#from left to right: sylva tyene ari

[elaena]

Cousins

[turtle-paced]

ASoIaF Re-Read: The Princess in the Tower, AFFC

Well...someone asked for it, and this time I actually managed to follow through. Pardon the roughness; I’ll probably do this for other chapters in future and no doubt I’ll get more practiced and organised.

This chapter deals with the aftermath of the failed Queenmaker plot. Arianne is imprisoned, her co-conspirators scattered. The first half of the chapter shows us the brutal effectiveness of solitary confinement in breaking someone down; the second Arianne’s long overdue confrontation with her father, climaxing with the reveal of Doran’s own bloody plans for the Lannister regime.

The Princess (Alone) in the Tower

Upon her capture, Arianne expects to be taken to face her father’s justice in public. Instead, she is sent to solitary, comfortable confinement. Physically, Arianne’s cell is positively luxurious. She has carpets and a featherbed and a privy as nice as anyone can expect in this setting, red wine and clean water, books and a cyvasse table, her own (fine) clothing, and some of the best views in all of Dorne. But the door is “closed and barred,” her exploration of the cell takes “less time than it would have taken her to lace a pair of sandals,” and for a woman who wondered on her way up the stairs if one of her cousins would be in the cell, “she had no one to play [cyvasse] with.”

Arianne is further left in a state of ignorance as to the duration of her captivity. Her demands to see her father are met with silence. More importantly, none of the servants or guards attending her will speak to her. “None of them had a word for her, nor would they deign to tell her what was happening in the world outside her sandstone cage.” While in confinement, she is denied full knowledge of the consequences of her actions, with the servants refusing to tell her of the hunt for Darkstar or even if Myrcella survived. She is also left unsure of her eventual punishment, and fears that she’s been locked up only to be taken directly to a wedding to a man she finds unsuitable.

This is very hard on Arianne, who has in previous chapters been established as an extroverted, social woman who relies a great deal on her peer support groups. She underestimates how effective this tactic of imprisonment is at first. “Is this my father’s notion of torment? Not hot irons or the rack, but simple silence? […] He thinks he is being subtle when he is only being feeble.” Yet despite her vow to use the solitude to strengthen herself, within days she’s hanging out the window shouting her throat raw in the hope her cousins will answer her, and trying to escape from her cell.

Eventually she attempts to escape her confinement by charming one of her servants into taking a message for her, using that servant’s attachment to one of her friends as a lever. (Notably, Arianne secures Cedra’s agreement to take a message first, and only then thinks about to whom she might send that message.) This effort is unsuccessful.

After a while, Arianne understands. “By that time, the princess would have welcomed the touch of a hot iron, or an evening upon the rack. The loneliness was like to drive her mad.” It’s only when she breaks, spending all her time in bed and refusing to eat, that her father at last sends for her, by way of Areo Hotah. And one of the first things she thinks is, “He was talking to her.” Ow, man. In case we failed to get this point, Arianne also thinks “for the first time I am frightened of my father” and “I must throw myself at his feet and beg forgiveness, or I may never hear another human voice again.”

It is frankly impressive that Arianne bounces back enough from this experience enough within a few minutes of her supervised release to argue with her father and insist on her legal status and rights.

The Failed Plot

Arianne is distraught by the plan’s failure, her concern with her co-conspirators’ fates as much as with her own. As we are told barely a paragraph into the chapter, “She was less certain whether she would forgive herself.” The guilt of her failure eats at her almost as much as her loneliness, to the point where Arianne thinks “I deserve a headsman’s axe for what I did, but [Doran] will not even give me that.”

It is Arys Oakheart’s fate that she is most upset about. As soon as Arianne is alone, she weeps for him. At this point, she is still coming to terms with her own responsibility for his death. “I never told you to, I never wanted that,” she thinks. The following morning we see her engaged in a bit more denial: “Someone told, someone she had trusted. Arys Oakheart had died because of that, slain by the traitor’s whisper as much as by the captain’s axe.” Yet even this formulation of events cannot absolve Arianne of culpability - someone Arianne trusted told. “Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt.” She knows she did Arys wrong in a manner that substantially led to his death, but cannot yet face it entirely.

And it is all too apparent that Arianne did Arys wrong. She spent half a year seducing him, and when she succeeded, led him to believe that they would be able to marry if he cooperated in their plot. She was aware of Arys’ shame and discomfort with their affair and used it to further her own ends. Unethical behaviour to say the least, and Arianne at last wonders whether that shame was a contributing factor in his decision to suicidally charge Areo Hotah.

Myrcella’s maiming falls into largely the same category of grief and guilt. We learn that she was badly injured when Darkstar attacked her, and last Arianne saw her, she was “too weak to sit a horse,” and her eyes were “bright with fever.” Later in the chapter, we learn that Myrcella lost her ear and has significant scarring on her face. Arianne maintains a level of distancing herself from responsibility regarding Myrcella. “If Hotah had not interfered,” she says.

Yet this constant appeal to her lack of malice only goes to show how acutely she is aware that her actions resulted in the disaster. Arianne knows that lack of malice is the only thing she can plead in her own defence.

We learn quickly that Darkstar escaped to do more mischief in places unknown, probably posturing dramatically the whole way. Arianne thinks that he must surely have fled Dorne. (He’s totally still in Dorne.) Doran describes Darkstar as “the most dangerous man in Dorne,” in a sentence that sounds suspiciously like GRRM talking up this character. (If someone’s going to say “I am of the night,” that character better have dramatic flair to equal Batman, is all I am saying.) In terms of cyvasse imagery, Arianne links her inquiry about Darkstar to the heavy horse piece.

The other co-conspirators, apprehended at the same time as Arianne, were separated from her and initially sent to Ghaston Grey, “a crumbling old castle perched on a rock in the Sea of Dorne, a drear and dreadful prison where the vilest of criminals were sent to rot and die.” Arianne protests this, assuming full responsibility for the plot. This position she maintains through her confrontation with Doran. Doran opts for leniency, though he “might have had their heads off.” He quietly exiles most of Arianne’s friends, taking hostages and money in Garin’s case, giving Ser Andrey an honourable post guarding Arianne’s mother aaaaaaall the way in Norvos, and arranging a marriage for Lady Sylva.

Once the conspiracy is over and the conspirators dealt with, Doran and by extension Arianne must still deal with the fallout. Balon Swann was dispatched from King’s Landing, and now Doran needs an explanation for Arys’ death and Myrcella’s maiming.

Myrcella, alive and recovering, must be persuaded to hide the truth. Arianne is the only one with the ability to persuade her, and so, Doran has need of Arianne.

Someone Told

Arianne obsesses over this question for the bulk of the chapter. She told only people she trusted, and yet, her father knew her plans and stopped her with relative ease. “Someone told, someone she had loved. That was the cruelest cut of all.” She works through the possible suspects, and cannot believe that any of them would inform on her save Darkstar and possibly Ser Arys, and yet has to admit to herself “it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor.”

When she at last gets to confront her father, the issue is one of the first she brings up.

“I want to know who informed on me.”

“I would as well, in your place.”

Doran refuses to tell her, saying “until such time [as she discovers the traitor’s identity on her own, she] must mistrust them all,” and “a little mistrust is a good thing in a princess.”

It’s my opinion that the specific identity of Arianne’s traitor is by far secondary to the broader point Doran makes - and to Doran’s own failings in the control of information.

Just as we see the consequences of telling the wrong person in the aftermath of Arianne’s failure to crown Myrcella, we see the consequences of failing to tell a right person as Doran describes his own plot to crown Arianne. Arianne was vital to Doran’s plot, the coin used to re-bind houses Martell and Targaryen in the first iteration of the plan to restore the Targaryens to the Iron Throne, yet Doran did not keep his legal heir apparent in the loop.

He explains this: “Arianne, your nature...to you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garin and Tyene of a night.” But what was true when Arianne was ten, twelve, fifteen, was not reevaluated when Arianne was eighteen, twenty, twenty-three. Instead, Doran kept quiet to protect Arianne, seven years a woman grown, while telling the far younger Quentyn. He quite simply did not risk give Arianne the chance to prove herself that he risked giving Quentyn. Even as Doran’s health deteriorated and in spite of Viserys’ death, he does not tell Arianne anything that the future ruling Princess of Dorne might need to know. Doran himself acknowledges the failure, saying that he “kept [Arianne] ignorant too long.” And then at last the plan comes out.

Arianne’s Family

It is stated outright in this chapter that Arianne loves her cousins. Somewhat worryingly to those who recall Areo Hotah’s take on the Sand Snakes (and especially Maester Caelotte’s concern that Tyene would assassinate her own uncle in his own home), Arianne’s favourite is Tyene, and considers her “the sweet sister she never had.”

She also seems to have enough fondness for Ellaria to shout for her as well, when the stress of confinement gets to her.

Furthermore, it is stated outright that Arianne is not close to either of her brothers. “Quentyn was off at Yronwood, and Trystane was too young.” Quentyn in particular she has little affection for. As she describes in her impassioned speech to Doran, “he looks like you, he thinks like you,” as reasons for parental favouritism. She regards Quentyn as competition for their father’s love and for inheritance of Dorne, an idea developed in her earlier chapter. It’s on the backburner here, as matters with her father come to a head.

Doran’s Family

In this chapter we continue the comparisons between Doran and Oberyn. The compare-and-contrast is again instigated by Doran himself, when he says, “My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only play such games as I can win.”

Fittingly, with this reveal that Doran literally only plays to win, we also see that Doran, no less than Oberyn, has been intent on revenge for what happened to Elia. “I have worked at the downfall of Tywin Lannister from the day they told me of Elia and her children. I had hoped to strip him of all that he held most dear before I killed him,” he tells Arianne.

We also get a glimpse at Doran’s history with his wife, as he speaks about meeting her in Norvos. At the end of the chapter we see how that relationship soured - when Doran wanted to send Arianne to Tyrosh, Mellario threatened self-harm, and we hear the echo of her words when Doran describes this as “stealing” another of Mellario’s children.

Doran knows Areo enough now to be able to say “Areo will recall the day,” he met Mellario, only to be proven immediately correct. Also note Areo’s response - the prince, my lady. Areo’s got a professional distinction between Doran and his wife.

Arianne and Doran

We see almost immediately that Arianne is clinging to a certain impression of her father: “he does not have it in him to be so cruel.” This image of her father is one she relies on, as she is confident in her ability to sway her father’s soft heart. “When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her.”

This is immediately undermined by her interaction with Areo Hotah, as Arianne tries a very similar tactic. “You have known me since I was little,” she says, appealing to the same sort of tender feelings in Areo as she plans to appeal to in her father. In response, Areo’s expression is “stony” as he tells her “What you meant does not matter, little princess […], only what you did.”

The solitary confinement was Doran’s idea, as we learn when Arianne arrives back in Sunspear. She is told she awaits her father’s pleasure, and we get this brief exchange:

“I want to speak with him.” “He thought you might.” Ser Manfrey took her arm and marched her up the steps…

Doran, though he does not know his daughter’s motivations, understands her methods and the punishment that will work best on her. Arianne has been thoroughly anticipated in this regard. Later, when Arianne attempts to send a message calling for her rescue via one of her servants, it is discovered almost immediately.

As mentioned above, Arianne expected to see her father shortly after her arrival in Sunspear. The first morning, she prepares to meet him by wearing the most revealing clothes she can find, her explicit intent with this to force Doran to see her as an adult. It’s clearly not the most mature way of accomplishing this objective. Arianne wants a reaction from Doran more than anything else. But while wearing clothes Daddy would disapprove of for no other reason than that Daddy would disapprove of them is not mature (“if I must crawl and weep, let him be uncomfortable as well”), the fears she’s dealing with are logical. Even the fact that she chooses to deal with them by accentuating her mature sexuality is understandable. As we learn later, Arianne believes her father intends to skip her in the succession - and this fear was only bolstered by his apparent refusal to make her a suitable matrimonial match. Between patriarchy and politics, Prince Doran Martell is supposed to consider his daughter and heir as a sexual being, and arrange a marriage for her. This he has not (publicly) done.

Arianne’s lack of suitable suitor is a point of anxiety for her. Marriage “was what princesses were for, she had been taught.” The rest of the line of thought isn’t hard to reason out. If princesses are for marrying, and she’s not married yet, what sort of princess is she? Clearly not good enough. On her own initiative, Arianne attempted to seduce Renly (who was “more bemused than inflamed by her overtures,” and we all know it’s not just because Arianne was “half a girl” at the time), and attempted to go to Highgarden to visit Willas Tyrell.

Yet there was a message for Arianne in the books she was left in her confinement. Doran did not give her books for her entertainment, nor religious texts on penitence - he left her histories both secular and religious, geographies, annotated maps, legal studies particular to Dornish law, and a large book on dragons. The sort of books a ruling Princess of Dorne might do well to learn from, in other words. Especially a ruling Princess of Dorne who might be dealing with a Targaryen dragonrider. Arianne wants Ten Thousand Ships and/or The Loves of Queen Nymeria. (It’s pretty clear who Arianne’s heroine is.)

What Arianne absolutely will not do, however, is kneel to her father. Even fearing that she may never hear another human voice again, she “could not bring herself to kneel and beg as she had planned.” She seats herself across the cyvasse table (positioning herself as his opponent) and when he says he did not give her leave to sit, she sits anyway, and dares him to have her whipped. It’s pretty well summed up by the single line: “The princess refused to be cowed.”

For all their conflict is central to the entire Dornish plot, it is also clear how much Arianne loves her father, and, ultimately, that her father loves her in return. The thought that he might forget her causes her pain. The sight of him suffering from gout makes her heart go out to him. He found himself unable to act preemptively against her, and very much recalls the little girl who ran to him with skinned knees. He starts to reveal his plan when Arianne asks, almost in tears, “What did I ever do to make you hate me so?” Her disappointment in him hurts them both.

A Failure to Communicate

To which Doran replies, “I never hated you. […] Arianne, you do not understand.” There is no triumph in this moment, only Doran’s grief as he at last appreciates how his own caution has damaged his relationship with his daughter.

The central problem between the two is indeed a lack of communication. These two characters, thanks to that lack of communication, simply do not understand each other at this point. Doran still sees Arianne as a little girl (not only does he refer to her as such, he is visibly discomfited with Arianne’s admission that she seduced Arys); Arianne has no appreciation for long-term plans and the appearance of weakness. As Arianne left Doran out of her plot, Doran left Arianne out of his.

Arianne is under the impression that her father wants her disinherited or dead, as she makes clear when she tells him “I want my rights.” She is convinced that Doran sent Quentyn to Essos to hire sellswords to ensure Arianne never inherited. She’s wrong, but not without reason. Having admitted that when she was younger, she intercepted one of her father’s letters to Quentyn, which read in part, “One day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne,” she does not let the matter lie. She pursues and questions Doran’s thin attempts at evasions.

Doran is so used to secrecy it takes him a while to get revealing his own plot. He starts with “I had other plans for you,” continues with “you were promised,” and “the pact was sealed in secret.” This is all super vague and unhelpful to Arianne (and the audience), but here GRRM’s need to ramp up to the big reveal and his characterisation of Doran as overcautious and reticent align beautifully. One gets the impression Doran simply wouldn’t have revealed as much without Arianne and the emotional confrontation between them forcing his hand.

It took that much to get them to communicate honestly, and even then, he gives the final line of the big reveal “as if he were afraid someone might be listening.”

Revenge

Throughout the Dorne chapters of AFFC, we have seen the recurring, intensifying calls for Doran to demand action from the Lannister regime, who killed Elia Martell and now are being blamed for Oberyn’s death in Tyrion’s trial. Doran, who has to this point given the impression of all-encompassing passivity, here reveals that as opposed to his public acceptance of the narrative where Oberyn was lawfully slain while participating in a trial by combat, he fully believes the Lannisters murdered Oberyn.

“Your brother went to King’s Landing in your place, and they murdered him!” “Do you think I do not know that? Oberyn is with me every time I close my eyes.”

Doran’s subsequent assessment of Dorne’s chances against the Iron Throne in war demonstrate that he has thought about the matter. He knows the spin he and other rulers of Dorne have encouraged since the Young Dragon’s conquest of Dorne: “It pleased us to water the seed [Daeron] planted and let our foes think us more powerful than we are.” He also knows its limitation: “Valor is a poor substitute for numbers.” Which leads him to the conclusion, “Dorne cannot hope to win a war against the Iron Throne, not alone.” The qualifier “not alone” is important. Doran, and GRRM, are planting the seeds of an imminent reveal. Then, when Arianne mentions that Doran has always had the patience and forbearance of Baelor for the Lannisters, Doran outright contradicts her, providing no details.

We get the big hint relating to the nature of Doran’s plan when Doran tells her, and the audience, the means by which Arianne’s intended died: a pot of molten gold. Arianne doesn’t know yet, but readers might well remember the fate of Viserys Targaryen. If they didn’t, well, Arianne’s not done questioning Doran. Eventually, she prompts him into at last stating what “our heart’s desire” is, the plural “our” used for maximum effect.

Doran hands Arianne a cyvasse dragon and says “Vengeance. Justice. […] Fire and blood.”

Without using the word Targaryen or the name of any Targaryen, Doran/GRRM just revealed a Dornish plot spanning more than a decade to restore the Targaryens to the Iron Throne. It’s such a good reveal, capped off by such a good line. Motivation and goal in four words.

Yet all of this is preceded by Doran’s blunt admission of failure in the matter of Arianne’s plot - a failure which is likely to be in miniature the fate of his grander plans, showcasing his own critical flaws as a schemer. Doran waited too long, trusted too little, and just as he was accused of throughout AFFC, was too passive, and left too much at the mercy of other actors. It’s the same with Arianne as it will probably prove to be with Dany.

Unresolved Issues

Someone told.

Where is Darkstar? (Who cares about Darkstar?)

When will Balon Swann get to Dorne? Will Myrcella lie to Balon, and if so, will her lies pass muster?

The role of the Sand Snakes is also left hanging. They are imprisoned but not dead, clearly being saved for something else.

Most importantly, even as the chapter closes the understanding between Arianne and Doran is not complete. Doran misjudged in his methods of revealing the Targaryen restoration plot to her; “Dorne will be yours,” he said, “Your brother Quentyn has a harder road to walk.” He makes rule of one of the Seven Kingdoms sound like a consolation prize. Even his framing of Quentyn’s journey as a tale of knightly valour (“to retrieve our heart’s desire”) puts him at the centre of the family’s narrative in this grand scheme. Arianne’s feelings of exclusion from the central political business of her family have been key - now she knows she had a vital role and it is no longer necessary. Arianne’s relationship with Quentyn is left largely unexamined in this chapter, and just as largely unresolved.

Food porn

Kid roasted with lemon and honey. Grape leaves stuffed with raisins, onions, mushrooms, and peppers. Figs, olives, peppers stuffed with cheese. Spiced eggs.

Clothing porn

A simple gown of ivory linen, with vines and purple grapes embroidered around the sleeves and bodice, without accompanying jewellery.