Castle Black

The chief fortress of the Night's Watch at the foot of the Wall ÔÇö where, in the end, both a hedge knight's squire's brother and stranger things will one day serve.

The fuller tale

Castle Black anchors the WallÔÇÖs middle stretch, chief fortress of a NightÔÇÖs Watch that has spent the long, mostly peaceful decades of Daeron IIÔÇÖs and Aerys IÔÇÖs reigns quietly shrinking ÔÇö fewer criminals sentenced to the black, fewer younger sons with nothing better to do, and a border duty that feels, to a realm at peace with itself, more like ceremony than necessity. That complacency is precisely what makes the WatchÔÇÖs decline dangerous rather than merely sad: an institution runs thinnest exactly when the era around it has stopped bothering to ask what it's still guarding against, and Castle BlackÔÇÖs garrison in this age is smaller, by any measure, than the job description on its gate.

The fallen of this place ÔÇö if any, they are named here. Spoilers.

No death the chronicle records has come to this ground ÔÇö or none the maesters have set down.