A Song Of Ice And Fire

Here.

Responding to "Martha" and "Piggy's" conversation.

Edited by SilentColossus on May 24th 2019 at 9:50:38 AM

That doesn't specifically refute Daenerys completing the conquest of Dorne, though. Only that the water gardens thing might not play out that way.

Dany coming to blows against Dorne is well set-up. Quentyn's death is going to be blamed on her. Quentyn's companions already think so, Arianne is going to back Young Griff. And if you want to do the "game of legitimacy" i.e. whose Targaryen-ness is bigger. Restoring a pretender to the Iron Throne is impressive...going one over Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys/Young Dragon is another.

In either way House Martell are set up for a fall, that much is clear from the books. Yronwoods will take over.

The "conquest" of Dorne was completed when the kingdom submitted to the Iron Throne through a marriage agreement.

A compromise that still allowed Dorne more autonomy and less oversight about taxes than any of the 6 Kingdoms. Daenerys will complete the actual conquest and integrate Dorne into the rest of Westeros, checking off the Last Lousy Point. The Dornish are set up for a fall and a tragedy by the end of the series. I mean it's clearly building up to that...you have repeated mentions of them defying the rest of westeros, you have repeated invocations of their defiance, and in AFFC and ADWD, you have Doran waxing philosophically about a wise Dornish ruler never getting into wars they can't win and how the Dornish are really a Paper Tiger. That's basically Tempting Fate...eventually they are gonna fall and fall hard. And remember house words can bite people. The Starks will never be damned by "Winter is Coming", but "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" is just begging for "Undone" to be added to that sequence. I expect this to be like the Reconquista and the final integration of Andalusia with the rest of Spain, leading to difficult periods of adjustment for the Muslim and Jewish Spaniards as they were forced to integrate and assimilate into the new emerging Catholic Spanish identity. The Salty and Sandy Dornish will probably be made to become just like the Stony ones or otherwise migrate northwards and Essos-side.

If Daenerys does that, then that can signal that she's going down a dark path and it will definitely color her as becoming like the people she hated, but there will also be an irony because by the norms of Westeros...Daenerys doing this to Dorne will generally be greeted by the rest of westeros, "Hot damn, about time". Nobody across Westeros sees the Dornish as "good guys", not even House Stark since Jon and Robb grew up fanboying Daeron the Young Dragon, and a Stark ancestor fought alongside him. Now of course, what happens after that, whether there's a united centralized Westeros at the end, that I'm not sure. But Dorne's not gonna come out of this series intact. House Martell will fall. So that's an example of the scouring of the shire, because we are made to fall in love with and admire Dorne in the chapters of AFFC and ADWD when Doran talks of the Water Gardens, and the fact that the Dornish have norms that are more modern than the rest, and the end of that culture and way of life will definitely register as tragic and appalling, especially if it happens by Dany's hands.

If Arianne does marry Aegon VI, she'll probably be killed whenever he is. Quentyn's already dead. But I just don't see enough time or space in two books for Dany to conquer Dorne. I think Doran will succeed in keeping Dorne physically safe, for the most part, but at the cost of seeing his children and family killed due to his unwillingness to take risks and be open with his plans to his family.

I really, really need to reread the Dornish chapters though.

The main problem with Dany conquering Dorne by force of arms is that I cannot imagine how she'd do it. Beforehand Dorne was amply capable of fending off Targaryen advances (including with dragons) by simply hiding out beneath the sands and conducting ruthless guerilla warfare using the harsh weather to their advantage. No Targaryen before ever produced a effective counter-tactic to this (hence why Dorne joined by marriage) and I don't see how Daenerys, who is no Sun Tzu, would come up with something to negate this in the span of two books.

The only way I can see something to this effect unfolding is if some Dornish master tactician joins her side and to my knowledge the only one who suits that role would be Doran Martell himself, which defeats the purpose of the experiment.

I do think the Martells will get royally shanked some way or another, though, but I doubt there'll be a outright invasion of Dorne due these issues.

I think she'll just do what Aegon did, maybe gleefully strafing Dornish civilians with her Dragons. We do know that Aegon and his sisters burned Dornish towns, the book doesn't specify if people where there.

According to Doran Martell himself, Daeron Young Dragon's conquest was devastating to the region and the entire region was on the mat and they basically endured by cheating and pulling a red wedding on him at a diplomatic meeting. They haven't recovered to Pre-Daeron times entirely. Stannis also pointed out to Davos that the conquest happened because of Oakenfist destroying the seaport of Planky Town, so that implies that a few savvy Westerosi know that the Dornish ain't all that. And of course the bulk of the Martell army will be outside Dorne aiding Arianne at the time, much like King Robb in ACOK.

When Daenerys lands in Westeros she would have an army like the Dothraki and the Unsullied, also the Stormcrows, and maybe the Second Sons and the Ironborn. That's a pretty unusual crew not like your typical Westerosi knights and lords who kept failing to adapt from earlier mistakes in Dorne and so on. And of course Tyrion would be her advisor. For Tyrion to presumably lead her on in being involved in the destruction of KL, Dany would need good reasons to listen to his advice (which yeah, the show didn't give him) so him counselling her on the real dope about Dorne would work. Tyrion would lead her on in the same speech he used on Young Griff: "My queen, the pretender's put on a good show by taking King's Landing before you, ridding the realm of the Lannisters and claiming revenge. What would be left for you to achieve...unless you could claim for yourself a Targaryen first. The first to conquer Dorne."

As for there being no time, I think there would be plenty of time. My guess is TWOW is going to be a monster of a book, and ADOS another monster. But yeah, the fall of Dorne is gonna happen.

No one said the Dornish guerilla war was easy, but the First Dornish War ended with one dragon and a Princeess shot out from the sky and Dorne outliving Aegon's attempts to set the entire kingdom on fire over the course of 9 whole years and Daeron's attempts were fruitless over 4 years. Those were wars that lasted several years and didn't manage to break the Dornish resistance. I doubt Daenerys has years to spend, either in-universe or out of it (as Martin hates timeskips and has the mildly ridiculous concept of this entire war lasting less than one year).

Sure, the Dornishman always "resort" to under-handed tactics like the assassination of Harlan Tyrell and Daeron, but they always work. As I said, I think the possible conquest of Dorne will be one based in the same coin (i.e political trickery) rather than force of arms. I actually find it quite likely Doran will lose some of his children to Daenerys before rapidly pulling a fast one and joining her side with the realization that she's their best bet and Daenerys concedes his allegiance out of fear of a Dornish War like her ancestors absolutely failed at. It's a very Doran-esque turn of events, for his arc of "politically savvy man plots treachery to avenge and promote his family" ending with him being forced to use his political savvyness to realize he has to give up on revenge after his family is mostly dead.

Daenerys has three dragons (but only one rider), Dothraki, Unsullied, Stormcrows and possibly some Ironborn (assuming the Second Sons stay behind in Essos as they do in the show for the sake of argument. she does need to leave someone in Essos to make sure her whole system won't collapse the moment she leaves).

Dothraki are essentially a mindless horde primed for being starved out by guerilla tactics (starve out their horses and they're done for) and falling into traps. Stormcrows are constantly referred to as being unreliable who flee at the first sign of trouble, so they might just get out of dodge the moment that Dorne quickly turns this into a protracted guerilla war (not to mention that their forte is open battle, not counter-insurgency, they're awfully unquipped to fight with "ghosts in the sands" like the Dornishmen).

Out of her forces, the only ones that really bring something new to the table that Dornishmen are unacquainted with are The Unsullied and the Ironborn. The Unsullied are the soldiers best suited against guerilla warfare (as their inhuman resilience and discipline makes it hard to kill them by skirmishes and harassment) and the Ironborn have this powerful fleet that the Dornishmen aren't used to dealing with.

Doran, meanwhile, has the best black-ops team of the Seven Kingdoms (i.e The Sand Snakes, a crack-team of infiltrators, poisoners and overall badasses, one of which is currently infiltrated in Oldtown pilfering through all manner of arcane knowledge), House Dayne and its battalion of amazing swordsmen (with a young Lord that has spent the entire story so far being tutored in the arts of guerilla warfare by Lord Beric Dondarrion) and everybody's favorite edgelord Darkstar.

I just find it unlikely unless some major disaster befalls House Martell. I just see Dothraki wasting away in the desert plains, Stormcrows having their throats slit during the night and Ironborn being poisoned one by one.

I mean, really, considering where Dany is right now in the books, I don't know how many resources we can count on her having by that point, aside from at least one dragon. Things are kind of up in the air when it comes to everything else she built up.

I would also hope that she learned at least one lesson from Slaver's Bay, and understands that trying to conquer Westerns without local allies is doomed to end badly.

Since Dorne is her best bet to find those allies, burning it would be a pretty fatal error on her part, and one I respect Dany enough to believe she knows better than to make by this point.

Edited by Gilphon on May 25th 2019 at 1:47:28 PM

No it wasn't. Daeron crushed the Dornish, got them to bend the knee. Then he left and made Leo Tyrell in charge and he screwed up, then Daeron came back won and made them all bend the knee again, and that's when he got stabbed in the parley. The Dornish lost to Daeron in battle multiples times and as per Doran Martell, Daeron's book is an exaggeration for mainly overselling how much of a fight the Dornish were. So a Curb-Stomp Battle is possible legitimately.

I don't see any scenario where Doran does that. This guy has a burning obsessive need for revenge and someone who tries to balance it pragmatically. His tragedy is trying to think that revenge can work pragmatically and eventually that's going to have him entirely shut down and destroyed. The death of Quentyn when he finds out about it, is going to make him snap. He's going to blame Daenerys for it irrationally and that will make them all side with Aegon VI. Daenerys meanwhile, when she meets up with Tyrion (who is all schemes and spite) will be sicced on Illyrio at Pentos (since obviously her journey began there and she has to get back to him to complete that arc before leaving Essos) who in his final moments will confess to the entire scheme with Aegon VI and so on, and then be bbq'd, and then Tyrion will tell her the skivvy on Westeros. Daenerys versus Doran will be actually gray as would Daenerys executing Doran at the end. Much moreso than the show asking us to give a crap about the Tarlys.

Daenerys landing in Dorne and then going through the Stormlands towards King's Landing will put her en route to places like the Tower of Joy, to Summerhall (both being symbolic locations and in the case of Summerhall given Egg's attempt to revive the dragons to reform Westeros and so on, a major warning for her), to Storm's End which is where the Golden Company are occupied and so on, and then finally towards King's Landing. And when KL goes belly-up, she will go North somewhere around the early part of ADOS, and meet Jon Snow.

I could be wrong of course, but then so can anyone at this point.

Man, you have a very specific idea for how things are going to go. The more specific you get with stuff like this, the more likely you are to be completely wrong.

I am okay with the possibility that I could be wrong about this. That's fine. To get back to the show's finale, the stuff that happens there that are totally unbelievable:

1. The Wildlings up and leave back beyond the wall and don't stick around. Yeah not gonna happen. You don't start a book series going "What was Aragorn's policy towards the Orcs?" and end with the Orcs going "We won't bother you again. We never really wanted to come down South all those centuries ago." Some Wildlings might choose to go back beyond the Wall but a lot of them will settle down South for sure. We had the Alys/Sigorn marriage already that was removed from the show.

2. Bran being King of the 6K while the North up and leaves, and the Iron Islands and Dorne shrugging away. Not gonna happen. Bran being an Old Gods shaman and Physical God and being established as King isn't going to happen without a substantial religious revival for Old Gods worship. Right now the only religions that are mobilizing and increasing in adherents is the Faith of the Seven in the Sparrow movement and Rhllor which is spreading in the North under Melisandre and in the Riverlands among the Brotherhood, with Gendry becoming a Rhllorist. Iron Islands and Dorne won't accept it unless their leadership is entirely given over to say the Harlaws and the Yronwoods.

3. In the case of the Vale, you have the issue with the Hill Tribes all armed and armored in Tyrion's service and sent back to the Vale and just waiting and whiling away in the mountains. That's going to figure in some way. My guess is that the entire chivalry of the Vale heads north, and dies nobly, while the Hill Tribes takes advantage of their absence and take over and break stuff and maybe end up as rulers of the Vale by series end or something, or you know they play a part in defying the Walkers and the aftermath settlement confirms these guys as heroes.

So those elements are examples where the show is just plain unreliable. For the finale to work, Tyrion Lannister needs to be accepted as a moral authority. Not gonna happen in the books. There's no Night King in the books and if there will be, he's not gonna go out like a chump. So any actual guesses and stuff provided by the show is on the order of those fanfics which guessed that "Snape loved Lily" but didn't mean anything since Rowling created an entire new context and situation where that bomb dropped.

Also if Sansa DOES become Queen in the North in the books, I assume she'll actually take more lands with her than just the North - realistically, I could see both the Riverlands and the Vale sticking with the North while the rest of the realm does who knows what.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 26th 2019 at 2:20:42 PM

Given the Riverlands have no geographical borders and it’s a failed state par excellence I cannot imagine that being played as whatevs, have your independence. The vale won’t go over unless Sansa married Harry Harding and was pregnant with his kid. In that scenario it’ll be Sansa as Queen regent over the baby that was the Arryn ruling over the north, vale, Riverlands

Well unlike the show, the Sand Snakes actually know Doran's intentions. So Dany will already have the force of at least one of the Seven Kingdoms behind her when she lands. That is, if they don't throw their weight in behind Aegon.

They probably will go for Aegon, though.

Dany broke her marriage pact with Dorne. While she didn't know about the pact in the first place and Quentyn's ensuing death was 100% his own fault, Dany probably won't be getting Dorne's support without a lot of strings attached.

Meanwhile, Aegon provides a suitable alternative to help the Martells get revenge on the Lannisters, especially if Doran buys Aegon being his nephew.

Yeah. Which is why I think the whole arc will be Doran losing most of his remaining family before realizing that he needs to let go off vengeance or he'll lose all of it and accepting Daenerys, probably heartbroken.

Doran I think is heading to Jon Con’s way of thinking- “ I am sick of prudence.” He is gonna go all in on this. His story is about balancing vengeance with pragmatism but losing his son on top of his brother is gonna be the point where he decides screw em all. He is not gonna back down and that will come at the price of the Dornish people.

The Dornish people want war, though. His first chapter has them screaming for blood after they find out about Oberyn's death.

It’s implied that this was stirred up by the sand snakes. It’s also largely around sunspear and probably not representative. In the books that kind of matters. And in any case what seems actually popular is the dornish going north and raiding stuff not fighting a defensive war.

The Dornish have this younger generation who heard the stories about Dornish defiance and their defeat at the trident alongside Rhaegar and Tywin’s atrocities and that creates this new generation of adventurers who think they’re hot stuff and have this history of being badasses but Doran as he tells Arianne at the end of AFFC knows the truth. Their armies and numbers and population is small and another war would likely finish them unless the Martells back the winning side. I don’t think they’re gonna. Oberyn appeals to that thwarted sense of vengeance where the people of Dorne many of whom probably lost people at the trident needed catharsis and Doran wasn’t able to give it to them.

I always thought it was weird how little Casterly Rock is involved in the story, given how many important characters are from there.

Has Martin ever said if we'll see Casterly Rock outside of flashbacks or visions?

Edited by Kostya on Jun 9th 2019 at 10:27:34 AM

I don't care if it's stalling GRRM. I'm hyped for this collaboration.