Liberation of Harrenhal

The Liberation of Harrenhal is a military engagement in the War of the Five Kings.

In the Riverlands, the morale of King Robb Stark's army is starting to wane. They have not had a significant victory since the Battle of Oxcross months ago, and the news of the Lannisters' victory over Stannis and new alliance with the Tyrells piles bad news upon bad news. Robb has won every battle he has ever fought, but the Lannisters finally realized it was too difficult to try to attack him head-on, so they have shifted to the new strategy of simply fleeing ahead of Robb's army. Robb's forces have won many small but also insignificant minor victories, as the Lannisters are now determined to simply wait Robb out and exhaust his army far from home while they slowly rebuild their own numbers and gain new allies. In frustration, Robb launches a new offensive to the east which takes the great castle of Harrenhal, which Tywin had been using it as the main Lannister forward base in the Riverlands during the first year of the war. However, Robb does not find the decisive victory he was hoping for: Tywin withdrew his garrison to King's Landing to counter the attack by Stannis, and didn't even bother wasting any men on a token defense of the castle. Robb and his forces are further demoralized to find that the Lannisters massacred two hundred Northern and Riverlands prisoners of war before they left, and the courtyards are choked with piles of bodies. They do find one survivor, a maester named Qyburn.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels,