's position in court was, and they knew for certain what Joffrey was. So this revelation? It might be a revelation for Joffrey, but that's because Joffrey is a malevolent idiot who uses his cruelty as a (poor) mask for his own fear and ineptitude. Joffrey saw what he wanted to see, and he wanted to see someone cowed by his strength and dominated by his strength of will. Everyone else saw right through it. One of the most honest things Littlefinger ever said was that Sansa was surrounded by better liars than her. And Tyrion was the best of the best of that bunch.

So again, I just don't see the same undercutting that you do. Even having a septa as her trainer in manners and etiquette really doesn't help, because that's not really something a septa is going to teach. Even if they did, I can completely see an eighteen-year old stumbling over a lesson she learned when she was twelve after spending the last few months being alternately beaten and frozen in a river.

[Malimar]

Yes. I have a vague recollection, which could be mistaken, that Cat (at least in the book) also had a bit of trouble remembering the proper words, noting that they're not words a lady would ever be expected to use.

I half-misremembered. She had no trouble remembering, but did note that they're not lady words. The actual paragraph (page 563 in my copy of A Clash of Kings):

"And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor. I swear it by the old gods and the new. Arise." As she clasped the other woman's hands between her own, Catelyn could not help but smile. How many times did I watch Ned accept a man's oath of service? She wondered what he would think if he could see her now.

So we were right that it's the oath a lord gives a man and not the oath a lady gives a woman (but wrong that it's just a Southron thing; Ned did the same oath when taking non-knight men into his service). Catelyn only knew it because she had watched Ned do it so many times. Would Sansa have seen her father do it as many times? Maybe.

So now I'm undecided as to whether this is a fair character moment for Sansa or a butchery of her character.

[Jan Mattys]

I half-misremembered. She had no trouble remembering, but did note that they're not lady words. The actual paragraph (page 563 in my copy of A Clash of Kings):



So we were right that it's the oath a lord gives a man and not the oath a lady gives a woman (but wrong that it's just a Southron thing; Ned did the same oath when taking non-knight men into his service). Catelyn only knew it because she had watched Ned do it so many times. Would Sansa have seen her father do it as many times? Maybe.

So now I'm undecided as to whether this is a fair character moment for Sansa or a butchery of her character.

It flowed naturally, in my eyes.
Honestly, that scene struck me as nice and... human. It's solemn but at its peak the main character reveals her weakness, and we can't blame her: she's half dead from the cold, scared, confused and shocked. And another decent fellow helps her out, and it seems a genuine deed out of kindness helping her through the solemn moment, not a smug display of superiority.

In a scene where two people cross a ice-cold river completely dressed (and don't die from the cold ten minutes later), and face trained warhounds (that simply disappear after the soldiers leading them get butchered), it seems to me that Sansa's treatment is quite above average.

[Kyberwulf]

I don't think Sansa came off as dumb. Maybe dumbstruck by everything that is happening to her. Again, I don't know if you have ever been though freezing water, and had to stay outside while wet in winter. That has a huge effect on your metal capacities. Especially if you aren't used to that. My first thought was that someone should have given her some clothes and got on the horses put some distance between them and the boltons. Just so they could get her near a fire or something. That is dangerous to just sit around with someone who is in that situation. Another reason I don't think bre really deserve respect. Instead of trying to get what she wanted. She should have gotten Sansa to safty.

Bre is a decent person. But she fails almost every task given to her. She is pretty selfish.

[Ruslan]

Sansa is incredibly dumb, but she's (very slowly) learning.

[McStabbington]

I don't think Sansa came off as dumb. Maybe dumbstruck by everything that is happening to her. Again, I don't know if you have ever been though freezing water, and had to stay outside while wet in winter. That has a huge effect on your metal capacities. Especially if you aren't used to that. My first thought was that someone should have given her some clothes and got on the horses put some distance between them and the boltons. Just so they could get her near a fire or something. That is dangerous to just sit around with someone who is in that situation. Another reason I don't think bre really deserve respect. Instead of trying to get what she wanted. She should have gotten Sansa to safty.

Bre is a decent person. But she fails almost every task given to her. She is pretty selfish.

Okay, now you're just looking for problems. Sansa's not going to drop dead right there. The Boltons have search parties out and scattered about, and aren't going to figure out that something is amiss until the group that was supposed to search Sector 12 don't come back in a day or so, maybe more given that these are the Boltons we're talking about. There was a big battle not a few hours prior, so everyone's still a bit confused and milling about. And the search party isn't comprised of Jesuses of the week that will raise themselves from the dead. I think they have time to do a two-minute ceremony that says "Dude, I'm not kidnapping you. You are the one in charge. I'm the one that helps." Especially when the person you're trying to do it with has been repeatedly kidnapped.

The show's name is Game of Thrones, not Vulcans Calculate Advantage.

[Lethologica]

So far, Brienne has been tasked with:
-Protecting Renly: failed due to unforeseeable shadowbaby demon.
-Taking Jaime to King's Landing: succeeded.
-Finding Arya and Sansa: succeeded at finding Arya but Arya didn't want her, succeeded at finding Sansa but Sansa didn't want her, found Sansa again and now Sansa wants her.

So it's objectively false that Brienne fails almost every task given to her.

As for selfishness, I can hardly think of a trait less associated with Brienne than selfishness. Brienne has devoted herself entirely to the service of lords and ladies she thinks worthy of her devotion. She can be called selfish only in that serving is also what she wants to do, which renders the term meaningless.

Now, yes, the writers are clearly ignoring how hypothermia works. But that's not on Brienne, that's on the writers.

[Kyberwulf]

She swore an Oath to protect Renly. He's dead. She also swore and oath to protect Catherine. She's dead. She failed at taking Jaime to Kings Landing, because of her pride. They ended up being captured by Boltons men. He ended up having to save her, After losing his hand. I do believed he saved her a bunch of times in that series of events. Then HE took HER to Kings Landing. Then he pretty much give her the mission to continue her quest. True, I do believe she found Arya, but that was mostly due to Podrick knowing stuff, and luck. Instead of convincing Arya to let her protect her. She tries to force Arya. Again, her selfish pride. She finds Sansa, but it wasn't due to skill. It was luck. Again, she tries to force her protection on someone, her pride shows again. Then in her vigil to see if Sansa would call for her. She leaves her post to go kill someone. Granted it was the guy who killed a past lord. However that was a HUGE dereliction of duty. Again, putting herself above what she swore to do. I don't know if Sansa really wants her... or is forced to take her out of any real choice.

Bre is one of the Luckiest characters in the show. I don't know how people can look at her and think she is anything else. All of her fights with people, she won because of some other factor made them worse. Except for the fight with Loras. I think, I don't remember the fight that well. Her fight with Jamie she wins.. cause the dude was in a prison camp for over a year. He was malnourished and not in fighting shape. He fight with the hound. He was fighting off a fever, that slowed him down considerable. Her fights against noname lackeys are work for her. She would have died in that fight with the Boltons for Sansa, had not reek stepped in and saved her.

I want to reiterate that Sansa is really.. cold. I don't know if you truly understand what the state she is in. I am surprised Reek can do anything really. He is almost superhuman there. So I forgave Sansa for being human. Also as I said, it almost feels as if she didn't want to take her on as a knight. I think the role was forced on her.

[JustSomeGuy]

Wouldn't the vulcans be too busy cyvassing it up?

Also it's good to see Brienne's luck change in another universe, guess the biter/stoneheart combo is worth some karma elsewhere

[Lethologica]

I think it's hilarious to call Brienne one of the luckiest characters in the show while marking Renly's and Catelyn's deaths as her failures. That is one of the most perfect demonstrations of bias I have ever seen.

[McStabbington]

Bre is one of the Luckiest characters in the show. I don't know how people can look at her and think she is anything else. All of her fights with people, she won because of some other factor made them worse. Except for the fight with Loras. I think, I don't remember the fight that well. Her fight with Jamie she wins.. cause the dude was in a prison camp for over a year. He was malnourished and not in fighting shape. He fight with the hound. He was fighting off a fever, that slowed him down considerable. Her fights against noname lackeys are work for her. She would have died in that fight with the Boltons for Sansa, had not reek stepped in and saved her.

I want to reiterate that Sansa is really.. cold. I don't know if you truly understand what the state she is in. I am surprised Reek can do anything really. He is almost superhuman there. So I forgave Sansa for being human. Also as I said, it almost feels as if she didn't want to take her on as a knight. I think the role was forced on her.

When Jaime loses to Robb, that's not his fault; he's outnumbered 20-to-1. When Jaime loses to Brienne, that's not his fault; he's out of shape. When Jaime loses a hand to Locke, that's not his fault; he's basically lucky to come out of it alive.

But when Brienne beats Jaime, that's just her being lucky. When Brienne beats the Hound, that's her being lucky. When Brienne beats four Bolton mooks at the same time, that shows how bad she is because it wasn't a clean win.

Methinks I've found your problem. And your problem is that you just don't want Brienne to be the best, even though she keeps winning fights.

[Lethologica]

I disagree, in that most of those individual cases are correct, and Brienne isn't the best, even though she's quite good. GRRM doesn't often provide contemporary situations where two skilled characters face each other at their best; that's not the story he wants to tell, or he'd have written about the fifteen or so years leading up to Robert's Rebellion instead. Even when he does, he subverts it (Oberyn and the Mountain). I agree with your call-out of the Bolton mook fight, though.

[Kyberwulf]

I don't want her to be anything but what she is. She is lucky, she isn't the most well trained though. I don't get what you are trying to say about Jaime though. I think, you think I care about Jaime? I haven't really seen anything that shown me he's really skilled either. All I am going off of with him, is the world he lives in treats him like he is good.

Bre survives fights, she doesn't win them. I don't respect her skill. I respect her luck. As the great man once said.

[ChaosPerfected]

I absolutely loved the scene with Sansa and Brienne and her tentatively taking the first step into being a noble like her parents. I loved that scene. I thought Sansa showed more growth there than in almost any other season. I loved her slight hesitation.

Also, I love Brienne of Tarth. What was she supposed to do against a shadow baby demon? No one else has beat one of those in the entire franchise. It was made of shadows. That's not something you can stab or protect people against.

And Cat sent her away before she died. It wasn't her fault she wasn't there. And if she was there she would have died unarmored and vulnerable. Because it was a betrayal while they being hosted. A mortal sin in this land that you don't expect people to just do, even in war, especially if you don't think they're the enemy. Even Rob Stark died there and he was three types of awesome.

It was more Littlefinger's influence that made Sansa refuse her the first time. And Arya didn't want her because of ARYA's pride.

Bri is probably one of the best living swordsmen left in that show. The fact that she fought even a bedraggled Jamie, pretty much considered the greatest swordsman of the age, evenly is pretty impressive by itself.

[Lethologica]

Yeah, between the people who got mowed down in Robert's Rebellion and the people who've been mowed down over the events of the series, the legends and the giants are mostly gone. Brienne and *shudder* Loras are probably among the strongest individual fighters still hale and whole. (Well, hale and whole in the TV show, anyway. But I won't believe the rumors until I see the face for myself.)

[Jan Mattys]

Yeah, between the people who got mowed down in Robert's Rebellion and the people who've been mowed down over the events of the series, the legends and the giants are mostly gone. Brienne and *shudder* Loras are probably among the strongest individual fighters still hale and whole. (Well, hale and whole in the TV show, anyway. But I won't believe the rumors until I see the face for myself.)

Speaking of which, a stupid question:
where do we rank the likes of Daario or Grey Worm compared to the biggies of Westeros (say, Loras, or two-handed Jaime, or Barristan)?

There's a lot of talk about the best swords of Westeros, and I always wondered how would they compare to the best fighters of Essos.

Would Barristan win in the pit of Mereen effortlessly? How about the Mountain? how about Jaime? Would a brutally effective mercenary fighter like Daario curbstomp a westerosi knight? Assuming a melee fight, of course, not jousting.

Always wondered.

ps: I know it is a stupid question, but I'd like to hear opinions.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Speaking of which, a stupid question:
where do we rank the likes of Daario or Grey Worm compared to the biggies of Westeros (say, Loras, or two-handed Jaime, or Barristan)?

There's a lot of talk about the best swords of Westeros, and I always wondered how would they compare to the best fighters of Essos.

Would Barristan win in the pit of Mereen effortlessly? How about the Mountain? how about Jaime? Would a brutally effective mercenary fighter like Daario curbstomp a westerosi knight? Assuming a melee fight, of course, not jousting.

Always wondered.

ps: I know it is a stupid question, but I'd like to hear opinions.

Most of those will depend on the fight style. A knight forced to fight without his equipment, the one he is most trained with, will not be as effective as a pit fighter. And vice versa: if you give a pit fighter a full plate and a broadsword, he's going to be tripping with his own feet, unused to the new equipment and how it affects his footwork.

Grey Worm, btw, is not described as an incredible warrior, IIRC, but an excellent soldier. It is likely that in the battlefield, the unsullied are the best soldiers in the world. But if you are good in ranks, you aren't necessarily good in one-on-one, etc. A soldier*'s strength is in willingness to stand and fight with others, more than individual technique.

Bottom line, like the unending "knight versus samurai" debate, it is a answerless question because you cannot really level the field. Different styles shine in different circumstances.

Grey Wolf

*Pre-automatic fire soldier, that is. Things changed during WWI.

[Kyberwulf]

I like samurai better. They have a better mythos. However in real life. I think the Knight would win. Assume an even field. Around the same training level. Knights just have better armor. That counts for a lot.

[Lethologica]

Speaking of which, a stupid question:
where do we rank the likes of Daario or Grey Worm compared to the biggies of Westeros (say, Loras, or two-handed Jaime, or Barristan)?

There's a lot of talk about the best swords of Westeros, and I always wondered how would they compare to the best fighters of Essos.

Would Barristan win in the pit of Mereen effortlessly? How about the Mountain? how about Jaime? Would a brutally effective mercenary fighter like Daario curbstomp a westerosi knight? Assuming a melee fight, of course, not jousting.

Always wondered.

ps: I know it is a stupid question, but I'd like to hear opinions.

This might depend on show vs. book. I guarantee you book Barristan doesn't die like a chump in the back alleys of Meereen. And in the book, Barristan tears apart several top pit fighters even at his age.

Daario couldn't beat an average Westerosi knight on the field of battle, let alone someone like Jaime. A surprise knife fight in an alley somewhere would favor Daario.

If we're talking strong fighters from Essos, Khal Drogo has to be mentioned. I think he beats Daario anywhere, anytime. Against the best of Westeros? Tougher call. Again, the armor has to count heavily against Khal Drogo, but then, Drogo isn't optimized for that kind of fight. Drogo is probably the better horseman most of the time, though.

Grey Worm isn't a duelist, he's a formation fighter. Give him a company of Unsullied and he's terrifying to anything less than a dragon. On his own, not so much.

I think the most instructive comparison is to Oberyn. Oberyn uses the tactics necessary for an unarmored combatant to beat a skilled knight: excellent agility and reach (not to mention poison). I think he does better against the Westerosi elite in a straight fight than most anyone from Essos.