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We probably will never know the truth of false spring


purple-eyes

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We were debating what rhaegar did and why he did and what lyanna thought and what elia thought all the time. But now I am afraid this is a waste of time. 

GRRM loved to give several hypothesis to us without confirming any of them true. 

Like those versions of rhaenyra and daemon stories. 

Currently, he presented us three versions of rhaegar and lyanna affair: 

1. Love story from barristan and name of lyanna on death whisper and dead blue rose petals on death bed. 

2. Prophecy story from the undying hall vision and elia can not have more children and also words of aemon. 

3. Politics version from yandel in the world book (forge the alliance with house stark) 

he will surely tell us jon is a product of rhaegar and lyanna. No doubt for this. 

But what is the real reason or detail for false spring? One? Two? All three? 

He will just leave it like this and make it vague and let readers guess forever. 

This is why we never knew if paris kidnapped helen, or they eloped together. 

Story needs to be mysterious and controversial, otherwise readers lose interest and attention. 

 

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Interesting topic, and I think I agree. I mean, how would we know for sure? Have a character that was hiding in the bushes when it all happened pop up in the story and tell us? Seems cheap. And that already happened with Wex Pyke.

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Interesting topic, and I think I agree. I mean, how would we know for sure? Have a character that was hiding in the bushes when it all happened pop up in the story and tell us? Seems cheap. And that already happened with Wex Pyke.

yes. Everybody who knew the truth is dead. We only have howland reed here and he probably only knew jon is son of r and l. He was not even there when ned talked with lyanna and made promise. So reed had no idea what is the truth of false spring, not to mention what is in rhaegar's mind. People can only guess. 

I can imagine the history will be like this: 

For the year of false spring, some people said prince rhaegar loved his lady lyanna, so they ran away together. But some people said rhaegar committed a crime by kidnapping lyanna and imprizoning the poor maid in his tower and leading to her death. Maester insisted that there is nothing about love or lust. Rhaegar just wanted to break the splendid plan of southern aliiance. Lyanna is nothing but a weakest but most important link on this new chain of four major houses. 

But we know this is true: their affair led to the downfall of tararyen dynasty and their own deaths. Blablabla. 

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FWIW, GRRM has said that he will not write a RR prequel because, by the end, the reader will know about it everything that needs to be known. Now, a lot depends on what Mr Martin thinks is necessary for us to know, but I guess he wouldn't write this story as such central a mystery if he never meant it as important to solve. :dunno: 

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yes. Everybody who knew the truth is dead. We only have howland reed here and he probably only knew jon is son of r and l. He was not even there when ned talked with lyanna and made promise. So reed had no idea what is the truth of false spring, not to mention what is in rhaegar's mind. People can only guess. 

I can imagine the history will be like this: 

For the year of false spring, some people said prince rhaegar loved his lady lyanna, so they ran away together. But some people said rhaegar committed a crime by kidnapping lyanna and imprizoning the poor maid in his tower and leading to her death. Maester insisted that there is nothing about love or lust. Rhaegar just wanted to break the splendid plan of southern aliiance. Lyanna is nothing but a weakest but most important link on this new chain of four major houses. 

But we know this is true: their affair led to the downfall of tararyen dynasty and their own deaths. Blablabla. 

There are others besides Howland Reed who could have valuable information and may still be alive.

Richard Lonmouth.  He was Rhaegar's squire and therefore very close to him.   There is a widely believed theory that he is currently Lem Lemoncloak.  If he is still alive, he would likely have information on Rhaegar's intentions and state of mind.

Benjen Stark.  Lyanna's brother.  He could possibly tell us what Lyanna knew or was thinking, if he is still alive..  I have seen speculation that he went into the Night's Watch because of guilt over Lyanna.

Ashara Dayne and Wylla.  Wild cards.  May know something if they are still alive.

And Howland Reed himself may know at least some of whatever Ned knew, which could potentially be a great deal.

I think we will get a lot of information about what happened, but the actual details of what happened will probably remain a mystery.  GRRM said in an early interview that it may be like real-life events about which there is still doubt.  I don't have the cite, but it is from 1999, just after ACOK came out.

 

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We may never know.  Why it happened isn't important but the consequences are.  I don't buy they were trying to birth the third head of the Dragon.  More like a case of two people in love throwing aside the welfare of the State for self indulgence.  It fits George's theme of the human heart taking over for the brain = DISASTER.

If anything Rhaegar forgot his mission to birth a third child with Elia to chase after a new skirt.  He lost his sense of duty.  Lyanna broke her engagement.

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If anything Rhaegar forgot his mission to birth a third child with Elia to chase after a new skirt.  He lost his sense of duty.  Lyanna broke her engagement.

Rhaegar couldn't have a third child with Elia. She couldn't conceive it, the maesters said. If he chose something, it was clinging to his "My children will be the heads of the dragon!" idea so he could chase after Lyanna, instead of changing his mind again (we know he was capable of changing it since he stopped believing that he was the PTWP) and reasoning that if he couldn't have a second sibling for Aegon (as opposed to half-sibling), then his children weren't the three heads of the dragon either. But had he arrived at this conclusion, he'd have had no excuse to take Lyanna.

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I hope it stays a mystery, if it's not done as its own work at some point. Should Jon's parentage be important for the story, ok, and if we don't see some big magic sacrifice, I feel it would be a bit anticlimactic (and I can see imagine this sacrifice to rebuilt or strength the wall).

But what would the knowledge if it was a tragic love affair or a even more traffic kidnapping give to the story we follow right know?

So should Jon find out and we assume that he heard the same stories Bran heard, he would be conflicted with not really being Ned's son (easily fixed be someone telling him, if he held you, protected you, educated you and loved you like his son and you loved him as your father he was your father) and being a rape baby and here I would see it as an cheap out to say, don't worry you are not they loved each other...

Apart of that, hearing Lyanna eloped, would give us nothing but a ironic sidenote that it wasn't Arya but Sansa that followed their aunt's destructive path, be choosing a guy she fancied herself in love with over her family loyalty to indirectly killing her father and brother and leading to her own suffering, even without the famed wolfblood to run hot in her...

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I think we'll have enough pieces to put it all together: Jaime, JonCon, Howard, Wylla, the Daynes, Benjen and even maybe Doran. Rhaegar and Lyanna weren't isolated from every single human being. They made actions that were witnessed by many. For example, Jaime knew Rhaegar wanted to remove his father while JonCon probably knows what he was doing in the Riverlands. Also, Benjen probably knows what Ned decided he could tell and Howard probably knows everything about Harrenhall (he was older than Benjen); then the Daynes likely provided ToJ while they were hiding there and maybe Rhaegar was in communication with Doran. Doran probably knows nothing about Lyanna but knows about Rhaegar's political intentions, while Benjen probably knows they married but had no idea of his plans, whatever those were. We're meant to put the puzzle together, not them.

 

 

 

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I think we'll have enough pieces to put it all together: Jaime, JonCon, Howard, Wylla, the Daynes, Benjen and even maybe Doran. Rhaegar and Lyanna weren't isolated from every single human being. They made actions that were witnessed by many. For example, Jaime knew Rhaegar wanted to remove his father while JonCon probably knows what he was doing in the Riverlands. Also, Benjen probably knows what Ned decided he could tell and Howard probably knows everything about Harrenhall (he was older than Benjen); then the Daynes likely provided ToJ while they were hiding there and maybe Rhaegar was in communication with Doran. Doran probably knows nothing about Lyanna but knows about Rhaegar's political intentions, while Benjen probably knows they married but had no idea of his plans, whatever those were. We're meant to put the puzzle together, not them.

 

 

 

By "Howard" do you mean Howland Reed?

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I think when Grrm was writing,he didn't go into detail about Lyanna's abduction because it was only meant to be a means to an end. He wrote it just to say this happened and it started a rebellion,because whether she was kidnapped or left willingly it didn't matter,same result. And going into detail would've been a nightmare,opening a can of worms from a writers point of view. He probably didn't want to write another 30 pages.

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