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Heresy Project X+Y=S+L=J


wolfmaid7

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So what you're basically saying is, it could happen but there's no evidence at all for it in the books.

In relation to Benjen, all of those other examples you gave weren't siblings as far as I can tell, and that's my point.  If a girl's going to do something as outrageous as sleep with her brother, she's going to choose the hot older one, rather than the boy with no facial hair who she had always beaten in a fight (unless she was some kind of crazy dom).

It's possible Ned did love Lyanna; he's a closed book to his feelings on that score, although we know he truly loves Cat.  I don't believe there was anything going on with Ashara either, and that Ned was just a wingman for Brandon, but Ned may have had an unrequited crush on Ashara and had to stand by and be a smokescreen while his brother fooled around with the girl Ned had danced with.

So maybe Ned did love Lyanna romantically.  He was away from home for long periods of their childhood, so maybe he idealised her.  But he doesn't seem jealous of Robert's love for her, just overall sadness at the series of mysterious events he's revealing to us.  Nor is he angry at Rhaegar.  I don't see it being anything more than an older brother who adores his younger, beautiful, headstrong only sister.  Single girls in families of boys are often doted on as the princess.  It can be cute, without being remotely incestuous.

The fact he lost her so young would only enhance all of this.

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23 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

I appreciate the point; we've all wondered about what was actually going on with that strange concentration of events. Where I think you go wrong is that you assume that "nothing happens for 9 months" simply because we have not been told about much happening in that time period. This could have been a period of consolidation and frequent small battles rather than the nothing you assume. The remains of Connington's forces had to be rallied, and we're told that Barristan and Darry went to Stony Sept to do so. But wait, didn't the rebels win the battle? What would the remains of the Targ army be doing still there, and why would Barristan and Darry think it was safe to visit? Apparently the retreat from Stony Sept wasn't as thorough as we might have assumed. We know Hoster Tully fought again loyalist riverlords at the time. How many battles were there? We don't know. GRRM has indicated that there were smaller battles that he hasn't reported. They can be at least as well placed before the Trident as after the Sack. 

The solution you offer simply transplants the problem rather than actually solving it. Every month you shave off one side of the sack gets added on the other side, equally unexplained. 

Awkward as that gap between Stony Sept and the Trident appears, that's the story we've been told. Remember that we are told that the siege of Storm's End lasted about a year. We are told that Cat and Ned were apart about a year. The long gap between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident makes sense of this. Your timeline just doesn't fit what we're told. You have Ned leaving to fight on the Trident, which would make it a month or two before the Sack, but Ned was still fighting when Robb was born, meaning your version of events needs a good seven months of war after the fall of the Targs. This despite the fact that Ned's victory at Storm's End was bloodless. Sure it could explain why Stannis doesn't seem to be too enamoured of Ned if it took him half a year to find Storm's End to accept the Tyrell surrender and end the seige, but I think you need to rethink your timeline. 

Fair enough, but I think all of these problems are solved if Jon was born 3 months + after the Sack. 

20 hours ago, SFDanny said:

I know we are well off topic here, so if we want to continue we should probably do so in another thread, but let me ask you where you get these figures? My own figures of the time period between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident has it at possibly 6 months or thereabouts, not 9 months. The Citadel essay on this, "What Happen When During Robert's Rebellion?" puts it at seven months. I've never seen anyone figure it to 9 months.

The three months is unlikely as well for the period between the start of the rebellion and the Battle of the Bells. Could you, if you want to continue let me know where you got the figures or why you think they are appropriate. Thanks

I am happy to take this to a new thread if you like.  But here is the short version.  I think the time between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident is about 6-10 weeks.  I say this for a number of reasons, not least of which are (1) the fact that the rebellion lasted a total of one year, (2)  the sheer number of things that happened prior to the battle of the bells, and (3) the fact that Selmy and Darry gathered the remnants of Connington's army from Stony Sept and took them to the Trident when we know that a scattered army will quickly dissipate and  go home and that you can't keep a standing army sitting around for long periods of time.  

But more importantly to the issue at hand -- the 1999 SSM -- I think it is impossible that Jon was born "8 to 9 months" before Dany.  Here is the really short version:  Robb is of an age with Jon.  Robb was born after the battle of the bells and Dany was conceived less than a week after the Trident.  If Robb was born 8 to 9 months before Dany, then he was conceived 8 or 9 months before the Trident.  Meaning that the battle of the bells happened more than 8 (or 9) months before the Trident.  

But that would mean that everything prior to the battle of the bells had to have happened in about a 3 month period or less.  And that is not possible.  

 

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I have not read this whole series but I do not accept much of it.

 

To start with there are plenty of OTHER Starks who may well be alive. Rodrik stark for one is Ned's grandfather and we have no date for his death. he is the wandering Stark so could certainly have been the Stark in Winterfell for a time. there were Starks who left for Essos. Some may have returned from time to time

 

Lynarra would not have been in Winterfell because I think she was banished.  I am guessing that she had warging abilities.  I would hazard a guess that it was Lynarra who sent the female dire wolf and provided pups for her six grandchildren.  I guess that while Ned was sent away to the Eirie, Lyanna and Brandon and probably Benjen had secret contact with their mother.  I am rather inclined to the view that Lyanna, and Benjen also have warging abilities.

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3 hours ago, maudisdottir said:

So what you're basically saying is, it could happen but there's no evidence at all for it in the books.

In relation to Benjen, all of those other examples you gave weren't siblings as far as I can tell, and that's my point.  If a girl's going to do something as outrageous as sleep with her brother, she's going to choose the hot older one, rather than the boy with no facial hair who she had always beaten in a fight (unless she was some kind of crazy dom).

If this is directed my way ... I admit my last post was vague, but that is because I had previously relayed why I think this theory is possible and didn't want to bore anyone with repeated information. 

Well, there is no relationship between Benjen and Lyanna at all in the first book, and so if you look at this mystery with GRRM saying he put enough information in the aGoT for us to figure out Jon's parentage, then for me that rules out Benjen. This is by no means any type of proof, just a deduction of mine. Of course, this could be a misdirect on the authors part.

What does show up in the book is Ned loving Lyanna (a lot), and as described his thoughs related to her, pretty consistently, such as "promise me, Ned", blue roses, blood and roses, crown of winter roses, "I bring her flowers when I can", "Lyanna was ... fond of flowers", Ned loving Lyanna with all his heart, Ned being so upset by her death that he blacked out. In aGoT we also get the Lannister incest that threatens to rip the seven kingdoms apart, and while Ned knows he needs to report this to Robert, he does not seem terribly upset about it. He is almost gentle with Cersei in the godswood scene, and Ned has shown no great love for "the Lannister woman" or her teats in this book so far. We get heavy hints about the mystery that is Jon Snow's parentage. I am just putting all of those things in the blender and coming up with Incest Jon Soup. It's kind of like those weird baby name generator web sites on the internet. My leap is no greater than many other fan theories! I am not even saying I believe it, but I think it is possible from what the text gives us.

3 hours ago, maudisdottir said:

It's possible Ned did love Lyanna; he's a closed book to his feelings on that score, although we know he truly loves Cat.  I don't believe there was anything going on with Ashara either, and that Ned was just a wingman for Brandon, but Ned may have had an unrequited crush on Ashara and had to stand by and be a smokescreen while his brother fooled around with the girl Ned had danced with.

As I described above, Ned does love Lyanna, a lot. Yes, she is a beloved sibling that died, so it makes sense he mourns her. However. he thinks nothing really about his father or brother that also are dead.

Yes, Ned seems to love Cat, but they don't have a passionate love. Ned is very formal and even distant with her at times. One interaction we get with them indicates some pretty basic sex, then he goes to open the window to commune with the "north" and she lets her mind wander to summer, home and the process begins of her manipulating her husband away from his home and the place he belongs. As a matter of fact, after this incident, she hopes they created another son. In the black cells, Ned thinks of Cat and creating another son. Not holding her in his arms and declaring passionate love to her, but making a baby. Which is one of the primary functions of marriage in a feudal society (the other being alliance/strength).  When they are reunited in Kings Landing after sometime apart and with no idea when they might see each other again, and Littlefinger even offering them a room and a bed, they decline. Now, I wish that they had taken Baelish up on his offer, only so his little weasal face could scrunch up when Ned is banging the Cat of Littlefingers dreams under his own roof. Ned, you disappointed me here, not going to lie! But love of duty after 15 years of marriage in not the same as love of passion. But love, yes, I could agree.

I see no reason that he loved Ashara, either. I am not convinced that Ashara/Brandon is a thing either. Ned does act pretty constipated when talking about Wylla, but that could be because he is lying to Robert or attempting to not talk about Jon's mother. A lot of assumptions are made by the fans about the very little we know about what happened at Harrenhal. We have the memory of one person who admittedly doesn't really know much of what was going on at Harrenhal with Rhaegar, so why should we trust him about Ashara? We have a second hand story from a child, who's father told her this story more as a lesson than history, and we have Ned's own recollections of the moment when "all the smiles died". Lot's of fan fiction going on about the doings at Harrenhal, and I am as guilty of that as any other reader. Facts we don't have a lot of, conjecture overfills the pot.

3 hours ago, maudisdottir said:

So maybe Ned did love Lyanna romantically.  He was away from home for long periods of their childhood, so maybe he idealised her.  But he doesn't seem jealous of Robert's love for her, just overall sadness at the series of mysterious events he's revealing to us.  Nor is he angry at Rhaegar.  I don't see it being anything more than an older brother who adores his younger, beautiful, headstrong only sister.  Single girls in families of boys are often doted on as the princess.  It can be cute, without being remotely incestuous.

Absolutely, siblings can love one another without incestuous feelings. I love both of my brothers, but I am not attracted to them and I am certainly not banging them. Ned and Lyanna's relationship is interesting. They spent much time apart as children, so maybe how they viewed themselves was different that most siblings. I really don't know. I only know that Ned loved Lyanna, and Lyanna called her brother "dearest Ned" and they had this conversation at night, and that after he made "some" promise to her, the fear left her eyes (paraphrasing here). Ned's emotions are tough to crack, because they are like ice. Even in the black cells, his tears would not come because "his grief and rage froze hard inside him". Ned doesn't grieve like most people, so to judge his level of grief is tough, even when in comes to his family, but we do know that he thinks of Lyanna a lot in comparison to Rickard or Brandon.

Ned is certainly not angry at Rhaegar, which I think is odd. Even if it turns out that Rhaegar and Lyanna did fall in love and run away with each other, you would think Ned would be a little peeved at the older married man who seduced his young sister. Unless, Lyanna "took" Rhaegar, and then that shines a whole different light on the mystery. In this case, Ned should be upset with Lyanna for starting this whole damn mess, but he is not upset with her, either. Ned is really only upset with the Lannisters, mostly Tywin and Jaime!

I agree, Ned does not seem jealous of Robert when he thinks of Robert and Lyanna being promised to each other. As a matter of fact, all he thinks is that he himself "loved her with all his heart, Robert loved her more". Actually, when Ned thinks about Robert, it is almost with love. He thinks of Robert as "muscled like a maidens fantasy" and "like a great horned god" (more paraphrasing). So that is a complicated trio right there. Ned loves Robert and Lyanna, Robert loves Lyanna, Lyanna loves Ned. It's a weird little triangle. If Ned loved Lyanna in this way, and I am not saying he did, just that it is possible, then he would know he could not marry his sister, so who better to marry her than the person he loved and was "closer than brothers" with! 

Blue roses are a mystery in this series. We get little hints about them, and that they are rare. We assume Rhaegar "honored" Lyanna with them, but maybe it was not an honor. The Bael the Bard story hardly feels complete and I think there could be more to it than what we have received so far. Ygritte hints at it, Mance hints at at, but an important detail is missing. Why wouldn't the Bael Maid tell her child who his father was? Unless the truth was to much to bear. It must have been something pretty bad to allow the possibility of kinslaying, which is also really bad. Why won't Ned tell Jon who his mother is, unless that truth is also hard to bear. Maybe "a crown of blue roses" in the north indicates incest, or even baby born of blood sacrifice. Pure conjecture, I admit, but there is something more to the Bael Tale than we have received yet, and it is important!

 

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The books make it clear that Lyanna died in a sea of blood, and we can assume that she had a child.  That much is clear.

 

However we do NOT know who the father of that child was or who indeed that child may be.

Possible fathers, given the child was born 4 weeks or so after the sack and 13 months or so after the war started mean they had to be alive and near Lyanna about 9 months previously ie 4 months into the war. therefore

Not Brandon or Rickard as they were dead

No Benjen as we sort of assume he was at Winterfell

No Ned because he was travelling to Winterfell, rallying the troops and marrying Catelyn

So there are five contenders - Rhaegar (obviously) another of the Kings guard, Howland Reed (do not buy it), Mance Rayder - a wandering Night watch man and finally  (you  gasp) Robert.

 

Why Robert - because he fell to pieces - love for Lyanna itself would not turn Robert into such a self destructive nutter. However if he found her, but she refused him, what then? Rape in a drunken angry rage.  She dies and Robert lives with the guilt. It makes more sense than the idea he is just a useless sot.

 

If this were true then we do have a candidate for this child - Gendry - Rober's son obviously and just about the right age - 4-5 months younger than Robb.

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6 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Robb was born after the battle of the bells

Source? Because to my best memory, neither Cat nor anyone else relates his birth to any event. 

3 hours ago, Luddagain said:

The books make it clear that Lyanna died in a sea of blood

Bed of blood.

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13 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

I am happy to take this to a new thread if you like.  But here is the short version.  I think the time between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident is about 6-10 weeks.  I say this for a number of reasons, not least of which are (1) the fact that the rebellion lasted a total of one year, (2)  the sheer number of things that happened prior to the battle of the bells, and (3) the fact that Selmy and Darry gathered the remnants of Connington's army from Stony Sept and took them to the Trident when we know that a scattered army will quickly dissipate and  go home and that you can't keep a standing army sitting around for long periods of time.  

But more importantly to the issue at hand -- the 1999 SSM -- I think it is impossible that Jon was born "8 to 9 months" before Dany.  Here is the really short version:  Robb is of an age with Jon.  Robb was born after the battle of the bells and Dany was conceived less than a week after the Trident.  If Robb was born 8 to 9 months before Dany, then he was conceived 8 or 9 months before the Trident.  Meaning that the battle of the bells happened more than 8 (or 9) months before the Trident.  

But that would mean that everything prior to the battle of the bells had to have happened in about a 3 month period or less.  And that is not possible.  

We don't know how much time separates Robb and Dany, or Robb and Jon for that matter. We can guess from the name days in the book, but with Jon we don't know if his is right. All we know is that  Jon and Dany's name days are separated by "eight or nine months, or thereabouts." This I can tell you. Dany's name day is almost certainly is around mid year 284; meaning the flight from King's Landing takes place sometime around the ninth month of 283. Robb's name day, based on when he turns sixteen and the time that takes place before the purple wedding looks to place his birth more likely in the 10th month. Jon's can only be tied by Martin's quote which places his birth around the sack or up to about a month later - this later possibility puts Jon and Robb's births close together. You are making assumptions about Robb that may well be wrong here, and then transferring them to Jon. It's a mistake to do so.

6 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Source? Because to my best memory, neither Cat nor anyone else relates his birth to any event. 

In this much he is right. Cat thinks on why Jon Arryn needed to marry Lysa, and thinks on his need for an heir after his previous heir, Ser Denys Arryn, the Darling of the Vale, had died. We find out this happened in the Battle of the Bells by Harwin's recount of the Battle if I remember right. But we don't know how much after the Battle of the Bells the double marriage takes place. The Battle of the Bells could take place in late 282 or early 283. The mistake, I see is assuming Robb's name day relative any other event. The only ties we have are nine months after Ned and Catelyn's honeymoon, and the need for the story told in the the books of Jon being conceived after the honeymoon is believable. Assuming it is nine months before the sack that he is conceived just has no real basis. It is very likely it is less than that, and that Robb is born after the sack.

I can look up the exact quotes if you'd like Ygrain, but that's my recollection.

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9 hours ago, SFDanny said:

In this much he is right. Cat thinks on why Jon Arryn needed to marry Lysa, and thinks on his need for an heir after his previous heir, Ser Denys Arryn, the Darling of the Vale, had died. We find out this happened in the Battle of the Bells by Harwin's recount of the Battle if I remember right. But we don't know how much after the Battle of the Bells the double marriage takes place. The Battle of the Bells could take place in late 282 or early 283. The mistake, I see is assuming Robb's name day relative any other event. The only ties we have are nine months after Ned and Catelyn's honeymoon, and the need for the story told in the the books of Jon being conceived after the honeymoon is believable. Assuming it is nine months before the sack that he is conceived just has no real basis. It is very likely it is less than that, and that Robb is born after the sack.

I can look up the exact quotes if you'd like Ygrain, but that's my recollection.

No need to, my recollection that Robb was conceived some time after the BoB is the same as yours. I was wondering at the phrasing of Robb born after BoB (which, of course, he was, just like he was born after the Conquest etc.)

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18 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Fair enough, but I think all of these problems are solved if Jon was born 3 months + after the Sack. 

I am happy to take this to a new thread if you like.  But here is the short version.  I think the time between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident is about 6-10 weeks.  I say this for a number of reasons, not least of which are (1) the fact that the rebellion lasted a total of one year, (2)  the sheer number of things that happened prior to the battle of the bells, and (3) the fact that Selmy and Darry gathered the remnants of Connington's army from Stony Sept and took them to the Trident when we know that a scattered army will quickly dissipate and  go home and that you can't keep a standing army sitting around for long periods of time.  

This timeline is far more problematic than the standard model.

Let's take the battle of Ashford as the starting point. Robert's forces depart Ashford before the main Tyrell army arrives, and heads north towards Stoney Sept. The Tyrell forces are free to march on Storm's End. The two journeys are of roughly similar length, so we can assume the start of the siege of Storm's End is about the time that Robert arrived at Stoney Sept. The siege of Storm's End lasted around a year, so the gap between Robert arriving at Stoney Sept and  Ned arriving at Storm's End is also about a year. If we allow 3 weeks between the Trident and the Sack, that gives us 9-13 weeks from Bells to Sack, with your 6-10 week period. Thus we have 39-43 weeks to allow for Robert shagging prostitutes at Stoney Sept and Ned marching on Storm's End. 

Now if the gap between the Battle of the Bells and the Sack was 13 weeks, Robb's conception would have been a couple of months before the sack. Cat remembers being apart from Ned for around a year, so we have 10 months from Sack to Winterfell. Cat believes Jon was conceived when Ned was fighting wars in the south, which means Jon arriving at Winterfell at a month old. 

Back to the year-long siege. Here's what GRRM says about it:

 

Quote

When Ned appeared, Aerys, Rhaegar, and Aegon were dead, and Viserys fled. There was no one left to fight for, and the war was clearly lost anyway.

The modern concept of "total war" really didn't exist in the medieval period. Armies were personal, as were loyalties. The leader who wanted to fight on till the last drop of blood might well have found himself fighting on alone, since his vassals were likely to have better sense, and their levies were more likely to follow their own lord than the "general." Tyrell's surrender was pretty much warfare as usual. If he had =tried= to give battle to Ned in a lost cause, he might well have found his more opportunistic bannermen deserting to the other side.

source

So there wasn't a whole lot of fighting going on after the Sack. Aerys, Rhaegar and Aegon were dead and Viserys fled within a few weeks of the Trident. There was, as GRRM says, no-one left to fight for and the war was clearly lost. There may have been a few minor skirmishes on the way, but your timeline requires it to have taken at least 6 months for Ned to get to Storm's End. That makes a whole lot less sense that the timeline you're arguing against.

18 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

But that would mean that everything prior to the battle of the bells had to have happened in about a 3 month period or less.  And that is not possible.  

"Not possible" is not a valid argument when we are discussing fiction. If GRRM wrote it, it happened even if it was impossible.

Cat left King's Landing before the raven bringing news of Bran waking got there, and a couple of weeks later met Tyrion at the Inn of the Crossroads. Tyrion left Winterfell after Bran was awake. How does that make sense? It doesn't. It's at least as impossible as the events you object to, but clearly it happened. GRRM doesn't pay close attention to distances, travel times, etc. He warns us against using such measures to try to figure things out because he doesn't bother with them. As it says in my sig, GRRM+numbers=Nope nope nope.

GRRM doesn't do timelines. The war lasted about a year. The siege lasted about a year. That's because the siege started early in the war. That's as far as the calculation goes. Ned and Cat were apart about a year. It took a bit of time for Ned to get back after the war, and there was a bit of time after the war started before the marriage. See? It all fits. Dany was conceived a little before the sack, Jon was born a little after the sack. How long precisely? GRRM doesn't know or care. That's where "8-9 months or thereabouts" comes from. 

 

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On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 3:22 AM, Ygrain said:

Source? Because to my best memory, neither Cat nor anyone else relates his birth to any event. 

Assuming that Robb was conceived by Ned and Catelyn some time on or after their wedding night, then Catelyn confirms that Robb was conceived after the Battle of the Bells and born before Ned was finished warring in the south.  Catelyn says that Ned stayed at Riverrun for a fortnight, just long enough to be sure she was pregnant, before returning to the wars. "Nine moons had waxed and waned, and Robb had been born in Riverrun while his father still warred in the south." 

On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 3:49 AM, SFDanny said:

We don't know how much time separates Robb and Dany, or Robb and Jon for that matter. We can guess from the name days in the book, but with Jon we don't know if his is right. All we know is that  Jon and Dany's name days are separated by "eight or nine months, or thereabouts." This I can tell you. Dany's name day is almost certainly is around mid year 284; meaning the flight from King's Landing takes place sometime around the ninth month of 283. Robb's name day, based on when he turns sixteen and the time that takes place before the purple wedding looks to place his birth more likely in the 10th month. Jon's can only be tied by Martin's quote which places his birth around the sack or up to about a month later - this later possibility puts Jon and Robb's births close together. You are making assumptions about Robb that may well be wrong here, and then transferring them to Jon. It's a mistake to do so.

We know for a fact that Robb was born at least 9.5 or 10 months, maybe more, after the Battle of the Bells based on the quote from Catelyn in AGOT.  If Jon is younger than Robb (as Jon seems to believe), and if Jon was born no later than 2-4 weeks after the Sack (having been born around the time of Rhaella's flight to Dragonstone or up to a month after), then the time between the Battle of the Bells and the Sack has to be more than 9 months.  Which was my original point.  I don't think that is likely at all given the amount of things we know happened prior to the Battle of the Bells and the fact that we don't know anything that happened between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident except that Llewyn collected the Dornish troops and Selmy and Darry collected the remnants of Connington's army and then they led those forces to the Trident.  

One possible solution for this is that Jon is older than Robb, as you seem to be suggesting.  The other is that the old 1999 SSM is wrong and that Jon was born later than that statement suggested, which makes much more sense to me.    

20 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

This timeline is far more problematic than the standard model.

Let's take the battle of Ashford as the starting point. Robert's forces depart Ashford before the main Tyrell army arrives, and heads north towards Stoney Sept. The Tyrell forces are free to march on Storm's End. The two journeys are of roughly similar length, so we can assume the start of the siege of Storm's End is about the time that Robert arrived at Stoney Sept. The siege of Storm's End lasted around a year, so the gap between Robert arriving at Stoney Sept and  Ned arriving at Storm's End is also about a year. If we allow 3 weeks between the Trident and the Sack, that gives us 9-13 weeks from Bells to Sack, with your 6-10 week period. Thus we have 39-43 weeks to allow for Robert shagging prostitutes at Stoney Sept and Ned marching on Storm's End. 

Now if the gap between the Battle of the Bells and the Sack was 13 weeks, Robb's conception would have been a couple of months before the sack. Cat remembers being apart from Ned for around a year, so we have 10 months from Sack to Winterfell. Cat believes Jon was conceived when Ned was fighting wars in the south, which means Jon arriving at Winterfell at a month old. 

Back to the year-long siege. Here's what GRRM says about it:

 

So there wasn't a whole lot of fighting going on after the Sack. Aerys, Rhaegar and Aegon were dead and Viserys fled within a few weeks of the Trident. There was, as GRRM says, no-one left to fight for and the war was clearly lost. There may have been a few minor skirmishes on the way, but your timeline requires it to have taken at least 6 months for Ned to get to Storm's End. That makes a whole lot less sense that the timeline you're arguing against.

"Not possible" is not a valid argument when we are discussing fiction. If GRRM wrote it, it happened even if it was impossible.

Cat left King's Landing before the raven bringing news of Bran waking got there, and a couple of weeks later met Tyrion at the Inn of the Crossroads. Tyrion left Winterfell after Bran was awake. How does that make sense? It doesn't. It's at least as impossible as the events you object to, but clearly it happened. GRRM doesn't pay close attention to distances, travel times, etc. He warns us against using such measures to try to figure things out because he doesn't bother with them. As it says in my sig, GRRM+numbers=Nope nope nope.

GRRM doesn't do timelines. The war lasted about a year. The siege lasted about a year. That's because the siege started early in the war. That's as far as the calculation goes. Ned and Cat were apart about a year. It took a bit of time for Ned to get back after the war, and there was a bit of time after the war started before the marriage. See? It all fits. Dany was conceived a little before the sack, Jon was born a little after the sack. How long precisely? GRRM doesn't know or care. That's where "8-9 months or thereabouts" comes from. 

 

You are making the assumption that Tarly went directly from Ashford to Storm's End after the battle of Ashford.  To the best of my knowledge, that is not stated anywhere.  I think it is more likely that the siege of Storm's End started some time after the Battle of the Bells than it is that Ned was able to get from the Eyrie to Winterfell, call his banners, and march to Stony Sept all in a three month period. 

You are also making the assumption that Ned went directly from King's Landing to Storm's End after the Sack of King's Landing.  To the best of my knowledge, that is not stated anywhere.  All we know is that Ned remembers leaving King's Landing to fight the last battles of the war alone, that he went to Storm's End, the tower of joy, and Starfall, and that he was still warring in the south when Robb was born. 

But I agree with your overall conclusion.  GRRM probably neither knows nor cares when Jon was born relative to Dany, the Sack, or Robb.  Which is why I don't give much credit to theories that place significance on the old 1999 SSM.       

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2 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

You are making the assumption that Tarly went directly from Ashford to Storm's End after the battle of Ashford.  To the best of my knowledge, that is not stated anywhere.  I think it is more likely that the siege of Storm's End started some time after the Battle of the Bells than it is that Ned was able to get from the Eyrie to Winterfell, call his banners, and march to Stony Sept all in a three month period. 

It is an assumption, but it's a very fair one -- with Robert's forces heading north pursued by Connington's large army (and possibly harried by Tarly's men, while Tyrell lead the main Reach army to SE) the strategic advantage of the siege was obvious. Why hang about? It's also an assumption that was necessary to give your theory the maximum benefit of the doubt. If you want to delay the start of the siege longer, you run into even more serious problems. With the sack by your count no more than 13 weeks after the Battle of the Bells, that puts the start of the siege 3 months before at best. The siege lasted a year, so what on earth was going on for the remaining 9 months? Remember that the blood was still fresh on the bodies of the Targ children when they were presented to Robert and Ned left "that very day". Somehow it took Ned 9 months to do a journey of a similar length he'd just done in 2 weeks? I don't think so.

Then we have Ned and Cat being apart for the first year of their marriage. They married just after the Battle of the Bells, meaning that your timescale has the marriage and the start of the siege around the same time. I find it far more likely that GRRM would have Ned getting from the Vale to Winterfell, raising an army, and returning to the Riverlands in around 4 months than that he would have Ned lifting the siege, travelling all the way to the ToJ, then Starfall, and then all the way back to Winterfell in a couple of weeks. 

On top of that, you now have the siege ending around 9 months after the fall of King's Landing. That leaves Stannis a matter of days to recover his strength, get from Storm's End to King's Landing, build an entirely new Royal fleet and sail for Dragonstone.

On top of all this, your argument was based on trying to make more time for the events prior to the Battle of the Bells, and now you're adding almost a year onto the end of it in a war that also lasts almost a year.  Either the war that lasted about a year really lasted closer to two, or the siege that lasted about a year really lasted less than 3 months? This just doesn't work.

 Sorry mate, I totally sympathise with your desire to make more sense of the timeline than 4 months of rushing around at unreasonable speed followed by 7 months of twiddling thumbs, but the timeline you're offering is vastly more broken than that. 

2 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

You are also making the assumption that Ned went directly from King's Landing to Storm's End after the Sack of King's Landing.  To the best of my knowledge, that is not stated anywhere.  All we know is that Ned remembers leaving King's Landing to fight the last battles of the war alone, that he went to Storm's End, the tower of joy, and Starfall, and that he was still warring in the south when Robb was born. 

Those "last battles of the war" were probably just a few small scale skirmishes here and there. Look again at the SSM I quoted in my message above -- GRRM makes it clear that "the war was clearly lost" after the sack. Ned's "battle" at Storm's End was a bloodless one, and there was no fighting in Dorne during the rebellion. So who exactly was Ned fighting for all those months? A few Crownlands hardnuts maybe, and odd detachment of Reach forces who hadn't got the message, but there's simply no major enemy left to be holding the Rebel army up for months on end.

We're pretty much at the point where you're going to have to invent a whole new pro-Targ 8th kingdom that everyone's miraculously forgotten about to justify the claim that the "8-9 months or thereabouts" SSM can't be right. Isn't it easier to assume that GRRM just did what he usually does with timescales and distances during the early months of the rebellion, and that when he said 8-9 months he meant it?

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19 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

It is an assumption, but it's a very fair one -- with Robert's forces heading north pursued by Connington's large army (and possibly harried by Tarly's men, while Tyrell lead the main Reach army to SE) the strategic advantage of the siege was obvious. Why hang about? It's also an assumption that was necessary to give your theory the maximum benefit of the doubt. If you want to delay the start of the siege longer, you run into even more serious problems. With the sack by your count no more than 13 weeks after the Battle of the Bells, that puts the start of the siege 3 months before at best. The siege lasted a year, so what on earth was going on for the remaining 9 months? Remember that the blood was still fresh on the bodies of the Targ children when they were presented to Robert and Ned left "that very day". Somehow it took Ned 9 months to do a journey of a similar length he'd just done in 2 weeks? I don't think so.

Then we have Ned and Cat being apart for the first year of their marriage. They married just after the Battle of the Bells, meaning that your timescale has the marriage and the start of the siege around the same time. I find it far more likely that GRRM would have Ned getting from the Vale to Winterfell, raising an army, and returning to the Riverlands in around 4 months than that he would have Ned lifting the siege, travelling all the way to the ToJ, then Starfall, and then all the way back to Winterfell in a couple of weeks. 

On top of that, you now have the siege ending around 9 months after the fall of King's Landing. That leaves Stannis a matter of days to recover his strength, get from Storm's End to King's Landing, build an entirely new Royal fleet and sail for Dragonstone.

On top of all this, your argument was based on trying to make more time for the events prior to the Battle of the Bells, and now you're adding almost a year onto the end of it in a war that also lasts almost a year.  Either the war that lasted about a year really lasted closer to two, or the siege that lasted about a year really lasted less than 3 months? This just doesn't work.

 Sorry mate, I totally sympathise with your desire to make more sense of the timeline than 4 months of rushing around at unreasonable speed followed by 7 months of twiddling thumbs, but the timeline you're offering is vastly more broken than that. 

Those "last battles of the war" were probably just a few small scale skirmishes here and there. Look again at the SSM I quoted in my message above -- GRRM makes it clear that "the war was clearly lost" after the sack. Ned's "battle" at Storm's End was a bloodless one, and there was no fighting in Dorne during the rebellion. So who exactly was Ned fighting for all those months? A few Crownlands hardnuts maybe, and odd detachment of Reach forces who hadn't got the message, but there's simply no major enemy left to be holding the Rebel army up for months on end.

We're pretty much at the point where you're going to have to invent a whole new pro-Targ 8th kingdom that everyone's miraculously forgotten about to justify the claim that the "8-9 months or thereabouts" SSM can't be right. Isn't it easier to assume that GRRM just did what he usually does with timescales and distances during the early months of the rebellion, and that when he said 8-9 months he meant it?

You make a fair point about the start time and length of the siege of Storm's End. What I was getting at is that my timeline does not require that Robert sat at Stony Sept twiddling his thumbs for several months, as you had inferred from a prior post. 

If I understood you correctly, your point was that the beginning of the siege of Storm's End happened early in the war because the war lasted a year, the siege of Storm's End lasted a year, and the war ended when the siege of Storm's End was lifted.  So the seige of Storm's End must have happened close to the beginning of the war.  You also suggested that the start of the siege of Storm's End coincided with the Battle of the Bells because it would take the Tyrell forces the same amount of time to get from Ashford to Storm's End as it would have taken Robert to get from Ashford to Stony Sept. 

My point is just that we don't really have a reason to think that Robert went straight to Stony Sept while Mace went straight to Storm's End.  Taking into account your point about the length of the siege, it is likely that Mace went to Storm's End fairly quickly while Robert took more time to get to Stony Sept.  That would make sense if Randall Tarly pursued Robert with the Reach's van while Mace moved on to start the siege.  And it ties in with what Harwin said happened before the Battle of the Bells:  "The Mad King's men had been hunting Robert, trying to catch him before he could rejoin your father."  That implies that there was a period of time before the Battle of the Bells when Robert was on the run.  Also, while both Harwin and Connington say that Robert was wounded before the Battle of the Bells, neither says he took those wounds at Ashford.  In fact, it is likely that he took those wounds later when he was being pursued, because Connington says that Robert was "wounded and alone."  It is unlikely that Robert took a wound at Ashford and that he fled alone from there to Stoney Sept.  More likely, he was hunted for a period of time and took a wound when he was separated from whatever men fled Ashford with him. 

All of that leads me to think that the siege of Storm's End started soon after the Battle of Ashford but that a meaningful amount of time passed between Ashford and the Battle of the Bells, while the royal forces hunted him and then he hid at Stoney Sept. 

On the last battles of the war fought by Ned after the Sack, I do think there have been some post-AGOT retcons, and this could be one of them.  In AGOT, Ned says the rebellion raged for a year and that Stannis held Storm's End "through a year of siege."  That implies that the siege of Storm's End started when the Rebellion started.  It makes sense, because in AGOT we learned that Robert and Ned were in the Vale when the rebellion started, which suggests that the first thing Aerys did after Jon Arryn defied him was to send Mace Tyrell to take Storm's End, so that the start of the siege was the start of the war.  It isn't until later (ACOK) that we hear about Robert going from the Vale to Storm's End after the rebellion started but before the siege started.  We were also told in AGOT that Cat and Ned spent the first year of their marriage apart while Ned warred in the south.  That implies that Cat and Ned married at the very beginning of the war.  But in later books we learn that Ned went to Winterfell to call his banners, then rescued Robert at Stoney Sept, before he and Catelyn got married.     

      

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9 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

You make a fair point about the start time and length of the siege of Storm's End. What I was getting at is that my timeline does not require that Robert sat at Stony Sept twiddling his thumbs for several months, as you had inferred from a prior post. 

Ah actually I thought we were discussing the twiddling of thumbs between the Battle of the Bells and the Trident.

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If I understood you correctly, your point was that the beginning of the siege of Storm's End happened early in the war because the war lasted a year, the siege of Storm's End lasted a year, and the war ended when the siege of Storm's End was lifted.  So the seige of Storm's End must have happened close to the beginning of the war.  You also suggested that the start of the siege of Storm's End coincided with the Battle of the Bells because it would take the Tyrell forces the same amount of time to get from Ashford to Storm's End as it would have taken Robert to get from Ashford to Stony Sept. 

Not quite. I suggested that Robert would have arrived in the area around the same time as the siege started, but the battle could have been some time after. We know that Robert got wounded, but don't know how. We know that he spent some time hiding out from Connington's army, but not how long. There's room for at least a bit of thumb-twiddling.

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My point is just that we don't really have a reason to think that Robert went straight to Stony Sept while Mace went straight to Storm's End.  Taking into account your point about the length of the siege, it is likely that Mace went to Storm's End fairly quickly while Robert took more time to get to Stony Sept.  That would make sense if Randall Tarly pursued Robert with the Reach's van while Mace moved on to start the siege.  And it ties in with what Harwin said happened before the Battle of the Bells:  "The Mad King's men had been hunting Robert, trying to catch him before he could rejoin your father."  That implies that there was a period of time before the Battle of the Bells when Robert was on the run.  Also, while both Harwin and Connington say that Robert was wounded before the Battle of the Bells, neither says he took those wounds at Ashford.  In fact, it is likely that he took those wounds later when he was being pursued, because Connington says that Robert was "wounded and alone."  It is unlikely that Robert took a wound at Ashford and that he fled alone from there to Stoney Sept.  More likely, he was hunted for a period of time and took a wound when he was separated from whatever men fled Ashford with him. 

All of that leads me to think that the siege of Storm's End started soon after the Battle of Ashford but that a meaningful amount of time passed between Ashford and the Battle of the Bells, while the royal forces hunted him and then he hid at Stoney Sept. 

Agreed. Actually I think that Harwin's "Mad King's men" line implies that Tarly's forces had quickly given up the pursuit to Connington's, as Connington was leading the royalist army whilst Tarly was leading the Reach vanguard. They were on the king's side, but not the king's men.

I think we can agree that the siege started early in the war, so how long until the Battle of the Bells? If we're looking to fill a gap, I think we're going to have a lot more luck pushing the Battle of the Bells a bit later, as you suggest. However, we run into a significant problem  if we push it too much later.

Robb was born while Ned was fighting the final battles of the war. That places Robb's conception some 9 months before the end of the siege of SE. Jon Arryn and Ned married on the same day, and after The Battle of the Bells. We know this because Jon Arryn needed a new heir to replace the one who died in that battle. Thus the Battle of the Bells must be in the early phase of the war, not long after Robert's flight from Ashford. Ultimately, that's the crux of the matter. Robb was born before the war ends. Thus it's fair to assume that Jon was too. Dany was conceived before the war ended, too. Therefore the "8-9 months or thereabouts" works. QED. 

I can appreciate why this is unsatisfying to you given how messily this fits with the timeline of the rebellion as we have it, but I think we have to look at those two datapoints -- Robb's birth, Dany's conception -- and conclude that if those two things are true, there is no problem with the 8-9 months claim. 

 

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On the last battles of the war fought by Ned after the Sack, I do think there have been some post-AGOT retcons, and this could be one of them.  In AGOT, Ned says the rebellion raged for a year and that Stannis held Storm's End "through a year of siege."  That implies that the siege of Storm's End started when the Rebellion started.  It makes sense, because in AGOT we learned that Robert and Ned were in the Vale when the rebellion started, which suggests that the first thing Aerys did after Jon Arryn defied him was to send Mace Tyrell to take Storm's End, so that the start of the siege was the start of the war.  It isn't until later (ACOK) that we hear about Robert going from the Vale to Storm's End after the rebellion started but before the siege started.  We were also told in AGOT that Cat and Ned spent the first year of their marriage apart while Ned warred in the south.  That implies that Cat and Ned married at the very beginning of the war.  But in later books we learn that Ned went to Winterfell to call his banners, then rescued Robert at Stoney Sept, before he and Catelyn got married.           

Strangely enough, I pretty much agree with you again. What's going on? :D I don't think that GRRM worries too much about precise timelines, and that's why things get jammed together at the beginning of the war. The question is whether that means he'd retcon the 8-9 months thing too, and I see no reason to believe that. Where does that 8-9 months come from? I don't think that GRRMs retcons involve redoing a complicated timeline because I'm pretty confident  -- and this certainly fits with GRRM's own words on these things -- he doesn't bother with those. However we know that Dany was conceived just before the sack. That's a fixed datapoint, and that gives her birth just a bit less than 9 months after the sack. GRRM then only needs a single other datapoint rather than a proper timeline to arrive at "8-9 months or thereabouts", and that's the datapoint that Jon was born shortly after the sack. That kind of thinking is the way GRRM rolls. I think we can consider that one pretty solid.

So let me offer you an alternative way that we can fill the timeline problem. It's probably not going to be a popular theory, but I think it's very credible, and it fits in quite nicely with where you're going here: 

GRRM ballsed up.

Oh come on guys, don't look at me like that. It wouldn't be the first time. He's a good writer, but he's not Captain Perfect. Even he can make the odd mistake every few thousand pages. He readily admits he forgets all the details unless he's got someone far geekier than he is (Hi @Ran!) to bash him over the head.

The Battle of the Bells must have taken place before the wedding, because Jon married Lysa after the death of his heir in the battle. On the other hand, the Battle of the Bells must have taken place after the wedding, because Hoster Tully didn't come fully onside until the wedding, yet we hear that Hoster Tully fought at the Battle of the Bells. Now the normal way to explain this is that the wedding between Ned & Cat had been agreed to, Hoster sided with the Rebels, they fought at the Stoney Sept and rushed back to Riverrun for the wedding. Jon married Lysa at the same time, because why not. This works out nicely, except for the fact that it means that because of the requirement of Robb being conceived at least 9 months before the end of the war we're stuck with even more happening in the start and nothing in the middle. 

If we consider that Hoster was badly injured by Connington during the battle, this rapid flight back to Riverrun for the marriage seems a bit heartless. Why the rush, given that he's already committed his forces to the war? And why did Ned have to leave Cat after only 2 weeks, when there wasn't all that much to for about half a year?

So here's the alternative. Jon's heir Dennys Arryn didn't die in the Battle of the Bells at all, he died in the Battle of Gulltown. Harwin and Baelish both got it wrong. This allows the dual marriage to take place before the Battle of the Bells. Hoster is committed by the marriage, as agreed, before rather than after he takes his army into the field. The marriage can take place early in the war, right after Ned has returned with his bannermen.  Robert's injury could have happened during the various skirmishes in the Riverlands after that, which could also give us an explanation as to why Robert's Stormland army seems to have mysteriously become separated from him between Ashford and Stoney Sept. By this stage Robert could be a well known and popular leader of the Rebel forces, having fought several smaller battles in the Riverlands. This explains why the locals at Stoney Sept were willing to take big risks to hide him from Connington's army, which otherwise seems a little peculiar. 

With this tiny change, everything fits. The three months at the start of the war are taken up by Ned's calling of the banners in the North, then he gets married, then heads off to fight through the Riverlands, which is full of evil backstabbing Royalist Lords who refuse to follow Hoster. Nine months later, Robb is born and the war ends (as is Jon, a few weeks after that!). Robert could still be in the south fighting at this point, because there's no longer any requirement for him to have reached the Riverlands before the marriage. Indeed, we can even close up the year of the war and the year of the siege a bit by suggesting that the siege of Storm's End started before the battle of Ashford, and that the reason it was Tarley's men who got their first is that he was leading the quick troops from SE, where Mace  stayed to make sure that enough forces remained there to maintain the siege. The months between the wedding and the Sack are much less empty. The mystery of why it took so long for the royalist army to be regrouped after the Battle of the Bells  vanishes. All is good with the world.

We're getting horribly off topic here, but I think that was worth doing!

 

 

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I suppose to fit everyone's favorite theory that Lyanna died from childbirth (or complications thereof) at the tower of joy, we could rewrite significant portions of the book as Kingsmonkey suggest, or we could dare to suggest that maybe Lyanna didn't give birth to Jon at the time of or even the place of the tower of joy.

But when you break it down, the timeline is quite simple, we have this from Ned:

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The war had raged for close to a year.  Lords great and small had flocked to Robert's banners; others had remained loyal to Targaryen.  The might Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle, ignoring calls to arms from both rebels and royalist.  Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty.  So the mad king had ordered his last mad act.  He had opened his city at the gate.

So almost (but not quite) a year had elapsed between the start of the war (probably Arryn calling the banners) and the the time when the Lannisters showed up at Casterly Rock.

Then we have the timeline of the siege of Storm's End:

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Maester Cressen remembered the day Davos had been knighted, after the siege of Storm's End.  Lord Stannis and a small  garrison held the castle for close to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne.  Even the sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying with the burg Andy banners of the Arbor.

And again:

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Tyrell's reputation rested on one indecisive victory over Robert Baratheon at Ashford, in a battle won by Lord Tarly's van before the main host had even arrived.  The siege of Storm's End, where Mace Tyrell actually did hold the command, had dragged on a year to no result, and after the Trident was fought, the Lord of Highgarden had meekly dipped his banners to Eddard Stark.

So if we're going to line these two timelines up and argue that the time from the start of the war to the sack was roughly the same amount of time as the siege, then we know a significant amount of time had to pass, after the sack and when Mace kneeled to Eddard Stark.

Because the siege did not start until:

1.  After the Vale was won:

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By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though.  Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Mara Grafton with his own hand.

And after Robert traveled back to the Stormlands and put down the local opposition to his rebellion:

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"It was when he'd first come home to call his banners.  Lords Grandison, Cafferen, and Fell planned to join their strength at Summerhall and march on Storm's End, but he learned their plans from an informer and rode at once with all his knights and squires.  As the plotters came up on Summerhall one by one, he defeated each of them in turn before they could join up with the others.  He slew Lord Fell in single combat and captured his son Silveraxe."

So basically, the time it took for Rober to fight the Battle of Gulltown, and then travel to the Stormlands and defeat the opposition of his vassals was approximately the same amount of time it took for the Siege to be lifted after the Sack.

Which makes some sense because we know that Eddard had more to do after the Sack then merely end the Siege:

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Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm.  Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone int he south.  It had taken another death to reconcile them; Lyanna's death, and the grief they had shared over her passing.

So we have battles plural.  Which also makes sense because outside of the Sack no significant battles had occurred yet in the Crownlands, which would have been the lords with the most loyalty to the Crown.  So it would make sense that Eddard would have had to put down any remaining opposition while he was still in King's Landing, and before he travelled to Storm's End.  And at Storm's End there would have at least had to have been a peace negotiation between his forces and Mace's.  Then Ned would have had to have figured out the location of the tower of joy and travelled there with his group of seven.

So this is a long winded way of saying If Jon was born at the time of the Trident, a significant amount of time had to have elapsed before the battle at the tower of joy.  Which means if we decide the SSM is correct, Jon was born well before the battle at the tower of joy.

 

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2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Which means if we decide the SSM is correct, Jon was born well before the battle at the tower of joy.

I repeat my former question: what does the likelihood of Jon being born before the fight at the tower have to do with anything? Most theories of R+L=J have Jon being born before Ned's arrival.

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9 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

So let me offer you an alternative way that we can fill the timeline problem. It's probably not going to be a popular theory, but I think it's very credible, and it fits in quite nicely with where you're going here: 

GRRM ballsed up.

Oh come on guys, don't look at me like that. It wouldn't be the first time. He's a good writer, but he's not Captain Perfect. Even he can make the odd mistake every few thousand pages. He readily admits he forgets all the details unless he's got someone far geekier than he is (Hi @Ran!) to bash him over the head.

The Battle of the Bells must have taken place before the wedding, because Jon married Lysa after the death of his heir in the battle. On the other hand, the Battle of the Bells must have taken place after the wedding, because Hoster Tully didn't come fully onside until the wedding, yet we hear that Hoster Tully fought at the Battle of the Bells. Now the normal way to explain this is that the wedding between Ned & Cat had been agreed to, Hoster sided with the Rebels, they fought at the Stoney Sept and rushed back to Riverrun for the wedding. Jon married Lysa at the same time, because why not. This works out nicely, except for the fact that it means that because of the requirement of Robb being conceived at least 9 months before the end of the war we're stuck with even more happening in the start and nothing in the middle. 

If we consider that Hoster was badly injured by Connington during the battle, this rapid flight back to Riverrun for the marriage seems a bit heartless. Why the rush, given that he's already committed his forces to the war? And why did Ned have to leave Cat after only 2 weeks, when there wasn't all that much to for about half a year?

So here's the alternative. Jon's heir Dennys Arryn didn't die in the Battle of the Bells at all, he died in the Battle of Gulltown. Harwin and Baelish both got it wrong. This allows the dual marriage to take place before the Battle of the Bells. Hoster is committed by the marriage, as agreed, before rather than after he takes his army into the field. The marriage can take place early in the war, right after Ned has returned with his bannermen.  Robert's injury could have happened during the various skirmishes in the Riverlands after that, which could also give us an explanation as to why Robert's Stormland army seems to have mysteriously become separated from him between Ashford and Stoney Sept. By this stage Robert could be a well known and popular leader of the Rebel forces, having fought several smaller battles in the Riverlands. This explains why the locals at Stoney Sept were willing to take big risks to hide him from Connington's army, which otherwise seems a little peculiar. 

With this tiny change, everything fits. The three months at the start of the war are taken up by Ned's calling of the banners in the North, then he gets married, then heads off to fight through the Riverlands, which is full of evil backstabbing Royalist Lords who refuse to follow Hoster. Nine months later, Robb is born and the war ends (as is Jon, a few weeks after that!). Robert could still be in the south fighting at this point, because there's no longer any requirement for him to have reached the Riverlands before the marriage. Indeed, we can even close up the year of the war and the year of the siege a bit by suggesting that the siege of Storm's End started before the battle of Ashford, and that the reason it was Tarley's men who got their first is that he was leading the quick troops from SE, where Mace  stayed to make sure that enough forces remained there to maintain the siege. The months between the wedding and the Sack are much less empty. The mystery of why it took so long for the royalist army to be regrouped after the Battle of the Bells  vanishes. All is good with the world.

We're getting horribly off topic here, but I think that was worth doing!

We can keep agreeing, because I think there are some continuity errors between the story we get in AGOT and the story we get in ACOK/ASOS.  (Remember how, in AGOT, Brandon left Catelyn to go to war, promising he would marry her on his return:  "Brandon Stark had bid her wait as well.  'I shall not be long, my lady,' he had vowed.  'We will be wed on my return.'  Yet when the day came at last, it was his brother Eddard who stood beside her in the sept.  Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips." But in ACOK, "He was on his way to Riverrun ... when he heard about Lyanna, and he went to King's Landing instead.")  And your idea that Hoster Tully fully committed after the Battle of Gulltown would resolve a lot of these issues.  

Let me suggest as an alternative that Baelish and Harwin are correct and Hoster Tully only called his banners after the Battle of the Bells.  Here is how it works.  Ned honored the Stark/Tully alliance (per Catelyn, "as custom decreed") by taking on Brandon's betrothal after Brandon died.  In return, Hoster and his personal troops from Riverrun joined Ned and Jon Arryn when they went to rescue Robert at Stoney Sept several months into the war.  (Remember, Robert fought at Gulltown, then went to Storm's End, then fought the battles of Summerhall, then had more time back at Storm's End where he feasted Lord Cafferan "of a night," according to Stannis).  At that point, Robert, Ned, Jon Arryn and Hoster were fighting simply to protect Robert and Ned from the threat of execution by Aerys.  And Aerys thought the rebels were mere outlaw lords who could be crushed by Mace Tyrell and Jon Connington.  No need to even call his Warden of the East, since there were small battles going on in the Riverlands and the Stormlands. 

But everything changed after the Battle of the Bells.  "After dancing griffins lost the Battle of the Bells, Aerys exiled him...He had finally realized that Robert was no mere outlaw lord to be crushed at whim, but the greatest threat House Targaryen had faced since Daemon Blackfyre.  The king reminded Lewyn Martell gracelessly that he held Elia and sent him to take command of the ten thousand Dornishmen coming up the kingsroad.  Jon Darry and Barristan Selmy rode to Stony Sept to rally what they could of griffins' men, and Prince Rhaegar returned from the south and persuaded his father to swallow his pride and summon my father."  Also, a few lines later, when Jaime is describing the wildfire plot:  "my sworn brothers were all away..."

The key here is that this all happens right after the Battle of the Bells, and that Darry and Selmy are sent to Stoney Sept to gather the remains of Connington's army.  Unless Connington (a Storm Lord living in the Crownlands) had raised his army in the riverlands, the only way that army is still around Stony Sept is if the Battle of the Bells has just happened.  So Jaime is describing what happened on the royalist side immediately after the Battle of the Bells.

From this we can figure out what was happening on the rebel side.  Stoney Sept is also a turning point for them.  It is when people start to believe that this isn't just a fight to protect Ned and Robert, but a rebellion to put a new king on the throne.  Now, Ned and Jon marry Catelyn and Lysa, and Hoster calls his banners.  And as soon as his host is assembled, it has to march.  As master Luwin says in AGOT:  "He must march soon, or not at all.  The winter town is full to bursting, and this army of his will eat the countryside clean if it camps here much longer." 

How long does it take Hoster to muster his troops?  Probably a fortnight.  That is how long it took Robb:  When the Karstarks arrived (they were the last), Robb's portcullises had been up "for near a fortnight."  And how long did Ned linger in Riverrun?  "Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war."  So Ned wasn't just on his honeymoon.  He was waiting for Hoster's bannermen to arrive.

And that is probably how long it took Lewyn to collect the Dornish troops coming up the King's road, for Rhaegar to return from the south, and for Selmy and Darry to collect the remnants of Connington's army at Stoney Sept.  It is even likely that the reason Darry was back in King's Landing the night Chelstead was burned is that he came back to report on Connington's army while Selmy stayed in Stoney Sept.  Rhaegar and Lewyn (plus Darry) then marched for the Trident, meeting up with Selmy along the way.

And how long after Hoster called his banners was the battle of the Trident?  Not long, because we know that Lord Frey mustered his troops and went straight to the Trident:  "Lord Frey had arrived with his levies well after the battle was over, leaving some doubt as to which army he planned to join (theirs, he assured the victors solemnly in the aftermath, but ever after her father had called him the Late Lord Frey)."  Frey's story is completely implausible if Hoster called his banners 7 to 9 months before the Trident.  But it works if Hoster called them much more close in time to the Trident.

The only problem with this is the quotes about the length of the rebellion and the siege of Storm's End.  But consider this.  Ned says the following:  "The war had raged for close to a year" while "The mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle."  I won't post the entire quote here, but it is not clear to me whether the "close to a year" is the total amount of time the war lasted or the amount of time between the start of the war and the time when Tywin got involved.  If it is the time before Tywin got involved, then we can start to line up the other quotes.  Catelyn says Robb was born nine moons after her wedding while Ned was still warring in the south.  If the wedding was less than 9 months before the Sack, as I am suggesting, then it only works if the war continued for several months after the Sack.  And we know that it probably did:  Ned says he left King's Landing after the Sack to fight the "final battles" of the war.  Also, Cersei thinks Ned spent enough time in Dorne to have sacked some villages down there and conceived Jon -- a strange thing to say if Ned wasn't fighting after the Sack. 

This also helps with the timing of the siege of Storm's End.  "Ned found it hard to imagine what could frighten Stannis Baratheon, who had once held Storm's End through a year of siege, surviving on rats and boot leather while the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne sat outside with their hosts, banqueting in sight of his walls."  That, of course, is the same Lord Tyrell who -- according to Kevan -- supported Aerys to the bitter end and "well beyond."  If Ned thinks the entire war lasted "close to" a year but Stannis "held Storm's End through a year of siege" then Storm's End was under siege for longer than the entire war.  That must be wrong.  But if "close to a year" is just the time Tywin was on the sidelines, it all fits, since the siege of Storm's End continued long past the Sack.  

Finally, Robb was born 9 moons after Catelyn's wedding but she and Ned were apart for the first year of her marriage.  That works, too, if Ned doesn't arrive at the toj (and then Starfall) until several months after the Sack. 

57 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

I suppose to fit everyone's favorite theory that Lyanna died from childbirth (or complications thereof) at the tower of joy, we could rewrite significant portions of the book as Kingsmonkey suggest, or we could dare to suggest that maybe Lyanna didn't give birth to Jon at the time of or even the place of the tower of joy.

But when you break it down, the timeline is quite simple, we have this from Ned:

So almost (but not quite) a year had elapsed between the start of the war (probably Arryn calling the banners) and the the time when the Lannisters showed up at Casterly Rock.

Then we have the timeline of the siege of Storm's End:

And again:

So if we're going to line these two timelines up and argue that the time from the start of the war to the sack was roughly the same amount of time as the siege, then we know a significant amount of time had to pass, after the sack and when Mace kneeled to Eddard Stark.

Because the siege did not start until:

1.  After the Vale was won:

And after Robert traveled back to the Stormlands and put down the local opposition to his rebellion:

So basically, the time it took for Rober to fight the Battle of Gulltown, and then travel to the Stormlands and defeat the opposition of his vassals was approximately the same amount of time it took for the Siege to be lifted after the Sack.

Which makes some sense because we know that Eddard had more to do after the Sack then merely end the Siege:

So we have battles plural.  Which also makes sense because outside of the Sack no significant battles had occurred yet in the Crownlands, which would have been the lords with the most loyalty to the Crown.  So it would make sense that Eddard would have had to put down any remaining opposition while he was still in King's Landing, and before he travelled to Storm's End.  And at Storm's End there would have at least had to have been a peace negotiation between his forces and Mace's.  Then Ned would have had to have figured out the location of the tower of joy and travelled there with his group of seven.

So this is a long winded way of saying If Jon was born at the time of the Trident, a significant amount of time had to have elapsed before the battle at the tower of joy.  Which means if we decide the SSM is correct, Jon was born well before the battle at the tower of joy.

 

Good analysis, but I think it leads to the conclusion that Jon was born at the toj several months after the Sack, possibly during the very "last battle" of the war, when it was seven facing three. 

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21 minutes ago, The Twinslayer said:

Good analysis, but I think it leads to the conclusion that Jon was born at the toj several months after the Sack, possibly during the very "last battle" of the war, when it was seven facing three. 

 

25 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

I repeat my former question: what does the likelihood of Jon being born before the fight at the tower have to do with anything? Most theories of R+L=J have Jon being born before Ned's arrival.

There is an SSM asking GRRM a question about the tower of joy.  The SSM made the assumption that Lyanna was inside the tower with baby Jon, while Ned was fighting the three kingsguards outside.  The questioner wondered why the fight was necessary, since obviously Ned wouldn't hurt baby Jon. 

Part of Martin's answer is as follows:

Quote

I might mention, though, that Ned's account, which you refer to, was in the context of a dream... and a fever dream at that. Our dreams are not always literal.

So putting aside Ned's dream for a moment, what do we know from Ned's own memory?  We know that Ned fought three kingsguards at the tower of joy.  We know that Ned and Howland were the last to survive, and they pulled down the tower themselves and used its stones to build eight cairns.  

Independent of this, we know that Ned was at Lyanna's bedside along with Howland Reed, and at least one other person.  We know that it was a bed of blood, imagery of which has been consistent throughout the stories, that her death was linked to childbirth.  We know that Lyanna died at this location, after eliciting a number of promises from Ned.  Promises which he paid a high price to keep.

The only difference between Ned's fevered dream, and his memories, are a chronological and geographic link between the battle at the tower, and Lyanna's deathbed.

So now add in the timeline, which suggests that Lyanna had given birth to Jon well before the battle at the tower of Joy.  So if Lyanna died from complications of childbirth, I think it's highly possible that the Ned had yet to travel to the tower of joy.  If indeed Jon's birth happened around the time of the Battle of the Trident, then my thought is that Ned was at her bedside while he was still in the Crownlands (or its general vicinity), before he left to end the Siege at Storm's End. 

If the "tower of joy" could have been disassembled by two people, then once again we're not talking about much of a tower, at least one that could have had a long term habitation by multiple persons, for any length of time.  And if Jon was born around the time of the Trident, it is unlikely that he and Lyanna could have stayed as prisoners in the tower for the length of time it took Ned to find it.

This also explains why Lyanna's body was able to be returned to Winterfell, while the bodies of the eight combatants were left in the Dornish desert.  Lyanna died elsewhere, when Ned and Howland (and whoever) were able to make arrangements to see about Lyanna's body, and bring her bones back up to Winterfell.

I think it is at least more probable, that Ned's conversation with Lyanna predates the battle at the tower of joy.  I also wonder if one of the promises Ned made to Lyanna led him to the tower.  Pretending to have a bastard was not a huge price for Eddard to pay.  As far as I can tell the biggest price Ned had to pay, may have been having to kill Ashara Dayne's brother, Arthur.  If indeed there was a relationship between the two that started after Harrenhal.

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Perhaps you can incorporate some other namedays into the mix to get an idea of when things happened.   You guys can look at RT's birthday calculations for this, with which I agree for the most part.

For instance, Sam Tarly's nameday occurs rather early in the year -  like February-ish - and he was born in 283.  So, unless you believe Sam is also not who he claims to be, or that Randyll Tarly is not his father, you can work backwards and figure out that the Battle of Ashford could not have begun prior to May or so in 282, or Randyll Tarly would not have been present to father his own son.

Likewise, move on to Margaery Tyrell.     She is 14 when Renly shows Ned her picture in 298 after Ned arrives in KL, and 15 when Cat meets her at Bitterbridge in mid-299, and 16 when she comes to KL to marry Joffrey in late 299.  (I worked out her nameday being late Aug-Sept or so,  somewhere in Q3 of the year.)   Nutshell, Margaery is born in the latter part of 283, so again - unless you entertain the idea that Alerie Tyrell was a very bad girl or that Mace can be in two places at once, you can determine that the Siege of Storm's End could not have begun until ~November 282 .

Ergo, the Battle of Ashford and the start of Siege of Storm's End took place between May and November of 282, or thereabouts.    In my mind, Randyll Tarly fathered Sam prior to marching off to war, and then after the victory at Ashford, Mace Tyrell returned to Highgarden to gather more forces for the upcoming Siege, and conceived his daughter during this time.

Also, not a birth, but another reference point - Barbrey Dustin says she was married "not half a year" when Jon Arryn raised his banners and Robert/Ned marched.    Barbrey also says that her father wanted to marry her to Ned after the announcement of Brandon/Cat's engagement , but then "Catelyn Tully got that one too" and he hastily married her to Lord Dustin instead.   ETA:   The engagement announcement was what led Littlefinger to challenge Brandon to the duel, which wasn't that long before Brandon 'heard about Lyanna' and rode to his death.

From this, along with the Reach kids' namedays, that the 'abduction' and deaths of the Starks took place fairly early in 282, and all the events thereafter - JA calling banners, Ned returning to Winterfell, early skirmishes, fighting in Gulltown, etc - all unfolded over the next 4-5 months until the Battle of Ashford was fought most likely sometime during the summer.    After this victory, the Siege would have thus begun near the end of 282, which is consistent with both Davos' and Stannis' recollections of timing of the lifting of the siege as well.  

IMO the war - from JA's banners to the Sack - was about one year.   The Siege, which began a few months later, also lasted just shy of a year.   In total, the Rebellion from beginning to end would have been about ~15 months.   Ned Stark's personal involvement, however, was probably more like a year and a half. 

 

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