The Crannogmen Crackpots

[Syri0_F0rel]

Considering the Crannogmen Crackpots

(Content below includes content through A Dance with Dragons)

Update: I linked a side by side comparison picture of Jon and Meera as portrayed by Kit Harrington and Ellie Kendrick

Disclaimer: I see some textual evidence and outside evidence that lead the conclusions some have proposed regarding Jojen and Meera. That does not mean I 100% agree with them. This is an exploration of those theories.

Credit to people who have proposed the theories and points made throughout: houseHB, Cripper, Neds Dead Baby, Mattah 84, Varys BrightBlackflayrme, Tyrion Always Nose, Aceluby and countless others.

Considerations:

1) The Two Theories and Where They Came From

2) Three Women with ‘The Wolfe’s Blood’

3) ‘Stupid’

4) Jon, Meera and Promises Plural

5) Green Eyes

6)' The Little Grandfather' and his knowledge

7) Age manipulation

Multiple members have brought up the two theories that:

1) Meera is the twin sister of Jon Snow and daughter of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark

2) Jojen is not Meera’s brother but is instead Howland Reed himself

When proposed the theories are quickly dismissed for lack of textual evidence. With this post I will consider these possibilities based on the text. I believe for most who have considered the theories it stems from this point:

“All of the other lords and knights had departed within a day or two of the harvest feast, but the Reeds had stayed to become Bran’s constant companions. Jojen was so solemn that Old Nan called him “little grandfather,” but Meera reminded Bran of his sister Arya. She wasn’t scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. She was older than Arya, though; almost sixteen, a woman grown. They were both older than Bran, even though his ninth name day had finally come and gone, but they never treated him like a child.”

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 - Bran 4

And

Maester Luwin crouched beside Bran’s seat to whisper counsel in his ear. “You must greet these ones warmly. I had not thought to see them here, but... you know who they are?”

Bran nodded. “Crannogmen. From the Neck.”

“Howland Reed was a great friend to your father,” Ser Rodrik told him. “These two are his, it would seem.”

A Clash of Kings Chapter 21 - Bran 3

The first passage is only five sentences but to some readers they can propose quite a bit. First, the Reeds stayed and became companions so there is more to their mission than the feast (Howland sent them after listening to Jojen’s greendream). Secondly Jojen is presented as an old soul and dubbed ‘little grandfather.’ Next, Bran related Meera’s tom boy features to Arya’s and fifteen years in age. Lastly, they do not treat Bran as a child, and as we read later, not as a prince.

Then Maester Luwin remarks that is seems the two are Howland Reed’s children. The uncertainty to “it would seem,” leaves an opening for consideration. So here we go:

Arya is often compared to Lyanna. If Meera is Lyanna’s daughter you’d expect the same character traits from her. I am going to consider parallels in personality between Lyanna, Arya and Meera looking at their level of 1) beauty and attraction 2) tomboyish skill and 3) willfulness.

The three females carry, or wished to carry, weapons. Lyanna and Arya both have ‘the wolf blood’ in them and would like to carry swords. Meera carries a trident, net and dagger.

“It has a name, does it?” Her father sighed. “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child. ‘The wolf blood,’ my father used to call it. Lyanna had a touch of it, and my brother Brandon more than a touch. It brought them both to an early grave.” Arya heard sadness in his voice; he did not often speak of his father, or of the brother and sister who had died before she was born. “Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her.”

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

A Game of Thrones Chapter 22 – Arya 2

Arya is a bit too young and unkempt to be considered beautiful, but since she looks like Lyanna, Arya should become prettier with age. But Lyanna was not the same beauty as typical ladies as Lord Regent Kevan Lannister points out:

“Cersei could have given the prince the sons he wanted, lions with purple eyes and silver manes … and with such a wife, Rhaegar might never have looked twice at Lyanna Stark. The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled, though however bright a torch might burn it could never match the rising sun.”

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 72 – Epilogue

Does Meera share the wild beauty of Arya and Lyanna? Again, it is difficult to assess when she does not dress or act as a lady. Theon is the only one to consider her sexual appeal.

“Theon had not considered that. In truth, he had scarcely considered the mudmen at all, beyond eyeing Meera once or twice and wondering if she was still a maiden. “You may be right. We will spare them if we can.””

A Clash of Kings Chapter 50 – Theon 4

Bran acknowledges her swagger but seemingly more for her ability to walk than physical attraction, although the depth of ‘supple grace’ can be debated, does she simply walk smoothly or does the supple grace add a touch of attraction that a young boy cannot place?

“Meera Reed was sixteen, a woman grown, but she stood no higher than her brother. All the crannogmen were small, she told Bran once when he asked why she wasn’t taller. Brown-haired, green-eyed, and flat as a boy, she walked with a supple grace that Bran could only watch and envy. Meera wore a long sharp dagger…”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

Lyanna loved to ride horses, and Harwin related the way Arya rode horses to the way Lyanna did.

“Both horses were lathered and flagging by the time he came up beside her, reached over, and grabbed her bridle. Arya was breathing hard herself then. She knew the fight was done. “You ride like a northman, milady,” Harwin said when he’d drawn them to a halt. “Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember.””

A Storm of Swords Chapter 17 – Arya 3

Does Meera share the same love for horses despite growing up in the neck? The closest reference to Meera and horses is her insistence on acquiring horses for their small parties quest north:

““There are horses to be had,” said Meera. “Even in the deep of the wolfswood there are foresters, crofters, hunters. Some will have horses.”

“And if they do, should we steal them? Are we thieves? The last thing we need is men hunting us.”

“We could buy them,” she said. “Trade for them.”

“Look at us, Meera. A crippled boy with a direwolf, a simpleminded giant, and two crannogmen a thousand leagues from the Neck. We will be known. And word will spread. So long as Bran remains dead, he is safe. Alive, he becomes prey for those who want him dead for good and true.” Jojen went to the fire to prod the embers with a stick. “Somewhere to the north, the three-eyed crow awaits us. Bran has need of a teacher wiser than me.”…

“The road from Greywater to Winterfell went on forever, and we were mounted then. You want us to travel a longer road on foot, without even knowing where it ends. Beyond the Wall, you say. I haven’t been there, no more than you, but I know that Beyond the Wall’s a big place, Jojen. Are there many three-eyed crows, or only one? How do we find him?”

“Perhaps he will find us.”…

He wondered why they all listened to Jojen so much. He was not a prince like Bran, nor big and strong like Hodor, nor as good a hunter as Meera, yet somehow it was always Jojen telling them what to do. “We should steal horses like Meera wants,” Bran said, “and ride to the Umbers up at Last Hearth.” He thought a moment.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

All three girls enjoy combat. Arya took her sword training seriously and is not afraid to murder. This is well known enough that I will not cite it. Eddard said Lyanna would have carried a sword if she was allowed. While peering through the heartree of Winterfell Bran sees a girl that he immediately thinks is Arya sword fighting with a younger brother. He knows it is not her not because of her looks but because the younger boy would have to be him since he could beat Arya and had shorter hair. It is hypothesized that this is Lyanna schooling her little brother Benjen.

“Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn’t be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. “You be quiet, stupid,” the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. “It’s just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?” She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.”

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 34 – Bran 3

Meera does not shy away from testing herself in combat, fearlessly sparring with a direwolf in the very same godswood and laughing after her victory. It is not a great leap to equate a 15 year old girls fearless and enthusiastic sparring with a wolf as evidence of her possessing ‘the wolfs blood.’

Meera moved in a wary circle, her net dangling loose in her left hand, the slender three-pronged frog spear poised in her right. Summer followed her with his golden eyes, turning, his tail held stiff and tall. Watching, watching...

“Yai!” the girl shouted, the spear darting out. The wolf slid to the left and leapt before she could draw back the spear. Meera cast her net, the tangles unfolding in the air before her. Summer’s leap carried him into it. He dragged it with him as he slammed into her chest and knocked her over backward. Her spear went spinning away. The damp grass cushioned her fall but the breath went out of her in an “Oof.” The wolf crouched atop her.

Bran hooted. “You lose.”

“She wins,” her brother Jojen said. “Summer’s snared.”

He was right, Bran saw. Thrashing and growling at the net, trying to rip free, Summer was only ensnaring himself worse. Nor could he bite through. “Let him out.”

Laughing, the Reed girl threw her arms around the tangled wolf and rolled them both. Summer gave a piteous whine, his legs kicking against the cords that bound them. Meera knelt, undid a twist, pulled at a corner, tugged deftly here and there, and suddenly the direwolf was bounding free.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 – Bran 4

Lyanna, Arya and Meera are also protective of their friends. Lyanna defended the cranngoman from three squires at the Tourney of Harrenhall

But then they heard a roar. ‘That’s my father’s man you’re kicking, howled the she-wolf.”

“A wolf on four legs, or two?”

“Two,” said Meera. “The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Arya defended Mycah (A Game of Thrones Chapter 15 – Arya 1) from King Joffrey and Meera defends Jojen from the direwolves.

A low rumbling growl rose from Summer’s throat, and there was no play in it. He stalked forward, all teeth and hot eyes. Meera stepped between the wolf and her brother, spear in hand. “Keep him back, Bran.”

“Jojen is making him angry.”

Meera shook out her net.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 – Bran 4

I’d like to look now at the willfulness of Lyanna, Arya and Meera. One thing I have always enjoyed about Arya is that she often calls others ‘stupid.’

Referring to Sansa’s questions on the Trident:

“Rubies,” Sansa said, lost. “What rubies?”

Arya gave her a look like she was so stupid. “Rhaegar’s rubies. This is where King Robert killed him and won the crown.”

After punching Jon when the boys tried to scare her in the crypts while she was young:

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

Talking to Elmar:

Elmar’s eyes got as big as boiled eggs. Leeches terrified him, especially the big pale ones that looked like jelly until they filled up with blood. “I forgot, you’re too skinny to push such a heavy barrel.”

“I forgot, you’re stupid.” Arya picked up the pail. “Maybe you should get leeched too. There’s leeches in the Neck as big as pigs.” She left him there with his barrel.

On her trek with north with the Nights Watch recruits:

Arya hated them making fun of Needle. “It’s castle-forged steel, you stupid,” she snapped, turning in the saddle to glare at them, “and you better shut your mouth.”

To the little refugee:

Something bumped against her leg, and she glanced down to discover the crying girl clutching her. “Get away!” She wrenched her leg free. “What are you doing up here? Run and hide someplace, you stupid.” She shoved the girl away.

About Gendry getting caught by Lannisters:

The two spearmen turned at the cry, and a third man came into view, shoving a captive before him. It was growing too dark to make out faces, but the prisoner was wearing a shiny steel helm, and when Arya saw the horns she knew it was Gendry. You stupid stupid stupid STUPID! she thought. If he’d been here she would have kicked him again.

There are many more examples. However, the other females are also quick to call another ‘stupid.' Here is the supposed Lyanna with Benjen while fighting with sticks:

“You be quiet, stupid,” the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. “It’s just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?”

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 34 – Bran 3

Meera also calls her brother ‘stupid.’ Although it does not seem accurate, more in a way that she is suppressing her own feelings finally released in tears at the end, reminiscent of Arya who also suppresses her feelings by resorting to insults and an appearance of toughness.

“He wants to go home,” Meera told Bran. “He will not even try and fight his fate. He says the

greendreams do not lie.”

“He’s being brave,” said Bran. The only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid, his father

had told him once, long ago, on the day they found the direwolf pups in the summer snows. He still

remembered.

“He’s being stupid,” Meera said. “I’d hoped that when we found your three-eyed crow … now I

wonder why we ever came.”

For me, Bran thought. “His greendreams,” he said. “His greendreams.” Meera’s voice was bitter.

“Hodor,” said Hodor.

Meera began to cry.

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 34 – Bran 3

In a similar tone as Arya’s, Meera complains about the mountains as being stupid:

“Up and down,” Meera would sigh sometimes as they walked, “then down and up. Then up and down again. I hate these stupid mountains of yours, Prince Bran.”

“Yesterday you said you loved them.”

“Oh, I do. My lord father told me about mountains, but I never saw one till now. I love them more than I can say.”

Bran made a face at her. “But you just said you hated them.”

“Why can’t it be both?” Meera reached up to pinch his nose.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Arya’s defiance and willfulness is a common theme to nearly everything she does to a point that I will not present examples. Lyanna was considered willful as well. Eddard reminds Robert of this as he prepares for the melee.

“The mirth curdled on Robert’s face. “The woman tried to forbid me to fight in the melee. She’s sulking in the castle now, damn her. Your sister would never have shamed me like that.”

“You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert,” Ned told him. “You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee.””

A Game of Thrones Chapter 28 – Eddard 7

“She was,” Eddard Stark agreed, “beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time.”

A Game of Thrones Chapter 22 – Arya 2

Meera shows traces of willfulness and defiance when arguing with Jojen when she is described as tense, demanding and defiant.

“My brother has the greensight,” said Meera. “He dreams things that haven’t happened, but sometimes they do.”

“There is no sometimes, Meera.” A look passed between them; him sad, her defiant.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 – Bran 4

“Come the morrow,” Jojen announced, “we had best move on.”

Bran could see Meera tense. “Have you had a green dream?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Why leave, then?” his sister demanded. “Tumbledown Tower’s a good place for us. No villages near, the woods are full of game, there’s fish and frogs in the streams and lakes... and who is ever going to find us here?”

“This is not the place we are meant to be.”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

There are similarities between the three females, definitive between Arya and Lyanna. The only strong reference between Arya and Meera is from Bran. What other evidence could lead to the possibility that Lyanna had twins, Jon and Meera?

Jon and Meera are both 15 during Clash of Kings, the appendix gives the ages:

ROBB STARK, Lord of Winterfell and King in the North, eldest son of Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and Lady Catelyn of House Tully, a boy of fifteen years,

-his half brother, JON SNOW, a bastard of fifteen years, a man of the Night’s Watch,

-HOWLAND REED of Greywater Watch, a crannogman,

-Howland’s daughter, MEERA, a maid of fifteen,

-Howland’s son, JOJEN, a boy of thirteen,

A Clash of Kings Appendix

(Side note: the original description of Jojen Reed placed him several years younger than Meera, not a couple.)

Twin pregnancies carry greater risks, increasing Lyanna’s chances of death during the birth. It is assumed that Lyanna’s death on a bed of blood was a pregnancy bed.

Jon and Meera are both playful with younger companions. Jon mushed Arya’s hair, it bonded them together and they both reflected on it. Meera did not mush Bran’s hair but she would smile at him when he was frustrated times and pinch his nose.

“Why can’t it be both?” Meera reached up to pinch his nose.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

He [Hodor] was the only one who liked Bran’s plan, though. Meera just smiled at him and Jojen frowned.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

Briefly departing from the books and heading to the television show and interviews, people have pointed out that Ellie Kendrick who plays Meera Reed resembles Kit Harington who plays Jon Snow. After some comparisons, they freakishly do (link to picture).

Alfie Allen, who plays Theon Greyjoy, stated in an interview that he knows Jon Snows parents and says it is a Luke Skywalker situation.

I asked [George R.R. Martin] about who Jon Snow’s real parents were, and he told me. I can’t say who, but I can tell you that it involves a bit of a Luke Skywalker situation.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/06/game-of-thrones-theon-alfie-allen-interview.html?imw=Y

Luke Skywalker was a twin split from his sister at birth. Luke was raised by his aunt and uncle just as Jon Snow is. His sister Leia was adopted by close ally Bail Organa. Their mother was sent home for burial appearing still to be pregnant so no one would consider the twins existence. The parallel then could be Lyanna had twins, neither of which the world knows about. Jon went to live with his Aunt and Uncle but thinking them to be his parents and Meera went to live with an ally thinking him to be his father.

We know Ned promised Lyanna something and under the theory that Rhaegar and Lyanna gave birth to Jon Snow, he promised to keep Jon safe from Robert’s wrath upon Targaryen heirs by raising him as a bastard. But he made more than one promise to Lyanna as they are referred to them in the plural.

“I will,” Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he’d made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he’d paid to keep them.

A Game of Thrones Chapter 27 – Eddard 6

Was it promises: 1) Raise Jon 2) Don’t tell anyone or 1) Ned, raise the boy at Winterfell as your bastard and 2)Howland, raise the girl at Greywater Watch as your daughter where no one will see her? More likely, Eddard was promising 1) To raise Jon as his bastard and 2) Bury her body in the crypts, as he told Robert she wished.

“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.” He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned.

A Game of Thrones Chapter 4 – Eddard 1

The eye color of Jojen Reed is made clear from first introduction. He has mossy green eye sand referenced often.

Jojen’s eyes were the color of moss, and sometimes when he looked at you he seemed to be seeing something else.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Meera’s eyes are never mentioned in Clash of Kings and I finally revealed Storm of Swords as ‘brown-haired, green-eyed.’ The brown hair is fitting for a Stark but not the green eyes, Starks often had Grey and Targaryen’s purple. Although eye color is not always concrete. My wife calls her eyes blue but depending on her makeup or what she wears they vary between blue, green and grey. Furthermore George R.R. Martin said on Conan O’Brian’s Show that he has made mistakes with eye color.

CONAN: You made mistakes that these fans have caught, is that right? Over the books, there are inconsistencies?

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: I'm terrible with eye color. Some had blue eyes and then green eyes. Fans noticed this, I get tons of letters. A horse changed sex between the first book and the second book. I'm not good with horses.

http://teamcoco.com/video/george-r-r-martin-writing-fast

The second theory presented in the first cited passage is that Jojen Reed is actually Howland Reed. This is largely based on his nickname, the Little Grandfather.

“You were gone too long.” Jojen Reed was thirteen, only four years older than Bran. Jojen wasn’t much bigger either, no more than two inches or maybe three, but he had a solemn way of talking that made him seem older and wiser than he really was. At Winterfell, Old Nan had dubbed him “little grandfather.”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

Jojen’s eyes were a dark green, the color of moss, but heavy with a weariness that Bran had never seen in them before. The little grandfather. South of the Wall, the boy from the crannogs had seemed to be wise beyond his years, but up here he was as lost and frightened as the rest of them. Even so, Meera always listened to him.

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 4 – Bran 1

Before Meera could find a reply to that, they heard the sound; the distant howl of a wolf, drifting through the night. “Summer?” asked Jojen, listening.

“No.” Bran knew the voice of his direwolf.

“Are you certain?” said the little grandfather.

“Certain.” Summer had wandered far afield today, and would not be back till dawn. Maybe Jojen dreams green, but he can’t tell a wolf from a direwolf. He wondered why they all listened to Jojen so much. He was not a prince like Bran, nor big and strong like Hodor, nor as good a hunter as Meera, yet somehow it was always Jojen telling them what to do. “We should steal horses like Meera wants,”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

Jojen knows quite a bit about wargs, greenseers and green dreams. He has knowledge that is not common to most. Wargs are more like wildling boogeymen to the Stark children until they learn they themselves are wargs. Jojen has a lot of knowledge for a 13 year old. I am not going to cite all the examples from his coaching of Bran during their journey. This is not crazy though considering the closeness of the Neck to the ways of the Children of the Forest. Master Luwin advised Theon:

Theon was about to tell him what he ought to do with his wet nurse’s fable when Maester Luwin spoke up. “The histories say the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck. It may be that they have secret knowledge.”

A Clash of Kings Chapter 50 – Theon 4

A last contribution to Jojen’s old soul character is the way he speaks:

“You have three. The crow gave you the third, but you will not open it.” He had a slow soft way of speaking.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 – Bran 4

An obvious point is that Jojen is said to be and appears thirteen years old. Shortness is a major physical characteristic of crannogmen. In the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree the crannogman assumed to be Howland Reed is a full man grown but smaller than 15 year old squires.

“The lad knew the magics of the crannogs,” she continued, “but he wanted more. Our people seldom travel far from home, you know. We’re a small folk, and our ways seem queer to some, so the big people do not always treat us kindly. But this lad was bolder than most, and one day when he had grown to manhood he decided he would leave the crannogs and visit the Isle of Faces.”

Additionally,

“Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran. The little crannogman was walking across the field, enjoying the warm spring day and harming none, when he was set upon by three squires. They were none older than fifteen, yet even so they were bigger than him, all three. This was their world, as they saw it, and he had no right to be there. They snatched away his spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him for a frogeater.”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Bran is trying to imagine this crannogman and he pictures an older version of Jojen.

Bran closed his eyes to try and see the man in his little skin boat. In his head, the crannogman looked like Jojen, only older and stronger and dressed like Meera.

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Meera’s dress being:

“It was the green men he meant to find. So he donned a shirt sewn with bronze scales, like mine, took up a leathern shield and a threepronged spear, like mine, and paddled a little skin boat down the Green Fork.”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Is Meera wearing the actual clothes? Is she like the crannogman now on her own mission outside of the neck? More interesting is the helm she carries…

“under her arm she carried an old iron greathelm spotted with rust”

A Clash of Kings Chapter 21 - Bran 3

Why would a girl carry a greathelm? They are huge, severely limit visibility and her only use for it has been for cooking. If the theory that Lyanna Stark is the Knight of the Laughing Tree and that Meera is Lyanna’s daughter you would have Meera carrying the legacy of her mother with her.

There are also hints that Jojen cannot be Howland Reed. If the crannogman in the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree is Howland Reed then he is no Jojen Reed. That crannogman did not have green dreams like Jojen, but he did seem to have many other alluded to tricks or magic.

“That’s true.” Meera walked with her shield on her back, pushing an occasional branch out of the way with her frog spear.Just when Bran began to think that she wasn’t going to tell the story after all, she began, “Once there was a curious lad who lived in the Neck. He was small like all crannogmen, but brave and smart and strong as well. He grew up hunting and fishing and climbing trees, and learned all the magics of my people.”

Bran was almost certain he had never heard this story. “Did he have green dreams like Jojen?”

“No,” said Meera, “but he could breathe mud and run on leaves, and change earth to water and water to earth with no more than a whispered word. He could talk to trees and weave words and make castles appear and disappear.”

A Storm of Swords Chapter 24 – Bran 2

Meera is quick to say the man did not have Jojen’s green dream power. She is also quick to mention the magics of her people, including herself as a crannogman.

Also, Jojen and Meera say when they shared a green dream of Bran as the winged wolf, Howland sent them to Winterfell. In this text there are no settle clues alluding to Meera and Jojen bring anything other than Howland Reed’s children.

“You are the winged wolf, Bran,” said Jojen. “I wasn’t sure when we first came, but now I am. The crow sent us here to break your chains.”

“Is the crow at Greywater?”

“No. The crow is in the north.”

“At the Wall?” Bran had always wanted to see the Wall. His bastard brother Jon was there now, a man of the Night’s Watch.

“Beyond the Wall.” Meera Reed hung the net from her belt. “When Jojen told our lord father what he’d dreamed, he sent us to Winterfell.”

A Clash of Kings Chapter 28 – Bran 4

An immediate thought is though, who sends a 15 year old and a 13 year old through a conflict zone on their own? If Jojen is Howland it seems more practical. Jojen spoke of dangers on the road as if he had the experience of a veteran scout or field commander.

“Your maester said naught of Robb when he lay dying,” Jojen reminded him. “Ironmen on the Stony Shore, he said, and, east, the Bastard of Bolton. Moat Cailin and Deepwood Motte fallen, the heir to Cerwyn dead, and the castellan of Torrhen’s Square. War everywhere, he said, each man against his neighbor.”

Storms of Swords Chapter 9 – Bran 1

As pointed out above, Jojen is originally described as several years younger than Meera, but the appendix places him at two years younger.

Her brother was several years younger and bore no weapons.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 21 - Bran 3

The Children of the Forest are shorter and live longer. It is alluded to by Maester Luwin that the Crannogmen and children of the Forest became close. There is no proof of the species intermixing and no examples of young and old crannogmen to assess how they age but we do know leaf was over 200 years old.

“Tell us what you saw.” From far away Leaf looked almost a girl, no older than Bran or one of his

sisters, but close at hand she seemed far older. She claimed to have seen two hundred years.”

A Dance of Dragons Chapter 34 – Bran 3

Faceless men have the ability to manipulate their appearance with magic as seen with Arya, and Waif was 36 but appeared to be a child due to poisons that stunted her aging.

The waif showed ten fingers. Then ten again, and yet again. Then six. Her face remained as smooth as still water. She can’t be six-and-thirty, Arya thought. She’s a little girl. “You’re lying,” she said. The waif shook her head and showed her once again: ten and ten and ten and six. She said the words for six-and-thirty, and made Arya say them too.

The next day she told the kindly man what the waif had claimed. “She did not lie,” the priest said, chuckling. “The one you call waif is a woman grown who has spent her life serving Him of Many Faces. She gave Him all she was, all she ever might have been, all the lives that were within her.”

Arya bit her lip. “Will I be like her?”

“No,” he said, “not unless you wish it. It is the poisons that have made her as you see her.”

Poisons. She understood then. Every evening after prayer the waif emptied a stone flagon into the waters of the black pool.

A Feast of Crows Chapter 22 – Arya 2

Crannogmen use poison against intruders but there is no evidence to support Howland Reed was subject to the same poisons as Waif.

It was said that they were a cowardly people who fought with poisoned weapons and preferred to hide from foes rather than face them in open battle.

A Clash of Kings Chapter 21 – Bran 3

In conclusion, there is some textual evidence to support the theories but I wouldn’t suggest placing any thousand dollar bets. Time will tell.

[JD Martell]

I'm not sure if this is crackpot or brilliant, but I know it's very well reasoned! Great job - I've never wondered if Meera was Jon's twin, but now I shall be unless proven otherwise in cannon.

[TheNorthernWarrior]

Not sure about Meera being Jon's twin, not sure the point of it really.

Howland being Jojen... I think that is interesting. Could be using a Glamour or some other form of magic. This would place Howland in the North, conceivably in distance to have a run in with Jon at some point...

[Old Ida]

I'm not sure if this is crackpot or brilliant, but I know it's very well reasoned! Great job - I've never wondered if Meera was Jon's twin, but now I shall be unless proven otherwise in cannon.

:agree: very interesting to read... and even if I have not thought of Jon as twin.. " a bit of a Luke Skywalker situation" :dunno:

[JJ Crow]

Because no other females in Westeros are wild and beautiful. Anywhere? If their are other wild beautiful girls in Westeros; Are they also related to Jon and Arya?

[JJ Crow]

Oh and by the way....nothing was proven in the text other than some similarities between some characters.

[Brynden Rivers]

I don't buy the Jojen is Howland Rees bit but the more I think about Meera/Jon being twins the more it seems plausible. I mean if Lyanna had twins they would logically want to split them up, and if Ned were to take one who would be more likely to take the other twin than Howland Reed

[Vegeta_Greyjoy]

The Meera stuff seems like grasping at straws but I stayed for the Jojen theory and I must say...there might be something to it.

For such an important character, the young Reeds barely mention Howland by name, and Bran asks surprisingly few questions.

[Obebb]

I've been a sort of believer of that Meera is Jon's twin theory for a while now. It doesn't seem too crazy too me at all.

Very great post OP!!! :D

[Kennedy the Keen]

That would definitely be very very interesting. So much subtle evidence! I would be surprised if this actually happen, but George likes to surprise us. That little bit on "Luke Skywalker" really makes you wonder what he means. I wouldn't be displeased if this actually wound up happening!

Great job, tWoW can't come fast enough!

[Petyr Patter]

I don't buy it, since I don't know what the point of the deception would be, or for that matter how is Howland Reed managing to look like a kid for so long. Magic? It does support my contention that Howland Reed was the Laughing Knight, but imbued with some sort of magic that made him far more skilled.

Still, this theory is such delightfully crackpot that I can only say "good work."

[Bloodrobin]

No one has started a Howland Paste thread yet? :idea:

[Syri0_F0rel]

Oh and by the way....nothing was proven in the text other than some similarities between some characters.

The very first line and the very last line of the post I state that I do not buy into the theories. Laced into the post is also evidence against the theories. You're right, I didn't prove anything. I didn't set out to prove anything, just to consider possibilities.

[roxWolfox]

As other posters have stated, the similarities of the girls isn't proof of anything other than that they are willful, independent, and have no issue with bearing weapons. Wylla Manderly and the Mormont gals (Lyanna Mormont being especially entertainingly so) are also willful and independent thinkers, and the Mormont gals are rather fearsome warriors...could it be a 'northern girl' thing?. As well, if Lyanna had had twins (by Rhaegar), why would Ned be so careless in placing them so close to one another? Wouldn't he be more inclined to keep them completely separate? One in the north, the other in the south (Starfall for example)?

My above statements/questions aside, this was an interesting read, and well thought out.

[horizon]

True or not, a well done research.

[Armstark]

. As well, if Lyanna had had twins (by Rhaegar), why would Ned be so careless in placing them so close to one another? Wouldn't he be more inclined to keep them completely separate? One in the north, the other in the south (Starfall for example)?

Aren't they completely separate? They never saw each other, never heard of each other and nobody ever suspected anything. I couldn't think of a better place to hide a child than the neck. Nobody ever goes there.

[Ser Pink of Floyd]

The Jojen/Howland theory is indeed a clever one. The answer to why Howland has been absent for so long, only to be hiding in plain sight. If true, he wouldn't be the first character in the book to hide his identity (Arya, Sarella Sand, Ser Barristan).

[roxWolfox]

Aren't they completely separate? They never saw each other, never heard of each other and nobody ever suspected anything. I couldn't think of a better place to hide a child than the neck. Nobody ever goes there.

I agree with you in that 'Nobody ever goes there', except there had to be at least one time that Lord Eddard Stark (just conjecture right this moment, as I would have to re-read all Ned's chapters or mentions by others of Howland Reed to find a quote) traveled to Greywater Watch... i.e., during Balon's rebellion. As Ned would most likely have a personal guard, someone in Ned's circle would have seen Howland's family up close - close enough to notice if Meera resembled Reed and his wife, or a Stark (since most in the north had never seen a Targaryen, that wouldn't be an issue). Plus, I'm almost certain that Ned would have introduced Robb, the next Lord of Winterfell, to Howland and family.

Unless Ned believed in the 'hidden in plain sight' scenario, my thought is that he'd keep the two babes as far away from each other as possible (if there were a case for Lyanna having twins). While writing this I read a few of Bran's chapters, and nowhere could I find anything that led me to believe that Meera does not closely resemble Jojen. Her eye colour is something I haven't been able to find at this time.

[Syri0_F0rel]

As other posters have stated, the similarities of the girls isn't proof of anything other than that they are willful, independent, and have no issue with bearing weapons. Wylla Manderly and the Mormont gals (Lyanna Mormont being especially entertainingly so) are also willful and independent thinkers, and the Mormont gals are rather fearsome warriors...could it be a 'northern girl' thing?. As well, if Lyanna had had twins (by Rhaegar), why would Ned be so careless in placing them so close to one another? Wouldn't he be more inclined to keep them completely separate? One in the north, the other in the south (Starfall for example)?

My above statements/questions aside, this was an interesting read, and well thought out.

(Willful girls) That is a point that crossed my mind many times. There are many defiant characters and as you mentioned the women in the north. I love Lyanna Mormont's reply to Stannis. And I keep picturing it done in the handwriting of a ten year old. Coincidentally she is named after Lyanna Stark. Wylla Manderly's outburst in front of Davos was fantastic and showed the real pain House Manderly has felt with the murder of Wendel and the dispiriting imprisonment of Wylis Manderly (god only knows how he was treated).

Other characters repeatedly use the term stupid, Joffrey being one of them. Saying Meera wanted horses to travel quicker to the wall is absolutely no proof that she loves to ride like Lyanna did. I will disagree about the weapons though, what other girls use weapons? There are willful girls but not girls using weapons.

The sought after clues relating Meera to Arya and Lyanna are the weakest parts I considered. I was working with the idea that Martin is putting out a novella called The She-Wolves of Winterfell, which sounds great because we don't know anything about any Lady Starks besides Catelyn. The plural in She-Wolves means there are probably common traits like the Sand Snakes so I went out looking for what exactly those traits are and if Meera fits them.

There are a lot more points to consider besides character relations between Meera and Arya/Lyanna. More so the little clues, "These two are his, it would seem." Meera carrying around (allegedly) the great helm of the Knight of the Laughing Tree worn by her mother when she avenged the bullying of Howland Reed (allegedly). That Jojen Reed first appeared several years younger than Meera then that was changed in the appendix to two years. Or the fact that Meera and Jon are the exact same age and were never given the chance to meet one another despite the closeness of the two 'fathers'.

Additional consideration for the Jojen=Reed concept: Glamour. I just finished my first re-read and originally failed to appreciate the power of glamour and instead considered poison for age manipulation: The Kindly Man's worm in the eye socket, Malisandre's painful glamour swapping Rattleshirt and Mance's appearance.

She made it sound a simple thing, and easy. They need never know how difficult it had been, or how much it had cost her. That was a lesson Melisandre had learned long before Asshai; the more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer. When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. Thankfully Lord Snow had delivered her from that agony with his arrows. Whilst Stannis had seethed at the defiance, she had shuddered with relief.

Dance of Dragons Chapter 31 - Melisandre

If Jojen is Howland, could glamour be the source of the appearance? That could explain why they did not bring fellow Crannogmen with them or why Jojen is in such discomfort as he painfully maintains a glamour over a sickening adult body.

Lastly, I noticed while rereading other characters who defy aging. Roose Bolton and Euron Greyjoy have not seemed to age over time. Euron's shorter absence makes it seem practical but it is still to a point that Victarion found it worth pondering.

The Lord of the Dreadfort did not have a strong likeness to his bastard son. His face was clean-shaved, smooth-skinned, ordinary, not handsome but not quite plain. Though Roose had been in battles, he bore no scars. Though well past forty, he was as yet unwrinkled, with scarce a line to tell of the passage of time. His lips were so thin that when he pressed them together they seemed to vanish altogether. There was an agelessness about him, a stillness; on Roose Bolton’s face, rage and joy looked much the same. All he and Ramsay had in common were their eyes. His eyes are ice. Reek wondered if Roose Bolton ever cried. If so, do the tears feel cold upon his cheeks?

Dance of Dragons Chapter 20 - Reek 2

He looks unchanged, Victarion thought. He looks the same as he did the day he laughed at me and left. Euron was the most comely of Lord Quellon’s sons, and three years of exile had not changed that. His hair was still black as a midnight sea, with never a whitecap to be seen, and his face was still smooth and pale beneath his neat dark beard. A black leather patch covered Euron’s left eye, but his right was blue as a summer sky. His smiling eye, thought Victarion. “Crow’s Eye,” he said.

Feast of Crows Chapter 18 - The Iron Captain

[roxWolfox]

The Mormont girls use weapons, certainly, but I have nothing quotable to state that Manderly's daughters/granddaughters are warriors-in-training, and I can only assume that the mountain clan gals are trained to bear weapons as well if only to be able to defend themselves against raiding wildling parties. Arya definitely did get her way when it came to training, but I think that was because of sentimentality on Ned's part.

On the flip side of the Reed's agelessness could be the rumoured combination of the CotF/Crannogmen blood. It's only hinted at, but if the crannogs and Children did hook up once or twice centuries ago, perhaps the blood of the Children (who live for centuries) allows the Reeds to appear to age more slowly than the rest of the people.

As for Euron...only the gods know what that is all about. If he did spend time in Asshai, he could have learned something about using glamours, or he could be one of those people who just looks the same year after year (hard to swallow, I know, as he's a sailor exposed to the elements constantly). My first thought when I read about him was that he was some kind of energy vampire. His past is a mystery that I look forward to having more insight to.

I do recall reading somewhere that Howland Reed will be showing up in a later book (perhaps the last one), but in the end, only the author knows for sure. ;)

ETA:

And then there's Roose. I bet that b@st@rd is a descendent of the Night's King and his Other queen. Would explain why he constantly needs to thin out his blood (if his blood gets too hot, he'll melt). :angry2: The B@st@rd.