"The Dornish Portion" of GRRM's 2003-2004 Outline of AFFC

A few days back u/zionius (who does the Seven's work for this subreddit) posted: GRRM's 2003-2004 Outline for AFFC. Since I have been posting about Dorne recently, my attention was immediately drawn to this section:

• Dorne: Balon v Arys. End with Blood & Fire. Mountain missing teeth

In this post I thought it would be fun to post a few thoughts about each section.

Balon v Arys

If we remember at one point GRRM originally intended to have Boros Blount die in AFFC (as Tommen's food taster) and had Arys Oakheart survive the Queenmaker Plot:

The two main differences I recall from that draft are that Arys Oakheart surrenders along with Arianne rather than getting killed, and that Boros Blount is described looking increasingly ill and dies by the end of the partial manuscript (I think Cersei wonders about poisoning -- remember, Jaime made him food taster for Tommen -- but the description of what was happening to him suggested GRRM intended readers to understand that he was suffering from congestive heart failure). - Elio's comments about the Jan 2004 outline

With this in mind we can probably go a few different ways based on what we know. If Arys Oakheart survives, when does he fight Ser Balon (and why?) since they are both members of the kingsguard? It is possible GRRM had changed this by the time he decided to have Arys surrender.

It should be noted that Areo Hotah does compare the two at one point:

Ser Balon Swann was taut as a drawn bow, the captain of guards observed. This new white knight was not so tall nor comely as the old one, but he was bigger across the chest, burlier, his arms thick with muscle. His snowy cloak was clasped at the throat by two swans on a silver brooch. One was ivory, the other onyx, and it seemed to Areo Hotah as if the two of them were fighting. The man who wore them looked a fighter too. This one will not die so easy as the other. He will not charge into my axe the way Ser Arys did. He will stand behind his shield and make me come at him. If it came to that, Hotah would be ready. His longaxe was sharp enough to shave with. -ADWD, The Watcher

and their reasons for being in Dorne are very different:

• Arys (Myrcella's sworn shield, falls for Arianne, etc.)
• Balon (bringing the "Mountain's" Skull, get the Dornish to return Myrcella into the trap they have set)

Mountain Missing Teeth

I'm guessing that he thought that it was too heavy of a giveaway of what he was going to do so he changed it.

Either:

• Skull had missing teeth and Gregor was not known to, or;
• Gregor was known to have missing teeth and the skull did not

I searched far and wide for any reference to this and teeth and the closest I got was that Qyburn does remove them:

"The truth." Wat looked at her with the one blue eye that Qyburn had left him. Blood bubbled through the holes where his front teeth had been. "I might have . . . misremembered." -AFFC, Cersei IX

Since GRRM ended up sending Tyene/Lady Nym to King's Landing (and it is quite obvious who Robert Strong is) the Dornish will soon know they were paid with false coin (likely the large dwarf head that Cersei was given).

End with Blood & Fire

Since he said "end" I decided to go out of order. This could go a few ways as "Blood & Fire" means a few different things (and we should note the timing (2003/2004):

• He meant Fire & Blood (It was 2003 and he was quickly writing an outline, meant Fire & Blood like how it ended up)

"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood." -AFFC, The Princess in the Tower

• Blood & Fire (The potential words of House Blackfyre)

Their royal banners bore the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, red on black. Sixteen years ago, a bastard son of King Aegon IV named Daemon Blackfyre had risen in revolt against his trueborn brother. Daemon had used the three-headed dragon on his banners too, but he reversed the colors, as many bastards did. His revolt had ended on the Redgrass Field, where Daemon and his twin sons died beneath a rain of Lord Bloodraven's arrows. -The Mystery Knight

• Blood & Fire (The Death of Dragons) - Book locked in vault in the Citadel

And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel. -ADWD, Tyrion IV

TLDR: Just some thoughts on the Dornish portion of GRRM's 2003/2004 outline of AFFC (Dorne: Balon v. Arys, end with Blood & Fire, Mountain Missing Teeth).