Is Casterly Rock from Game of Thrones realistic?

this episode of shadow versity is brought to you by the castle shirt because castles are awesome and you want to let your friends know that not only are they awesome but you know that they are awesome as evidenced by his awesome shirt with an awesome castle on it available through teespring link in the description greetings i'm chad and with a new season of Game of Thrones released we have finally been shown one of the most prominent castles of Westeros that's being Casterly Rock but does the castle depicted in the TV series live up to its high reputation as Tyrion Lannister himself said against the cuff the rock or impregnable well Tyrion we shall put that to the test and yes I'm aware Tyrion said just a little bit later that he would still be able to impregnate it and bind a spoiler to this castle view as well but it's very minor because heads up Casterly Rock is taken or impregnated as they'd like to say but that was through some duplicitous means rather than a full-blown assault which we will get to because outside of those means Castelli rock is still represented as being an impregnable castle and here we have the first scene of the castle and unfortunately seems to be the only fully zoomed out shots but still this is enough to make some important observations the first one that stands out to me is the style of castle what we are looking at here is what is called a concentric castle sorry just like in my previous video where I looked at Game of Thrones castles I've got to give major props to ever design this because this is very historically authentic in fact the concentric castle has been regarded as one of the more fortified and impressive designs of castles throughout history what is a concentric castle of just like what the word concentric means a castle within a castle and so whatever comprises the main body of a castle whether it's a keep or a series of other structures we'll have a wall surrounding those structures and then another wall surrounding that first wall and this outer wall will be on a lower plane than the one inside some beautiful historical examples of medieval concentric castles an attractor chevalier in Syria Dover Castle intense and about Maris castle of Wales and so the concentric style of Castle is just brilliant and deadly major point to the design of Casterly Rock for what very clearly appears to be a concentric castle now the next part is quite interesting is because the innermost buildings that we see behind the walls don't seem too fortified from this angle I know from other angles we see some additional battlements but from this big zoomed out shot it is only some of these uppermost you know towels and we see kind of a great tower in the center there which clearly looks to be an essential key there looks to be some fortifications there but not on the other buildings but as I've pointed out in some of my other castle reviews this is also quite historical because when you have such heavy fortifications on the outside it creates less of a necessity to heavily fortify the buildings inside best example that I have already pointed out in one of my other videos is forest of its castle and when you look at the central most buildings inside all these huge defences surrounding it there is not much to identify those buildings themselves as castles they're not actually heavily fortified the walls don't even look to be that thick but that's because it's not necessarily needed the next thing to point out about Casterly Rock is this beautiful position and location sitting on the edge of a cliff here add such natural defenses that the wall around the back end isn't necessarily needed but as I've said before you can never really have too many defenses on the castle because it just increases ability to fill the very purpose of its function it will be absolutely impossible to assault the castle from this angle trebuchet is already nothing could reach it from this side it's just cliff face and ocean this forces the enemy to assault the castle from the predictable direction which means you can actually multiply the defenses on that front and looking out to the ocean from the castle with all these ships there it's not me to see what these ships are really going to do yes they can fire arrows up at the castle but arrows don't really have a profound effect on stone so the only threat that these ships could really pose is that they can bring them and drop them off in a more accessible part of the coastline and where and then these soldiers can group up and try and assault the only way that they can really assault it now I'm perfectly aware that it is technically a boat that helps spell the down flow of Casterly Rock and that's a separate issue in regards to full-blown assaults and from this angle the ocean you can't really do a full-blown assault against the castle and is sitting on a cliff face over an ocean I'll also note that the external walls of the castles are perfectly situated to have a proper MOT in front of them it is just a flat field okay we're going to feel there is nothing preventing them from digging a nice big moat around the castle it would have meant that these soldiers assaulting the walls wouldn't have even be now to get there they would have had to have dealt with a massive ditch moat before they could even think about putting up ladders against the wall so I've cast on a rock it's supposed to be so great where's the bloody moat okay so now we have a good close-up shot of the battlements and what we see here they are just about big enough to be functional and fortified now ideally they should be had a sight but because castle walls put you up on a much higher elevation than people attacking you in wood coming projectiles unless they actually arcing and then coming on a downwards angle will not as easily be out a hit people on the walls because of the angle if they're shooting upwards the defenders at the top of wall would be standing these were would be able to give them full cover unless those you know arrow shots I list in an arc and then if they hit the you know the wall on a more horizontal or even downwards trajectory well then these battlements are not sufficient and they are not tall enough come on Castle Eric I thought you were supposed to be one of the grades our castles in Westeros this next part made me slap my head in bewilderment and is that the archers extending up on stools or something to position themselves above the battlements I mean do they have any idea what the battlements are therefore they're made to give you cover and you know you're putting yourself up on a stool to throw away they cover the whole purpose for battlements Taos sure but can you be the whole point of the gap in between the Marlins the Kreml is to give you the ability to fire through these bottom of these covers down at the enemies they are there so you don't have to walk or step higher to get shoot over these melons they're there so you can shoot in between them absolutely ridiculous these archers deserve to be shot but remarkably they are something Falls they don't use arrows in their assaults I look I get it archers will never take a castle just by shooting arrows at it you need to want a serious assault of some kind but using a measure some measure of Arts is going to be very helpful to soften those defenders up before you launch that you just alt and if you're lucky the archers atop the walls will actually be ducking behind cover and therefore not being able to shoot down at the air attackers as regularly because they're getting shot at as well and combined with the fact that they're not even employing the natural defenses that castles are actually built to offer would mean that these archers in the top the walls would actually get demolished by defaulting force using options next big sell that we see here is that the poor bullying around this tower just behind us are clearly aesthetic and that they are not providing functional machicolations at all they are just there for aesthetics which is a fail for a castle that is supposed to be one of the better representations on the castles of this land Casterly Rock should have Malaysia where they could have been on the towels because there's already provision for their thinks the poor bling there I'm not and then on the walls they're just not there at all not even ascetic nothing just a sheer wall straight up to the battlements sail you see the people loading up rocks right there and this breaks my heart again because yes walks were absolutely used in defending castles but having proper mesh situations would help you so much more and I mean these are you know a defenders atop the wall because there are no mystical Asians they actually force to lean out not only in between the mills but overtop of the mills trying to shoot down that these guys assaulting the walls which makes them incredibly vulnerable to arrow fire from an attacking horse but because there's no arches that I can see in this attacking force massive missed opportunity and let me just point out another interesting thing about my circulations it doesn't just mean attacking people directly adjacent to the wall because you also have a certain level field of fire that you can shoot through the my circulation so you can you can let just shoot people directly down at the wall but people off from the wall by you know five to ten meters if you just angle yourself correctly and so even though these are Salters when they are set up there are ladders against the wall they would not be directly adjacent to a ton with machicolations they would technically be in front of the manipulation by virtue of the angle from where the defenders are standing they would still be able to fire right at these people trying to set up the ladders but they're not they're huge missed opportunity and because of that they are forced to make themselves massively vulnerable they're very problem that existed in castle defenses before proper machicolations were added or they added a hoarding to fix that problem as well which is a temporary wooden structure that did the same function as new circulations and so I've already mentioned that the assault is a bit flawed with the fact that they are only with running up the walls that I see no Oh fire trying to shoot the defenders but I really do like the fact that they had this massive ladder rush because this was one way in which castles were assaulted of course a full-blown siege tower is a bit better the other problem that exists with this is using a spear or trying to get up this ladder to assaults the ramparts is very difficult spears are bigger cumbersome weapons okay it would be very hard to hold the spear and the shield while getting up this ladder in fact this is where a sword would become a far better battlefield weapon in this situation a sword or perhaps even an axe or something like that if you know you're fighting against people with some significant armor because what are they going to do when they reach the top of the ladder they're going to be fighting alright the guys on the walls are going to be like oh oh you made it up so the pub ladder here step onto the rampart be my guest sorry they're going to be fighting so you need a one-handed webinar you can use to some level of effect while actually standing at the top of the ladder in front of the Battlement but spears no Spears are grateful unit formations not assaulting castle walls so these have been my thoughts on the assault that we are at least shown in this episode of Game of Thrones but it is not how the castle actually forms and this is interesting this very next part because indeed the very way in which they engineer the defeat of Casterly Rock renders this entire assault useless because I can only assume the assault on the walls failed because they don't breach the castle via getting on top of the ramparts they breach the castle by sneaking in a back door and opening the front doors so why not earth did they launch the assault in the first place I know because it's epic and they want to battle it as a TV show but honestly okay they had any brains they would have waited wait until nighttime then these guys are the snuck in while most people are asleep kill the few people who are on guard duty around get to the front doors open them up and then let the army just run on in through the front doors at night they would have saved so many lives that is their soldiers lives we were just thrown together all these castles there are an assault that ultimately failed because they don't actually show them winning the ramparts of the castle now aside from the whole useless assault on these walls sneaking into a castle via a back entrance is actually a very authentic move it has been done very many times out history's one of the best examples I can give of this was the fall of corfe castle it's an amazing story where very few defenders actually held out against a much larger assaulting force but then corfe castle actually received reinforcements via the sally gate which is basically a back door most castles had them and they weren't necessarily as secret as they are made out to be in Game of Thrones but of course it was much it is very helpful in the sense of Game of Thrones that it is secret because that would also mean it was undefended selling ports or post ins as they are called are actually very easy to send because they are a single bore really small doors on the sides of walls of castles and stuff like that and they also source a little salt with a large force because they have to bottleneck and then the defenders can just destroy anyone and so what happened with poor castles when they receive these reinforcements there are actually some parliamentarians amongst them in disguise opening the doors of the postern to the enemy and then a large number of enemies snuck in and attacks from the inside as well as the outside this of course led to the fall of the castle and I wonder if that could have been what happened in Game of Thrones where they snuck into the inside while they were assaulting walls on the outside and cloudy did the same move so the castle was assaulted from within and without accepting Game of Thrones as more of a covert operation from the looks of it we're only a few men snuck into from the inside and opened up the main gates still a historical move it's been done before and I love that you know there was a backdoor entrance to Casterly Rock but I will just say there was probably another bag boy entrance that was known to people because most castles had them and there you go these all my force that I have had as of yet all the custom a rock and my conclusions well they got a lot of things wrong sadly but still huge points for making the overall layout so historically authentic a proper concentric castle now it just needs proper sized Merlin's proper machicolations a good moats around the outside and for those who don't know remote doesn't need to be filled in with water it could have just been really big ditch that constitutes a motor as well being really helpful on the sides of the walls are actually faced the areas where the enemy will have to approach from so no in my opinion unfortunately it breaks my heart a Casterly Rock does not live up to its reputation as one of the greater castles of Westeros and impregnable thank you very much for watching I hope to see you again and until that time there were [Music] you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 607,131

Rating: 4.6457024 out of 5

Keywords: historical analysis, game of thrones, george r r martin, historical, lannister, tyrion, castle, castles, fortress, seige, beseige, assault, a song of ice and fire, medieval, middle ages, skyrim, lord of the rings, dnd, dungeons, dragon, dragons, rpg, video, game, roleplaying, role-playing, fortification, fortifications, shad, shadiversity, review, analysis, history, sword, swords, katana, casterly, rock, casterly rock, winterfell, king's landing, concentric

Id: luaRVN_tsKI

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/cybelechild]

One thing that bothers me about these analyses by Shad is that he often mistakes realistic with optimal. Real life castles are made by real life people, and under real-life constraints, and as such often suffer from disadvantages, compromises and so on. I would not be surprised if many real castles don't pass his "realism" standards.

[u/Enoo_58]

I think Highgarden is even worse...

[u/oveloel]

Quick answer before even watching: no.

[u/Troyter]

What bothers me is that we have seen what Highgarden and Casterly Rock look like in A World of Ice and Fire. And Casterly Rock depicted in the show looks almost exactly like Highgarden in a World of Ice and Fire.

Casterly Rock TV: http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/597f592b85754f14273db0e0-1200/casterly%20rock%20castle%20book%20versus%20show%20game%20of%20thrones.jpg

Highgarden A World of Ice and Fire: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/c/c7/Ted_Nasmith_A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_Highgarden.jpg

[u/Sir_P1zza]

Ohh Shad, there are only so many people being so passionate about these subjects, and I love it.

But a tl;dw for the video is basically that the bases of the castle (the position and layout of the walls) are really good but that there are many mistakes in the details. Sounds right IMO.

[u/DevaBol]

Not even close

[u/Haramune]

I think the outside was pretty close if not exact, the inside was a little underwhelming but I doubt we'll get too many (if any) more scenes there