0:02 why must there always be a Stark in
0:04 Winterfell it's a phrase that keeps on
0:06 cropping Up In A Song of Ice and Fire
0:09 but why is there something magic going
0:12 on hi everyone this is Robert welcome to
0:14 indeep geek particularly if you're here
0:17 for the first time welcome this is the
0:19 first in a series of videos about the
0:21 Starks and their centrality to the plot
0:24 of A Song of Ice and Fire seven of the
0:26 first eight chapters of book one are
0:28 from the Stark's perspective and over
0:31 70% of all of a name of Thrones we know
0:35 they are Central to the plot but how why
0:37 did George Oram Martin decide to make
0:38 them the people we should sympathize
0:40 with at the start of this story because
0:42 he surely does want to make us
0:44 sympathize with them I'm sure there are
0:46 a lot of answers to that and we'll try
0:47 to cover them all in this series but
0:49 let's start by focusing in on their link
0:52 to Winterfell and the many secrets that
0:55 lie there in particular this time why
0:57 must there always be a stark at
0:59 Winterfell well we should acknowledge
1:01 that there is definitely a practical
1:03 benefit of the saying to the Starks it
1:06 adds legitimacy to their rule the Starks
1:08 didn't just rule from winterfeld because
1:10 they always have or because they have a
1:13 big army no they must be there for vague
1:15 historical or possibly even magical
1:18 reasons the north is built on tradition
1:20 and the Starks being in Winterfell is
1:22 one of the central parts of that so I'm
1:24 sure the Starks were happy to keep on
1:26 repeating the phrase to support their
1:30 rule but crucially the saying also ties
1:32 the Starks to the castle they couldn't
1:35 move to a bigger or cooler or better
1:37 situated castle for example as far as we
1:39 can tell until bran and rickon fled
1:41 Winterfell at the end of a Clash of
1:43 Kings there had been a Stark in
1:46 Winterfell without break for Millennia
1:49 this sometimes had amusing or
1:50 consequential implications for the
1:52 Starks trying to juggle their family
1:55 members amid various crises so as to
1:56 ensure there was always a Stark in
2:00 Winterfell for example Lord Rickard sent
2:02 all his children to the tney at Haren
2:04 Hall but himself stayed in Winterfell
2:06 until benjin returned All the Way North
2:09 to tag team him in so to speak so he
2:11 could then head south for Brandon's
2:14 planned wedding and then benjin had to
2:15 stay in Winterfell throughout the
2:18 entirity of Robert's Rebellion until Ned
2:20 returned when he could then safely leave
2:23 to join the knight's watch so let's take
2:25 the reasonable starting position that
2:27 this saying is there to ensure that the
2:30 Starks both remain in power and remain
2:34 in Winterfell why well let's dig into
2:36 the history a bit Winterfell has been
2:39 the home of the Starks for perhaps 8,000
2:41 years in fact for as long as house Stark
2:44 has existed this timing is crucial
2:46 because it means that it was built at
2:48 about the same time as the wall by bran
2:50 the Builder who was the founding father
2:52 of house Stark in other words the
2:54 founding of the Stark Dynasty is
2:57 connected inextricably with both the
2:59 building of Winterfell and the defeat of
3:01 the White Walkers the first time around
3:04 or more precisely the defenses built
3:06 against their return hold on to that
3:07 thought we'll come back to it a few
3:10 times in the next few videos house Stark
3:13 isn't just an old ruling house they were
3:15 Central to the plans to defend westos
3:18 against The Return by the others from
3:21 the start that said it would be wrong to
3:23 imagine the Starks sitting in Winterfell
3:26 Castle all that time because as far as
3:28 we can tell when it was first built
3:31 Winterfell was not a castle in fact
3:33 there's a very real chance that there
3:36 was no overground structure at all as
3:38 with most castles in Westeros and in the
3:41 real world Winterfell has been added to
3:43 and altered many times over the years as
3:44 its population has grown and
3:47 Architectural Styles have changed but
3:49 the oldest surviving structure is known
3:52 as the first keep the name obviously
3:54 implies that it was the first proper
3:57 keep this is what bran was climbing when
4:00 he spied Jamie and Cersei Lannister way
4:02 back at the beginning of the story
4:04 however as old as it is even the first
4:07 keep appears not to be original it's
4:10 rounded architectural style shows that
4:12 it is from after the andle invasion of
4:15 Westeros so at least 2,000 years after
4:17 Winterfell was apparently built and
4:20 there is no evidence of what if anything
4:22 was there before the first keep given
4:24 the different ground levels of the
4:26 castle it was certainly not a large
4:28 structure the ground levels in
4:30 Winterfell are fascinating incidentally
4:32 the site wasn't leveled before
4:34 construction to an alarming extent you
4:36 can enter one building on the first
4:38 floor cross a bridge and leave another
4:41 on the third floor the castle complex
4:43 clearly wasn't all built at one time or
4:46 with a master plan in mind just adding
4:48 bits peace meal to fit onto what was
4:50 already there over time which is
4:52 obviously strange because the other
4:54 things brand the Builder apparently
4:56 built the wall the high tower Storm's
4:58 end if the rumors are true have been
5:00 incredibly robust kept in place for
5:03 Millennia by strong magic and haven't
5:06 really been added to so it's reasonable
5:08 to conclude that what we understand to
5:11 be Winterfell Castle today the huge
5:13 overground castle is not what brand the
5:16 Builder spent his time building and it's
5:18 not what links the place to the Starks
5:20 and to preparations for the return of
5:23 the others so if bran the Builder didn't
5:26 build a great castle at Winterfell what
5:30 did he build he built what we now know
5:32 as the crypts of Winterfell our view of
5:34 them is sometimes a bit clouded by what
5:37 we saw on the TV show impressive but
5:39 limited but in the books they are
5:42 described as cavernous bigger even than
5:44 the expanse of the castle above and
5:47 descending many levels deep underground
5:49 the deepest of which are inaccessible
5:52 from ages past a mighty feat of
5:54 engineering indeed worthy of bran the
5:57 Builder and there's something odd about
5:59 these Crypts a few odd things to be
6:01 honest but let's focus on the design for
6:04 now with most Crypts the oldest part is
6:06 the closest to the surface when an extra
6:09 room is needed another chamber is dug
6:11 and then another with the newest being
6:13 the furthest in or the deepest but
6:16 winterfell's Crypt seems to be the
6:18 opposite way around the kings of winter
6:20 from Millennia past are buried at the
6:23 furthest deepest part of the complex
6:25 with the more recent Lords of Winterfell
6:28 on the level closest to the surface this
6:31 is curious and at a sort of countdown as
6:33 more and more Stark Generations are born
6:36 live and are buried the closer to the
6:39 surface we get and there are now a lot
6:42 of starks buried there if it is 8,000
6:44 years and there were say 20 years per
6:46 generation of starks as a ballpark
6:50 figure that makes 400 or so Stark rulers
6:53 plus their families that makes
6:55 thousands and to clear up a popular
6:57 misunderstanding all Starks can be
7:00 buried there Arya remember Rob taking
7:02 her and her siblings down there and
7:03 showing them the tombs that would be
7:06 theirs it's just the statues that are
7:07 only for the kings of winter and the
7:09 Lords of Winterfell that's the
7:12 convention that Ned broke lyanna should
7:13 definitely have been buried in the
7:16 crypts as should Brandon but they
7:17 probably shouldn't have had statues made
7:19 of them and placed down there despite a
7:21 recent precedent but we're getting ahead
7:22 of ourselves there's a lot to be said
7:25 about the statues but I'll focus on that
7:27 in a future video for now let's just
7:29 note that the fact that all all the
7:31 Starks are buried in the Crypt the
7:35 original Winterfell is important in some
7:37 deep magical way the Starks are
7:39 connected to the Crypt and have been for
7:42 Millennia many of them have dreams about
7:44 it Lanna apparently made Ned promise to
7:47 take her body hundreds of miles north to
7:50 be buried there Aya bran and rickon all
7:52 think about it many times and play there
7:55 often even Ned not a man to give in
7:58 easily to Superstition could feel the
8:00 eyes of the Dead Stark on him when he
8:02 was talking to King Robert there they
8:04 were all listening he
8:08 knew in contrast Theon and John a secret
8:11 Targaryen remember feel that it isn't a
8:13 place for them Robert Baratheon thinks
8:17 of it as cold and dark it's only a place
8:21 for Starks there deep underground more
8:23 than anywhere else is the spiritual home
8:25 of the Starks not the castle above
8:28 ground that is where the Starks belong
8:31 and no one else at which point it's
8:33 worth taking a step back to remind
8:35 ourselves of what the original site of
8:36 Winterfell must therefore have looked
8:39 like a lone weirwood tree standing a top
8:42 of a massive cave system that stretches
8:44 deep underground with space for
8:46 thousands of starks to be buried over
8:49 the years to come in this context it
8:51 seems pretty clear that there must
8:53 always be a Stark in Winterfell wasn't
8:55 just about political power they didn't
8:58 rule all the north for Millennia or even
9:00 to keep them in the Castle which wasn't
9:02 even there at the time but to ensure
9:04 that the Starks would always be buried
9:07 down in that crypt the site was well
9:09 chosen to allow the Starks to survive
9:11 there even through the harshest of
9:13 winters whoever picked the location
9:15 wanted people to be able to stay there
9:17 and guard the location regardless of the
9:20 weather or climate and the Starks
9:22 definitely made best use of it as the
9:24 castle was built the hot spring water
9:27 that bubbled up to the ground nearby was
9:29 piped through the walls to keep the main
9:31 Castle warm they set up wells and
9:33 fountains in Courtyards outside the
9:35 castle to keep the small folk gathered
9:37 from afar alive in the harshest of
9:39 winters and even created a massive
9:42 Greenhouse called the glass garden to
9:44 trap the heat in and allow them to grow
9:46 vegetables all year round the Starks
9:49 could survive without ever relocating
9:51 and even magnanimously support their
9:53 vassels in times of need there was never
9:55 a reason for them to move
9:57 elsewhere one other thing is worth
9:59 noting about that original plan of
10:02 catacombs beneath a weirwood tree if it
10:05 sounds familiar that may be because it's
10:07 very reminiscent of what we see and read
10:09 about in blood Raven's cave north of the
10:12 wall that also consisted of caves lined
10:14 with the dead and forgotten in a Hollow
10:17 Hill beneath the massive weirwood tree
10:18 which suggests that the plan for
10:21 Winterfell was not just a human plan but
10:23 from the children of the forest and the
10:25 wewood trees themselves which makes
10:28 Winterfell much more than just stone
10:30 walls one of the most noticeable things
10:32 about the first few chapters of book one
10:34 is how the language used to describe
10:37 Winterfell is that of a living organic
10:40 being the hot water is pumped around the
10:42 castle like blood through veins we're
10:45 told the air in the Crypt is said to
10:48 move up the stairwell in chill breaths
10:50 the castle is said to have grown like a
10:53 monstrous Stone tree its roots sunk deep
10:56 into the Earth the imagery is strong
10:59 some book fans have suggested and I tend
11:01 to agree with them that the final Vision
11:03 that bran has through the weirwood tree
11:05 of a sacrifice of someone probably also
11:08 named Bran and probably also an ancestor
11:10 of his bran the Builder perhaps before
11:12 the Winterfell weirwood may have been
11:15 sealing a packed of sort the magic that
11:18 founded Winterfell we don't have enough
11:20 to go on yet to confirm that but it
11:22 makes sense that a ceremony and
11:24 sacrifice like that did happen tying the
11:28 Starks to Winterfell so why must there
11:30 always be a Stark in Winterfell yes
11:32 there are political reasons and
11:34 traditions can be strongly ingrained in
11:36 a culture but it seems that the original
11:39 reason was to tie the Starks to that
11:41 place and in particular to ensure that
11:43 the Starks were buried in that Crypt
11:45 generation after
11:47 generation there are obviously a number
11:50 of questions that flow on from this what
11:51 were the terms of The Pact why the
11:54 Starks and what happens when there isn't
11:56 a Stark in Winterfell I'll cover all of
11:58 them in this series of videos but that
12:00 last one is probably one of the biggest
12:02 bits of evidence we have on this topic
12:04 if there must always be a stark and
12:06 Winterfell is just a cool phrase or
12:09 tradition or a clever political slogan
12:10 the answer is that when there are no
12:13 Starks in Winterfell nothing would
12:16 happen but if there is a magical reason
12:18 why there must always be a Stark in
12:20 Winterfell then we should expect some
12:22 magical consequence of there being no
12:24 Stark in Winterfell and of course at the
12:26 end of a Clash of Kings when bran and
12:29 rickon abandon Winterfell there are no
12:31 Starks there for the first time in
12:35 perhaps Millennia what happens well
12:36 quite a lot that is perhaps not
12:38 immediately obvious on a first read
12:40 through and the language used to
12:43 describe it well here's an example from
12:45 theon's POV as he returned to the
12:47 godswood sometime
12:50 later it felt like some strange
12:53 underworld some Timeless Place between
12:55 the worlds where the Damned wandered
12:57 mournfully for a time before finding
12:59 their way down to what ever hell their
13:03 sins had earned them are we all dead
13:07 then he thought that's pretty bleak and
13:10 not just an isolated passage Bran's
13:11 final thought as he looked back on
13:14 Winterfell for the last time was that
13:16 Winterfell was
13:18 broken and that's what we will look at
13:21 next time what magical impacts are there
13:24 when there are no Starks in Winterfell
13:26 because they are already having a huge
13:28 impact on the story and it seems that
13:30 almost no characters in the story have
13:33 even made the link yet but what do you
13:35 think why do you think there must always
13:38 be a Stark in Winterfell let me know in
13:40 the comment section below for more
13:42 videos in this series as I make them
13:43 there's a link to the playlist on the
13:45 left of your screen or to support this
13:47 channel thank you there's a link to my
13:50 patreon page on the right of your screen
13:51 that's all for this time thanks for
