Why Doran's plan is so bad?

[Damon_Tor]

9 hours 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?

So I know I'm going to take some flak for saying so, but it's worth watching Preston Jacobs' take on this.

PJ has a ton of bad ideas but what he has to say about Dorne generally makes sense, and it does so without the huge leaps of logic that seem to guide some of his other conclusions.

He's done more work on Dorne than anything else, so the playlist is really long, but if you have a few hours to kill it's going to tell you more about Dorne than you ever wanted to know.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

29 minutes ago, Maxxine said:

So you're saying he just wants to ride the fence all the way to the end. That's an interesting take. Idk. I can't see him sending Quentyn to fail. Are you willing to put your son's life at risk for that. Obviously there's no way he could've foreseen the dragon thing but that's still a dangerous trip when your end goal is just to ride the fence. Seems like that can be accomplished just by doing nothing (ie Lysa and the Vale)

But doing the pact a secret and using his son would make impossible to anyone other than Dany know that he's loyal to Targ (or simply wants her to believe so). And Dorne isn't a impenetrable force like the Eyrie. And he call his banners in the Robert's rebellion against him, so if he didn't comply again he'd be in a bad position. Every move he made until now was made to make the war as far as possible from Dorne. And sending your children to do dangerous stuff is done everyday in Westeros. Every war, every battle people send their children do die. Quentyn's quest wasn't that dangerous if you think about it. The only part that was really dangerous was the dragon stuff.

[giant snake]

I think he is letting his desire for revenge dictate his decision making.  For him, the sack of King's Landing may as well have happened yesterday.  He has been cautiously plotting to take down the Lannisters for years...almost as long as we have been waiting for the next book to come out.  There is nothing of greater importance and he probably assumes that any Targaryan would be as motivated by revenge as him AND ambitious to retake the Iron Throne.  What he didn't take into account is that Dany was still just a baby during the sack and he didn't know that she would end up having her own plans, not to mention that she would be so capricious.

[Lord Varys]

50 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

But Quentyn is the wrong person to send for a ton of other reasons.  He's a sheltered young man with no prior training being sent with half a dozen companions into an active war zone.  It's a dangerous voyage in peacetime, and worse in war.  He's given no resources, no way of getting aid or convincing Dany of anything.  He's got an old piece of irrelevant... that's it.  Yes, he represents Dorne, and that's great, and you're right a political marriage doesn't need love or looks or passion, but Doran is stupid for sending an underprepared kid all that way.  If he wants to stress the power of Dorne and political aspect of the marriage, he should send a full delegation with all pomp and circumstance, to show Dorne's importance.  Political theater is crucial.  But he can't, because he needs secrecy.  This is why it's such a bad plot all around.  Doran is unwilling to commit to his plan enough to make it work, because to do so means to come out into the open about his long term schemes.  But opening up about it means risking a war in which Dornish children will die, which he can't countenance.  So in trying to have his cake and eat it too, he's going to get neither.

As things turned out Doran has now only lost a son. That's pretty bad, but if he had sent a delegation of important Dornish nobles he might have lost those, too. And if Dany had rejected them just as she did reject Quentyn - which she would have done unless they would have shown up with a sizable army to help her resolve the situation in Slaver's Bay - Doran's duplicity would have been revealed and the Iron Throne would have declared war on Dorne long before Daenerys came to Westeros. Assuming she comes at all, that is.

Aegon shows up as a complete wildcard now. They can work with him now but if the Iron Throne had learned of the Dany plot it would have gone bad for them.

And Doran and Quentyn are both aware of that all. Quentyn is pretty unsure about the whole thing and Doran explicitly says that it is unknown how Quentyn will be received at Meereen all the way back in AFfC.

Nobody ever said this was a genius plan. It is a gamble. But a gamble where both sides can lose. Rejecting Dorne is going to come back and haunt Daenerys. They won't forgive her both the rejection and the death of Quentyn.

[Lord Varys]

58 minutes ago, Maxxine said:

I agree about this probably didn't come about until after viserys died and it's unclear when Doran got that news to adjust the plan. I don't even know if it's necessarily about the dragons, more just Viserts dying, thus ruining the Viserys-Arianne. The dragons were just something extra. It was definitely confirmed that Viserys was dead before Oberyn went to KL and that's the important part. And I'm not saying Oberyn should've been sent to marry Dany, just to convince Dany to drop what she was doing and come to Westeros and maybe convince her to marry Quentynn.

Sorry, but a dragonless Targaryen girl would never have had a chance to take the Iron Throne of Westeros. And she would never have seen as a proper bride for a Prince of Dorne. The lords of Westeros don't want a Dornish king and they most certainly don't want a queen regnant. If Dany hadn't hatched her dragon eggs Doran Martell would have simply canceled the entire Targaryen restoration idea.

58 minutes ago, Maxxine said:

I don't think Oberyn to KL was the best decision. Yes, the point was to just go and observe  and make potential allies. Sending a person who is a known hothead and pining for vengeance is not the person to send. Quentyn would've been perfect in that role. He's going to blend in, not cause trouble, and observe. Oberyn created trouble as soon as he got there and shouldn't have been surprising considering the type of person he is.

Quentyn is a young man with no proper education in court intrigue. He wouldn't have been up to this job. And he would have been a much better hostage. Oberyn is loved but only the aging brother of the Prince of Dorne, not his son.

58 minutes ago, Maxxine said:

Petty things such as looks do matter to a teenaged girl who does not have a father (or a brother) to tell her what to do. I think it's ridiculous to act Quentyn's looks didn't play a part. Was Quentyn's looks a deciding factor? No. But it definitely was a factor in how she reacted to Quentyn.

Sure but that couldn't be helped.

58 minutes ago, Maxxine said:

  When I said nothing to offer her, I meant nothing to offer her to get her out of the current situation. Dorne is essentially on the other side of the world. He  couldn't help her out of the Meereen situation. Even if she decided to just abandon Meereen, he couldn't even get her back to Dorne. He had no ships, no nothing to get her and her army to Westeros if she did agree. And Dorne is no where near the key to Westeros so she can live without Dorne. I actually think she will because Dorne is probably going Aegon at this point.

They had no clue about the Meereenese situation back in Dorne.

[Frey Kings]

Dorne Master Plan(s) are dumb and naive. Sit down and draw up a plan that will take a generation later? Many things can go wrong in this time frame and you expect everything to fall into place? Doran is not being realistic in unrealistic world. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

23 minutes ago, StraightFromAsshai said:

Dorne Master Plan(s) are dumb and naive. Sit down and draw up a plan that will take a generation later? Many things can go wrong in this time frame and you expect everything to fall into place? Doran is not being realistic in unrealistic world. 

So why he said to Arianne he planned all this shit for 17 fucking years instead of just saying "I fucked up and now we have to be cautious"?

[Frey Kings]

6 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

So why he said to Arianne he planned all this shit for 17 fucking years instead of just saying "I fucked up and now we have to be cautious"?

 

Marrying your kids off for political gain is not something new or creative. I expect more substance or else Grand Schemer should be removed with any traits associated with him. In this time period, he could've and should've set the wheels in motion like Varys has. But everyone is just about as  dead. Lots of missed opportunities. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

23 minutes ago, StraightFromAsshai said:

 

Marrying your kids off for political gain is not something new or creative. I expect more substance or else Grand Schemer should be removed with any traits associated with him. In this time period, he could've and should've set the wheels in motion like Varys has. But everyone is just about as  dead. Lots of missed opportunities. 

Yeah, but if he did? But we simply don't know where his pieces are? 

[Frey Kings]

24 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

Yeah, but if he did? But we simply don't know where his pieces are? 

Yep I bet it was all apart of  his master scheme  

There is no Dornish Master Plan. The theory of Doran I like is the illusion of having a master plan. That's his chess. Let it appear he has something up his sleeve. Let it appear that he has secret agents acting on his behalf. Doran is Dorne, and Dorne is Doran.  The thought of a pending Martell retaliation is better than retaliating at all. Because he if he had any plans, the opportunity has passed. Dorne will ultimately leave the 7k and rule itself once more. He knew of Cersei's plan of Tyrstane, He knew of Arianne and foiled that. Good Chance he knows Varys'. 

Throughout its history, many tried to conquer Dorne, and they all failed. They can try again.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

4 minutes ago, StraightFromAsshai said:

Yep I bet it was all apart of  his master scheme  

There is no Dornish Master Plan. The theory of Doran I like is the illusion of having a master plan. That's his chess. Let it appear he has something up his sleeve. Let it appear that he has secret agents acting on his behalf. Doran is Dorne, and Dorne is Doran.  The thought of a pending Martell retaliation is better than retaliating at all. Because he if he had any plans, the opportunity has passed. Dorne will ultimately leave the 7k and rule itself once more. He knew of Cersei's plan of Tyrstane, He knew of Arianne and foiled that. Good Chance he knows Varys'. 

Throughout its history, many tried to conquer Dorne, and they all failed. They can try again.

That's a nice way of seeing all this and never crossed my mind he could be fooling everyone like that haha.

[Frey Kings]

5 hours ago, Maxxine said:

So you're saying he just wants to ride the fence all the way to the end. That's an interesting take. Idk. I can't see him sending Quentyn to fail. Are you willing to put your son's life at risk for that. Obviously there's no way he could've foreseen the dragon thing but that's still a dangerous trip when your end goal is just to ride the fence. Seems like that can be accomplished just by doing nothing (ie Lysa and the Vale)

Doran knew Dany wouldn't accept, the pact  wasn't even binding, the idea was laughable...He wanted to show his fellow Dornishmen that backing another Targ for IT was a lost cause. If he wanted a match, he would've put in some effort to convince her otherwise. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

6 hours ago, StraightFromAsshai said:

Doran knew Dany wouldn't accept, the pact  wasn't even binding, the idea was laughable...He wanted to show his fellow Dornishmen that backing another Targ for IT was a lost cause. If he wanted a match, he would've put in some effort to convince her otherwise. 

Exactly. He wanted the plan to fail that's no other way around it. The problem is, he could've said to Quentyn and trust his son, if he simply have said "son, I need you more than ever, we can't have another war and Daenerys is comingo to Westeros to conquer everything. We need to send her a message that we don't want war with her, but at the same time we can't be seen doing this, otherwise the Lannister are going to invade us. I need you going to her encounter and send her this pact, she won't accept, but she'll know without us having any binding to her that we don't want war against her, don't tell anyone or Dorne is doomed, I love you my son and I know you are capable of that". I doubt someone as willing as Quentyn going to Essos for his father would screw up things and tell the real reason to go there, and with this new information he wouldn't try to steal one of the dragons.

[Asshai Backwards]

I've wondered the same thing as the OP for a while.   Many here have shared some reasonable thoughts. A few of mine:

1.) Doran has had those 17 years, and GRRM more than 20, to ponder on this master plan.  To be a master, it seems it should have contingencies for as many variables in place as possible.  Not to say Doran could have predicted exactly how things went down in Mereen, but he certainly should have been prepping Q for just such a mission for years.  But, of course, Q wasn't really around to be prepped, he was being fostered elsewhere.  Which seems dumb, or maybe

2.)  Quentyn was seen as a complete dud from childhood.  All of Oberyn's children--from multiple wives--as well as Arianne, come across as good looking and quick-witted.  Quentyn doesn't even seem to have inherited his father's supposed intellect. Perhaps he WAS the fancy delegation some have suggested was needed--expendable, yes, but still the Prince's son.  Dany won't forget this when she is choosing where to land and where to look for help.  Marriage or no, secrecy or not, Doran has pretty much declared for Dany, and he's going to get an army of Unsullied, Screamers, and Dragons in his lap.  I guess that was what he was shooting for?  Regardless, it is perhaps an interesting point GRRM kind of makes--both the males in this particular wedding pact, though born to rule, are quite possibly the two most unfit people to sit the IT in all of the books, among semi-qualified applicants.

3.)  Or, Q is just an agonizingly drawn out plot device?  GRRM needed a way for the two dragons to be released at just the right time.  Boom, enter Quentyn.  Doesn't feel right though, more like a happy coincidence GRRM thought of, rather than the reason behind putting Q in the story.

4.)  Crackpottery--To justify Doran's mastermind status, there has to be more to it, and the only way to figure it out is to don our tinfoil hats.  I've seen it suggested that Daario might be a bastard son of Oberyn.  A deep sleeper agent of Doran's?  Maybe Daario not only CAN read, but he can read the code that was embedded in the note Quentyn brought.  And getting off topic a bit, I don't buy Daario being willing to volunteer as a hostage.  That was not an equal exchange, IMO.  Warriors for children?  Its almost like there was a plan in place to get him behind enemy lines.  I don't know.  Maybe DaarioN aharis is Doran Jr. and Quentyn is the son of some breadmaker, switched in as children--the real Quentyn was fostered on Lys and taught in the ways of Oberyn.  That would seem like a more useful job for Doran's first born then what purportedly happened.  (And that is the definition of crackpot--totally unjustified rambling and disjointed speculation.)

[Denam_Pavel]

Doran waited until Viserys had his army before binding himself to him. Then Viserys took off with the Dothraki horde before they were anywhere close to ready to returning Viserys' favor. He likewise didn't bind himself to Dany until she had her army and it seemed like she wasn't gonna get her baby dragons killed on her crusade against Slaver's Bay. His plan could have used more redundancies to protect against complications but more plans in play heightens the odds that Dorne is found out and sucked into a war against KL, or asked to commit themselves to the Targs cause before Targaryans makes landfall on Westeros. And Oberyn was convinced by Tyrion do something stupid. Tyrion has that effect on people, I feel you have to allow for that conceit to read these books.

[cpg2016]

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As things turned out Doran has now only lost a son. That's pretty bad, but if he had sent a delegation of important Dornish nobles he might have lost those, too. And if Dany had rejected them just as she did reject Quentyn - which she would have done unless they would have shown up with a sizable army to help her resolve the situation in Slaver's Bay - Doran's duplicity would have been revealed and the Iron Throne would have declared war on Dorne long before Daenerys came to Westeros. Assuming she comes at all, that is

He should have sent Quentyn and those nobles.  Plus, it's a good way for him to earn brownie points with his vassals; sending them on important diplomatic missions is a sign of prestige.

 

And she might have accepted them for a future match.  She's coming back to Westeros at some point, she thinks.

And your last point is correct, which is why it's such a shitty plan.  Doran doesn't want open war yet, but he can't achieve his goals without risking that.  He can't send Quentyn with the support he needs to do his job because to do so exposes his plot.  But Quentyn fails in large part because he doesn't have that support.  If Doran had sent a few ships and a hundred men, Quentyn would have arrived before the marriage to Hizdahr, vastly improving his chances.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody ever said this was a genius plan. It is a gamble. But a gamble where both sides can lose. Rejecting Dorne is going to come back and haunt Daenerys. They won't forgive her both the rejection and the death of Quentyn.

Right, it's the opposite of a genius plan.  If you want to call Doran a gambler, that's fine.  But that means there is no plan, there is a gamble, which is a vastly different proposition.  What he had with Arianne & Viserys?  That's a plan.  It's well thought out, it has a good chance of working as designed, everyone is given the resources and ability to do their job (I mean he botched it by not telling Arianne, but the bones of the plan are solid).  As I said, with Quent's mission, Doran loses from the word go.  He can't satisfy both his desires at once, which means he fails.  He's throwing the dice and hoping for snake eyes, which is a bet, not a plot.

And by the way, Doran doesn't know what's happened in Meereen and he's already jumping ship and turning to fAegon.  So he's already planning on betraying Daenerys.  Dany didn't reject Dorne, she rejected Quentyn, which is different entirely.  If what Doran truly cared about was a Targaryen restoration and justice for Elia, then backing Dany would be enough.  What he wants is a return to the privileged position he had with Rhaegar's marriage.  Doran is just as motivated by power politics as anyone, he's just better at disguising it to himself under more noble motives.

[cpg2016]

1 hour ago, Asshai Backwards said:

I've wondered the same thing as the OP for a while.   Many here have shared some reasonable thoughts. A few of mine:

1.) Doran has had those 17 years, and GRRM more than 20, to ponder on this master plan.  To be a master, it seems it should have contingencies for as many variables in place as possible.  Not to say Doran could have predicted exactly how things went down in Mereen, but he certainly should have been prepping Q for just such a mission for years.  But, of course, Q wasn't really around to be prepped, he was being fostered elsewhere.  Which seems dumb, or mayb

grrr, lost a whole response.  Brief retyping.  Doran has an awful plan.  And the most important part is him regaining the political status he had when he was brother-in-law to the Crown Prince, and the future king would be his nephew.  Otherwise, why bother with a marriage pact?

His plan with Arianne & Viserys is a good one.  But when that falls apart, he takes a bet, it isn't a plan.  Why should he bother "prepping" Quentyn?  He isn't that good a planner to have a contingency for it.  He didn't even prep Arianne!  And when he sent out Quentyn, he didn't bother to support him.

1 hour ago, Asshai Backwards said:

2.)  Quentyn was seen as a complete dud from childhood.  All of Oberyn's children--from multiple wives--as well as Arianne, come across as good looking and quick-witted.  Quentyn doesn't even seem to have inherited his father's supposed intellect. Perhaps he WAS the fancy delegation some have suggested was needed--expendable, yes, but still the Prince's son.  Dany won't forget this when she is choosing where to land and where to look for help.  Marriage or no, secrecy or not, Doran has pretty much declared for Dany, and he's going to get an army of Unsullied, Screamers, and Dragons in his lap.  I guess that was what he was shooting for?  Regardless, it is perhaps an interesting point GRRM kind of makes--both the males in this particular wedding pact, though born to rule, are quite possibly the two most unfit people to sit the IT in all of the books, among semi-qualified applicants.

Quentyn is FAR more qualified to rule than literally any other monarch we've seen.  Aerys, Joffrey, and Viserys are all insane sadistic psychopaths.  Robert is a lazy moron; we don't know much about Quent, but we know he's willing to die in a risky attempt to do his duty and serve his father and land, which is light years more responsibility than Robert takes.

1 hour ago, Asshai Backwards said:

3.)  Or, Q is just an agonizingly drawn out plot device?  GRRM needed a way for the two dragons to be released at just the right time.  Boom, enter Quentyn.  Doesn't feel right though, more like a happy coincidence GRRM thought of, rather than the reason behind putting Q in the story.

There is an awesome blogger named poorquentyn who writes about this very topic much more eloquently, but, in a nutshell - this is GRRM deconstructing another fantasy trope.  You know, the one with the sheepherder or pig herder who is soooo bored with his life, and dreams of going on adventures and eventually it turns out that the adventure becomes real, and he saves the world and gets the princess and la la la.  Well, here we have Quentyn, perfectly content with his boring life with the Yronwoods, with a nice young girl to marry and happy life ahead of him, and he gets thrust into that same adventure story, the one he doesn't want!  And when he gets there, it sucks!  His best friend and mentor are killed when pirates attack, and they die uselessly.  He has to endure the horrors of a war zone by signing up with a mercenary company, because he didn't get adequate provisions or preparations for his journey.  And when he gets there, the beautiful princess rejects him.  So he's seen all this death, experienced all this trauma, in the name of wooing this girl, who wants nothing to do with him or his scheme.  It's the opposite of the typical Hero's Journey.  He's ripped from the life he wants, into this awful adventure, and he dies for absolutely no purpose and for no reward.

GRRM is making a point with Quentyn's story, and everyone else's too.  Being a hero sucks.  Jon and Tyrion and Dany are learning that, and wer;e very invested in their stories.  Their Journey involves pain and betrayal and sacrifice.  They're earning it.  Quentyn (and Aegon) are hijackers in that narrative - coming out of nowhere, like a traditional fantasy hero, the secret prince who reveals himself at the last minute to win the princess' love and save the day.  But they're going to fail, because life isn't like that.  In Quentyn's case, its all the more tragic because he was happy before all this, and only wanted to stay in his old life, which is the opposite of most fantasy protagonists.

2 hours ago, Asshai Backwards said:

4.)  Crackpottery--To justify Doran's mastermind status, there has to be more to it, and the only way to figure it out is to don our tinfoil hats.  I've seen it suggested that Daario might be a bastard son of Oberyn.  A deep sleeper agent of Doran's?  Maybe Daario not only CAN read, but he can read the code that was embedded in the note Quentyn brought.  And getting off topic a bit, I don't buy Daario being willing to volunteer as a hostage.  That was not an equal exchange, IMO.  Warriors for children?  Its almost like there was a plan in place to get him behind enemy lines.  I don't know.  Maybe DaarioN aharis is Doran Jr. and Quentyn is the son of some breadmaker, switched in as children--the real Quentyn was fostered on Lys and taught in the ways of Oberyn.  That would seem like a more useful job for Doran's first born then what purportedly happened.  (And that is the definition of crackpot--totally unjustified rambling and disjointed speculation.)

Nope.  Doran just isn't a master strategist, and never was.  As always, Occam's Razor is best - Doran just sucks as a plotter, because he isn't willing to risk anything.  He doesn't want violence brought to the Water Gardens, so he won't back his plots up with the commitment and muscle to make them work.

[Ralphis Baratheon]

All of the people who were involved with killing Elia and her children are dead. Doran's plan should be about the best way to protect his family and elevate them and Dorne. I think he should do what he has been, laying low and let everyone else fight each other. After the wars have been fought and most of the Lannisters are dead maybe he can help Myrcella and through her Trystane make a claim for Casterly Rock or even Stormsends if the she's still considered a Baratheon after all is said and done.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

2 hours ago, Denam_Pavel said:

And Oberyn was convinced by Tyrion do something stupid. Tyrion has that effect on people, I feel you have to allow for that conceit to read these books.

I don't remeber Tryion asking Oberyn to fight for him. Any quotes?

[Ser Loras The Gay]

32 minutes ago, cpg2016 said:

Nope.  Doran just isn't a master strategist, and never was.  As always, Occam's Razor is best - Doran just sucks as a plotter, because he isn't willing to risk anything.  He doesn't want violence brought to the Water Gardens, so he won't back his plots up with the commitment and muscle to make them work.

So he's just a liar? Because he said with all words to Arianne he has been plotting for freaking 17 years. I'd accept him just being a good liar and fucking with everyone just to keep Dorne low at the radar.