King's Landing (short)

This article is about the Histories & Lore special feature. For the location, see King's Landing.

Template:Lore "King's Landing" is part of the Histories & Lore, a special feature from Game of Thrones: The Complete Eighth Season. It is narrated by Conleth Hill as Varys.

Synopsis

Varys explains the origins and the workings of King's Landing.

Narrations

Varys: King's Landing is both a city and a curse. Aegon the Conqueror was the first king to land there. His first conquest, a tiny village at the mouth of the Blackwater River, where he raised a wooden fort.

When it became clear that Aegon would earn his title, people flocked to the fort and renamed it "King's Landing" in his honor. The ploy succeeded, and Aegon chose King's Landing for his capital over older and more beautiful cities like Oldtown and anywhere else.

The currying of royal favor thus became the foundation of the city, and blood its bricks. Maegor the Cruel, Aegon's son, completed the city's famous Red Keep to hold the trappings of power: the royal family, the Kingsguard, and the Iron Throne. To maintain the castle's secrets, Maegor murdered all his masons and craftsmen at a feast, which he catered with the new castle servants, who soon found all its secrets for himself.

When the Faith Militant challenged his rule, Maegor razed their Sept of Remembrance to the ground with them inside at prayer and erected the Dragonpit on the ashes. But the great dragons it housed were attacked by the very lowborn people they were meant to terrify.

Thousands of people died in the attempt, but hundreds of thousands lived in King's Landing, and now the only dragons in the city are golden.

Like most kings, Aegon and Maegor missed a central truth – that a king lands is less important than what he lands on. The people, who will never visit his Red Keep, or his Dragonpit, or any of his noble monuments to nobility, because they're too busy holding up his realm.

Without the slums of Flea Bottom and the poor and desperate folk it produces, who would fight the king's wars and cook the king's meals and admire him as he rode past at speed?

Without its winding dark alleys and pot-shops, where would the Red Keep empty its sewage? Of all kinds. Without the Street of Flour, the king would have no bread.

Without the Street of Steel, the king's armies would have no swords, armor, or victories. Without the Street of Looms, the king would go naked, and without the Street of Silk, he wouldn't enjoy it.

Without the Street of Sisters, the king would have no humility; it leads from the ruin of the Dragonpit to the ruin of the Great Sept of Baelor, where the Targaryens and Baratheons buried their kings until Cersei Lannister unburied them.

Now those kings are ashes, scattered on the wind, and nobody marked where they landed. A palace without people is a tomb. A realm without people is scenery.

Appearances

Characters

• King Aegon I Targaryen
• King Maegor Targaryen
• Balerion (shadow)
• Queen Visenya Targaryen (indirectly mentioned)
• Queen Rhaenys Targaryen (indirectly mentioned)
• King Baelor Targaryen (indirectly mentioned)
• Queen Cersei Lannister (mentioned)

Noble houses

• House Targaryen
• House Baratheon of King's Landing (mentioned)
• House Lannister (mentioned)

Organizations

• Kingsguard
• Faith Militant

Religions

• Faith of the Seven

Locations

• Westeros
  • The Crownlands
    • King's Landing
      • The Red Keep
      • The Sept of Remembrance
      • The Dragonpit
      • Flea Bottom
      • Street of Flour
      • Street of Steel
      • Street of Looms
      • Street of Silk
      • Street of Sisters
      • Great Sept of Baelor
    • Blackwater Rush
    • Blackwater Bay
    • The Aegonfort

Events

• War of Conquest
• Faith Militant uprising
  • Burning of the Sept of Remembrance
• Dance of the Dragons
  • Storming of the Dragonpit
• Rise and Fall of the Sparrows (mentioned)
  • Destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor (mentioned)

Miscelaneous

• Bowl of brown

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