the mad Cersei's plan to kill Trystane

[Legitimate_Bastard]

Bloody good thread I must say.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

5 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

3) She did - but does Bronn know that?

Yes, he got Ser Balman to confess Cersei’s role before he killed him.

[Rufus Snow]

3 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Yes, he got Ser Balman to confess Cersei’s role before he killed him.

Ah, ok, thanks.

That doubles the price then

[rotting sea cow]

19 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

1) He's loyal to whoever rewards him, that's pretty much the first thing he told Tyrion, that's his whole character arc - when the gold stops, so does the service

2) He only needs to understand what Cersei might offer, the politics don't interest him at all - most of his storyline to date has had him sailing against the wind. Remember when Tyrion asked if Bronn would kill a baby without question? He said 'No, I'd ask how much'. That is the measure of Bronn's loyalty, ethics, and willingness to do the dirty jobs.

 

The thing is that Bronn is certainly selfish, brutal and amoral. This doesn't stop him to develop certain appreciation for Tyrion. Not that he will go above and beyond for him, but under convenient circumstances he would prefer to work for him.  This becomes clear here

"Bronn hesitated at the door. "What will you do, Imp?"

"Kill Gregor myself. Won't that make for a jolly song

"I hope I hear them sing it." Bronn grinned one last time, and walked out of the door, the castle, and his life."  - Tyrion IV, ASOS

 

And as we see in AFFC, Bronn didn't hesitate to offend Cersei by naming Lollys child "Tyrion". Nobody with opportunistic traits would do that. 

 

[rotting sea cow]

31 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

Perhaps they have? All we know is that Balon is still carrying out those orders when we see him in Dance. We don’t know if all the plans are still in place.

More importantly, that’s hardly something that Cersei would take into account. It would show real forward thinking for her to choose people specifically because they would continue with the plan whether she was in power or not. 

Mmmm. It is possible of course, although in Kevan's epilogue there is nothing that indicates that.

"The seventh voice would be the Dornishwoman now escorting Myrcella home. The Lady Nym. But no lady, if even half of what Qyburn reports is true. A bastard daughter of the Red Viper, near as notorious as her father and intent on claiming the council seat that Prince Oberyn himself had occupied so briefly."

 

28 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I’d add – Cersei has a pathological distrust of everyone Tyrion worked with, and plenty of others who she somehow manages to link to him in increasingly bizarre ways. She attempts to have Bronn killed because he was Tyrion’s man, and even has the High Septon murdered because Tyrion had him appointed. I very much doubt she would trust the Stone Crows.

This is a good argument. The only thing I can think of is that Cersei thinks that the Stone Crows are easier to manipulate. Afterwards, she can set a manhunt to kill those who murdered Trystane.

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

8 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

Mmmm. It is possible of course, although in Kevan's epilogue there is nothing that indicates that.

"The seventh voice would be the Dornishwoman now escorting Myrcella home. The Lady Nym. But no lady, if even half of what Qyburn reports is true. A bastard daughter of the Red Viper, near as notorious as her father and intent on claiming the council seat that Prince Oberyn himself had occupied so briefly."

I don’t think Kevan’s musings confirm or refute anything we’re discussing. He probably has no knowledge of Cersei’s plans. If Qyburn now knows Nym is coming to KL, he may also know that Trystane and Doran aren’t, and amend the plans accordingly. Or he doesn’t, for his own reasons, or it’s too late, and the plans are going to come off anyway.

What we know is that Kevan hasn’t any knowledge of the plans, which might be proof that no Lannister men were involved. I’ll give you that. But in all the confusion, they could still be wondering about in the woods somewhere.

Too many unknown factors.

8 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

This is a good argument. The only thing I can think of is that Cersei thinks that the Stone Crows are easier to manipulate. Afterwards, she can set a manhunt to kill those who murdered Trystane.

Mayhaps.

It seems a bit convoluted to me though, and does show a bit of recklessness where Mycella’s concerned. All it takes is Shagga saying “Shagga wants this woman” and Mycella ends up Queen of the Stone Crows.

That being said, the entire plan is utterly bat-shit crazy, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

[wia]

According to that plan Myrcella was supposed to be in the party, right? - I find it hard to believe that Cersei would trust the mountain clans wouldn't touch her.

And dressing up Lannister men as mountain clans seems like a rather far-fetched plan. It would require a lot of people to be 'in' on this plan, namely the multiple Lannister men that could betray her, there's a limit to their loyalty. And then there's the matter of how convincing could they be, I'd guess not very much.

 

4 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Remember that Trystane (and Doran) aren't coming to KL anymore. Lady Nym is coming in Doran's place with Myrcella and 300 seasoned spears.

I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost on what you're trying to say here.

My point about Trystane being more valuable as hostage was in terms of Cersei's supposed plan. Why kill Trystane and potentially ruin your alliance with Dorne now (when there's a lot of problems and you actually need it, when you can have Trystane as a hostage which would guarantee their loyalty for several years. And later when Trystane and Myrcella are old enough, the situation might be much better for the Lannisters and they might get rid of this betrothal from a much stronger position. Not that I expect Cersei to have that line of thought though. )))

Besides, say Trystane dies now, couldn't Dorne demand that Myrcella be betrothed to Quentyn (Cersei doesn't know that he went to Essos and died, so from her pov he'd be alive and not promised) to uphold the alliance? 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

24 minutes ago, wia said:

My point about Trystane being more valuable as hostage was in terms of Cersei's supposed plan. Why kill Trystane and potentially ruin your alliance with Dorne now (when there's a lot of problems and you actually need it, when you can have Trystane as a hostage which would guarantee their loyalty for several years. And later when Trystane and Myrcella are old enough, the situation might be much better for the Lannisters and they might get rid of this betrothal from a much stronger position. Not that I expect Cersei to have that line of thought though. )))

Besides, say Trystane dies now, couldn't Dorne demand that Myrcella be betrothed to Quentyn (Cersei doesn't know that he went to Essos and died, so from her pov he'd be alive and not promised) to uphold the alliance? 

That’s why the whole plan struck me as insane to be honest. It just didn’t sit right with me, even by Cersei’s standards. She gains nothing from Doran thinking Trystane was killed by Tyrion. Even if Doran bought it, what does she expect him to do? It just makes no sense.

Granted, many of Cersei’s plans are stupid and crazy, but this one really stretches it.

[Lluewhyn]

2 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I’d add – Cersei has a pathological distrust of everyone Tyrion worked with, and plenty of others who she somehow manages to link to him in increasingly bizarre ways. She attempts to have Bronn killed because he was Tyrion’s man, and even has the High Septon murdered because Tyrion had him appointed. I very much doubt she would trust the Stone Crows.

While this is true, wasn't it also because Lancel had confessed his sins to the High Septon, or at least Cersei thought he may have?

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

2 minutes ago, Lluewhyn said:

While this is true, wasn't it also because Lancel had confessed his sins to the High Septon, or at least Cersei thought he may have?

Yes, though, being Cersei, it all got mixed up in her head.

[Lluewhyn]

2 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

That’s why the whole plan struck me as insane to be honest. It just didn’t sit right with me, even by Cersei’s standards. She gains nothing from Doran thinking Trystane was killed by Tyrion. Even if Doran bought it, what does she expect him to do? It just makes no sense.

Granted, many of Cersei’s plans are stupid and crazy, but this one really stretches it.

I did say earlier that this plan was insane, so I'm agreeing with you. However, even though I'm one of the first to say "Yep, that's a plothole" or a bit of an Asspull, I do think in this case this facet of her personality has been properly seeded, even before she began her descent in AFFC.

She comes up with two plans to kill Robert in AGOT, and both of them are relatively good plans if she's willing to trade a relatively small chance of success with complete plausible deniability. Do a few dozen of those kinds of plans, and eventually one of them will work. But, relying upon them to succeed, like she did by staying in KL despite the risk to herself and her children because she expected her "Get Robert Super-drunk" plan to succeed is a lot less rational*, and doesn't seem to allow for any contingencies. However, she got extraordinarily lucky, as she has a few other times in the past, and seems to conflate being lucky = she's super smart, smarter than any of these idiots around her= any plan of hers that has a chance to succeed will unfold the way she wants it to.

* Being the hunt was after a White Hart at the time of departure, I think the most likely outcome of getting Robert drunk was him passing out during the hunt without catching anything, and maybe breaking a leg falling off his horse or something. Either way, he's going to be in a bad mood when he comes back. Varys *does* tell Ned that something else might have happened if the wine plan hadn't worked, but he's maybe not being 100% honest because his priority now is getting Ned to confess and get out of the way, and guilt-tripping Ned would work to that. With so many people around the king, including the Kingsguard, I don't think anyone's going to get away with doing anything to the King that can't be 100% pinned on an accident.

[chrisdaw]

As Doran knows about it I can't see anything happening that Doran doesn't mean to happen as it would paint him as being too incompetent. Not the right timing for something like that and not with Cersei as the opponent. And I don't think he is that cold that he'd let anything happen to Myrcella on purpose.

On the other hand, for one of the WOT5Ks dregs to be responsible for Myrcella's death would play well into Jaime's arc. Also if it becomes publicly known as Tyrion's doing that would help the "bad" Tyrion narrative being cultivated. First Joff, now Myrcella.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 10/9/2018 at 3:18 AM, rotting sea cow said:

I haven't seen a discussion about it so let's start one. We learn about the plan from Doran:

Prince Doran took a jagged breath. "Dorne still has friends at court. Friends who tell us things we were not meant to know. This invitation Cersei sent us is a ruse. Trystane is never meant to reach King's Landing. On the road back, somewhere in the kingswood, Ser Balon's party will be attacked by outlaws, and my son will die. I am asked to court only so that I may witness this attack with my own eyes and thereby absolve the queen of any blame. Oh, and these outlaws? They will be shouting, 'Halfman, Halfman,' as they attack. Ser Balon may even catch a quick glimpse of the Imp, though no one else will." - The Watcher, ADWD

It is very likely that Varys sent some word to Dorne regarding the plan. We never learned it from Cersei PoV, except that "Ser Balon will have another mission".  I believe that the info that Doran got is correct, it fits in Cersei's paranoia that the whole Trystane-Myrcella match is just a convoluted Tyrion's plan to kill her daughter, so the betrothal must be broken at any cost.

Who are these outlaws? I got a notion

"The Stone Crows are still in the kingswood. Shagga seems to have taken a fancy to the place [Bronn said]. Timett led the Burned Men home, with all the plunder they took from Stannis's camp after the fighting. Chella turned up with a dozen Black Ears at the River Gate one morning, but your father's red cloaks chased them off while the Kingslanders threw dung and cheered."- Tyrion I, ASOS

It makes sense because if they were Lannister soldiers posing as outlaws they would have gone directly to Kevan once they hear about Cersei downfall. My take, is that Cersei through Ser Balon or other people told (and paid) the Stone Crows telling them that Tyrion wanted Trystane dead and they would follow because they are loyal towards Tyrion (in their own way).

Now, here come the first problem. The mountain clans are anything but disciplined. They may not recognize Trystane or Doran or even Myrcella. Nobody expect that the Prince of Dorne will travel unprotected so any ensuing battle will have risks and in the chaos anything can happen, even that her own daughter, beloved Myrcella gets killed.

The second problem is that nobody has told the clans of Cersei downfall and that they should better cancel the plan. So, it is probably that the attack will proceed and something bad happens.

Good catch

[Foot_Of_The_King]

12 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

That’s why the whole plan struck me as insane to be honest. It just didn’t sit right with me, even by Cersei’s standards. She gains nothing from Doran thinking Trystane was killed by Tyrion. Even if Doran bought it, what does she expect him to do? It just makes no sense.

Granted, many of Cersei’s plans are stupid and crazy, but this one really stretches it.

My feelings exactly. 

[Shouldve Taken The Black]

13 hours ago, Lluewhyn said:

I did say earlier that this plan was insane, so I'm agreeing with you.

Sure, I was just reemphasising that point.

13 hours ago, Lluewhyn said:

"Get Robert Super-drunk" plan to succeed is a lot less rational*, and doesn't seem to allow for any contingencies.

Definitely, though at least with the Robert plan, if it didn't work, it wouldn't come back on her. She also had a clear reason to do it.

 

13 hours ago, Lluewhyn said:

Being the hunt was after a White Hart at the time of departure, I think the most likely outcome of getting Robert drunk was him passing out during the hunt without catching anything, and maybe breaking a leg falling off his horse or something.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't she only go with the plan after Ned told her he knew about the Twincest, which may have been after they heard he was going after a boar instead?

 

[rotting sea cow]

18 hours ago, wia said:

I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost on what you're trying to say here.

My point about Trystane being more valuable as hostage was in terms of Cersei's supposed plan. Why kill Trystane and potentially ruin your alliance with Dorne now (when there's a lot of problems and you actually need it, when you can have Trystane as a hostage which would guarantee their loyalty for several years. And later when Trystane and Myrcella are old enough, the situation might be much better for the Lannisters and they might get rid of this betrothal from a much stronger position. Not that I expect Cersei to have that line of thought though. )))

Besides, say Trystane dies now, couldn't Dorne demand that Myrcella be betrothed to Quentyn (Cersei doesn't know that he went to Essos and died, so from her pov he'd be alive and not promised) to uphold the alliance?  

The rationale behind Cersei's plan is that Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen and that cannot be trusted. Cersei is not thinking on the political implications of murdering Trystane or the possible benefits of having him as hostage (which are debatable of course). Cersei is thinking of getting rid of Tyrion's web in the most permanent way possible to skip prophesy. That's what drives her through AFFC with all her insane plots.

Now, I think that specific plot would have worked better with the five years gap than without it. Maybe after five years, they were coming to KL to the actual wedding.

 

 

[wia]

44 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

The rationale behind Cersei's plan is that Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen and that cannot be trusted. Cersei is not thinking on the political implications of murdering Trystane or the possible benefits of having him as hostage (which are debatable of course). Cersei is thinking of getting rid of Tyrion's web in the most permanent way possible to skip prophesy. That's what drives her through AFFC with all her insane plots.

Now, I think that specific plot would have worked better with the five years gap than without it. Maybe after five years, they were coming to KL to the actual wedding.

 

 

Wait what prophesy? I don't remember the Cersei one having something to do with Myrcella's marriage.

And a good point - it would make so much more sense with a 5 year gap.

[rotting sea cow]

13 minutes ago, wia said:

Wait what prophesy? I don't remember the Cersei one having something to do with Myrcella's marriage.

And a good point - it would make so much more sense with a 5 year gap.

Maggy's prophesy. Yes, it doesn't say anything about marriages, but Cersei interpretation is that Tyrion (the Valonqar) will have a hand in the deaths of her children (in her mind Tyrion did kill Joffrey), so she needs to get rid of any arrangements done by Tyrion or anything related to Tyrion: Bronn, the High Septon, Myrcella's betrothal, etc.

 

[wia]

4 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

Maggy's prophesy. Yes, it doesn't say anything about marriages, but Cersei interpretation is that Tyrion (the Valonqar) will have a hand in the deaths of her children (in her mind Tyrion did kill Joffrey), so she needs to get rid of any arrangements done by Tyrion or anything related to Tyrion: Bronn, the High Septon, Myrcella's betrothal, etc.

 

Ah, I see. Makes sense. 

Though getting rid of those arrangements with Tyrion's Mountain clans doesn't really. ))

[rotting sea cow]

1 minute ago, wia said:

Ah, I see. Makes sense. 

Though getting rid of those arrangements with Tyrion's Mountain clans doesn't really. ))

Well, as I said above the MC might be easier to manipulate and once she get rid of Trystane, she can set a manhunt against the murderers of of the son of a prince and future husband or her daughter, getting rid of them in the meanwhile.

Yes, it is convoluted but so are all Cersei's plans in AFFC. See the plan to kill Jon Snow and you will facepalm.