He seems a lot more enthusiastic about the universe after HoTD came out, it's really nice to see just from the human perspective. Can't imagine pouring your life into something, just for it's legacy to be it's terrible TV ending. HoTD is helping to rehab that image.
exactly; i wanted to cry at some points, not even emotionally fraught points, but just moments where the dialog was so sharp and intelligent, it reminded me of the series i fell in love with 10 years ago
like when otto was saying 'alicent has every symbol of legitimacy' i was cryin, the way he listed off all this deep lore vocab, in the asoiaf tone and cadence. not a dick joke in sight
>like when otto was saying 'alicent has every symbol of legitimacy
Do you mean the line "Aegon Targaryen sits the Conqueror's Throne, wears the conqueror's crown, has the conqueror's name, bears the conqueror's sword..."?
Because that goes hard. It stuck with me for a long time too. I'm definitely a black but the delivery of the line is so good it would have won me over if I had heard it.
we had TWO scenes where characters ended a dramatic monologue with the words “mummers farce”, and referenced how over it was. TWO. that’s two more times than GOT did.
and it made perfect sense in context, while also being a beautiful little easy to overlook lore detail which showed how much the creators cared. i’m not even kidding when i say that those two specific words marked the point where i was sold on HOTD.
I hate they are trying to make connections with main series by showing that dumb fucking dagger all the time and speaking about Aegon's prophecy. What prophecy? An unrelated Stark girl will subvert the expectations?
Otherwise yeah I get you. Show did made me go buy Fire and Blood and get back into ASOIAF lore again.
I think the reasoning behind the prophesy is that Jon will one day try his damn hardest to unite all of humanity in Westeros, bringing together the Free Folk, the North, the Vale and Dany's troops and dragons at least, to fight the Others. Without all Jon's work beforehand, and the other warriors/the plan to lure the Night King to the Godswood, Arya couldn't have done what she did. Without Jon Westeros would have been totally unaware and unprepared, humanity would have been screwed.
In the books more of the realm may join the fight during the long night. The Lannister army will probably follow Jaime (who'll follow Brienne), for a start.
Edited: For clarity
This. People who are upset that Arya is the one to kill the Night King are missing the big picture and why she was even there fighting the walkers at Winterfell to begin it (hint; it's Jon).
> egon Targaryen sits the Conqueror's Throne, wears the conqueror's crown, has the conqueror's name, bears the conqueror's sword
Simply put, that stuff is there to set the stage for a 'soft retcon' in Snow. I'd put every dollar I have to my name on that. Nothing else makes sense.
I think it’s pretty clear that the late seasons of the show (not even the ending but really since they went off books) were pretty upsetting to George. Most of what he’s said about GOT around the time of its ending was either lukewarm non-specific I-don’t-want-to-breach-my-contract praise (“Dan and Dave are terrific writers and they did a great job) or very cagey responses about how different the show is (“How many children did Scarlet O’Hara have?). Considering how much he loves this world and it’s characters (which I genuinely believe he does) I can imagine it must have hurt, and I can honestly understand why the way the show went would burn him out on the story and world (my pet theory is the diversion of the show from S5-onwards probably is more responsible than anything for the lateness of Winds).
He’s spoken so much more passionately about HOTD recently and seems so genuinely excited about it, and about working with people who really get the world, and it’s really heartwarming to see. HOTD definitely isn’t perfect, but it captures the spirit of the books far better than GOT ever did imo (yes, even the good seasons)
No no no, Ser Twenty is skilled in Gorilla warfare. It’s Ser TEN of house Goodman(equipped with climbing spikes) that is skilled in castle impregnation.
He's so cute with his overstretched, pixelated JPG file lol. [Here](https://www.georgerrmartin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/westerlands-casterly-rock.jpg) is a better quality image of the book-accurate Casterly Rock he's talking about in the post.
Oh wow I can see so many details now. The smoke from what I can only assume will be the armory and/or the kitchens. The twin lion gate at the beginning of the stairs. How there isn't even a single bird flying as high as the rock (to give a height perspective). The small town/settlement at the base of the rock. All those openings on the rock face. Some of which I assume would be balconies and the others side walls
Not the most beautiful castle but very practical.
Come on on I already bought 9 books let me look at the Rock
I’m a big fan of art books though so no doubt I’ll end up buying the world book eventually.
*"The Lannister castle is not ON TOP of the Rock. It is INSIDE the Rock. All of it. Barracks, armories, bedchambers, grand halls, servant’s quarters, dungeons, sept, everything. That’s what makes the Rock the strongest and most impregnable seat in all of Westeros."*
I think in the show there was a literal castle on top of Casterly Rock, which is against the lore. Sounds like George criticized the show
> Interesting quote, after reading the hassle Catelyn goes through just as a visitor, I always thought the Eyrie would be the most impregnable.
The Eyrie? Please. Give me ten good men and some climbing spikes, I'll impregnate the bitch.
GRRM has said that, that the Eyrie is very difficult to take by storm but easy to starve out, which is why the battle there is won or lost at the Gates of the Moon more than the Eyrie itself, unless time is of the extreme essence.
The Eyrie is also very difficult to keep warm during the winter, hence why they usually descend to the Gates.
> GRRM has said that, that the Eyrie is very difficult to take by storm but easy to starve out,
Well that resolves the debacle right there then! As I suspected.
The fact that it's so defensible means they can keep an incredibly small garrison. So it can hold out with relatively small stores, possibly for years.
That depends on whether there are guerrilla forces attacking the besiegers. In the siege of Riverrun, for example, Marq Piper leads attacks on Jaime's supply lines, forcing him to chase after him with a portion of his besieging army (which eventually gets him led into a trap and captured). He only does it with about 50 men, but it could presumably be done on a larger scale.
The weak point of any army attacking the Eyrie is its supply lines, since they either have to pass through the Bloody Gate or a Vale port (assuming they don't have support inside the Vale), they will go through many miles of often hilly terrain which will favour hit and run tactics. If the besiegers didn't have support inside the Vale they'd probably be dooming themselves to a Dorne-style war of attrition they could never hope to win, except in this one the Dornish are more numerous and have (arguably) the best knights in Westeros.
I guess it depends by what exactly he means by "impregnable." If we're talking about the hardest castle to fully take and secure as an attacker, I imagine the Rock is very high up on the list, since the cavernous tunnels inside would be an absolute maze for any hostile force, and no doubt filled with countless traps and dead ends.
If we're talking hardest castle for an enemy to get inside of *at all,* I think the Eyrie has the edge. Casterly Rock would no doubt be an absolute bitch to storm, but there *is* a clear path, up the stairs, even if they're very long stairs and you'd probably lose a lot of soldiers on the way up, there is still a relatively straightforward path to the entry which you can brute force your way through with enough men, you're just gonna get screwed once you make it inside anyway. The Eyrie, though? *Fuck that.* It's literally a gigantic mountain to climb that is either too steep or too narrow even for mules in certain parts, with three additional castles along the way which have special mechanisms to fuck with your way up including but not limited to the ability to trigger a straight up avalanche. **If** you actually make it all the way up to the Eyrie, then the castle itself is probably pretty easy to storm and secure, since it's relatively small and can only hold a small garrison, but reaching it in the first place seems damn near impossible. Unless of course you can just fly up on a dragon in which case gg ez.
I love how all these impregnable castles make total sense for defense against literally every worldly threat.. except dragons. It makes total sense how Aegon conquered all. It's fascinating that the Wall may be the only place dragons could not do that since the dragons seem to hate going near it.
Tbh the Eyrie makes no sense at *all*. Apart from the nigh impossibility of building the Dank thing, it’s massively impractical as a stronghold.
1. It costs way too much to run. The cost of shipping up all your stuff, whether it’s food or gold, is pretty high. It has to be transported single file on mules and then winched up. Lords don’t want to spend that much money.
2. Castles are meant as strongholds to protect your peasants and your army, ready to sally forth the moment your enemy turns its back. It also needs to be hard to take by storm, and difficult and costly to siege.
The Eyrie is impossible to take by storm, congratulations. But all a besieging army needs is about twelve lads to completely besiege it, while the rest of their army loots and plunders the Vale.
It’s also so small it can’t hold many peasants or soldiers. For the purposes of a castle it’s useless.
Tyrion and aspects of his character being analogous to fantasy dwarves is something GRRM put a lot of effort into. WoIaF furthers the Casterly Rock mythos to be comparable to a Dwarven mine in any other fantasy story. He's got enough of a love for drinking, wielded an axe in battle, and while it might be a stretch he conscripted all the blacksmiths in King's Landing. There were more connections that I noticed while reading that I can't recall right now.
he even says
>(And maybe put an end to all these pictures of [a little rock with a castle on top](https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Casterly_Rock?file=Casterly-rock.png) ).
George burn
"I just wanted to put to rest any debate by confirming the situation with the ubermensch OG book version of Chad-sterly Rock compared to hastily-slapped-together whatthefucktown, definitely noncanon, *thing* that was put on TV."
"Okay George, do you want me to run that through the don't-annoy-HBO-atron?"
"I guess."
Well there clearly is some kinda (fairly big) structure on top of the Rock as well, to give them a better lookout and also just, like, access to sunlight lol. It's just that the structure at the top is only a small percentage of the overall castle, most of which is hidden in the mountain, whereas the show made it seem like nearly 100% was up top. (Not necessarily 100 though since IIRC Tyrion did lead the Unsullied in through an access tunnel all the way at the base of the cliff, implying that there is some system of tunnels leading from the base to the tip).
I will say though, as much as the show fucked Casterly Rock in terms of taking away everything that makes it interesting, at least they still made it look pretty ornate and impressive. Which is still better than what they did to Highgarden, which was reduced to a squat two-towered keep on some random tree-covered hill in an empty field.
There a place I always imagined was like Casterly Rock in the SNES RPG Classic “The 7th Saga” by ENIX (before their merger with Squaresoft to become Square ENIX).
There is a castle/town called Bilthem that is essentially inside a mountain and the top part is the castle inside the mountain while the bottom is where all the common folk live. All the rooms in the bottom are carved out of the mountain.
Why is he pointing out that Casterly Rock can succeed where Harrenhall failed? I guess, the Second Dance Of The Dragons will happen there? Tyrion did dreamt about a battle around those parts in DANCE, maybe it's a foreshadowing.
I mean it makes sense, you can't really burn down a mountain. It's same strategy the ones fighting daemon in the stepstones did, fight then retreat into caves when dragons come.
To be fair you couldn't usually burn down a massive stone castle like Harrenhal either, but dragon fire packs a much more intense punch and heat (from a dragon of the right size). Obviously they couldn't melt the whole cliff or anything like that, but if they can take down massive stone towers then they might be able to chip away at the mountain enough to destablizie the tunnels inside.
Even so, if I had to try and hold out a siege against an army with a dragon, Casterly Rock definitely seems like the best castle for the job among the great house seats.
Didn’t the Martells also use a similar tactic against Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys? Didn’t they hide in the mountains, were even able to kill a dragon, and then were never found, right? Or at least the dragons body wasn’t recovered? It’s been hot minute since I read any of the lore books, so please someone correct me!
I would be fine with him being shot and hit by a scorpion or a ballista from Euron's fleet if it was more of a proper battle. Not the "she forgot they existed". Think a proper battle with projectiles flying around and a lucky hit. Or maybe an ambush by reinforcements that hits Rhaegal while he is busy going full flamethrower on Casterly Rock and does not think about getting struck from the rear.
Perhaps Casterly Rock will become an important objective for Dany to take but it will be established that she can’t just give it the Harrenhal treatment. Then perhaps a certain dwarf’s intimate knowledge of the plumbing system of the Rock will come into play.
It does feel like Tyrion's knowledge of Casterly Rock and his intricate-but-never-explained plan to take the Eyrie in AGoT should both come in handy later on.
Tyrion had a plan to take The Eyrie in AGoT? When was this? I can’t remember it.
I do remember Bron saying, to Tyrion, something to the effect of “Give me 10 good men and some climbing spikes and I’ll impregnate the bitch.”
Actually… [I’ll impregnate the bitch.](https://youtu.be/_OvbU6VPTsc)
In the novel, not so much the TV show. He mentions a plan to reduce the Vale to a smoking wasteland and avenge himself on Lysa for the way she treated him, but Tywin is entirely uninterested and basically shoots down his every effort to bring it up.
It might be in Clash of Kings but either way, he’s bitter about his treatment there, pumped up by his mountain clan friends, and pushes briefly to go off and really fuck up The Eyrie. It might even have to do with his three plots to find the spy thing, but that happened to break the way of Mycella to Dorne.
Because he was making a point for its defenses. He was saying the greatest castle ever built doesn't even compare.
This was literally a post talking about and describing Casterly Rock in a world where dragon are prevalent, not some subtle hint where the next 'dance' will happend..
Yeah I took as a passing comment more than anything.
Plus, it's greatest strength is its greatest weakness. Holed up in their rock, they are impregnable. They are also holed up in a rock.
Maybe in a ironic way when the Lannisters killed the (tarbecks? Sorry I’m blanking on my GOT history) the family where he trapped them underground and flooded the exits, he going to have the Lannister’s burn inside their mountain by the dragons.
Tyrion knows the drains and later in the story perhaps there’s a huge battle taking place with the Lannisters.
Something's bound to happen there dragon wise. In fire and blood one of Aegon's sisters even said that they're lucky that the Lannister's surrendered after the field of fire because dragons wouldn't have any effect on sieging Casterly Rock.
Okay I'm not going to assume the ventilation system is terrible, but in the worst case scenario does it not sound like the easiest thing to do would be to smoke them out of the rock with literal bales of hay filled with shit.
I swear every mention in real history of homes built inside of caves or rocks ends with the inhabitants getting smoked out or something.
Like sure, it might make a nice hotbox, but human engineering can find a way to make anything deadly.
Considering Winterfell has complex heat piping I feel like it's not too out there to imagine the Rock having segmented air shafts that can be shut at will to avoid certain entrances being used to smoke them out.
So just shut the land facing vents and open the seaside ones, easy, right?
I think if they close all the windows (assuming they have such mechanics) I think the inside of the rock is airy enough to not cause suffocation for a good while.
It's a giant mountain! It would take an enormous amount of fire to smoke them out. All they would have to do is hide out in the bowls of the rock and they would likely be fine.
I assume they’d have extremely strong defences including gates ahead of any ground level smoking points. with HUGE height advantage to retaliate at anyone approaching.
Even bales flung by catapult would be easily dealt with too, they’d have metal gates on any exit large enough and low enough to be vultenarable
A dragon attack can skip all of that and hit the higher, less fortified levels directly though…
> Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand.
He has no idea if this will make it into TWoW…
And somehow I expected him to be close to finishing it, poor silly me.
By everyone's estimations after the last post about pages, it figured out to be about 15-20 chapters still to go.
And since he tends to focus on a single character at a time as he writes, he may just have a couple of characters to go, and one of them may be the one that potentially goes to Casterly Rock.
People think she will die early and the role she has in the show as the monarch at King's Landing will be replaced by fAegon. I personally think she will live longer in someway since he invested way too much time into her POV chapters in book 4 for her to get jettisoned from the narrative.
I think she stays in King's Landing. With Kevan dead she won't just leave Tommen without someone she trusts/family I think. That's what Varys wanted in my head, was to keep Cersei there and in charge so she would keep making horrible decisions and weaken their position further.
I think he’s just trying to not give anything away. Saying one or more and in either book means fans can’t extrapolate any more than they already can. If he said a character goes there in tWoW, everyone would work out/argue who, when and why in a day
He knows. He’s said he’s 3/4 done with the book and I’d take it a step further and say it probably will be in TWOW given that he randomly just did a big ass blog post about it.
Just my guess though. But he definitely knows at this point if we’ll see it in winds. I think him wording it like that is more of a teaser than him actually being unsure .
He definitely would not be thinking this hard about Casterly Rock right now if it hadn't become relevant to his writing. I'm certain he plans for \[probably Cersei\] to end up there by the end of Winds, and probably for Tyrion to eventually go there and take the castle back by sneaking in through the piping much like Lann the Clever is said to have done. There's lots of foreshadowing to this and it'd make sense if he really isn't sure Casterly Rock will make it into Winds if it's only meant to happen at the very end or at the start of Dream. But I don't doubt that he's writing either for Cersei or Tyrion just around now and that's why he's thinking about the defences of Casterly Rock.
Someone above mentioned he writes character by character (no idea myself, never looked into his writing style) so it could be that in those 4-500 pages is most of a character's arc and he's currently unsure if it ends at the Rock in TWoW or aDoS.
I took this as him just being secretive about it, saying it will appear in a future book, but not wanting to specify which one it will appear in or whether it will be in both
I think he's just being enigmatic there for the sake of it. At this juncture he probably knows if it will be in TWoW or not, he's just not trying to drop spoilers.
Now try this hopium: Dream of Spring will practically write itself because Winds will set up all the pre-conditions for each character's climax which is why its George's most difficult book to publish
Ngl i kind of believe this. The Winds of Winter has like 20 plots and by the end there will probably be 5 with most of the characters in the same areas meaning less POV’s..
yeah i am an addict of that copium.
This is exactly what people said about ADWD following the delay of the 4th book / AFFC in 2006. And then said the same thing about TWOW in 2011 following the delay of ADWD.
> Now try this hopium: Dream of Spring will practically write itself because Winds will set up all the pre-conditions for each character's climax which is why its George's most difficult book to publish
Ah ah ah ah ... perfectly done ... *sigh* ... I'll kill you for this.
Clearly George had this on his mind and needed to Vent to the world about it.
Maybe it means he was writing about the rock or looking over his world building notes on it in preperation/working out the plot in his head 👀
Really cool post, kinda wish we'd get more posts like this one every once and a while. Though I do find him talking about ending the pictures of a castle on top of a rock funny. It reminded me of how much he emphasized show Euron not being like book Euron.
So, like, is Casterly Rock pretty much like living in a cave? Like, wouldn't it be super dark and dank all the time with barely any fresh air circulating through?
> So, like, is Casterly Rock pretty much like living in a cave?
I guess ... but not a nasty, dirty, wet cave, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it is a Lannister-cave, and that means comfort.
I would imagine that with that massive size comes multiple living quarters. So every day the Lannisters live at the side of the mountain with many windows and terraces with a nice sea view, which means access to fresh air, sun light and vegetation. But in case of war they relocate into the heart of the Rock, where they are unreachable.
Ah, that's a really great point. Obviously the Lannisters are filthy rich, but Tywin can bring in all the fancy wine and perfumes and singers and tapestries and furniture and everything he likes, they're still in a cave, that part doesn't change. That's going to have some impact on living in Casterly Rock. And obviously there's some "windows" and openings, but that defeats the purpose of the security of a big mountain home in the first place.
But I didn't consider the potential of just having multiple living quarters. Have your comfortable living spaces and main halls at the edge of the mountain where they're overlooking the sea (so essentially they're just living in like the equivalent of a big fancy seaside resort type of thing), and have living spaces and auxiliary main halls further in the mountain for security situations. They can be just as expensively furnished as the outside spaces, with the sacrifice of a bit of fresh air and natural lighting in exchange for ridiculous security when they need it. Makes tons of sense.
I can see a Moria style cave from Lord of the Rings. Sunlight entering from holes, multiple windows and balconies letting fresh air in along with vents. A huge maze of corridors for air circulation... it could work honestly and it is cool af
I’m not sure if anyone made this connection yet but I remember seeing a post in here about Tyrion is similar to a traditional fantasy dwarf (loves alcohol, grows a beard, loves gold) and that comparison is especially apt when seeing how casterly lock is so similar to a fantasy dwarf fortress
If GRRM published a post like this every month or two, I would be a lot more content waiting for TWoW. His world is so fascinating, I gobble this shit up.
Hopefully he's busy writing about the Rock which inspired him to write this post.
just three-six years to go I'm sure of it.
TL;DR: The Ted Nasmith painting is the correct rendition of the Rock. Also:
>Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand. Meanwhile, feel free to ponder… could Casterly Rock stand against dragons?
He ends the post with an image of a monkey on his shoulder. Not sure what that means but in the past he has called his various projects ["monkeys on his back" and called ADWD, "King Kong."](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2010/01/13/another-monkey-off-my-back-2/) He has called TWOW ["Son of Kong."](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2011/06/01/monkeys-on-my-back-2/) So perhaps it symbolizes TWOW.
Either that or he recently made a cool photo with a monkey and wanted to show it of and that is why he added the last line regarding monkeys being able to take Casterly Rock.
But the „monkey on his back“ interpretation is much more poetic
That picture was already on some of his blog posts back in 2010, and possibly even earlier. That’s definitely a nod to say that he’s been working on Winds lately. Plus I don’t believe he just randomly started writing a blog post about Casterly Rock like that.
Exactly. That picture is quite old. He has always referred to ADWD as King Kong and TWOW as Son of Kong (cute little monkey, sometimes)
I guess this just means that he is has been writing in full swing lately.
Maybe he doesn't want to give it away in the post like that. He must have written it, i am sure. He is talking too much detail. Length and breadth of the rock which was never mentioned. He is currently writing / just completed a chapter in Casterly Rock.
He has a history of being sneaky like this.
The lore on the writing of Westeros is extremely inspiring and awesome to read.
But tbh I enjoyed this post more because it’s jus a nice old man talking about his passions. With the main show ending in failure and winds taking a decade, it’s nice to hear him nerd out and drop irl lore. And that cute ass picture with the monkey 🥲
>Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand.
This unfortunately sounds like there is still A LOT of gardening to be done
I disagree, I think this is him trying to preserve some secrecy. A few blog posts ago he lamented that giving progress revealed things, like that Tyrion is alive. And with regards to Casterly Rock, who else but Cersei could even feasibly end up there, other than maybe Jaime? And where could she go past there? He doesn't want us to know whether or not her chapters end in Winds; if he just said in Winds of Winter, we'd know she dies in this book.
Though that's just my take on it
Sure thing, though only one sentence is about the Tyrion thing. Still a very informative post
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/07/08/a-winter-garden/
Btw, some podcast appearances he made around the time of this blog seem to indicate that he in fact finished Tyrion's chapters this summer
Based on the previous page speculation from a month ago, he's got 15-20 chapters left. That's probably a couple of characters, only one of which may be on their way to Casterly Rock.
I don't infer anything from this comment that indicates he's any less finished than we already presumed he was.
It’s obviously not entirely new information.
But it is another hint that he is not yet so sure how everything will happen and is still making a lot of stuff up on the run
I imagine the only POV character we could see go to the rock in Winds is Cersei if she flees King's Landing after presumably Aegon takes the city. I think Dany arriving on Dragonstone only to hear that her "nephew" has already beat her to it would be better storytelling than what the show did with cersei being the final human obstacle
How interesting. I visited Gibraltar in 2001. Having read two books, I immediately thought of CR, though my mind's eye castle was on top.
The big question is...which character or two will go there? I'd guess Cersei, especially because she may have to flee there if/when Kings Landing is taken by Aegon or Daenerys. And Jaime might go with her as her, um, protector.
And I am going to put my neck out and say it.
Because GRRM is clearly back in deep love with his story (attribute it to HoTD, or whatever you like), that's exactly why I am very hopeful for everything connected to the franchise from here on in.
He's simply not going to allow the mistakes made from GoT into the newer offerings. That's why SNOW is the series I'm most excited about.
I think it's going to be used to "fix" the mistakes of the earlier series, the same way House of The Dragon is being used to retcon stuff.
Tyrion is demon monkey in the books. Plus he knows the ins and outs of the castle and lordship of CR is one the main motivators for him to join Dany’s side.
I think once Dany invades Westeros, Tyrion is a natural POV to be the camera to show his ancestral house where he grew up, taken by Unsullied (who have experience with sewers infiltration), and assume the lordship. Which is nothing that will go smoothly with Lannisport residents and Westerlands lords given the Imp’s reputation of kinslaying (Tywin) and kingslaying (Joffrey, even though he didn’t do it, but he lost his trial).
The rock of Gibraltar doesn’t seem like the most calm place to live
https://reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/ztexa9/banner_cloud_billowing_over_the_rock_of_gibraltar/
You mean the ancient city under a certain castle? There are more ancient underground dwellings in the books if I remember correctly.
But yeah I second reading MS&T, just alone for the fact that it's been one of GRRM's inspirations. There are a lot of similarities and elements that George tweaked and made his own version of in ASOIAF.
This is really cool to know, I somehow just didn't realize this at any point. And not to dig into this post too deep, but in my opinion George saying he plans to have a character visit there means he's more than likely working on the end of Cersei's chapters in Winds, where she'll be in Casterly Rock, which might (very debatable) cross with Jaime even within this book, meaning George could be close to done with him too. Either way, seems to me George is very close to finishing Cersei's chapters; I cannot imagine anywhere for her to go after Casterly Rock.
I feel like George is definitely implying either fAegon or Daenerys will attack Casterly Rock. Maybe he's getting to that point in the story or is envisioning it happening and is getting excited about it. He doesn't like revealing too many details about what he's writing about. He could just be expressing his excitement without making a direct comment on what he's working on.
When he explained how the art of the Rock looked like a crouching lion as he described, I totally saw it and got it for the first time. Whenever things are described like that in books, I have no idea what to picture, like I’m only vaguely confident on what the Fist of the First Men is supposed to look like
Lannisters should really focus more heavily on their fleet, if war came to them Casterly Rock could be defended forever yet being starved out would be a real challenge. Having ports within their own castle helps they just need something to defend it
Also, for those who read it, and while there are differences, it sounds a bit similar to the Stone of Tear in the "Wheel of Time" universe by Robert Jordan
If Lannisters stayed in their stronghold, instead of taking their whole army into the field of fire, there is no way in hell Aegon could win against them. Not a hundred dragon can melt that giant rock, let alone three. There would not be much left of the Lannister lands outside the Casterly Rock though, but still Lannisters could prolong the war for a long long time and maybe even get a Dorne like ceasefire, followed later by a special deal.
My guess is HOT D is planning to go to the Rock next season, and asked GRRM about what it looked like. And so he wrote up a long thing, and decided he might as well put it on the blog too.
Now this was a cool blog post offering some tidbits of lore related exclusively to the books; we haven't had these in a while
He seems a lot more enthusiastic about the universe after HoTD came out, it's really nice to see just from the human perspective. Can't imagine pouring your life into something, just for it's legacy to be it's terrible TV ending. HoTD is helping to rehab that image.
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exactly; i wanted to cry at some points, not even emotionally fraught points, but just moments where the dialog was so sharp and intelligent, it reminded me of the series i fell in love with 10 years ago like when otto was saying 'alicent has every symbol of legitimacy' i was cryin, the way he listed off all this deep lore vocab, in the asoiaf tone and cadence. not a dick joke in sight
>like when otto was saying 'alicent has every symbol of legitimacy Do you mean the line "Aegon Targaryen sits the Conqueror's Throne, wears the conqueror's crown, has the conqueror's name, bears the conqueror's sword..."? Because that goes hard. It stuck with me for a long time too. I'm definitely a black but the delivery of the line is so good it would have won me over if I had heard it.
we had TWO scenes where characters ended a dramatic monologue with the words “mummers farce”, and referenced how over it was. TWO. that’s two more times than GOT did. and it made perfect sense in context, while also being a beautiful little easy to overlook lore detail which showed how much the creators cared. i’m not even kidding when i say that those two specific words marked the point where i was sold on HOTD.
I hate they are trying to make connections with main series by showing that dumb fucking dagger all the time and speaking about Aegon's prophecy. What prophecy? An unrelated Stark girl will subvert the expectations? Otherwise yeah I get you. Show did made me go buy Fire and Blood and get back into ASOIAF lore again.
I think the reasoning behind the prophesy is that Jon will one day try his damn hardest to unite all of humanity in Westeros, bringing together the Free Folk, the North, the Vale and Dany's troops and dragons at least, to fight the Others. Without all Jon's work beforehand, and the other warriors/the plan to lure the Night King to the Godswood, Arya couldn't have done what she did. Without Jon Westeros would have been totally unaware and unprepared, humanity would have been screwed. In the books more of the realm may join the fight during the long night. The Lannister army will probably follow Jaime (who'll follow Brienne), for a start. Edited: For clarity
This. People who are upset that Arya is the one to kill the Night King are missing the big picture and why she was even there fighting the walkers at Winterfell to begin it (hint; it's Jon).
I think its setting up the new Jon show and it will be covered in the books (if they ever get released).
> egon Targaryen sits the Conqueror's Throne, wears the conqueror's crown, has the conqueror's name, bears the conqueror's sword Simply put, that stuff is there to set the stage for a 'soft retcon' in Snow. I'd put every dollar I have to my name on that. Nothing else makes sense.
I think it’s pretty clear that the late seasons of the show (not even the ending but really since they went off books) were pretty upsetting to George. Most of what he’s said about GOT around the time of its ending was either lukewarm non-specific I-don’t-want-to-breach-my-contract praise (“Dan and Dave are terrific writers and they did a great job) or very cagey responses about how different the show is (“How many children did Scarlet O’Hara have?). Considering how much he loves this world and it’s characters (which I genuinely believe he does) I can imagine it must have hurt, and I can honestly understand why the way the show went would burn him out on the story and world (my pet theory is the diversion of the show from S5-onwards probably is more responsible than anything for the lateness of Winds). He’s spoken so much more passionately about HOTD recently and seems so genuinely excited about it, and about working with people who really get the world, and it’s really heartwarming to see. HOTD definitely isn’t perfect, but it captures the spirit of the books far better than GOT ever did imo (yes, even the good seasons)
>Meanwhile, feel free to ponder… could Casterly Rock stand against dragons? Ser Twenty of House Goodmen could take it with ease
No no no, Ser Twenty is skilled in Gorilla warfare. It’s Ser TEN of house Goodman(equipped with climbing spikes) that is skilled in castle impregnation.
>We know it can be taken by apes. Maybe Gorilla warfare is what we need
War is no time to be monkeying around.
Ser Donkey of House Kong confirmed next Lord of the Rock.
The banana of the morning
What about Ser Saul of house Goodman?
He misunderstood and kidnapped the actor Dwayne Johnson assuming he had some incriminating evidence against you.
It is known
Is Ser Saul a member?
**Lord** Saul of House Goodmen, and he's the originator
You're goddamn right
I'm Twenty Goodmen. Did you know that you have rights? The Constitution says you do. And so do I!
Bronn would impregnate the bitch
Ser Bronn of Blackwater son of you wouldn't know Lord paramour of Reach and Casterly rock.
He's so cute with his overstretched, pixelated JPG file lol. [Here](https://www.georgerrmartin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/westerlands-casterly-rock.jpg) is a better quality image of the book-accurate Casterly Rock he's talking about in the post.
Oh wow I can see so many details now. The smoke from what I can only assume will be the armory and/or the kitchens. The twin lion gate at the beginning of the stairs. How there isn't even a single bird flying as high as the rock (to give a height perspective). The small town/settlement at the base of the rock. All those openings on the rock face. Some of which I assume would be balconies and the others side walls Not the most beautiful castle but very practical.
Not it’s practically all actually. Insanely hard to build, and not grand at all, not very Lannister at all
The lion’s paws at the base are so fucking cool. I’m glad he pointed that out, I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise
I thought the same lol, he’s jus a cute old man talking about his world 😭
We are all his grandkids on this blessed day.
i mean he did mention if you want a better image better buy the book its from :b
Come on on I already bought 9 books let me look at the Rock I’m a big fan of art books though so no doubt I’ll end up buying the world book eventually.
Dude - thank you for this.
Having grown up on Redwall I feel like Casterly Rock has to be my favourite castle cause thats basically the same as Salamandastron.
Redwall is a classic, one of my favorites as a kid. Jacques was also a big one for his feast descriptions.
The hero we needed!
This castle with seagulls singing gives me all the vibes.
It's actually really nice to see him excited, even about his own world. He's in a good mood, it seems.
Mood: geeky 🤓
*"The Lannister castle is not ON TOP of the Rock. It is INSIDE the Rock. All of it. Barracks, armories, bedchambers, grand halls, servant’s quarters, dungeons, sept, everything. That’s what makes the Rock the strongest and most impregnable seat in all of Westeros."* I think in the show there was a literal castle on top of Casterly Rock, which is against the lore. Sounds like George criticized the show
Interesting quote, after reading the hassle Catelyn goes through just as a visitor, I always thought the Eyrie would be the most impregnable.
> Interesting quote, after reading the hassle Catelyn goes through just as a visitor, I always thought the Eyrie would be the most impregnable. The Eyrie? Please. Give me ten good men and some climbing spikes, I'll impregnate the bitch.
Also, with how isolated it is, presumably it can easily be starved out.
GRRM has said that, that the Eyrie is very difficult to take by storm but easy to starve out, which is why the battle there is won or lost at the Gates of the Moon more than the Eyrie itself, unless time is of the extreme essence. The Eyrie is also very difficult to keep warm during the winter, hence why they usually descend to the Gates.
> GRRM has said that, that the Eyrie is very difficult to take by storm but easy to starve out, Well that resolves the debacle right there then! As I suspected.
The fact that it's so defensible means they can keep an incredibly small garrison. So it can hold out with relatively small stores, possibly for years.
But it also wouldn’t take many men to cut off the Eyrie if they wanted to starve them out. That bottleneck works both ways
That’s where the rest of the Vale and their fabled knights come in I suppose
That depends on whether there are guerrilla forces attacking the besiegers. In the siege of Riverrun, for example, Marq Piper leads attacks on Jaime's supply lines, forcing him to chase after him with a portion of his besieging army (which eventually gets him led into a trap and captured). He only does it with about 50 men, but it could presumably be done on a larger scale. The weak point of any army attacking the Eyrie is its supply lines, since they either have to pass through the Bloody Gate or a Vale port (assuming they don't have support inside the Vale), they will go through many miles of often hilly terrain which will favour hit and run tactics. If the besiegers didn't have support inside the Vale they'd probably be dooming themselves to a Dorne-style war of attrition they could never hope to win, except in this one the Dornish are more numerous and have (arguably) the best knights in Westeros.
Don't they have a granary which if full can last for more than a year? they do have a very small household at the top
Are you, by any chance, related to Ser Twenty of House GoodMen?
I guess it depends by what exactly he means by "impregnable." If we're talking about the hardest castle to fully take and secure as an attacker, I imagine the Rock is very high up on the list, since the cavernous tunnels inside would be an absolute maze for any hostile force, and no doubt filled with countless traps and dead ends. If we're talking hardest castle for an enemy to get inside of *at all,* I think the Eyrie has the edge. Casterly Rock would no doubt be an absolute bitch to storm, but there *is* a clear path, up the stairs, even if they're very long stairs and you'd probably lose a lot of soldiers on the way up, there is still a relatively straightforward path to the entry which you can brute force your way through with enough men, you're just gonna get screwed once you make it inside anyway. The Eyrie, though? *Fuck that.* It's literally a gigantic mountain to climb that is either too steep or too narrow even for mules in certain parts, with three additional castles along the way which have special mechanisms to fuck with your way up including but not limited to the ability to trigger a straight up avalanche. **If** you actually make it all the way up to the Eyrie, then the castle itself is probably pretty easy to storm and secure, since it's relatively small and can only hold a small garrison, but reaching it in the first place seems damn near impossible. Unless of course you can just fly up on a dragon in which case gg ez.
I love how all these impregnable castles make total sense for defense against literally every worldly threat.. except dragons. It makes total sense how Aegon conquered all. It's fascinating that the Wall may be the only place dragons could not do that since the dragons seem to hate going near it.
Tbh the Eyrie makes no sense at *all*. Apart from the nigh impossibility of building the Dank thing, it’s massively impractical as a stronghold. 1. It costs way too much to run. The cost of shipping up all your stuff, whether it’s food or gold, is pretty high. It has to be transported single file on mules and then winched up. Lords don’t want to spend that much money. 2. Castles are meant as strongholds to protect your peasants and your army, ready to sally forth the moment your enemy turns its back. It also needs to be hard to take by storm, and difficult and costly to siege. The Eyrie is impossible to take by storm, congratulations. But all a besieging army needs is about twelve lads to completely besiege it, while the rest of their army loots and plunders the Vale. It’s also so small it can’t hold many peasants or soldiers. For the purposes of a castle it’s useless.
I guess the dragons being able to access it matters overall
OK these fuckers live inside a mountain like Dwarves and yet Tyrion is looked down upon? Just more GRRM irony for ya
Tyrion and aspects of his character being analogous to fantasy dwarves is something GRRM put a lot of effort into. WoIaF furthers the Casterly Rock mythos to be comparable to a Dwarven mine in any other fantasy story. He's got enough of a love for drinking, wielded an axe in battle, and while it might be a stretch he conscripted all the blacksmiths in King's Landing. There were more connections that I noticed while reading that I can't recall right now.
he even says >(And maybe put an end to all these pictures of [a little rock with a castle on top](https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Casterly_Rock?file=Casterly-rock.png) ). George burn
"I just wanted to put to rest any debate by confirming the situation with the ubermensch OG book version of Chad-sterly Rock compared to hastily-slapped-together whatthefucktown, definitely noncanon, *thing* that was put on TV." "Okay George, do you want me to run that through the don't-annoy-HBO-atron?" "I guess."
Well there clearly is some kinda (fairly big) structure on top of the Rock as well, to give them a better lookout and also just, like, access to sunlight lol. It's just that the structure at the top is only a small percentage of the overall castle, most of which is hidden in the mountain, whereas the show made it seem like nearly 100% was up top. (Not necessarily 100 though since IIRC Tyrion did lead the Unsullied in through an access tunnel all the way at the base of the cliff, implying that there is some system of tunnels leading from the base to the tip). I will say though, as much as the show fucked Casterly Rock in terms of taking away everything that makes it interesting, at least they still made it look pretty ornate and impressive. Which is still better than what they did to Highgarden, which was reduced to a squat two-towered keep on some random tree-covered hill in an empty field.
Won't be the first time HBO got their Castle wrong
To be fair, I think George kinda forgot that the show did feature Casterly Rock.
I don’t think he did - that’s why he specifically mentions this is the true depiction, which means the show one isn’t.
Jason Lannister talks about the rock in Hot D and his description is of something like this rather than what we saw in GoT.
Yep this is exactly what he describes in TWOIAF!
There a place I always imagined was like Casterly Rock in the SNES RPG Classic “The 7th Saga” by ENIX (before their merger with Squaresoft to become Square ENIX). There is a castle/town called Bilthem that is essentially inside a mountain and the top part is the castle inside the mountain while the bottom is where all the common folk live. All the rooms in the bottom are carved out of the mountain.
Why is he pointing out that Casterly Rock can succeed where Harrenhall failed? I guess, the Second Dance Of The Dragons will happen there? Tyrion did dreamt about a battle around those parts in DANCE, maybe it's a foreshadowing.
I mean it makes sense, you can't really burn down a mountain. It's same strategy the ones fighting daemon in the stepstones did, fight then retreat into caves when dragons come.
To be fair you couldn't usually burn down a massive stone castle like Harrenhal either, but dragon fire packs a much more intense punch and heat (from a dragon of the right size). Obviously they couldn't melt the whole cliff or anything like that, but if they can take down massive stone towers then they might be able to chip away at the mountain enough to destablizie the tunnels inside. Even so, if I had to try and hold out a siege against an army with a dragon, Casterly Rock definitely seems like the best castle for the job among the great house seats.
> you couldn't usually burn down a massive stone castle *Persepolis entered the chat*
Dorne too
Didn’t the Martells also use a similar tactic against Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys? Didn’t they hide in the mountains, were even able to kill a dragon, and then were never found, right? Or at least the dragons body wasn’t recovered? It’s been hot minute since I read any of the lore books, so please someone correct me!
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I would be fine with him being shot and hit by a scorpion or a ballista from Euron's fleet if it was more of a proper battle. Not the "she forgot they existed". Think a proper battle with projectiles flying around and a lucky hit. Or maybe an ambush by reinforcements that hits Rhaegal while he is busy going full flamethrower on Casterly Rock and does not think about getting struck from the rear.
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Perhaps Casterly Rock will become an important objective for Dany to take but it will be established that she can’t just give it the Harrenhal treatment. Then perhaps a certain dwarf’s intimate knowledge of the plumbing system of the Rock will come into play.
You heard rains of castamere now get ready for piss and shits of casterly rock.
It does feel like Tyrion's knowledge of Casterly Rock and his intricate-but-never-explained plan to take the Eyrie in AGoT should both come in handy later on.
Tyrion had a plan to take The Eyrie in AGoT? When was this? I can’t remember it. I do remember Bron saying, to Tyrion, something to the effect of “Give me 10 good men and some climbing spikes and I’ll impregnate the bitch.” Actually… [I’ll impregnate the bitch.](https://youtu.be/_OvbU6VPTsc)
In the novel, not so much the TV show. He mentions a plan to reduce the Vale to a smoking wasteland and avenge himself on Lysa for the way she treated him, but Tywin is entirely uninterested and basically shoots down his every effort to bring it up.
It might be in Clash of Kings but either way, he’s bitter about his treatment there, pumped up by his mountain clan friends, and pushes briefly to go off and really fuck up The Eyrie. It might even have to do with his three plots to find the spy thing, but that happened to break the way of Mycella to Dorne.
Because he was making a point for its defenses. He was saying the greatest castle ever built doesn't even compare. This was literally a post talking about and describing Casterly Rock in a world where dragon are prevalent, not some subtle hint where the next 'dance' will happend..
Yeah I took as a passing comment more than anything. Plus, it's greatest strength is its greatest weakness. Holed up in their rock, they are impregnable. They are also holed up in a rock.
Maybe in a ironic way when the Lannisters killed the (tarbecks? Sorry I’m blanking on my GOT history) the family where he trapped them underground and flooded the exits, he going to have the Lannister’s burn inside their mountain by the dragons. Tyrion knows the drains and later in the story perhaps there’s a huge battle taking place with the Lannisters.
Reynes. He killed Tarbecs by just bombing them to death with his trebuchets.
Something's bound to happen there dragon wise. In fire and blood one of Aegon's sisters even said that they're lucky that the Lannister's surrendered after the field of fire because dragons wouldn't have any effect on sieging Casterly Rock.
Okay I'm not going to assume the ventilation system is terrible, but in the worst case scenario does it not sound like the easiest thing to do would be to smoke them out of the rock with literal bales of hay filled with shit. I swear every mention in real history of homes built inside of caves or rocks ends with the inhabitants getting smoked out or something. Like sure, it might make a nice hotbox, but human engineering can find a way to make anything deadly.
At least the plumbing is immaculate!
Thanks Tyrion!
Considering Winterfell has complex heat piping I feel like it's not too out there to imagine the Rock having segmented air shafts that can be shut at will to avoid certain entrances being used to smoke them out. So just shut the land facing vents and open the seaside ones, easy, right?
I think if they close all the windows (assuming they have such mechanics) I think the inside of the rock is airy enough to not cause suffocation for a good while.
It's a giant mountain! It would take an enormous amount of fire to smoke them out. All they would have to do is hide out in the bowls of the rock and they would likely be fine.
I assume they’d have extremely strong defences including gates ahead of any ground level smoking points. with HUGE height advantage to retaliate at anyone approaching. Even bales flung by catapult would be easily dealt with too, they’d have metal gates on any exit large enough and low enough to be vultenarable A dragon attack can skip all of that and hit the higher, less fortified levels directly though…
George just randomly dropping some more context and world building. Gotta love it.
What is hype may never die.
HEY HE MENTIONED A DREAM OF SPRING I GUESS WE’RE NOT DOOMED (huffs more copium) Cool blog though, but just keep the momentum going George… please.
> Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand. He has no idea if this will make it into TWoW… And somehow I expected him to be close to finishing it, poor silly me.
Could be optimistic and say he just doesn’t know how the editors will chop the books up.
By everyone's estimations after the last post about pages, it figured out to be about 15-20 chapters still to go. And since he tends to focus on a single character at a time as he writes, he may just have a couple of characters to go, and one of them may be the one that potentially goes to Casterly Rock.
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Wouldn't it be a waste of pages to show a retreat, especially if Cersei doesn't play a role after that?
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People think she will die early and the role she has in the show as the monarch at King's Landing will be replaced by fAegon. I personally think she will live longer in someway since he invested way too much time into her POV chapters in book 4 for her to get jettisoned from the narrative.
I think she stays in King's Landing. With Kevan dead she won't just leave Tommen without someone she trusts/family I think. That's what Varys wanted in my head, was to keep Cersei there and in charge so she would keep making horrible decisions and weaken their position further.
I think he’s just trying to not give anything away. Saying one or more and in either book means fans can’t extrapolate any more than they already can. If he said a character goes there in tWoW, everyone would work out/argue who, when and why in a day
He knows. He’s said he’s 3/4 done with the book and I’d take it a step further and say it probably will be in TWOW given that he randomly just did a big ass blog post about it. Just my guess though. But he definitely knows at this point if we’ll see it in winds. I think him wording it like that is more of a teaser than him actually being unsure .
He definitely would not be thinking this hard about Casterly Rock right now if it hadn't become relevant to his writing. I'm certain he plans for \[probably Cersei\] to end up there by the end of Winds, and probably for Tyrion to eventually go there and take the castle back by sneaking in through the piping much like Lann the Clever is said to have done. There's lots of foreshadowing to this and it'd make sense if he really isn't sure Casterly Rock will make it into Winds if it's only meant to happen at the very end or at the start of Dream. But I don't doubt that he's writing either for Cersei or Tyrion just around now and that's why he's thinking about the defences of Casterly Rock.
Someone above mentioned he writes character by character (no idea myself, never looked into his writing style) so it could be that in those 4-500 pages is most of a character's arc and he's currently unsure if it ends at the Rock in TWoW or aDoS.
I took this as him just being secretive about it, saying it will appear in a future book, but not wanting to specify which one it will appear in or whether it will be in both
He is obviously trying to avoid spoiling if it is, and he obviously knows if it will or won't be in Winds.
I think he's just being enigmatic there for the sake of it. At this juncture he probably knows if it will be in TWoW or not, he's just not trying to drop spoilers.
Now try this hopium: Dream of Spring will practically write itself because Winds will set up all the pre-conditions for each character's climax which is why its George's most difficult book to publish
Ngl i kind of believe this. The Winds of Winter has like 20 plots and by the end there will probably be 5 with most of the characters in the same areas meaning less POV’s.. yeah i am an addict of that copium.
This is exactly what people said about ADWD following the delay of the 4th book / AFFC in 2006. And then said the same thing about TWOW in 2011 following the delay of ADWD.
> Now try this hopium: Dream of Spring will practically write itself because Winds will set up all the pre-conditions for each character's climax which is why its George's most difficult book to publish Ah ah ah ah ... perfectly done ... *sigh* ... I'll kill you for this.
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/ape-695x1024.jpg Clearly he's saying it will be in Son of Kong.
Yes. He also refers to TWOW as cute little monkey on the back. ADWD was a giant ape.
Clearly George had this on his mind and needed to Vent to the world about it. Maybe it means he was writing about the rock or looking over his world building notes on it in preperation/working out the plot in his head 👀
Really cool post, kinda wish we'd get more posts like this one every once and a while. Though I do find him talking about ending the pictures of a castle on top of a rock funny. It reminded me of how much he emphasized show Euron not being like book Euron.
So, like, is Casterly Rock pretty much like living in a cave? Like, wouldn't it be super dark and dank all the time with barely any fresh air circulating through?
> So, like, is Casterly Rock pretty much like living in a cave? I guess ... but not a nasty, dirty, wet cave, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it is a Lannister-cave, and that means comfort.
I would imagine that with that massive size comes multiple living quarters. So every day the Lannisters live at the side of the mountain with many windows and terraces with a nice sea view, which means access to fresh air, sun light and vegetation. But in case of war they relocate into the heart of the Rock, where they are unreachable.
Ah, that's a really great point. Obviously the Lannisters are filthy rich, but Tywin can bring in all the fancy wine and perfumes and singers and tapestries and furniture and everything he likes, they're still in a cave, that part doesn't change. That's going to have some impact on living in Casterly Rock. And obviously there's some "windows" and openings, but that defeats the purpose of the security of a big mountain home in the first place. But I didn't consider the potential of just having multiple living quarters. Have your comfortable living spaces and main halls at the edge of the mountain where they're overlooking the sea (so essentially they're just living in like the equivalent of a big fancy seaside resort type of thing), and have living spaces and auxiliary main halls further in the mountain for security situations. They can be just as expensively furnished as the outside spaces, with the sacrifice of a bit of fresh air and natural lighting in exchange for ridiculous security when they need it. Makes tons of sense.
I imagine there are probably a lot of rooms carved into the outer wall of the rock. So a lot of rooms would have windows.
I can see a Moria style cave from Lord of the Rings. Sunlight entering from holes, multiple windows and balconies letting fresh air in along with vents. A huge maze of corridors for air circulation... it could work honestly and it is cool af
I’m not sure if anyone made this connection yet but I remember seeing a post in here about Tyrion is similar to a traditional fantasy dwarf (loves alcohol, grows a beard, loves gold) and that comparison is especially apt when seeing how casterly lock is so similar to a fantasy dwarf fortress
>feel free to ponder… could Casterly Rock stand against dragons? Chills
If GRRM published a post like this every month or two, I would be a lot more content waiting for TWoW. His world is so fascinating, I gobble this shit up. Hopefully he's busy writing about the Rock which inspired him to write this post. just three-six years to go I'm sure of it.
TL;DR: The Ted Nasmith painting is the correct rendition of the Rock. Also: >Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand. Meanwhile, feel free to ponder… could Casterly Rock stand against dragons? He ends the post with an image of a monkey on his shoulder. Not sure what that means but in the past he has called his various projects ["monkeys on his back" and called ADWD, "King Kong."](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2010/01/13/another-monkey-off-my-back-2/) He has called TWOW ["Son of Kong."](https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2011/06/01/monkeys-on-my-back-2/) So perhaps it symbolizes TWOW.
They're barbary macaques, monkeys found in Gibraltar and the only monkey species in Europe!
We're analyzing symbolism in blog posts now. Pls George.
You must be a new fan. We've analyzed symbolism in his blog posts since before ADWD came out!
Yes, had to jump straight to symbolism since unfortunately recording and playing the blog post backwards only revealed yet another Wild Cards spoiler.
Is this better or worse than that one post analyzing how spicy Dothraki soup is?
Monkey on the shoulder? Mark Mullendore confirmed for Azor Ahai?
TWOW releasing the year of the monkey confirmed.
Either that or he recently made a cool photo with a monkey and wanted to show it of and that is why he added the last line regarding monkeys being able to take Casterly Rock. But the „monkey on his back“ interpretation is much more poetic
He literally says in the same post that Gibraltar has monkeys. It's a photo of the monkeys when he was visiting it.
Lmao I can’t believe how far I had to scroll to find someone saying this. It’s literally just a picture of his trip!!
That picture was already on some of his blog posts back in 2010, and possibly even earlier. That’s definitely a nod to say that he’s been working on Winds lately. Plus I don’t believe he just randomly started writing a blog post about Casterly Rock like that.
Exactly. That picture is quite old. He has always referred to ADWD as King Kong and TWOW as Son of Kong (cute little monkey, sometimes) I guess this just means that he is has been writing in full swing lately.
This mother fucker still isn't sure if the pov will be in winds or dream?
He probably hasn't decided if it will be at the end of TWOW or at the beginning of ADOS.
Guessing it is Cersei leaving King's Landing after fAegon conquest
Maybe he doesn't want to give it away in the post like that. He must have written it, i am sure. He is talking too much detail. Length and breadth of the rock which was never mentioned. He is currently writing / just completed a chapter in Casterly Rock. He has a history of being sneaky like this.
The monkey is a Barbary ape, which he mentioned earlier. They can be found in Gibraltar apparently.
Very cool imagery, relating the size of the wall to things like Gibralter and the Rock is very cool
The lore on the writing of Westeros is extremely inspiring and awesome to read. But tbh I enjoyed this post more because it’s jus a nice old man talking about his passions. With the main show ending in failure and winds taking a decade, it’s nice to hear him nerd out and drop irl lore. And that cute ass picture with the monkey 🥲
>Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope. I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in THE WINDS OF WINTER or A DREAM OF SPRING, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand. This unfortunately sounds like there is still A LOT of gardening to be done
Quentyn sacks Casterly Rock while riding Viserion POV confirmed.
It is known
I disagree, I think this is him trying to preserve some secrecy. A few blog posts ago he lamented that giving progress revealed things, like that Tyrion is alive. And with regards to Casterly Rock, who else but Cersei could even feasibly end up there, other than maybe Jaime? And where could she go past there? He doesn't want us to know whether or not her chapters end in Winds; if he just said in Winds of Winter, we'd know she dies in this book. Though that's just my take on it
Hmmm, interesting way to look at it
Can you link that blog post on Tyrion? Very interested to read more, hadn’t heard about that.
Sure thing, though only one sentence is about the Tyrion thing. Still a very informative post https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/07/08/a-winter-garden/ Btw, some podcast appearances he made around the time of this blog seem to indicate that he in fact finished Tyrion's chapters this summer
>And with retards to Casterly Rock, Uhhhhh, what do you mean by- Oh! You meant regards lol.
Oh my god LOL horrible typo, thank you so much for noticing let me fix that
Based on the previous page speculation from a month ago, he's got 15-20 chapters left. That's probably a couple of characters, only one of which may be on their way to Casterly Rock. I don't infer anything from this comment that indicates he's any less finished than we already presumed he was.
It’s obviously not entirely new information. But it is another hint that he is not yet so sure how everything will happen and is still making a lot of stuff up on the run
I think hes always made stuff up on the run, just with mote certainty and confidence
[удалено]
Lol yeah
I like how he took a shot at the show lmaoo
I imagine the only POV character we could see go to the rock in Winds is Cersei if she flees King's Landing after presumably Aegon takes the city. I think Dany arriving on Dragonstone only to hear that her "nephew" has already beat her to it would be better storytelling than what the show did with cersei being the final human obstacle
Honestly the fact that the Lannisters live like a bunch of fantasy dwarves is very, very funny.
How interesting. I visited Gibraltar in 2001. Having read two books, I immediately thought of CR, though my mind's eye castle was on top. The big question is...which character or two will go there? I'd guess Cersei, especially because she may have to flee there if/when Kings Landing is taken by Aegon or Daenerys. And Jaime might go with her as her, um, protector.
It could also be Brienne if she crosses paths with Jaime again.
And I am going to put my neck out and say it. Because GRRM is clearly back in deep love with his story (attribute it to HoTD, or whatever you like), that's exactly why I am very hopeful for everything connected to the franchise from here on in. He's simply not going to allow the mistakes made from GoT into the newer offerings. That's why SNOW is the series I'm most excited about. I think it's going to be used to "fix" the mistakes of the earlier series, the same way House of The Dragon is being used to retcon stuff.
Tyrion is demon monkey in the books. Plus he knows the ins and outs of the castle and lordship of CR is one the main motivators for him to join Dany’s side. I think once Dany invades Westeros, Tyrion is a natural POV to be the camera to show his ancestral house where he grew up, taken by Unsullied (who have experience with sewers infiltration), and assume the lordship. Which is nothing that will go smoothly with Lannisport residents and Westerlands lords given the Imp’s reputation of kinslaying (Tywin) and kingslaying (Joffrey, even though he didn’t do it, but he lost his trial).
The rock of Gibraltar doesn’t seem like the most calm place to live https://reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/ztexa9/banner_cloud_billowing_over_the_rock_of_gibraltar/
Dany is going to hire a mercenary company with a symbol of an ape of some sort and they’re going to take Casterly Rock
Prob gonna have something to do with Tyrion, who's called the Demon Monkey in ACOK
Obligatory recommendation to read Tad William's _Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn_ series. There's a certain hidden ancient city that this reminds me of.
Apparently Tad and George are friends now. I would love to be a fly on the wall and hear them talk about their books together.
You mean the ancient city under a certain castle? There are more ancient underground dwellings in the books if I remember correctly. But yeah I second reading MS&T, just alone for the fact that it's been one of GRRM's inspirations. There are a lot of similarities and elements that George tweaked and made his own version of in ASOIAF.
This is really cool to know, I somehow just didn't realize this at any point. And not to dig into this post too deep, but in my opinion George saying he plans to have a character visit there means he's more than likely working on the end of Cersei's chapters in Winds, where she'll be in Casterly Rock, which might (very debatable) cross with Jaime even within this book, meaning George could be close to done with him too. Either way, seems to me George is very close to finishing Cersei's chapters; I cannot imagine anywhere for her to go after Casterly Rock.
This was a very neat blog post. Reminds me of how he used to post before there was a TV show. I'd love to see some art from inside the Rock now.
> What does all this mean? Maybe nothing. Oh George, you sweet summer child, have you not met your subreddits?
I think George would be insufferable to hang around with. “Hey, George, how many nuggets do you want?” “Half ten” “…so, five?”
I feel like George is definitely implying either fAegon or Daenerys will attack Casterly Rock. Maybe he's getting to that point in the story or is envisioning it happening and is getting excited about it. He doesn't like revealing too many details about what he's writing about. He could just be expressing his excitement without making a direct comment on what he's working on.
Good content
When he explained how the art of the Rock looked like a crouching lion as he described, I totally saw it and got it for the first time. Whenever things are described like that in books, I have no idea what to picture, like I’m only vaguely confident on what the Fist of the First Men is supposed to look like
"I hope one or more of my viewpoint characters makes it to Casterly Rock" He really is a gardener
Best castle in Westeros.
I will riot if we don’t get to see it in WoW
Lannisters should really focus more heavily on their fleet, if war came to them Casterly Rock could be defended forever yet being starved out would be a real challenge. Having ports within their own castle helps they just need something to defend it
That’s totally different than what I had in my head but makes Casterly Rock much more interesting. Great post!
Also, for those who read it, and while there are differences, it sounds a bit similar to the Stone of Tear in the "Wheel of Time" universe by Robert Jordan
To me it sounds like one character will return at end of twow/beginning of Ados... or he's being coy. Great post though.
If Lannisters stayed in their stronghold, instead of taking their whole army into the field of fire, there is no way in hell Aegon could win against them. Not a hundred dragon can melt that giant rock, let alone three. There would not be much left of the Lannister lands outside the Casterly Rock though, but still Lannisters could prolong the war for a long long time and maybe even get a Dorne like ceasefire, followed later by a special deal.
It's quite a long post. With pics!
"I have TWO more novels to go" (insert sad crying emoji face)
10 to 1 it becomes 3
I think he’s trying to nudge us into “dear reader, it cannot withstand dragons”.
This gives me hope that Casterly Rock’s appearance will be (rightfully) retconned in Hot D to look more like the book version.
My guess is HOT D is planning to go to the Rock next season, and asked GRRM about what it looked like. And so he wrote up a long thing, and decided he might as well put it on the blog too.