Heresy 153

[JNR]

Hence the second part of my post pointing out that that the warm weather probably began long before the official announcement in October and that the tournament some time before that - rather than trying to cram everything into a couple of months either side of Christmas.

Sure.

I'm just saying that however we juggle things, if you believe GRRM's statement, then there is no chance Lyanna conceived a child at Harrenhal and then gave birth to it around the Sack.

Wasn't the "overall message" that this Stark-Lannister feud was just the first of three major threats/storylines originally planned? And one of the others actually was the return of a Targaryen scion - but a Queen, rather than a King?

Yes, and sidebar: in the first thirteen chapters of AGOT, beginning with Bran's, there is no suggestion of the Others invading.

Yet GRRM says plainly that

there are three major conflicts set in motion in the chapters enclosed

So I conclude that either (1) the prologue as we know it was included, or (2) GRRM had written, by October 1993, some different chapter clearly implying the Others were coming, and we have never read that one in any form.

the basic mistake made in the RLJ threads is not merely that Jon Snow is billed as "the biggest star;" it's that these three separate storylines are conflated and handled as (essentially) one narrative

A good case can be made, yeah.

I'm torn between anointing that their primary failure or making the case that they have generally inflated the Targs far above their true significance in this series, and everything else they've imagined has emerged from that error. Rhaegar married Lyanna, Jon was the true heir, Jon will be king, etc.

I read one particular post that deified Jon as, I believe, "the sum total of every great trait found amongst the Targaryens."

Cracked me up then and still does today.

[Matthew.]

Because he's the Prince of Dragonstone and what Lola wants Lola gets.

This may work for Rhaegar beating Arthur Dayne in the joust, but he had to beat other jousters before arriving at Barristan and Dayne--including none other than Brandon Stark. Surely, not every participant involved was part of a conspiracy to allow Rhaegar to win. A fake tournament with a fake joust and a coded rose message delivered in the most public, politically disastrous forum possible...I don't know, it all sounds unnecessarily convoluted, especially since Rhaegar is the big political loser here.

Wasn't the "overall message" that this Stark-Lannister feud was just the first of three major threats/storylines originally planned?

:agree: The whole Stark vs. Lannister rivalry is presented as the first of three arcs, and even then, we now know that what was going on beneath the surface was a lot different than it first appeared. In aGoT, Lysa's letter leads us down the incorrect path of thinking there's some grand Lannister plot underway, when the reality is that Cersei is no master schemer, and as evidenced by Tywin's frustration at Eddard having been executed (from the chapter where he appoints Tyrion Hand), even Tywin himself wasn't the mastermind behind all that unfolded, he was just protecting his family's interests in the midst of disaster.

The Lion vs the Wolf was a manufactured conflict, and Littlefinger was its architect.

Edit: Which isn't to say that there weren't old grievances there to take advantage of, just that neither Tywin nor Eddard actually wanted a war. And I think it'd be much harder to say that this is still a story about Stark and Lannister rivalry, since Jaimes angry at Cersei, the Starks are scattered, and Tyrion seems to have made it his personal mission to make his own House miserable.

[JNR]

He also didn't need a Maester to tell him the weather was nice, and he only has a very limited time (less than two months) to notice Winter is end/Spring is here, hook up with the Starks, and attend the Tourney which lasted 7 days.

I'm still not seeing the problem. There's nothing that says Howland decided on the very first warm day that he would go north.

He could have noticed the winter gradually fading out, remained on the Isle for a certain amount of time, and then have gone north when he was convinced spring was there to stay.

This is more or less what I would expect... that the false spring both began and ended in a gradual way, although it was arbitrarily declared to have last two turns by the maesters.

The alternative is that it began dramatically, going from winter to spring inside a day or so, and then did the reverse when it ended. And the tourney was planned for winter, and then by sheer luck turned out to fall inside the two months of springlike weather. It's possible, but not likely IMO.

[Black Crow]

I think that this overall summary probably still holds good:

Roughly speaking, there are three major conflicts set in motion in the chapters enclosed. These will form the major plot threads of the trilogy, intertwining with each other in what should be a complex but exciting (I hope) narrative tapestry. Each of the conflicts presents a major threat to the peace of my imaginary realm, the Seven Kingdoms, and to the lives of the principal characters.

The first threat grows from the enmity between the great houses of Lannister and Stark as it plays out in a cycle of plot, counterplot, ambition, murder, and revenge, with the iron throne of the Seven Kingdoms as the ultimate prize. This will form the backbone of the first volume of the trilogy, A Game of Thrones.

While the lion of Lannister and the direwolf of Stark snarl and scrap, however, a second and greater threat takes shape across the narrow sea, where the Dothraki horselords mass their barbarians hordes for a great invasion of the Seven Kingdoms, led by the fierce and beautiful Daenerys Stormborn, the last of the Targaryen dragonlords. The Dothraki invasion will be the central story of my second volume,A Dance with Dragons.

The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." The only thing that stands between the Seven Kingdoms and and endless night is the Wall, and a handful of men in black called the Night's Watch. Their story will be the heart of my third volume, The Winds of Winter. The final battle will also draw together characters and plot threads left from the first two books and resolve all in one huge climax.

If we then take this passage from the Winds of Winter synopsis we find :

Before she can hope to defeat the Others, Dany knows she must unite the broken realm behind her. Wolf and lion must hunt together, maester and greenseer work as one, all the blood feuds must be put aside, the bitter rivals and sworn enemies join hands.

This is entirely consistent, and basically tells us that the first act is all about the feud between the Starks and the Lannisters which leaves the latter on top, but so battered and exhausted they can't resist the last of the Dragonlords. She conquers Westeros but then down come the Others and they all have to rally against them. Very straightforward, but the point is that its a question they; that is the five central characters, Jon, Arya and Bran Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Danaerys Targaryen, not Jon Kit Harrington Targaryen King of the First Men and the Andals, lord of the seven kingdoms, Azor Ahai and the Prince that was Promised all rolled into one.

[MaesterSam]

If you want to know where blue roses come from, Rudyard Kipling might say "from the arms of Death...beyond the grave." :eek: In story, it's not as clearly stated as some would have you believe that the actual flower (the winter rose, as opposed to the Stark daughter) can only be grown at Winterfell.

Otherwise - odd as it may sound, I think Rhaegar had an overly high opinion of himself. My guess is that, amid all those dead smiles, he realized he needed to step back and reconsider a bit.

I agree, and actually don't know where this idea came from. I don't remember any POV saying anything about blue winter roses only growing in Winterfell. Why wouldn't they grow elsewhere? Lyanna has some in her hand as she dies- so unless she died in WF (do we wanna go there?? lol ;) ), did Rhaegar ride all the way up there and bring some to Dorne for her? I kind of doubt they'd survive the month-long journey...

As for why the laurel was made of blue winter roses- well, the tourney was during a false spring, only 2 months long, that followed 2 years of winter. There probably wasn't much growing yet aside from winter roses.

I appreciate a crackpot as much as the next maester, but I don't see any evidence supporting this idea that blue roses only represent Starks or WF, or that the choice of flowers was a political code for something. But I do think it's significant that these roses were in the room she died in.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

I'm torn between anointing that their primary failure or making the case that they have generally inflated the Targs far above their true significance in this series, and everything else they've imagined has emerged from that error. Rhaegar married Lyanna, Jon was the true heir, Jon will be king, etc.

I'd guess the assumption of there being one single "story" was probably easier to make, when we only had one (or two) books to work with. And all three conflicts identified by Martin in his letter take their current trajectories from certain key "crises" which, together, comprised Robert's Rebellion. Consider that: (1) The Starks and Lannisters develop a history of mistrust; (2) the Targaryen kings are ousted, their last surviving children sent into exile; and (3) Lyanna disappears, leaving behind a son who one day becomes LC of the Night's Watch.

Considering how tangled up those three developments are, and how ambiguous Martin's piecemeal account of the Rebellion... it's not at all surprising that it would take time for readers to begin sorting and separating out the three storylines. I mean, really, it's pretty clear in hindsight that such confusion was Martin's intent.

As far as "Targ inflation" goes... while it may have been fan-driven to begin with, I blame Martin himself for egging it on. Maybe it seemed a "safe" course of action... responding to all those fan questions about Targs, and requests for Targ histories, Targ lineages, Targ phenotypes, Targ souvenirs, etc. As long as he kept them entranced by "[TARG], the Great and Powerful,"... he could be relatively sure they would "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" pushing buttons, pulling levers, and blowing all kinds of smoke.

It's certainly helped extend the shelf-life of the mysteries in these books. But sheesh... what an expense of energy it's been! (And it's hard not to wonder how many of his fans will feel led-on in the end... given that so many invested in the first place because they thought he was fleshing out Jon Snow's paternal heritage.)

The Lion vs the Wolf was a manufactured conflict, and Littlefinger was its architect.

Agreed. It's fascinating to look back and see how much of the action and intrigue in those first 3 books was essentially conjured from the air by Petyr Baelish. Not hard to imagine that Robert's Rebellion resulted from similar assumptions and misunderstandings, and was much ado about nothing.

[JNR]

This is entirely consistent, and basically tells us that the first act is all about the feud between the Starks and the Lannisters which leaves the latter on top, but so battered and exhausted they can't resist the last of the Dragonlords. She conquers Westeros but then down come the Others and they all have to rally against them. Very straightforward, but the point is that its a question they; that is the five central characters, Jon, Arya and Bran Stark, Tyrion Lannister and Danaerys Targaryen, not Jon Kit Harrington Targaryen King of the First Men and the Andals, lord of the seven kingdoms, Azor Ahai and the Prince that was Promised all rolled into one.

Yep.

It also gives me a little pause, thinking to myself "Well, here he is, over twenty-one years later. And he still hasn't really even begun to write about the second major threat -- the 'Dothraki invasion' -- let alone the third." In fact, in five books, we've had two whole scenes of the Others, and that's all. Meanwhile quite a lot of time has been spent on other matters, like Brienne wandering Crackclaw Point in AFFC for no apparent reason, Quentyn Martell's doubtful subplot in the last book, etc etc.

I agree, and actually don't know where this idea came from. I don't remember any POV saying anything about blue winter roses only growing in Winterfell. Why wouldn't they grow elsewhere?

It's not clear they only grow at Winterfell. However, Ygritte specifies that the winter rose is the rarest and most precious of flowers. They can't have grown just anywhere, if that's true.

But I do think it's significant that these roses were in the room she died in.

The canon only says roses:

Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.

Dead and black, their original color uncertain.

[Voice]

This implies two things:

1. Rhaegar had this crown prepared in advance, and it was not a crown meant for any woman -- only Lyanna

2. Rhaegar knew in advance that he would win the tourney (because he couldn't have been sure anyone else would name Lyanna)

Agreed. Varys rigged the tourney. Howland hid R+L in the Crannog. Badda boom, Badda bing... Jon and RR.

[MaesterSam]

Hence the second part of my post pointing out that that the warm weather probably began long before the official announcement in October and that the tournament some time before that - rather than trying to cram everything into a couple of months either side of Christmas.

Except there never was an official announcement:

IN THE ANNALS of Westeros, 281 AC is known as the Year of the False Spring. Winter had held

the land in its icy grip for close on two years, but now at last the snows were melting, the woods

were greening, the days were growing longer. Though the white ravens had not yet flown, there were

many even at the Citadel of Oldtown who believed that winter’s end was nigh.

So no, the length of the false spring was not measured from the date of an announcement, because there was none.

[wolfmaid7]

Go to sleep and wake up;two pages in a new thread.

WeaselPie i am very glad that you are on this path and to go back to something i said last thread.The dates are mute because errors can happen and more and more we are seeing that certain things don't add up. Like i said last thread "the Weather does not lie" unpredictable or not the seasons are the only sure markers we have and i don't think GRRM was being artistic with certain characters when he emphasizes what type of child they are in terms of the seasons.

In addition to the Weather described for Reed,keep these things in mind.I'll post the rest later (cupboard is bare right now).

“You are a young man, Tyrion,” Mormont said. “How many winters have you seen?”

He shrugged. “Eight, nine. I misremember.”

“And all of them short.”

“As you say, my lord.” He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible cruel one that the

maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrion’s earliest memories were of spring.

“When I was a boy, it was said that a long summer always meant a long winter to come. This

summer has lasted nine years, Tyrion, and a tenth will soon be upon us. Think on that.”

“When I was a boy,” Tyrion replied, “my wet nurse told me that one day, if men were good, the

gods would give the world a summer without ending. Perhaps we’ve been better than we

thought, and the Great Summer is finally at hand.” He grinned.

The old men called this weather spirit summer, and said it meant the season was giving up its

ghosts at last. After this the cold would come, they warned, and a long summer always meant a

long winter. This summer had lasted ten years. Jon had been a babe in arms when it began(Jon agot).

281 year of the false spring Winter had held the land in its grip for close to 2years(279-281)Warm at the time of the tourney.

[JNR]

It's certainly helped extend the shelf-life of the mysteries in these books. But sheesh... what an expense of energy it's been! (And it's hard not to wonder how many of his fans will feel led-on in the end... given that so many invested in the first place because they thought he was fleshing out Jon Snow's paternal heritage.)

It seems a strong possibility.

I agree with you GRRM hasn't helped matters of late by becoming oddly obsessed with the Targs -- to the extent of writing two fake-history novellas about them, and as a result, totally blowing off his original plan of writing a long series of Dunk and Egg novellas, and delaying the process of finishing the next novel.

[MaesterSam]

If we can try to shed some light on the timeline of the Tourney of Harrenhal... if we are to believe the calculations (from sources in the novel as well as inTWOIAF):

The tourney was planned in 280 when Rhaegar sent Oswell Whent to talk with Walter Whent.

In 280 Rhaegar married Elia and Rhaenys was born

It's suggested by TWOIAF that Walter didn't have the money for the prizes, and someone else was backing it

The False Spring of 281 lasted 2 months or so

Snow started falling at the end of the New Year, and Aerys had fires lit for a month, but Rhaegar never saw them

This places the False Spring from 10/31/281 to 12/31/281

This places the Tourney of Harrenhal somewhere in the middle, since people journeyed there while the winds were warm from the South, and it lasted 7 days.

While the fires against the Winter were lit in KL, Elia was said to be on Dragonstone with Aegon, but Rhaegar wasn't there

This is strange because Aegon is never mentioned at the Tourney.

Elia breastfed. Elia was never mentioned to be pregnant there. Either way, for Rhaegar to allow his precious PTWP to be endangered by a trip while still in the womb of a very delicate mother, or very newborn and breastfeeding, is weird. Note that it was Aegon's conception date that was significant to Rhaegar, not his birth date.

Aegon aside, this is what happens next

At the start of the New Year, Rhaegar takes off with a half-dozen companions, missing the fires in King's Landing

Travel companions are probably Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent (JonCon, Lewyn Martell and Gerold Hightower we believe stayed back in KL), and who else? Myles Mooton and Richard Lonmouth are likely. Mooton are killed at the BotB, so if he was with Rhaegar during Lyanna's abduction, he left them at some point. Lonmouth is MIA.

This leaves several spots in Rhaegar's party unaccounted for.

Sometime during his journey, he comes across Lyanna

There is no mention of him being gone for months, and Harrenhal isn't very far from either Dragonstone or KL

This realistically places Lyanna near Harrenhal not long after the Tourney.

Unless she was out riding alone (likely but hardly something any noble house hosting her would allow), she also had to have companions.

If he left for the New Year, wasn't missing that long and then came across Lyanna, this is likely no later than 1/31/282 or somewhere near that date.

This means that when Lyanna was abducted, no more than 2 months or so had passed since Harrenhal. This is huge because it opens doors to Harrenhal -conceived babies (both Lyanna and Ashara).

And it also means that we should identify whatever witnesses were there during the supposed abduction, because someone had to report the story.

-

I have a few thoughts about this mess, but if anyone can help me nail down the timeline, that would be great.

TL;DR The new information from TWOIAF changes the timeline, and therefore changes all theories that were either supported or proven wrong according to the old timeline.

If you look back a heresy or two, I attempted to do this already, but it didn't really work. The problem is Elia and her childbearing troubles. Ok, here goes:

In 280, R and E married, and Rhaenys was born that year. So the wedding must have been early in the year, giving Elia time for a 9-month pregnancy and having Rhaenys late in 280.

We know Elia was bedridden for 6 months after having Rhaenys. So if we say Rhaenys was born in Nov of 280, this implies two things:

1) Elia was bedridden until approximately May/June of 281.

2) In order for Aegon to have already been born by January of 282, when Rhaegar was not in KL with the fires, and not on DS with Elia and Aegon, Rhaegar must have been making sweet dragon love to her while she was still bedridden from having his first kid. Not cool.

3) Elia gets knocked up again as soon as (or quite possibly before) she has recovered from having kid #1.

So therefore, Elia traveling to Harrenhal at any time in 281 seems unlikely. She spent the first half of the year recovering from Rhaenys' birth, and was pregnant again immediately after (if not sooner).

There doesn't seem a good way to get around this, which is why I ultimately gave up. GRRM has said several times that he doesn't want fans analyzing timelines too closely, b/c he doesn't plan everything down to a specific week or month. I think this is one of those times where it just wasn't planned that well. (Which, yes, is incredibly frustrating, especially since this confusion comes from the WB, which was written very recently and with the help of two co-authors/fact checkers. Grrr. )

[MaesterSam]

Sure.

I'm just saying that however we juggle things, if you believe GRRM's statement, then there is no chance Lyanna conceived a child at Harrenhal and then gave birth to it around the Sack.

I think this part is definitely true. There was at least a year between the tourney and the Sack, b/c the war itself was said to last about a year, and there were at least 2-3 months between the tourney and Lyanna's abduction. After that, Brandon rides to KL, where he is arrested. Then Rickon is summoned. It would take him a while to get to KL from WF. Both are then killed. Only now does Aerys command Jon Arryn to kill his wards, and only now does the actual rebellion begin, with Ned and Bob traveling home and calling the banners.

Any suggestions I have made, or will make, regarding the possibility of Lyanna getting knocked up at Harrenhal are made under the assumption that her "bed of blood" was not a result of childbirth.

This may work for Rhaegar beating Arthur Dayne in the joust, but he had to beat other jousters before arriving at Barristan and Dayne--including none other than Brandon Stark. Surely, not every participant involved was part of a conspiracy to allow Rhaegar to win. A fake tournament with a fake joust and a coded rose message delivered in the most public, politically disastrous forum possible...I don't know, it all sounds unnecessarily convoluted, especially since Rhaegar is the big political loser here.

:agree: The whole Stark vs. Lannister rivalry is presented as the first of three arcs, and even then, we now know that what was going on beneath the surface was a lot different than it first appeared. In aGoT, Lysa's letter leads us down the incorrect path of thinking there's some grand Lannister plot underway, when the reality is that Cersei is no master schemer, and as evidenced by Tywin's frustration at Eddard having been executed (from the chapter where he appoints Tyrion Hand), even Tywin himself wasn't the mastermind behind all that unfolded, he was just protecting his family's interests in the midst of disaster.

The Lion vs the Wolf was a manufactured conflict, and Littlefinger was its architect.

Edit: Which isn't to say that there weren't old grievances there to take advantage of, just that neither Tywin nor Eddard actually wanted a war. And I think it'd be much harder to say that this is still a story about Stark and Lannister rivalry, since Jaimes angry at Cersei, the Starks are scattered, and Tyrion seems to have made it his personal mission to make his own House miserable.

I agree completely with pretty much all of this. I love that we are examining every possibility for how this all got started, but IMO politics are an even worse reason for Rhaegar to crown Lyanna than some weird infatuation or the attempt to fulfil prophecy. Politically, this was a completely disastrous move, which got exactly the reaction that one would expect.

Also, while I was a proponent of this myself initially, I am not sure that the Starks and Lannisters have been enemies for a long time. No Stark-Lannister feuds or wars are mentioned in the WB at all. I would guess that before the unification of the seven kingdoms, they saw quite little of one another. What reason would they have for fighting? Their kingdoms were extremely far apart, and it sounds like the North always more or less minded its own business.

Robert and Ned were best friends at the time of the Sack- if there was a long history of Starks and Lannisters hating each other, why would Robert marry Cersei? That would have been a slap in the face to Ned. Yet in GoT, even when Robert complains about Cersei, he never says anything like "you were right, Ned, I never should have married her." So it seems Ned didn't object.

[Black Crow]

It also gives me a little pause, thinking to myself "Well, here he is, over twenty-one years later. And he still hasn't really even begun to write about the second major threat -- the 'Dothraki invasion' -- let alone the third." In fact, in five books, we've had two whole scenes of the Others, and that's all. Meanwhile quite a lot of time has been spent on other matters, like Brienne wandering Crackclaw Point in AFFC for no apparent reason, Quentyn Martell's doubtful subplot in the last book, etc etc.

Nah, its just a little local difficulty. Yes the original timetable went out the window a long time ago along with the plan to write it as a trilogy, but we can see that fundamentally the basic story is recognisably still there.

The Lannisters have ruined both the Starks and the kingdom. Danaerys has had her troubles in Mereen rather than Westeros but with Aegon landed and her to follow a Targaryen may once again sit on the Iron Throne by the end of the forthcoming Winds of Winter, in time to rally all interested parties against the Others who weren't due to come in until the end anyway.

[Black Crow]

Except there never was an official announcement:

So no, the length of the false spring was not measured from the date of an announcement, because there was none.

Fair enough, it just seemed a sensible way of explaining the apparent problem.

[Black Crow]

If you look back a heresy or two, I attempted to do this already, but it didn't really work. The problem is Elia and her childbearing troubles. Ok, here goes:

In 280, R and E married, and Rhaenys was born that year. So the wedding must have been early in the year, giving Elia time for a 9-month pregnancy and having Rhaenys late in 280.

We know Elia was bedridden for 6 months after having Rhaenys. So if we say Rhaenys was born in Nov of 280, this implies two things:

1) Elia was bedridden until approximately May/June of 281.

2) In order for Aegon to have already been born by January of 282, when Rhaegar was not in KL with the fires, and not on DS with Elia and Aegon, Rhaegar must have been making sweet dragon love to her while she was still bedridden from having his first kid. Not cool.

3) Elia gets knocked up again as soon as (or quite possibly before) she has recovered from having kid #1.

So therefore, Elia traveling to Harrenhal at any time in 281 seems unlikely. She spent the first half of the year recovering from Rhaenys' birth, and was pregnant again immediately after (if not sooner).

There doesn't seem a good way to get around this, which is why I ultimately gave up. GRRM has said several times that he doesn't want fans analyzing timelines too closely, b/c he doesn't plan everything down to a specific week or month. I think this is one of those times where it just wasn't planned that well. (Which, yes, is incredibly frustrating, especially since this confusion comes from the WB, which was written very recently and with the help of two co-authors/fact checkers. Grrr. )

On the other hand, as I suggested earlier some of the apparent contradiction might disappear if Elia wasn't bedridden through childbearing problems, but because she was being poisoned.

[wolfmaid7]

If you look back a heresy or two, I attempted to do this already, but it didn't really work. The problem is Elia and her childbearing troubles. Ok, here goes:

In 280, R and E married, and Rhaenys was born that year. So the wedding must have been early in the year, giving Elia time for a 9-month pregnancy and having Rhaenys late in 280.

We know Elia was bedridden for 6 months after having Rhaenys. So if we say Rhaenys was born in Nov of 280, this implies two things:

1) Elia was bedridden until approximately May/June of 281.

2) In order for Aegon to have already been born by January of 282, when Rhaegar was not in KL with the fires, and not on DS with Elia and Aegon, Rhaegar must have been making sweet dragon love to her while she was still bedridden from having his first kid. Not cool.

3) Elia gets knocked up again as soon as (or quite possibly before) she has recovered from having kid #1.

So therefore, Elia traveling to Harrenhal at any time in 281 seems unlikely. She spent the first half of the year recovering from Rhaenys' birth, and was pregnant again immediately after (if not sooner).

There doesn't seem a good way to get around this, which is why I ultimately gave up. GRRM has said several times that he doesn't want fans analyzing timelines too closely, b/c he doesn't plan everything down to a specific week or month. I think this is one of those times where it just wasn't planned that well. (Which, yes, is incredibly frustrating, especially since this confusion comes from the WB, which was written very recently and with the help of two co-authors/fact checkers. Grrr. )

I know i sound like a broken record by now but to me its simple as this.No one saw Aegon until the day he died.It seemed impossible for Elia to be pregnant, traveling when she couldn't have, no report of a fully preggers Elia at tourney. Lastly the fact that we have two boys whose birth and place of birth is suspect. GRRM isn't confused he's brilliant.

You ever here this little rhyme.

Which of these witches are whistling a tune

and which of these witches are not

if only one witch is whistling a tune

then the other is certainly not.

[JNR]

Nah, its just a little local difficulty. Yes the original timetable went out the window a long time ago along with the plan to write it as a trilogy, but we can see that fundamentally the basic story is recognisably still there.

The Lannisters have ruined both the Starks and the kingdom. Danaerys has had her troubles in Mereen rather than Westeros but with Aegon landed and her to follow a Targaryen may once again sit on the Iron Throne by the end of the forthcoming Winds of Winter, in time to rally all interested parties against the Others who weren't due to come in until the end anyway.

There's been nothing resembling a "Dothraki invasion." We know that in 1993, he intended that to occur in the second of three books, meaning roughly the halfway point of the series.

Today we're at the sixth of seven books. Dany is sitting somewhere in Essos, and the Dothraki are clearly not poised to invade Westeros.

If a "Dothraki invasion" is going to happen, GRRM is really, really taking his sweet time to develop it, while wasting a lot of narrative energy on filler that was never intended or described in his 1993 plan, of which the worst instance would be Brienne (the dominant POV in the fourth book).

Similarly, the Others subplot has been mind-bogglingly delayed. Just almost unbelievably so.

In 280, R and E married, and Rhaenys was born that year. So the wedding must have been early in the year, giving Elia time for a 9-month pregnancy and having Rhaenys late in 280.

Well, I can resolve this without much trouble, though I don't believe my own resolution.

Specifically, Rhaegar and Elia, like the huge majority of couples, had sex before marriage.

There doesn't seem a good way to get around this, which is why I ultimately gave up. GRRM has said several times that he doesn't want fans analyzing timelines too closely, b/c he doesn't plan everything down to a specific week or month. I think this is one of those times where it just wasn't planned that well. (Which, yes, is incredibly frustrating, especially since this confusion comes from the WB, which was written very recently and with the help of two co-authors/fact checkers. Grrr. )

Maybe this was Jon Connington's real reason for considering her unworthy of Rhaegar.

He said to himself "She's just gonna screw up the timeline and make life harder for GRRM. Who is struggling quite enough as it is."

[MaesterSam]

(...)

It's not clear they only grow at Winterfell. However, Ygritte specifies that the winter rose is the rarest and most precious of flowers. They can't have grown just anywhere, if that's true.

The canon only says roses:

Dead and black, their original color uncertain.

Yes I agree, they probably don't grow all over the place. But it doesn't say anywhere that they only grow in WF, so I see no reason to make that assumption. In fact, it fits that they were rare and precious, as all the prizes in this tourney were above and beyond even those at lord Tywin's tourney. So the crown for the queen of love and beauty should also be exceptional.

As for the color of the roses, I assumed they were blue due to this passage in his dream:

“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.” As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. “Eddard!” she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

But of course this is that fever dream that we've been questioning for a while now.

[Black Crow]

... I love that we are examining every possibility for how this all got started, but IMO politics are an even worse reason for Rhaegar to crown Lyanna than some weird infatuation or the attempt to fulfil prophecy. Politically, this was a completely disastrous move, which got exactly the reaction that one would expect.

Also, while I was a proponent of this myself initially, I am not sure that the Starks and Lannisters have been enemies for a long time. No Stark-Lannister feuds or wars are mentioned in the WB at all. I would guess that before the unification of the seven kingdoms, they saw quite little of one another. What reason would they have for fighting? Their kingdoms were extremely far apart, and it sounds like the North always more or less minded its own business.

Robert and Ned were best friends at the time of the Sack- if there was a long history of Starks and Lannisters hating each other, why would Robert marry Cersei? That would have been a slap in the face to Ned. Yet in GoT, even when Robert complains about Cersei, he never says anything like "you were right, Ned, I never should have married her." So it seems Ned didn't object.

I agree that there's no history of the Starks and the Lannisters being ancient enemies. The point I fear is that it is a direct result of the game of thrones being played by Lord Rickard - and the Arryns. - which thrust the Starks into an arena which Lord Tywin considered his own.