It is known that the author George R.R. Martin based many of the places and events from his books de A Song of Ice and Fire (from which the TV series is based Game of Thrones) about real things. For example, the Northern Wall is based on Hadrian’s Wall in England, only it’s been raised to dizzying heights and there are zombies made of ice and bone on the other side.
The same goes for Casterly Rock, or Castel Granito, the home of the Lannister family. Casterly Rock is based on the real Rock of Gibraltar in the Iberian Peninsula, which is literally a large rock carved into it to serve as a fortress. Casterly Rock is pretty much the same, only much bigger, as it’s used to Martin.
Castel Granito, within the television series, was not as the author had imagined
Martin explained how he used the Rock of Gibraltar as a base for Casterly Rock during an interview with GBC News:
“When it comes to fantasy and not historical fiction, you raise the bar. Casterly Rock dates back 10,000 years. It’s bigger on the outside (than the Rock of Gibraltar), it’s taller, longer, wider, it’s right on the sea, so there are docks under it for ships to enter. And there are many more tunnels and caverns and halls that have been dug and enlarged and decorated with carvings in the walls, because there are thousands more years to make them. But Gibralter was my starting point”.
the artist Ted Nasmith created what the author of the novels considers the definitive version of Casterly Rock, which we saw briefly during the seventh season of Game of Thrones of HBO.
That said, the author doesn’t believe the show’s version of the castle is consistent with his vision. As he conceived it, Casterly Rock is literally a rock, not a castle on top of a rock. “That’s how they did it on the television series, and it’s just plain wrong“, he said:
“The castle is inside the rock, like the fortifications inside the Rock of Gibraltar. They didn’t build a bunch of stuff on top of the Rock of Gibraltar; they went in and then they had tons of stone that protected them from any enemy that would come in and harm them.”
At a certain point, Martin hopes to set the record straight within the saga. “One day I hope to actually go in there in the books, to bring the characters inside“, he said.
This could happen in The Winds of Winter, the upcoming sixth book in the series. “I’m working on The Winds of Winter, 12 years late, but one of these days it will be ready“, he said in the interview.
Writing on his Not A Blog, Martin said he would like to visit the Rock of Gibraltar one day,”but not before finishing WINDS OF WINTER“.
