Game of Thrones: Top 10 castles in Westeros, ranked

9. Harrenhal

The largest castle in Westeros is the partially ruined fortress of Harrenhal. Located on the northern shore of the God’s Eye in the Riverlands, Harrenhal was built by the Ironborn ruler King Harren the Black. The egomaniacal Harren wanted to build an enormous monument to himself. Using slave labor from the Riverlands, Harren’s project took 40 years to complete. The original structure was fitted with five massive towers, an armory with 20 forges and a great hall with 35 hearths that is supposedly large enough to hold an army.

When the castle was finally complete, Aegon the Conqueror and his dragons landed on the shores of Westeros to the south of Harrenhal. Aegon stopped by the castle, where he told King Harren to bend the knee or die. Thinking his brand new fortress was impenetrable, Harren refused to submit to Aegon and hid behind the walls of his castle. This proved to be a fatal mistake.

Harrenhal may have been impregnable from the ground, but not from the air. Aegon mounted his massive dragon Balerion the Black Dread and proceeded to fly over the walls of Harrenhal to burn much of the castle. Harren and his sons were roasted alive inside the towers while the rest of the structure was charred black.

Since Harren’s death, Harrenhal has been inhabited by House Quoherys (extinct), House Harroway (extinct), House Towers (extinct), House Strong (extinct), and House Lothston (extinct). Looking at this history, many understandably think the castle is cursed.

During A Song of Ice and Fire, Harrenhal is under the control of Shella Whent, who surrenders the castle to Tywin Lannister during the War of the Five Kings. Cersei gives the castle to Janos Slynt, the Lord Commander of the City Watch who betrayed Ned Stark under Littlefinger’s orders.

In book two, A Clash of Kings, Tyrion sends Slynt to the Wall and revokes his lands and titles. Slynt is later executed by Jon Snow. During the War, Harrenhal is used as a military base for the Lannisters, with hundreds of prisoners being transported there for interrogation and labor. Arya Stark, Hot Pie and Gendry are among these prisoners, and they help lead a rebellion from within the castle walls. The faceless man Jaqen H’ghar assists in freeing northern prisoners, who fight alongside to take the castle back. Roose Bolton takes Harrenhal and holds it for a time while he plots with Tywin to orchestrate the Red Wedding. Arya serves as Roose’s cupbearer before fleeing into the wilderness with Hot Pie and Gendry. (On the HBO show Game of Thrones, she serves as Tywin’s cupbearer instead.)

Later, sellswords led by Vargo Hoat capture Jaime Lannister and bring him to Harrenhal. Roose Bolton sends Jaime on to King’s Landing with an armed escort before departing to the Twins to attend the Red Wedding. Tywin sends the Mountain to retake the castle, which they do easily. The Mountain finds Vargo Hoat deliriously wandering around the room of a hundred hearths, apparently suffering from an infection after Brienne of Tarth bit off his ear. The Mountain then tortures Hoat slowly in retribution for cutting off Jaime’s hand. (In the show, Vargo Hoat is replaced by a new character named Locke.)

Jaime returns to Harrenhal in A Feast for Crows to find it once again leaderless after the death of the Mountain. Technically the castle belongs to Littlefinger; Joffrey Baratheon granted him the fortress for securing an alliance between the Lannisters and Tyrells. Since Littlefinger is in the Vale, Jaime assigns a group of pious knights called the Holy Hundred to garrison the castle, led by Ser Bonifer Hasty.