First of all, thanks for your rant about the reasons to not expect any marriage between Arianne and Aegon. Thank you so much. Adding only a silly thing to the side, do you think it's possible Doran sent Arianne and Daemon in order to sway JonCon one way or the other? I mean, Arianne asks herself 1) why Doran sent Daemon 2) how may she seduce JonCon. And George needed to remind us Daemon is said to be bisexual in the same chapter. A penny for your thoughts?
Why does everyone think Doran (and Daemon, and everyone else) knows that JonCon is gay? I’m not even convinced that JONCON knows that JonCon is gay…
I guess it’s possible that Daemon’s (unconfirmed) bisexuality will play into this whole crazy scenario somehow, but no, I don’t think it’s all part of some crazy Batman Gambit of Doran’s. Despite what some people think, Doran is not a super villain. Like, his entire arc in aFfC was him learning he’s not as good at cyvasse as he thought he was…
I discuss a little about why Doran may have sent our two lovebirds off together on a dangerous adventure in my write up on Arianne I from tWoW:
Doran chose Daemon to be Arianne’s sworn shield and he chose to trust him with super secret information about how he’s spent the last seventeen years plotting treason. The reason for the first is obvious, Daemon is an extremely capable warrior who would gladly take any number of bullets for his daughter, there probably is no better choice, but the reason for the second is, I think, another sign of the progress that has been made in Doran and Arianne’s relationship.
Doran didn’t trust enough people. That is what bit him in the butt in terms of his revenge plot. He was so obsessed with secrecy to the point that he seemed to make all of his decisions in an echo chamber. It makes sense that he would want Arianne to have someone trustworthy to ask for advice. And he seems to be quite a good choice in that respect too.
And, like, I’m not going to suggest that he ships them… but I get the feeling that maybe Doran and Arianne FINALLY got around to talking about what happened when she was fourteen sometime between “The Princess in the Tower” and “The Watcher”.
“Daenerys was her name. She was sister to King Daeron the Good, and it was her marriage that made Dorne part of the Seven Kingdoms. The whole realm knew that the girl loved Daeron’s bastard brother Daemon Blackfyre, and was loved by him in turn, but the king was wise enough to see that the good of thousands must come before the desires of two, even if those two were dear to him.”
Like, “yeah, Dad, I get it….”
And poor Daemon still seems to be under the impression that Arianne never really cared about him and was only using him for sex, so maybe that’s what Doran thought for nine years too. Maybe he feels guilty about Operation Old Dude (he should…) and he thinks low-key Playing Cupid will make up for it.
Like, obviously, his main priority is Arianne’s physical safety (I will fight ANYONE…) but these too are so in love with each other it’s gross, and if Doran didn’t know it before, he knows it now…. make of it what you will.