Hey, you there. Yes, you! Ever wondered what Casterly Rock looks like? According to George R.R. Martin, there’s been “a certain amount of confusion” about the appearance of House Lannister’s ancestral home. Luckily for Game of Thronesfans everywhere, Martin has taken a break from his diligent work on The Winds of Winter to clear up a question no one is asking.
Over on his trusty blog, Martin posted a lengthy meditation on worldbuilding with the goal of “putting to rest” any and all confusion about Casterly Rock. “A certain amount of confusion” is an awfully slippery term, isn’t it? Given that Thrones fans haven’t exactly been rattling at the gates of King's Landing about this, I’m going to interpret it to mean “little to none.” In the blog post, Martin shared a (very low-resolution) illustration by Ted Nasmith, whose paintings of Westeros have been used in Game of Thrones calendars, as well as the companion worldbook The World of Ice & Fire. “Ted got all the little details right,” Martin wrote, running down many of the architectural features Nasmith pulled from his novels. "If you look very closely, here and there scattered up and down the face of the mount, you can see windows and arrow slits," the author continued. It’s impossible to see those features in this grainy image, so I suppose we’ll have to take his word for it.
You see, Martin has a bone to pick with how fans have envisioned this landscape. “The Lannister castle is not ON TOP of the Rock,” he emphasized. “It is INSIDE the Rock.” Must the guy insist on controlling how readers envision his worlds within the privacy of their own imaginations? What does it matter—and how is any of this nitpicking getting him closer to finishing the series once and for all? Martin even seems to acknowledge the futility of this blog post, writing, “What does all this mean? Maybe nothing. I just wanted to set the record straight. Give you all something to think about. (And maybe put an end to all these pictures of a little rock with a castle on top.)”
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The author notes that his novels have never made a proper visit to Casterly Rock; though the Lannister stronghold has been mentioned hundreds of times, as well as glimpsed through characters’ memories, he’s never set the story there in the timeline proper. But that may be about to change. “Casterly Rock will not remain forever offstage, I hope,” he wrote. “I have two more novels to go, and my plan is to have one or more of my viewpoint characters visit the Rock in The Winds of Winter or A Dream of Spring, so I can show you all the wonders and terrors and treasures of House Lannister first hand.”
At this point, he’s just teasing us, right? Hey, George—while you’re putting stuff to rest, do The Winds of Winter next!
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