How controversial is the Quentyn being alive theory on here?

[Sandy Clegg]

EDIT: whoosh, this has become quite a long thread ... it's worth reading all the posts and replies in full before commenting.

I can't quite make up my mind on Quentyn being alive. His body seems to have been 100% burnt to a crispy Dorneburger, but we have these pesky 'second-life in the dragon' possibilities. We don't quite have enough information on how this works - is Quentyn the first human Rhaegal has killed with fire? That might go some way to answering if it's even possible.

The thing that makes me wonder is the way Quentyn seems to already have disassociated from his body by the time he knows he's on fire:

Quote

When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning.

Oh, he thought. Then he began to scream.

'Oh' is such a great under-reaction. Probably a dramatic effect moment from George -  people can disassociate when shot and not realise it immediately. But there's the fan of supernatural horror inside me that also wants to believe that the scream was his first act on discovering he has effectively become a dragon. Existential screams beat burning screams for me, what can I say? 

So I can wave away the magical element - we are going to inevitably see an increase in the magic quota I believe. It just doesn't really make much narrative sense - Quentin's story had a nice conclusion. Adventure stinks, and then you die. Still, that 'oh' feels very 'out-of-body' to me. And in these books, that is a loaded phrase.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Sandy Clegg

[Craving Peaches]

Do his friends not also act like Quentyn is dead too?

[kissdbyfire]

I’m willing to bet it isn’t controversial at all for some readers. My opinion is that he is indeed very dead. 

[Craving Peaches]

16 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

My opinion is that he is indeed very dead. 

I think it makes more sense plot wise if he is dead, in terms of an ending to his arc, which is about adventures not being all they are cracked up to be, and in terms of pushing the Dornish into Camp Aegon...

[astarkchoice]

2 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Do his friends not also act like Quentyn is dead too?

Yep and the messsge gerris is taking home is one where hes as good as blaming her. An arrogant  snooty queen mocking dornes prince and its request to ally.

And yeah hes dead

"Prince quentyn died  just before  1st light"

Ser barristan said he could see parts of the boys skull as the skin sloughed away

[Craving Peaches]

37 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Yep and the messsge gerris is taking home is one where hes as good as blaming her. An arrogant  snooty queen mocking dornes prince and its request to ally.

And yeah hes dead

"Prince quentyn died  just before  1st light"

Ser barristan said he could see parts of the boys skull as the skin sloughed away

I thought the 'theory' was that there was a decoy corpse?

[astarkchoice]

6 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I thought the 'theory' was that there was a decoy corpse?

Seems daft 

Lots of people saw him melt and sat with the pain ridden dying corpse...its him

[Jon Fossoway]

I don't think it's controversial, just silly.

[Craving Peaches]

If Quentyn is confirmed alive in the next book then I think Ned and Renly's chances of survival have markedly improved...

[James Arryn]

In my opinion, it’s not so much seen as controversial as kind of only talked about/considered ~ on a technicality. Ie, since George apparently decided his criticism of Tolkien not having (the ~ immortal) Gandalf die in Moria was way off and introduced an ever increasing number of non-dead deaths, everyone combs the text for other possible false deaths, and Quentyn is one of the more fringe examples where, yes, technically there is some room for ambiguity in the language.
 

But imo that ambiguity is much more likely to be down to literary tendencies rather than another false death. Ie, George often goes abstract when POV characters die. Pate or whoever also tend to have technically ambiguous language about their own deaths because George shows minds in confusion in the face of or detachment from their death, generally. How he tends to confirm their deaths is with it being discussed later on by others, and that’s what he did here too.

Edited July 22, 2023 by James Arryn

[CassDarry]

8 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Do his friends not also act like Quentyn is dead too?

I thought they acted like he isn't dead or at least shifty which is the only reason I haven't ruled the theory out 100% because I fell like he is dead and should be dead by what's written, even in Arianne's preview chapters I think her thoughts about Quentyn make it better for my read that he is dead.

But as I said I believe it is Arch who is acted suspicious to me.

[Nathan Stark]

Ah yes. The "oh." The one made semi-infamous among the ASOIAF fandom through Emmet Booth's needlessly long overexplanation of it. (I love PoorQuentin, btw, his analysis is usually great, but the essay about the "oh" is a trip.) It's probably the most famous "oh" in the history of words.

So here's the thing: I kind of agree with Poor Quentyn here even if I find the overall analysis a bit much. Quentyn's last moments before being incinerated are such a wonderful underreaction to being incinerated. He didn't really have time for much else because this took place within a few brief seconds. Sometimes an underraction is all you get.

I get why fans theorize about Quentyn being secretly alive, somehow. I just don't agree with it. Yes, George R. R. Martin is a crafty author whose stories contain a lot of twists and turns, but there is a pattern to those twists and those turns. They are all  Shakespearean tragedies, not "somehow Emperor Palpatine is alive." What makes Quentyn's story meaningful is that he didn't have to make the choices he did. He could have stayed home. He should have turned back. Quentyn, like 99.9% of all of humanity, was just not cut out for being a hero like in the stories. Heroes get rewarded for being brave and stupid. But that gets you killed more often than not. Quentyn's own fruitless attempts to be the hero of his own story got him killed. And that is tragic.

So if Quentyn somehow popped back into the story, it wouldn't be cool, or exciting, or fun. It would be confusing and pointless and sad. It would be a cheap "gotcha" twist by an author who just doesn't do that. I think George R. R. Martin ultimately respects his audience far more than D and D ever did.

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, Nathan Stark said:

not "somehow Emperor Palpatine is alive."

Ah yes but you see if you watched the Fortnite tie-in it all made sense so all we need to to do understand the books is wait until there is an ASoIaF Fortnite event.

[Sandy Clegg]

13 minutes ago, Nathan Stark said:

So if Quentyn somehow popped back into the story, it wouldn't be cool, or exciting, or fun. It would be confusing and pointless and sad. It would be a cheap "gotcha" twist by an author who just doesn't do that. I think George R. R. Martin ultimately respects his audience far more than D and D ever did.

I'm pretty sure Quentyn's  body has gone. I guess it's possible that there are fates worse than death, though? Getting your soul trapped in a dragon sounds pretty horrific.

I don't like the idea of Quentyn wriggling out of death, either, if I'm honest. But I'm more than ok with George setting his soul up for further torment. I mean, that actually does sound like a very GRRM thing to do.

[Jekse]

4 hours ago, James Arryn said:

But imo that ambiguity is much more likely to be down to literary tendencies rather than another false death. Ie, George often goes abstract when POV characters die. Pate or whoever also tend to have technically ambiguous language about their own deaths because George shows minds in confusion in the face of or detachment from their death, generally. How he tends to confirm their deaths is with it being discussed later on by others, and that’s what he did here too.

Yes but you have to consider that these characters were explicitly shown to be dead afterwards. In the case of Catelyn we get Arya's POV through Nymeria, and in the case of Pate we get Sam's POV of seeing Jaqen as Pate. But in the case of Quentyn we get a burnt body, and the Meereen story in ADWD opens with the statement that ''burnt bones prove nothing.''

I don't believe that Quentyn is dead or alive, because GRRM didn't know either. There is a reason he cut away from the action and left it ambiguous, so that he can still change his mind later. 

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, Jekse said:

Yes but you have to consider that these characters were explicitly shown to be dead afterwards. In the case of Catelyn we get Arya's POV through Nymeria, and in the case of Pate we get Sam's POV of seeing Jaqen as Pate. But in the case of Quentyn we get a burnt body, and the Meereen story in ADWD opens with the statement that ''burnt bones prove nothing.''

I don't believe that Quentyn is dead or alive, because GRRM didn't know either. There is a reason he cut away from the action and left it ambiguous, so that he can still change his mind later. 

Well, we see Pate. We only conclude it must be JH because we accepted Pate’s death, unproven. Without that acceptance we have far more actual cause to suppose he is alive than poor Quentyn. But that’s normal. No POV sees Cressen die, but we accept it. In fact were it not for the accepted truth that PL characters always die, we’d pretty much never get the kind of confirmation some are saying is significant to QM’s death. 
 

IMO the reason it cut away was to signify that nothing in life prepares you for dragon fire. Or your own death generally, unless you’re an old hand like Beric. That’s imo what GRRM is trying to show realistically, that death always comes as a Stranger. And what makes a stranger a stranger? The fact that we don’t recognize it when we meet it. 

Edited July 22, 2023 by James Arryn

[Hugorfonics]

I used to sincerely believe Loras was faking it and not burnt at all but plotting and is three moves ahead. Then I fell down the rabbit hold of Quentyn. Having pulled myself out Im now of the conclusion that they're both pizza bread 

[Craving Peaches]

20 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

I used to sincerely believe Loras was faking it and not burnt at all but plotting and is three moves ahead. Then I fell down the rabbit hold of Quentyn. Having pulled myself out Im now of the conclusion that they're both pizza bread 

Loras I can see being okay, because we only hear about it through Cersei's POV and it seems probable someone is just telling her what she wants to hear, plus the Septas act suspicious when Loras is mentioned and Mace seems to refer to Loras as though he isn't really injured. Quentyn on the other hand is fried in his own POV chapter, we see a burned body and his friends act like he's dead too.

[Hugorfonics]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

Loras I can see being okay, because we only hear about it through Cersei's POV and it seems probable someone is just telling her what she wants to hear,

I agree. 

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

plus the Septas act suspicious when Loras is mentioned and Mace seems to refer to Loras as though he isn't really injured

I don't remember those. Citations please?

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

Quentyn on the other hand is fried in his own POV chapter,

Yea exactly 

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

we see a burned body and his friends act like he's dead too

Right, but that doesn't really mean anything. We saw Bran and Rickons body, and we heard about Davos' head.

If the friends were fooled too then so it is and if they were in on it then they acted accordingly.

 

I just didn't get the arc at first. But now I realize that he succeeded on his mission to ally Dorne with Dany, although it involved him dying and warring on Pentos for the benefit of prince sellsword.

But Loras I still don't get. Why kill him off, or why make him bedridden like his brother? I do think though that Tyrell taking Dragonstone and stopping the mining which is essential for the NW would be a good story. So too is having the fleet useless against Greyjoy 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Hugorfonics

[sifth]

I hate this theory, we literally see the guy get burnt in his own POV.