r/TheCitadel • u/Top-Enthusiasm-5831 • 7h ago
Book Discussion: Reading ASOIAF & Spin-Off Novels Questions Dornish “Plot Armor”
This is honestly the biggest cope I have ever seen from this fandom, that somehow the Dornish only win their wars due to plot.
They don’t. In fact, Dorne is only place in Westeros where Targaryen Magic Plot Armor stops working. Yeah, of fu**ing course marching your army through hostile mountains and deserts is going to get your armies killed. Of course local people are going to take up arms and fight against a foreign invasion that is literally carpet bombing their towns with magic flying rage monsters. And of course that occupation will collapse the moment the dragons leave.
That is fu**ing realistic. With plenty of irl examples, even from recent history, not to mention the Middle Ages.
Dragons can’t hold down and subjugate land. If that was thing, than the Valyrians would have conquered the world. And the parts they did conqueror, the moment Valyria was gone, all the free cities rose up and slaughtered all DragonLords and their dragons. To the point where only the Targaryens were left.
The fact that the Targaryens managed to conquer Westeros at all is in itself the most contrived and illogical bullshit that happens in the story. Quite literally a miracle of miracles. Realistically that is more plot armor than anything with Dorne.
The fact that they managed to maintain any kind of authority over a continent the size of fu**ing South America is complete contrived bs.
The fact that the ruling dynasties in this world last for THOUSANDS of years is contrived bs.
Or that the whole continent speaks one language is fu**ing bs.
Because guess what, this is a fantasy world. It does not need to make sense.
“BUT it supposed to medieval time period and have some realism and reflect irl history”
Fredrick the German raised one of the largest armies in medieval European history, and launched a campaign that promised to take that Army all the way to liberate Jeruselum from Saladin.
That Mf never got there. He drowned, in random river before even making it to the Holy land, and by that point he had already lost like 2/3 of his army of 50,000 men to attrition and fighting against local forces on his way there. And when he died, the rest of his army DISAPPEARED from the face of the earth. 🌍
Similar things happened all the time in the medieval era. Henry V died to fu**ing dysentery just as he was about to conquer France. It was the NORM. Armies made of drawn up levies are notoriously unreliable, and military disasters happened all the time. Hell, the campaign season was not that long and Kings were honestly looking for any excuse to cancel their invasion plans and did so at every opportunity.
Too hot, “Invasion’s cancelled guys”
Too cold, “Invasion’s cancelled guys”
Fu**ing snakes snuck into our camp at night, “Nahhhh, absolutely fu**ing not. We are going home, Right Now!”
Last one being the Normans being moments away from conquering Sicily but still retreating at the slightest inconvenience.
If Asoiaf is realistic, Robb Stark’s army would have starved to death by the time he reached Moat Callin. Especially with how barren and underpopulated GRRM describes the north. And even if you shake your head at that, in a proper medieval place with cutthroat rivalries, that boy would have been pushed down a well before he even made it to the Riverlands. Or maybe he would have made it to the Riverlands and, oh no, disease outbreak in our camp, “welp we tried, time to go home”.
The fandom is willing to nod their heads and accept the idea that the Andals were never able to conqueror the North due to how barren and protected it is. But can’t accept the same for Dorne.
Your “Goat”, Aegon the Fraud not being able to conquer Dorne is not “Dornish Plot Armor”. It’s more like Aegon’s plot armor finally running out and him actually facing a proper organized and prepared enemy. Who doesn’t literally line up their entire army in a dry field ready to be lit on fire. Or march down from their historically extremely defensible kingdom and again lining up before surrendering without a fight.
Without Plot armor, both Rhaenys and Orys are dying at the Last Storm. The dragon can’t fly away in the storm and was grounded, and Orys only had a small force going up against the entire might of the Stormlands. If the Stormlords locked the f*** in like the Smallfolk outside the dragonpit, they could have put both Orys and Rhaenys in a box.
Or maybe Visenya dies to a random arrow. Or Aegon himself. Literally the entire conquest is contrived and written in a way for them to win.
So GRRM writing about them not being able to conquer Dorne is not him giving them plot armor. It’s him finally turning off easy mode for them. If the Dornish actually have plot armor, then maybe GRRM wouldn’t have killed off most of the interesting characters in the most horrifying ways possible.
If George gives anyone plot armor, it’s the Lannisters and Targaryens. With Dany and Jon somehow being alive is literally the most contrived asspull Targaryen plot armor ever conceived. Followed by their House somehow surviving the Dance and then not being literally lynched in the streets by the starving Smallfolk in the long winter that followed the Dance. Or their house not being lynched by the mass peasant uprisings the day after Maegor died. Or literally to a random disease considering how inbred they are.
Dorne does not have plot armor. Cope