Love, Trust, Guilt: Doran's not keeping anything from Arianne

[Mithras]

Doran only needed to watch Viserys a little and that was enough for him to dismiss Viserys completely.

[naseridrl]

I've never understood the plot to marry Arianne to Viserys. Did he just forget what happen to his sister Being Princess of Dorne would be no picnic for Arianne but it would damn sure be safer and a much better life for her than Queen of Westeros, does he think Elia was happy married into that nutty family, and he wanted that for his child? Sounds crazy to me. And then he did nothing to help her prepare for that potential role he just left her.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

So, you think that two former street thieves, Varys and Illyrio, are capable of raising and nurturing either the fake or real Aegon without anyone ever having even a whiff of this....but the Prince of Dorne isn't capable of sending some aid to Viserys, despite having vastly more resources than the two of them? I find this impossible to believe. Doran is lame, that is the answer.

You are forgetting the big difference between the two situations.

In the eyes of everyone in Westeros, except for Varys, Aegon was dead. That's the important part. Aegon was believed to be dead, which means that no one was looking for him, no one was on the lookout for information about him.

In the case of Viserys, that was completely different. Viserys was known to be alive. And it won't only have been Varys who gave KL information about Viserys. People would flock to Jon Arryn, to LF, to Cersei etc.

Viserys would be seen everywhere he went, and all of those people, in all of those Free Cities, would have been potential spies who told KL what they saw.

So had Doran send anyone to Viserys, it would have been known that said person was with Viserys, and sooner or later, someone would have been able to track said person back to Doran.

Look at the amount of secrecy needed for Aegon alone, Aegon, who no one knew to look for.. Imagine how it was for Viserys.

How could the "beggar king" have governed Westeros with Arianne?

I'm not in Doran's head, I don't know what he had planned, what he has done, and what he wanted to do..

But a suggestion would be that Doran would have insisted to be on Viserys' Small Council, perhaps even insisted on being Viserys' Hand.

Who did? Apart from Viserys' paranoia, there are no hints for that.

Viserys believed there were "hired knives" after him. We haven't seen any hints about that. Yet Robert has had intel on Viserys, that seems obvious, yes?

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Viserys believed there were "hired knives" after him. We haven't seen any hints about that. Yet Robert has had intel on Viserys, that seems obvious, yes?

That's just his paranoia speaking. Neither Robert nor Ned nor anybody else in Westeros knows of it and even Dany considers them to be products of his imagination as she grows up.

Robert barely has any intel on Viserys, no more than the ordinary rumor mill produces about any prominent personage. Right up until Khal Drogo marries Dany and Jorah is placed.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

That's just his paranoia speaking. Neither Robert nor Ned nor anybody else in Westeros knows of it and even Dany considers them to be products of his imagination as she grows up.

Robert barely has any intel on Viserys, no more than the ordinary rumor mill produces about any prominent personage. Right up until Khal Drogo marries Dany and Jorah is placed.

I agree that the hired knives were mostly Viserys' paranoia.

But the intel was real. It doesn't simply start when Drogo marries Dany, and Jorah joins their group, though naturally, Jorah so close to Dany and Viserys does make the intel a lot more frequent.

Robert had known that Dany and Viserys had spend the last half year with Illyrio, for example. That was prior to Jorah joining Viserys and Dany.

I'm not saying that there was a lot of intel, but there was intel, and that will have been enough for the cautious Doran to not send anyone to Viserys.

[Pod The Impaler]

Doran made many errors over the years:-

1. Planning to wed Arianne to Viserys while (apparently) doing nothing to aid the latter and Dany during their exile. Viserys is hopelessly untrained for any position of leadership. Funds, advisors, bodyguards could surely have been discreetly provided via the Iron Bank. Had Viserys had any idea of the marriage pact, he may have stayed in Pentos.

2. Sending Quentyn out to Meereen with inexperienced advisors and colleagues. The right choice to go with Quentyn would surely have been Oberyn. The Kings Landing mission could have been accomplished by a senior official.

3. Keeping Arianne in the dark. Whatever he thinks of her abilities, she's still his heir. What if he dropped dead suddenly? How would Arianne pick up the pieces?

4. Doing little to train her to rule, other than planning entertainments. She knows little about the laws or military strength of Dorne. Even if she was destined to be Queen of Westeros, that job is no sinecure.

I certainly agree with these. I understand that Doran was terrified of being discovered, by someone like the Spider (ironic, that), but his machinations were so opaque that every opportunity was missed.

And Arianne ... was he blind to the fact that she was seething with resentment over the years, and increasingly apt to disobey him ? Her attempt to go see Willas Tyrell with Tyene was interesting, and I suspect in the aftermath of that came her trip to the desert (and crush on Oberyn), not to mention losing her virginity to Daemon Sand. All of that says "rebelling against daddy", and is a danger sign since his plans require subtlety, not her randomly lashing out in unpredicatble ways.

Easier to send the Sand Snakes or other friends away from her side, to some other task, than to keep her in the dark just so she can never tell them.

Oberyn was sent to King's Landing, when he would have been a better candidate to send to Dany's side. Deadly, smart, confident, and very familiar with Essos. and if he offered the spears of Dorne to her cause, she'd have believed it (and it would have been that much earlier, too). I think too much of his going to King's Landing involved a confrontation with Tywin. Doran is supposed to be a good judge of character, but then he should have seen that Oberyn was not a man to easily resist temptation - be it sex or confrontation.

[JonBranRickon]

I consider the whole Martel family a giant waste of time. Why is DOran worried about anything? He has the only region that could not be conquered and only his army and the Vale are untouched by the war. A weak man with a weak strategy.

[Pod The Impaler]

Who did? Apart from Viserys' paranoia, there are no hints for that.

I agree. There are ways around that. Chances are they were no less watched when Oberyn first went to Braavos to meet Darry, and made the pact - probably more so that the current era.

Examining the "hired knives" issue, one can come to the conclusion that had any really serious ones been hired, both Viserys and Dany would be as good as dead. After Darry died, they had neither protection nor even a home. So how were they even safe all those years? Surely, if protection were needed, Mellario had contacts in Norvos who could send another pair of Areos to protect them, or Oberyn would have known some other Dornish knights who could be "driven into exile" with some likely tale, to end up by their side. Instead, Dany and Vis end up with Jorah - a northman, and he was a spy. And then Dorne lets both of them ride off after Dany is married to the notoriously fickle and violent Dothraki.

Would Doran feel they were safe? Perhaops only if he knew Varys was not really trying hard as their foe, or perhaps even protecting them from Robert and especially the Lannisters.

[Chebyshov]

And Arianne ... was he blind to the fact that she was seething with resentment over the years, and increasingly apt to disobey him ? Her attempt to go see Willas Tyrell with Tyene was interesting, and I suspect in the aftermath of that came her trip to the desert (and crush on Oberyn), not to mention losing her virginity to Daemon Sand. All of that says "rebelling against daddy", and is a danger sign since his plans require subtlety, not her randomly lashing out in unpredicatble ways.

Easier to send the Sand Snakes or other friends away from her side, to some other task, than to keep her in the dark just so she can never tell them.

The only thing I can think with Arianne is that every single act she did, almost all of which were cries for attention, only served to further confirm Doran's [incorrect] anxieties about Arianne's nature. There's a chance he may have chalked some of this up to her angst over Mellario's departure, at least at first, which could have obscured the issue a bit too. Additionally, there's every indication that Doran is uncomfortable with his daughter's aging (and libido), at least up until their tell-all session. Like Hotah, he likes to think of her as the girl who would run to him with a scraped knee. None of this makes Doran dumb; it makes him cautious, yes, and a very realistic father. As for sending the others away, unless Doran wants to ship the entire teenage population of Dorne to Essos, I'm not sure his mind would have been at ease about Arianne's "nature." Besides, how suspicious would that have looked.

I do disagree with your point about Oberyn going to Dany...there's no one else Doran could have sent to KL at the time that he did. Besides, I'm pretty sure he knew what Oberyn was up to.

"I oft saw him topple boys much bigger than himself. He reminded me of that the day he left for King’s Landing. He swore that he would do it one more time, else I would never have let him go.”

With Begger-King-gate, I will say, as I did in the OP, that a lot of Doran's strategizing and plans remain opaque to us, even now. We don't know what aid he was preparing to send, or how. Remember that Dany reflects about how had Viserys known he had a Dornish princess waiting, he would have crossed the Narrow Sea at his first chance. What would this do for Dorne? Probably drag them into a war...that would be a hell of a thing to cover-up. I doubt Doran knew Viserys's nature well, but it is possible he wanted to wait for a more opportune moment to reach out to him. Maybe the Dothraki alliance actually gave him a bit of hope...only to have Viserys killed soon after. There's just too many unknowns for us to really shit on Doran and his planning.

All in all, I'd like to say I don't think what Martin is intending us to do is weigh the merits of each plot. The narrative paints a beautiful parallel between father and daughter, each with plans that erred because of the other one. Both bring something different to the table (Arianne is vivacious and has the love of the commoners, where as Doran seems passive and has control of his committed bannermen), and teamed up, they have potential to be an unstoppable force. For me, ASOIAF is not about discrete plot-points, but rather the context and the characterization that surround events. What do you think Martin wants us to take away from these near-perfect parallels for the Martells?

Can we also just appreciate how TIGHT the Dornish storyline is? We got all of this from 5 chapters.

[Mrs_Darcy]

I think it was a really big mistake of Doran to not look at how Arianne would regard her situation:

• Doran writes to her younger brother, that one day he will rule Dorne (I find it a bit odd, that he told Quentyn partly of his plans, while at the same time not telling Arianne anything. How did Quentyn interpret this letter by the way? Did he know about Arianne's betrothal to Viserys, when he left for the the seat of House Yronwood or did he think, that Doran wanted him to usurp Arianne's position?)
  
• He tells Arianne nothing and gives her an in her view lacking education (she only is in control of the feast in Sunspear, not the taxes etc.)
  
• He sends his son to foster with the second-most-powerful house in Dorne (Yronwood), who do not like women in control, have ancient ties to a really good company of sellswords (Golden Company) and even might marry one of this house's daughters (Quentyn thinks about marrying Ynis Yronwood)
  
• He actively keeps Arianne from making powerful matches (Willas Tyrell, Edmure Tully) and only wants to betroth her to men, who have no great power, have only a few years left to live and might even already be infertile (although this is not true for Walder Frey)
  
• He stalls making her an acceptable match while her fertility already is decreasing
  

[Sanset]

*quotes are under spoiler tags, for length and cleanliness.

(...)

Arianne intended to be humble and beg forgiveness, and it seemed Doran wanted to forgive her, but the “disappointment” over the years and the “words cutting to close” prevent this for both parties:

Are you proud?” The prince did not allow her time to answer. “What am I to do with you, Arianne?”

Forgive me, part of her wanted to say, but his words had cut her too deeply. “Why, do what you always do. Do nothing.”

“You make it difficult for a man to swallow his anger.”

“Best stop swallowing, you’re like to choke on it.” The prince did not answer. “Tell me how you knew my plans.”

He needs me, Arianne realized. That’s why he sent for me. “I could tell Myrcella what to say, but why should I?”

A spasm of anger rippled across her father’s face. “I warn you, Arianne, I am out of patience.”

“With me?” That is so like him. “For Lord Tywin and the Lannisters you always had the forbearance of Baelor the Blessed, but for your own blood, none.”

“You mistake patience for forbearance.”

These two quotes juxtaposed suggest that Arianne wanted to beg for forgiveness, and Doran wanted to dole it out, yet anger prevents this from occuring. Doran’s words cut deeply for Arianne because they point out fair criticisms of her person, and confirm what she’s suspected for years: her father is disappointed by her. Conversely, Arianne’s words hurt Doran. By asking why she should help him, and suggesting that he is kinder to his enemies than to her, she is playing into his own insecurities about taking too long with his plans and failing to exact revenge.

(...)

Very interesting analysis.

Pride and anger always causing the worst tragedies... That, and the Shakespearean communication issues are the recipe for disaster.

I think Doran is a pathological liar. He was caught in a lie so he covered that lie up with another. He just cannot say the truth. I think he doesn't even care about the truth, he just want to wrap himself around those lies he weaves. That's the paradox, he thinks he's protecting himself with lies but in reality he's is destroying himself and everything around him.

Doran lies in "The Princess in the tower" (AFFC, 40)

He's lying: «You do lie well, Father, I will grant you that. You did not so much as blink.»

He lied: «‘One day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne,’ you wrote him.»

He's lying: «What are you saying? Is this another lie?»

He's lying: «His tale grows ever stranger.»

When Doran finally seems to be saying something, it is so cryptic and twisted that he's not telling anything. Arianne (and we readers) is who thinks he said something but in reality Arianne is filling up the lagoons with her interpretations, (just like we readers). Because people tends to believe, which is healthy, that's why lies are so harmful. After ADwD we have more info so now the lies are getting clear. Surely Doran will come up with another lie to get away with it again. I think we won't know the truth from Doran's speech, we will know it through the facts we read in other chapters. That would explain why we don't have a Doran PoV, we have Areo Hotah's view, so we don't read Doran's thoughts (fortunately).

More lies:

«Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood’s best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart’s desire."

She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart’s desire?"

"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."»

Doran only needed to watch Viserys a little and that was enough for him to dismiss Viserys completely.

I totally agree.

Viserys is not the "onyx dragon" that Doran planned to press into Arianne's palm.

That story about not helping Viserys and Dany is more of Doran's BS. If he's so idiot that he cannot even put just a little bit of gold in their purses, he is useless. Gold cannot be traced and he would at least prevented Viserys selling his mother's crown.

ETA:That letter Doran wrote for Quentyn it was for the Yoronwoods to read, if he wanted to say those things to his son, he could have tell him that before he was gone.

[jaimereborn]

I don't really buy anything about them now being poised to "kick ass". Sure they share a lot of character traits, but they also share the same deep flaws. Arianne's fixation on her birthright will be her achilles heel, as will Doran's unerring lust for revenge. They can't have their cake and eat it. Dorne is doomed.

[Hrafntýr]

First off: Kudos, Chebyshov, on a really fine analytical essay!

I think everyone (on the reread, I mean) is still a little shocked at how the close examination has made Arianne look better and Doran look worse, and now we're trying to get the pendulum to swing back to the middle.

What I really love about this plot is the I, Claudius-like nature of it. It seems to be about grand political events that shape the fates of millions, but really it's entirely about a family relationship and personal growth. Awesome.

I agree with this completely, and I think it's largely the point of the Dorne chapters. Incidentally, GRRM is a big fan of I, Claudius.

I've never understood the plot to marry Arianne to Viserys. Did he just forget what happen to his sister Being Princess of Dorne would be no picnic for Arianne but it would damn sure be safer and a much better life for her than Queen of Westeros, does he think Elia was happy married into that nutty family, and he wanted that for his child? Sounds crazy to me. And then he did nothing to help her prepare for that potential role he just left her.

While I agree with those who have cautioned that we don't yet know Doran's true thinking on any of this, I'm really sympathetic to what you say here. I, too, don't really get the apparent Dornish preoccupation with the IT. Why not Dornish independence, which seems to make so much more sense? But in particular, with regard to what you say here, I don't really get the way in which we don't see the current generation of Martells assigning any blame to the Targaryens for what happened to Elia and her children. I mean yes, I get that Tywin is the one responsible for the actual deed, but what about Rhaegar's "abduction" of Lyanna? The keeping of Elia and her kids hostage in KL? There's just something I can't quite fathom here, and I guess one might therefore possibly assume that the Dornish were in on whatever Rhaegar was planning, or that there's some other Targaryen piece of the puzzle still to be revealed in Dorne.

The only thing I can think with Arianne is that every single act she did, almost all of which were cries for attention, only served to further confirm Doran's [incorrect] anxieties about Arianne's nature. There's a chance he may have chalked some of this up to her angst over Mellario's departure, at least at first, which could have obscured the issue a bit too. Additionally, there's every indication that Doran is uncomfortable with his daughter's aging (and libido), at least up until their tell-all session. Like Hotah, he likes to think of her as the girl who would run to him with a scraped knee. None of this makes Doran dumb; it makes him cautious, yes, and a very realistic father. As for sending the others away, unless Doran wants to ship the entire teenage population of Dorne to Essos, I'm not sure his mind would have been at ease about Arianne's "nature." Besides, how suspicious would that have looked.

I do disagree with your point about Oberyn going to Dany...there's no one else Doran could have sent to KL at the time that he did. Besides, I'm pretty sure he knew what Oberyn was up to.

With Begger-King-gate, I will say, as I did in the OP, that a lot of Doran's strategizing and plans remain opaque to us, even now. We don't know what aid he was preparing to send, or how. Remember that Dany reflects about how had Viserys known he had a Dornish princess waiting, he would have crossed the Narrow Sea at his first chance. What would this do for Dorne? Probably drag them into a war...that would be a hell of a thing to cover-up. I doubt Doran knew Viserys's nature well, but it is possible he wanted to wait for a more opportune moment to reach out to him. Maybe the Dothraki alliance actually gave him a bit of hope...only to have Viserys killed soon after. There's just too many unknowns for us to really shit on Doran and his planning.

All in all, I'd like to say I don't think what Martin is intending us to do is weigh the merits of each plot. The narrative paints a beautiful parallel between father and daughter, each with plans that erred because of the other one. Both bring something different to the table (Arianne is vivacious and has the love of the commoners, where as Doran seems passive and has control of his committed bannermen), and teamed up, they have potential to be an unstoppable force. For me, ASOIAF is not about discrete plot-points, but rather the context and the characterization that surround events. What do you think Martin wants us to take away from these near-perfect parallels for the Martells?

Can we also just appreciate how TIGHT the Dornish storyline is? We got all of this from 5 chapters.

I agree with each of your points, but most especially the final ones, about the plot being secondary, or rather being something that we can glean by understanding the interpersonal relationship (and also about how tightly written are these chapters).

I do wonder about the "take away," and whether the two of them will move forward in perfect synchrony from here on out. Just for example, given that all Arienne's been fixated upon is her birthright and being Princess of Dorne, now that she's been given that back and been let in on the "fire and blood" plan, I wonder how she'll respond to the news of Quentyn's failure and death, and how Doran will respond. Given what we've seen in this analysis, how do we envision that news impacting Doran and Arianne's relationship?

[Lord Damian]

Exceedingly true.

Truth to tell, I've developed the impression that Doran is the one that fucks up way more, especially since he started in a way stronger position. He fucked up so bad, the Martells may lose Dorne over it!

Doran seems to fail at everything and Quentyn's situation will be the death of him from not being able to bare it.

[Chebyshov]

Hey, glad you liked this!

I do wonder about the "take away," and whether the two of them will move forward in perfect synchrony from here on out. Just for example, given that all Arienne's been fixated upon is her birthright and being Princess of Dorne, now that she's been given that back and been let in on the "fire and blood" plan, I wonder how she'll respond to the news of Quentyn's failure and death, and how Doran will respond. Given what we've seen in this analysis, how do we envision that news impacting Doran and Arianne's relationship?

There's certainly indications of what that will amount to in the TWOW sample chapter, for which our reread will move to the TWOW subs in a few days to hash out that (and I'll hold off on my thoughts about that specifically until then). However, to speak to this question from what we know of the AFFC/ADWD arc, it's clear that every Martell (actually, poor Quent included) is a master at internalizing fault.

Arianne has had a distant relationship with Quentyn, and one that was full of resentment until very recently. It's hard to put that aside after 9 years, so I think in general her attitude towards him moving forward from "fire and blood" is one of concern, certainly, and one that is guilty. I worry that news of his death may break her in that respect. I can see her grieving him more for her father's sake than her own, and at the same time feeling like a terrible human being for that reason. My concern is that it may cause her to be desperate to prove something to Doran or to "fix" the situation, and that could land the Martells in a stick situation quickly.

As for Doran, he will definitely blame himself for Quentyn's death (which many people here would agree with), which coupled with guilt of learning how he basically failed as a father with Arianne, allowing her to think he hated her, may break him. So I'm expecting clear parallels between Doran and Arianne's reactions, though I do worry that it would place both of them in not the most rational-state.

[Hrafntýr]

Definitely with the internalized guilt! Arianne's would also be for having resented Quent, for having wanted him out of the way.

I can't help but to wonder, though, about a divergence in their arcs, via the receipt of the news of Quent's death. Not in terms of the internalized guilt (which I think they might eventually share, though Doran bears real guilt, Arianne's guilt only for her earlier feelings), but simply as a matter of timing. For example, it's unclear to me how many people in Mereen knew of Quent's identity or who knows of his death, so I'm not sure exactly how the news is going to get back to Westeros. If it's just Barristan sending a message and bones to Sunspear, then it may well be the Doran receives the news while Arianne is off attending to the things she's doing in the WoW chapter. In which case, we could get a real divergence, perhaps Arianne on a bold upward arc, feeling empowered and successful, only eventually to return to a Doran who has seen his plans crumbled, his son dead, perhaps in a downward spiral. (Okay, now I'm getting really sad thinking about this.)

And while I'm fairly convinced by your analysis that Doran and Arianne have reached a place of openness, I'm not entirely convinced that there may not yet be some secrets that Doran is concealing from her. Perhaps secrets he deems dangerous, not dangerous in the sense that he thinks she'll reveal them (I definitely think he trusts her now), but dangerous because they aren't fully in his command. I think Doran trusts Arianne with his knowledge, but might not yet trust her with his uncertainties. I can't help but to feel that the whole secrecy compulsion as a family trait might be because there are some heavy secrets inherited or something, in that secrets can be not just a source of power but also a burden, a burden that a father might not want to put upon his child. I know this is all abstract, but it's just a vibe I get, or a way to try to make sense of the secrecy compulsion with House Martell and with Doran's melancholia.

[Julia Martell]

He seems quite willing to share his uncertainties in that tWoW chapter that we're not allowed to discuss in detail.

[Hrafntýr]

He seems quite willing to share his uncertainties in that tWoW chapter that we're not allowed to discuss in detail.

Oh, I agree that he's sharing uncertainties about the plans they've already discussed and about Quentyn's mission, and again, I'm not trying to set up some kind of further opposition between Arianne and Doran. I guess I'm wondering if there aren't some deeper, darker secrets he's bearing, maybe even related to that congenital Martell guilt. He strikes me as someone burdened with secrets is all, not just as someone empowered by secrets. I don't have any specifics at all, but my head has been reeling since reading TWoIaF, and thinking about the pattern of relations between Martells/Dorne and dragons. I just wonder if there's not more to that story, and Doran maybe even not knowing if or how it's going to be relevant.

[Chebyshov]

We can talk about the chapter if we want, we just need spoiler tags for this sub.

Anyway, from what I can tell, the only major secret Doran is keeping from Arianne still is who "told" on her about the QM plot.

She still actively thinks about someone having betrayed her in the TWOW sample, though at this point she's moved on and doesn't really care to find out.

I tend to subscribe to "no one told," in which case Doran, already feeling terrible about his fractured relationship with her, wouldn't want to then say "by the way I kind of orchestrated the whole situation and even manipulated Arys into acting sooner." I think that's just something they both want to move on from. Actually, I'll be floored if someone did tell and Doran didn't mention it. Unless (crackpot) maybe it was Sylva and he thinks Dorne might somehow make use of Greenstone so there's no reason to cause strife. Or he could have just not wanted to distract Arianne.

Otherwise, I think it's at least made clear from the Watcher that she knows everything that's going on moving forward. There could be stuff in the past he doesn't want to bring up, maybe initial plans between him and Oberyn, but like you said, it could be born more of him not wishing to burden her as well. But I don't see any evidence that she's being excluded from a larger piece of the puzzle.

[SeanF]

I tend to think that no one deliberately betrayed Arianne's plot; it was more a case of loose lips sink ships.