Rewriting Game of Thrones Season 5 (Part 3)
Part 1 of my Game of Thrones Season 5 rewrite is here, and Part 2 is here.
Part 3: Dorne (Jaime, Bronn, Myrcella and Martells)
As much work as Sansa and the Winterfell storyline needed, Dorne needs much, much more. I was really looking forward to Dorne this season, and was bitterly disappointed at nearly every turn.
As with Sansa and Winterfell, the plot in Dorne failed to properly build on Jaime’s character arc from last season. Jaime had been trying and failing to reclaim his identity as one of the best swordsmen in Westeros. He was also struggling with how he fit into his dysfunctional family and how they (particularly Cersei) see him now that he’s no longer the golden boy. I would arrange the Dorne plot to play on these two themes, of Jaime learning who he is now that he can’t just swing a sword to fix his problems, and on how he views his relationship with Cersei and his surviving children.
The other overarching problem with Dorne was the Dornish characters were all painful caricatures. Even Ellaria Sand, who had a fantastic minor role last season, became one-dimensional and illogically bloodthirsty. The most important changes I would make-and the changes that would require the most screen time-would be developing the main five Dornish characters into full-fledged people (sorry, Areo Hotah-you’re still going to just hold your ax and glare).
The few things that worked in this storyline were in the set-up. I’m fine with the lion pendant sent to Cersei being the impetus for the whole trip. Bronn going with Jaime was a stroke of genius. I loved the little scene with Lollys. I liked the scene on the boat, too, with Bronn alluding to the fact that Myrcella is really Jaime’s daughter and that’s a big part of why he’s going to her.
...and that’s pretty much all that remains intact in my re-write.
The first big mistake in the Dorne storyline is Bronn and Jaime sneaking into Dorne and engaging in a fight with nameless, faceless soldiers. As thrilling as the epic battles may be, political machinations provide a lot of the series’ best moments. When the show does go for smaller action sequences, they usually work because they’re grounded in character-the fight between Brienne and the Hound from last season comes to mind as a great example of this. By letting Jaime and Bronn make their way to the Water Gardens without running into anyone important, the show wasted golden opportunities to see the characters react to a fairly foreign culture and to even talk to anybody from Dorne, let alone engage in the political maneuvering that drives so much of Game of Thrones.
So, after the Jaime-Bronn scene on the boat, I would have a scene of Jaime and Bronn getting ready to disembark. Jaime explains the care he’s taken to keep their trip to Dorne secret, and his master plan of the two of them sneaking cross-country to infiltrate the Water Gardens and whisk Myrcella away with no one the wiser, as Bronn hums “The Dornishman’s Wife”...
...only to walk off the gangway and straight into the Sand Snakes.
Picking up from that cliffhanger, the next Dornish scene would establish that the Sand Snakes are not there to kill Jaime; they’re there to make the opening move in the chess game of court intrigue. Nymeria (more on how I’d change her character later) would very sweetly and politely explain that her uncle Prince Doran regrets not having a larger party there to formally welcome Jaime to Dorne, as would befit his position, but this was the best they could do with such short notice of Jaime’s arrival. Of course, Jaime can’t admit they were sneaking in, so he has to play along and accept the Sand Snakes’ invitation to guide him to the Water Gardens.
Bronn and Jaime have a brief, whispered conversation as they mount their horses, wondering how the hell they were found out so quickly. Jaime instructs Bronn to make nice with the Sand Snakes-“since you know so much about Dornish women” (re: “The Dornishman’s Wife”)-and see if he can get any hints on what they’re walking into.
This leads to our introduction to the Sand Snakes as individuals. (Jaime rides upfront with Nymeria, who we’ll get more of once we make it to the Water Gardens.) Bronn starts out talking to Obara.
I didn’t mind the characterization of Obara in the show and wouldn’t change much about who she is. I only object to how clunky the “revelations” about her character were handled. (For example, why the hell would she tell her sisters and Ellaria the story about Oberyn and the spear? Isn’t that the sort of thing her closest surviving relatives would know already, if it was that important?)
Anyway, Bronn sidles up to stone-faced Obara and makes some comment about “You’re not exactly what I’d expect a Dornish princess to look like.” Obara would make a snide comment about “You can’t believe everything you hear in songs” (re: “The Dornishman’s Wife”) and then testily corrects that she’s no princess. Bronn responds, “But you’re Prince Oberyn’s daughter?”
Obara then, briefly, explains that none of Oberyn’s daughters are trueborn, “but he gave us something far more important than the name Martell.” Then she tells Bronn an (abbreviated) version of the spear story, and glares at him. Bronn takes the hint that charm isn’t going to work on Obara. Bronn sees Tyene watching the exchange and smirking at him.
While I would leave Obara as a stone-cold badass with a spear, I’d make some major changes to Tyene and Nymeria, in some ways bringing them closer to their book-counterparts. Rather than Nym having the whip (which is kind of a stupid weapon, if you’re fighting in a group) and Tyene having daggers and poison, I’d go back to Nym being the dagger-wielder and Tyene being the poison mistress.
However, because of what I want Tyene to do, and because I think it makes Nym more interesting, I’d have Nym be the innocent-seeming one. Dagger-wielding cherub is a neat juxtaposition. My version of Nym, a proper young courtier, is Myrcella’s lady-in-waiting-slash-bodyguard. Nym and Myrcella have become BFFs. I go back and forth over whether Nym should have an implied, unrequited crush on Myrcella. On the one hand, that may send things too deep into “All Dornish are bi!” territory, but on the other hand, it’s a nice shading to the character.
As for Tyene, I kind of like a little of the weird Tyene/Bronn attraction, but I vehemently object to the cringe-worthy way it was executed in the show. Tyene needs to be a bit more worldly-wise to play well off of Bronn. I want her to start out being what Bronn thinks a Dornish woman is like-sexual and deadly-and for him to not be wrong, per se, but to discover she’s more complicated than that. Also, I’d like her to be not just a poison-mistress, but kind of an untrained maester, with her own lab, etc.
(Also, Tyene and Nym’s costumes would look markedly less “Sexy Teen Assassin Squad.”)
I think Keisha Castle-Hughes did all that could be done with Obara, so I have no objection to leaving her in that role. The actress who played Nym had virtually nothing to do, so I don’t know whether I’d swap her with the actress who played Tyene. Based on visuals alone, I think I’d swap them, just because the one actress is younger and thus slightly more “innocent”-looking? I don’t know-I’m grasping at straws. And if I didn’t think either was equal to playing the beefed-up Tyene role, then I’d put Keisha Castle-Hughes as Tyene, current-Tyene as Nym, and current-Nym as Obara.
Anyway, back to the story. The Sand Snakes deliver Jaime and Bronn to Prince Doran’s receiving chamber, completely deleting all that nonsense with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes plotting to kidnap Myrcella, in broad daylight at the exact same moment as Jaime and Bronn. The only early scene in Dorne I would keep before Jaime and Bronn get to the Water Gardens is Doran overlooking Trystane and Myrcella walking in the Water Gardens and commenting to Areo about young love, a Martell and a Lannister, they don’t know how dangerous it is, etc.
Most of the rest of the Dornish action, until the very end, occurs in Doran’s throne room/antechamber.
Seriously, why would you not shoot all the scenes in a place as gorgeous as this?
Doran greets Jaime, with Ellaria and a toddler Sand Snake also in attendance. Thus begins perhaps the most awkward of a series of we’re-acting-polite-and-that-makes-the-accusations-worse confrontations. Doran, Ellaria, and the Sand Snakes address Jaime as if they “assume” (but in actuality, they know better) that Jaime came all this way to pay his respects to Oberyn’s family. (Hence why Ellaria brought out her baby!Sand Snake.)
Jaime totally muffs this bit of theater. He stumbles and way too quickly admits that he’s there investigating a threat to Princess Myrcella’s life. A little gentle nudging from Doran, and Jaime walks into another trap, tacitly admitting he suspects somebody close to or in the Martell family since he never thought of informing Doran of the threat. Doran much more expertly maneuvers Jaime away from demanding to take Myrcella back with him to King’s Landing and into hanging around while the threat to Myrcella is investigated.
The next Dorne scene is a Trystane/Myrcella in lurve scene in the Water Gardens, similar to what was actually used in the show, but with one major change: make it clear that Trystane is really, really desperate to get into Myrcella’s pants. The scene would start with Nym and Myrcella walking together, establishing their close friendship. When Trystane approaches, Myrcella kindly asks her dear friend to get lost. Nym agrees to walk out of earshot, then spends the rest of the scene wistfully sulking in the background, close enough to protect Myrcella if need be.
Trystane then does the I love you’s and the pitch for sex-they’re going to be married anyway, so what’s wrong with starting early, so long as nobody knows? There’d be a little cultural difference here, and Trystane would play on that a bit: sex is considered a natural, beautiful part of love in Dornish culture. Even though Myrcella wasn’t born in Dorne, she’s lived here for years, after she was sent away from King’s Landing by her very own mother…. Yes, he’s being a manipulative little horndog, but not malevolently so-it comes off more that Trystane is used to talking his way into getting what he wants.
Myrcella coyly accepts the proposition, details of their plan TBD, though she’s sure Nym will help cover for them. They kiss, and just then, Jaime interrupts. Trystane takes his leave, and Jaime and Myrcella have an awkward not-father-and-daughter talk in which he tries to convince Myrcella to sneak away from Dorne with him and Bronn. She turns Trystane’s same ploy about being sent away to Dorne back on Jaime-she’s lived here for years, is happy here, feels more at home here now than she would in King’s Landing. Apparently it takes a death threat to even get a visit from a family member. She mock-politely excuses herself, then trots off to whisper with Nym.
I’d re-work the Ellaria-Doran scene from the show and insert it here, though it would be much more subtle. As Myrcella walks away from Jaime, we’d cut to Doran and Ellaria watching the whole thing unfold from above. Ellaria would make a comment about Lannisters/wanting Cersei to hurt, but not go anywhere near threatening Myrcella directly. Doran would tell her she’d better hush that kind of talk, or she’s going to make herself a prime suspect for the necklace threat, and then something similar to what he says in-show about not wanting to start a war. Anyway, the scene would make it clear that Doran doesn’t trust Ellaria, and that they have very different points of view, but not point giant neon “I want to kill Myrcella!!” arrows over Ellaria’s head.
Next would be a series of Doran-Jaime (and possibly Ellaria, Trystane, etc.) scenes in the antechamber, with Jaime struggling to play politics and improving a little bit. I’d kind of like to play it as Doran teaching Jaime a little about the political game as well. My biggest beef other than the Sand Snakes was the criminal underuse of Siddig El-Fadil as Doran. Seriously, why cast him if you’re going to do frak all with him?
Anyway, I don’t think it matters a whole lot what Doran and Jaime talk about in these scenes, because it’s the game that’s the most important. But since I’m re-writing the season, I think the two topics I’d definitely include would be Jaime’s role in the sacking of King’s Landing, and why it would be dumb for the Martells to kill Myrcella.
For the first topic, I think Doran would want to make Jaime squirm regarding the murder of his sister Elia and her children while Jaime was apparently lounging on the Iron Throne. If he was a King’s Guard, whatever justification he may or may not have had for murdering the king, how could he have stood by while Elia and her children were mutilated? I think Jaime would get a little bit of a jab back, of where was Doran when Elia was left at the mercy of a lunatic for years?
The second topic would also be about marriage alliances, and explain why it would be such a dumb idea for anyone in the Martell clan to murder Myrcella (which, it really is). Myrcella is second in line to the throne, and betrothed to the scion of House Martell. Why would they want to kill their possible ticket to King Trystane should something happen to Tommen (even if Trystane would just be a consort)? Doran would imply that it would make much more sense for the Lannisters themselves to manufacture this threat, to have a reason to take Myrcella back to King’s Landing. Once she’s in King’s Landing, it would be pretty easy for them to break the marriage pact and marry her off to another family whose favor they want to curry.
If I had time for a third topic, it would be fun to see Doran and Jaime discuss Dany’s path of conquest in Essos, maybe even hint that hey, if the Lannisters try to renege on the Trystane-Myrcella marriage alliance, the Martells have long been close allies of the Targaryens....
In between the antechamber scenes, I want Obara and Tyene to each get one big scene. Obara’s could be cut for time if absolutely necessary, but I’d fight for it. Jaime is practicing fencing with his left hand in an area he thinks no one can see, but Obara comes upon him and spars with him. Obara kicks his butt with her spear-we see she’s Oberyn’s daughter, through and through. Once she has Jaime down, she curtly says he’s wanted in Doran’s antechamber. Jaime makes a light comment about politics not really being his thing, something he thinks he shares with her. He means it to be endearing, but Obara shoots him down. “I can afford that shortcoming, as I can still speak more eloquently with my spear. You cannot.”
The Tyene-Bronn scene has significant plot importance. Bronn walks into Tyene’s laboratory and is suitably impressed. Tyene doesn’t stop in her work, and flatly tells Bronn that unlike Nym, she doesn’t have time for courtly bullshit. Tyene knows exactly what Bronn is doing, so she will save him time: no, Tyene was not involved in the threat against Myrcella, and he’s an idiot to think she or any of her sisters-or any one in the Water Gardens, for that matter-is interested in killing Myrcella. If anybody here had wanted to kill Myrcella, she’d be dead by now. Simple as that.
Bronn somewhat inartfully says, well, I know your sisters are deadly, but you don’t seem to be. Tyene goes into a casual explanation of how lethal the things in her laboratory are. Bronn wonders at why Doran would let her deal with such dangerous things, and Tyene talks a little about her father, how he armed all of his daughters in some way, how at least the Martell family didn’t treat its daughters as delicate flowers who couldn’t save themselves.
She also explains that poisons have dual purposes: right now, she’s working on an anti-venom for a common poisonous snake, something that lots of Dornish wear as jewelry or carry with them at all times. (Points to necklace, which, oh hey, doesn’t Ellaria have one of those, too?) Kind of like how a death threat might have more purposes than the obvious, since the obvious in this case doesn’t make any sense.
Then they have an odd moment of flirting by Tyene explaining all the differnet ways she could kill Bronn right now.
Finally, I’d throw in a few small scenes of Ellaria seducing Jaime. I absolutely loved the scene towards the end of the season where Ellaria basically says without saying that she knows Jaime is in love with Cersei, and she thinks that’s okay, because “we love who we love.” Basically, I would just do more of that, with a bit more sensuality involved.
I think if you go the route of replacing Arys Oakheart with Jaime and Arianne with Ellaria, then you need to go all the way, up to and including the affair. I think Ellaria could seduce Jaime by coming at him from the angle of “we’ve both lost the person we love, me to death and you to not being the kind of person she wants, but I accept you for who you are now.” Plus, I think Jaime would really struggle with this-he’s been faithful to Cersei his whole life, after all, but now she’s rejected him....
Then we enter the endgame scenes. Jaime has told Bronn to keep an eye on Myrcella and on the Sand Snakes. On the night of Myrcella’s and Trystane’s planned assignation, Bronn catches that something is up. He hears a scuffle, sneaks into Myrcella’s bedchamber…and finds Trystane putting his clothes back on. They both make a racket and wake up half the palace, both realize Myrcella is nowhere to be found, Bronn finds some kind of clue and makes chase....
....only to discover that Myrcella has been kidnapped by Nym. Bronn catches Nym pretty easily (though dodging the knife thrown at him wasn’t so easy). Shortly thereafter, Nym is brought before Doran, Jaime, Myrcella, Trystane, Ellaria, etc., and tearfully admits that she had tried to kidnap Myrcella, but only because she wanted to keep her safe. She was scared at the prospect of Jaime taking Myrcella back to King’s Landing. Everyone she’d ever loved who’d gone to King’s Landing had died there. Nym had only intended to keep Myrcella hidden until Jaime left.
Doran has Nym locked up, but really, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that the threat to Myrcella has been thwarted (though Nym protests that she had nothing to do with the locket). However, Jaime finally uses the skills he’s learned in Doran’s antechamber to turn the tables. It’s clear they’ve caught Trystane and Myrcella having sex, and while the Dornish may be open-minded about these things, even Doran must recognize that they have to get married, like, now. Doran is okay-to-happy about this; sealing the marriage alliance is mostly a good thing for him. But, Jaime contends, it’ll look really weird if a royal princess doesn’t have her wedding in King’s Landing.... Doran sees he’s kind of been beat, but gotten most of what he wanted, so he agrees that Myrcella and Trystane should depart ASAP for King’s Landing and a quickie royal wedding. Everybody happily goes back to bed.
Except Bronn points out what Tyene said, about the threat not making any sense. It doubly doesn’t make any sense from Nym. Jaime brushes this aside, in favor of finally hooking up with Ellaria.
The next morning, there’s a brief “morning after” scene with Ellaria, and we make a point of seeing them both drink from the same wine bottle or coffee carafe or whatever. Ellaria leaves, and Myrcella comes in shortly after. Jaime and Myrcella have a slightly less on-the-nose version of the talk they have on the boat on the show, with Myrcella implying but not admitting she knows Jaime is her father, and saying that she loves him and is proud of him. At some point in the awkward not-father-daughter-ness, Jaime offers her a drink from the wine bottle/coffee carafe, which she accepts. Myrcella leaves to go talk to Nym in her cell; both Jaime and she agree that Nym never meant any harm, so Myrcella wants to go forgive her.
Cut to Bronn and Tyene, parting after a possible “morning after” or just after a conversation-either would work fine. Ellaria walks into the hallway, not realizing Bronn is there, and unscrews the antidote pendant and downs the contents. The lights go on in Bronn’s brain, and he rushes to Jaime’s room.
He finds Jaime bleeding from the nose, nearly passed out. (Now, if the show would allow me to be really daring, and if I knew what happened in the next two books and thus whether this would materially screw up future plots, the gutsy thing to do would be to skip Myrcella drinking the poisoned wine/coffee and just kill off Jaime. But assuming I can’t do that....) Bronn takes one look and runs like mad to find Tyene and rips her necklace off-he clearly assumes Tyene is in on the plot against Jaime with Ellaria. Bronn gets the antidote to Jaime in the nick of time. When Jaime comes to, he realizes what happened and that they need to find Myrcella pronto.
They do find her-in the dungeon, dead. Nym is screaming and crying, desperately trying to reach for her through the bars. By this point, half the palace is down there, and they all realize in horror what’s happened at the same time: poor Nym watched helplessly as her best friend died in front of her.
Bronn gets to play the detective part and explain what happened. Myrcella’s pendant was supposed to get Cersei or Jaime down to Dorne, so Ellaria (and Tyene?) could exact her revenge. Myrcella had never been the target at all. She was just unlucky.
Though I don’t like the “and I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids”-type murderer soliloquy, I think Ellaria deserves a few lines to explain why she did what she did. If she couldn’t kill Cersei, she wanted Cersei to hurt the way she hurt, in other words, to kill her lover. (To add insult to injury, to also have gotten Cersei’s lover to be unfaithful, hence the seduction.)
And that’s it. (Whew!) Like I said, I think VFX and cast-wise, the revised Dornish plot fits the parameters I set. In fact, since I cut most of the (awful) fight scenes, it should be cheaper to shoot on the whole. I am aware that I completely blew the time limit, and that they’d either need to dramatically trim my outline or do a twelve-episode season in order to fit all this in. Maybe that’s part of the lesson of the Dornish plot: in order to introduce an entirely new setting-which means an entirely new cast of characters-you have to be willing to devote significant time to it.
Part 3: Dorne (Jaime, Bronn, Myrcella and Martells)
As much work as Sansa and the Winterfell storyline needed, Dorne needs much, much more. I was really looking forward to Dorne this season, and was bitterly disappointed at nearly every turn.
As with Sansa and Winterfell, the plot in Dorne failed to properly build on Jaime’s character arc from last season. Jaime had been trying and failing to reclaim his identity as one of the best swordsmen in Westeros. He was also struggling with how he fit into his dysfunctional family and how they (particularly Cersei) see him now that he’s no longer the golden boy. I would arrange the Dorne plot to play on these two themes, of Jaime learning who he is now that he can’t just swing a sword to fix his problems, and on how he views his relationship with Cersei and his surviving children.
The other overarching problem with Dorne was the Dornish characters were all painful caricatures. Even Ellaria Sand, who had a fantastic minor role last season, became one-dimensional and illogically bloodthirsty. The most important changes I would make-and the changes that would require the most screen time-would be developing the main five Dornish characters into full-fledged people (sorry, Areo Hotah-you’re still going to just hold your ax and glare).
The few things that worked in this storyline were in the set-up. I’m fine with the lion pendant sent to Cersei being the impetus for the whole trip. Bronn going with Jaime was a stroke of genius. I loved the little scene with Lollys. I liked the scene on the boat, too, with Bronn alluding to the fact that Myrcella is really Jaime’s daughter and that’s a big part of why he’s going to her.
...and that’s pretty much all that remains intact in my re-write.
The first big mistake in the Dorne storyline is Bronn and Jaime sneaking into Dorne and engaging in a fight with nameless, faceless soldiers. As thrilling as the epic battles may be, political machinations provide a lot of the series’ best moments. When the show does go for smaller action sequences, they usually work because they’re grounded in character-the fight between Brienne and the Hound from last season comes to mind as a great example of this. By letting Jaime and Bronn make their way to the Water Gardens without running into anyone important, the show wasted golden opportunities to see the characters react to a fairly foreign culture and to even talk to anybody from Dorne, let alone engage in the political maneuvering that drives so much of Game of Thrones.
So, after the Jaime-Bronn scene on the boat, I would have a scene of Jaime and Bronn getting ready to disembark. Jaime explains the care he’s taken to keep their trip to Dorne secret, and his master plan of the two of them sneaking cross-country to infiltrate the Water Gardens and whisk Myrcella away with no one the wiser, as Bronn hums “The Dornishman’s Wife”...
...only to walk off the gangway and straight into the Sand Snakes.
Picking up from that cliffhanger, the next Dornish scene would establish that the Sand Snakes are not there to kill Jaime; they’re there to make the opening move in the chess game of court intrigue. Nymeria (more on how I’d change her character later) would very sweetly and politely explain that her uncle Prince Doran regrets not having a larger party there to formally welcome Jaime to Dorne, as would befit his position, but this was the best they could do with such short notice of Jaime’s arrival. Of course, Jaime can’t admit they were sneaking in, so he has to play along and accept the Sand Snakes’ invitation to guide him to the Water Gardens.
Bronn and Jaime have a brief, whispered conversation as they mount their horses, wondering how the hell they were found out so quickly. Jaime instructs Bronn to make nice with the Sand Snakes-“since you know so much about Dornish women” (re: “The Dornishman’s Wife”)-and see if he can get any hints on what they’re walking into.
This leads to our introduction to the Sand Snakes as individuals. (Jaime rides upfront with Nymeria, who we’ll get more of once we make it to the Water Gardens.) Bronn starts out talking to Obara.
I didn’t mind the characterization of Obara in the show and wouldn’t change much about who she is. I only object to how clunky the “revelations” about her character were handled. (For example, why the hell would she tell her sisters and Ellaria the story about Oberyn and the spear? Isn’t that the sort of thing her closest surviving relatives would know already, if it was that important?)
Anyway, Bronn sidles up to stone-faced Obara and makes some comment about “You’re not exactly what I’d expect a Dornish princess to look like.” Obara would make a snide comment about “You can’t believe everything you hear in songs” (re: “The Dornishman’s Wife”) and then testily corrects that she’s no princess. Bronn responds, “But you’re Prince Oberyn’s daughter?”
Obara then, briefly, explains that none of Oberyn’s daughters are trueborn, “but he gave us something far more important than the name Martell.” Then she tells Bronn an (abbreviated) version of the spear story, and glares at him. Bronn takes the hint that charm isn’t going to work on Obara. Bronn sees Tyene watching the exchange and smirking at him.
While I would leave Obara as a stone-cold badass with a spear, I’d make some major changes to Tyene and Nymeria, in some ways bringing them closer to their book-counterparts. Rather than Nym having the whip (which is kind of a stupid weapon, if you’re fighting in a group) and Tyene having daggers and poison, I’d go back to Nym being the dagger-wielder and Tyene being the poison mistress.
However, because of what I want Tyene to do, and because I think it makes Nym more interesting, I’d have Nym be the innocent-seeming one. Dagger-wielding cherub is a neat juxtaposition. My version of Nym, a proper young courtier, is Myrcella’s lady-in-waiting-slash-bodyguard. Nym and Myrcella have become BFFs. I go back and forth over whether Nym should have an implied, unrequited crush on Myrcella. On the one hand, that may send things too deep into “All Dornish are bi!” territory, but on the other hand, it’s a nice shading to the character.
As for Tyene, I kind of like a little of the weird Tyene/Bronn attraction, but I vehemently object to the cringe-worthy way it was executed in the show. Tyene needs to be a bit more worldly-wise to play well off of Bronn. I want her to start out being what Bronn thinks a Dornish woman is like-sexual and deadly-and for him to not be wrong, per se, but to discover she’s more complicated than that. Also, I’d like her to be not just a poison-mistress, but kind of an untrained maester, with her own lab, etc.
(Also, Tyene and Nym’s costumes would look markedly less “Sexy Teen Assassin Squad.”)
I think Keisha Castle-Hughes did all that could be done with Obara, so I have no objection to leaving her in that role. The actress who played Nym had virtually nothing to do, so I don’t know whether I’d swap her with the actress who played Tyene. Based on visuals alone, I think I’d swap them, just because the one actress is younger and thus slightly more “innocent”-looking? I don’t know-I’m grasping at straws. And if I didn’t think either was equal to playing the beefed-up Tyene role, then I’d put Keisha Castle-Hughes as Tyene, current-Tyene as Nym, and current-Nym as Obara.
Anyway, back to the story. The Sand Snakes deliver Jaime and Bronn to Prince Doran’s receiving chamber, completely deleting all that nonsense with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes plotting to kidnap Myrcella, in broad daylight at the exact same moment as Jaime and Bronn. The only early scene in Dorne I would keep before Jaime and Bronn get to the Water Gardens is Doran overlooking Trystane and Myrcella walking in the Water Gardens and commenting to Areo about young love, a Martell and a Lannister, they don’t know how dangerous it is, etc.
Most of the rest of the Dornish action, until the very end, occurs in Doran’s throne room/antechamber.
Seriously, why would you not shoot all the scenes in a place as gorgeous as this?
Doran greets Jaime, with Ellaria and a toddler Sand Snake also in attendance. Thus begins perhaps the most awkward of a series of we’re-acting-polite-and-that-makes-the-accusations-worse confrontations. Doran, Ellaria, and the Sand Snakes address Jaime as if they “assume” (but in actuality, they know better) that Jaime came all this way to pay his respects to Oberyn’s family. (Hence why Ellaria brought out her baby!Sand Snake.)
Jaime totally muffs this bit of theater. He stumbles and way too quickly admits that he’s there investigating a threat to Princess Myrcella’s life. A little gentle nudging from Doran, and Jaime walks into another trap, tacitly admitting he suspects somebody close to or in the Martell family since he never thought of informing Doran of the threat. Doran much more expertly maneuvers Jaime away from demanding to take Myrcella back with him to King’s Landing and into hanging around while the threat to Myrcella is investigated.
The next Dorne scene is a Trystane/Myrcella in lurve scene in the Water Gardens, similar to what was actually used in the show, but with one major change: make it clear that Trystane is really, really desperate to get into Myrcella’s pants. The scene would start with Nym and Myrcella walking together, establishing their close friendship. When Trystane approaches, Myrcella kindly asks her dear friend to get lost. Nym agrees to walk out of earshot, then spends the rest of the scene wistfully sulking in the background, close enough to protect Myrcella if need be.
Trystane then does the I love you’s and the pitch for sex-they’re going to be married anyway, so what’s wrong with starting early, so long as nobody knows? There’d be a little cultural difference here, and Trystane would play on that a bit: sex is considered a natural, beautiful part of love in Dornish culture. Even though Myrcella wasn’t born in Dorne, she’s lived here for years, after she was sent away from King’s Landing by her very own mother…. Yes, he’s being a manipulative little horndog, but not malevolently so-it comes off more that Trystane is used to talking his way into getting what he wants.
Myrcella coyly accepts the proposition, details of their plan TBD, though she’s sure Nym will help cover for them. They kiss, and just then, Jaime interrupts. Trystane takes his leave, and Jaime and Myrcella have an awkward not-father-and-daughter talk in which he tries to convince Myrcella to sneak away from Dorne with him and Bronn. She turns Trystane’s same ploy about being sent away to Dorne back on Jaime-she’s lived here for years, is happy here, feels more at home here now than she would in King’s Landing. Apparently it takes a death threat to even get a visit from a family member. She mock-politely excuses herself, then trots off to whisper with Nym.
I’d re-work the Ellaria-Doran scene from the show and insert it here, though it would be much more subtle. As Myrcella walks away from Jaime, we’d cut to Doran and Ellaria watching the whole thing unfold from above. Ellaria would make a comment about Lannisters/wanting Cersei to hurt, but not go anywhere near threatening Myrcella directly. Doran would tell her she’d better hush that kind of talk, or she’s going to make herself a prime suspect for the necklace threat, and then something similar to what he says in-show about not wanting to start a war. Anyway, the scene would make it clear that Doran doesn’t trust Ellaria, and that they have very different points of view, but not point giant neon “I want to kill Myrcella!!” arrows over Ellaria’s head.
Next would be a series of Doran-Jaime (and possibly Ellaria, Trystane, etc.) scenes in the antechamber, with Jaime struggling to play politics and improving a little bit. I’d kind of like to play it as Doran teaching Jaime a little about the political game as well. My biggest beef other than the Sand Snakes was the criminal underuse of Siddig El-Fadil as Doran. Seriously, why cast him if you’re going to do frak all with him?
Anyway, I don’t think it matters a whole lot what Doran and Jaime talk about in these scenes, because it’s the game that’s the most important. But since I’m re-writing the season, I think the two topics I’d definitely include would be Jaime’s role in the sacking of King’s Landing, and why it would be dumb for the Martells to kill Myrcella.
For the first topic, I think Doran would want to make Jaime squirm regarding the murder of his sister Elia and her children while Jaime was apparently lounging on the Iron Throne. If he was a King’s Guard, whatever justification he may or may not have had for murdering the king, how could he have stood by while Elia and her children were mutilated? I think Jaime would get a little bit of a jab back, of where was Doran when Elia was left at the mercy of a lunatic for years?
The second topic would also be about marriage alliances, and explain why it would be such a dumb idea for anyone in the Martell clan to murder Myrcella (which, it really is). Myrcella is second in line to the throne, and betrothed to the scion of House Martell. Why would they want to kill their possible ticket to King Trystane should something happen to Tommen (even if Trystane would just be a consort)? Doran would imply that it would make much more sense for the Lannisters themselves to manufacture this threat, to have a reason to take Myrcella back to King’s Landing. Once she’s in King’s Landing, it would be pretty easy for them to break the marriage pact and marry her off to another family whose favor they want to curry.
If I had time for a third topic, it would be fun to see Doran and Jaime discuss Dany’s path of conquest in Essos, maybe even hint that hey, if the Lannisters try to renege on the Trystane-Myrcella marriage alliance, the Martells have long been close allies of the Targaryens....
In between the antechamber scenes, I want Obara and Tyene to each get one big scene. Obara’s could be cut for time if absolutely necessary, but I’d fight for it. Jaime is practicing fencing with his left hand in an area he thinks no one can see, but Obara comes upon him and spars with him. Obara kicks his butt with her spear-we see she’s Oberyn’s daughter, through and through. Once she has Jaime down, she curtly says he’s wanted in Doran’s antechamber. Jaime makes a light comment about politics not really being his thing, something he thinks he shares with her. He means it to be endearing, but Obara shoots him down. “I can afford that shortcoming, as I can still speak more eloquently with my spear. You cannot.”
The Tyene-Bronn scene has significant plot importance. Bronn walks into Tyene’s laboratory and is suitably impressed. Tyene doesn’t stop in her work, and flatly tells Bronn that unlike Nym, she doesn’t have time for courtly bullshit. Tyene knows exactly what Bronn is doing, so she will save him time: no, Tyene was not involved in the threat against Myrcella, and he’s an idiot to think she or any of her sisters-or any one in the Water Gardens, for that matter-is interested in killing Myrcella. If anybody here had wanted to kill Myrcella, she’d be dead by now. Simple as that.
Bronn somewhat inartfully says, well, I know your sisters are deadly, but you don’t seem to be. Tyene goes into a casual explanation of how lethal the things in her laboratory are. Bronn wonders at why Doran would let her deal with such dangerous things, and Tyene talks a little about her father, how he armed all of his daughters in some way, how at least the Martell family didn’t treat its daughters as delicate flowers who couldn’t save themselves.
She also explains that poisons have dual purposes: right now, she’s working on an anti-venom for a common poisonous snake, something that lots of Dornish wear as jewelry or carry with them at all times. (Points to necklace, which, oh hey, doesn’t Ellaria have one of those, too?) Kind of like how a death threat might have more purposes than the obvious, since the obvious in this case doesn’t make any sense.
Then they have an odd moment of flirting by Tyene explaining all the differnet ways she could kill Bronn right now.
Finally, I’d throw in a few small scenes of Ellaria seducing Jaime. I absolutely loved the scene towards the end of the season where Ellaria basically says without saying that she knows Jaime is in love with Cersei, and she thinks that’s okay, because “we love who we love.” Basically, I would just do more of that, with a bit more sensuality involved.
I think if you go the route of replacing Arys Oakheart with Jaime and Arianne with Ellaria, then you need to go all the way, up to and including the affair. I think Ellaria could seduce Jaime by coming at him from the angle of “we’ve both lost the person we love, me to death and you to not being the kind of person she wants, but I accept you for who you are now.” Plus, I think Jaime would really struggle with this-he’s been faithful to Cersei his whole life, after all, but now she’s rejected him....
Then we enter the endgame scenes. Jaime has told Bronn to keep an eye on Myrcella and on the Sand Snakes. On the night of Myrcella’s and Trystane’s planned assignation, Bronn catches that something is up. He hears a scuffle, sneaks into Myrcella’s bedchamber…and finds Trystane putting his clothes back on. They both make a racket and wake up half the palace, both realize Myrcella is nowhere to be found, Bronn finds some kind of clue and makes chase....
....only to discover that Myrcella has been kidnapped by Nym. Bronn catches Nym pretty easily (though dodging the knife thrown at him wasn’t so easy). Shortly thereafter, Nym is brought before Doran, Jaime, Myrcella, Trystane, Ellaria, etc., and tearfully admits that she had tried to kidnap Myrcella, but only because she wanted to keep her safe. She was scared at the prospect of Jaime taking Myrcella back to King’s Landing. Everyone she’d ever loved who’d gone to King’s Landing had died there. Nym had only intended to keep Myrcella hidden until Jaime left.
Doran has Nym locked up, but really, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that the threat to Myrcella has been thwarted (though Nym protests that she had nothing to do with the locket). However, Jaime finally uses the skills he’s learned in Doran’s antechamber to turn the tables. It’s clear they’ve caught Trystane and Myrcella having sex, and while the Dornish may be open-minded about these things, even Doran must recognize that they have to get married, like, now. Doran is okay-to-happy about this; sealing the marriage alliance is mostly a good thing for him. But, Jaime contends, it’ll look really weird if a royal princess doesn’t have her wedding in King’s Landing.... Doran sees he’s kind of been beat, but gotten most of what he wanted, so he agrees that Myrcella and Trystane should depart ASAP for King’s Landing and a quickie royal wedding. Everybody happily goes back to bed.
Except Bronn points out what Tyene said, about the threat not making any sense. It doubly doesn’t make any sense from Nym. Jaime brushes this aside, in favor of finally hooking up with Ellaria.
The next morning, there’s a brief “morning after” scene with Ellaria, and we make a point of seeing them both drink from the same wine bottle or coffee carafe or whatever. Ellaria leaves, and Myrcella comes in shortly after. Jaime and Myrcella have a slightly less on-the-nose version of the talk they have on the boat on the show, with Myrcella implying but not admitting she knows Jaime is her father, and saying that she loves him and is proud of him. At some point in the awkward not-father-daughter-ness, Jaime offers her a drink from the wine bottle/coffee carafe, which she accepts. Myrcella leaves to go talk to Nym in her cell; both Jaime and she agree that Nym never meant any harm, so Myrcella wants to go forgive her.
Cut to Bronn and Tyene, parting after a possible “morning after” or just after a conversation-either would work fine. Ellaria walks into the hallway, not realizing Bronn is there, and unscrews the antidote pendant and downs the contents. The lights go on in Bronn’s brain, and he rushes to Jaime’s room.
He finds Jaime bleeding from the nose, nearly passed out. (Now, if the show would allow me to be really daring, and if I knew what happened in the next two books and thus whether this would materially screw up future plots, the gutsy thing to do would be to skip Myrcella drinking the poisoned wine/coffee and just kill off Jaime. But assuming I can’t do that....) Bronn takes one look and runs like mad to find Tyene and rips her necklace off-he clearly assumes Tyene is in on the plot against Jaime with Ellaria. Bronn gets the antidote to Jaime in the nick of time. When Jaime comes to, he realizes what happened and that they need to find Myrcella pronto.
They do find her-in the dungeon, dead. Nym is screaming and crying, desperately trying to reach for her through the bars. By this point, half the palace is down there, and they all realize in horror what’s happened at the same time: poor Nym watched helplessly as her best friend died in front of her.
Bronn gets to play the detective part and explain what happened. Myrcella’s pendant was supposed to get Cersei or Jaime down to Dorne, so Ellaria (and Tyene?) could exact her revenge. Myrcella had never been the target at all. She was just unlucky.
Though I don’t like the “and I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids”-type murderer soliloquy, I think Ellaria deserves a few lines to explain why she did what she did. If she couldn’t kill Cersei, she wanted Cersei to hurt the way she hurt, in other words, to kill her lover. (To add insult to injury, to also have gotten Cersei’s lover to be unfaithful, hence the seduction.)
And that’s it. (Whew!) Like I said, I think VFX and cast-wise, the revised Dornish plot fits the parameters I set. In fact, since I cut most of the (awful) fight scenes, it should be cheaper to shoot on the whole. I am aware that I completely blew the time limit, and that they’d either need to dramatically trim my outline or do a twelve-episode season in order to fit all this in. Maybe that’s part of the lesson of the Dornish plot: in order to introduce an entirely new setting-which means an entirely new cast of characters-you have to be willing to devote significant time to it.