Editing Harrenhal (section)

===House Hoare===
[[File:Balerion the black.jpg|thumb|350px|right|The [[burning of Harrenhal]], by Marc Simonetti]]

The seat of [[Halleck Hoare]], [[King of the Isles and the Rivers]], was a modest tower house at [[Fairmarket]] on the [[Blue Fork]].{{ref|TWOIAF|The Iron Islands: The Black Blood}} His son, [[Harren Hoare|Harren the Black]], built Harrenhal along the [[Gods Eye]] as a monument to himself, intending it to be the greatest of all castles in [[Westeros]] and for it to dwarf any other.{{ref|ACOK|7}}

The construction of Harren's dream took forty years. Thousands of captives died in the quarries chained to sledges or laboring on the five huge towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in summer. [[Weirwood]]s that had stood three thousand years were cut down to provide rafters and beams. Harren beggared the [[riverlands]] and the [[Iron Islands]] alike to ornament his dream.{{ref|ACOK|7}}

Upon its completion, Harren boasted that his new fortress was impregnable. However, he did not account for [[Aegon I Targaryen|Aegon the Conqueror]] and his [[dragon]]s invading Westeros. On the day Harren took up residence, Aegon came ashore at what would become [[King's Landing]]. Aegon flew his dragon [[Balerion]], the Black Dread, above the high walls and forbidding towers and then roasted Harren alive in the tallest of the towers, now known as [[Kingspyre]]. Harren and all his line perished in the [[burning of Harrenhal]]. Due to the extreme heat of dragonflame, the castle took on a charred, melted appearance.{{Ref|ACOK|7}}

Since [[Aegon's Conquest]], the castle has become a [[w:white elephant|white elephant]]. It is too big to garrison effectively and too expensive to maintain.{{ref|ACOK|8}} Harren allegedly mixed human blood into the mortar for the stonework;{{Ref|ACOK|26}} some believe that the castle is [[curse]]d and haunted due to Harren's hubris and the horrors that have occurred within the castle's walls, with the early deaths of its many rulers as proof.{{ref|ACOK|7}} The curse of Harren the Black{{ref|ASOS|37}} is thought to prevent any lord from holding Harrenhal indefinitely.{{ref|AFFC|23}}