Winterfell

Legend says it was Brandon Stark, the one they call the Builder, who raised Winterfell more than eight thousand years ago with the help of giants. The maesters distrust so round a number and lean toward a castle built in pieces, over centuries, by lords who never quite agreed on levelling the ground before building on top of it.

That's where the uneven floors come from, and the tunnels and covered bridges stitching the towers together, and the maze-like look the castle has from a distance. A stair underground leads to a long, cold crypt where the lords and kings of the North have sat in stone for generations, a sword laid across the lap of the ones who actually wore a crown.

The godswood, with its sad-faced weirwood at the center, has outlasted parts of the castle that haven't always outlasted much. The Red Kings of the Dreadfort tore Winterfell down more than once in their wars against the Starks, and even the Broken Tower — split by lightning — stands as a reminder that stone doesn't last forever either. Local legend tells of a bard named Sygerrik who once talked his way inside and wasn't who he claimed: he left with a Stark lord's daughter, and the son she brought back, hidden in the crypt, grew up to rule the castle himself.

Torrhen Stark knelt to Aegon the Conqueror without a fight. From then on the Starks ruled the North under the title of Warden, passed down father to son all the way to Robert's war.

During the Dance of the Dragons, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon rode half the realm to reach Winterfell and speak with Lord Cregan Stark. He brought no army with him, only his mother's cause: Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, fighting her own blood for the Iron Throne.

Cregan Stark gave him his word. It only takes one sentence to say that, but the promise ended up weighing on the war more than anyone at Winterfell could have guessed that day.

When rebellion broke out against King Aerys Targaryen, Eddard Stark left the Eyrie, crossed the Mountains of the Moon, and rode north to call his father's banners. His younger brother Benjen stayed behind at Winterfell for the length of the war, and for those years it was Benjen, not Ned, who could rightly be called the Stark in Winterfell.

That wasn't the only time an outsider walked through those gates without the Iron Throne's leave: years later, with Ned back as lord, Mance Rayder rode in alongside a Lord Commander of the Night's Watch who'd come to see him. No one at Winterfell knew who that man really was.

King Robert Baratheon rode into Winterfell with his whole court, and during that visit something happened that no one there could fully explain: Bran Stark fell from the top of the First Keep, badly hurt, after walking in on Jaime Lannister at a moment he wasn't meant to see.

Not long after, someone set fire to the Library Tower and tried to finish Bran off in his sleep. Catelyn left the castle for King's Landing without waiting for her son to fully wake.

When Robb called up his father's bannermen and marched south with an army, Winterfell was left without a grown lord: the castle passed into the hands of a boy who still couldn't walk on his own.

Ser Rodrik Cassel was holding the castle for Robb when Theon Greyjoy tricked him into marching out to Torrhen's Square with the garrison, leaving Winterfell nearly empty. It took Theon only thirty men to take it without a fight.

Theon spread word that he'd killed Bran and Rickon, though both boys were alive, hidden in the crypt with Jojen Reed. When Rodrik came back to retake the castle, Ramsay Snow's troops were waiting for him in the village.

Ramsay then rode in and let Theon believe he'd come to help. He hadn't: he took Winterfell and burned it. Bran headed north with Jojen, Meera, and Hodor; Rickon went the other way, south, with Osha.

Far from Winterfell, on campaign, Robb told his mother something he'd been turning over for a while: if he died in the war without an heir, he wanted Jon Snow legitimized and made Lord of Winterfell. Catelyn refused outright.

Meanwhile, holed up in the Eyrie after King Joffrey's death, Sansa missed the castle so much that she built one out of snow with Petyr Baelish's help, copying every tower she could remember from memory.

With Winterfell in ruins after the fire, Roose Bolton's army settled in among what was still standing to wait there for Stannis Baratheon. It wasn't a comfortable place to camp: cold, with snow coming in through collapsed roofs.

In those ruins he married his son Ramsay to a girl everyone called Arya Stark, though she wasn't. During the wedding and after, a string of deaths spread through the northern troops and dragged the army's morale down with them.