The Preposterous Logistics of Ramsay Snow's Attack on Ser Rodrik Cassel

What do we know about this battle, which took place outside the gates of Winterfell?

• A Stark army consisting of around 2,000 men was attacked by a Bolton force of approximately 600 men.
• Thanks to the element of surprise, the Boltons achieved a spectacular victory.
• Apparently, nearly all the officers in the Stark army were killed, including Ser Rodrik himself, though some common soldiers managed to escape.
• Somehow, word of the battle never got out, and Ramsay Snow managed to conceal its existence entirely. There weren’t even rumors about the Boltons’ treachery.

From what I’ve read about this battle on various platforms, many fans seem to believe that what Ramsay did was incredibly risky because Robb Stark and the entire North could have learned about their open treason. However, I disagree with this opinion. What Ramsay did wasn’t a gamble; it was an open declaration of war.

You cannot conceal the existence of a pitched battle, especially in the medieval setting of A Song of Ice and Fire. This idea is utterly preposterous. A commander who orders such an assault would never realistically expect to hide it because there is practically no way to do so.

Under normal circumstances, following Ramsay’s attack, news of the Boltons’ treachery should have spread throughout the entire realm, carried by the survivors of the battle. Even if most of the Stark officers were killed, the common soldiers who escaped would have shared their accounts, passing the story from village to village and eventually throughout the North. The narrative might have lacked cohesiveness or detailed accuracy, but the gist of it would have been unmistakable and shocking: the Boltons had openly and treacherously attacked their overlords, killing hundreds of Stark soldiers, including loyal nobles like Ser Rodrik. Such an event would have had a profound and immediate impact, with its shocking nature accelerating the spread of the news.

Instead, the Boltons somehow managed to cover up the entire incident and craft their own version of events in a manner that would make even Goebbels envious. The way George R.R. Martin concealed the identity of the attackers mirrors a detective story where the murderer’s identity is hidden. But this approach feels completely out of place in the context of medieval warfare. Warfare, by its nature, is not suitable for such a narrative device.

In my opinion, this represents the biggest plot issue in the entire series. The idea that such a large-scale battle could remain entirely hidden, with no rumors or consequences arising from it, strains the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.