best fictional castle

tombototm

https://i.imgur.com/pdbdknj.jpg

When I was a kid I told my mom to bring back several boxes of sugar cubes from the grocery store. And she did! I glued them together and made my castle. She didn't really question any part of it, the asking or the gluing.

Went with Dracula's castle.

thank u v much the late great

ciderpress otm-- it can now be revealed that all votes for the "other" option are in fact votes for that castle

Write in for the vampire castle

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b0/Castle_Roogna-Piers_Anthony.jpg/220px-Castle_Roogna-Piers_Anthony.jpg

j/k

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/30/CastleofLlyr1stEdition.JPG/220px-CastleofLlyr1stEdition.JPG

not j/k

spiral castle is the prydain representative because i remembered it more vividly (despite llyr being my fave and most frequently reread book in the series, do love a sea castle)-- not least for its expertly timed exit.

this thread definitely needs a mention of this book

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51-jBcDYjOL._SX372_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

What no Hyrule Castle ffs

https://static.247tickets.com/o_1c0qdepqh1s69dfrelomcf1o2k11.jpg

when it comes to video game castles castle figaro is kind of cool

I feel like the inn and the village are the geographical nightmares of "The Castle" but it's been a while and i might be misremembering

this thread definitely needs a mention of this book

Wow, thank you! I used to check this book out of the library all the time when I was a kid, but haven’t thought of it in 30 years.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/abebooks-seller-images/TOLCOT/14304966851._SY1500_.jpg

Iain Banks also has castles in Walking on Glass, Song of Stone, and Inversions, but nothing as memorable as the humongous upscaled Fastness Serehfa in Feersum Enjinn.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xfebcSb66NI/WmFqMoTYUUI/AAAAAAAABXY/KgEBSPWmrSQeM-9iUTi6pifara-0xcC3wCLcBGAs/s1600/Castle_Wittgenstein_Mordheim.png

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a_5-drHA3Vc/maxresdefault.jpg

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/7/79/Lindblum.jpg

Bluebeard's or gtfo

https://www.roadunraveled.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/led-zeppelin.jpg

Dunluce castle, country Antrim^

https://www.roadunraveled.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/led-zeppelin.jpg

The castle in Ico, easily

piranesi must imply a fictional castle or two in carceri d'invenzione; they can't all be endless subterranean diabloscapes

Castle Rackrent, unless that’s a real castle (I haven’t read the book, just bringing it up as a good castle name)

houses of the holy art all-time of course BUT photographing a castle does not turn it fictional and you can tell don delillo i said so

no but the "sacrifice" and all the stories I projected onto it at age 12 do

wait a second: are all castles fictional

the king is mad: he thinks his house is a castle

xp but there's a pictorial narrative in that art, it is staged

i will grant at least that questions of artifice and ontology are smack within the purview of the fictional castles thread, tho obviously secondary to the determination of the best fictional castle.

this morning i'm wondering who'd bother inventing a fiction without a castle tbh

The Library of Babel and even more so the Name of the Rose's palimpsest of that library are pretty much castles in all bar name and Eco's might be my fave non-video game castle

There must be a ton of Oulipo castles...Calvino's Castle of Crossed Detinies and I know Queneau did a choose-your-own-adventure story about a castle. There have to be others? Castles are def ripe for recursive/discursive games.

*Destinies

are video games the ideal media for castles? xps!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dc/Castles_Coverart.png/220px-Castles_Coverart.png

hyrule was another deliberate and now-inscrutable cut (it does function better as destination than setting imo, even in link to the past, so fans should vote kafka) but i should have included durlag's tower.

I tried to think of video game castles for this thread and decided they're all too small to be satisfactory but as mental soaces i've inhabited i feel them more than most fictions

suikoden probably deserves a shoutout re: video game castles that are setting rather than destination

Cloppa Castle theme tune, written by one of *Nirvana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk_J9h9VNbw

*the UK one

The Library of Babel and even more so the Name of the Rose's palimpsest of that library are pretty much castles in all bar name

Hm, not entirely sure about this. What is it that makes a castle a castle?

Was thinking about Calvino castles earlier but couldn't think of a specific one, my mind was more focused on the many castles of Invisible Cities.

Mistrinaut

Thinking gothicism and a kind of fractal endlessness emily bit yeah i'm only wibbling

(if you want to know what Castle Mistrinaut is, here's a good article about the English translation of Letter For The King: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/tonke-dragts-the-letter-for-the-king-has-finally-been-translated-into-english-50-years-on-9826857.html )

castle voldesad

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Kasell

Castle Anthrax and the Castle of Arghhh

yep

https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2016/11/3/3/0/8/308dae04-a1f1-11e6-944d-c2ec2412e9ab.jpg

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/xnkAAOSwntRcaW-3/s-l1600.jpg

first drawing of scrooge mcduck's ancestral home by carl barks, from "the old castle's secret" (1948)

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ImxZM-RBi-8/WMC0dhFXaBI/AAAAAAAABIk/gwCSH7MXmOEri0oiftqqh1_rWPRXk-n-ACLcB/s1600/ducktales_trailer_007.jpg

Tracer Hand - thanks for the link, never heard of that.

One of Ogmor's images is by Ian Miller, who has drawn a lot of very good castles, including Gormenghast.

I feel a little ashamed I cant think of more because castles are one of my absolute favorite things but I hope to update this thread in the future with more finds.

Just remembered the castle drawings by Victor Hugo
https://benedante.blogspot.com/2016/06/victor-hugos-drawings.html

Ranier Wolf just over Frank.

i still haven't voted. leaning gormenghast.

Watched Howl's Moving Castle again yesterday, still good

act iv might steal it for elsinore. it's the way it looks on the page: all those little bitty scenes, characters running screaming in and out of them like rooms, gaps opening in the text like teeth falling from a skull. and structuring it all, this frantic series of settings:

IV.1: A room in the castle.
IV.2: Another room in the castle.
IV.3: Another room in the castle.
IV.4: A plain in Denmark.
IV.5: Another room in the castle.
IV.6: Another room in the castle.
IV.7: Another room in the castle.

frankly shocked there's no modernist novel called another room in the castle

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

good spread

Old Lunch, thank you for remembering Otranto. I had a spaced-out think once about a South Korean film adaptation of the novel after watching The Wailing. Think it would do well tbh.

I think I voted Kafka

Just finished looking at Art Of Ian Miller and the castles are just spectacular.

Moon's Spawn

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fcmKMSyToyw/WKTocIUT0iI/AAAAAAAAPOY/vGtzs7BrXs8si3PmOIL6QOZhMt2_i8onQCLcB/s1600/Malazan%2BBook%2Bof%2Bthe%2BFallen.jpg

Belated write-in for The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit

Castle, We Have Always Lived in the, Shirley Jackson

see also: Castle, I Capture the, Dodie Smith