Game of Thrones begins....

[Razgovory]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

What does it even mean? 

Castles have their purpose, even in Westeros. 

Castles in the novels (and the TV show) are often much larger then castles were in real life.  Sometimes impossibly so.  There also appears to be a hodgepodge of styles and types that existed over a large period of time.  Some of the changes were caused by the development of cannon, so it's a bit odd to see those castles with features to defeat cannon in a world where cannons don't exist.

[Queequeg]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

What does it even mean? 

Castles have their purpose, even in Westeros. 

Castles in the novels (and the TV show) are often much larger then castles were in real life.  Sometimes impossibly so.  There also appears to be a hodgepodge of styles and types that existed over a large period of time.  Some of the changes were caused by the development of cannon, so it's a bit odd to see those castles with features to defeat cannon in a world where cannons don't exist.

Examples?

TBH, my main problem in the TV series with the fortifications is that they are often pretty terrible.  All of the fortifications around King's Landing were about the size of a ring of the walls of Constantinople, which rather famously had two rings and a pretty large moat. 

[Admiral Yi]

TBH, my main problem in the TV series with the fortifications is that they are often pretty terrible.  All of the fortifications around King's Landing were about the size of a ring of the walls of Constantinople, which rather famously had two rings and a pretty large moat.

And a dinky third wall in front of the moat, hence the famous "triple walls of Constantinople."

[Queequeg]

 

I knew that.

[Admiral Yi]

Plus they weren't really rings because the seaward sides only had single walls.

[Razgovory]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

What does it even mean? 

Castles have their purpose, even in Westeros. 

Castles in the novels (and the TV show) are often much larger then castles were in real life.  Sometimes impossibly so.  There also appears to be a hodgepodge of styles and types that existed over a large period of time.  Some of the changes were caused by the development of cannon, so it's a bit odd to see those castles with features to defeat cannon in a world where cannons don't exist.

Examples?

TBH, my main problem in the TV series with the fortifications is that they are often pretty terrible.  All of the fortifications around King's Landing were about the size of a ring of the walls of Constantinople, which rather famously had two rings and a pretty large moat.

Well they have a wall made of ice that is like 2 miles high... 

[Jaron]

Were ice walls invented to defeat cannons?

[Siege]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

What does it even mean? 

Castles have their purpose, even in Westeros. 

Castles in the novels (and the TV show) are often much larger then castles were in real life.  Sometimes impossibly so.  There also appears to be a hodgepodge of styles and types that existed over a large period of time.  Some of the changes were caused by the development of cannon, so it's a bit odd to see those castles with features to defeat cannon in a world where cannons don't exist.

Examples?

TBH, my main problem in the TV series with the fortifications is that they are often pretty terrible.  All of the fortifications around King's Landing were about the size of a ring of the walls of Constantinople, which rather famously had two rings and a pretty large moat.

Well they have a wall made of ice that is like 2 miles high... 

No, the Wall is 700 feet high. About 210m high.

[Siege]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

What does it even mean? 

Castles have their purpose, even in Westeros. 

Castles in the novels (and the TV show) are often much larger then castles were in real life.  Sometimes impossibly so.  There also appears to be a hodgepodge of styles and types that existed over a large period of time.  Some of the changes were caused by the development of cannon, so it's a bit odd to see those castles with features to defeat cannon in a world where cannons don't exist.

Example?
I haven't seen castles in Westeros with slopped walls, star-shaped battlements, or with ball trap ditches.
All castles in westeros have high walls with higher towers.

[Eddie Teach]

How high is the Aerie?

[Siege]

Those look like normal keeps, Westerosi castles are totally fantastical.

Only the castles of the Great Houses.
Deepwood motte, Karhold, Torrhen Square, Flints Finger, etc, are perfectly normal.
Even White Harbor seems pretty normal for a fortified city.

[Siege]

How high is the Aerie?

Yeah, the Eyre is way out of reality.
Just maintaining supplied a castle that hard to access is ridicoulus.
I forgot how high the Eyre is.

[Siege]

This is a gorgeous castle.
Fort La Latte, originally the Roche Goyon.
The castle Michael Douglas and Jamie Lee Curtis sacked in that movie "The Vikings" from 1958.

[Siege]

Did people in real life lived in the towers of the castles like in Westeros?
I don't meant the keep or donjon, but the other towers on the walls.
In westeros they do.

[dps]

The castle Michael Douglas and Jamie Lee Curtis sacked in that movie "The Vikings" from 1958.

That was Kirk Douglas and either Tony Curtis or Janet Leigh (not sure which of the latter 2 you meant--they were both in it).