The Quill and Tankard

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Edlothiad

00:23

Supposedly book version... accuracy?

11 hours later…

JAD

11:49

moat between the walls? :S

Edlothiad

@JAD That was my first red flag. Also everything seems extremely spaced out. I mean I'm sure Martin had thought that through a little more

JAD

Also, Winterfell is round in the show

hue hue

Edlothiad

@JAD So that doesn't tell us anything...

JAD

srsly though, I expected the glass gardens to be a way more prominent feature

Edlothiad

Valyrian steel model

This one is also weird though, this has the inner wall far inside the outer wall

JAD

12:02

that's not that weird

take Maegor's keep for example

Edlothiad

It is weird for winterfell.

Ted Naismith and GRRM

I told you it wasn't so far apart.

JAD

You should see that as follows: You have a castle, but it grows so much that not everybody can be housed within its walls. So you decide to build another wall around it, to create more space

odd

hmm

Edlothiad

From TWOIAF

@JAD 40ft walls came before 80ft walls IIRC

I lied

100ft inner wall first, then moat, then 80 ft outer wall

> The inner walls, which were once the only defensive walls, are estimated to be some two thousand years old, and perhaps some sections are older still. In later years, a defensive moat was dug around them, then a second wall was raised beyond the moat, giving the castle a formidable defense. The inner walls stand a hundred feet high, the outer walls eighty

JAD

hmm

Don't think that really makes sense from a realism point of view, but sure

then again, neither does the Eyrie

Makes me wonder whether there are any medieval castles with such double walls

Edlothiad

You people need to stop saying things don't make sense from a realism point of view... It doesn't have to be extremely realistic, he can build whatever ridiculous castles he wants (i.e. Eyrie)

Or Valyria with there shaped stone towers

JAD

12:11

Just because it is fantasy doesn't mean it can't borrow the slightest bit from realism

Edlothiad

Well given these castles exist I don't see why any of the others should...

I also don't think it's particularly strange for a castle to think "hmm we could improve our defenses" so they build a moat and another massive wall.

JAD

@Edlothiad well, I can think of a few issues, like, how are you going to get to the outer wall in seige situations without weakening the inner one?

Edlothiad

How are the defenders going to get to the outer wall?

JAD

yep, it's pretty inconvenient to have the outer defense be hard to reach from the inside

and you don't want it easy to reach from the inside, because that would defeat the purpose of two walls

Edlothiad

Well there's an assumption, there could certainly have been easily collapsible drawbridges

etc.

JAD

12:20

I think imma ask about it on history. Because if it's such a good defensive strategy, surely there are examples of it.

Edlothiad

:shrug:

Edlothiad

12:34

> The outer wall stood eighty feet high, the inner more than a hundred. Lacking men, Theon had been forced to abandon the outer defenses and post his guards along the higher inner walls. He dared not risk having them on the wrong side of the moat should the castle rise against him.

It seems there's no connection, in my head there always ones. This does make things strange.

JAD

@Edlothiad well, or it is a one-way like those drawbridges

Edlothiad

There is certainly a draw bridge at the gates. But not at the tops.

Otherwise people wouldn't be able to get out.

JAD

yea

I meant just to get from wall to wall

Edlothiad

> On his left he could see tower tops above the inner wall, their roofs gilded by the rising sun. The red leaves of the weirwood were a blaze of flame among the green.

How did Theon see the Heart tree from the outer wall, it would have to be >100ft tall

JAD

especially 'among the green'

so he'd see the other trees too

Edlothiad

12:37

He was looking at a forest

> A brisk autumn wind was swirling through the battlements. It reddened his cheeks and stung his eyes. He watched the forest go from grey to green below him as light filtered through the silent trees.

That comes before the above quote

That suggests the Weirwood tree is outside the walls, which is how I'd pictured it.

And we know it's the one from the Godswood because he calls it "Ned Stark's tree"

JAD

tbh, it is weird to have a forest within the castle walls

too clumsy to defend

Concentric castle

A concentric castle is a castle with two or more concentric curtain walls, such that the inner wall is higher than the outer and can be defended from it. The word concentric does not imply that these castles were circular; in fact, if taken too literally, the term is quite misleading. The layout was square (at Belvoir and Beaumaris) where the terrain permitted, or an irregular polygon (at Krak and Margat) where curtain walls of a spur castle followed the contours of a hill. Concentric castles resemble one castle nested inside the other, thus creating an inner and outer ward. They are typically...

Edlothiad

Teds drawing suggests their could've been, but it's unclear.

There's this @JAD

> Which left the Battlements Gate, a small arched postern in the inner wall. Only half a gate, in truth, it had a drawbridge that spanned the frozen moat but no corresponding gateway through the outer wall, offering access to the outer ramparts but not the world beyond.

JAD

ah yes

so one-way

Edlothiad

That suggests a a gate from the inner wall to the outer wall.

JAD

since you can't lower the bridge from the outside

Edlothiad

12:44

But not through the outer wall

That's the only relevant mention when searching "Inner wall"

> Theon groped his way to the wall, then followed it to the Battlements Gate. He might have taken the guards for a pair of Little Walder's snowmen if he had not seen the white plumes of their breath. "I want to walk the walls," he told them, his own breath frosting in the air.
"Bloody cold up there," one warned.

This suggests the Battlements Gate is at ground level.

Yep everything suggest Ground Level.