WINTERFELL detailed CASTLE analysis: Game of Thrones 

Well, from what Shad said I think that they would have better chance of surviving outside. Especially if they run as fast as possible in direction where is no enemy.

Actually their best strategy would be to put all of the main characters outside the walls and use the plot armor to make Winterfell completely impregnable!

@@les6paul Plot armor? I haven't watched any of it, but isn't this the finale (or nearly so) of a series in which major characters have died quite frequently? (Just here for a castle analysis!)

R3Testa It started out that way but the plot armor came into effect in the last couple of seasons and there’s one group of folks in particular that can’t seem to die regardless of bad decisions. Towards the end, it becomes way too Disney of an ending.

@@Tfin The plot armor is so thick in the battle, it's actually laughable. It's almost like Avengers.

They did that in the medieval city of Visby when the Danes attacked. Their armies met outside the city. Of course, it could have to do with the size of the wall maybe? But considered it was the largest medieval city in Europe at the time... I dunno. I guess it was to keep the non-fighting population safe? Or something.

seconds that

@@SysterYster possibly true there was some sort of political motivation like that concerning Visby ,but was that before it hade become part of sweden or after in 'internal' feodal matters ? I cant recall.

@@Amoth_oth_ras_shash It was in 1360-ish that they were attacked I think. They were a part of Sweden at the time, pretty sure. But like all things back then, people could do a bit as they wished since news traveled kinda slow.

Let's not build rooftops. It'll look so cool! (says someone who's NEVER lived where it snow!!!!)

With the double walls described in the books! That would be awesome. I think there's a moat in the middle as well?

I second this excellent suggestion. Shad could use the same design program as he used for ‘Honourguard’.👍

Agreed.

Yes, please.

And less stuffed. They have huge flatland around 'em. No need to squish nonsensical towers together blocking each other's line of sight, or squeezing the houses as if Winterfell was a city, not a castle.

Then what's shown in the TV series is a "Legoized" version.

The crypts Kind of contradict the hot springs, though. We have a lot of hot springs in the city where I live and building Underground structures in the spring area is incredibly difficult, as the springs would flood the basements if not properly sealed or drained.

now that a castle that could last the old night.

"several acres"? that's hardly ONE acre!

Book scale is a tad diffrent. Though the eyrie I belive is Acurate and hellish to assult, with large gate houses on a narrow path, the upper levels are narrow passes with rock falls and everything. Then you get to top and find a another large gate house and no seige engines can get up there. Harren Hall has somthong like a multi acre goddwood alone. Its towers and so are truely gigantic and even centuries after are defensible without anyone able to afford to mantain it. Wintetfell is the North's most, or near most powerful fortress going.

From A Wiki of Ice and Fire about how Winterfell is described in the books: "Winterfell is a huge castle complex spanning several acres, defended by two massive walls of grey granite with a wide moat between them. The outer wall is eighty feet high, while the inner is one hundred feet high, with a wide moat between them. There are guard turrets on the outer wall and more than thirty watch turrets on the crenelated inner walls. The great main gates have a gatehouse made of two huge crenelated bulwarks which flank the arched gate and a drawbridge that opens into the market square of the winter town. " Walls which are 80 feet + 100 feet high, moats, crenelations, all the good stuff. Compared to the Winterfell from the books, the castle from the show looks just like a miniature. :-D

There should also be a double outer wall( 80 ft for the outer and 100 ft for the inner) separated by a sunken dry moat...

Also, that tower seems to have seven points, so I'm guessing it is a new(ish) temple built for the Seven, probably for Catelyn since she didn't follow the old Gods.

@@mini_bunney The only thing Ned added to the castle for Cat was the Sept(which was only supposed to be big enough for a hand full of people). The rest is just production design that refused to follow the book's descriptions.

"Updated with the latest technology" Assuming there is any new technology. For some reasom the Westeros is frozen in early medieval era for 100's of years

"with a moth inbetween" Does the moth flutter at the enemies who breach the outer wall?

@@MrPhilsterable Sure it does. The ways of Brandon the Builer are mysterious and complex. 😂

How big is the moth? 2.5 cm?

Well, Winterfell have not been besiged by any army in a 1000 Years time period until the events we see in Game of Trones. no army from the south have marched up and besiged winterfell. that's why it's in decay and the lords Don't improve it and it lies in the Middle of No where. it's a Castle not a Fortress give the North some peace Aye?

@@Basedbateman97 "It's a castle, not a fortress" So what? Both are primarily highly defensible structures build to protect the area and its inhabitants. I don't see a reason why you brought that up. And what's your point with the apologetics? Are you justifying Winterfell not having an outerwall and a moat?

I just came to say this too. I don't recall it mentioned in the show, but it's in one of the first chapters of the first GoT book. You can tell it's the Sept because it's seven-sided.

@@doug28x i think its pretty neat that you can tell that's it's a Sept by the way that it is. Also, it's cool that its established in the books

it puzzles me, how dumb&dumber would get one detail, like there is has been a sept in winterfell, since ned built it after roberts rebellion, right. while simultaneously ignoring everything else told about the design of the castle. AND never mentioning the sept in the show xD

@@samfoster709 The whole aspect of the North having a completely different religion to the rest of the seven kingdoms adds to why they feel they should not be part of the seven kingdoms at all and are so eager to be independent. The religions are fairly well worked out in the books. The faith of the seven, for instance, obviously has a lot of symbolism around the number 7 which is why their temples have seven sides, one for each deity. Similarly the Northerners often feel uncomfortable in the south because the cities don't have a Godswood (their idea of a temple is a forest of weir trees) anymore because they have been cut down. This is also why a lot of Northerners don't take the prefix Ser (Ser Jorah Mormont is a notable exception) because similarly to christian knights it was very much a religious thing (not exclusively but closely associated with it). And so since most northerners don't adhere to the Seven, they generally don't feel the need to be knighted. Clearly these details are lost in a television adaptation and would make for quite boring viewing if they would include all these minor details.

@@Thomas_H473 Why would you think the writers are so closely involved in the design. It's not likely they drew the castle themselves and had the prop makers build it. It's more than likely that someone designed the castle and perhaps the writers only pointed out that it needed a 7 sided Sept somewhere. As far as I can tell, however, they did not 'ignoring everything else told about the design of the castle' since there is not much more that's told as far as I recall. As far as I recall the only noteworthy buildings in Winterfell were the library (which burned down in season 1), the ruined tower (which they showed because it's the tower that Bran was pushed out of), the sept, the main keep (which is not described in detail in the books either, only that it had the great hall and housed the Stark chambers), the Godswood which is also clearly visible, and the crypts which were also clearly shown. If I've overlooked anything I'd love to know.

Yeah, it's called hot water pumped through the walls. The castle was built on hot springs; it has goethermal heating all winter long. Snow doesn't stay on heated surfaces, it melts and drips off. Naturally.

@@grsshppr7659 Did they ever mention that in the show, or is it only in the books?

Snow buildup may not be that large of a problem in Winterfell due to the natural hotspring it's built on keeping it warm. Now then comes another issue with snow melting and freezing. But atleast the snow buildup shouldn't be AS big of a problem. Though I don't think the entirety of Winterfell is naturally hot, so maybe we're back where we started

@@matthewmuir8884 In the show Roose mentions it as the primary reason the Starks were able to win the north. Hot springs attract ppl, ppl carry swords, and the Starks always had more swords.

@@grsshppr7659 Ah; thanks. I only got as far as season 3.

I worked for sams club as a cart guy for 2 winters in Fairbanks AK. They have strict rules about how long you can be outside and how many carts you can push at once during certain temps. Heavy breathing and sweating is super dangerous at -50F.

But that only works if it makes sense to the casual viewer Like Alien had the characters following protocol to insure that the whole crew wouldn't be harmed by alien lifeforms/bacteria and as modern viewers we see how sensible the things they did are despite it not working However with medieval battles the casual viewer doesn't have any knowledge or experience of it so the casual viewer wouldn't recognize the flaws, making 100% realism a moot point

@@baronvonbeans9887 wouldn't a casual viewer appreciate the show more, once they realised GoT even had medieval fighting scene right

@@baronvonbeans9887 Even I knew sending your Dothraki light cavalry in a head on charge, as your first move, was a horrible tactic. They did it for the visual and bad writing reasons. Red witch gaining trust, Dany not following the plan. People can see contrived actions for plots sake, even if they have a novice understanding of tactics. it fails on a lot of levels.

@@DearHRS the cost would be to high and the monetary gains too little for the showrunners :(

Exactly, especially when they spent previous seasons discovering the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Making better use of trenches, moats and walls as every loss for the good guys is a potential raised undead for the bad. Also the Undead don't tire so it's a flawed idea to race out after them. Fighting behind defences allows for shifting units in and out of combat for rest periods.

I was surprised that he hadn't brought that up in the video

Also, there should be "Winter Town" nearby.

Winter town is very close nearby on that road

obviously they have an underground cave system with mushrooms.

Plot twist: The Starks Eat their people in Wintertime. Duh

I was going to say this, they really don't look like functional machicolations, just jutty out bits to make the walls harder to scale. 5:24 looking closely, there's no gap to be seen.

That's what I saw as well.

They probably had them blocked so Bran doesnt fall through them while climbing around Winterfell :P

That’s what I was thinking, from the looks of it it appears to have seven sides which matches the other shapes of septs theta we see in other seasons such as the sport of baelor or the sept that was partially constructed

Yep, I was going to point that out myself. There's a reason they're called Septs,

That's what I was about to point out, yes :) not sure if NED built it or if it was there before, but it's certainly a newer addition to the castle, since they are the "new" gods.

Ned built it for Catlyn. Since there was no sept previously as previous starks had all worshipped the old gods

@@deiniollewis308 The Starks, sure, but their wifes? A King in or a Warden of the North could have built it for a southern consort ... in fact I just did some research and several Starks married Manderly women and as we know, the Manderlys follow the Seven.

Captain-Axeman riverrun is my favorite

Agreed, for once they went very close to the source material in a later season. It really is beautiful and they made use of its most recongicable trait, its ability to become a fortified island by flooding the moat

@@stoutyyyy Glad to see that i am not the only one.

For a second there I thought you were the guy WITH the mustache

I am still building one... I have done my first 2 gatehouses, although my second gatehouse is actually already more of a castle itself lol!

Nice! Hey, if you wanna add machicolations, you can use cobblestone walls for the crenels! With an air block underneath the cobblestone wall, of course.

@@QuantumLeapCosplay yeah already did! It's a good trick! And I love that with 1.14 there now are stone brick walls

I need to get MineCraft.

I still remember how effective murder holes were on the castle I built once on a Minecraft server with my friends. All I had to do was run around the walls at night and all the mobs would aggro and follow me until they fell in the holes. Then it was just a matter of entering the underground hallway and pummeling the legs of the trapped zombies and skeletons through a one block hole in the wall. The holes would even collect all of the chickens that spawned nearby because they were small enough to get into the underground access way, but they couldn't get back out.

@ 1. The lawyer's answer: it depends. But on a more serious note: if we are talking medieval style of knowledge of water bodies and hygiene, it is highly unlikely that anybody in that setting has the knowledge to construct a castle with the safety of the water source in mind. I am not too much into outhouses, like how they were usually arranged and stuff, but I can give you some ideas on Water bodies. If you use a well, you tap into ground water. Usually that means digging dozens of meters down. The ground water body cannot be determined by medieval means. Nowadays we can determine the exact measurements and more importantly the way of the water flow in the ground water body. Honestly, I wouldn't bother with thinking about dimensioning the castle with water pollution in mind. Let me explain why: the pollution of the human wastes is going to be washed out by rain and carried through the soil underground and become a part of the ground water body (most of the times more on that later), so it is first a downward movement, until it is part of the water body and then flows with the water body. While making the downward movement the pollution will get slowly degraded by the micro organisms in the soil. This also applies to any pollution that is carried within the ground water body. Which brings us to the actual needed distance from wastes to the place where you tap into the ground water body. Nowadays in Germany e.g. we have a 3 tier safety zone around wells and springs. the first tier is the well itself with 10m or 20m in diameter. Within this zone you aren't allowed to do anything. So you should always have 10-20m of distance. But the second tier is where the human wastes come into play. This space is highly dependant on the make up of the soil, because it is defined as the zone within which water needs 50 or less days to reach the well. if you have a very dense soil, this zone could be pretty small, if you have very loose soil that let's the water travel much faster, you might end up with several 100m in ground water up stream direction. The minimum diameter of that zone is 100m. The third zone is just a general safety zone which is only intersting when working with oil and other more modern pollutions. So to make this long story short: have at least 10m distance, if you want to play it safe make it a 100m. But generally you might say that the well is located at one edge of the castle and the up stream direction of the water body would be from there to the outside of the castle and when you then put your outhouses at the other end of the castle and atleast 10-20 m away it is perfectly fine. Generally the ground water body !should! follow the elevation of the terrain, so if your outhouses are in a point that is lower than the well, it should be fine, because the ground water flow should be from the location of the well to the outhouses. But without going too much in depth here: the ground water body may actually have a different contour than the actual terrain, thus leading to situations where e.g. the well is on one side of a hill and on the other side of the hill you introduce the pollution into the ground water body. generally the water flow should go outwards from the highest point of the hill, but depending on the soil makeup the highest point of the ground water body actually is where you introduced the pollution, thus carrying the pollution directly to your well. I hope that helps :) to the rest i have no real idea, since that is more specific :)

@@18947ful, thank you thankyou!!

@@ellymarks8361 you are Welcome :)

1. Not really. Wells were dug in the ground, however their depth varied heavily. Anyway, you would not find water 5 or 6 meters below( I used to live in a village and we had well in our yard. It was quite deep, at least 7 meters.), you had to go a little to much more deeper(depending on the area). However, in medieval times, the main concern of 'pollution' was human waste (urine and feeces) or those remain in the ground and are decomposed by micro-organisms and oxidation in the first 3-5 meters, so you don't really need to worry about that contamination. As a guy pointed out about safety zones in Germany, in medieval times this would not have been a concern anyways for practical reasons. A well is a public service area. People gather. You would not build anything around that anyways due to crowds gathering. 2. Why would you use 2 types of building materials together? Generally you want the walls of a building to be homogenous.

@@nottoday3817 just to clear something up: 1. no ... 3-5 meters aren't enough to be sure that a well is safe from pollution. That is why we have those safety zones. the actual length you need to be sure heavily depends on the soil. Or more specifically the ks - value in m/s, which tells you how fast water will travel through the soil. Because you need not only time for the inhabitants of the soil to decompose the organic matter, but also for any pathogen in the water to be taken care of. And I pointed the safety zones out as a measure of what distance is most likely to be achieved. And you can still gather around a well nowadays, you just aren't allowed to defacate there or smoke etc etc. The original question, as I understand it, was about the actual outhouses and how they should be placed in relation to the well. Also the hygiene wasn't much of a point back in the medieval times, because they didn't know about it. And mostly you'd have dumb luck by thinking: well .. outhouses maybe not next to the well. That together with some luck in distribution of the underground water body and the composition of the soil, leads to rather safe wells. But the actual question was how to make it safe. Maybe not even as something intended by the in universe people, but something to keep in mind as a world builder when dimensioning the castle. You actually have to understand far more about the setting you are writing in than the people within it to make it work properly. 2. ... uhm nooo. You want the walls of a building to stand. I think you mean why use two materials that do the same thing together, when you could use only one. Yes, it would be easier for the workers to build e.g. an entire building out of the same brick and mortar. And again here it is the question of what the author wanted them to be used as. (I did some reading up on those two, out of interest, so some more detail now, than in my older post) It might be wanted to mix both and use as basicly one new mortar. I think that wouldn't work very well, since the mechanics which are at work in roman cement are different to those in rice mortar. They might even hinder one another, leading to a worse mortar or even a non-working mortar. Other thing might be to use in Building as stand ins for one another. You might be missing the natural ressources to make roman cement, then you go for the rice mortar. Or vice versa (rice doesn't exactly grow everywhere ;) ) Or you are building and during the building process you have to change from cement to rice mortar, because some shortages happened or something like that. that should work. Last idea would be a planned use of rice mortar and roman cement on different tasks. Which would require the "engineers" of that world to actually have a deep understanding of how roman cement and rice mortar work. Leading to e.g. usage of rice mortar for special parts of buildings or certain type of buildings that greatly benefit from the different way the rice mortar works compared to the roman cement. This would work with some planning, but requires some mighty effort from the scientific community of the fantasy world. Nowadays we use different types of mortar in the same building. That being due to different demands that certain parts of a building need to adress. E.g. some walls carry far more pressure, while others might be on strain instead of pressure, which leads to different mortar compositions to adress the special demands of a certain wall or room. Also you could potentially craft bricks from concrete if you already figured out cement, and then use the rice mortar as mortar for those concrete bricks. Might have practical reasons (I think making rice mortar is a little easier on the construction site than roman cement, but not too sure about that) or just aesthetics. Someone started that, because he had that idea and now more people are doing it because it looks so fancy.

That'd be amazing. Am currently working on one in Blender.

Hmm I must admit I am curious about what he would think about an inward facing castle I built in Creativerse.

the writers in the show probably didnt spend much time reading the GoT books - much less the "Lessons learned from Bad Castle Design" books and youtube vids from waaaay back in the day... =P

Not Winterfell, but certainly the Red Keep in Kings Landing. They have to do some serious reconstruction and repair work to do anyway. :-)

Nah, the king never ventures out north. Robert did it like only once and the north was still a part of the seven kingdoms back then.

Nah, you see, Bran knew that it would be expensive to rework Winterfell for him to live there, so he rejected the lordship of Winterfell and became King of the Six Kingdoms instead.

😍😍

Yes?

@@rylancromer184 I'm a northman that worships the old gods, they care not for Crenalations

It's an important religious site, and more than that, it's irreplaceable. If the weirwood tree burns or is cut down, no more godswood.

@@samk522 Shhhh. Your missing the sarcasm.

Fortification for the godswood might have been added in the time when invaders began chopping down the weirwood trees.

We all know that leftism destroys all. The last to GOT season show what happiness when JSW get there way.

guntars mierins I thought it was bad writing that destroyed game of thrones

@@sionefinaulahi4640 The left can not write anything that is not in line with there ideology. The best leftist character is a Mary Sue infested with social justace. They can never laugh about themselves. On an unrelated note a song I cant stop lisening to ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ug4re8-ETzw.html

@@gunarsmiezis9321 Isn't George RR Martin a leftist?

@@redblueproductions9739 He is but not close to how much as the makers of GoT are.

The thing is that Shad is even not an expert and he would still do a very good job helping do design the castle.

They say as they snort a few dozen lines of coke in seconds.

As can be expected on a channel named Shade Diversity. ;-)

40k has ordinary medieval melee weapons, plus chainswords, which are awesome but completely impractical.

Paul Serdiuk and power weapons. Practical, and far more feasible than a lightsaber. Also any eldar melee weapon. Also anything not being carried by a space marine. I appreciate your attempt to crush my dreams but please do better.

@@Skarlet_Sun Nah. Power weapons basically turn any armored fight into an unarmored fight. There you go. 40k has some ingenious weapons, but it's such an inconsistent universe that hardly anything makes complete sense anyway, so there's no point in trying to analyze it. I'd suggest you to watch scholagladiatoria. A lot of points Matt makes about 19th century rifle-and-bayonet and sword-and-pistol combat apply straight to 40k. For example, I've never considered that a British colonial officer's sword was used primarily in self-defense against melee attackers (you can't parry with a revolver and heavy armor was pointless against guns) and that otherwise officers were too focused on commanding their men to use a rifle, so the 40k trope of having 9 guys with rifles and a sergeant with a sword and pistol in an infantry squad makes sense.

Paul Serdiuk well respectfully I'd like him to cover 40k whether its viable or not, and same with metal gear rising's high frequency weapons. One thing I don't see many mention though is how much better Horus Heresy era is compared to standard 40k. The stories, weapons, factions, etc are way more interesting to me personally. Things become a bit too stagnant in standard 40k.

Winterfell in the books was impregnable, it had two walls with a moat in between with multiple keeps and according to the official drawing in The World Of Ice And Fire the tower actually had sloped roofs!

@@codieomeallain6635 Yes, I clearly remember multiple walls during expansion of the city- they never demolished previous walls and added new.

Belfast and Croatia?

Old comment, but I'm glad someone else realized that. It's actually nice to give a nod to the series lore with its inclusion. It's subtle but you can see the plate glass windows, and it's a seven sided structure. It's inconsistent with the overall design of the castle because it was added later.

I had the same idea. That's why it stands out. its a southern building on a northern castle.

I think the issue with analyzing the book version would be that there's no real official map or any hard canon for what it looks like. You get a decent idea of the layout (including some interesting components, like greenhouses), but no description of some of the stuff that Shad reviews here. It's obviously a little stronger of a design, but the image in a reader's mind is going to be a little subjective.

Oh god that line made me so mad... "Danny may have forgotten about Euron but he didn't forget about her" Bull shit, Euron decimated and captured TWO of her westerosi allies, there is no Fing way she forgot about him, and she would never have traveled by sea without making exhaustive plans to prevent another ambush.

Probably sit outside and starve it out. Then again, if I recall correctly, he mentioned that the castle's in a politically strategic position in his book, so waiting for the defenders to starve may not be an option.

Agreed, that'd be very cool.

He referenced that at the start

Yes

0:08

@@shadiversity lol Shad

I know I would (and may even end up doing so one day as an aspiring novel writer).

GRRM mentions Winterfell having massive two walls and a moat between them...

@@phoephoe795 I'm referring to the show version, which is shown to have a winter town in ep. 1 of season 8. But I don't recall, even back in season 1, seeing the outer walls. Most of the show castles were toned down from the books, for cost I'd imagine

That has been a problem with most of their large battles in later seasons. Almost wish they continued the way earlier seasons handles it. Showed the before, then cut to after the battle. At least then you could fill in a battle with smart tactics in your mind.

@@Dragondan1987 In earlier seasons, they could've made amazing and logical battles because grrm detailed them quite well in his works, but they didn't have the budget. Now they had the budget, but lacked grrm's writing

Damn, I wish I could see a castle from my bedroom window.