[BOOK/SHOW SPOILERS] The Eyrie?

[Anomandaris86]

But since they were going to spend the money on a CGI Eyrie anyway, why not just make it a bit more faithful?

My thought too. There doesn't seem to be any reason for making it the way they did.

[Xenophon]

I always imagined it a being on top a single pillar of rock. is that not how it is described in the book? *shrugs*

I think it's described as on a mountain, not specified if its actually on the top or just a ridge, IIRC. But it's certainly not sitting on top of a bunch of different pillars of rock like in the show.

But I guess the castle being on "legs" is necessary for the moon door to be a trapdoor in the center of the great hall.

[Tywin's bastard]

Yeah, on a rewatch, it doesn't look as bad. I originally thought the castle was on multiple pillars (like it had legs), but now I see it's a single block. EDIT: No, it definitely has legs. That's ridiculous, IMO. Also that bridge leading to it is pure fantasy. Look at it again, Tywin's bastard, that is a pure fantasy castle.

The Greek comparison is good--the way it looks in the opening credits--a central dome surrounded by slender towers--reminds me a bit of the Hagia Sophia. Where are the towers in the show though? It looked more like a single building.

The throne room is awesome. It really is reminiscent of an eagle's nest.

The stone pillar is eroded so it's a bit hollowed out but my point firmly remains, the book Eyrie is certainly more fantastical. I never said the show version wasn't fantastical, we are actually watching a fantasy show, I pointed out that pretty similar things have been built in our medieval times while the book Eyrie could not unless you wore out more slaves than the pyramids required (and possibly not even then because there's hardly any room to ship up the huge stones that day's march up the mountain).

GRRM definitely tried to make something really fantastical with the Eyrie so the fantasy argument against the show version just doesn't hold water. If someone doesn't like it, that's how it is, but to say that it's too much fantasy is completely backwards (and even more insignificant as the show will actually have dragons).

[Xenophon]

The stone pillar is eroded so it's a bit hollowed out but my point firmly remains, the book Eyrie is certainly more fantastical. I never said the show version wasn't fantastical, we are actually watching a fantasy show, I pointed out that pretty similar things have been built in our medieval times while the book Eyrie could not unless you wore out more slaves than the pyramids required (and possibly not even then because there's hardly any room to ship up the huge stones that day's march up the mountain).

GRRM definitely tried to make something really fantastical with the Eyrie so the fantasy argument against the show version just doesn't hold water. If someone doesn't like it, that's how it is, but to say that it's too much fantasy is completely backwards (and even more insignificant as the show will actually have dragons).

I don't really see why you think the book version is more fantastic than the show version of the Eyrie (as far as I can tell, the only really unrealistic thing about the book-Eyrie is how high it is on the shoulder of the mountain).

But I agree, it's hard to speak about what is or isn't realistic in a show with a giant magical wall of ice. I guess I just found a castle on what looks like a bunch of legs to be more unbelievable than the other sets, for example, the impossibly tall towers of the Red Keep. It's purely a subjective thing, but for some reason a castle on top of a bunch of giant rock columns breaks my suspension of disbelief more than the other "fantastic" sets.

[King_Baratheon]

Like many, the Eyrie is my favorite castle in the novels. Yes, it looked completely different in my head than on HBO. Ted Nadsmith's looks amazing, very high fantasy, yet still not what I imagined. First of all, the Eyrie is supposed to be a somewhat small castle, especially by the time you get up to "sky". I always envisioned it to be tall and slender jutting out of the mountain side. Neither the show or Mr. Nadsmith captured this. On HBO it seemed far to large, too round, and not high enough. It looked awesome, it looked impregnable, yet it didn't look like it was described in the book. I thought with CGI they would at least be able to fashion it in the novel's mold. Yet it looks like they had their own vision of it, it was still pretty cool lookin.

[Jonias Snow]

There are copyright issues, so HBO would have to stay away from anything resembling Nasmith's version.

I really like the show version, being in Architecture. Their Eyrie had a Byzantium (which I love) feel to it, and they placed it on a pillarlike rock formation as big as a mountain, like many of the monasteries you see in SE. Europe. The natural causeway running to the mountain was an interesting choice, one I like too. The designers obviously borrowed from multiple time periods to create something new, that cannot be pinpointed to any time period here, which I believe was their intent, if you watched the production clips.

I actually like their design better than Nasmith (to European), maybe cause I have a soft spot for Byzantine architecture.

If you freeze the video you can see small waycastles or gates along the causeway.

[Tywin's bastard]

I don't really see why you think the book version is more fantastic than the show version of the Eyrie (as far as I can tell, the only really unrealistic thing about the book-Eyrie is how high it is on the shoulder of the mountain).

But I agree, it's hard to speak about what is or isn't realistic in a show with a giant magical wall of ice. I guess I just found a castle on what looks like a bunch of legs to be more unbelievable than the other sets, for example, the impossibly tall towers of the Red Keep. It's purely a subjective thing, but for some reason a castle on top of a bunch of giant rock columns breaks my suspension of disbelief more than the other "fantastic" sets.

It's just one rock column that has been eroded to become hollow but that's really only the very unusual thing, that the rock composition seem to be mixed so some parts can erode quicker than others. Other than that it's a castle built in a similar place to where the medieval people of our world actually built things. So the fantastical thing is an abnormal rock formation.

With the book, you have to travel up the mountain for a day on a road so tiny that two people can't even ride beside each other and it's straining to do it unburdened. All that way they had to transport the immense stones required to build a castle, which is sounds to be impossible. It's also very fantasy to put it an entire day's ride up a mountain, instead of an hour, which frankly would have been a terribly long ride anyway and been way more than necessary to have an impregnable castle. Especially since no one has even breached the Bloody Gate. There's a lot of fantastical things here.

I don't disagree that the Eyrie looks fantastical in the show, I just don't think it stands out in believability that much. As you say, The Wall and the Red Keep wouldn't be able to be built without magic, and I suppose a lot of the old castles were built with magic (and some newer as we know Dragonstone was done so, and thus likely the Red Keep as well). If the design of the Eyrie doesn't fully work for you, that's not much to say about though. We like what we like.

[Ser Warpechowski]

The stone pillar is eroded so it's a bit hollowed out but my point firmly remains, the book Eyrie is certainly more fantastical. I never said the show version wasn't fantastical, we are actually watching a fantasy show, I pointed out that pretty similar things have been built in our medieval times while the book Eyrie could not unless you wore out more slaves than the pyramids required (and possibly not even then because there's hardly any room to ship up the huge stones that day's march up the mountain).

GRRM definitely tried to make something really fantastical with the Eyrie so the fantasy argument against the show version just doesn't hold water. If someone doesn't like it, that's how it is, but to say that it's too much fantasy is completely backwards (and even more insignificant as the show will actually have dragons).

GRRM portrayal of the Eyrie was quite fantastical, but not for the castle but for the natural beautiy surounding it. Im pretty sure the description of the castle is that its mostly 7 towers barely tied together and that its also the smallest of all the lord´s castle.

I just rewatched the scene where the Eyrie is show and I had not noticed before buy you can actually see the three gates/castles before the Eyrie. And they are freaking small compared to how the Eyrie look. Of course its CG and the perspective isnt that great, and even in real life whenever you see something extremely big you have problems realizing how big it is, but the Eyrie in the shots is incrediblely big, maybe bigger than Winterfell.

Look at this picture and then look at the scene in the episode:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/848/eyriel.jpg/

Westeros story is 12.000 years old... The book Eyrie could have taken centuries to be build. Harrenhall took like 3 generations.

If we could do the pyramids we could do the Eyrie. It doesnt sound as fantastical to me.

Oh, and the sky cell was way too big.

[Xenophon]

All that way they had to transport the immense stones required to build a castle, which is sounds to be impossible. It's also very fantasy to put it an entire day's ride up a mountain, instead of an hour, which frankly would have been a terribly long ride anyway and been way more than necessary to have an impregnable castle.

I always figured they just quarried the rock out of the mountainside itself (sort of like the Incas did in some places). But, yes, having it hours up was fairly unrealistic--can you imagine getting the wine up there?

Anyway, I don't know what it is, but something about the outside shot of the TV-Eyrie just looks silly to me--like it's going to walk away on those legs.

[adamsputnik]

I don't mind it, really. It is very difficult for me to picture how it looks in the books. I always figured a bunch of high ridges leading to the peak, but I'd have to read the description again to get a feel for it. The first time I saw the bridge/causeway I thought that was a bit fanciful, but upon reflection it doesn't look so bad, although there is no mention of such a causeway in the books.

I'm not too fussed though, it still looks pretty cool, and the view from the Sky Cells was rad.

[CelticCail]

I am not a fan of the TV version. It gave none of the whole takes-three-days-to-get-to-it feel. They basically just walk/ride there, no problem. Doesn't much look "impregnable."

[Knight Of The North]

Hmmm, I'm probably in a minority here, but I thought that the Eyrie was entirely utilatarian - as if it was built for nothing but defence, and that everything was suited to making the mountain impossible to take. I imagined the actual mountain to be two or three times as WIDE as the show displayed it to be, and the actual Castle to be far smaller. It's a fortress made to beat off any Army, with lots of little keeps along the road up. I just thought the Artists went "TO HELL WITH IT!" and did a pillar castle.

And Ilyn Payne...I could not stop laughing....

[Tywin's bastard]

GRRM portrayal of the Eyrie was quite fantastical, but not for the castle but for the natural beautiy surounding it. Im pretty sure the description of the castle is that its mostly 7 towers barely tied together and that its also the smallest of all the lord´s castle.

I just rewatched the scene where the Eyrie is show and I had not noticed before buy you can actually see the three gates/castles before the Eyrie. And they are freaking small compared to how the Eyrie look. Of course its CG and the perspective isnt that great, and even in real life whenever you see something extremely big you have problems realizing how big it is, but the Eyrie in the shots is incrediblely big, maybe bigger than Winterfell.

Look at this picture and then look at the scene in the episode:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/848/eyriel.jpg/

Westeros story is 12.000 years old... The book Eyrie could have taken centuries to be build. Harrenhall took like 3 generations.

If we could do the pyramids we could do the Eyrie. It doesnt sound as fantastical to me.

Oh, and the sky cell was way too big.

It doesn't have to be the size of Winterfell to be impossible to build without magic. They can't get any stone etc up from the bottom because they never built a road large enough to do that and we know they didn't use stone from the mountain because it's not the same kind of stone (and you don't paint a castle). You can't build cranes etc that can lift the stones that far either.

And to say that if the pyramids are possible then the Eyrie is possible is just mind-boggling. The pyramids were built on the ground where you had a lot of room to build all the machinery required to lift the stones to where they should be, not on a mountain where there's not even roads to bring the material up.

And the show Eyrie is larger but it's still built where there seems to be a proper road, which means that you can bring the material up there. It's not the size of the book Eyrie that makes any problems whatsoever, it's the logistics. If you could build a small castle you could build a big one, that's just a matter of time.

[Tywin's bastard]

I always figured they just quarried the rock out of the mountainside itself (sort of like the Incas did in some places). But, yes, having it hours up was fairly unrealistic--can you imagine getting the wine up there?

Anyway, I don't know what it is, but something about the outside shot of the TV-Eyrie just looks silly to me--like it's going to walk away on those legs.

But then the castle would have had to be the same color as the mountain, and definitely invisible from where Cat first sees it.

Yes, we all see things in different ways. I still can't see the pillar as legs so that's a reason why it looks better to me.

[Tywin's bastard]

Hmmm, I'm probably in a minority here, but I thought that the Eyrie was entirely utilatarian - as if it was built for nothing but defence, and that everything was suited to making the mountain impossible to take. I imagined the actual mountain to be two or three times as WIDE as the show displayed it to be, and the actual Castle to be far smaller. It's a fortress made to beat off any Army, with lots of little keeps along the road up. I just thought the Artists went "TO HELL WITH IT!" and did a pillar castle.

And Ilyn Payne...I could not stop laughing....

There's nothing utilitarian about the Eyrie. It's easier to take the only road to the castle than it is to surround a castle built on the ground and they'll starve as well up there as the people at Storm's End did. The only thing you really accomplish with the Eyrie is making your own day to day logistics a huge pain so it must have been built on vanity.

And why would you really need the Eyrie to be impregnable? No one has taken even the Bloody Gate. And if the Bloody Gate can't be taken as it's described in the book, then there's no weight to the argument that the show Eyrie wouldn't be able to be called impregnable.

[ser_nerdick]

The Eyrie was different than the description in the book, but I still thought it worked well. If I remember correctly, the sky cells were described in the book as being almost like a honeycomb structure, and as such I pictured a large number of cells. We are only shown two (?) in the show, but I think they looked great. There was some scribblings on the wall and also what appeared to be a line of water dripping/flowing down the center of the cell to the outside which gave it the appearance of having a slightly slanted floor (as described in the book).

I also liked the throne room. Overall I think they did a great job with the Eyrie. Better than King's Landing (in my opinion).

[Knight Of The North]

There's nothing utilitarian about the Eyrie. It's easier to take the only road to the castle than it is to surround a castle built on the ground and they'll starve as well up there as the people at Storm's End did. The only thing you really accomplish with the Eyrie is making your own day to day logistics a huge pain so it must have been built on vanity.

And why would you really need the Eyrie to be impregnable? No one has taken even the Bloody Gate. And if the Bloody Gate can't be taken as it's described in the book, then there's no weight to the argument that the show Eyrie wouldn't be able to be called impregnable.

True, but you forget the actual army besieging it. The surrounding hill tribes, the landscape and the conditions of the Vale mean that disease, weather and supply shortages would annihilate any army trying to starve the Eyrie out. Big caravans of food passing through the Hills? Entire clans would band together to take one. Mountains mean heavy rain and harsh snow in autumn and winter - there goes any chance of decent quarters. Storm's End sits on the edge of a bountiful farmland, while The Eyrie sits on the edge of a logistical wasteland. Any army sitting there would die while the Defenders sat and ate their supplies; the builders knew this and instead made it invulnerable to assault - the only way a fortress like the Eyrie could be taken.

And just because a fortification has never been tested by no means dictates it's purpose. It, indeed, seems likely that The Bloody Gate, The Gates of the Moon, and The Eyrie were all built at roughly the same time, as they are built with similar architecture (centered around gates and towers) and sit along the same road.

The idea of building a castle in the Mountains for vanity is quite strange. Why not build it down near Gulltown, where the mountains are fewer and they have a port within easy reach? I'm sorry, but the vanity argument fails to hold water upon close examination.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

But I agree, it's hard to speak about what is or isn't realistic in a show with a giant magical wall of ice. I guess I just found a castle on what looks like a bunch of legs to be more unbelievable than the other sets, for example, the impossibly tall towers of the Red Keep. It's purely a subjective thing, but for some reason a castle on top of a bunch of giant rock columns breaks my suspension of disbelief more than the other "fantastic" sets.

Normally I would say the same, but I have been thinking about it more -- from the exterior shots, the Eyrie's great hall / throne room does not appear to be part of any overhang. Thus, for the Moon Door to work where it is, there has to be empty space below it that is part of "the mountain" itself. It all still falls apart if I think about it too long (such as building on separate spires to work with, or drilling through a natural platform after the castle's built to reach empty air), but I'm willing to say that's just enough explanation to suspend my total disbelief.

[Tywin's bastard]

True, but you forget the actual army besieging it. The surrounding hill tribes, the landscape and the conditions of the Vale mean that disease, weather and supply shortages would annihilate any army trying to starve the Eyrie out. Big caravans of food passing through the Hills? Entire clans would band together to take one. Mountains mean heavy rain and harsh snow in autumn and winter - there goes any chance of decent quarters. Storm's End sits on the edge of a bountiful farmland, while The Eyrie sits on the edge of a logistical wasteland. Any army sitting there would die while the Defenders sat and ate their supplies; the builders knew this and instead made it invulnerable to assault - the only way a fortress like the Eyrie could be taken.

And just because a fortification has never been tested by no means dictates it's purpose. It, indeed, seems likely that The Bloody Gate, The Gates of the Moon, and The Eyrie were all built at roughly the same time, as they are built with similar architecture (centered around gates and towers) and sit along the same road.

The idea of building a castle in the Mountains for vanity is quite strange. Why not build it down near Gulltown, where the mountains are fewer and they have a port within easy reach? I'm sorry, but the vanity argument fails to hold water upon close examination.

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.

[Hyper]

Here are some pretty good screencaps of the Eyrie, as further fodder for discussion:

Distant view of the entire Eyrie - shows the path and three smaller fortresses leading up to the top:

http://film-book.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/eyrie-game-of-thrones-the-wolf-and-the-lion-01.png

The view from the sky cells:

http://film-book.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/peter-dinklage-eyrie-sky-cell-game-of-thrones-the-wolf-and-the-lion-02.png

http://film-book.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/peter-dinklage-eyrie-sky-cell-game-of-thrones-the-wolf-and-the-lion-01.png