Establishing Ashara Dayne's birth year.

[Mladen]

Young maid iirc in the books is between 14-18/19. How could the most beautifull woman in the world be unwed till her late 20s?

Basically this.

Described as a young maid by Barristan Selmy remember. ;)

"Young" is a relative thing. Also Barristan may have cloudy eyes on the question of her maiden status.

I am not talking about her being virgin. And Barristan is not the only one who had called her young. Catelyn did it too, and she wouldn't be doing that if Ashara died older than her. As said before, young maid is a term in medieval English used for girls in their teens, not the women in their late 20s.

[Hippocras]

Does anyone happen to have the various descriptions compiled?

[JonCon's Red Beard]

This is the problem when one trope happens. Everybody expects it to repeat endlessly and they expect it to happen so suddenly. THere is two already "thought to be dead" people in Aegon's plot: Jon Connington and Aegon. Aegon was foreshadowed in Clash and in both Feast and Storms, Jon's name was not only named but in Feast, his whole story is mentioned (in a Jaime chapter, when he meets Ronnet Connington), so we don't feel that Jon's story is brought out of nowhere because we see a progress with Connington and the info we got about him through ASOIAF:

GoT:

no mention.

Clash

first mention of Ronnet, as a griffin and Griffin's Roost

SoS

Barristan says Lord Connington had Rhaegar's friendship (that's important)

A Lord Connington was Hand of the King and fought against Robert.

Jaime reads his name in the White Book. We know his name, but still we don't know he's the same "Lord Connington" friend of Rhaegar and Hand of the King.

FfC

Cersei says he knew a Hand named Jon Connington.

Then Jaime meets Ronnet and we finally got the full story: Jon Connington was friend of Rhaegar, hand, fought the Battle, lost, got exiled and died.

Dance:

He's alive!!!

So, he doesn't come out of nowhere and he's being hinted in the preview books. Does this happen with Ashara Dayne?

GoT:

Cat thought her to be mother of Jon

Also, Cersei confirms she's dead because she jump onto the sea

Clash:

Cat thinks about her as a possible mother of Jon and says she's been dead many years.

SoS

The Harrenhal story, her name is not mentioned

Edric Dayne says Ashara is dead by the same motive than Cersei in GoT and also says she was heartbroken.

ETA: Arya, GEndry and Edric Dayne theorise about AShara being mother of Jon.

Feast:

no mention

Dance:

Barristan speaks about her and how Dany reminds him of her. We also know that he thinks she looked for a Stark to aid her.

Compare the references to Jon being alive with anything we k now about Ashara. Jon's story develops through the books, while Ashara's, doesn't. And if her story implies anything, it's related to the Starks and Jon (Snow), not Aegon.

(Edit: a lot of orthographic/grammatical mistakes. I'm hungry)

[Starspear]

post-259 AL.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions

If she's still alive now, she'd be in her 30s.

[Mladen]

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions

If she's still alive now, she'd be in her 30s.

Thanks, Apple... I knew there was SSM about this, but couldn't have found it...

That being said, this nails the coffin to that idiotic idea about Ashara being Darkstar's mother.

[Starspear]

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions

[corbon]

Ashara is described by Barristan as young maid in his reminiscence of events prior to RR. This would put her to be between 12/13 and 18, but not necessarily.

Barristan is over 40 at the time. "Young" fits anyone under some variable number, depending on the individual. From this alone, early twenties would not be unreasonable.

Given that Ned was in love with her, one can assume that she was his age, or approximately there, so around mid 260s.

First, nothing acually points to Ned being in love with her other than hearsay from folks who didn't know them, weren't around them, and make the comments after Ned comes away from Starfall with Jon.

Second, thats not a reasonable assumption. Even if Ned was in love with her, she could easily be a few years older. You think that ancient crone Arianne (mid twenties) couldn't make some late-teens boy fall in love with her?

Yeah, we do know that he wanted to dance with her, so we can assume that he at least had some crush during Harrenhal tourney

We know no such thing.

The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf...but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

We know Brandon spoke to her on Ned's behalf, but not whether Ned wanted it, or whether Brandon felt Ned needed it whether he wanted it or not. Note that Ned is too shy to leave his bench, and not necessarily of Ashara - he's the shy wolf (elsewhere) after all.

While it is possible Ned asked Brandon to ask Ashara, frankly thats lame - it doesn't fit Ned, nor the typical shy nice-guy. If Ned wanted to dance with her and had the courage to actually dance with her, then its only a tiny step to having the courage to ask her himself. To put it another way, its a huge gulf for a shy guy between wanting to dance with a girl and actually getting up and dancing with her. Its a much smaller gulf between getting up to dance with her and actually asking her. Numerically, for example, I'd put:

"likes a girl enough to want to dance with her but is paralyzed by shyness and won't dance, period" at 1,

"likes a girl enough to want to dance wit her and will dance with her if she asks him" at 5,

"likes a girl enough to want to dance with her and will work through an intermediary to get that dance" at 8, (and unusual for nice guys)

"likes a girl enough to want to dance with her and will actually overcome shyness to risk going and asking her" at 10.

It also assumes Brandon was around Ned instead of enjoying the party, since Ned is too shy to leave his bench.

I've been that shy kid, though a bit younger than Ned, and a bit more willing to force myself to participate when I really would rather have not, and I have similar values and personality (in real life at least) to parts of Ned. The only time I ever turned a girl down when she asked me to dance was when my knee was the size of a football and it was physically impossible to accommodate her. Too shy to ask, sure, but definitely not prepared to embarrass her by turning her down if she asked.

What that scene reads to me, as much more probable and better fitting with a shy wolf who isn't leaving his bench at all, is the outgoing brother seeing shy little brother too shy to actually join the party period, and without little brother's cognisance actioning him to have some fun despite himself by getting a girl to ask him to dance, whereupon he must be actively rude to turn her down or must get up and participate.

I've seen that sort of thing in action, more than once.

From the first quote, we can conclude two things: that Ashara was considered to be young and that she is Arthur's younger sister. The second quote points that Arthur and Rhaegar were childhood friends, meaning that Arthur must have been of Rhaegar's age or somewhere close to it. Rhaegar was born in 259AL, which means that Arthur was also born around that age. Ashara as younger sister would definitely be born in 260s

Thats good work and deserves recognition as such.

And Barristan is not the only one who had called her young. Catelyn did it too, and she wouldn't be doing that if Ashara died older than her.

Catelyn was repeating someone else's description, not assigning it herself.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions

If she's still alive now, she'd be in her 30s.

And this is definitive.

So the current timeline at end of ADwD is 300AD and Ashara, if alive, would be in her 30s (30-39), so she was definitive born between late 260 and early 269.

[Kat]

Mod note: Come on people, you're on a message board about fantasy books. What about that requires personalized attacks? Keep it civil.

[LadyoftheNorth72]

"And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthurs sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea."

I disagree that this quote necessarily means Ashara was younger than Arthur. On the wiki pages for the Daynes, Ashara is listed before Arthur on the family tree lines, which would usually indicate she was born before him.

That is not conclusive either since years of birth are not given for either of them, but Ashara could have been a year or two older and still been referred to as his young sister. Arya is older than Bran but would certainly still be called young. It does not say youngER.

If Ashara truly committed suicide, part of her grief over her brother's death could certainly be that of a sister for her younger brother that she had grown up feeling somewhat protective toward. My 20 year old daughter has six younger brothers, one just 12 1/2 months younger, and even though he's certainly more physically imposing than she is he will always be her baby brother to her.

Also, if you subscribe to the idea that Lemore is Ashara, that gives her a birth year at +/- 260. That would have made her 21 at Whent's tourney, a bit up there to be unmarried, but not unheard of. Selmy was in love with her, but that would have made him 44ish at the tourney and 46ish at the time of her death and thus twice her age when she died. So his description of her as a young maiden needs to be taken from his perspective.

The fact is that barring further actual information all we can go on is speculation or assumption - there are no answers here. Far too many possibilities and wide ranges in which each mention of her could be interpreted.

[Ygrain]

This is the problem when one trope happens. Everybody expects it to repeat endlessly and they expect it to happen so suddenly. THere is two already "thought to be dead" people in Aegon's plot: Jon Connington and Aegon. Aegon was foreshadowed in Clash and in both Feast and Storms, Jon's name was not only named but in Feast, his whole story is mentioned (in a Jaime chapter, when he meets Ronnet Connington), so we don't feel that Jon's story is brought out of nowhere because we see a progress with Connington and the info we got about him through ASOIAF:

GoT:

no mention.

Clash

first mention of Ronnet, as a griffin and Griffin's Roost

SoS

Barristan says Lord Connington had Rhaegar's friendship (that's important)

A Lord Connington was Hand of the King and fought against Robert.

Jaime reads his name in the White Book. We know his name, but still we don't know he's the same "Lord Connington" friend of Rhaegar and Hand of the King.

FfC

Cersei says he knew a Hand named Jon Connington.

Then Jaime meets Ronnet and we finally got the full story: Jon Connington was friend of Rhaegar, hand, fought the Battle, lost, got exiled and died.

Dance:

He's alive!!!

So, he doesn't come out of nowhere and he's being hinted in the preview books. Does this happen with Ashara Dayne?

GoT:

Cat thought her to be mother of Jon

Also, Cersei confirms she's dead because she jump onto the sea

Clash:

Cat thinks about her as a possible mother of Jon and says she's been dead many years.

SoS

The Harrenhal story, her name is not mentioned

Edric Dayne says Ashara is dead by the same motive than Cersei in GoT and also says she was heartbroken.

ETA: Arya, GEndry and Edric Dayne theorise about AShara being mother of Jon.

Feast:

no mention

Dance:

Barristan speaks about her and how Dany reminds him of her. We also know that he thinks she looked for a Stark to aid her.

Compare the references to Jon being alive with anything we k now about Ashara. Jon's story develops through the books, while Ashara's, doesn't. And if her story implies anything, it's related to the Starks and Jon (Snow), not Aegon.

(Edit: a lot of orthographic/grammatical mistakes. I'm hungry)

A valid observation. There is really nothing pointing towards Ashara being alive, IMHO.

[Hippocras]

Young maid iirc in the books is between 14-18/19. How could the most beautifull woman in the world be unwed till her late 20s?

A maiden is anyone who has "flowered" but not married, and/or is assumed to be a virgin. Like for example Margery is married but claims to be a virgin so still participates in maiden's day celebrations.

Ashara was young in Barristan's eyes. At the time of the tournament, Barristan was 44. So anyone younger than 25 would seem young to him. Barristan's description tells us only that she was unmarried and that she was almost certainly younger than 25 at the tournament of Harrenhal.

Likely she was a bit younger than that, but insisting she had to be in her teens to be a young maiden is not justified by any definition of "maiden" or "young".

As for her beauty, Arianne is also quite beautiful, and currently 24 and unmarried.

[Mladen]

Barristan is over 40 at the time. "Young" fits anyone under some variable number, depending on the individual. From this alone, early twenties would not be unreasonable.

True. I made some logical leap here...

First, nothing acually points to Ned being in love with her other than hearsay from folks who didn't know them, weren't around them, and make the comments after Ned comes away from Starfall with Jon.

Second, thats not a reasonable assumption. Even if Ned was in love with her, she could easily be a few years older. You think that ancient crone Arianne (mid twenties) couldn't make some late-teens boy fall in love with her?

Again, you are right... But, I do assume that Ned's had a crush on Ashara. No definitive proof, though, but I think we are being led to believe that from KotLT story and his shyness.

What that scene reads to me, as much more probable and better fitting with a shy wolf who isn't leaving his bench at all, is the outgoing brother seeing shy little brother too shy to actually join the party period, and without little brother's cognisance actioning him to have some fun despite himself by getting a girl to ask him to dance, whereupon he must be actively rude to turn her down or must get up and participate.

I've seen that sort of thing in action, more than once.

Couldn't say I ever thought in that direction, but it does make sense. Although we can also argue that Brandon did see that Ned liked Ashara and was his wing-man... I can't argue with certainty, but we can agree that both possibilities are open.

Thats good work and deserves recognition as such.

Coming from you corbon, I take this as Order of Merlin, II class :)

And this is definitive.

So the current timeline at end of ADwD is 300AD and Ashara, if alive, would be in her 30s (30-39), so she was definitive born between late 260 and early 269.

On this we agree upon... And although I did made some fallacies in reasoning, the conclusion is the same.

I disagree that this quote necessarily means Ashara was younger than Arthur. On the wiki pages for the Daynes, Ashara is listed before Arthur on the family tree lines, which would usually indicate she was born before him.

The problem is that GRRM said that, if alive, Ashara would now be in her 30ies, thus she was born somewhere in 260s. As for who is older, wiki is full of mistakes, and doesn't represent a canon. Jaime was 15 when he joined the Kingsguard, and before that, he was knighted by Arthur. This points that Arthur was older than Jaime, at least several years. Jaime was born in 266, so Arthur must have been born around 260. As we have seen, Ashara would be in her thirties at the moment, thus she is younger than him.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

snip

wiki is not canon.

A maiden is anyone who has "flowered" but not married, and/or is assumed to be a virgin. Like for example Margery is married but claims to be a virgin so still participates in maiden's day celebrations.

Ashara was young in Barristan's eyes. At the time of the tournament, Barristan was 44. So anyone younger than 25 would seem young to him. Barristan's description tells us only that she was unmarried and that she was almost certainly younger than 25 at the tournament of Harrenhal.

Likely she was a bit younger than that, but insisting she had to be in her teens to be a young maiden is not justified by any definition of "maiden" or "young".

As for her beauty, Arianne is also quite beautiful, and currently 24 and unmarried.

You can distort the facts all you want but that doesn’t change what we know from the books: a maiden is a woman between 14/18-19. It makes zero sense how the most beautiful woman in the world would be single in her mid 20s. As for Arianne’s case I am calling :bs: on that because you have seemed to selectively forgotten about the conspiracy for her marriage.

[Hippocras]

wiki is not canon.

You can distort the facts all you want but that doesn’t change what we know from the books: a maiden is a woman between 14/18-19. It makes zero sense how the most beautiful woman in the world would be single in her mid 20s. As for Arianne’s case I am calling :bs: on that because you have seemed to selectively forgotten about the conspiracy for her marriage.

If this is "fact" quote where it says "maiden" has a specific age limit.

It is you that is distorting.

[Mladen]

If this is "fact" quote where it says "maiden" has a specific age limit.

It is you that is distorting.

Maiden doesn't, but maid in medieval English did have a specific age limit

[MoIaF]

wiki is not canon.

You can distort the facts all you want but that doesn’t change what we know from the books: a maiden is a woman between 14/18-19. It makes zero sense how the most beautiful woman in the world would be single in her mid 20s. As for Arianne’s case I am calling :bs: on that because you have seemed to selectively forgotten about the conspiracy for her marriage.

A maiden is anyone who has "flowered" but not married, and/or is assumed to be a virgin. Like for example Margery is married but claims to be a virgin so still participates in maiden's day celebrations.

Ashara was young in Barristan's eyes. At the time of the tournament, Barristan was 44. So anyone younger than 25 would seem young to him. Barristan's description tells us only that she was unmarried and that she was almost certainly younger than 25 at the tournament of Harrenhal.

Likely she was a bit younger than that, but insisting she had to be in her teens to be a young maiden is not justified by any definition of "maiden" or "young".

As for her beauty, Arianne is also quite beautiful, and currently 24 and unmarried.

This - A maiden is a virgin or an unmarried girl or woman.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maiden

[Jon's Queen Consort]

This - A maiden is a virgin or an unmarried girl or woman.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maiden

Again. It doesn't make sense the fact that the most beautiful woman in the world is unwed in her mid 20s. So, what we know is that Ashara was young enough to be unwed so she was between 14-19.

[MoIaF]

Again. It doesn't make sense the fact that the most beautiful woman in the world is unwed in her mid 20s. So, what we know is that Ashara was young enough to be unwed so she was between 14-19.

The average age for marriage in England in medieval times was 18, so technically she could have been in her early 20's and it would have not been that off.

http://hubpages.com/hub/medieval-women

[Jon's Queen Consort]

The average age for marriage in England in medieval times was 18, so technically she could have been in her early 20's and it would have not been that off.

http://hubpages.com/hub/medieval-women

So we forget what we know from the books right?