Archibald Yronwood, Gerris Drinkwater, Quentyn Martell
Some call them knights, some call the mummers, some call them Dragontamers.
A Dance with Dragons leaves us with a big unanswered question: Is Quentyn alive?
Now many of you may say:
How is that possible? Quentyn is a big dead failure.
After all, at the end of the Dragontamer chapter, Quentyn finds himself aflame.
And then three days later, Barristan sees him die in the Queen's hand chapter.
Case closed. Quentyn is dead. Deal with it, Preston.
Okay. Well, that was a short video.
It's just that, well… I have a few small issues to bring up.
Didn't we see this happen before?
Didn't Dany walk into flames only to end up alive?
And weren't Bran and Rickon supposedly dead and all burned up? Their burnt bodies supposedly proved it.
Only we found out later they were swapped out for some other boys.
And wasn't Mance Rayder burned at the stake only to turn up alive because Rattleshirt was burned in his place?
These burning fake outs seem pretty common.
In fact, the Daenerys story in A Dance with Dragons opens with Dany being presented the burnt bones of a small child,
and Danny thinks "Burnt bones prove nothing".
And she reiterates this in the second Daenerys chapter as well.
"Her name had been Hazzea. She was 4 years old.
Unless her father lied, he might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him.
His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing."
Keep in mind it's because of Hazzea, that the dragons are caged.
So in a sense, she is paired with Quentyn, the boy who released them.
If Hazzea's death by dragon fire is not trusted, why should we trust Quentyn's?
In fact, Barristan specifically says that the body in the Queen's Hand chapter is unrecognizable.
And the few things that we do get about the body don't seem to fit Quentyn.
Barristan observes that the body has eyes that are pools of pus.
Yet Quentyn protected his eyes in the Dragontamer chapter and saw himself aflame.
Every other part of his body could be burned, but he should have fully functional eyes.
And Missandei says that the body is smiling.
Which is particularly odd as one of the first things we learn about Quentyn is that smiles don't come easily for him.
Putting those differences aside,
at minimum, we must accept that the body in the Queen's Hand chapter provides no assurance that Quentyn is dead.
Over and over again, our story has told us that burnt bones proved nothing.
There were other people in the dragon pit, the dead body could have easily been one of the Windblown.
Still, we have Quentin aflame in the Dragontamer chapter. He was burning. There's no doubt about that.
Except there is something particularly odd about Quentyn burning.
We actually have a few other instances where people or animals are killed by dragon flame.
For instance this is the death of the slaver Kraznys:
"His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks,
and the oil and his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the slaver wore burning crown twice as tall as his head.
The sudden stench of charred meat overwhelmed even his perfume,
and his wail seemed to drown all other sound."
So Kraznys experienced a pretty violent combustion where his eyes melted.
His survival post dragon flame was only a moment.
And here's the death of a boar in the fighting pits.
"The boar raised his head, snorting… and flame engulfed him… The beast's dying scream sounded almost human.
Drogon landed on the carcass and sank his claws into the smoking flesh."
So the boar combusted as well, again surviving only a moment.
And here's a death of a sheep in the dragon pit:
"His head snapped round, and from between his jaws a lance of flame erupted… The sheep was burning before it began to fall.
Before the smoking carcass could strike the bricks, the dragon's teeth closed around it."
Again combustion and again only surviving a moment.
And here's the death of one of the Windblown: "As he dropped his weapon to try to pry apart Viserion's jaws,
flame gouted from the tiger's mouth.
The man's eyes burst with soft popping sounds, and the brass around them began to run."
So here we have exploding eyes and a heat level that's able to melt brass.
And here is Quentyn:
"Quentyn turned and threw his left arm across his face to shield his eyes from the furnace wind.
Rhaegel, he reminded himself, the green one is Rhaegel.
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."
So we see there's an enormous difference between the heat directed at Quentyn
and the heat directed at Kraznys, the boar, the lamb and the Windblown crossbowman.
For the latter group, the heat is much more intense. It melts eyes and brass and causes immediate combustion.
We're talking about something in excess of 900 degrees Celsius or 1600 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is the melting point of brass. Had that temperature hit Quentyn he would have been killed immediately like our other victims.
But instead we know he survived at least three days. The heat that was directed at Quentyn is described only as a furnace wind.
Now, I haven't spent much time around open furnaces, but I have opened a hot oven and that wind is in the 230 degrees Celsius, 450 degree Fahrenheit range.
But whatever the exact temperature of the furnace wind,
we know it certainly wasn't hot enough to melt Quentyn's eyes or the brass on his whip handle or cause him to instantly combust.
Quite strikingly, he doesn't even note any pain, so it's certain that Rhaegel did not spew out a heat that was as intense as it could have been.
Dragons can either control their heat level or there's a significant difference between dragon flame and dragon breath.
Now, it's particularly odd about Quentyn's experience is that he sees himself aflame.
Now not to be Mr. Science here, but flesh is mostly water and doesn't burn in an open flame.
I mean, I imagine there's some extreme temperature where flesh would quickly dry out and combust,
but there lies the fundamental contradiction:
Quentyn was hit with a temperature low enough to not kill him immediately, but apparently hot enough to start a fire.
But the burning of flesh cannot reconcile those two things. If Quentyn's flesh were actually aflame, the temperature would have killed him immediately.
Whatever is burning, it's not flesh.
So what else could be burning?
Well, if you remember, Quentyn is holding a leather whip. This is the description of Quentyn's whip:
"The bundle contained a whip as well - a nasty piece of old leather with a handle of brass and bone, stout enough to peel the hide off an ox."
And like Quentyn's hand, Quentyn sees the whip of flame as well.
In fact, Quentyn notes the whip aflame first, then his hand, then his body.
But there lies another problem: you see, leather is remarkably fireproof.
You can put a 1500 degrees Celsius torch to leather and it's not going to set flame.
If you don't believe me, check out the link below.
As with Quentyn's hand, the whip should definitely not be on fire.
In fact, the melting of the brass in the whips handle would have happened before the leather would go aflame.
Now you may be thinking: "Preston, why are you going on and on about flammability?
It's not like the author or the characters are paying attention to this."
Actually, they do. In fact, they do it in the Dragontamer chapter. On the way to the dragon pits, Arch says this:
"I knew it would rain. My bones were aching last night.
They always ache before it rains. The dragons won't like this. Fire and water don't mix, and that's a fact.
You get a good cook fire lit, blazing away nice,
then it starts to piss down rain and next thing your wood is sodden and your flames are dead."
An odd little aside, for sure, but it actually describes our fundamental problem:
flesh doesn't burn in a flame, because it's filled with water.
Interestingly, Quentyn actually tells us how to get a good fire going:
"You are supposed to be my friend Gerris. Why must you mock my hopes?
I have doubts enough without your throwing oil on the fire of my fear."
An odd little aside, and an awkward metaphor.
But what we've learned is that water puts fires out and oil can make fires grow.
In fact, in the Queen's Hand chapter, Barristan does just this:
"We have built a beacon atop the pyramid where once the harpy stood.
Dry wood soaked with oil, covered to keep the rain off."
Which brings me back to the whip.
It's an old whip, which means it's been maintained for years, which means it's been oiled for years.
As it turns out, whips are normally oiled with linseed oil, which is incredibly flammable.
Linseed oil has a flashpoint of only about 222 degrees Celsius or 431 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's around the temperature of a hot oven, around the temperature of furnace winds.
And when oil gets hot, it also starts spreading.
And, to remember, Quentyn saw the fire on the whip, then his hand, then his body.
So, let's summarize some stuff that we know for certain here:
Number one, Quentyn was hit with a relatively lower level of heat from Rhaegel avoiding instant combustion and eye damage.
Number two, Quentyn saw generally unflammable materials, at least at that heat level, like flesh and leather aflame.
And, number three, Quentyn's whip almost certainly contained a highly flammable oil.
An oil that ignites at lower heat levels.
It seems exceedingly likely that Quentyn was not on fire from dragon flame,
but was on fire from burning oil found in his whip, that spread to his hand and clothes.
In fact, barring author error, magic or an unreliable narrator, there is no other likely explanation.
And think about it, if you saw a man aflame or a piece of leather aflame,
would you not assume that they were covered with a flammable liquid of some sort?
An oil fire would also explain how Arch was able to put out the flames.
Arch supposedly beat out the flames on Quentyn's body shortly after he went aflame.
Had Quentyn actually been hit with a temperature where flesh and leather go aflame,
Arch would have likely lost his hands as well.
And we should expect Quentyn's burns to only be slightly worse than Arch's burns.
So while we should expect Quentyn to be badly burned in places, we shouldn't expect him to be dead.
So, if Quentyn isn't dead, what happened?
Well that is the big question and one our author has purposely hidden from us.
The Dragontamer chapter ends shortly after Quentyn goes aflame,
and Arch and Drink's retelling of the events skip over what happened.
Our author, as well as Arch and Drink, are obscuring the events for some reason.
In fact, when Arch and Drink talk to Barristan, they do a great deal of lying.
Let's go over that scene.
So, the first thing that happens is that Barristan tells Arch and Drink that Quentyn is dead.
This causes Drink to punch the wall and scream: "I told him it was folly!" and then rants angrily about Daenerys.
Now, it's absolutely certain that Gerris is feigning anger and grief here.
Gerris is described as never ill at ease. In fact, earlier in the story, three of his friends were killed and he displayed no reaction to it.
As Quentyn notes: "Even the death of three friends had not served to chasten him, it would seem."
Gerris even calmly performs a fake eulogy for his dead friends.
So why is Drink feigning grief? Does he want Barristan to think that dying man was Quentyn?
Gerris then proceeds to argue untruthfully for an entire page about the love and fealty that Quentyn had for Dany.
Why is Drink trying to repair the reputation of a supposed dead man?
One would think that the two would be trying to save their own skins and their own houses.
Weirdly, even after Barristan assigns blame to Arch and Drink.
Drink concisely says that they owed Quentyn obedience,
before going right back to trying to repair Quentyn's reputation.
And Gerris would have kept going had Arch not interrupted him.
Keep in mind Arch and Drink had three days to prepare for their conversation with Barristan,
so after three days they felt that the most important information to convey to Barristan was that Quentin wasn't a bad guy.
Did they do this because they thought Barristan would be meeting Quentyn again?
Anyway, after Arch's interruption, Barristan mentions that four Brazen Beasts were killed.
Interestingly, Arch then lies and says he only killed one of the Brazen Beasts and the sellswords killed the others.
In fact, Drink killed a Brazen Beast as well.
Now, perhaps Arch is just trying to protect his friend here, but a line later, he says that he knows Barristan isn't there to hang them.
So, why omit Drink's crime?
Drink is even halfway to confessing his crime by claiming he was protecting Quentyn.
This is true, a Brazen Beast nearly killed Quentyn and Drink intervened causing him to kill one.
Now, it may be that Arch is just confused, but he again shuts Drink up before Drink is allowed to confess.
This points to the fact that Arch knows exactly what he's saying.
He's deliberately covering up Drink's crime.
But if Arch isn't confused and Arch isn't trying to save Drinks life, what's the point of covering up the crime?
Well, it could have something to do with Drink's sword.
After killing the Brazen beast, Drink's sword should be bloody.
However, no mention of this is made when Drink is found with a sword out afterwards.
Of course, he may have just wiped down the sword or the details of the bloody sword were excluded.
However, the sword is suspicious as Drink has it out for some reason.
There shouldn't be any reason that he has a sword out.
It implies that Drink was fighting and the most likely foes were the Windblown.
Was there a fight? And if so, why? Is Drink even holding his sword? Or was there a switch?
For all we know, Drink left his original sword inside the dead Brazen beast.
There's a lot of mystery here.
But it does seem that Arch intentionally covered up Drink's kill for some reason.
Now, Barristan then asks the Dornishmen what happened when they tried to take the dragons.
And the two men exchange a look.
Seems the two have some sort of secret that they're hiding.
And so Arch begins to tell a story about how Quentyn was convinced he could ride a dragon and how the Tattered Prince got a ship big enough for two dragons.
Of course, there is a fundamental contradiction to this.
If Quentyn is riding a dragon, there's no need for a ship for two dragons.
In fact, going back to the Dragontamer chapter, it's rather clear there are two different plans going on.
Quentyn clearly has a plan to ride a dragon, however, the Windblown clearly think the plan is to chain up both dragons.
And this contradiction actually makes sense.
Imagine you're the Dornishmen for a second; would you really trust the Tattered Prince with both your dragons on a ship?
And imagine you're the Tattered Prince; would you really trust a lying deserter on dragon back to give you anything?
It appears both the Windblown and the Dornishmen didn't trust each other and lied to each other.
The Dornishmen clearly told the Windblown, that they planned on chaining the dragons up,
but we're going to double-cross them by riding one.
And the Windblown clearly told the Dornishmen that they would help them, but really just wanted to kill the dragons.
Which brings us back to Drink's sword being out. It points to a dispute or a fight.
I imagine the double crossings became clear.
Either the Windblown again tried to kill the dragons, or Quentyn tried to ride a dragon, or both.
Anyway, back to Arch's story.
Arch then goes into a long description of chains and shattered bones that are found in the dragon pit.
The talk of chains gives Arch pause,
which makes me wonder if they actually got to a point where they were chaining up the dragons.
And the talk of bones makes me wonder what happened to the Windblown.
Drink claims that the Windblown ran away, but the pyramid is supposed to be a labyrinth.
Quentyn had memorized the way to the dragon pit when Dany took him, which is how the crew got down there in the first place.
But, pretty Meris and Caggo don't seem the studious type.
In a panic, it seems unlikely they would be able to find their way out.
It seems rather likely they didn't make it out.
In fact, it's also a mystery how the dragons knew their way out.
Anyway, Arch and Drink then skip over exactly what happened to Quentyn and Barristan doesn't seem to notice.
He then asks the two, what Quentyn offered the Tattered Prince.
The two are unusually resistant but Barristan guesses it was Pentos and the two admit to the deal.
Again, the Dornishmen are rather concerned with the reputation of a supposed dead man.
Barristan finally tells the Dornishmen that he wants to send them to deliver a message to the Tattered Prince.
It's a fairly simple task, but Drink is hesitant and wants to talk things over with Arch.
However, Arch agrees for both of them.
Now, if the tale the two Dornishmen told were true, there shouldn't be too much problem going over to the Tattered Prince.
However, if all of those bones are really the Windblown, there certainly would be.
Arch though seems to think that it'll be okay and believes he can convince Drink.
Clearly, Arch has a plan for something.
Keep in mind a simple message delivery shouldn't need a plan.
So in the end, we see a whole bunch of lying from Arch and Drink.
They certainly pretended to grieve; they lied about their plan;
they omitted Drink's kill; and they glossed over Quentyn's supposed death.
Additionally, they seem awfully concerned with Quentyn's reputation,
and are clearly planning something with their trip over to the Windblown.
If I were to guess what really happened, it would be that Quentyn experienced an oil fire that Arch put out,
which would explain the appearance of burning flesh and leather.
Then, I would guess the Windblown tried to kill the dragons and the dragons roasted all but one of them.
And this would explain where the Windblown went.
I would say that the Dornishmen tried to chain one of the dragons,
even utilizing the thick door chain, but the dragons broke the chains.
Quentyn then led the dragons out, likely riding one, explaining how the dragons escaped.
Arch and Drink then smashed the bones of the Windblown with Arch's hammer to hide the bodies, which explains the splintered bones.
A surviving Windblown was used as a body double for Quentyn. If he wasn't already burned, Arch and Drink burned him.
Drink's sword was out to threaten the man.
After being arrested, Drink pretended to grieve over the dead body,
because he wanted Barristan to think that Quentyn was dead.
But Arch and Drink also wanted to preserve Quentyn's reputation, when Quentyn reveals himself to be alive.
And Arch's plan with the Windblown?
Well, it should be noted that we have a bit of a Chekhov's gun with the cloak of the Tattered Prince.
Tatters mentions that he can take his cloak off at any time and become unassuming and blend in.
It may be that Tatters was with the crew the whole time in the dragon pit and no one knew.
Quentyn was certainly expecting him to come along and was surprised when he wasn't there.
Everyone in the crew had Brazen Beasts masks on, except for pretty Meris, so we just don't know.
In fact, the man who died in Dany's bed, may have been the Tattered Prince himself.
And this may be the reason why Drink is nervous about the mission.
You can't deliver a message to a dead man.
However, Arch's plan may be about someone putting on a tattered cloak and impersonating the Tattered prince to take control the company.
Of course, much of this is conjecture.
What we truly know is that our author has made Quentyn's supposed death suspicious as hell.
The Dragontamer and Queen's Hand chapters are filled with lies, contradictions, half-truths, and mysteries.
However, my money is on the return of a Dornish prince named Quentyn Martell.
Once again, I'm probably wrong about half of this.
And Quentyn probably deserves a Q&A video. So leave your questions below.
And next time we will return to the Dornish Master Plan.