Heresy Project X+Y=S+L=J

[ShadowCat Rivers]

Still reading this.

Just pointing out a minor (and insignificant for the scope of this essay) mistake:

The three main characters who are exemplars of their respective families, who are our main eyes and ears in the story, with more chapters than anyone else,

This is incorrect. Daenerys is fourth in chapters count, third is Arya (31 to 34 chapters respectively).

 

[Ygrain]

...why am I not receiving notifications for this particular thread? 

[Kingmonkey]

And how did she end up wandering around Riverlands? Where from? Why? It wasn't her father's lands where she might have had some freedem to go for a trip. Her presence in the Riverlands makes sense only if she was staying at HH with the Whents, as is often speculated, or headed to Riverrun, whether from Winterfell of from HH, but there are no other places to connect her with. If she was headed from Winterfell, then she would have travelled along with Rickard, and if she was staying with the Whents, there was no need for Benjen to tag along... and again, it would leave us without a Stark in Winterfell once Rickard left for Brandon's wedding.

 

We don't know any of this, it's all speculation. Perhaps she was staying with the Whents, who knows? Perhaps Benjen was ALSO staying with the Whents, and was going to accompany her to Riverrun and then make his way to Winterfell so that Rickard could travel south. We don't know. Perhaps Benjen and Lyanna had run off somewhere together, contrary to Rickard's wishes. We don't know. Perhaps Lyarra Stark was still alive at that point, and was the Stark in Winterfell, and she threw herself off a tower when she heard of Rickard's death. We don't know. 

 

Yes but Brandon went from Riverrun and back - he had promised Cat to return soon but never had.

There is somewhere a piece of info that Brandon supposedly went to meet the Northerners coming to his wedding. I don't have the app, so I don't know if Rickard is explicitely mentioned, but it would be strange if he wasn't present for his heir's wedding.

 

I don't think we should draw too many conclusions from a second-hand remembered account of a "semi-canon" source.

 

 

Well, you said that Lyanna would have had to be accompanied by one of her brothers but the books never states that, while it does say that there always must be a Stark in Winterfell. 

BTW, if Rickard wanted Lyanna supervised to make sure that she behaved, I don't see how he would have relied on her younger brother in this.

No I didn't say that. What the essay says is:

I'll make a different guess. Lyanna, daughter of one of the most powerful men in Westeros, one of the five most eligible women in Westeros, would not be wandering around the riverlands without a very trusted escort. Ideally a member of the family. This would be the perfect kind of responsibility for the youngest Stark son, on the edge of manhood and in need of just the kind of minor command experience that being in charge of a couple of soldiers escorting Lyanna on her travels would give him.

 There's no "would have to", nobody asserted a rule, where did you even get that from?

Your complaint about his age is already answered. A minor command of an escort party, to give him a bit of responsibility. Simple enough.

You're missing my point. It doesn't matter what Ned knows, but what or how Bran found out to nearly get himself killed, and there are basically just two options: overhearing the guilty party talking, or seeing them at it. The only person Cersei could reasonably have been talking to about it was her lover, so whether it was talk or the deed itself, they were both at Winterfell at that moment.

Why on earth would it be so unlikely she'd be talking about it to her trusted and beloved twin brother?

Except that Rhaegar had already produced one child that took after the mother.

Exactly. So the idea of children that take after their mother shouldn't be such a hard one to grasp.

 

I'd still think that with three golden-haired children, looking for father among golden-haired men is not a stretch of logic, but since this is in no way a major point for me, I'll concede it to you. Either way, we are looking for a high-ranking man who has had acess to the queen for +12 years, without raising any suspicion. The list of candidates is not that awfully long.

5 years, not 12. That's the gap between Joffrey and Tommen. And that's assuming that all three had the same father, which there's no particular reason to assume. Nor is there any reason to look for a father amongst golden-haired men. Lannisters very frequently have blond children. Most Lannisters are blond. The evidence we've been given is that we need to look outside the Baratheons for the father, not that the father needs to be golden-haired too. 

The list really isn't that short. Even amongst the golden-haired, there's more than a few Lannisters and other blonde westermen around who Cersei could have been doing the deed with, without assuming it had to be the abomination option.

Well... you're right that her brother might perhaps be the only person other than the hypothetical lover whom Cersei might confide to, but if Cersei is so intimate with her brother to discuss such things with him, is it really such a leap of logic to take the intimacy a just a little bit further?

 "Just a little bit"? Come on! That's absurd. How many twins are close confidants? Almost all of them. How many twins shag each other? Almost none of them. One situation is totally expected. One situation is totally unexpected. It's a HUGE leap of logic to assume the unexpected because the expected turns out to be true.

Now this is exaggerated. I wouldn't argue if you claimed that the cause is not sufficient, but suspecting a person who is already involved is not really illogical in any way. 

But I DID claim the cause is not sufficient. Jaime is involved, but there's no reason to assume that he was involved in that aspect, and a very good reason to assume he was not (being the brother). There is good reason to suspect he was involved in killing Bran. The fact that he is Cersei's twin is entirely sufficient to explain why he would have been involved, without invoking the notion that the pair of them had been sneakily breaking one of Westeros' biggest taboos without anyone knowing for years and years.  See my outline of the deductive process in my response to Wolfsmaid just above -- there is a missing step in the deductive process. 

 

And if you believe that there is no way "incest" could have crossed Ned's mind without having an example in his family, you should start building a case for how Ned entirely forgot about the Targ incest that was true for the better part of his life.

Again, something I never said. Please try to address the actual discussion.  

[Kingmonkey]

 

I should have been clearer in my response. It is not that the SSM specifies when Benjen gets to Winterfell, only that it makes clear a point in the books that Martin means there is a tradition that "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell." This combined with knowledge of the other Stark locations points to Benjen being in Winterfell to fulfill this responsibility when Rickard leaves for the Wedding. We know where Lyanna is when the "Kidnapping" takes place - 10 leagues from Harrenhal, and we know where Brandon is when he hears the news of that event - on the road to Riverrun.

There's a lot of scope for variance in that information. For example, how long is the gap between Lyanna's kidnapping and the knowledge reaching Brandon? We don't know. What would happen if Benjen was supposed to have arrived back in Winterfell so Rickard could leave for the wedding, but didn't arrive back in time? Would Rickard go anyway and shrug his shoulders at the Stark in Winterfell tradition? Would he send the wedding party on ahead, intending to come along later at a faster pace when Benjen got there? We don't know. Both are possibilities. 

Notice from the following it is clear that it is Benjen who must play the role of the Stark in Winterfell during the rebellion, not some other Stark.

Here's a scenario. Rickard is at Winterfell, the only Stark there, waiting for Benjen to return. He receives a summons from Aerys, demanding he come to King's Landing at once, or Brandon will be executed. Does he ignore the summons because of the necessity of their being a Stark in Winterfell? I doubt it. 

We know from the SSM that at the end of the war, Benjen was the Stark in Winterfell. There is nothing to prove that he was at the start of the war. It's possible that at some time during the war, Ned sent him to Winterfell because there had not been a Stark in Winterfell. What exactly happens if there is no Stark in Winterfell? We don't know that either, but let's just consider for a moment the concept that we're talking about a period of time when the Stark family got seriously screwed over. Maybe we should be open to the idea that this may have occurred during a brief period where there indeed was no Stark in Winterfell

I think Lyarra is already dead by this time. If not, why would Benjen have to be the Stark in Winterfell? It's also possible she is part of Rickard's party going to see her son wed at Riverrun, but from the answers Martin gave us for years about who was Ned's mom it seems likely she dies before this time. Note it is only with the publication of TWoI&F that we get to know her name.

As far as I have found, we have no information on Lyarra's death. She may have died during the rebellion, and thus the requirement for Benjy to be the Stark in Winterfell at the end of it.

 

Is it odd that after knowing Cersei cheated on Robert in conceiving all of her children that Ned comes up with the right guess? Not really. The evidence is there. What one man does Cersei consistently go to over the course of her time at Winterfell, the trip south, and at King's Landing? Jaime. Ned has observed his enemies as they have him. He knows the closeness between the twins. In fact, Cersei and Jaime use the incest taboo to deflect attention to their longtime affair. Once you know, however, she is cheating, it isn't that hard of a guess.

 

If the father was someone else, what is there that would be different? Would Cersei not be close to Jaime? I see no reason to assume that. They are twins. They've always been close. I don't think that Ned would have any difficulty with the idea of siblings being close to each other, even if Lyanna wasn't doing a Cersei. Both Ned and Benjen seem to have been very close to Lyanna, and they're not twins.

 

That first sentence really outlines my problem with this entire scenario. If the father was NOT Jaime, what is there that Ned had witnessed that would be different? I don't see anything. If there is no difference between the two scenarios, then there is no reason for Ned to assume the exceptional scenario (Jaime as father) rather than the unexceptional one (Jaime as confidante).

 

If all one has to do to be a candidate is to be male and within a days ride of Cersei, then you would be right. There are hundreds of thousands of candidates. If one restricts the candidates to males Cersei is close to, then Jaime stands out like a sore thumb.

I think we could narrow it down from hundreds of thousands to hundreds, maybe even tens. Of those, Jaime sticks out like a sore thumb as being the unlikely option, due to being her brother. You mentioned above that "In fact, Cersei and Jaime use the incest taboo to deflect attention to their longtime affair." Why would this factor not work equally on Ned as it has on everyone else at court for all these years, unless Ned had already been desensitised to this taboo?

[Equilibrium]

Great essay man, I am long time proponent of the Starkcest theory. It just makes sense in the world where interbreeding is used to conserve supernatural abilities. Adds really nice parallel with Targaryens and Lannisters and kinda shrinks the halo of Stark saintliness.

I think Eddard would be best fit story-wise, all you said for this pairing holds and I have some minor observations. He was separated from Lyanna as a child to go to Vale, so when they reunited romantic feelings could more easily occur then if they grew up together. It would explain the compassion he felt for Cersei and her children much better then any other case.

And Eddard tells Jon they will talk about his mother next time they see each other, and it can be important, they will talk about mother, not about his parentage, that can imply Eddard is Jon's father but he doesn't want to drop the incest bomb on him, which can wait and is of no great importance while Jon being the son of Targaryen prince is a huge deal, so Eddard would probably choose his words differently. 

 

[Guest]

Benjamin as Jons dad?

[The Ned's Little Girl]

The idea that Ned jumps to Jaime as the father of Cersei's children due to his own familiarity and desensitization to the incest idea may have some support from a later parallel event in which Cersei herself figures. In A Clash of Kings, Tyrion III (Chapter 15), the small council meet to discuss how to deal with Stannis' letter accusing Cersei of incest, adultery and treason. When Littlefinger suggests they should "fight fire with fire" by rumoring that Stannis' daughter is baseborn and illegitimate, Cersei immediately says:

"So we pay him back in his own coin. Yes, I like this. Who can we name as Lady Selyse's lover? She has two brothers, I believe. And one of her uncles has been with her on Dragonstone all this time ..."

It's noteworthy that Selyse's brothers and uncle are the very first options that spring to Cersei's mind. I doubt that is a coincidence.

 

 

[Kingmonkey]

I think Eddard would be best fit story-wise, all you said for this pairing holds and I have some minor observations. He was separated from Lyanna as a child to go to Vale, so when they reunited romantic feelings could more easily occur then if they grew up together. It would explain the compassion he felt for Cersei and her children much better then any other case.

The gap year explanation is a nice one, but I think Ned's compassion towards Cersei and her children works just as well if he was raising Lyanna & Benjen's child. 

The problem as I see it with the Ned case is the matter of timing. Ned was pretty busy at the time of Jon's conception, and it's hard to see when he'd have had the opportunity. Where Ned went after the wedding to Cat is vague enough that we can't take him off the slate, though. 

And Eddard tells Jon they will talk about his mother next time they see each other, and it can be important, they will talk about mother, not about his parentage, that can imply Eddard is Jon's father but he doesn't want to drop the incest bomb on him, which can wait and is of no great importance while Jon being the son of Targaryen prince is a huge deal, so Eddard would probably choose his words differently. 

It's his mother that Jon's asking about though. Also I believe that's just in the TV show. 

[wolfmaid7]

Oh unquestionably. However unless I've misread what you're responding to here, the question of sufficiency is not whether Ned has determined a sufficient amount of information, but what is sufficient to cause Cersei to want to silence Bran. Let's look at Ned's deductive process here.

Data point 1. Bran fell. Bran never falls.

Data point 2. An assassin was subsequently sent to try to kill Bran.

Deduction 1 > Bran's fall was an attempt to murder Bran. The follow up attempt indicates that the guilty party believed the initial failure had to be corrected. (data points 1 & 2)

Deduction  2 > Someone wanted to silence Bran. (follows from deduction 1)

Data point 3. Cersei's children are blond.

Data point 4. Baratheon / Lannister crosses produce dark haired children.

Deduction 3 > Cersei's children are not Roberts. Cersei has been cheating on Robert. (data points 3&4)

Data point 5. Jon Arryn had uncovered the secret of Cersei's children.

Data point 6. Jon Arryn was murdered.

Deduction 5 > Jon Arryn was murdered to protect the secret of Cersei's children. (data points 5 &6)

Data point 5. Cersei was present at Winterfell, with a deadly secret that people get murdered to protect, when the attempt was made on Bran's life.

Deduction 6> Bran must have accidentally stumbled on Cersei's secret, thus making him a target in the same way that Jon Arryn was.  (data point 5 & deduction 5)

Data point 7> Jaime was at Winterfell with Cersei, and is very close to Cersei.

Deduction 7> Jaime was the father of Cersei's children (insufficient data to make this deduction).

The problem I am pointing out here is that somehow Ned also deduced that Jaime was the father of Cersei's children. Data points 3&4 excludes Robert, but does not point to Jaime. Deduction 3 reveals a secret that would ruin Cersei if discovered. Data points 5 & 6 indicate that this secret is something that the Lannisters are prepared to kill to avoid being uncovered.  Deduction 6 is a decent deduction, arising from the information we know Ned had at this time. 

The big problem is deduction 7. Ned might deduce that Jaime was probably the one to have pushed Bran, because he's very close to Cersei, he'd want to protect her & the Lannisters, and Ned might think he's a lot more likely to commit a murder than Cersei would (he's murdered a king, after all). However, if Cersei had been having an affair with someone at court, or even multiple people, then exactly the same principle holds here. Jaime would STILL try to protect Cersei and the Lannisters by trying to kill Bran. 

We are missing a data point. What gives Ned reason to deduce that Jaime was the father, rather than simply protecting his sister's secret (and probably life)?

I can see only two explanations for this. Either there is a data point that Ned had which has not been revealed to us, or GRRM made a (rather common) error in writing the mystery. An author has do work the process of deduction out backwards, going from solution to clues, and it's an easy mistake to make, when you already know the answer, to not spot that there is insufficient data for a step of the deductions to be made. 

As I favour RLJ, I tend to believe that the latter case is what actually happened here. However, it's a point in favour of the incest theory that it actually provides that missing data point, and provides a reason why GRRM might have chosen to exclude that data point from Ned's PoV.   

I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's right there in the text. Could you elaborate?

Possible, though Ned goes into that meeting with Cersei apparently confident that he has it all figured out. If it's a wild guess, it's a rather odd one to make. 

I  get what you are saying yet i still think its simple as Ned made a WAG ( wild ass guess) as we are prone to do sometimes from superficial info.

When Sansa says he's a Lion like his mother and nothing like that drunk old king i would imagine a light bulb went on and he focused on "he's a Lion" as well.Sometimes its a guess and its a guess that pays off which is what Ned did with Cersie. He made a guess about Jamie and Cersie confirmed it.And i'll say that Ned probably made the same assertion that some of are saying.He thought she's very close to Jamie,Jamie had frequent contact with her so it must be him.A process that is very illogical i agree but in this case it was right.It's not an odd guess,that's why it's a guess.He used superficial observation and just threw it out there.

As to the other i'm sure it will come up in the Reflections thread so i'll hold it till then.

 

[Ygrain]

 

We don't know any of this, it's all speculation. Perhaps she was staying with the Whents, who knows? Perhaps Benjen was ALSO staying with the Whents, and was going to accompany her to Riverrun and then make his way to Winterfell so that Rickard could travel south. We don't know. Perhaps Benjen and Lyanna had run off somewhere together, contrary to Rickard's wishes. We don't know. Perhaps Lyarra Stark was still alive at that point, and was the Stark in Winterfell, and she threw herself off a tower when she heard of Rickard's death. We don't know. 

/snip/

Your complaint about his age is already answered. A minor command of an escort party, to give him a bit of responsibility. Simple enough.

 

Now you're descending into a realm of gods of the gaps. Had Lyarra pulled an Ashara, it would be very bad writing on GRRM's part if we haven't heard a single word about such a scenario by now. Benjen running away with Lyanna - you can't be serious. 

Benjen as an assigned companion is the least convoluted but it makes no sense logistics-wise, as it would make Rickard stuck in the North until his return, nor reason-wise, as you don't put the youngest sibling in charge of an unruly daughter. Minor command that would be perfectly in Benjen' scope would be leaving him in charge at home, where he has trusted advisors in case some problem arises, just like Cat did with Robb. 

 

 

I don't think we should draw too many conclusions from a second-hand remembered account of a "semi-canon" source.

 

If you want me to find the quote for you, you certainly possess better means to do so.

 

 There's no "would have to", nobody asserted a rule, where did you even get that from?

 

 The same place where you found "Benjen might have accompanied Lyanna" theory, for which I was actually trying to find an explanation. There is nothing, nada, zilch, that places Benjen anywhere in the South (note please that Lyanna's disappearance from HH was postulated long before that source which I mentioned previously, as abduction from Winterfell didn't really make much sense), so his presence could be explained if we knew that Stark daughters always had to be accompanied. Alas, we don't. But, we don't know where Benji was... alright, he was staying with the Flints, they are his granny's relatives. Or perhaps he was visiting the Wall because he was so curious about the Nightwatch. 

Why on earth would it be so unlikely she'd be talking about it to her trusted and beloved twin brother?

 

Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with the ones you love and trust.

'Sides, it would be one hell of a coincidence that Cersei would broach  the topic right then.

 

Exactly. So the idea of children that take after their mother shouldn't be such a hard one to grasp. 

 

Now that you mention it... You've got some incorrect statements in your essay:

"he sees Cat's influence in Jon's brothers."

This is rather misleading. It's not like Cat's kids look like Starks with a bit of Tully, they look Tully. Which is actually quite funny in relation to your following statement:

"Unless... unless Ned knew that Jon showed no signs of his other parent because his parents were very similar looking siblings. In that case, Ned would have had a direct example of what he was seeing in Joffery to make him jump to that conclusion."

So, shouldn't Ned jump to the conclusion that Cat was cheating on him with Edmure? You're coming off an incorrect premise here.

5 years, not 12. That's the gap between Joffrey and Tommen. And that's assuming that all three had the same father, which there's no particular reason to assume. Nor is there any reason to look for a father amongst golden-haired men. Lannisters very frequently have blond children. Most Lannisters are blond. The evidence we've been given is that we need to look outside the Baratheons for the father, not that the father needs to be golden-haired too.

 

The list really isn't that short. Even amongst the golden-haired, there's more than a few Lannisters and other blonde westermen around who Cersei could have been doing the deed with, without assuming it had to be the abomination option. 

And which of these guys has access to Cersei any time and has a reputation for having zero moral values?

 

 "Just a little bit"? Come on! That's absurd. How many twins are close confidants? Almost all of them. How many twins shag each other? Almost none of them. One situation is totally expected. One situation is totally unexpected. It's a HUGE leap of logic to assume the unexpected because the expected turns out to be true.

Unless you have the statistics of the twins sharing with each other adultery and treason, your point is not very valid.

 

But I DID claim the cause is not sufficient. Jaime is involved, but there's no reason to assume that he was involved in that aspect, and a very good reason to assume he was not (being the brother). There is good reason to suspect he was involved in killing Bran. The fact that he is Cersei's twin is entirely sufficient to explain why he would have been involved, without invoking the notion that the pair of them had been sneakily breaking one of Westeros' biggest taboos without anyone knowing for years and years.  See my outline of the deductive process in my response to Wolfsmaid just above -- there is a missing step in the deductive process. 

Sorry but "not sufficient" doesn't equal "no". 

Your deductive steps seem to be missing the factor od the one making them, and that is the lens of Ned, who has a very low opinion of Jaime and thinks him capable of next to anything. 

Again, something I never said. Please try to address the actual discussion.  

Which is actually a major flaw of your essay. A guy in the society whose royal family was known to indulge in incest is way more likely to think about incest in the new royal family, as well.

 

 

[SFDanny]

There's a lot of scope for variance in that information. For example, how long is the gap between Lyanna's kidnapping and the knowledge reaching Brandon? We don't know. What would happen if Benjen was supposed to have arrived back in Winterfell so Rickard could leave for the wedding, but didn't arrive back in time? Would Rickard go anyway and shrug his shoulders at the Stark in Winterfell tradition? Would he send the wedding party on ahead, intending to come along later at a faster pace when Benjen got there? We don't know. Both are possibilities. 

"GRRM + numbers = nope nope nope," or so some bright young person once said.

Our dear author gives us one exact date in the main series, the first of the new year, 300 years after Aegon the Conqueror's crowning. The day of Joffrey and Margaery's wedding. And more hopefully, the day of Joffery's demise, the beginning of Margaery's widowhood, and dear Sansa's escape out of the frying pan into ... well, you know the rest. George loves ambiguity and inexactness. 

Doesn't mean we can't figure out some things based on what he does tell us.

Relationships between events actually tells us a lot. In this case, it means something when we know event A, the kidnapping or running away of Lyanna Stark with Rhaegar Targaryen, take your pick, happens before event B, the news of A reaching Brandon Stark on his ride to Riverrun. Yes, we don't know the exact time it takes for the news to reach young Brandon's party, but we have every reason to believe our not-so-bright-young-heir moved at close to his fastest rate possible into the jaws of doom, otherwise known as the Red Keep. You can figure the time a fast horse travels over the distance from somewhere on the road to Riverrun to King's Landing, add in time for rest and whatever you come up with I won't dispute your estimation of the time that passes between event A to event B and on to event C - the arrival in the Red Keep. What we would have a disagreement about is if you add in a tour of the Riverlands, including a stop at the wonders of the God's Eye, or especially any stop the includes getting sage advice from anyone telling our intrepid young noblemen to not do what he does. We are talking a journey of a week to ten days or so, just to err on the side of some realism. But, if you want it faster than that, anything reasonable ... ok.

What we can't add into these series of events is brother Brandon shagging his sister Lyanna anytime after event A. Let's call this our hypothetical Stark incest event resulting in the conceiving Jon Snow. Or HSI event for short. Note that for the purposes of finding out who is Jon's father and who is Jon's mother we don't give a damn about any HSI not involving the conception of Jon Snow.

Now because we also know another event, let's call this event Q, the actual conception of Jon Snow, takes place after event A we also know Q does not occur because of our HSI event with Brandon and Lyanna as the culprits.

Before I move on, I know there are some folks out there saying to themselves "self, what about while Brandon is being held in the black cells? Couldn't Varys, or, better yet an-ever-so-young Petyr Baelish, have somehow have gotten hold of Lyanna and secreted her into his cell for some HSI on the side? To which we should reply,"take off the tin foil hat, back away from the keyboard, stop speaking of yourself in the third person, and get some much needed rest." Oh, and yes, it would be good to remember event Q takes place three to four months into a year long rebellion and Brandon dies, along with Rickard, before the rebellion starts. Even in fantasy, death poses some problems with procreation. 

Which brings us to dear old Rickard. Rickard has been the Stark in Winterfell, even if young Benjen is there with him. He like, Brandon, has to be on the road to Riverrun for the wedding when event A takes place. George is not good with numbers, and I don't want to argue whether or not his time he gives for the travel between Winterfell and Riverrun is realistic in anyway. But he does give time for it to occur. No matter who we are talking about, each of his characters who travel south from Winterfell do so over the course of a long journey. Ned and his daughters with the Royal party going to King's Landing. Catelyn and Ser Roderick going by another route by sea to King's Landing. Or Yoren and Tyrion traveling the Kingsroad all the way from the Wall to the Inn at the Crossroads before Catelyn takes Tyrion. All of them are on a journey of months. So, when Cat tell us that Brandon hears the news of Lyanna, our event A, and tells us, 

"Brandon was nothing like you."

"If you say so. You and he were to wed."

"He was on his way to Riverrun when ..." Strange, how tell ing it still made her throat grow tight, after all these years. "... when he heard about Lyanna, and went to King's Landing instead."( ACoK 599)

We know the wedding is set for a time much closer than the months of travel that takes place if Rickard sets forth from Winterfell only after hearing the news of event A. Lord Rickard, if he reasonably expects to be there in time for his son's wedding is already on the road and quite likely in the Riverlands on the way to Riverrun. Where exactly on his journey he hears of event A is unknown. He isn't in Winterfell.

The rest of what I said concerning Brandon applies here. There is no possible HSI event between Rickard and Lyanna after event A, and you ought to be a little ashamed of yourself for thinking such things about dear old Rickard in the first place. And because event Q happens after Rickard dies trying to save his son, all the nonsense about black cells and Lyanna doesn't work for him either.

Let's go on to Benjen. In some ways young Benjen would be our most likely prospect for our HSI with Lyanna. They are close. No evidence to suggest they are that close, but we know they are close. And beside that I can't think of anything suggesting incest at all. But let's assume for the sake of the argument it occurs. When?

Benjen has the same problem as his father, only in reverse. He has to be in Winterfell by the time his father is to leave Winterfell for the wedding. We have nothing that points to Benjen being in the south with Lyanna in the build up to the wedding, but again assuming for the sake of argument that he is, and further assuming that Benjen and Lyanna are shagging like bunnies all this time. We have the problem Young Benjen has to get home on time or Dad is going to very mad. When Martin tells us Benjen is the Stark in Wintefell during the rebellion, I think we can agree that this means that even if he shows up late, he does go back North and does his duty to family and country. Which makes it hard to figure out how after event A, Benjen is with Lyanna and Rhaegar's party, having lots of HSI events all the time and this goes on into the third or fourth month of the war, only for Benjen to then leave and go north to Winterfell. Not only is it hard to figure because we have no evidence to support the idea, but also we should remember that Ned comes home before the event Q timeframe, and would be most distressed to find his younger brother not there doing his duties. Everything points to Benjen having been in Winterfell, including the time of the Q event, and nothing suggest otherwise. Even Ned making a guess that Jaime is Cersei's lover.

Which leaves us with Ned. We know Ned is in the Vale after the deaths of Rickard and Brandon, and we know at sometime around the call by Aerys for his and Robert's heads, he is headed north to call his banners, if he hasn't already sent word ahead to Benjen to do so, and to take charge of the Northern Army he leads to the Battle of the Bells. All of which takes away from any serious time to engage in HSI events with his sister who is on the opposite side of the war. Can't rule it out in their randy younger days, but I think we can rule it out in the event Q timeframe. Ned is not Jon's father with his sister as his mother.

<snip>

 

If the father was someone else, what is there that would be different? Would Cersei not be close to Jaime? I see no reason to assume that. They are twins. They've always been close. I don't think that Ned would have any difficulty with the idea of siblings being close to each other, even if Lyanna wasn't doing a Cersei. Both Ned and Benjen seem to have been very close to Lyanna, and they're not twins.

 

That first sentence really outlines my problem with this entire scenario. If the father was NOT Jaime, what is there that Ned had witnessed that would be different? I don't see anything. If there is no difference between the two scenarios, then there is no reason for Ned to assume the exceptional scenario (Jaime as father) rather than the unexceptional one (Jaime as confidante).

 

I think we could narrow it down from hundreds of thousands to hundreds, maybe even tens. Of those, Jaime sticks out like a sore thumb as being the unlikely option, due to being her brother. You mentioned above that "In fact, Cersei and Jaime use the incest taboo to deflect attention to their longtime affair." Why would this factor not work equally on Ned as it has on everyone else at court for all these years, unless Ned had already been desensitised to this taboo?

To your central question about Ned's jump to suspect Jaime as Cersei's lover, I can only restate what I think is obvious. First, it is a guess, and Martin makes it clear it is a guess. Ned asks the question of Cersei and she answers it truthfully, for whatever reason. Second, Ned has shown us his distrust, dislike, even hatred for Jaime for all kinds of faults, both real and imagined. Remember this guess occurs not only after, Jaime has killed the king he swore to protect, but after Ned sees him sit the throne still holding his bloody sword, and after he suspects the Lannisters have killed Jon Arryn, have attempted twice to kill Bran in order to silence him, and after Ned has seen Jaime order the deaths of two beloved men in order to "chastise" Ned for Catelyn taking Tyrion. To say Ned is predisposed to think Jaime guilty of the worst evils imaginable is an understatement. Lastly, Ned is not an idiot. He has observed the closeness of the twins, and we have no alternate suspects that are readily at hand. If Ned had been around when Cersei's children were born and observed other men fawning over the queen or finding reasons to be within her vicinity then maybe he would suspect them before Jaime. That is not his experience and he guesses Jaime for both right and wrong reasons, and strikes the truth. It really isn't that great of a jump for him to do so.

I will leave the question of Lyarra Stark until we get more information than I've already given you. I think from the tone and tenor of Martin's remarks she is already dead, but I admit I could be wrong. 

[Ygrain]

BTW, KIngmonkey, in this scenario, how do you explain the blue roses, Rhaegar's part in the whole mess and the like?

[Julia H.]

To the OP: It is a very convincing essay for an author who does not really think this is the most probable scenario. 

Regarding some of the points under discussion:

 All major POV characters being incest children themselves: If Tyrion qualifies as one (with his parents being cousins), then Jon probably has similarly “concentrated” blood in the R+L scenario, given that his father was born of Targaryen sibling incest and his mother was a child of cousins. If we need such condition, Jon fulfils it anyway. (Of course, if Tyrion turns out to be Aerys’ son, then the bloodline criterion probably changes: it is simply Targaryen blood for all three major POV’s.)

Ned’s conclusion regarding Cersei and Jaime:

I would add one more criterion to the list of criteria Cersei’s lover must meet. The lover must be a man with whom Cersei feels safe while she is playing with her own life as well as with the lives of her children. Who would Cersei trust more than Jaime Lannister, who is her brother, is known as the best swordsman in Westeros, is the son of powerful, fearsome Tywin Lannister, and has a record of being more loyal to his family than to his king?

Very few people would dare to tail Jaime, give such reports about him or accuse him of committing such a series of crimes (incest, adultery, high treason and breaking his Kingsguard vows again and in a new way). While Robert is blind, there are only a handful of people who would want and dare to reveal this secret to him: Jon Arryn, who is close enough to Robert, Stannis (who knows that the fact that it is in his interest to disclose the adultery makes him a target) and Ned – basically Lords Paramount who count as family to Robert. As for Tywin, I don’t think anyone would think it is in their interest to take such news to him.  

The idea that Ned should have considered Cersei having multiple lovers… That would be the most dangerous version of cheating on the king - logically not impossible, but less likely than one constant paramour. I think the risk factor must be taken into consideration here. (Cersei might kill every single one of her lovers, of course, but that would create suspicion after a while and she would need a close accomplice if she didn’t want to be implicated in the deaths of various young noblemen in King’s Landing. Having one faithful lover is a lot safer.)

Yet another factor is Cersei’s character: She is narcissistic and is full of Lannister pride, which makes the twincest somewhat more likely in her case than in the case of other mortals. Add to this the double standard regarding incest in Westeros: On the one hand, it is considered “abomination” and is forbidden by the Faith; on the other hand, it is also very much part of the aura of the last royal family, the Targaryens, who were exceptional in various ways and were allowed to do things other people were not, incest being perhaps the most famous of them. In the context of royalty, Robert is a parvenu, and Cersei has a way of trying to imitate the Targaryens. (That is relevant to Cersei’s character much more than anything that may or may not have happened in the Stark family.) Now, Ned does not have access to Cersei’s inner thoughts, as we do (in later books), but he does have the benefit of seeing her every day and being able to observe her personality and her actions, even her gestures and unguarded facial expressions. There is plenty of opportunity for him to make deductions without having to resort to parallels in his own family.

I think the above together may provide the missing data point for Ned – not necessarily enough to convict Jaime in a modern criminal court but enough to try and elicit a confession from Cersei.

I agree with KM that this data point is not stated in the novel as it would be stated in a real detective novel, where Poirot or Sherlock Holmes would reveal exactly how he has come to this conclusion, eliminating all other possibilities. You may consider it a mistake on the author’s part, but I think it is simply a sign that AGoT is not a real detective novel, and Ned is not a real detective character, as his story proves anyway.

Let me also add that Ned doesn’t seem to be the only one to reach this conclusion. Didn’t Stannis conclude the same? How did he manage to do that? We don’t know exactly how far Jon Arryn got with his own detective work, but we know that he and Stannis worked together… I have the impression that LF knows, too. (Am I wrong?) Even Bran overheard and saw the twins, albeit from a very special position. All that makes it possible that there are still other people who may have noticed this or that, but basic survival instinct told them to forget what they had noticed. They would be afraid to accuse the Lannisters, and who knows what even Robert would do to the one who might bring such news to him in his first rage unless the messenger was someone really close to him?

All in all, I think instead of getting hard evidence, Ned put two and two together on the basis of likelihood, opportunity and observation of character, and he probably wasn’t the first one to do so, only the first one to actually take action. 

[Ygrain]

Per the courtesy of Rhaenys_Targaryen:

App, Catelyn Tully:

Still, Petyr is sent away from Riverrun, while Brandon departs to join his father's wedding party, coming down from the north. But when Brandon hears of Rhaegar's abduction of Lyanna on his way back, he abandons Catelyn, racing to King's Landing.

 

[Julia H.]

Let me start this post by saying that I love the analysis of that first scene between Jon and Benjen from this particular angle. It’s really cute. And yet…

I don’t want to enter the logistics dispute, as I couldn’t add anything new. I’ll just say I tend to lean towards the option that Benjen must have been in Winterfell at the crucial time unless there is something important there that no character has alluded to yet (and obviously, there are quite a few important things we haven’t been told). However, I think that the necessity of Benjen having sex with Lyanna in the ToJ raises some further questions.

Scenario 1: Rhaegar kidnaps Lyanna and Benjen for political reasons. He locks them up in the ToJ. Since he is not interested in Lyanna romantically, he doesn’t really mind that those two become superintimate. Later Benjen somehow escapes, leaving behind an already pregnant Lyanna, shows up in Winterfell like a good boy to become the Stark there. Still later, when the war is over and Ned has found out what he did, he takes the black. When we meet them, their relationship seems to be good and brotherly.

In this case, Lyanna and Benjen are purely hostages in the Targaryens’ power. When the war starts, they become very valuable hostages. After all, Ned is now the Lord of Winterfell, the head of the Stark family, and until Robb’s birth, Benjen is the only other male Stark alive, which makes him (if only temporarily) Ned’s heir. We know how important heirs are in the noble families of Westeros, how important it is to ensure the survival of the family on the male line. Rhaegar and Aerys are holding Ned’s last two surviving family members as hostages and they apparently never try to use this strategic bonus to their advantage. What is more, Rhaegar accommodates these two war hostages in circumstances that make the incest possible between them.

That is not the logic of war. The logic of war would say that they are locked up in separate cells preventing them from comforting each other, preventing them from plotting together, preventing them from escaping or being freed together. The logic of war would dictate that one of them is guarded in the ToJ and the other is taken to King’s Landing or Dragonstone – or perhaps that one of them is taken to King’s Landing and the other is taken to Dragonstone. Instead, these two are supposed to be locked up together so that they can make a baby while Arthur Dayne is keeping guard outside their door. Supposing, of course, that psychologically they are in the mood to have sex despite being the prisoners of the Mad King, i.e., despite being in a potentially life-threatening situation. And then Lyanna dies with rose petals in her hands...

Scenario 2: Rhaegar kidnaps Lyanna for romantic reasons and since Benjen happens to be there, too, he kidnaps Benjen as well. In this case, Lyanna either loves Rhaegar enough to have sex with him or Rhaegar probably rapes her, as Robert supposes. Yet, there is also little Benjen, who somehow also gets to have sex with Lyanna – either because she is Lyanna’s true love or because he rapes her. The result is that there is no telling which of them is Jon’s father – and we will never know. Nor will Jon.

Or perhaps Rhaegar is too honourable to rape Lyanna and waits for her consent, which she doesn’t give, but she does have sex with Benjen until Benjen escapes or is perhaps sent home by Rhaegar when Rhaegar discovers what’s going on (entirely forgetting that he has a valuable war hostage in Benjen), but he still keeps the already pregnant Lyanna.

Sorry, this scenario with Lyanna having sex with both men sounds like a bad soap opera to me,. The presence of one of the men seems totally superfluous plotwise as well. Yet, it is very unlikely that Rheagar kidnaps a highborn maiden purely out of lust but shies away from actually raping her, just to make Benjen the only possible biological father for Jon.

Scenario 3: Rhaegar kidnaps Lyanna in order to obtain her magical bloodline to further the birth of a dragon. In this case, the question is whether he also purposefully kidnaps Benjen, thinking that both of them are needed, i.e., that Rhaegar specifically wants a Stark incest baby for some reason. Or does Rhaegar want to father a baby on Lyanna himself, with Benjen somehow managing to interfere? (If you think so, go back to Scenario 2.) If Rhaegar has plans with two Starks, will Benjen or Lyanna or both of them be willing participants? Or will they just do as they are told?

To be honest, in my opinion this scenario borders on horror, and granted, it wouldn’t be the first time in ASOIAF, but still… It would indicate that Robert is correct about Rhaegar, and it would be difficult to explain how Ned can be so calm when Rhaegar’s memory comes up or why he seems sad thinking of Arthur Dayne who apparently took part in what Ned would consider total abomination. How is it possible that Ned never thinks that Arthur Dayne wasn’t really the number one True Knight of the realm that everybody believes him to have been? Nor is it likely that Benjen would talk to Jon about sex and fathering bastards in that light-hearted way – he would probably recall having sex as experiencing a trauma, especially knowing the consequences.

[Kingmonkey]

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

 

Now you're descending into a realm of gods of the gaps. Had Lyarra pulled an Ashara, it would be very bad writing on GRRM's part if we haven't heard a single word about such a scenario by now. Benjen running away with Lyanna - you can't be serious. 

Benjen as an assigned companion is the least convoluted but it makes no sense logistics-wise, as it would make Rickard stuck in the North until his return, nor reason-wise, as you don't put the youngest sibling in charge of an unruly daughter. Minor command that would be perfectly in Benjen' scope would be leaving him in charge at home, where he has trusted advisors in case some problem arises, just like Cat did with Robb. 

How on earth is this God of the Gaps? In no way am I using a lack of evidence of something as evidence for something. Either you've seriously misunderstood the suggestion or you don't understand what God of the Gaps means. 

We do not know where Benjen was at this time. Therefore he may have been with Lyanna. It's pretty simple, really. 

There is no issue with Rickard being stuck in the North until his return, if he was expected to return before Rickard needed to go anywhere. 

A small command -- being put in charge of a small escort for Lyanna -- would also allow him to be in a position where he had trusted advisers. Historically this kind of minor command was absolutely typical, I see no reason to assume it couldn't happen in ASOIAF. 

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

If you want me to find the quote for you, you certainly possess better means to do so.

Er what? No, I don't have the app, or any hardware that runs the app, nor do I know what passage you are referring to.

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

 

Quote

There's no "would have to", nobody asserted a rule, where did you even get that from?

The same place where you found "Benjen might have accompanied Lyanna" theory, for which I was actually trying to find an explanation. There is nothing, nada, zilch, that places Benjen anywhere in the South (note please that Lyanna's disappearance from HH was postulated long before that source which I mentioned previously, as abduction from Winterfell didn't really make much sense), so his presence could be explained if we knew that Stark daughters always had to be accompanied. Alas, we don't. But, we don't know where Benji was... alright, he was staying with the Flints, they are his granny's relatives. Or perhaps he was visiting the Wall because he was so curious about the Nightwatch. 

No, "might have" is not the same as "must have". For there to be a rule, there would have to be a "must have". There wasn't. You made that bit up.

There is nothing, nada, zilch, that places Benjen anywhere in the North, either. His whereabouts at this time are purely speculative. He has to have been somewhere though, so it's acceptable to speculate that he was in the north or in the south. 

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

On 16/01/2016 at 10:27 PM, Kingmonkey said:

Why on earth would it be so unlikely she'd be talking about it to her trusted and beloved twin brother?

 

Some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with the ones you love and trust.

'Sides, it would be one hell of a coincidence that Cersei would broach  the topic right then.

You honestly think it's more dangerous to share a secret with her brother than it is to have sex with her brother?

And how is it any more of a coincidence that Cersei would be discussing cheating on the king at that moment than it would be that she was actually cheating on the king at that moment?

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

 

Now that you mention it... You've got some incorrect statements in your essay:

"he sees Cat's influence in Jon's brothers."

This is rather misleading. It's not like Cat's kids look like Starks with a bit of Tully, they look Tully. Which is actually quite funny in relation to your following statement:

"Unless... unless Ned knew that Jon showed no signs of his other parent because his parents were very similar looking siblings. In that case, Ned would have had a direct example of what he was seeing in Joffery to make him jump to that conclusion."

So, shouldn't Ned jump to the conclusion that Cat was cheating on him with Edmure? You're coming off an incorrect premise here.

 

It's only misleading if you take it out of context like that. 

Quote

he also tells Jon that “You have more of the north in you than your brothers.” He sees only Ned in Jon, while he sees Cat's influence in Jon's brothers. 

Jon's brothers look more Tully than Stark, but they do not look wholly Tully. Thus, he sees Cat's (southern) influence in Jon's brothers, in contrast to Jon who he only sees Ned's (northern) influence in.

The Edmure thing is just absurd. If the other siblings all looked purely Tully (which they don't, but never mind), then they would be more counter-examples. We already know there are counter-examples. Arya is a counter-example. The question is why Ned would consider this possibility if the ONLY thing he was aware of was counter-examples. 

You understand the concept that there can be more than one explanation for something, right? That possibilities don't have to be exclusive?

1. A child might have the looks from one family only because both parents are from that family.

2. A child might have the looks from one family despite one parent being from a different family.

Both of these are possible. We know for a fact that Ned is aware of possibility 2, that he lives with it every day of his life, because he has at least one child (Arya) that fits into this category. Does he also have an example of possibility 1? If not, then why is it when faced with a child with the looks of one family only, that instead of assuming possibility 2, which he is very well aware of, he would jump straight to possibility 1, which he has no example of? If he does have an example of possibility 1 as well, then it would be more likely that he would consider possibility 1. 

 

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

 

Quote

 "Just a little bit"? Come on! That's absurd. How many twins are close confidants? Almost all of them. How many twins shag each other? Almost none of them. One situation is totally expected. One situation is totally unexpected. It's a HUGE leap of logic to assume the unexpected because the expected turns out to be true.

Unless you have the statistics of the twins sharing with each other adultery and treason, your point is not very valid.

Are you trolling? You're honestly going to claim that unless someone provides statistics, it's fair to assume that twins are more likely to be shagging each other than sharing secrets with each other?

Meanwhile, back on planet earth:

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

Sorry but "not sufficient" doesn't equal "no". 

 

It doesn't have to equal no. It only has to equal not sufficient. The data is not sufficient to give rise to the conclusion. That doesn't mean that the conclusion is impossible to reach by a pure leap in the dark, it means that the evidence does not lead to the conclusion.

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

Your deductive steps seem to be missing the factor od the one making them, and that is the lens of Ned, who has a very low opinion of Jaime and thinks him capable of next to anything. 

If the lens of Ned has such a low opinion of Jaime that he'll assume the worst of Jaime without any evidence, then why did he assume this particular thing and not, for example, that Jaime killed Jon Arryn? 

On 17/01/2016 at 8:01 AM, Ygrain said:

Which is actually a major flaw of your essay. A guy in the society whose royal family was known to indulge in incest is way more likely to think about incest in the new royal family, as well.

You're still missing the point that I didn't say it. Had my essay claimed, as you said, that "believe that there is no way "incest" could have crossed Ned's mind without having an example in his family" then you'd have a point, but it didn't. That's something else you made up. Come on Ygrain, there are real problems with this hypothesis that you can address without these strawmen.

 

 

[Kingmonkey]

On 17/01/2016 at 9:34 AM, Ygrain said:

BTW, KIngmonkey, in this scenario, how do you explain the blue roses, Rhaegar's part in the whole mess and the like?

Like this one. As I said in the essay, the Bael parallel doesn't hold up very well in this scenario, and it's a weakness of the case. For the more general question of Rhaegar's part, that's addressed in the essay. He's still abducting the Stark maiden, but the blue rose symbolism does go somewhat out of the window. 

[Kingmonkey]

On 17/01/2016 at 0:48 PM, Ygrain said:

Per the courtesy of Rhaenys_Targaryen:

App, Catelyn Tully:

Still, Petyr is sent away from Riverrun, while Brandon departs to join his father's wedding party, coming down from the north. But when Brandon hears of Rhaegar's abduction of Lyanna on his way back, he abandons Catelyn, racing to King's Landing.

 

Ok, that's something for sure, but it's far from an insurmountable problem. We're still left with a number of possibilities, for example:

Rickard wasn't in the party, because Benjen was late showing up. A small group on horseback could potentially move a lot faster than the wedding party, so sending them on ahead isn't out of the question. Given the travel time for Robert's party, travel for a small group of horsemen between Riverrun and Winterfell probably only takes a week. 

Rickard chose to break the "Stark in Winterfell" rule to attend his heir's wedding (we really don't know how seriously that rule is taken).

Ned was actually supposed to be the Stark in Winterfell at the time and left for the Eyrie to consult with Robert & Jon when he heard of Lyanna's abduction. 

Lyarra was the Stark in Winterfell at the time. 

So good work on finding some counter evidence, but it's really no killer blow.

[Kingmonkey]

On 17/01/2016 at 0:36 PM, Julia H. said:

 All major POV characters being incest children themselves: If Tyrion qualifies as one (with his parents being cousins), then Jon probably has similarly “concentrated” blood in the R+L scenario, given that his father was born of Targaryen sibling incest and his mother was a child of cousins. If we need such condition, Jon fulfils it anyway. (Of course, if Tyrion turns out to be Aerys’ son, then the bloodline criterion probably changes: it is simply Targaryen blood for all three major POV’s.)

Totally agree with all of that. We could speculate that the concentration of blood is a critical thing, and that the more concentrated the blood, the more totemically empowered the individual. Tyrion in this context is almost a stand-in; it would be Joff who should have played the Lannister role, but the Lannister machinations screwed that possibility and Tyrion's their next best thing. In that case R+L=J would leave Jon trailing in the exemplar stakes behind Joff & Dany.

On 17/01/2016 at 0:36 PM, Julia H. said:

I agree with KM that this data point is not stated in the novel as it would be stated in a real detective novel, where Poirot or Sherlock Holmes would reveal exactly how he has come to this conclusion, eliminating all other possibilities. You may consider it a mistake on the author’s part, but I think it is simply a sign that AGoT is not a real detective novel, and Ned is not a real detective character, as his story proves anyway.

I'm not sure we're really saying much different, here. GRRM took a lot of the outline of a detective novel, but as you say, that's not what he was trying to write. It's certainly very possible what GRRM was aware of the leap and just decided to go with it. 

On 17/01/2016 at 0:36 PM, Julia H. said:

Let me also add that Ned doesn’t seem to be the only one to reach this conclusion. Didn’t Stannis conclude the same? How did he manage to do that? We don’t know exactly how far Jon Arryn got with his own detective work, but we know that he and Stannis worked together… I have the impression that LF knows, too. (Am I wrong?) 

Actually this is a particularly interesting question for those who argue that the attempt on Bran's life provided evidence for the incest. Stannis of course did not have that evidence, yet he came to the same conclusion. This is one clear reason for believing that GRRM was treating the evidence of the genealogy as being sufficient to jump to the Lannister + Lannister conclusion.

Of course there's a possibility that Stannis had some other insight or clue that we haven't been told about.

It seems very likely that both Littlefinger and Varys were aware of the Jaime / Cersei affair for a while, and each for their own reasons decided to keep it to themselves for the time being. 

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

This can tie into the Secret Pact of Ice and Fire theory.  Lyanna was supposed to mate with Rhaegar and get pregnant so the Targaryans could pay their genetic tribute to the Starks, and then she was to marry Robert and have the baby brought up as his, but Lyarra raised her younger children to resist this as she resented Rickard having her raped by Aerys.  This arrangement is supposed to be kept secret, which is why Brandon was so angry at Rhaegar crowning Lyanna at the tourney - it's supposed to be a purely physical transaction with no emotion involved, and by showing romantic feelings towards her he was violating the spirit of the agreement.  Brandon was especially angry because he did not want anyone to suspect that he wasn't a full-blood Stark or want anyone to suspect what was happening should Lyanna's first child have the Targaryan look.  Ned or Benjen impregnated Lyanna to keep this from happening, and Rhaegar kidnapped her so he could wait for her to have the incest baby so he could then fulfill the Targaryan side of the pact.