WINTERFELL detailed CASTLE analysis: Game of Thrones
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
- An in-depth look at Castle Wintefell to see if it's design is any good comparing it to real medieval historical castles design and convention.
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Not like it matters when you place your defending army outside the walls...
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.
George R. R. Martin's Winterfell:
• Built on top of hot springs that is pumped through the walls of the keep, as well as for year long production in the greenhouse.
• Two walls with a wide moat between them; the inner wall is crenelated, 100 ft high, with more than 30 turrets, and the later built outer wall is 80 ft high with guard towers.
• The main gate opening to Winter Town has two flanking crenelated bulwarks and a drawbridge.
• The crypts are seemingly endless, possibly spanning an area underground larger than Winterfell itself.
• The castle is built around the Godswood, which spans several acres.
Bran the Builder knew the threat of the White Walkers, and he built Winterfell to withstand the threat, just as he had built the Wall.
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.
SHAD, REDESIGN IT!
I would love to see a "Winterfell Reimagined" video.
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.
A lot of great little details!
...Let's put the army out front.
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!!!!)
Regarding your praise of architectural consistency of the castle: according to the books, Winterfell has been built and expanded and developed over thousands of years, and it is explicitely mentioned how this part of the castle or that tower was built in a different style than another one. They even have towers which are in ruins and unused since years, if not generations. So according to the books, Winterfell should consist of various pieces and sections which should be visibly different from each other - and probably also in different states of maintenance. Obviously, the main defenses should all be in good shape and probably updated with latest technology, but there should be parts which just look different from others.
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
Winterfell in the books: two walls with a moth inbetween. Impregnable.
Winterfell in the show: it's so horrible, let's put all of our forces outside.
"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 love that their solution for snow buildup on the roofs was to remove the roofs.
Like, no. There was another solution
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.
As a Canadian who deals with snow the majority of my year. Shoveling is not only annoying it's also dangerous. It sounds silly but people have heart attacks while shoveling snow because they don't notice how much effort they are actually putting in. Fun fact.
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.
The strange tower that sticks out was the sept, the temple of one of the religions, and Ned had it built when he married his wife.
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.
It would have been more exciting to see the heroes having a strong castle and good battle tactics and still getting beaten rather than losing by incompetence and bad castle design.
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.
Shad, talking about castles? Talking about Winterfell? Again? YESPLS!
I see no farmland nor animal pens anywhere near Winterfell.... What did they eat? The logistics of keeping Winterfell supplied looks nightmarish....
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
Where is Riverrun? I think Riverrun is the most realistic castle in Game of thrones.
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.
Winterfell had a moat in the books.
In book 2 a certain person and his (very small) army had to swim across a moat and climb over the walls to get inside the castle.
The machicolations looked as though they were permanently blocked with stone slabs as well... they ought to consult you on their spin off shows!
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
I'd think the special building next to the keep (the gothic-ish one) is the sept that Ned had built for his wife, Catelyn.
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.
1:22
I agree. That was definitely a "great" battle.
(Sarcasm detected)
For a second there I thought you were the guy WITH the mustache
Are these Machicolations you speak of similar to MACHICOLATIONS?
Your LOTR castles and GOT castles videos were the ones that brought me to this channel, its awesome to see an extension of the GOT one (might be able to do a kings landing one too based on new angles?)! good work Shad :D
I think the strange geometric tower is a Sept which Catelyn had built after she moved to Winterfell. It explains why it’s out of place.
Shad - maybe a cool idea for a vid series would be designing illustrations that fix the problems of castles you analyse then comparing them to the original.
I don't even watch Game of Thrones and I'm hooked... Haha
Also dang it, now I want to make a functional castle in Minecraft. XD
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.
Always remember: this is not GRR Martin's Winterfell. In the books it is bigger and features two layers of walls.
Geezus, after watching the video, I am not surprised at all how poor this castle's defenses are.
No moat, no crenelations on the Eastern wall (assuming the bird's-eye view is from the South), and the internal buildings are, quite frankly, a big clusterf*ck of unnecessary structures.
But they did a good job making it look cool, and for most people watching, that's probably all that matters.
I’ve never been this early to a video. Not only that, my favorite channel looking at a castle from some of my favorite books!
*Castle Designers: So how many towers do you need?*
*D&D: Yes*
They say as they snort a few dozen lines of coke in seconds.
13:36 I suspect that this building that breaks from the rest of Winterfell’s aesthetic is the Sept that Ned Stark had built for his wife. It appears to be seven-sided, and I suppose that if you are trying to build something new in an already crowded castle complex, you can either build up or down.
I wonder if Winterfell will be modified to be wheelchair accessible now?
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.
Oh, hi Winterfell. Heard you survived the long night. That's cute. Have you met my boy Shad?
Nah, don't bother sending your army out. It wont matter anyway. ; )
Not directly related to Winterfell, but I have questions about castles and couldn't find a forum around Shad's videos or anything:
1. How big should a castle be at least for a water well to be dug in the center, and for that water not to be contaminated by outhouses located up against the inside of the outermost wall? I find bodies of water considered more for their defensive potential, but if the better tactic against castles is to blockade and starve the inhabitants, then why not also prioritize staving off the more swiftly fatal thirst with perpetual access to a freshwater supply?
2. Roman concrete and/or Chinese sticky rice or egg mortar. Would these materials work well together, in a fantasy setting where a people had figured both recipes out in their history?
3. More related to Westeros: rookeries for messenger birds. What's the prospective cost of satisfactory upkeep of that, if there were no avian influenza risk?
4. Is silk gambeson better than linen?
Thanks anybody for reading this far.
@ 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.
I guess budget limits in the first season kep them from fully realizing the book version of winterfell, its had two sets of walls that were much taller and had a moat in between. Much more diversity in the layout as well due to it being so old
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
Please do a castle analysis on Hyrule Castle from Zelda Breath of The Wild! That castle has even a killing area between two porcullises and lots of divisions and towers!
That castle is a deathtrap!
I've been waiting for this ever since the first aerial shot of the castle in the season premiere! Awesome video!
Shad, would you review fan submission castles? That would be a cool series!
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.
Can’t understand why Hollywood doesn’t engage an expert like you in pre-production
The thing is that Shad is even not an expert and he would still do a very good job helping do design the castle.
Any chance of a Sketchup vid of how you'd redesign Winterfell?
😍😍
Yes?
from seeing Jazza try abstract art to watching Shad review winterfell castle, I am having a good morning my friends
Medieval movie and game developers need to hire you as a consultant! Castle Authenticity and Defensibility Expert (or C.A.D.E.) is a perfect job title for you! :)
I took a few months off from watching your videos. In the meanwhile I was levelling up my drawing skills so now I'm back and ready for some medieval designs while listening to your analyses and talks!
Never quite understood the need to fortify the gods wood better than some of the castle walls. But i guess it paid off...
@@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.
Great video as always Shad! I was curious if you would consider doing a detailed castle analysis for Hyrule Castle from the Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild. I think you will really like it.
You should do a video analyzing the defensive capabilities of non-European castles, namely Japanese castles, and how they compare to our idea of typical castle architecture. Defensive capabilities, advantages, disadvantages, unique design features, etc. I'd love to see how Japanese castles stack up to European castles.
I never have heard a person sounding so enthusiastic and disappointed at the same time.
Thank you for the review Shad, hope that the coming books are better (with description of how the machicolations are used properly).
Love these detailed look at castles. I learn so much watching these videos.
I saw that flashing “great” there Shad. Shad throwing Shade.
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 czcams.com/video/Ug4re8-ETzw/video.html
@@gunarsmiezis9321 Isn't George RR Martin a leftist?
@@redblueproductions9739 He is but not close to how much as the makers of GoT are.
Just found this channel and I love your content, this series especially is incredibly interesting. A bit of a suggestion I would love to see is if you could look at the castles from the Suikoden game series. A little niche, I know, but the game puts a lot of emphasis on strategy so I'm curious how they hold up to your analysis. Wishful thinking you'd make such a video but just putting the idea out there.
I almost feel embarrassed how much I enjoy the analysis in these castle videos. Thank you Shad!
These castle examinations are your best videos.
A straight approach to the main gate house is a horrible flaw as well. I mean if you have some required switchbacks or even have the approach parallel to the wall. it gives you more room to bleed the enemy.
Winterfell was not as idiotic in books. That's what you get letting people who have no idea on some topic write about it.
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.
Thank you for all your amazing content. I'm slowly going down the list and watching every video :)
I would love to hear your lecture on how soldiers were recruited and why people joined armies. I have had very little exposure to military history in my life, and recruitment is what definitely baffles me the most.
Cheers!
Your channel makes me feel much more immersed in fantasy movies and TV series. Thank you so much
Great video, Shad. For your next castle review video, could you please review Katolis Castle from The Dragon Prince?
I haven't watched the video but I'm already excited.
When I saw full winterfell, I have instantly thought of you reviewing it.
Thank you, Shad! Your analysis is so cool! And very interesting.
No one involved in writing this show is thinking about tactics.
One of the show runners literally said that everyone just forgot about a belligerent navy blocking their ports.
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.
Some epic shade being thrown in this video as well :D
As can be expected on a channel named Shade Diversity. ;-)
Hey Shad, video idea for something that i havnt really seen on youtube. Longsword vs Claymore? Which is which and how to tell, their historical uses, etc. Love your videos, keep up the work!
I love your castle reviews. I hope you catch up on more with the new shots of the show (not sure how much better they are on an analasys standpoint).
I've been to Winterfell.
I was also on the boat that got blown up with wildfire.
Extra, season two.
Belfast and Croatia?
Love the channel! You should totally do a video on the melee weaponry from warhammer 40k and/or metal gear rising, that would be awesome!
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.
I literally immediately thought of you making this video as soon as this scene was shown
Man have I missed this series! I am sooo glad it's back : D
I think the "Sore thumb" you pointed out was the Sept of The Seven
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.
SHAD!!!! you need to do a castle review of Hyrule Castle from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You could also do the Akkala Citadel, from the same game.
Shad- many highly valid observations; I don't see any machiolations, only extended bits- the views from close and below show no apertures or other holes to pour any thing thru or shoot thru. Another though about the jumble in the interior- most castles stood for a long time. witnessing the growth ofthe community they protected, several times seeing new heirs or new Lords altogether; many changes in what protection was, etc. That said, your a spot on re the towers jammed together- they waste manpower and much stone and work for little to no gain. Keep it up!
I love the casual shade thrown at season 8 here
13:36 That standing out unique design part looks to be 7 sided. Maybe the sept Ned built for his wife?
I had the same idea. That's why it stands out. its a southern building on a northern castle.
Haven’t watched the video and already know this is gonna be great
Nice that you continued this series, hopefully you will do more castles in the future. I especially hope Disney castle videos.
I'm now trying to build realistic fortifications in Stronghold thanks to you, Shad :)
What a baby wall. It would barely be able to keep a cat our. If even that. I am no expert on the tropic but, yeah. Too small to be of much use in the defense since any ladder you may find laying around would be tall enough to be useful against it. Not like the giant walls i at times had to deal with in the first Rome Total war and Medieval 1 and 2. Good games. And they did get the idea about fortifications mostly right.
Sweet. This needs a lego mockup.
I was literally just thinking, it's been a while since Shad did an in-depth cattle analysis and he uploaded this.
Shad, great stuff as always. As a note, that weird tower with the odd aesthetic on top of the large cube structure next to the donjon/keep has seven sides. It looks like a bolt-on chapel to the seven gods, just like the religion of the seven is a bolt-on to the culture of the North and the old gods. This might be a subtle bit of visual storytelling though castle design.
Didn't you do this one before??
Something like " If winter ever fell, winterfell is screwed"
He referenced that at the start
Yes
0:08
@@shadiversity lol Shad
Please analyze the book version instead, that one actually has thought put into it and has some interesting features such as a moat between two concentric walls among other things
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.
Awesome! Another Castle Analysis video! Sweet thanks.
Hey shad great video! I have a bit of a challenge for you how would you go about creating a castle in a swamp as a key point defensive position with access to timber and stone but how would you deal with the sinking, as well as what would you make it out of and what defensive structures would you put on such a castle. Just a thought for a video since I'm tasked in a game to create such a castle and make it work.
Film/show industries really should hire you to design their castles lol
I know I would (and may even end up doing so one day as an aspiring novel writer).
Winterfell being a mess makes sense in canon too seeing as it was never intended to be a castle, it just turned out that way due to people flocking to the hot springs underneath the castle. And also where the hell did Wintertown disappear to?
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
I can’t wait to see you at the Medieval Festival!
Make a video on how WINTERFELL should be
This channel is good.
I got a kick out of the chime sound effect for the indicator arrows. "Ding! Ding! Ding!"
On the blocky bits with towers on top. Take a closer look at left of the screen at 14:53, that's the back of the curved raised section and it clearly looks like the curve is a giant ramp for accessing the higher structures. I think all the tall bits in the middle are definately built atop a hillock that has since been shaped to make way for fortifications or the surrounding buildings. Which would make sense if those are the original keep.
Well it's worse than that Shad. I saw no evidence that the parts that look like maculations actually have any hole to fire through.
They appear to just be supports for a wider rampart.
The book Winterfell is a lot cooler in my opinion.
I'd love to see The Red Keep or Harrenhal or Qarth or Yi Ti or Ashai or even The Tower at Oldtown - Winterfell was so epic when your channel built us a model to scale. Keep it up! :)
Hope you'll do one for King's Landing as well since they've added tons of new angles and "retcons" to its design over the seasons as well.
Me: but you already made a game of thrones castles review
Shad:Machicalatiooooons
Me:MACHICALATIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS
season 8 is so inconsistent, they couldn't even keep the castles the same.
love the video, love the shade
Hey Shad, great video! You should to the castles from Shadow of Mordor next!
I hated the battle of winterfell
I play strategy games (from tabletop to pc games) I also love to study historical military strategies... This battle took me out of believability... It destroyed my enjoyment of the whole season (among other things like the writting urggh) 😩
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
What is better that SWORDS!! ?
SWORDS ON MACHICOLATIONS!!
Winterfell struk me as one of those buildings that was added onto piecemeal over time, which both historically was a thing and makes sense seeing this holding is so old that it's featured in myths and legends of the immediate culture.
You have to do a revisit of Dragonstone now. So many aerial views from different angels and now we know about its very thin passage to the entrance. Also, if you like moats, Riverrun.
as an addition to this series, it would so cool if we could see you're own re-imagining of these castles , modeled in 3d software to make them functional AND aesthetic!. either a whole new "Fantasy castle's re-imagined" series, or an additional element to episodes in this one!
Obviously a poor design, as it didn't protect everything outside its walls.