What's Really Going On With Loras Tyrell On Dragonstone?

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]As of the end of A Dance with Dragons, Loris Tyrell has supposedly taken Dragonstone, but was terribly injured in the process. Many fans though believe that on some level or another, this is a lie, pointing to suspicious things about the story as we hear it and motivations that the Tyrells and Loris could have for pretending that he's hurt. Today, I want to break down the evidence surrounding the situation and the different possible circumstances for what went on and see if we can make up our minds about what we think happened.

[00:00:31]I personally lean in one direction, which we'll get into as we break it all down. But let me know what you guys think of this situation down in the comments, and be sure to like and subscribe while you're there. So, the trouble starts when Euron Greyjoy and his fleet start raiding the Shield Islands, which are down in the Reach near Oldtown. These are a soft target at the moment because the Red Wine fleet, which would normally defend them, is currently sieging Dragonstone for Cersei. A siege is a long drawn out process, which means that the fleet is likely to be tied up for quite a while.

[00:01:03]In addition to this, the main strength of the Reach's fighting force is under Mace Tyrell, and at the command of Cersei, they're sieging Storm's End.

[00:01:12]Marjorie is petitioning that the forces be allowed to go and take back the shield Isles and fight off the Ironborn.

[00:01:18]But Cersei believes that maybe this could be some sort of ploy from Stannis Baratheon, having allied with the Ironborn in order to draw them away from taking Dragonstone and Storm's End. We as readers know that this isn't true, but Cersei's council is telling her how clever she is for seeing through Stannis's plan. Since Cersei is not giving in to Marjgery's suggestion that the Reachmen be able to actually defend their home, her brother Loris jumps in and tries to counsel Cersei as to why it makes sense to send the fleet after the Ironborn. But she still won't do it until Dragonstone is taken. So, he falls to a knee and says, "Let me take Dragon Stone." Suggesting that it'll take more than 6 months to starve them out, but he will take the castle within a fortnite if he has to tear it down with his bare hands. Marjorie seems shocked when he does this, but this valiant volunteering is very in character for Loris Tyrell.

[00:02:12]All the way back in book one, when someone needed to go after Gregor Cleaggane because he was raiding the Riverlands, Loris Tyrell stepped up and volunteered. Ned thought that he was too young, so he sent Bareric Dondarrion instead. And Bareric eventually became the leader of the Brotherhood without banners, and we all know how that went.

[00:02:30]So that could have been Loris had Ned agreed to this suggestion. So, as I said, this is in character, and Cersei, unlike Ned, agrees to allow him to go on this very dangerous mission. She gives him command of the effort to take Dragonstone and makes him swear not to return to King's Landing until it belongs to Tommen. I feel like it is also worth noting that as this all happens, Marjgery goes pale and is completely speechless when Cersei talks about how gallant her brother is. It very much feels like, at least in this moment, there's not some greater plot going on here. They are genuinely just trying to get Cersei to allow the fleet and Mace Tyrell to go and fight the Ironborn and lift the sieges until later. And then later on, they can go back and resume them. But Cersei says no, and only then does Loris volunteer for this dangerous mission. Marjorie, as I said, looks completely shocked by this. And this sort of thing is in character for her brother. Just to show you this, I do quickly want to read from the first book. When Ned is talking about bringing justice to Gregor Clelegane, he says, "I mislike sending another to do my killing. Yet, it seems I have no choice." He gestured at his broken leg. "Lord Eddard." The shout came from the west side of the hall as a handsome strippling of a boy stroed forth boldly. Out of his armor, Sir Loris Tyrell looked even younger than his 16 years. He wore pale blue silk, his belt a linked chain of golden roses, the sigil of his house. I beg you the honor of acting in your place. Give this task to me, my lord, and I swear I shall not fail you." Littlefinger chuckled.

[00:04:08]"Sir Loris, if we send you off alone, Sir Gregor will send us back your head with a plum stuffed in that pretty little mouth of yours. The mountain is not the sort to bend his neck to any man's justice." I do not fear Gregor Clegane, Sir Loris said hottily. So yeah, even though he's very young, Sir Loris doesn't miss a beat. The second Ned suggests that he's going to send someone else in his place, he instantly steps up in front of everyone and wants to go after the mountain, who is basically the most dangerous man in the realm. Loris does have a beef with the mountain after that whole incident at the hands turnie. So he does have some proper motivation beyond just trying to be brave and do something heroic. But at the same time, in this case that we're talking about here today, his homeland is being threatened by the Ironborn. So that is also some good motivation. So yeah, when he's properly motivated, it is definitely in character for Loris to step up and volunteer for a mission like this. Everything about the scene where he's initially sent off to take Dragonstone seems like it came sort of spur of the moment, and it seems all to be very legitimate. But that doesn't mean there isn't some plotting or planning that goes on later on that could lead to him lying about being hurt later. Keep in mind though, the timeline here is very short. If he does any plotting, he would pretty much have to do it the instant he leaves the room because he then sets sail for Dragon Stone and pretty much as soon as he's there, he's challenging the Castell into single combat. And then when that's not agreed to, he leads the attack. We get the relevant details of what seems to have happened at the beginning of the very next Cersei chapter after he was sent away. The ship that he was sent away on returns, but instead of Loris being on it and giving her the news, it's Orain Waters. Your grace, he said with a broad smile. Dragonstone is yours. How splendid. She took his hands and kissed him on the cheeks. I know Tommen will be pleased as well. This will mean that we can release Lord Red Wine's fleet and drive the Iron Men from the shields. The news from the Reach seemed to grow more dire with every raven. The Iron Men had not been content with their new rocks, it seemed. They were raiding up the Mandarin strength and had gone as far as to attack the arbor and the smaller islands that surrounded it. The Red Wines had kept no more than a dozen warships in their home waters, and all those had been overwhelmed, taken, or sunk. And now there were reports that this madman, who called himself Euron Crossey, was even sending long ships up the whispering sound toward Oldtown. Lord Paxter was taking on provisions for the voyage home when Sweet Cersei raised sail. Lord Waters reported, "I would imagine by now that his main fleet has put to sea. Let us hope they enjoy a swift voyage and better weather than today." The queen drew waters down to the window seat beside her. "Do we have Sir Loris to thank for this triumph?" His smile vanished. "Some will say so, your grace." "Some?" She gave him a quizzical look. Not you. I never saw a braver night, Waters said. But he turned what could have been a bloodless victory into a slaughter. A thousand men are dead or near enough to make no matter. Most of them are own. And not just common men, your grace, but knights and young lords, the best and the bravest. And Sir Loris himself, he will make a thousand and one. They carried him inside the castle after the battle, but his wounds are grievous. He has lost so much blood that the maesters will not even leech him.

[00:07:43]Oh, how sad. Tommen will be heartbroken.

[00:07:46]He did admire our gallant knight of flowers. The small folk too, her admiral said. We'll have maidens weeping into their wine all across the realm when Loris dies. Cersei makes Orin Waters tell her all the details of what exactly happened to Loris twice so that she can go tell Marjorie herself. She pretends it's so that Marjorie doesn't have to hear the news from a stranger, but really we know it's because Cersei wants to be there to see the anguish on Marjory's face. This is really helpful for our purposes today of trying to figure out if this is real or some Tyrell plot because we get to see Marjgery's initial reaction to finding all of this out. Marjorie was in the maiden vault sipping wine and trying to puzzle out some new game from Volantis with her three cousins. Though the hour was late, the guards admitted Cersei at once. Your grace, she began. It is best you hear the news from me. Orin is back from Dragonstoneone. Your brother is a hero.

[00:08:46]I always knew he was. Marjorie did not seem surprised. Why should she? She expected this. From the moment Loris begged for the command. Yet by the time Cersei had finished with her tale, tears glistened on the cheeks of the younger queen. Red Wine had miners working to drive a tunnel underneath the castle walls, but that was too slow for the night of flowers. No doubt he was thinking of your lord father's people suffering on the shields. Lord Waters says he ordered the assault not half a day after taking command after Lord Stannis's Castellin refused his offer to settle the siege between them in single combat. Loris was the first one through the breach when the ram broke the castle gates. He rode straight into the dragon's mouth. they say, all in white and swinging his morning star about his head, slaying left and right. Mega Tyrell was sobbing openly by then. "How did he die?" she asked. "Who killed him?" "No one man has that honor," said Cersei. Loris took a quarrel through the thigh and another through the shoulder.

[00:09:49]But he fought on gallantly, though blood was streaming from him. Later, he suffered a mace blow that broke some ribs after that.

[00:09:59]But no, I would spare you the worst of it. Tell me, said Marjorie. I command it. Command it. Cersei paused a moment, then decided she would let that pass.

[00:10:10]The defenders fell back to an inner keep once the curtain wall was taken. Loris led the attack there as well. He was dowsted with boiling oil. Lady All turned white as chalk and ran from the room. The maesters are doing all they can, Lord Waters assures me. But I fear your brother is too badly burned. Cersei took Marjorie in her arms to comfort her. He saved the realm. When she kissed the little queen upon the cheek, she could taste the salt of her tears. Jaime will enter all his deeds in the white book, and the singers will sing of him for a thousand years. Marjgery wrenched free from her embrace so violently that Cersei almost fell. "Dying is not dead," she said. No, but the maers say dying is not dead. I only want to spare you. I know what you want. Get out. So, there we have the details of what happened to Loris and also Marjgery's reaction to it. And I think that if you're saying there is some sort of plot here, you pretty much have to assume Marjorie isn't in on it at this point, unless she's a good enough actress to literally produce tears on command like this. I know there are some people who can do that, but it seems far more likely to me that this is a genuine reaction from Marjorie, much like it was when she went pale and looked completely shocked when Loris volunteered to take the command.

[00:11:34]If this is some sort of plot, Marjgery's probably not in on it. And it would have had to come together like I said in a very short period of time because again they tried to do other options before Loris volunteered to take the command and then he was sent away right away and he got there and within half a day he's leading the charge. There wasn't a great opportunity like before Loris decided to take this command where they could have plotted out the way that all of this could work out. And there doesn't seem to be that much time during the whole situation for them to plot out some grand deception either. If there is some grand trick, it seems to be plotted out in between the time where Loris is given the command when he's traveling to Dragonstone and then that half a day before he leads the charge. And let's be honest, what's more likely? That a teenage boy has concocted some grand secret plan or that he's just foolishly charging into battle because he thinks he can't be killed and he's the best knight in the realm and wants to prove that to everyone. We've already seen him try to take charge and hunt down the mountain. So just charging into a situation like this seems pretty in character. Now I'm not saying that it's beyond the abilities or the character of Loris to do something trixy like this.

[00:12:45]He did use a marin heat during a joust against the mountain to throw off the mountain's horse. But at the same time when you actually examine the situation it's not really a situation that lends itself to trickery. And there would have to be a lot of people in on it for it to work. Dragonstone is a fairly prominent island near King's Landing and there are people sailing around there all the time, presumably making port on the island as well. If someone is lying about who controls it, you assume that news is going to get back to King's Landing relatively quickly. Also, if there's a battle where you supposedly lose a thousand men, then you would have to hide those thousand men from the queen and hope that they never show back up to tell her that no, there was no battle. There are lots of soldiers that would have been involved in this situation. If there's some grand lie, then any one of them could just tell the queen and the ruse would be up and the Tyrells would be screwed. Sure, many of them are probably red wine soldiers or Tyrell men who are more loyal to Loris than Cersei and want to go back and defend their home. But all of them, literally all of the soldiers, presumably thousands that took place in the battle, if a thousand died, there has to be thousands who were there. All of them. you're going to trust will never send word back to Cersei. I don't know. It seems like at least pretty good chunks of what Orin Waters is saying here have to be true. The scale of the deception just seems far too grand to actually pull off for any length of time. Let's just break down the different scenarios here for what could be going on. Either Dragonstone has been taken and Loris is injured exactly as Orin Waters says or Dragon Stone was taken and Loris Tyrell is healthy lying about his injuries. Or Dragonstone was not taken, Loris was not injured and the whole thing is a big lie to free up the Red Wine fleet so that they can leave right away to go and save the Shield Islands. Or finally, Dragonstone is not taken and Loris is injured. Basically, the only way that this one would happen is if they tried to assault Dragon Stone. It failed and then they just said, "Screw it. We're leaving to go defend the Shield Islands anyway and took an injured Loris with them." And they're just hoping Cersei never finds out they didn't take the castle. I already briefly explained why I have such a hard time believing they would lie about actually taking Dragonstone just because it's the type of thing that you feel like there's no chance of you getting away with in the long term. This is going to screw over House Tyrell if Cersei finds out that they lied about this massive thing. And in the long term, or even the medium term, it's pretty much inevitable Cersei will find this out. Cersei is the queen regent of the Seven Kingdoms, and they're serving under her command. If they lie about something this massive to her, that's going to have consequences. And Marjorie is at King's Landing right now and would basically be defenseless if Cersei got incredibly angry at the Tyrells and wanted to punish someone. If she finds out that Loris and the Red Wine fleet have deceived her in this way, she could essentially just grab Marjorie as a hostage in order to punish them. I'm not saying it's impossible that they would lie about taking Dragon Stone, and I'm not saying they don't have motivation to get home as quickly as possible to defend their lands. But I am saying that if they did, this is a really badly thoughtout plan, and in the long run would be very likely to have very bad consequences for Marjgery and all of the other Tyrells who are still in the capital. Lying to Cersei about having taken Dragonstone would be a conspiracy that requires the cooperation of thousands of soldiers, many of whom are loyal to the Tyrells and the Red Wines.

[00:16:23]But you have to assume at least some of whom are loyal to Cersei. And even if you get all the people who are on Dragonstone at the time and on the Red Wine fleet and with our rain waters all to cooperate on this scheme, it's likely to blow up in your face anyway the second that some trader goes past Dragonstone and arrives at King's Landing and mentions that it's not taken by the Red Wines. A massive conspiracy that in the long run has essentially a 0% chance of succeeding. Even if they would have motivation to get home as quickly as possible, I feel fairly comfortable ruling out the idea that they just straight up left Dragon Stone untaken and are completely lying about it. I should though bring up some of the counter evidence, the reasons that some people suspect this could be a lie.

[00:17:08]First of all, there's the fact that we're told all of this information by Orin Waters, who later steals all of Cersei's fleet and just makes himself a pirate king in the Stepstones. So, he's not the most trustworthy person. he will betray Cersei later on. It wouldn't be that unreasonable to have him involved in some sort of deception against Cersei. There's also the fact that we have other POVs talking about news around Westeros, and they don't seem to mention that Dragonstone has been taken from Stannis. Even in the POVs where we see Stannis or his men up north at the wall, none of them mention that they have lost Dragon Stone. Also, in the epilogue to A Dance with Dragons, Mace Tyrell mentions that they've searched Dragon Stone and found nothing of value there. And this seems a little bit odd because it is a Targaryen stronghold.

[00:17:55]You would assume there is something of value to be found there. So, some people suspect maybe this is part of the ruse and that the reason that they can't find any valuables on Dragonstone to give to the crown is because they haven't taken it. Either that or they say they can't find anything valuable there because they're withholding those valuables from the crown as part of a larger plot, which would go alongside lying about Loris's injuries. Taking them in order though, I would say that Orin Waters hasn't yet betrayed Cersei, and he does so opportunistically once she's captured for her trial and lying to her face about something that, as I pointed out, would be so easily disproven the second that anyone who's not in on the lie sails past Dragonstone. It just feels like that would be a bad idea. Also, news of things is very slow to travel in Westeros and Stannis at least is not very easily reachable by Raven at this point. So, if the fall of Dragonstone has happened, it seems very reasonable that he for sure would not have found out about it yet, and the news probably wouldn't have even reached the wall yet.

[00:18:57]It's perhaps a little bit more suspicious that characters like Littlefinger don't seem to be aware of it or at least don't bring it up, but we only have one Elaine chapter after the fall of Dragonstone, and we only talked to him for a little bit. And we know he is withholding some information about what he's heard from Sansa. So, him not bringing it up at this point doesn't seem to be that out of the ordinary to me. Considering that chapters don't necessarily happen in exactly chronological order, it may not have even happened yet as of the last time we see Sansa. Or if it's just happened, he may not have received word yet. Or if he has received word, he just may not tell Sansa. There are many explanations I can see for why other POVs wouldn't have brought up the fall of Dragonstone, even if it did take place. And then the idea of them not finding any treasures of value on Dragonstone. Well, let's remember that Stannis held Dragonstone for quite a long time and he may have sold off a lot of things to fund his army. In addition to that, he knew he was leaving the castle lightly garrisoned and that it could probably be taken fairly easily considering he's going to be away at the wall with his main force and would never have a chance to return and defend it. So, if there were a lot of treasures that were easily accessible, he probably would have taken them with him or, as I said, sold them.

[00:20:13]It maybe is a little suspicious to think that there is nothing of value there at Dragonstone, but most of the things that are easily grabbable and loadable onto a ship, I would imagine Stannis has sold or taken with him by now. I've also seen it brought up that it's suspicious that Loris Tyrell could be searching Dragonstone if he's supposed to be so badly injured. But what Mace Tyrell actually says is that his son's men have searched every inch of Dragonstone. It's Kevin Lannister who thinks that it's unlikely Loris Tyrell has searched every inch of Dragonstone because it's so large. But either way, no one says Loris is directly walking around doing the physical searching. Mace says that it's his men who do it. And Kevin thinks about Loris doing it, but that's more like thinking about him commanding his men to do it in the way that you may think Tywin Lannister has won a battle, even though he didn't actually fight anyone physically. He commanded the men who won the battle. So either way, no one says that Loris Tyrell is physically walking around doing the searching on Dragonstone. When you add up all these factors, it just feels to me like it's far more likely than not that Dragon Stone has been taken. So if we're assuming Dragon Stone has been taken, that only leaves the two options. Dragon Stone was taken and Loris is truly injured and everything is as Orain Waters says or Dragonstone is taken and they're lying about Loris's injuries.

[00:21:34]Compared to lying about who's in control of an entire island, it feels like this one is far more manageable. If you have taken Dragonstone, you could have Loris stay there for a while and just tell everyone he's injured and only the people who actually physically see him and know the truth would have to be in on the lie. My main problem with this though is again the long-term viability of the lie that is told. You can say that he's taken wounds, sure, but lying about a member of the king's guard being burned by boiling oil. If that didn't happen, he will eventually have to surface in order to be useful at any point for anything. And the second he does, Cersei will know that the Tyrells are lying, and she'll get very angry at House Tyrell. If the motivation for the lie is to keep Loris away from Cersei for a time or to send him along with the Red Wine fleet so that he can help lead the retaking of the Shield Isles, well then you could just lie about something that would eventually heal on its own.

[00:22:32]Say he's taken several wounds and he's lost a lot of blood, so they're keeping him on Dragon Stone to be treated there.

[00:22:38]But don't say that he's horribly disfigured by boiling oil. That's the type of thing that if it's a lie will one day for sure be revealed to be a lie. Whereas there are so many options for injuries you could lie about that once they heal, Cersei would really have no way of knowing. If this is a lie, then it has no long-term viability. And if this is some sort of Tyrell plot, it seems to be a really stupid one. There are just so many better options for what you could say happened if you're trying to deceive Cersei here. People often say that the reason for this lie would be so that Loris can emerge heroically to defend Marjorie at her trial by combat or something like that. And maybe that could have something to do with the deception, but that doesn't really work.

[00:23:22]In World, when all of this takes place, Cersei and Marjorie have not yet been captured or put on trial. Thinking about it from a narrative perspective as readers, it seems like it would be a really awesome reveal moment for Loris to reveal that he's not truly burned and defend Marjorie at a trial by combat and save her life. But in world for all of the characters, none of this makes any sense because they would have no way of knowing that she would eventually be taken this way. And actually having Loris not in King's Landing would leave Marjorie more vulnerable. And once again, if Cersei finds out the Tyrells are lying about something, that may just give her more motivation to do harm to Marjgery. It seems like on almost every front, if this were a lie told by the Tyrells, it would be a bad lie to tell.

[00:24:07]Really, the only reason I could see them wanting to concoct this lie about Loris and keep him away from King's Landing for a while is if he wants to return to the Reach with the Red Wine fleet, and he doesn't want to ask Cersei for permission. But again, as I said, if that is the plan, lie about it in a way that won't be immediately disproven upon his eventual reemergence. Say that he broke his leg. Say that he's taken several quarrels and he needs to be treated for the blood loss. Say something that won't permanently disfigure him and be easily proven as a lie if it didn't happen, which the boiling oil definitely would. It just really seems to me that the story is told doesn't make that much sense as a deception. And also, if we're talking about him coming back in a trial to protect Marjorie, I already pointed out that him being away from King's Landing leaves Marjgery more vulnerable. But what could be more beneficial to House Tyrell than taking Dragonstone and the young knight of the Flowers, Loris Tyrell, returning as a hero to the city, unwounded, being greeted and loved by the small folk, Tommen giving him a big hug in front of everybody, thanking him for his valiant service to the crown.

[00:25:15]This man is one of the most beloved, handsome, and well-known knights in all of the realm, and it would be incredibly beneficial to the Tyrell cause to further increase his reputation in Westeros and specifically in King's Landing. It doesn't make any sense in world for them to stash Loris on Dragonstone in the hopes that one day he can reemerge to protect Marjgery when returning to the city with a hero's welcome would do far more to protect Marjgery and raise their standing with everyone. If Loris was healthy, all of these things would be a massive boon to House Tyrell and they don't bring him back to the capital, probably because he is injured on Dragonstoneone. I do admit there are some suspicious things about this whole situation, and we haven't seen it directly on Paige yet. But when I weigh all of the evidence, I can't help but lean fairly heavily in the direction that Loris is actually fairly injured and disfigured on Dragonstone, and that's the reason he hasn't returned as a hero. The timing doesn't work for it to be some plot to defend Marjorie at her trial. The situation seems like it organically comes up and it seems fully in character for Loris to rush into the heat of battle like this and to volunteer for the command the way that he did. Marjgery's reaction seems genuine and I really don't know when they would have had much time to do any plotting around this whole situation. I suppose you could say that the lie is entirely on Orrain waters and Loris is just fine on Dragonstone and doesn't know that the lie is happening or the Tyrells aren't in on it. It's all Orin because he is a liar. But this doesn't really make any sense either. Like what is the benefit for him to tell this lie?

[00:26:50]It will, as I pointed out, eventually be found out if he is lying. And obviously he betrays Cersei anyway, but he does that later and more opportunistically.

[00:26:58]So, this seems like it would just be a huge risk if he's the one who concocted this lie for some reason. Plus, Mace Tyrell has returned to the capital by now. So, if this was a lie just on the part of Orin Waters, surely he would have cleared it up at this point. I agree that Waters is not a trustworthy source. But this just seems like such a crazy thing to lie to Cersei's face about in any scenario given how easily verifiable it will all be later on.

[00:27:24]Again, there's just no long-term viability for any of this if it's a lie.

[00:27:29]No, given all the evidence that we have put on page so far, I think that we should lean pretty heavily in the direction of believing pretty much exactly what they say happened to Loris did happen. The main way I could see it not being the case is if in all the years that George has been writing the next book, for some reason of plot or another, he decided he needs Loris to be fully healthy. And considering he hasn't fully put it on page yet, he could change his mind and write his way out of this little thing that he's built. But I do think the bulk of the evidence that he's put on page in what's been published so far tells us that Loris is truly injured. But speaking of George and plot reasons and things like that, why would he do this? Why would he have Loris burned and horribly disfigured?

[00:28:14]How does it serve the story? Well, I'd say first of all, it does make Marjorie more vulnerable in King's Landing when she's eventually captured for her trial.

[00:28:22]But more than that, for Loris's character, it feels like something that George RR Martin would definitely do. He likes to build characters up and then take away the thing they find the most precious. He took away Jaime's sword hand, and Loris is famous for his looks and being the most beautiful man in the Seven Kingdoms. And so taking away those looks by being disfigured by boiling oil, it feels like something that's exactly out of George RR Martin's playbook. And that would be the trait that he would take away for this character. If Loris reemerges after these injuries, he's probably going to be horrifically ugly. Basically like his generation's version of the Hound. It seems like George has built up a situation here where either Loris can be killed off if he doesn't need him anymore or if he does return to the story, he's going to return as a more interesting and developed character because he's gone through this horrible hardship and he's lost one of the traits that he values the most. It also pays off a lot of the things that are set up about Loris's character early on. He's ready to charge into what is basically a suicidal mission trying to be the one to take down Gregor Clegane back in book one when he was just a 16-year-old boy trying to take down the most dangerous man in the kingdoms is something reckless that would probably have led to a bad result. Later on, he still hasn't learned his lesson and charges headlong into a siege of Dragonstoneone and he pays the price for it. When Catelyn views Renley's army, she thinks of them as summer knights who haven't yet seen battle. Essentially, young and immature people who think that war is just a big game to play, eager for war and battle and winning renown and writing their own legends, unaware of the cost that will actually come with it. And Loris finally hits a real taste of battle and he's faced the real consequences of war. That seems to be the story that George is telling us with Loris Tyrell. and it feels like a very natural point in his character arc that he would be horribly injured in this attack on Dragonstone.

[00:30:20]He hasn't died yet, though, and George seems to have left the door open for further character growth and a continuation of this arc, assuming he does eventually get better. If he does return to the story, we're going to see the consequences of everything that he's gone through very directly. And I think that would be really interesting, far more interesting than them lying about him being injured on Dragonstone for some reason. It feels like Loris's character is better served by what we're told being true. And I also think that Cersei's story is better served by it as well. We see Cersei destroying herself with paranoia partially because of the Maggie the Frog prophecy which told her that a younger and more beautiful queen would take everything that she holds dear. Cersei believes this to be Marjorie and she's taking actions that are going to turn the Tyrells from allies into enemies. And it feels like that story hits harder if Cersei's paranoia is the thing that completely undoes her rather than the Tyrell's having this big secret plot about Loris faking an injury on Dragonstone to undermine Cersei somehow. It just feels more interesting to me that she's actually turning an ally into an enemy with her paranoia rather than them having been plotting the whole time. If this is all some sort of grand Tyrell conspiracy, it feels like it sort of just legitimizes Cersei's paranoia, which at least to me feels a little bit less fun. So, it feels to me like both of these stories, Cersei's and Loris's story, make more sense if he is truly injured. Loris is a summer knight, eager to prove himself in battle, and he charges headlong into a dangerous mission and pays the price for it.

[00:31:56]Cersei is paranoid as heck and she drives people to betray her rather than being the victim of all these grand betrayal conspiracies that she imagines are going on in her head. So for all those reasons, I think that the evidence points pretty heavily in one direction and the story would be better served going in that direction. So yeah, I tend to believe Loris is fairly badly injured on Dragonstone. But let me know if you guys agree or disagree down in the comments. Maybe there's something that I've missed about this situation, or you can make a good argument in the other direction. I admit we haven't seen it yet on the page, so the door is still open, and George could still take this one in a different direction. But I think everything he's shown us is going in this one. That's all I've got for you today. Thank you very much for making it to the end. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hype the video before you go. And maybe check out something else on my channel. I'm sure there's something there that you'll enjoy.