"Just because there's one location from the book doesn't mean I'm in the book's universe," more out of hope than logic Max told himself, forcing his gaze away from the towering majesty of Winterfell down toward the muddy road beneath his feet.He drew in a deep breath of cold, startlingly fresh air, and his legs carried him south at a brisk pace, toward Winterfell's North Gate and the ring road.His inherited memories labeled the current season as "summer." They also described the temperature as "rather warm."But by the standards of Max's previous life — or rather, by Earth's standards — only a madman would describe the current weather as either "summer" or "warm.""My new reality..." he thought. "'Winters' with up to -40-60C. 'Summers' averaging +5-8C. 'Autumns' and 'Springs' with occasional dipping close to freezing..."He sighed and began studying the surrounding ruined buildings with growing curiosity, mentally merging Max Northson's memories with what he recalled from the show, fragments of the books, and facts he had once skimmed from the ASOIAF Wiki.De jure, Winter Town near Winterfell was located on the eastern side of the castle.De facto, for the past decade, since the last true winter, that had been accurate as well.But overall? In the context of the same Winter Town that, according to the Wiki, could shelter more than twenty thousand people during winter? This wasn't truly so.The eastern side of Winterfell contained the Winter Town vital infrastructure and the homes of those who predominantly lived in Winter Town year-round, or at least paid for house maintenance during summer.At the same time, around 15-20% of the remaining houses — that entirely belonged to families who lived in Winter Town only when farming and grazing became impossible due to the cold — were scattered around the other sides of Winterfell. Arranged in small clusters of four to twenty buildings.And since the last winter had ended nearly a decade ago, it was fair to say that modern Winterfell was surrounded by clusters of half-rotted, half-dismantled ruins, with the occasional well-maintained clusters — as in the case of the rich West side which goes near the main stretch of Kingsroad — to lonely houses, like the one Max Northson had lived in.Amusingly, in house that stood in the northernmost section of 'real' Winter Town, north of Winterfell's North Gate and close to the northern stretch of the Kingsroad which smallfolk often called just "North road."If Winterfell were an ordinary castle, the layout of Winter Town would be little more than a curiosity.But Winterfell — the book version of Winterfell, Max corrected himself — was not an ordinary castle. It was... well. Winterfell.A fortress whose scale eclipsed the largest castles humanity had ever built on Earth. A titanic granite "fuck you" aimed at engineering common sense.Because of that, even at a brisk pace, traveling from the half-ruined north side of Winter Town (at east side of Kingsroad) to its wealthier eastern districts took a lot of time.First, Max had to reach the ring road — one he was only just approaching — that encircled Winterfell (because of hills, from north and east side via normal road, and from south and west side by Kingsroad).Then he had to traverse roughly 350-400 meters along the northeastern side, all while fighting a strong gale created by the castle walls and enduring the atrocious condition of a road that clearly hadn't been repaired in at least a decade. Rising and falling over hills. Which, in compensation, at least offered a fascinating view of both the Winterfell and the northeastern ravine, perhaps the remnants of the quarry that had once supplied Winterfell's granite.After numerous fleeting, constantly disrupted by the wind, attempts to examine different visible sections of Winterfell, Max finally reached a conclusion:"The idea that this castle could have been built without giants or magic is ridiculous.Not because of the castle's sheer overall size.And not even because of the equally colossal outer wall - an absurd twenty-five meters tall and stretching for a much more absurd distance.But because behind that outer wall stood an unmistakably older inner wall that built not only from large granite blocks, but also from occasional megaliths. Some of which were set at heights where lifting such massive stones using wooden scaffolding created by Iron Age–technological level would have been not merely almost impossible — at least in such quantities — but an utterly irrational waste of time and resources.Unless, of course, the builders had perceived their size and weight not as flaws, but as advantages," he rationalized.Another piece of evidence lay beneath the outer wall: occasionally visible long smooth granite slabs. Yep, even larger granite megaliths."Obviously," Max thought sarcastically, "they're there to protect the castle from a particularly dangerous species of 'Northern Moles', so they wouldn't tunnel under the first wall and damage the FUCKING MOAT between the walls."He briefly wondered what kind of liquid that enormous moat — with its many-meter-thick granite sides — had been designed to hold. But finding no answer, he turned his attention to the third piece of evidence."The stones of the outer wall are just stones, held together with traces of intermediate smaller stones and mortar. But all, always enormous, stones of the inner wall have a perfect, stained-glass-like, fit. Every. Single. One.Sure, even cavemen could cut and drill granite, one of the hardest type of stone, using wood sprinkled with corundum or granite grit. But to process every stone and megalith so carefully, so uniformly, and on such scale? Nope. That isn't engineering madness - it's clear evidence of an unknown construction technology," Max concluded."Also... for what?Judging by Max Northson's memories and by basic common sense, Winterfell was never really a castle.In essence, Winterfell is two enormous walls and a moat, enclosing vast empty spaces areas large enough to house either a city or tremendous army......and several enormous inner castles, or rather forts, designed primarily as fallback positions, in case both defensive perimeters were breached.Considering that the tallest of those keeps are more than twice the height of the inner wall, their peaks must reach nearly sixty meters. Taller than the Tower of Pisa.And their width?Judging by First Keep and the towering spire - 40-45 meters width. At 50-60 meters height. And partially visible remnants of the First Keep? Even wider.Against conventional enemies such a layout makes no sense. Not in terms of battle scale. Not in the number of soldiers required to man the walls. And certainly not in the sheer volume of supplies those soldiers would need.No, Winterfell clearly wasn't built merely to endure prolonged sieges." he concluded.Max's intuition whispered that it wasn't just a gigantic last stand either. Rather, it felt like a place designed for a colossal ritual or ritualistic sacrifice.Something meant to trigger either a massive, area‑of‑effect buff like it was in show with Melisandre' spell, or a terraforming event akin to those that created the modern Neck and Stepstones.Possibly even to buy time for preparation of additional rituals at the subsequent chokepoints, near what would later become Moat Cailin and Greywater Watch.As he reflected on Winterfell's sheer scale, Max's thoughts gradually shifted toward its book nature, and from there, to the likelihood that he indeed ended up in the book universe."If this is the book universe," he thought grimly, "everything will be much more complicated and much more dangerous.The book Others weren't a horde of dumb ice zombies controlled by a handful of semi-sentient ice zombies, which in turn functioned only because of a single, poorly protected control node.They were almost certainly a sentient magical race with an ice aspect and a specialization in necromancy.Not a hive mind, but a hierarchy of at least partially decentralized necro-officers commanding squads, regiments, armies composed not merely of hundreds of thousands of wights, but also big death animals, and likely the Others' own pets - giant ice spiders.And all of this probably buffed and enhanced by full-fledged — straight from Age of Heroes — cold/ice magic.And in general, the book version of Planetos was far more magical than its show counterpart.The Isle of Faces with its environmental magic. Talking doors. Coldhands with hints that the local necromancy was a subtype of very universal warging. If the rumors about Qohor were even half true, there might be dozens of practitioners of Melisandre's power in a single city.And so many magical factions.Even just the book version of the Old Gods slash 'root internet' — perhaps an Avatar-like conglomeration of consciousness — should be far more proactive than the show's version, a glorified psychic amplifier limited to a few chosen ones. Let alone spiritual entities which past centuries gorged on abundant sacrificial offerings.Every such magical layer add another layer of potential dangers and uncertainty.More so because I had never actually read the books." Max sighed and kicked a small stone with his foot."Only scattered chapters when I was curious how certain scenes from the show looked on the pages. Many-many years ago."His thoughts were interrupted as the first houses of the eastern Winter Town came into view.Well maintained two, sometimes three, story buildings made from logs and stone.With a surprisingly bigger range of details and colors than what he expected from medieval architecture.And noise. The creak of wagons. Overlapping adult conversations. Children's laughter. The distant sawing and barking of dogs.And the noticeable smell of stinking, burning, food.And people. So many people over remarkably wide roads, and even more so on massive eastern Kingsroad stretch.Undoubtedly, Winter Town currently housed no more than a quarter of its true winter population. But even four or five thousand people was an enormous number for a horizontal handicraft-oriented settlement and the second biggest trade-hub of the Kingdom of the North."It's surreal," thought Max as he walked between the covered wooden stalls filled with all kinds of handcrafted goods, from dishes and food to toys and tools."People often talk about how a medieval peasant would lose their mind in a modern city. But the reverse is also actual. Being surrounded by endless things that are sort of familiar yet different in shape, purpose, and meanings is also fucking disorienting.Especially here...In a place that, both in the show and in the books, was basically sentenced to misery.If I had ended up in Worm's Brockton Bay, because of the evacuation time before Leviathan hit the suburbs, I don't think I would feel anything like this.But here? Where the odds of escaping the Ironborn and Boltons are insignificant, the tragic fate of this place really hit the point.The fate of this real place. 'Being Winter Town is suffering' multiversal role. The fact that something like this even exist. Myriads of 'Winter Towns' and myriads other places with similar fates.And the pressure of responsibility for all these people. The world.And the fear of making even the smallest mistake because of too much unknown and too much important consequences.And understanding that mistakes are inevitable because of a too shallow understanding, which will soon inevitably worsen because of the butterfly effect.All of this really stings.How do other transmigrators endure this?By denying reality?By convincing themselves it can't be changed therefore it's meaningless?By shifting blame on transmigration reasons?By excusing their actions with mental trauma and outside influence of antagonistic persons, cultures, real or imaginable Cthulhus?By becoming desensitized to others by belief that their powers made them a different species?By emotional burnout?In fanfiction 'yea, now I in a new world, what of it?' sound so easy. But the human mind — even as adapted for such things as postmodern ones — is just not made for such sudden and total environmental and worldview changes.No wonder I lost most of my personal memory. Otherwise, the effect would have been much-much more severe and debilitating.And no wonder transmigration predominantly happens with a small list of archetypes. Essentially 'The Community' ones: trickster, thinker, child, helper, sociopath, and jester-psychopath.I don't see how more balanced archetypes — normal people — could be capable of withstanding something like this more fully.Without hypertrophied virtues-vices and tunnel visions which in the case of transmigration turn into shelters. Judging by the scarcity of stories about functional transmigrators many decades after their transmigration, and function of divinity via conceptual limitations, very temporary or permanent ones...Human minds just cannot look at something as enormous as the multiverse by a macroscopic rather than microscopic gaze, and not unravel and dissolve into it.Fuck. I really need to get more charges as soon as possible and buy Perfect Mental Health power, and if it doesn't count for Master effect, automatic psychotherapy for everyone around me.Yes, if life gives me — 'slippery slope into Entity' — Power Manipulation, I should make powermanipulationade," rambled Max, approaching a massive three-story building that, at first glance, looked like it was made from enormous piled tree trunks. With a long line of horses and several carriages on both sides of a wide door with nearby lone guard.