HBO
The battle that took place at the end of “Spoils of War,” Season 7 Episode 4 of Game of Thrones, is a little confusing. In fact, the timeline can be a bit hard to follow, especially if you missed some key conversation moments. Despite what some fans think, there weren’t any plot holes.
Here’s a look at the map and the timeline from the episode.
Timeline Before the Battle
When we first see Jamie and Bronn in the episode, they’ve just left Highgarden shortly after the battle where Jamie poisoned Olenna. Jamie and Bronn talked about the long journey ahead and the grain they were going to take from farmers along the way.
It was also near the beginning of the episode that Daenerys found out that Highgarden was taken by Cersei’s Kingsguard. If the news came by crow, then that scene happened not too long after the battle. She hasn’t decided yet what her next move will be, hence her discussion with her advisers and Jon Snow. They also talked about how she could get enough vessels to carry all the Dothraki and take them to Westeros, but it would take time.
This is when a big time jump happens that you might have missed. When Theon comes to shore, it could be as long as a few weeks later. Jon tells him that The Queen is not there. She has already left with the Dothraki and Drogon for battle.
The battle itself takes place right outside of King’s Landing, before they crossed the Blackwater Rush. We know this because Tarly said to Jamie, before Dany attacked: “All the gold’s safely through the gates of King’s Landing.” Then Tarly spoke about needing to also bring the last of the wagons (carrying grain) over the Blackwater Rush.
Map of Westeros and the Battle
Quartermaester.info
This map helps us to know that the timeline for the Dothraki’s arrival works out just fine in the episode. This map is from Quartermaester.info. You should visit the website, because the map is interactive and features everything in Westeros. You can zoom in or zoom out as you want and even see what’s outside of Westeros.
Highgarden is in the bottom left corner of this map. Dragonstone is in the upper right corner of the map. If Jamie and the Kingsguard took the Roseroad from Highgarden to King’s Landing, they would have needed to cross the Blackwater Rush first before reaching their destination. When Dany attacked, the gold had already been carried through the gates, but the grain and the rest of the Kingsguard still needed to cross the Blackwater Rush.
Meanwhile, you can see Dragonstone on the map and how much closer it is to King’s Landing than Highgarden.
So there actually was plenty of time for Dany to gather the Dothraki and sail to King’s Landing in the time it took Jamie and Bronn and their crew to travel by horse, via Roseroad, with the gold from Highgarden to King’s Landing.
There’s no plot hole. The distance makes perfect sense once you take into account how far Jamie and the Kingsguard had traveled by the time they were attacked.