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Ruins...


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Take a look at the maps in each of the five books. Ya know how in the key for each of the maps there's a symbol for ruins/ruined castles? I'd like to know what happened years ago, why those places were abandoned.

Here's some examples of what I mean...

Queenscrown (in the Gift, south of the Wall)

Summerhall (southern Westeros between King's Landing and Dorne)

The Night's Watch castles at the Wall that were abandoned

Ruins in Essos and Sothoryos...

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Well as for the examples you wanted:

  • I'm fairly sure it states that Queenscrown was abandoned when the NW stopped using The Gift due to potential wildling raids.
  • The NW castles were abandoned due the NW not having enough power to man them all.
  • Summerhall will likely be explained in the Dunk and Egg novels.

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Didn't Catelyn and Robb pass a couple while travelling between Riverrun and The Twins before the you now RW.

There should be hundreds of locations but perhaps many of them have been totally destroyed

That's correct, and they talked about the king who had lived in the ruin and that he won 99 of a hundred battles against the Andals but his successors failed him and his kingdome was destroyed.

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There's Oldstones where Robb was camped on his way to the Twins but not sure if it is unoccupied. On the other hand, when Tywin Lannister destroyed the Tarbecks and Reynes, were their castles left in ruins or unoccupied?

I think they were ruins, but some guy got rewarded with Castamere after the Red Wedding.

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I think they were ruins, but some guy got rewarded with Castamere after the Red Wedding.

Rolph Spicer

There are the ruins of old Ghis, which ceased habitation after the Valyrians destroyed the city in their final war with Ghis.

Chroyane, the Rhoynish city now known as the Sorrows. It was abandoned after Nymeria and the Rhoynar fled to Dorne, and the Valyrians razed it.

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I'm assuming the Barrowlands are littered with ruins, as the graves of the old First Men reside there.

Not a safe assumption. Nor does thousands years of history indicate need for ruins. After all, ruins could be recycled for reusing the same sites.

OK, at Winterfell some generations of Starks have allowed parts of the castle to become dilapidated instead of either keeping them maintained in the first place or else razing them to sound masonry and then building new designed buildings on top. But I expect many castles do get maintained.

What is needed is therefore reasons to not recycle the site and use a different site. These happen... but not so always.

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Rolph Spicer

There are the ruins of old Ghis, which ceased habitation after the Valyrians destroyed the city in their final war with Ghis.

Chroyane, the Rhoynish city now known as the Sorrows. It was abandoned after Nymeria and the Rhoynar fled to Dorne, and the Valyrians razed it.

Up until the Volantene and Qohorik areas, I'd assume all of the Rhoyne is filled with Rhoynar city-state ruins. Most cities in the Valyrian peninsula are also most likely ruins, as is Old Ghis, the towns in the Isle of Cedars and now Astapor. Vaes Tolorro is also there.

And then Sothoryos is just a huge ruin, at least its northwestern coast. I do believe either Faros or Yi Ti is in Sothoros so I don't think all of the continent is destroyed, but something pretty bad must have happened to the area anyways.

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OK, at Winterfell some generations of Starks have allowed parts of the castle to become dilapidated instead of either keeping them maintained in the first place or else razing them to sound masonry and then building new designed buildings on top. But I expect many castles do get maintained.

Good point. There's also Harrenhal, which is MOSTLY in ruins.

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I think there's a good argument that there's a lack in ruins due to a stagnation of technological development. Most castles aren't abandoned to become ruins because there is still good reason to continue using them since cannons haven't made an appearance

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Not a safe assumption. Nor does thousands years of history indicate need for ruins. After all, ruins could be recycled for reusing the same sites.

OK, at Winterfell some generations of Starks have allowed parts of the castle to become dilapidated instead of either keeping them maintained in the first place or else razing them to sound masonry and then building new designed buildings on top. But I expect many castles do get maintained.

What is needed is therefore reasons to not recycle the site and use a different site. These happen... but not so always.

Climate changes over 8,000 years, rivers changing their course, agricultural yields of surrounding fields varying over the millenia. Earthquakes, storms washing away some settlements.

The list is endless.

The fact is, after 8,000 years there should hardly be a corner of Westeros without a ruin in the vicinity.

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I'm interested in the thousands of ruins that should be dotting the entire Westeros, given the thousands and thousands of years of history.

There may be ruins, but not close to inhabited places. Ruins close to inhabited places are usually recycled as building materials.

As long as we know, Westeros has never been depopulated since the Long Night, so people won't allow ruins close to habitable places to exist for long. The exceptions are places like Moat Cailing or Nightfort, that were built at places not fitting for human habitation for estrategic reasons, and were abandoned for the same reasons (and since there weren't peasants around, their stones weren't recycled).

The reason Essos and Sothoyros are so doted with ruins is that after the Valyrians invasions and the Doom devastated many places, the Curse of the Stone Men (at Chroyane), the dothraki (at most of Essos) and the slavers (at Sothoyros' coasts) prevented new inhabitants from settling there, repopulating the place and recycling the ruins.

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As long as we know, Westeros has never been depopulated since the Long Night...

Aside from the death tales of Old Nan and other tid bits, did we ever get a more informed picture of what the extent of the death and destruction that was caused (e.g. it spread down to Kings Landing, or all the way down to Dorne etc... and 1/2 the living things were wiped out?)

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