Prince Mud: The Quentyn Martell Reread Project

[Julia Martell]

Analysis: Part 1

First and last he was our prince

We’ve discussed, both in this thread and in the Arianne reread thread, about how both of the Martell POV seem to have actual friends who appreciate them for themselves, rather then being surrounded by ass kissers.

This can be a challenge for any leader, but especially absolutist lord, like the Prince(ss) of Dorne is. On the one hand, a prince must keep distance and be above everyone, even people he loves, if he’s to rule fairly. On the other hand, he’s a human being, who needs emotional support and people to confide in.

We’ve theorized that this conflict is at the heart of Quentyn issues with the opposite sex. He had so little self-esteem that he can’t believe that a girl or woman would ever be interested in him for himself and he’s not interested in any other kind of relationship.

“Have a look at that one,” Gerris urged, as they passed one pillow house. “I think she’s in love with you.”

And how much does a whore’s love cost? Truth be told, girls made Quentyn anxious, especially the pretty ones.”

Quentyn friends genuinely care about him. They proved that by begging him to leave Meereen, putting his safety over the success of the mission, but they also make it very clear that there is one, and only one, reason they followed him to the end of the world.

“But first and last he was our prince. We owed him our obedience.”

So Gerris would not have followed him into that dragon pit out of friendship, he did it because of Quentyn’s rank. He doesn’t even bother to try to defend Quentyn’s plan, in fact, he calls in a fool, even if he does it in a sympathetic way.

“Quentyn was our friend, yes. A bit of a fool, you might say, but all dreamers are fools.”

Perhaps Quentyn was right to be anxious about people only following him or loving him for his rank.

His Death was His Own Doing

In this universe, characters tend to have a respect for things like loyalty and gallantry. These qualities are often valued more the actual success.

Ser Barristan Selmy has been on the receiving on of this kind of respect for failure at least twice.

Before he had gone three steps, Quentyn Martell called out to him. “Barristan the Bold, they call you.”

“Some do.” Selmy had won that name when he was ten years old, a new-made squire, yet so vain and proud and foolish that he got it in his head that he could joust with tried and proven knights. So he’d borrowed a warhorse and some plate from Lord Dondarrion’s armory and entered the lists at Blackhaven as a mystery knight. Even the herald laughed. My arms were so thin that when I lowered my lance it was all I could do to keep the point from furrowing the ground. Lord Dondarrion would have been within his rights to pull him off the horse and spank him, but the Prince of Dragonflies had taken pity on the addlepated boy in the ill-fitting armor and accorded him the respect of taking up his challenge. One course was all that it required. Afterward Prince Duncan helped him to his feet and removed his helm. “A boy,” he had proclaimed to the crowd. “A bold boy.”

Yes, lil’ Barry got his ass kicked, but it didn’t matter because he showed everyone how brave he was. Years later, he was on the loosing side at the Battle of the Trident, but he made such a good show that he was pardoned and promoted to Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

“Mercy is never a mistake, Lord Renly,” Ned replied. “On the Trident, Ser Barristan here cut down a dozen good men, Robert’s friends and mine. When they brought him to us, grievously wounded and near death, Roose Bolton urged us to cut his throat, but your brother said, ‘I will not kill a man for loyalty, nor for fighting well,’ and sent his own maester to tend Ser Barristan’s wounds.” He gave the king a long cool look. “Would that man were here today.”

Ser Arys Oakheart and the three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy are praised for meeting their deaths so bravely, even though they all seem to have committed the Westerosi equivalent of “suicide by cop”. Or even Daeron I and his eventually disaterous attempt to conquer Dorne.

“As for Arys Oakheart, he chose his own fate and met it bravely.”

“We were reading about King Daeron the First.” […] “He went to war and conquered Dorne. The Young Dragon, they called him.”

“He worshiped false gods,” said Devan, “but he was a great king otherwise, and very brave in battle.”

My question is, why is Quentyn’s bravery and boldness not met with similar respect? The folks at Meereen are pretty unanimous about their opinion of Quentyn as a fool, and not a gallant fool, either. His “trying” is accorded no respect. Barry has sympathy for him, but even he doesn’t think of him as anything less than foolish for trying.

“So,” he said, by way of greeting, “the fool is dead, is he?”

*

“He should have stayed in Dorne. He should have stayed a frog.”

*

“The Widower laughed. “The dragonrider.”

“Fool, I call him,” said Symon Stripeback.

No, just a boy. Ser Barristan had not forgotten the follies of his own youth. “Speak no ill of the dead. The prince paid a ghastly price for what he did.”

*

“ A bit of a fool, you might say, but all dreamers are fools.”

Is it that his motives are seen as less than perfectly honourable? How were his motives less honourable than lil’ Barry’s or Daeron’s, which were basically, “so everyone knows how cool I am.” Is it because he himself doesn’t LOOK or act like what a gallant hero is suppose to look or act like? If Arthur Dayne got burned by a dragon would people be treating him this way?

What Prince Quentyn did he did for Dorne

This chapter has one of two interesting little snippets about Dornishness and how the Dornish are viewed in-universe.

Like in the rest of the series, the Dornish characters are called “Dornish” and “Dornishmen” throughout. This is one of those things that seems minor, until you consider that no one else gets this treatment, except ironmen and occasionally northmen.

And there’s another interesting trend that is continued in this chapter. While other high born characters do things for the honour of their house or their family, Dornish characters, and specifically Martells, do things “for Dorne”.

“What Prince Quentyn did he did for Dorne. Do you take me for some doting grandfather? I have spent my life around kings and queens and princes. Sunspear means to take up arms against the Iron Throne. No, do not trouble to deny it. Doran Martell is not a man to call his spears without hope of victory. Duty brought Prince Quentyn here. Duty, honor, thirst for glory … never love. Quentyn was here for dragons, not Daenerys.”

When was the last time Tywin Lannister did something “for the westerlands”?

I find this issue very interesting in terms of what it says about how the Dornish are viewed as a distinct group within Westeros, and a cohesive one at that notwithstanding the Young Dragon and his “Three Types of Dornishmen”. Characters are expected to behave a certain way in-universe because they’re Dornish. Which, yes, is rather racist but it also necessitates the existence of Dornishness as a concept.

And speaking of racism:

And that was done.

The simple part, at least, thought Barristan Selmy, as he made the long climb back to the summit of the pyramid. The hard part he’d left in Dornish hands. His grandfather would have been aghast. The Dornishmen were knights, at least in name, though only Yronwood impressed him as having the true steel.

Drink ain’t no Martell

This might be more a sign of my own personal obsessions than anything, but I can’t help but draw a parallel between Ser Barristan’s conversation with the two Dornish knights in this chapter, and Doran and Arianne’s conversation in The Princess in the Tower.

Firstly, the plan goes awry and one of the party is killed while the untrustworthy element runs off and escapes. Then the perpetrators are locked up in jail to stew for a while. Then the authority figure, Doran in one case Barry the Scary in the other, have a conversation with the goal of guilting the perpetrators into doing some dirty work for him.

However, while Doran’s plan went completely pear-shaped (although he did end up with Arianne dealing with Myrcella, just not how or why he originally wanted her to) Ser Barristan’s plan went off without a hitch.

Is it fair to compare Gerris Drinkwater to Arianne fucking Nymeros fucking Martell? No, it isn’t, but the whole thing rather does emphasize the force of will that featured throughout Arianne’s arc that simply didn’t exist in Quentyn’s. What are we to take from the fact that Quentyn (and Gerris’s in this conversation) attempt to reframe things in his own terms crashed and burned while Arianne was somehow able to salvage her goals out of the wreckage? I’m not quite sure this means anything at all…

[Julia Martell]

Post-Mortem

Analysis: Part 2 - Implications is Westeros

It’s quite reasonably speculated that Quentyn’s death will have some impact on the events that will unfold in Westeros in the final two volumes of the series. In particular, news of his demise may be some effect on the orientation of Dorne in the equally reasonably speculated conflict between Daenerys and the Prince formerly known as Young Griff.

There are several factors I think we should consider here, god and GRRM only know how many, if any, of these factors will actually turn out the be relevant.

Firstly, Quentyn was not only a bit of a shrinking violet in terms of personality, he was also a bit of a nonentity in Dorne, not withstanding the fact that he was technically the heir for most of his life.

“You will need bitter steel and more, brother, if you think to set me aside. Arianne was loved in Dorne, Quentyn little known. No company of sellswords could change that.”

Arianne has a base of support amoung the lords and smallfolk of Dorne that Quentyn simply lacks. Something I think must be based more on his personality then on his location. Yronwood is hardly a backwater and it’s hardly reasonable that anyone other than Arianne would want him to be a nonentity. People tend to forget that Quentyn exists. Arianne has had the same conversation twice:

“Our laws constrain him, but he would sooner have my brother follow him, I know it.”

“Your brother?” Ser Arys put his hand beneath her chin and raised her head, the better to look her in the eyes. “You cannot mean Trystane, he is just a boy.”

“Not Trys. Quentyn.”

**

“No? Shall we ask my brother?”

“Trystane?”

“Quentyn.”

“What of him?”

Really, Arianne seems to give him more thought than everyone else put together.

When news of Quentyn’s demise reaches Dorne, I think we can expect a kind of “outrage in principal” but not the genuine outpouring of grief we saw when Oberyn died, or a similar demand for retribution.

However, there will be grief from his family, both his biological and his foster family.

It’s more or less impossible to predict what the Yronwoods will do, since we know nothing about them other than the fact that Gwenyth is adorably precocious and Cletus was “randy” and had a stupid name, but it’s reasonable to assume that their historical, um, thing, with the Martells will have some kind of impact on something, or else why mention it.

As for Doran and Arianne, we know them very well. It’s been suggested that the fact that Quentyn died while on a mission to Dany means that an alliance with her is impossible and that Dorne must end up opposed to her. But I ask you, assuming they have an accurate account of the events, does blaming Daenerys for Quentyn’s death sound like something either of those characters would do?

One last very important thing to consider: timing. At the moment, Doran and Arianne, the two people making decisions in Dorne, expect Quentyn to show up at any moment, with Dany and some dragons. They fully expect this to happen and have no idea that Dany has even decided to extend her stay in Meereen, nor do they know about the many things that delayed him. Even very well informed people in Westeros seem to only have vague notions of what is going on in Slaver’s Bay.

In fact, according to The Timeline, Arianne meets up with the Golden Company at Griffins Roost before Quentyn even manages to finally meet Dany, and a good month before his death. I understand that this timeline is speculative, but I’m guessing the people we are working on it had very good reasons for ordering the events the way they did. (And the two Arianne chapters we have from tWoW were originally meant to be in aDwD, so it makes some sense.) So taking this fact as given, how long will it take for news of Quentyn’s death to reach Westeros? Surely it will arrive long after it can have any effect on Arianne and Doran’s decision vis a vis the Golden Company and the Prince Formerly Known as Young Griff.

And Daenerys isn’t exactly cold hearted. How will Quentyn’s demise effect how she approaches the Dornish?

[Julia Martell]

Analysis: Part 3: The Point of Prince Mud

The Hero’s Journey - of Fail

I’m hardly the first person on this thread or this forum to point out that Quentyn’s arc is a deconstruction of the Hero’s Journey.

For this discussion, I’ll be referring to the seventeen elements of the monomyth that Joseph Campbell canonized in the twentieth century. But as Campbell himself admitted, not every myth contained all or even most of the seventeen elements, so we shouldn’t expect a perfect version of it from Quentyn.

The first element is rather universal however: the "Call to Adventure". One day Quentyn is hanging out in the Boneway with his friends and his adopted family, the next he is suddenly thrust into an adventure and finds himself with the fate of the world (or Dorne, whatever) in his hands.

The next stage is called “the Refusal of the Call”. While Quentyn never actually refuses to go on his adventure, he is filled with doubts due to his own insecurities and fears of his inadequacies. The overcoming of those fears is a major objective of the journey.

The next element is "Supernatural Aid". While Quentyn doesn’t get to hang out with any wizards on this trip, he does have the help of a carefully chosen group of companions. The most important of these is Maester Kedry, who is armed with “magic”, that is, specialist knowledge of the mysterious East.

Next the hero "Crosses the Threshold" into unknown territory, outside his own previous experience and into a place where the rules and limits are not known. Quentyn is crossing this threshold several times and in several ways. The first is the loss of three of this companions, especially Maester Kedry and the loss of his supernatural aid. Quentyn also shed his name and his identity as a prince of Dorne, first lightly in Volantis when he lets Gerris pose as his master, and then all out when they sign on to the Windblown and Quentyn is reduced to a humble squire.

Literally, of course, Volantis is unknown territory for Quentyn. Slaver’s Bay even more so.

The next stage is the "Belly of the Whale", it represent the hero’s willingness to undergo an metamorphosis. Quentyn enters this stage when he he becomes “Frog” the Windblown recruit, in order to secure passage to Slaver’s Bay. This is also when Quentyn’s story starts to deviate from the monomyth. When you picture a hero transforming, you picture him somehow becoming greater, Aragorn turning into a king, or Luke Skywalker leaving the Rebellion to become a Jedi. You don’t really picture a prince turning into his bodyguard’s servant.

This has all been the “Departure", the beginning of the adventure, the next section of the myth has the hero really being tested.

First is the "Road of Trials". You might think that hanging out with the Windblown for a time (two months according to the timeline) is a road of trials, but not really. Nothing here actually challenges Quentyn (except putting on his armour, poor thing.) The real challenge starts when he reveals him self to Dany, and is refused. This was suppose to be his "Meeting with the Goddess". He would offer her unconditional love, and she would accept it and offer it in turn.

This is where Quentyn’s quest really goes wrong, Daenerys isn’t the goddess, where is there to support the hero on his quest, she is the father from the "Atonement with the Father" stage, the ultimate source of power and authority. And she refuses the chance for atonement.

With this rejections, Quentyn attempts to take the structure of the myth into his own hands. He recasts Daenerys, not as the goddess, but as the temptress, the distraction on the road to his ultimate destination.

So then Quentyn approaches the "Ultimate Boon", the object of his quest. He’s going to steal a dragon and therefore Atone with his own and his father’s expectations of him, win the unconditional love of Daenerys and probably suddenly be irresistible to all women somehow as well. But, instead of fulfilling his destiny, Quentyn gets only a horrible lingering death. The journey was leading to nothing at all.

None of this is especially ground breaking, and it’s not especially different from some other arcs in A Song of Ice and Fire. My question is, is this sufficient to justify Quentyn’s existence as a POV character?

The Invisible Prince

When we think of an author’s thought process when decided on which characters to focus on in a close POV structure like the one we see in A Song of Ice and Fire, we should think of two criteria.

1. Is the character placed so that major plot points can be seen from her point of view, preferably in a more than superficial way. (For example, Sansa and Tyrion’s wedding is a plot point, but seeing it from Sansa’s POV had different effect than seeing it from Tyrion’s POV would have.)
   
2. The character and his arc have something to contribute to theme of the piece as a whole, and to the arcs of other characters.
   

In my opinion, as an amateur fandom scholar, in order for a POV character to be successful, he or she must meet both criteria. But if I had to choose only one, I would go for number 2. Now thematically, Quentyn and his deconstructed monomyth certainly fit into the rest of the story, which is all about fantasy tropes smacking into realism, but is it essential? Would something, in terms of theme OR plot be lost if his four POV chapters didn’t exist?

Does he have an effect on other characters? Well… did Dany have to turn down his marriage offer to convince us she was committed to staying in Slaver’s Bay?

Really, when I think about it, the biggest impact he’s had has been on Arianne’s plot, way back in the previous book. His departure for Essos was an essential ingredient of the cocktail of things that needed to happen to spur the Queenmaker plot but he certainly didn’t need a POV for that.

Is there anything that happens in his POV that we had to see? His big moment was meeting Dany, and that wasn’t even in his POV. The only other thing he did was release the dragons, and, of course, die. It’s probably just too soon to tell how important releasing the dragons will be, and I’ve already discussed the implications for his death, but I’m not really trying to justify his inclusion as a character, but as a POV character. Even if his death turns out to be the most important thing ever it doesn’t necessarily justify POV status. Oberyn’s death was pretty damn important, and he never got a POV.

Were Quentyn chapter worth it because they had a unique voice, or because his character was so interesting in itself or well written that we couldn’t possible miss it?

And the fact that Quentyn is now dead doesn’t help his case much either. We have no hope of his character developing from this foundation.

I suppose Quentyn’s POV can be compared to another in the most recent two volumes in the series, Brienne. They’re similar in quite a few ways, both of them are certainly an example of a Quest gone wrong. But Brienne is such a unique character and her point of view of the world is so interesting in and of itself that I will defend her POV until the end of time. Does Quentyn deserve a similar courtesy?

Yes, after six weeks of being immersed in this POV and reading pages and pages about it, I’m still asking: Does Quentyn have a right to exist?

[Chebyshov]

I first want to start off with a formal thank you to Julia Martell, both for organizing this project, as well as providing an absolutely fantastic analysis to finish this out.

I’ll admit, revisiting Quentyn’s experience has been a bit frustrating to me. I think we’ve all done a great job of teasing out the nuances and taking a remarkably close look at his cognition, but at the end of the day…I still find myself agreeing with Arianne’s appraisal: that Quentyn is earnest, well-behaved, dutiful, and yes, a bit dull (or at least dower). There are parallels to be drawn to other character arcs, for a certainty, but it was very difficult for me to talk about his quest without the words “plot device” coming to mind.

I think the work Julia has done pushed well past that mentality, even if the analysis ends with the question of justification, so with that kind of weird preamble:

First and last he was our prince
Quentyn friends genuinely care about him. They proved that by begging him to leave Meereen, putting his safety over the success of the mission, but they also make it very clear that there is one, and only one, reason they followed him to the end of the world.

So Gerris would not have followed him into that dragon pit out of friendship, he did it because of Quentyn’s rank. He doesn’t even bother to try to defend Quentyn’s plan, in fact, he calls in a fool, even if he does it in a sympathetic way.

Perhaps Quentyn was right to be anxious about people only following him or loving him for his rank.

What’s interesting is that this anxiety got in the way of what his rank meant. That is, his concern was that Dany would perhaps not like him, though would honor the agreement. Yet in all his “I am Dorne” mantra, he never stopped to think about what it meant to be a prince of Dorne. He thought “I never asked for this,” which I can assume means any of it (prince, future king, what have you), but the fact is, he did have this position. And he spent most of his time justifying his own existence on a more interpersonal level (“I earned my spurs,” “I am hardly an old man,” etc.) than simply embracing what he had. Arianne committed light treason because that’s how much her birthright meant to her. What of Quentyn’s rights?

Also, I love that this detail about Gerris is thrown in, because it should definitively quash any idea that “the Yronwoods set up Quentyn and were planning to steal Dany.” The crew’s commitment to Quentyn is really unquestionable.

His Death was His Own Doing
…
My question is, why is Quentyn’s bravery and boldness not met with similar respect? The folks at Meereen are pretty unanimous about their opinion of Quentyn as a fool, and not a gallant fool, either. His “trying” is accorded no respect. Barry has sympathy for him, but even he doesn’t think of him as anything less than foolish for trying.

Is it that his motives are seen as less than perfectly honourable? How were his motives less honourable than lil’ Barry’s or Daeron’s, which were basically, “so everyone knows how cool I am.” Is it because he himself doesn’t LOOK or act like what a gallant hero is suppose to look or act like? If Arthur Dayne got burned by a dragon would people be treating him this way?

I don’t really have an answer here, other than…well, dragons! I guess the sheer danger of what he was doing just seemed to outweigh any chance of coolness? Or maybe it was because there’s some sort of protectiveness about Dany? His less-than-honorable intentions would have pissed her off, that’s for sure. I dunno, I’ll have to think about this more.

What Prince Quentyn did he did for Dorne
…
I find this issue very interesting in terms of what it says about how the Dornish are viewed as a distinct group within Westeros, and a cohesive one at that notwithstanding the Young Dragon and his “Three Types of Dornishmen”. Characters are expected to behave a certain way in-universe because they’re Dornish. Which, yes, is rather racist but it also necessitates the existence of Dornishness as a concept.

I could go on and on about Daeron being a turd with his “3 types” but I won’t. Instead I’ll revel in this and say that it may be highly suggestive of an independent Dorne by the end of the series :commie:.

Drink ain’t no Martell
Is it fair to compare Gerris Drinkwater to Arianne fucking Nymeros fucking Martell? No, it isn’t, but the whole thing rather does emphasize the force of will that featured throughout Arianne’s arc that simply didn’t exist in Quentyn’s. What are we to take from the fact that Quentyn (and Gerris’s in this conversation) attempt to reframe things in his own terms crashed and burned while Arianne was somehow able to salvage her goals out of the wreckage? I’m not quite sure this means anything at all…

The force of will thing goes back to motivation too. Arianne was securing her rights. Quentyn was…being a good boy and listening to Daddy. Are we supposed to take away some kind of message about the cost of duty? Which happens to be the death of desire, and Quentyn was undesirable?

Post-Mortem

Analysis: Part 2 - Implications is Westeros
Really, Arianne seems to give him more thought than everyone else put together.

Cannot emphasize that enough. Especially when he considers her so little.

When news of Quentyn’s demise reaches Dorne, I think we can expect a kind of “outrage in principal” but not the genuine outpouring of grief we saw when Oberyn died, or a similar demand for retribution.
. …
As for Doran and Arianne, we know them very well. It’s been suggested that the fact that Quentyn died while on a mission to Dany means that an alliance with her is impossible and that Dorne must end up opposed to her. But I ask you, assuming they have an accurate account of the events, does blaming Daenerys for Quentyn’s death sound like something either of those characters would do?

They’ll both blame themselves. I mean Doran 100% will, and then even Arianne will somehow, probably for not being a better daughter prompting him to send her to Viserys sooner or something.

…
So taking this fact as given, how long will it take for news of Quentyn’s death to reach Westeros? Surely it will arrive long after it can have any effect on Arianne and Doran’s decision vis a vis the Golden Company and the Prince Formerly Known as Young Griff.

Those dwindling hosts in the Boneway are like Chekov’s WMD. They can’t just do nothing for half of TWOW without some decision being made.

And Daenerys isn’t exactly cold hearted. How will Quentyn’s demise effect how she approaches the Dornish?

I really, really want to thank you for bringing up this point. Everyone always goes “Quentyn’s the plot device to move Dorne to Aegon’s side.” What about Dany? She has agency here. We don’t know if she wants to oppose Aegon or not, even with the warning of the mummer’s dragon. And we sure as hell know that she will want Dorne and its 50,000 spears, especially when the Tyrannisters are still a relatively menacing threat. Do you not think being the sympathetic person she is (which we saw in her handling of Quentyn), she won’t be a little cautious?!! Raving Stark probably has much and more to say on that point though ;).

Analysis: Part 3: The Point of Prince Mud

The Hero’s Journey - of Fail
<snip>
The next stage is the "Belly of the Whale", it represent the hero’s willingness to undergo an metamorphosis. Quentyn enters this stage when he he becomes “Frog” the Windblown recruit, in order to secure passage to Slaver’s Bay. This is also when Quentyn’s story starts to deviate from the monomyth. When you picture a hero transforming, you picture him somehow becoming greater, Aragorn turning into a king, or Luke Skywalker leaving the Rebellion to become a Jedi. You don’t really picture a prince turning into his bodyguard’s servant.

This is perfect. I don’t really have anything to add, but Quentyn’s ‘willingness to change,’ is more that he’s getting desperate, willing to use less-than-honorable means, and deepen his disguise.

First is the "Road of Trials". You might think that hanging out with the Windblown for a time (two months according to the timeline) is a road of trials, but not really. Nothing here actually challenges Quentyn (except putting on his armour, poor thing.) The real challenge starts when he reveals him self to Dany, and is refused. This was suppose to be his "Meeting with the Goddess". He would offer her unconditional love, and she would accept it and offer it in turn.

This is where Quentyn’s quest really goes wrong, Daenerys isn’t the goddess, where is there to support the hero on his quest, she is the father from the "Atonement with the Father" stage, the ultimate source of power and authority. And she refuses the chance for atonement.

In a way she gave him the chance for atonement, but he blew it with his flinching at the dragon and all. Though it wasn’t a very real and present opportunity.

Interestingly, can we place Dany on her own hero’s journey where they intersect?

With this rejections, Quentyn attempts to take the structure of the myth into his own hands. He recasts Daenerys, not as the goddess, but as the temptress, the distraction on the road to his ultimate destination.

And just to repeat, that was not Doran-approved™. It is interesting that he does have her flip roles in his mind, convincing himself it was always about the dragons. Didn’t Doran tell him about the orginial pact with Viserys?

So then Quentyn approaches the "Ultimate Boon", the object of his quest. He’s going to steal a dragon and therefore Atone with his own and his father’s expectations of him, win the unconditional love of Daenerys and probably suddenly be irresistible to all women somehow as well. But, instead of fulfilling his destiny, Quentyn gets only a horrible lingering death. The journey was leading to nothing at all.

None of this is especially ground breaking, and it’s not especially different from some other arcs in A Song of Ice and Fire. My question is, is this sufficient to justify Quentyn’s existence as a POV character?

It’s interesting, because the other POVs (prologues and epilogues excluded) we’ve lost have been Eddard, Catelyn, and Arys. And Arys is pretty contentious in terms of his existence, though we’ve seemed to settle that is was necessary to eclipse some of Arianne’s thoughts? Or to show the outsider perspective of Doran?

The Invisible Prince

When we think of an author’s thought process when decided on which characters to focus on in a close POV structure like the one we see in A Song of Ice and Fire, we should think of two criteria.

• Is the character placed so that major plot points can be seen from her point of view, preferably in a more than superficial way. (For example, Sansa and Tyrion’s wedding is a plot point, but seeing it from Sansa’s POV had different effect than seeing it from Tyrion’s POV would have.)
• The character and his arc have something to contribute to theme of the piece as a whole, and to the arcs of other characters.

In my opinion, as an amateur fandom scholar, in order for a POV character to be successful, he or she must meet both criteria. But if I had to choose only one, I would go for number 2. Now thematically, Quentyn and his deconstructed monomyth certainly fit into the rest of the story, which is all about fantasy tropes smacking into realism, but is it essential? Would something, in terms of theme OR plot be lost if his four POV chapters didn’t exist?

Plot: Pentos. We wouldn’t have been privy to this deal otherwise. Barry guesses it, but would that serve? I have a feeling it’s going to be important, and us seeing the terms inside may matter. Maybe.

Does he have an effect on other characters? Well… did Dany have to turn down his marriage offer to convince us she was committed to staying in Slaver’s Bay?

Really, when I think about it, the biggest impact he’s had has been on Arianne’s plot, way back in the previous book. His departure for Essos was an essential ingredient of the cocktail of things that needed to happen to spur the Queenmaker plot but he certainly didn’t need a POV for that.

At the same time, his POV and complete-lack-of-thought-about-Arianne do kind of frame her characterization more. We now understand he was not so into the idea of leadership in general, so Arianne’s moments of blaming Quentyn really do highlight just how much of a psychological prop he was for her so that she could keep her image of Doran relatively pure.

Now, I do think we could have gotten there without his POV. But maybe the constant comparisons to Doran are also meant for us to gain a tiny peak of insight into the Prince’s head? I think the comparisons are superficial, overall, but we do see why someone so unassuming like Quentyn benefits from someone more like an Arianne (or Drink in his case…but as you said, he’s no Martell).

Yes, after six weeks of being immersed in this POV and reading pages and pages about it, I’m still asking: Does Quentyn have a right to exist?

I just want to reiterate the question. I’m trying really, really hard to give a “yes.” Did I do okay?

[RainGhost]

I've been following this thread and want to say well done to Julia Martell and everyone else involved for all the great analysis and comments. Quentyn's one of my favourite characters, so it's nice to see him get a bit of appreciation. What I love most about him is that his motivations are so pure. He's all about duty, Dorne, Doran and very little about glory, power and Quentyn. I think some people have been reading into his 'fear' of women a bit too much. He's not very self-confident, so it makes sense that he's not confident around girls. It's not really that strange. He's only 18, plenty of guys his age are nervous around girls and vice versa. Dany in particular is very intimidating, so I don't blame him for that.

His death was his own doing

Why doesn't Quent get respect? That is a very good point. What Quent did took balls, there's no denying that. If he had run back to Dorne with his hands empty he would have lost respect, rightly or wrongly. There are certain expectations of highborn males and Quentyn tries to live up to that - running away and giving up just isn't an option. That's what makes Quentyn's storyline so tragic - he couldn't win. In doing what society expects of him (even though it's not what he wants personally), he ends up causing his own death. It'll be interesting to see how the Dornish regard him when they hear.

The invisible prince

I think Quentyn needed POV chapters for his death to have an impact. We don't see much of Oberyn (unfortunately) but he makes an impact all the same. He has a strong, forceful personality and makes his motivations and aims very clear to Tyrion. I loved Oberyn instantly and was horrified when he died. But Quentyn is unassuming. If we had only seen him (very briefly) from Dany's and Barristan's POVs, he would have had no impact. We wouldn't have known much about him and his motivations. In fact, we might even have resented him slightly because we would only have had Arianne's opinion on him, so we might have found his death horrific but not particularly sad. As it was, I was very upset when he died.

Implications in Westeros

Linked to that, there would be no point in Quentyn as a character if his death doesn't have an impact. I agree that Quentyn may not be well-known in Dorne but the name Martell means a lot and I also get the impression that the Dornish in general look after their own. Perhaps Doran and Arianne wouldn't hate Dany if they knew the whole story but perhaps they would anyway. When it comes to family, reason often plays no part. I think it's unlikely that they'll get the full story anyway. They'll get Drink and Arch's skewed version of events probably. Besides, the fact remains that Quentyn was killed by dragon fire. Dany is the Mother of Dragons, so that's pretty damning for her, rightly or wrongly.

[Chebyshov]

Okay, I'm just going to say it: we're not talking about Quentyn.

Yes, Trial by Folly was at times a bit obsessive, but there was something about Arianne that seemed to engender strong interest and resulted in an ongoing (and prolific) conversation.

So what is it about Quentyn that is falling flat? Is it that his plot is over? That the only question remains "well, what was the point?" Is it that he's so muddy that like Dany, we only have a tepid feelings towards him?

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Okay, I'm just going to say it: we're not talking about Quentyn.

Yes, Trial by Folly was at times a bit obsessive, but there was something about Arianne that seemed to engender strong interest and resulted in an ongoing (and prolific) conversation.

So what is it about Quentyn that is falling flat? Is it that his plot is over? That the only question remains "well, what was the point?" Is it that he's so muddy that like Dany, we only have a tepid feelings towards him?

Gods, I've been wanting to respond to this for almost a week now...

On my part, I've been really busy since the christmas holiday ended in January. Been making very long days, coming home exhausted.. That kind of made me forget to answer, sometimes..

But it's more.. I reread the chapters as the project went by, to try and keep up, and while I do enjoy Quetyn's chapters very much, they were quite different from Arianne's storyline..

Quentyn has certainly been analysed here, and we did discover quite some depth, but with Arianne, for some reason, we found more..? Or perhaps not more, but the conversations about it were longer..

I really can't tell you what the difference is between the two.. Could it be that here we mostly see Quentyn and his two friends, while in Arianne's chapters, we have seen multiple other characters pass by in a much bigger role than those side characters in Quentyn's arc? Is it because we were introduced to Arianne in person, but through the eyes of two others, whereas we hear sightly about Quentyn, but then immediately get to see him as he is?

I was reading in AGOT this week, and this quote in a later Dany chapter reminded me of Quentyn..

..if the mother does not burn you where you sit, the son will trample you into the mud.

Daenerys did not "burn" Quentyn, but her "son" did "trample" Quentyn, figuratively perhaps.. The mother did not do the lethal harm.. it was the son..

[Julia Martell]

Quentyn has certainly been analysed here, and we did discover quite some depth, but with Arianne, for some reason, we found more..? Or perhaps not more, but the conversations about it were longer..

I really can't tell you what the difference is between the two.. Could it be that here we mostly see Quentyn and his two friends, while in Arianne's chapters, we have seen multiple other characters pass by in a much bigger role than those side characters in Quentyn's arc? Is it because we were introduced to Arianne in person, but through the eyes of two others, whereas we hear sightly about Quentyn, but then immediately get to see him as he is?

I think we were helped (if that is the right word) by the fact that Arianne as a character is very misunderstood by the fandom in general and we were constantly discovered stuff about her that was totally there but that, somehow, no one had noticed before. Like, remember how exciting it was to realize that she probably never told anyone about that letter she found? And, of course, that reread had as much to do with Doran as it did with Arianne and our insight into their parallel characterization real opened up all sorts of windows into both of them.

Quentyn doesn’t have anything like that, it seems. We’ve dug but we couldn’t really find anything that an attentive first reading couldn’t find, and I’m beginning to suspect it’s because there’s nothing there to find. Quentyn is just what he seems to be, a nice guy, in over his head, who’s terrified of disappointing his dad. That’s fine, I guess, but it doesn’t hold a candle to watching Arianne and Doran tag team Balon Swann, or the brilliance that is The Princess in the Tower.

Really, the most exciting thing was analyzing that conversation with Quentyn and Dany in the dragon pit. And that told us more about Dany than it did about Quentyn.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

I think we were helped (if that is the right word) by the fact that Arianne as a character is very misunderstood by the fandom in general and we were constantly discovered stuff about her that was totally there but that, somehow, no one had noticed before. Like, remember how exciting it was to realize that she probably never told anyone about that letter she found? And, of course, that reread had as much to do with Doran as it did with Arianne and our insight into their parallel characterization real opened up all sorts of windows into both of them.

Quentyn doesn’t have anything like that, it seems. We’ve dug but we couldn’t really find anything that an attentive first reading couldn’t find, and I’m beginning to suspect it’s because there’s nothing there to find. Quentyn is just what he seems to be, a nice guy, in over his head, who’s terrified of disappointing his dad. That’s fine, I guess, but it doesn’t hold a candle to watching Arianne and Doran tag team Balon Swann, or the brilliance that is The Princess in the Tower.

Really, the most exciting thing was analyzing that conversation with Quentyn and Dany in the dragon pit. And that told us more about Dany than it did about Quentyn.

Possible.. Arianne is very misunderstood. But isn't Quentyn as well, in a way? Not the character, but his story arc... His arc has been called useless...

I think the fact that Doran features so much more in Arianne's arc in person than he does in Quentyn's (where there is only the occasional thought), is an important one.

[Julia Martell]

Think during my obsessive rereads: Arys is talking about Tommen and Myrcella, but he could be talking about Quentyn and Arianne.

“It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing ever daunted her, not even Joffrey.”

About Quentyn’s arc: that’s still the million dollar question, what was it’s use? I’m more than willing to accept that he exists as a POV character purely for thematic reasons, in fact I like that idea a lot, but are those thematic reasons really compelling enough to justify it?