Game of Thrones – Welcome To King’s Landing
This scene of Catelyn arriving in King’s Landing is a scene I’ve been looking forward to, terrified of, and ultimately exasperated by.
The problem is that Mr. Martin goes from Catelyn’s point of view to a straight exposition dump in one paragraph. I get the feeling, he got around to mapping out King’s Landing after he wrote the first book.
According to the official map, all of the docks are on the river. That means she can’t be as far away as the text says. The text also says they are sailing past the Fishmarket, which is west of the Mudgate. That means there is no way Catelyn would be able to see the Dragon Pit.
Now the city covered the shore as far as Catelyn could see; manses and arbors and granaries, brick storehouses and timbered inns and merchant’s stalls, taverns and graveyards and brothels, all piled one on another. She could hear the clamor of the fish market even at this distance. Between the buildings were broad roads lined with trees, wandering crookback streets, and alleys so narrow that two men could not walk abreast. Visenya’s hill was crowned by the Great Sept of Baelor with its seven crystal towers. Across the city on the hill of Rhaenys stood the blackened walls of the Dragonpit, its huge dome collapsing into ruin, its bronze doors closed now for a century. The Street of the Sisters ran between them, straight as an arrow. The city walls rose in the distance, high and strong.
Game of Thrones – Chapter 18