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A small mercy, that, thought Barristan Selmy, as he rode into the market square inside Meereen’s great western gate. When Daenerys had taken the city, they had broken through that same gate with the huge battering ram called Joso’s Cock, made from the mast of a ship. The Great Masters and their slave soldiers had met the attackers here, and the fighting had raged through the surrounding streets for hours. By the time the city finally fell, hundreds of dead and dying had littered the square.

These lines have been taken from A song of Ice and Fire. Shouldn't the bold part be something like by the time the city had finally fallen?

Amogh
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    Is there a specific reason that you think it should be "had fallen"? We have a saying here that we like to call "FumbleFingers' Perfect Truism", which is "Don't use the perfect unless you really have to." – stangdon Apr 20 '21 at 11:39
  • I think had fallen should be used here because this whole paragraph has been written in past tense and the last line is describing the condition of the city when it had fallen last time. – Amogh May 10 '21 at 17:34
  • But past perfect is usually used to compare an event in the past to another event in the past. In this case, we're just saying "When X happened, Y had already happened." There isn't any need for past perfect in the first part of the sentence. – stangdon May 10 '21 at 18:59
  • And if we wanted to write something like the city had fallen by morning, would 'had' be correct here as there is no comparison here? – Amogh May 10 '21 at 19:17

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