Was Arianna kidding herself with her thoughts about Quentyn

[ThisIsStannis]

She suddenly has these feelings of 'sisterly love' for her brother in her chapter and they came across as her trying to give herself some moral assurance that no, I'm not power hungry and would never wish for my brother's death, or be pleased by it, because it made me heir.

Opinions? She's never thought of Quentyn fondly before and just now seems a bit odd.

[joluoto2]

She's trying to convince herself she never hated him. Which of course isn't true. She also freaks out when she think of Quentyn and his "dragon queen", and between the lines you can read it as she blames Dany (and through her Quentyn) for the death of her dragon Prince.

[Stallion That Mounts Texas]

Agreed, Arianna is both fraudulent and guilty. Once she read her father’s letter to Quentyn, she viewed him as a threat thereafter. I doubt she will morn Quentyn at all. She may be honor bound to avenge his death as her brother, as her father’s son, and as a prince of Dorne, but not out of love I would suspect.

[aryagonnakill#2]

I agree with the posters here, she also thinks about whether or not she would be able to follow his commands if he were to become king, and she clearly isn't happy about the prospect.

[BryndenTullys#1fan]

I feel she's about to get her due and be spurned by Aegon (or acting Aegon) and have to settle for what she wanted originally anyways, heir to Dorne.

Jon C. has probably implanted in Aegon the need for him to marry Dany to rule.

[Razha]

I think that she, just like many of us, wants to believe that she is a good person.

"A good person" (apart from many other things) usually cares about his/her family members. When she thought that Doran was giving Quent something that ought to be hers, she felt resentment and believed that this resentment was fully justified. Now when she knows that Quent never tried to usurp her place, her rightful inheritance, she has no more psychological justification of negative or even indifferent feelings towards Quent.

She makes many mistakes, but her heart is more or less in the right place and despite being terribly spoilt she can tell a difference between good and bad (at least in theory). So, I guess she feels guilty of her previous thoughts and tries to prove to herself that she is a good person, a good sister, that cares about her brother.

She had similar remourseful thoughts after death of Arys - she liked him to a point, bat never really loved him, However after he died, died because of her - she feels guilty and she tries to deceive herself imagining that she cared about poor guy more than she actually did.

As to her finding it difficult to imagine her younger brother becoming ruler of westeros - I guess it is a pretty common many people find it difficult to accept fully that their kid brother/sister now is supposed to be a serious writer, journalist or scientist - because deep in our heart we still think of them as of kids who asked stupid questions and used our things without permission.

I think such thoughts do not make her bad person per se, she is just human , with human faults...

Eventually everyone is judjed by their actions and not by their thoughts

[Anarchosaurus Rex]

I think that she, just like many of us, wants to believe that she is a good person.

"A good person" (apart from many other things) usually cares about his/her family members. When she thought that Doran was giving Quent something that ought to be hers, she felt resentment and believed that this resentment was fully justified. Now when she knows that Quent never tried to usurp her place, her rightful inheritance, she has no more psychological justification of negative or even indifferent feelings towards Quent.

She makes many mistakes, but her heart is more or less in the right place and despite being terribly spoilt she can tell a difference between good and bad (at least in theory). So, I guess she feels guilty of her previous thoughts and tries to prove to herself that she is a good person, a good sister, that cares about her brother.

She had similar remourseful thoughts after death of Arys - she liked him to a point, bat never really loved him, However after he died, died because of her - she feels guilty and she tries to deceive herself imagining that she cared about poor guy more than she actually did.

As to her finding it difficult to imagine her younger brother becoming ruler of westeros - I guess it is a pretty common many people find it difficult to accept fully that their kid brother/sister now is supposed to be a serious writer, journalist or scientist - because deep in our heart we still think of them as of kids who asked stupid questions and used our things without permission.

I think such thoughts do not make her bad person per se, she is just human , with human faults...

Eventually everyone is judjed by their actions and not by their thoughts

This was very insightful.

[Endymion I Targaryen]

I think she was feeling a mix of remorse(for wrongly suspecting him ,but after all these years of hatred it's not that easy to change feelings) and jealousy for her not becoming Visery's queen because Dany(Quentyn's "fiance") killed him.

[Pod The Impaler]

I don't think Arianne is totally off the deep end in evil like Cersei is, but she is (at first) someone quite self-absorbed, shallow, and thoughtless. So did she want Quentyn dead? Did she wish him ill for reasons other than her belief that he would take what she thought was hers ? Did she ever love him as a brother ? Arianne was ready to go to war against her own brother, regardless of any sibling connection with him.

It seems fairly clear from the Quentyn chapters that one of his motivations for his being a try-hard to a suicidal degree was to avoid being mocked / bullied by his sister and her clique of supporters (the Sand Snakes). Arianne did not trust her own father Doran, and along with the Sand Snakes, seems to have had a large amount of disrespect for him - treating him as if he were not the Prince and indeed not even a real man. (As always, in comparison to Oberyn.) They viewed his kindness and patience as some sort of character flaw, and though he seems to have married for love, he and Quentyn both seem the sort of mild-mannered types that do not exactly set girls' hearts on fire. In both father and son, you get the feeling that if they weren't princes of Dorne, they'd be the sort to get kicked to the curb and mocked by the popular crowd. There is little said about Arianne's mother, but it would seem that she and Doran had a testy marriage and finally split up over the issue of Quentyn being fostered out at all. One wonders if Arianne harbours some degree of resentment of her father, for having lost his own wife, and for Quentyn in being the cause of her leaving.

Now, I am not sure this is Arianne's unalterable nature. She has lived in a sort of lie for some years, believing her father's did not love her and his intent was to marry her off to some greybeard so his son could rule Dorne instead of her, and also her father was a coward while her uncle was the strong one in the Martell family. In one stroke she finds out how wrong she was - and I think this makes her see she was a fool to act as she did. Maybe it was too late to undo years of resentment between her and Quentyn, but we'll see how that plays out when she hears the bad news.

If I were to think of a similar character to Arianne, it would be Renly Baratheon. Like Arianne, Renly was not altogether evil, but shallow, self-absorbed, and foolish; willing to stake his claim to rule the family on the basis of his popularity - and at his brother's expense if need be.