This character confuses me...

For example my opponent has the Queen of Thorns in play (house of thorns); now, I know I can copy her triggered ability, but the question is: can I use it???

The queen of thorns says: "kneel the queen of thorns to cancel a triggered effect"... But I don't have the Queen of thorns.. So I can't kneel her (even if Dornan Martell has her triggered ability he is not the queen of thorns).

am I right?

the short answer is yes, you can both copy and use the abilty.

The long answer, which ktom can spell out much bett then I, has to do with Doran gaining the self referential part of the abilty and it then refers to him (self referential and all).

Lars said:

er......?

Now I really do want to see ktom's answer because I thought the opposite.

I thought Doran could NOT use self referential abilities from other characters because they don't refer to him by card name, greatly limiting his usefulness. I'll be sad if I've been ignoring poor Doran all this time due to a misunderstanding

ick. i read ktom's answer about being able to use doran to copy arys' abilty, but i didn't continue reading where he says, name is not interchanged....seems silly, but its mostly not going to be an issue.

The biggest confusion with Doran is that everyone always seems to think he copies the ability. He does not. He gains the ability. It's completely different. Since he gains the ability, he essentially gets, word-for-word, what is on the other card. Therefore, anything self-referential on the original card is no longer self-referential.

thorin - if you used Doran's ability to give him the ability (word for word) from the QoT, you are correct that you could not kneel Doran to pay the cost of the ability he just gained. However, if you have a card (or cards) names "Queen of Thorns," you could kneel them to pay the cost of the ability Doran gained. Essentially, the ability Doran gains says you have to kneel "The Queen of Thorns" to pay the cost. Since Doran is not the QoT, the ability is not self-referential when it is on him. It becomes no different than "kneel a [LANNI] character;" any one that meets the definition will do (assuming you control it).

So the answer is yes - he could gain the ability, no - he could not pay the cost to use it, and yes - you could use it, but only if you have a card named "The Queen on Thorns." In practical terms, you couldn't use it, but in theory, you could.

Doran could be used to trigger an ability of a character you control who has been milked if he is copying the ability of a non milked one controlled by your opponent. Also Doran could be used to trigger the ability of a different version of a character you have. Say you have King Renly and Doran in play and your opponent has Core Set Renly in Play. You could use Doran's ability to Copy CS Renly's ability to effect King Renly.

Obviousely these are not everyday situations, but are little tricks than can be useful. One that is useful against a certain deck is using Doran to claim power forr your House when someone like Alayne Stone or Tywin's Elite Dies. Since killing the character is not a cost but a play restriction to trigger the ability Doran can copy it.

Thank you very much for the answers, now I see the light...