[BOOK/SHOW SPOILERS] The Eyrie?

[Knight Of The North]

The mountain clans are no match for knights, otherwise the road to the Vale would never be used at all since normal convoys in peace time will have far less guards than a military one. You can also strike a bargain with the clans, as Tyrion did, since they hate the Vale. That's a non-issue for any army that could think of conquering the Vale.

And you're wrong about where the Eyrie is situated. It's the road to the Vale that's harsh but the actual Vale is very bountiful. It's described as a huge stretch of rich soil, broad rivers and hundreds of lakes. Once you get there you'll have plenty of food to take and that's why they have the Bloody Gate and that's been all that they have needed (save for whatever may have happened when Aegon came). Your argument only works for the show's version because that had nothing but rocks.

Are you actually trying to tell me that the reason they put the Eyrie a day's ride on a scrawny path up a mountain is that it's necessary to be certain to keep it? Even an hour up the same path would be longer than necessary to have the exact same effect. The location of the Eyrie screams of "hey, look what we could accomplish!" as it has no other function than to impress.

For one thing, the idea that troop quality is the most important factor when it comes to guarding supply routes is simply wrong. See The Peinsular War, the Roman Invasion of Britain, and the Spanish Reconquista for examples. All of these show that ambush, numbers, conditions and planning are overreaching superiority of local knowledge are far, far more important. And if The Vale Lords haven't been able to strike up a deal with the Mountain Clans, why would any other Lord? Tyrion only did so because he was desperate and lacked the natural prejudices of most Westerosi Lords. It is the BIGGEST issue for anyone conquering the Vale; peace convoys are usually dignitaries and periodic trade caravans that stop off along the Road, and are far less obvious targets than a plump military convoy. The supplies neccessary to maintain an Army would either have to garrison along the entire road, depleting their forces, or simply stomach their losses. Besides - who's to say that the Vale Lords wouldn't get over their prejudices first, with their home being invaded, and recruit them first?

And I believe the actual soil of the Eyrie is so poor that it can't maintain a heartwood - The Vale itself may be bountiful, but the area surrounding The Giant's Horn certainly isn't. And besides - the positions needed to actually stop anyone going in and out would be so ludicrously tight and cramped that the Defenders would struggle to adequately pillage the surround countryside simply because they have to keep riding down the mountain to do it.

And by that same logic, why have two walls when one stops people coming in and out? An hour is a completely viable march for even a tired soldier. A day is not. A day's march up a steep mountain prevents you from using siege engines, it prevents you from co-ordinating assaults properly, and it also gives you plenty of chance to harass them on their way up.

Your idea that it is built for Vanity just simply doesn't make sense. For one thing, it is small and hard to get to; though you may argue that it is there to be seen, it's size is clearly not made to impress, with many of it's components spread out and small. Hardly awe-inspiring stuff. But it is, however, very good from a defensive standpoint; the most difficult fortification in the world is a stone tower which you can't hurl rocks at, which is almost exactly what the Eyrie is.

Furthermore, the building styles suggest consistency throughout cultures. The Lannisters build for glamour and vanity, having never suffered much from invaders. The Starks build for defense and utility, due to their wild domain and the threat of the Wall. It would make sense that if the Vale Lords built a Gate that could not be taken, they would build a Fortress that could not be taken.

[Tywin's bastard]

For one thing, the idea that troop quality is the most important factor when it comes to guarding supply routes is simply wrong. See The Peinsular War, the Roman Invasion of Britain, and the Spanish Reconquista for examples. All of these show that ambush, numbers, conditions and planning are overreaching superiority of local knowledge are far, far more important. And if The Vale Lords haven't been able to strike up a deal with the Mountain Clans, why would any other Lord? Tyrion only did so because he was desperate and lacked the natural prejudices of most Westerosi Lords. It is the BIGGEST issue for anyone conquering the Vale; peace convoys are usually dignitaries and periodic trade caravans that stop off along the Road, and are far less obvious targets than a plump military convoy. The supplies neccessary to maintain an Army would either have to garrison along the entire road, depleting their forces, or simply stomach their losses. Besides - who's to say that the Vale Lords wouldn't get over their prejudices first, with their home being invaded, and recruit them first?

And I believe the actual soil of the Eyrie is so poor that it can't maintain a heartwood - The Vale itself may be bountiful, but the area surrounding The Giant's Horn certainly isn't. And besides - the positions needed to actually stop anyone going in and out would be so ludicrously tight and cramped that the Defenders would struggle to adequately pillage the surround countryside simply because they have to keep riding down the mountain to do it.

And by that same logic, why have two walls when one stops people coming in and out? An hour is a completely viable march for even a tired soldier. A day is not. A day's march up a steep mountain prevents you from using siege engines, it prevents you from co-ordinating assaults properly, and it also gives you plenty of chance to harass them on their way up.

Your idea that it is built for Vanity just simply doesn't make sense. For one thing, it is small and hard to get to; though you may argue that it is there to be seen, it's size is clearly not made to impress, with many of it's components spread out and small. Hardly awe-inspiring stuff. But it is, however, very good from a defensive standpoint; the most difficult fortification in the world is a stone tower which you can't hurl rocks at, which is almost exactly what the Eyrie is.

Furthermore, the building styles suggest consistency throughout cultures. The Lannisters build for glamour and vanity, having never suffered much from invaders. The Starks build for defense and utility, due to their wild domain and the threat of the Wall. It would make sense that if the Vale Lords built a Gate that could not be taken, they would build a Fortress that could not be taken.

There's not much to know about the area because the only thing the attackers are interested in is the road, and that's easy to map out quickly. As for why the Vale hasn't stricken a deal with the clans, they haven't even been trying. The lords of the Vale seem to see them as inferior people and since their knights seemingly beat the poorly equipped clan people quite soundly they have no reason to bargain with them. Why give something to someone when that someone isn't a real threat? And what has ever given you the impression that people in Westeros are soon to forget old sins? Especially when the people of the Vale don't think any army can even get past the Bloody Gate?

A conquering army would probably not have that much trouble with them either but they could always use more men so they might certainly strike a bargain with the clans if they saw it fit. That, or someone like Tywin might just set out the Mountain with a strong force to scare them off once and for all while they were besieging the Bloody Gate. Then again I'm not so sure the mountain clans would even try to attack a conquering force. They want to see the Vale fall because they specifically hate the people of the Vale, plus that we already know that the clans just vanish when knights are set out to hunt them, they don't even try to fight a mighty force (which is understandable because poorly equipped warriors will just die against knights, there's no question about that). They might just bide their time.

You'll have to specify where it says that any place in the Vale lacks for fertile soil (I don't care about transported soil up to the Eyrie, that's irrelevant to this point). When Catelyn rides through it we are only told how wonderful the land is. And even if the area around the Giant's Lance had been less fertile, that's no problem since you don't need to steal provisions from exactly where the host sits. I don't get at all what you're talking about the besiegers riding down the mountain. The entire point of the Eyrie's position is that you don't have to ride up the mountain, you just take the one and only road leading up to the Eyrie and keep that. And there definitely won't be any problems pillaging the Vale because if you are besieging the road to the Eyrie, you've of course already defeated the army of the Vale. The Eyrie holds very few soliders so that's irrelevant to the initial conquest. The only reason you want to make the Eyrie surrender is to get the lord and get a definitive end.

The reason the Eyrie is impregnable is not at all that soldiers are tired when they get up there. We are directly told why it's impregnable and that's because you are subjected to attack in places where you can't attack yourself, plus that there's no room to fight. You can't take any castle if you can't get lots of to attack it at the same time. Why do you think the Bloody Gate has never been taken? Nothing says that people get tired by getting there (the soldiers could sit and rest 400 meters away until they are perfectly rested if they so wished), the one and only reason is that the road leading to the gate is too narrow to make a real attack. If the road is narrow, it doesn't matter how big the conquering army is. If your argument about the Eyrie was true, the Bloody Gate wouldn't be nearly as strong in people's mouths. Please explain why the Bloody Gate hasn't been run down if it takes a days mountain march to make things impregnable? The defensive idea behind the Eyrie and behind the Bloody Gate is exactly the same, and the book does plenty to show us that with how people talk about them. We also are told that to besiege a castle you need to surround it, which is extremely evident in how Jaime had to separate his men in order to try to take Riverrun.

And another reason why it's ridiculous that the placement of the Eyrie is necessary to make it impregnable through tiring out the conquering force is that Storm's End (even without the might of the Stormlands) couldn't be taken by the mightiest single army in Westeros after almost a year's siege, and that's very accessible on a plain and the lords could sit calmly and feast within sight of the walls. The most comfortable siege ever, but they still had to resort to trying to starve them out for many months because strong walls is apparently all you need. If you need the position of the Eyrie, how come Storm's End didn't fall?

As for the vanity part, I don't get how you can think that the vanity part had to do with how big the castle was. No one is like to fit their castle with more luxury than Casterly Rock anyway because no one has the money to match the Lannisters, and nothing will be bigger than Harrenhal and since Winterfell was the largest before that it should tell us that size weren't seen as that prestigious as the other high lords have more resources. The Eyrie is awe-inspiring because it's built on a place where it's pretty much impossible to build a castle, thus a building feat of marvel. It's a castle that's basically at the top of the world, with a view that leaves everything else far behind.

For the last part, I don't think Winterfell is very well made for defense. They have a forrest much too close to the walls, plus that it's so big despite that there's less people, that you can't man the walls everywhere as strong as you could one of the fortresses of the south unless you've managed to get a lot of reinforcements from the banners inside the walls. The Lannisters didn't build Casterly Rock either.

[Knight Of The North]

Just because it's easy to map out doesn't mean you can't set an ambush up on it. Infact, that makes it easier. A single road is only a single jugular, and that means it would be constantly harassed from all sides. To maintain that amount of supplies, you would have to have a constant flow of resources, and everytime you sent out men to 'scare the Clans off', another clan would attack further up the road. And I answered the questions you posed, but you did not answer mine; if their homeland was being invaded, that is, gotten past The Bloody Gate, why wouldn't the Vale Lords recruit the clans who they knew could harass the Road? It doesn't make sense to say a foreign Lord would instantly think to recruit them while the men who've known their capabilities since first settling there wouldn't. And if you even glance at the descriptions of the Clansmen, it's obvious that they wouldn't 'bide their time' - they would attack anything that was bountiful.

It's a days mule-ride to the Eyrie. You can either have an entire army stretched along a craggy, unsure cliff path that requires mules to properly navigate, or have them concentrated at any point, of which they would have to ride down the mountain to get supplies. And the idea of having to make your men, most of them unfit peasantry, rest a dozen or so times a day to get up to the Eyrie is ludicrous. What if they're defeated? Then you have to do it again. And yes, that's the reason it is impossible to assault it; but as I recall, you did not ask about that. You asked how the distance was a defensive feature; I answered. A day's march is completely different in both logistical terms, the actual movement of men, and tactical terms, their exhaustion upon arrival. Stone to Snow is forest; perfect terrain for harassment, and the easiest part of the journey. Woe, another Castle, the one that has been chucking arrows at you since you started trekking towards it. Snow to Sky is steeper, and apparently a good place to rest (?). Your idea of simply resting along the way completely forgets that it's not a pleasant road, it's not easy to stop and rest in comfort, and it's narrow, so it's quite easy for a few archers to constantly be popping off arrows at you. In short, all the benefits of having the high ground constantly ala, -fighting up a mountain. The fact that they were well-built fortifications shows exactly the kind of builders the Vale Lords were; they saw a mountain, noted that if anyone breached The Bloody Gate, it would require something even greater to stop them, and a mountain like the Giant's Lance fits the bill perfectly. Tell me, do you ever hear about Mountain Fortresses being regarded as being easy to take, regardless of their fortifications? The Eagle's Nest, Gawilghur, Innsbruck Castle? No. A mountain as small as Gawilghur provides massive advantages to a defending force.

And I'm not saying a mountain is the key component in making a Fortress invulnerable; I've never stateed that. I'm saying that it is a massive tactical and strategic advantage, that would justify building it in such difficult conditions. The idea of it being constructed for vanity does not. And the Army of the Reach was led by Mace Tyrell, and I do not believe your assessment of 'mightiest single army' is correct; see the Battle of the Trident. No offence to any lovers of the Tyrell family, but any Army led by Mace is unlikely to assault Storm's End. Either way, there was no way a castle like Storm's End could be built in the Eyrie - it was supposedly aided by Bran the Builder (!). It's a seaside fortress; it's hard to take for similar but not identical reasons to a Mountain. It can be supplied from the sea, unless blockaded, and restricts movement. A mountain restricts movement and imposes harsh conditions upon it's attackers. Saying 'Storm's End is impenetrable and it hasn't got a mountain' just doesn't work. The Eyrie hasn't got forty-foot-thick walls.

And you're saying that small castles with very little decoration are symbols of vanity simply because they cannot be any flashier or bigger than the other castles? Infact, that supports my argument. If they couldn't outshine Harrenhall or Casterly Rock, why try? Why not make it the most impenetrable fortress?

And Winterfell is described first and foremost as a Castle. It's encircled by two massive granite walls, with a moat inbetween, and it's built smack-dap in the middle of the North, a region generally considered damned unruly. It may not be impenetrable, but it has defence in mind, certainly.

[Zezibesh]

From how I see it, the Eyrie was mainly meant to keep the ruling family of the Vale alive if anyone ever got through the Bloody Gate, and I'm sure the Eyrie could house a small amount of people for a VERY long time with sufficient supplies, although not in winter.

[Tywin's bastard]

Just because it's easy to map out doesn't mean you can't set an ambush up on it. Infact, that makes it easier. A single road is only a single jugular, and that means it would be constantly harassed from all sides. To maintain that amount of supplies, you would have to have a constant flow of resources, and everytime you sent out men to 'scare the Clans off', another clan would attack further up the road. And I answered the questions you posed, but you did not answer mine; if their homeland was being invaded, that is, gotten past The Bloody Gate, why wouldn't the Vale Lords recruit the clans who they knew could harass the Road? It doesn't make sense to say a foreign Lord would instantly think to recruit them while the men who've known their capabilities since first settling there wouldn't. And if you even glance at the descriptions of the Clansmen, it's obvious that they wouldn't 'bide their time' - they would attack anything that was bountiful.

It's a days mule-ride to the Eyrie. You can either have an entire army stretched along a craggy, unsure cliff path that requires mules to properly navigate, or have them concentrated at any point, of which they would have to ride down the mountain to get supplies. And the idea of having to make your men, most of them unfit peasantry, rest a dozen or so times a day to get up to the Eyrie is ludicrous. What if they're defeated? Then you have to do it again. And yes, that's the reason it is impossible to assault it; but as I recall, you did not ask about that. You asked how the distance was a defensive feature; I answered. A day's march is completely different in both logistical terms, the actual movement of men, and tactical terms, their exhaustion upon arrival. Stone to Snow is forest; perfect terrain for harassment, and the easiest part of the journey. Woe, another Castle, the one that has been chucking arrows at you since you started trekking towards it. Snow to Sky is steeper, and apparently a good place to rest (?). Your idea of simply resting along the way completely forgets that it's not a pleasant road, it's not easy to stop and rest in comfort, and it's narrow, so it's quite easy for a few archers to constantly be popping off arrows at you. In short, all the benefits of having the high ground constantly ala, -fighting up a mountain. The fact that they were well-built fortifications shows exactly the kind of builders the Vale Lords were; they saw a mountain, noted that if anyone breached The Bloody Gate, it would require something even greater to stop them, and a mountain like the Giant's Lance fits the bill perfectly. Tell me, do you ever hear about Mountain Fortresses being regarded as being easy to take, regardless of their fortifications? The Eagle's Nest, Gawilghur, Innsbruck Castle? No. A mountain as small as Gawilghur provides massive advantages to a defending force.

And I'm not saying a mountain is the key component in making a Fortress invulnerable; I've never stateed that. I'm saying that it is a massive tactical and strategic advantage, that would justify building it in such difficult conditions. The idea of it being constructed for vanity does not. And the Army of the Reach was led by Mace Tyrell, and I do not believe your assessment of 'mightiest single army' is correct; see the Battle of the Trident. No offence to any lovers of the Tyrell family, but any Army led by Mace is unlikely to assault Storm's End. Either way, there was no way a castle like Storm's End could be built in the Eyrie - it was supposedly aided by Bran the Builder (!). It's a seaside fortress; it's hard to take for similar but not identical reasons to a Mountain. It can be supplied from the sea, unless blockaded, and restricts movement. A mountain restricts movement and imposes harsh conditions upon it's attackers. Saying 'Storm's End is impenetrable and it hasn't got a mountain' just doesn't work. The Eyrie hasn't got forty-foot-thick walls.

And you're saying that small castles with very little decoration are symbols of vanity simply because they cannot be any flashier or bigger than the other castles? Infact, that supports my argument. If they couldn't outshine Harrenhall or Casterly Rock, why try? Why not make it the most impenetrable fortress?

And Winterfell is described first and foremost as a Castle. It's encircled by two massive granite walls, with a moat inbetween, and it's built smack-dap in the middle of the North, a region generally considered damned unruly. It may not be impenetrable, but it has defence in mind, certainly.

I see no reason why the clans would be stupid enough to attack big forces that are well trained and well equipped. Remember that they've never even seen a proper army, which is why their jaws drop when they see Tywin's host, even though it's only part the whole Lannister host. There's a reason why the knights of the Vale say that they melt away when they ride out to deal with them. It's because when the clans face the organized knights they die like flies because they don't have proper weapons and no armor. Think then what would happen if an entire army marched on the Vale. The clans obviously mainly stick to attacking easier targets, like Cat's following. They'd probably try to attack the smaller military convoys but nothing in the books indicates that they would have any success (since the convoys probably wouldn't be very small through hostile territory). The whole point of that Tyrion manages to strike a deal with them is because they have no chance to contend with Vale soldiers without real equipment.

If a conquering army has breached the Bloody Gate (that's the real problem of the Vale, not the Eyrie), it's too late for the Vale to think about the mountain men. The superior army (which it will be if it breaks the gate) holds the road to the clans, plus that the clans are either already driven off by superior force or have joined the conquering army. And even if they could reach them, they certainly can't arm them which would be necessary for the clans to be effective. But still we always come back to that the mountain clans absolutely hate the Vale and would never bow to them in any way.

You've not read what I've written. I've said multiple times that you don't bother with the road up to the Eyrie. You take the base of the mountain so they are cut off, and then you demand surrender or burn everything in the Vale (after you've taken what you need). It's their choice and it'll be exactly like the siege of Storm's End (apart from that it's basically impossible to smuggle anything to the Eyrie so they would have fallen where Stannis didn't). If you've taken the base camp you'll have already beaten the strength of the Vale (as they will have already stood in the way), apart from those that run back behind their walls to cower and the Eyrie itself holds no relevant number of soldiers. So basically the Vale has probably all but fallen when it's time to deal with the Eyrie. The same goes if the Eyrie was an hour up the mountain on a scrawny path. You'd still not attack the keep because there's not enough room to do anything relevant, and you'll still be just as vulnerable. That's basic siege strategy because you need siege engines to even think about conquering a well built castle. Only a completely retarded commander would send soldiers up that path, regardless if it's one hour long or ten.

They didn't compete with Harrenhal, that's the newest big keep in Westeros, save for the ones the Targaryens built. And I didn't mean that Winterfell is worthless from a defensive view, it just has a couple of flaws (of which one isn't much if they've gotten some of the banners inside). But as said, he big reason why the Eyrie is impregnable isn't because the road up there is long, it's because the attackers have no room to mount an even half-hearted attack as you can only get 2-3 people running up to it at a time, at the same time as they are very exposed to attacks themselves (boulders and arrows). The extreme location makes the keep unique and a beautiful experience to visit it. To me the Eyrie just screams that GRRM made it because it was cool (cool is vanity), not because he wanted one keep to be more impossible to take than other keeps that obviously couldn't be conquered either (either a keep can be conquered or it can't, there's no scale). This is of course disregarding dragons since the Vale has been conquered and the king in the Eyrie gave up when Aegon came. So obviously the Eyrie isn't actually completely impregnable.

[StrongBelwas]

Did anybody else notice that the Moon Door was in the floor?

[StrongBelwas]

Did anybody else notice that the Moon Door was in the floor?

[Drowned Princess]

Did anybody else notice that the Moon Door was in the floor?

Thank Christ you said that, I was starting to think I'd imagined it since no one else had mentioned it. At first when it wheeled open I was disappointed. It lacked the windyness and the sucking that I expected of the Moon Door. But I think by the end I was won over by the idea (maybe simply because it's round, who knows). Although Vardis being tossed out by the (anyone else think he's too old?) Bronn was, although inevitable, a bit over the top, and looked rather contrived.

In fact all the Eyrie bits remind me of Gormenghast when it was on UK telly with Jonathan Rhys Myers...

Still laughed when Tyrion said 'tits' though.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

I have a feeling that most people who didn't comment last night are the ones who'd been talking about it since it was first shown. (One of the 'Making of' videos, I think?)

I know I posted something about it in this thread*, though, because I remember using it as my justification for not complaining too much at the 'Eyrie on pillars' from the long establishing shot (as Cat & co are riding on after the hill tribe attack).

*No guarantees the post is still there, but I think it should be.

[uncle fester]

I always understood the Eyrie to be basically built into the mountain itself.

Yeah, the HBO vision is a bit high fantasy but you know what, I'm not going to let it bother me too much.

P.S. The Red Keep is much too big. It's like a medieval-era skyscraper.

[Lord Mord]

I didn't like it. And to tell the truth, I want the Eyrie to be fantasy. Most of Westeros is common folk and simple holdfasts, but the halls of all the great lords should absolutely dazzle. Winterfell is just massive and odd-shaped and rambling in a pleasant country-squire kind of way except on a great scale. Harrenhal is like most any other castle except that it's built like a mountain, would swallow Winterfell whole, and its towers are slagged. Dragonstone looks as though it is made of dragons. And the Eyrie is a mountaintop fairy tale. I don't much care for Neuschwanstein, either -- I mean, it's fine, but the layout is a bit simplistic for my taste. OTOH, the spirit of that place, being whisked away to an impossible dream, is exactly what the Eyrie is about.

The Ted Nasmith portrait has some details I'd rather were different, but it captures perfectly what the Eyrie is supposed to be about. I really wish the series had opted for something more like that.

ETA. The Eyrie is clearly a vanity project. Even the Arryns don't live up there year-round. It's a status symbol, and a tool for intimidation -- what, ho? Attack us, hey? Remember, now, we have that impregnable fortress of legend up that there mountain! I can always just hide out up there, hey? Everyone with any strategic sense knows it'd be a stupid move to wait it out up there, but it still adds to their mystique, a critical fact in the midst of these politics.

[tarantella]

I thought they skimped on the whole Vale part of the book. Understandable since there's so much to cover in ten episodes, so I can't blame them, but without going through the three small castles leading up to the Eyrie you don't get a sense of just how hard it would be to conquer. Plus I wanted to see Mya Stone.

Well, it's okay. We'll get a lot more of the Vale in season three or four, assuming the TV series gets that far. Here's hoping.