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Quentyn: What was the point


TheReal_Rebel

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I like both Quentyn and his chapters. The standard complaint is that the book could have done without, but the case against that is something that the man himself once said:

There’s a more general question here that doesn’t just affect sex or rape, and that’s this whole issue of what is gratuitous? What should be depicted? I have gotten letters over the years from readers who don’t like the sex, they say it’s “gratuitous.” I think that word gets thrown around and what it seems to mean is “I didn’t like it.” This person didn’t want to read it, so it’s gratuitous to that person. And if I’m guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I’m also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I’ve tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things—whether it’s a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous.

I guess he's generally right, I mean, who would complain about something awesome just because it doesn't move the story forward?

GRRM does a great job at showing the quandary Quentyn's in after Dany refuses him. I absolutely bought why he could not go back and had to do something he actually knew would never work. So his whole arc is a well-constructed classical tragedy.

Some people don't enjoy that kind of thing (if anybody can be said to "enjoy" a tragedy), and then they say the whole four chapters are unnessesary, which surprises me sometimes because we're all fans here of a work whose premise seems to be "more is more". I guess their real reason is that they want Quentyn to be more like Luke Skywalker and come out on top. If so, you have come to the wrong place. 

His whole impact on the plot is not just releasing the dragons, but also the impact of his death on Arianne, Doran and the Sand Snakes and the decisions they will make. Some of that can already be seen in the Arianne sample chapters from TWOW, but for the rest we will have to wait. I guess his death will be what closes the door for a Dorne-Dany alliance, and Dorne will burn. I can imagine people will stop complaining after that. After all, nobody complains about Ned's and Cat's POVs being told.

The Meereenese Blot link about the Dorne storyline has already been posted above. In addition I recommend this:

http://poorquentyn.tumblr.com/post/110390600593/the-tao-of-oh

 

 

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I'm in the minority that still sees a tiny bit of wiggle room for Quentyn being alive.

His chapter ends with him burning and screaming. Then we have Barry the Bold talking about the dead Dornish prince whose body is burned beyond recognition, and the only reason he thinks its Q is because Arch and Drink say it is.

I admit, it's dicey, but he does share heritage with Dany, and if there is anything to this fire immunity thing...

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  • 10 months later...
  • 4 months later...

I also guess, as some have already pointed out, that GRRM needed a reason for Dorne and the Martells to support Aegon over Danny. I don't think that there is a deeper meaning. 

P.S. it also fullfills the prophecy with the sun rising in the west and setting in the east. 

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There was no point, every plot function that he serves could have been done w/in existing POVs.  He was an authorial indulgence, and not very compelling at that, assuming he is dead, and not another of the many fake deaths.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think it points out a very strange floor in Dorans grand strategy.  He sends a son across the world with basically no help surrounded by his most powerful vassals and sometime enemies the Yronwoods and their bannermen.

For as Barristan points out, a marriage pact signed between a dead man and a master at arms who cannot in their feaudal society even make marriage pacts.

It's just all so odd.  As a character he exposes us to the horror of war and in that he is a useful literary device.  However he is then helped by his sworn knights In can what only be described a stupid plan to capture dragons. It just makes no sense.

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  • 1 month later...

This is not Doran's biggest blunder, no his biggest blunder if he actually wanted this quest to succeed was trusting the quest to the Yronwoods, or trusting Arianne's quest to Aegon with people who actively undermine the entire mission. It is clear, Doran is not attempting to restore the Targaryens. After all what does he owe them, the Targaryen's dispossessed his niece and nephew, though maybe this was for the greater good because other wise we have a second Dance of the Drangons. Also the Targaryen's never did anything for him, he had an uncle who died at the Trident, a sister who nearly died to give birth to two children that never lived to adulthood (yes I know their is Aegon but honestly he is likely some boy descended from the female line of house Blackfyre) but also, they waged war against Dorne for over a century, Rheagar (sorry if I mispelled it) abducting Lyanna, also after crowning her at the tourney in which anyone who was anyone (and wasn't serving as a castallean, or living under a rock or in another universe) was there. But what was the point of Quentin, well we needed someone to free the dragons, it also worth mentioning that Quentyn is still probably alive.

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  • 5 months later...

A word about dragon blood, and how "Targaryen" blood isn't enough to tame a dragon.

I think it's pretty clear that having Targaryen blood and being a "blood of the dragon" are different things. This is evident in how the dragons treat Quentyn and Brown Ben Plumm. Both of them have a little blood of the dragonlords of Old Valyria. Both of them had a distant enough Targaryen ancestor. But the dragons instantly seemed to like Plumm, and only burned Quentyn.

The way I see this is that there is a part of Targaryen blood (a DragonBlood gene, maybe) that gives all the magical Targaryen properties: fire and heat do not burn them as much as they should, they are not afflicted with diseases, and dragons have a natural tendency to like them.

Quentyn clearly had none of these properties. Nor did Viserys (he was killed with molten gold, which would never have killed Daenerys). So it seems clear that being of Targaryen descent doesn't have to imply having dragon blood; it is only in some people that the gene is not recessed.

Of course, the factor of how distant a Targaryen ancestor you have directly affects this property, but it doesn't necessitate it. The more distant the ancestor in terms of blood, the more "diluted" the the blood gets, which means there is a higher probability of the gene being recessed. Which is why the dragonlords married their own blood.

Maybe Plumm is of dragon blood, but he is just too cautious a man to act on it.

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