Harrenhal during the Long Night
A few days ago I did this survey where I asked you "Where will the great battle against the White Walkers take place?". 56% of voters chose "In the North, the Wall, Winterfell", but I disagree. Here I explain why I am part of the 41% who voted "In the Riverlands, Harrenal, the Gods eye, the Trident".
Let's start with: I think Winterfell will be destroyed, and definitively rebuilt only at the end of the books. So the place where the victory against the White Walkers will take place will be the Riverlands.
The Gods eye is one of the most important places for the Old Gods and the Children of the forest, we know Howland has been there I think Bran will have to go, it's a place that will become relevant to the White Walkers storyline. And it's not the only place in the Riverlands closely connected with the faith of the Old Gods - indeed, we have seen more of them here than in the North. There are: Tallheart with its circle of weirwood and its woodland witch, the Hollow Hill where one-eyed Beric sits surrounded by weirwood roots, Raventree Hall, and Harrenhal whose building seems cursed by the gods and has a godswood big like a forest.
The conflict against the White Walkers will have to be a major event, relevant in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, so there is no way it will only involve the first northernmost castles. What repercussions would such an event have on the plot? No one would believe that the North has been attacked by creatures that everyone thinks don't exist: it would be as if it hadn't happened. The undead army must reach to at least the center of Westeros. An interesting foreshadowing is found in Daenerys III ASOS:
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be.
Why will Harrenhal be important?
If the above turns out to be true, this means that a significant part of the people who inhabit the North and the Riverlands will find themselves fleeing to take refuge behind the first available walls. And as it happens, in the Riverlands there is a castle of immense proportions, mostly abandoned.
If you haven't read the chapters in which Harrenhal appears in a while, I recommend you review its architecture on the wiki (read the sections 'Walls and Towers' and 'Misc'). And then you come here and tell me that an immense place, with walls that cannot be passed through, a big pit, a great hall with more than thirty hearth, hot baths, kitchens as big as the great hall of Winterfell, and many acres of wood within the walls doesn't seem like the perfect description of a place where hundreds of people can take refuge to survive the apocalypse.
Harrenhal has impassable walls unless you have a dragon. The reason it fell so many times is that it was abandoned. Until now, fighting for the castle has been a waste of money for all the lords who have passed it. No one had enough people to guard all the gates, run all the fires, etc… not even using prisoners of war as slaves would have been enough.
But if refugees from half of the Seven Kingdoms were to occupy it, we would see those huge empty halls fill with life for the first time in centuries. Finally this cyclopean construction would make sense: it would become one of the main citadels of humanity.
Thanks for reading. If you want to find out why the other day while brushing my teeth I was struck by the brilliant intuition that Arya Stark might be the Lady of Harrenhal during the Long Night keep following me.
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