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Why Doran's plan is so bad?


Ser Loras The Gay

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Hey everyone, so, I was watching the season 5 and 6 of the GoT series for obvious reasons (season 7 is coming) and again Dorne made me sick because how bad it was portrayed. So I've read again AffC and DwD to remember how good Dorne could be (good meaning better than the series) and I realized something, Quenty Martell quest to marry Dany is ridiculous. They sent him in a impossible quest with a impossible to accept marriage pact and without any resources, only a bunch of "knights" a expert in different tongues and Quenty. Why the quest is so ill prepared if Doran himself said he was planning this for 17 long years? That's his plan? Send his own son to complete a impossible quest to marry Dany? If it is why not send more men to take care of Quentyn? Why not send a better proposal to Dany? It doesn't make any sense, what are you thoughts about it? Do you guys think that's more than meet our eyes?

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That wasn't the plan. The plan was to marry Arianne to Viserys III once the man comes back to Westeros. Doran could have given him more/any support but that would have risked the wrath of the Iron Throne. Robert could have invaded Dorne whenever he wanted, leading to the death of thousands and crippling Dorne's ability to eventually assist and participate in a Targaryen restoration.

The Quentyn plan is just a quickly made plan B after Doran learns that Dany has hatched dragon eggs. That makes her important and a potential ally. Note that the overall plan is avenge against the Lannisters and the destruction of Lord Tywin's work and ambitions. The Targaryen restoration is just a means to that end. The best means, of course, since it will also result in House Martell rising to prominence at court again, but it is still just a means to an end.

The rationale behind the plan is to get Quentyn to Dany in secret, without the Iron Throne getting wind of their plans until it is too late for them.

The idea is that Daenerys, too, wants to go to Westeros to claim her father's throne and avenge her dead family members. Quentyn offers her Dorne's support in all that. The problem is that Daenerys doesn't want to go to Westeros right now. In that context Quentyn looks like a beggar. But if Quentyn had found her, say, in Qarth or perhaps even Astapor things would have been very different.

Just as things would have been different for Aegon had Dany continued west by ship or road to eventual meet him and the Golden Company in Volantis. She may have had some Unsullied and a few sellswords then (although quite a few could have died on the road or at sea) but the Golden Company is the largest and most professional free company in Essos. She certainly could need their help and the price for that would have been Aegon's hand.

The same, imagine Dany meeting Quentyn on the road to Westeros. She would be in need of allies in Westeros. If the price for Dorne's help is Quentyn's hand she would have to pay it.

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24 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

Hey everyone, so, I was watching the season 5 and 6 of the GoT series for obvious reasons (season 7 is coming) and again Dorne made me sick because how bad it was portrayed. So I've read again AffC and DwD to remember how good Dorne could be (good meaning better than the series) and I realized something, Quenty Martell quest to marry Dany is ridiculous. They sent him in a impossible quest with a impossible to accept marriage pact and without any resources, only a bunch of "knights" a expert in different tongues and Quenty. Why the quest is so ill prepared if Doran himself said he was planning this for 17 long years? That's his plan? Send his own son to complete a impossible quest to marry Dany? If it is why not send more men to take care of Quentyn? Why not send a better proposal to Dany? It doesn't make any sense, what are you thoughts about it? Do you guys think that's more than meet our eyes?

It's the only play Doran had.  The only thing really wrong with it was the assumptions that Doran made.  Doran assumed that nothing else would matter to Daenerys except to take back her lands from the stinking usurpers.  The same assumptions that Illyrio made.  I guess they could not fathom why the heir to a kingdom could ever want, could ever care, to help bring freedom to the millions of slaves in a foreign land who really had nothing to offer in return.  

Doran wants revenge for the deaths of his sister and her children.  He wants to rain fire and blood down on Tywin's family.  He wants his family blood on the iron throne someday.  Daenerys may not want those things.  

Quentyn came at a bad time.  The harpy was the most pressing problem.  The marriage to Hizdarh was an attempt to solve that problem.  

Yeah, the resources given to the mission was not generous.  But that's Doran's way.  He wants to play it safe.  He wants to keep the mission as secretive as possible.  Caution is a good thing but you have to take great risks to earn great rewards.  Doran is not willing to stick his neck out far enough.

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3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The idea is that Daenerys, too, wants to go to Westeros to claim her father's throne and avenge her dead family members. Quentyn offers her Dorne's support in all that. The problem is that Daenerys doesn't want to go to Westeros right now. In that context Quentyn looks like a beggar. But if Quentyn had found her, say, in Qarth or perhaps even Astapor things would have been very different.

So his 17 years plan was a bet? Because he never could anticipate Viserys having a army. And we don't have anything in the books to suggest Dorne was helping Viserys get his army. And if the paper Quenty brought to Dany is real it was signed by someone who died several years ago when Viserys was just a child. So how this plan even works? He bets that Viserys would get an army, if not the bet now is Dany. How is this benefitional? Doran is just stupid?

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3 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

It's the only play Doran had.  The only thing really wrong with it was the assumptions that Doran made.  Doran assumed that nothing else would matter to Daenerys except to take back her lands from the stinking usurpers.  The same assumptions that Illyrio made.  I guess they could not fathom why the heir to a kingdom could ever want, could ever care, to help bring freedom to the millions of slaves in a foreign land who really had nothing to offer in return.  

Doran wants revenge for the deaths of his sister and her children.  He wants to rain fire and blood down on Tywin's family.  He wants his family blood on the iron throne someday.  Daenerys may not want those things.  

Quentyn came at a bad time.  The harpy was the most pressing problem.  The marriage to Hizdarh was an attempt to solve that problem.  

Yeah, the resources given to the mission was not generous.  But that's Doran's way.  He wants to play it safe.  He wants to keep the mission as secretive as possible.  Caution is a good thing but you have to take great risks to earn great rewards.  Doran is not willing to stick his neck out far enough.

But why would Dany support Dorne? We know that Dorne doesn't have 40 thousand spears like Quenty said, Doran told us so. So, if Dany would accept the terms, she would come to Dorne to see a reak land with nothing to give. Only 15 thousand spears instead of 40. How would she react at such lies? She would be stuck with a marriage with a house with no real power on the seven kingdoms where she could easily marry a Tyrell or any house with power with that matter. This marriage pact is just plain ridiculous to anyone accept even if she wasn't at Meeren and was found at astapor or something, the pact was full of lies.

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If Doran wants to bring back the Targaryans after Robert's Rebellion, then logicly he has to ask himself with what army's? His own force is small relative to the rest of the kingdom, and whatever extra that could have been brought from across the narrow sea would have been insufficient to tilt that balance under normal circusmtances. So Doran either needs Westeros to be weakened by internal conflict or needs other allies within Westeros. For what regards weakening Westeros i guess people rellied on Varys though it was LF who really gave the strategic nudge. As to finding allies within Westeros, i guess Doran could have done better?

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4 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

So his 17 years plan was a bet? Because he never could anticipate Viserys having a army. And we don't have anything in the books to suggest Dorne was helping Viserys get his army. And if the paper Quenty brought to Dany is real it was signed by someone who died several years ago when Viserys was just a child. So how this plan even works? He bets that Viserys would get an army, if not the bet now is Dany. How is this benefitional? Doran is just stupid?

Well, compare it to the Blackfyre loyalists in Westeros. They also always rallied around the banners of various Blackfyre pretenders when they finally showed up (with less enthusiasm as the decades passed, of course) without usually actually assembling an army for them while they were in exile.

What people fail to notice or forget is that Viserys' personality is pretty much irrelevant. He wasn't exactly good leadership material but he was a Targaryen and the rightful king. Assume he had shown up with only a few hundred or a couple of thousand hired sellswords many Targaryen loyalists would have declared for him. Even Dorne might have. And then this whole thing could have quickly become a pretty big show without Viserys III bringing much to the table.

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5 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

But why would Dany support Dorne? We know that Dorne doesn't have 40 thousand spears like Quenty said, Doran told us so. So, if Dany would accept the terms, she would come to Dorne to see a reak land with nothing to give. Only 15 thousand spears instead of 40. How would she react at such lies? She would be stuck with a marriage with a house with no real power on the seven kingdoms where she could easily marry a Tyrell or any house with power with that matter. This marriage pact is just plain ridiculous to anyone accept even if she wasn't at Meeren and was found at astapor or something, the pact was full of lies.

This is true.  You have a point.  Doran was upselling what he had to offer.  He was embellishing Dorne's resources, if you will.  But you know, that is what salesmen do.  Didn't Jaquen do the same to get Arya to Braavos?  Davos made an embellished pitch to Godric.  It's salesmanship.  

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4 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, compare it to the Blackfyre loyalists in Westeros. They also always rallied around the banners of various Blackfyre pretenders when they finally showed up (with less enthusiasm as the decades passed, of course) without usually actually assembling an army for them while they were in exile.

What people fail to notice or forget is that Viserys' personality is pretty much irrelevant. He wasn't exactly good leadership material but he was a Targaryen and the rightful king. Assume he had shown up with only a few hundred or a couple of thousand hired sellswords many Targaryen loyalists would have declared for him. Even Dorne might have. And then this whole thing could have quickly become a pretty big show without Viserys III bringing much to the table.

The problem is, if he really wants to play it safe why bet on a targaryen who was running from Robert? Why not try to move his pieces on Westeros? Make alliances with houses with real strength? And that marriage pact seems a little off as well.

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5 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

This is true.  You have a point.  Doran was upselling what he had to offer.  He was embellishing Dorne's resources, if you will.  But you know, that is what salesmen do.  Didn't Jaquen do the same to get Arya to Braavos?  Davos made an embellished pitch to Godric.  It's salesmanship.  

But when you're trading one person to another like Jaquen with Arya or Davos to Godric when people don't really have other chance, it's one thing. Other is essentialy lie to someone who you want to make an alliance. If I was Dany after seeing how Dorne really is I'd flip the shit out of everyone, and ship off back to Essos. It was a dangerous bet to make, and Doran doesn't play the game in a dangerous manner. We saw how he thinks, he thinks don't having anyone in Dorne dead is more honourble than sending thousands to die. Make an alliance with Targs and lying to them isn't safe at all.

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The 40K might refer to what they might get with additional levy's, sellswords and perhaps loyalist volunteers, whereas i presume that the 15K are the more regular kind of infantry that the lords keep around. One wonder what kind of war chest Doran would have kept for his plan.

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15 minutes ago, Waters Gate said:

If Doran wants to bring back the Targaryans after Robert's Rebellion, then logicly he has to ask himself with what army's? His own force is small relative to the rest of the kingdom, and whatever extra that could have been brought from across the narrow sea would have been insufficient to tilt that balance under normal circusmtances. So Doran either needs Westeros to be weakened by internal conflict or needs other allies within Westeros. For what regards weakening Westeros i guess people rellied on Varys though it was LF who really gave the strategic nudge. As to finding allies within Westeros, i guess Doran could have done better?

Exactly my point. He doesn't have an army, and he doesn't know if Dany or Viserys (the pact has both names), could be able to bring enough men to change the tides. Even considering every single one of the Targs loyalists he can't simply know for sure how many men he could gather. How is this plan safe? Start a war without knowing how many men you can realistic call to banners? And worst of that, Targs loyalists are not concetrated near Dorne to make a united effort. They're in all Westeros divided by thousands of miles. That plan was faded to fail.

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14 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

But when you're trading one person to another like Jaquen with Arya or Davos to Godric when people don't really have other chance, it's one thing. Other is essentialy lie to someone who you want to make an alliance. If I was Dany after seeing how Dorne really is I'd flip the shit out of everyone, and ship off back to Essos. It was a dangerous bet to make, and Doran doesn't play the game in a dangerous manner. We saw how he thinks, he thinks don't having anyone in Dorne dead is more honourble than sending thousands to die. Make an alliance with Targs and lying to them isn't safe at all.

Even a smart man like Doran can make a mistake.  

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16 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

Exactly my point. He doesn't have an army, and he doesn't know if Dany or Viserys (the pact has both names), could be able to bring enough men to change the tides. Even considering every single one of the Targs loyalists he can't simply know for sure how many men he could gather. How is this plan safe? Start a war without knowing how many men you can realistic call to banners? And worst of that, Targs loyalists are not concetrated near Dorne to make a united effort. They're in all Westeros divided by thousands of miles. That plan was faded to fail.

Well, the problem with making plans to attack youre enemy when he's relativly weakened (which i think was a wise and often succesfull move in that time) is that it boils down to an opportunity strike that is always going to be impossible to measure in advance. Typicly if you want to defeat a vastly stronger rival then waiting for the opportune moment  while gathering strenght in the background is the way forward. The weight of the actual number of men you can get really depends on how much youre rival weakens himself, but as you wait all you can do is try to gather as many as possible and hope that the strength of youre rivals forces falls below that. Timing is rather important in such a strategy, it can be nervewrecking i gather, you have to wait till potential opposing forces have sufficiently weakened themselfs yet not so long that there is an eventual victor among them, and then find the truly optimal timing to step in.

 

Still ... All Doran needs to do to persue this tactic is to hoard resources and train men while waiting. I get that under such circumstances one could perhaps pull up a great and still functional levy. In the meantime he needs to talk to various smaller and bigger Westerosi lords and perhaps use gold to sway them to his side, and look out for all pontential added strenght that could be gotten from elsewhere. For the fact that he chooses to "use a targaryan banner", something which logicly can give him supporters within Westeros and likely will him eitherway, he can only hope that whatever Targaryan claimant he gets behind at the opportune moment can also bring an army with him. As to Dany, yes she sure can bring out an army, a big one with dragons too, it must be said that Doran perhaps had not expected a Claimant of such strenght.

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I think there are three large-scale ways of looking at the Doran's take on the Quentyn plan.

- Doran wanted Quentyn to succeed, but it was kind of a long-shot plan and it just didn't work.

- Doran wanted Quentyn to succeed, but his plan is centered on Volantis - Quentyn was supposed to stay in Volantis and meet Daenerys there when she eventually showed up. This is similar to Varys's plan with Aegon, and it's against the backdrop of a ton of political maneuvering in Volantis, elections, religious uprising, slave revolts, etc.

This plan is screwed up by Quentyn when he decides to go to Meereen, which Doran did not anticipate he would want to do, and it's screwed up on Varys's side by Tyrion, who tricks Aegon to going to Westeros instead.

- Doran did not want Quentyn to succeed. He did not want Arianne's marriage to Viserys to succeed, he didn't want Quentyn's marriage to Daenerys to succeed, and he doesn't want Arianne to have a successful meeting with Aegon. He wants to have made offers of alliances to every Targaryan that look credible, and he wants it to look like the Targaryans shot them all down or screwed them all up.

That way, when the Targaryans inevitably fight each other again (which he is also working toward), or when the Targaryans fight the Lannisters, he can say he has been offended by all of them and refuse to participate in the war.

I favor the third of the three, but I think there are credible takes in all three camps.

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23 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

The problem is, if he really wants to play it safe why bet on a targaryen who was running from Robert? Why not try to move his pieces on Westeros? Make alliances with houses with real strength? And that marriage pact seems a little off as well.

I'd assume he is too aware that most Westerosi noble families wouldn't want to make common cause with Dorne against any of their own peers. Especially not the Lannisters. And it is quite clear that Doran has no love for the Baratheons, either, explaining why he didn't give shit for either Renly or Stannis.

In addition, I assume you underestimate the effect the return of a Targaryen pretender to Westeros will have on both the lords and the common people. Aegon is likely going to have overwhelming success simply because a majority of people is going to want him as their king. You see this also reflected in Euron's intention to claim the Iron Throne as Dany's consort. That isn't a pipe dream. It could work.

And you should also note that Doran is not as petty as to start a war and destroy a noble house and create chaos and mayhem in the process without having the means to also restore order.

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19 minutes ago, GyantSpyder said:

- Doran did not want Quentyn to succeed. He did not want Arianne's marriage to Viserys to succeed, he didn't want Quentyn's marriage to Daenerys to succeed, and he doesn't want Arianne to have a successful meeting with Aegon. He wants to have made offers of alliances to every Targaryan that look credible, and he wants it to look like the Targaryans shot them all down or screwed them all up.

That way, when the Targaryans inevitably fight each other again (which he is also working toward), or when the Targaryans fight the Lannisters, he can say he has been offended by all of them and refuse to participate in the war.

I favor the third of the three, but I think there are credible takes in all three camps.

That's more likely to happen. I think the story GRRM is writing has more to do with "history repeats itself" so a second dance with dragons is more likely to happen. And Dorne being in the shadows match Doran's personality. The only problem I have is if his plan was just to have the marriages to not work why he said to Arianne he planned for 17 years in advance? What was he doing in all that time? What Oberyn was doing making those trips to everyplace known to men? Just to fuck women? Didn't Doran said Oberyn knew what Doran wants to Dorne? I have so many questions regarding Dorne, and the way everything was writen makes me even more curious.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the plan. The plan was to marry Arianne to Viserys III once the man comes back to Westeros. Doran could have given him more/any support but that would have risked the wrath of the Iron Throne. Robert could have invaded Dorne whenever he wanted, leading to the death of thousands and crippling Dorne's ability to eventually assist and participate in a Targaryen restoration.

 

So, the Dorne which - for 150? 200? years - could resist repeated invasion by Targ armies with DRAGONS could not resist an attack by leedle, dwunk all the time, Robewt?

C'mon ... :)

IMO the whole Dorne arc - as written - is a joke. Starting with Oberyn seething over Gregor Clegane for almost 20 years and not doing anything about it (have spies follow the Mountain and go to every tournament Gregor signed up for and later claim "my lance slipped" over Gregor's dead body?) through Doran not funding Viserys and Daeneys in a discrete, deniable manner.

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12 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

So, the Dorne which - for 150? 200? years - could resist repeated invasion by Targ armies with DRAGONS could not resist an attack by leedle, dwunk all the time, Robewt?

C'mon ... :)

It could certainly gone with independence against but that's not the goal. It would lead to a lot of deaths on the Dornish side and Doran Martell doesn't care about independence over the dead bodies of his people. He fights only wars he can win.

12 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

IMO the whole Dorne arc - as written - is a joke. Starting with Oberyn seething over Gregor Clegane for almost 20 years and not doing anything about it (have spies follow the Mountain and go to every tournament Gregor signed up for and later claim "my lance slipped" over Gregor's dead body?) through Doran not funding Viserys and Daeneys in a discrete, deniable manner.

Oberyn seldom left Dorne after the Rebellion because Robert didn't exactly love Oberyn.

Viserys seems to have gotten a lot of money throughout most of his exile. He did not live on the streets. Only in the last years things seem to have gotten more difficult. However, Robert kept an eye on them. He wouldn't have needed positive confirmation of Dornish betrayal to declare war on them. Suspicion would have been enough.

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22 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

IMO the whole Dorne arc - as written - is a joke. Starting with Oberyn seething over Gregor Clegane for almost 20 years and not doing anything about it (have spies follow the Mountain and go to every tournament Gregor signed up for and later claim "my lance slipped" over Gregor's dead body?) through Doran not funding Viserys and Daeneys in a discrete, deniable manner.

I don't believe for a second that Oberyn was at KL just to fight the Mountain, the reason behind my suspicious is the simple fact that Gregor Clegane wasn't at KL at the time Oberyn arrived there. And the fact he didn't bother to kill him in the shadows is more proof that Oberyn was there to kill Twyin or at least to make the lannisters look bad. He wanted the mountain to implicate Twyin at the trial and the fact that Gregor isn't dead and it's going to be used as Cersei's champion will make the Lannisters look like liars. I think the plan was to kill Twyin and kill the moutain at the trial after the death of Twyin. And Twyin looks like he was poisoned afterall.

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