Riverrun

Seat of House Tully

A three-sided castle at the meeting of the Tumblestone and the Red Fork, ancestral seat of House Tully.

The fuller tale

Riverrun is a triangle of red sandstone at the meeting of two rivers ÔÇö the Tumblestone on one side, the Red Fork on the other, and a great sluice gate that floods the ditch on the third to make the castle an island at need. It cannot outmuscle the great seats, but properly provisioned it can shrug off a siege for years, which is the Tully genius in stone: survive, negotiate, endure. Family, Duty, Honor reads less like a boast than a to-do list, and the castle keeps its own liturgy ÔÇö the lords of Riverrun go to their rest in burning boats, sent down the rivers that raised them with a fire arrow for a farewell.

The Tullys are unusual among the great houses in ruling by marriage rather than conquest: Hoster Tully spent his daughters like a chancellor ÔÇö one to Winterfell, one to the Eyrie ÔÇö and when the crown seized his son-in-law, the riverlands rose with half the realm wedded to their cause. Riverrun becomes the northern warÔÇÖs beating heart: RobbÔÇÖs host lifts the siege after the Whispering Wood, the Kingslayer sits chained in its dungeon, and in its great hall the lords of the North and the Trident together raise a boy to a crown no one had worn in three hundred years.

It is also where the war is quietly lost. From Riverrun Catelyn frees Jaime on a motherÔÇÖs gamble; at Riverrun Robb takes a wife his bridge-toll treaty could not afford; and from Riverrun the host marches to the wedding that ends everything. Afterward the castle does what Tully castles do ÔÇö it holds. The Blackfish keeps the fish banner flying through siege and forfeiture long after the kingdom it stood for has bled out, a garrison loyal to a family attainted by every crown in sight.

The siegeÔÇÖs end is the story in miniature: Jaime Lannister, oathbound not to take arms against Tullys, talking the castle open by handing Edmure the arithmetic of futility ÔÇö and the Blackfish declining the arithmetic entirely. Riverrun passes to the Freys on parchment, but the tale never treats the transfer as real; some castles are their family, and the story files Riverrun under Tully to the last page.

The page and the screen

The siege of Riverrun sits in different years and ends on different notes. In the books it belongs to the aftermath of the Red Wedding ÔÇö Jaime arrives during his riverlands reconciliation tour, breaks the siege without a sword drawn, and the Blackfish escapes by swimming the Red Fork, still at large as the published books end. The show moves the whole affair to the war against the BoltonsÔÇÖ era, has the Blackfish die off-screen fighting for a castle already lost, and uses the episode to put Jaime and Brienne on opposite sides of a wall ÔÇö a confrontation the books stage elsewhere and differently.

The chronicle here

Riverrun sends Lord Hoster down the river burning; Edmure can't hit the boat. (S3┬ÀE3)
Walder Frey's price arrives at Riverrun: an apology, Harrenhal, and Edmure at the altar. (S3┬ÀE6)
Margaery converts the crown to the Faith; Tommen fuses crown and church; Jaime is shipped to Riverrun. (S6┬ÀE6)
Jaime arrives at Riverrun to find the Blackfish holding it and Freys embarrassing themselves. (S6┬ÀE7)
Jaime frees Edmure to take Riverrun bloodlessly; the Blackfish dies sword in hand, offstage and unbowed. (S6┬ÀE8)
In Riverrun's great hall the lords debate distant kings until the Greatjon has had enough: ÔÇ£The King in the North!ÔÇØ ÔÇö and every sword comes out. (AGOT 72)
At Riverrun the war council divides; Robb sends his mother ÔÇö over her protests ÔÇö as envoy to the newly crowned Renly. (ACOK 8)
News reaches Riverrun that Winterfell is taken; Catelyn, ordered to keep from the war, keeps instead a vigil over her father and her fears. (ACOK 40)
Catelyn waits at Riverrun for judgment for freeing the Kingslayer, sitting at her father's deathbed as he calls a name no one knows: Tansy. (ASOS 3)
Loose in the riverlands, Arya, Gendry and Hot Pie ride for Riverrun ÔÇö until singers with swords find them at an inn: Tom o' Sevens and the brotherhood without banners. (ASOS 4)
Through fought-over towns the outlaws collect coin, news and prisoners; Arya measures the distance to Riverrun and finds it growing instead of shrinking. (ASOS 18)
Riverrun under three sieges of banners: Jaime arrives to find the Blackfish defiant on the walls and the Freys wringing their hands about their hostage. (AFFC 31)
Jaime ends the siege of Riverrun with a threat he prays he'll never keep ÔÇö Edmure's unborn child by trebuchet; the castle yields, and the Blackfish swims free. (AFFC 34)