Question about AA and the Bleeding Star

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, that is based on the fact that Dany woke the dragons from stone. If the dragons become a crucial element the fight against the Others the heroes are going to use then Dany will be the most important element of the savior trinity simply by default. Whoever uses the dragons would still owe their existence to her, no?

I mean, if I hand ignited a torch and handed it to you to light our camp fire then it would be rather embarrassing if you made a lot of the fact that you made the fire...

That certainly may be the case. But we'll have to wait and see. Assuming Jon was the big hero is a stretch under present circumstances, though. He has not many men, he is dead, he has no dragons, and he has no good knowledge about the Others yet.

I waited for some great hints in the Jon the Savior direction in ADwD. But there was nothing good there.

I did not say they would be in the same level but I think they will work together and what they will do will be crucial for the victory.

Tyrion has not all that much foreshadowing but he is clearly one of the most important characters, anyway. Even if he isn't Aerys' son he is still the guy who met and bonded with all the Targaryens in the story aside from Bloodraven (Jon, Aemon, Aegon, and eventually Dany). He'll be the smart guy helping to arrange the huge alliance against the Others. He'll be the guy helping Dany and Jon to get together because he and Jon are friends.

I certainly wouldn't see him this way. And I'm pretty sure George sees it the same way.

Oh, I don't have anything against Jon sort of becoming Dany's copycat on the figurative level. After all, if the prophecy is misunderstood then all three of the dragon heads might have to fulfill aspects of the prophecy to become who they are. Jon doing similar stuff to Dany doesn't make him the sole savior, though.

I've never thought about that but you could certainly try to make a case that Tyrion was reborn on the Blackwater or when he was saved from the Rhoyne. Perhaps he even woke a dragon from stone by figuring out who Aegon was, infecting Jon Connington with greyscale, and manipulating their invasion of Westeros?

And who knows what symbolism is going to surround the revelation of his parentage and him becoming a dragonrider?

Such as? We don't know the text of prophecy yet so that is somewhat of a bold claim. You can interpret Dany fulfilling everything we know as of yet:

1. She was born the place of smoke and salt, Dragonstone. A devastating portent, a storm, heralded her birth.

2. She woke the dragons from stone and also pulled Lightbringer (the dragons in a metaphoric sense) from the fire.

3. A red comet announced to the world that she had done this.

I'm not sure what elements Dany is missing.

I don't care about their personal dynamics in advance. We'll have to wait and see what's going to happen. But unless Jon does something similarly spectacular I cannot think of him as being Dany's equal on the prophetic/magical level. Just as Bran is on a completely different level, too. He might be able to pull off things that are on completely different level.

I'm sure it will play a big role. But I'm not really sure what special powers his ancestry is going to give him for that to be so special. I mean, even Dany just woke dragons from stone. That in itself is not going to defeat the Others. So what do you think is the actual plot related role Jon's Stark-Targaryen ancestry is going to play? How will that affect the story and decide/influence the outcome of the conflict?

Your last paragraph raises an interesting point. What, indeed, could be Jon's role that is on a par with what Dany has done? I would first ask why Azor Ahai or the Prince who was Promised must be defined by the level of his magical acts? Because if that was the definition then surely Bran or Bloodraven would exceed any other characters in importance.

So the answer is I don't think Jon's role has to be defined by the level of magical acts he performs. That said, Dany herself has not committed a single magical act. She did not cast the spell that woke the Dragons. Mirri Maz Duur did. She has no magical power whatsoever. Jon does. He is a powerful warg. And it may well be that once he awakens to his destiny other abilities are manifested.

But ultimately it will be his choices and something connected to his unique lineage that will set him apart. Perhaps the ritual that created the Others had some connection to House Stark, and some connection to House Targaryen is required to undo it. Perhaps we indeed need a warged dragon to fly to the Heart of Winter to destroy it, and perhaps only a warg with Targaryen blood can achieve this?

I am obviously shooting from the hip here. The options are legion. As you were the first to point out, Martin brings new unexpected curve balls to the story all the time. Most likey his role will be nothing any of us expected before.

[TheSlayerofLies]

39 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So the answer is I don't think Jon's role has to be defined by the level of magical acts he performs. That said, Dany herself has not committed a single magical act. She did not cast the spell that woke the Dragons. Mirri Maz Duur did. She has no magical power whatsoever. Jon does. He is a powerful warg. And it may well be that once he awakens to his destiny other abilities are manifested.

 

Sorry to jump in but George has stated that Dany did in fact make the magic as she went along.  Perhaps MMD played a part in it but it was ultimately Dany's doing.  Here is a part of that interview.

Quote

I wanted to keep the magic in my book subtle and keep our sense of it growing, and it stops being magical if you see too much of it. In Tolkien, Aragorn's sword is magical because it just is; not because we regularly see it helping him win fights. In these books, magic is always dangerous and difficult, and has a price and risks. 

 

The whole point of the scene in A Game of Thrones where Daenerys hatches the dragons is that she makes the magic up as she goes along; she is someone who really might do anything. I wanted magic to be something barely under control and half instinctive--not the John W. Campbell version with magic as the science and technology of other sorts of world, that works by simple and understandable rules.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=49161

 

[Free Northman Reborn]

16 minutes ago, Jay Targ said:

Sorry to jump in but George has stated that Dany did in fact make the magic as she went along.  Perhaps MMD played a part in it but it was ultimately Dany's doing.  Here is a part of that interview.

 

That is not saying that Dany cast the magic. It says that she made the choices in terms of the blood sacrifices that were made to awake the Dragons, without knowing what the consequences would be or even knowing that she was actually making any sacrifices. The spirit shapes in the tent, the incantations, the rites and the ritual itself is all Mirri. Dany's blood changes the outcome, as does the sacrifice of Rhaego, which wakes the dragons. But Dany does not do any of that. She merely makes the decision to let the rite go ahead, and to take her unborn son into the midst of the spell.

[tugela]

6 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Ashara had beautiful purple eyes. Something that is common for a Dayne and Dany has Dayne blood.

He could, if the Daynes didn't had the same colors as the Targs. Heck he didn't even needed to see the child. Ashara could stay in Dorne with her bastartd or saty in Dorne and claim that Dany wasn't her, or even stay in Dorne and claim that Dany was her bastard by a Valyrian looking guy.

Because the glasshouses don't have doors? Braavos is one of the biggerst trade ports hence finding a red paint isn't difficult.

Isn't just how they call her. People call her like that because she was born then. There is no reason to believe that for example the 

Why a mother would abandoned her daughter with someone who has already shown signs of madness. Heck Viserys was like 8 years old and he was alone in Essos. How the eff a mother would had done something like that?

Dany had to learn her Targ side. She had grown up a fugitive who was sold and then she was involved with a culture she doesn't belong to. Quaithe reminds her that she isn't a Khaleesi or Mhysa she is a Targ. There is nothing that proves that she isn't Aerys' and Rhaella's child.

I have been here long enough, I have read the books for way too many times and yet I don't see them.

We don't have a character from Starfall. Heck the only person who we see mentions how she died. Heck if we what to see lack of details about a character's disappearance look at Rohanne's case. The Lady of Casterly Rock disappeared and no one claimed that she died. If Ashara hadn't died there is no reason why people said that she did and didn't say that she had just disappeared.

Purple eyes are extremely uncommon in Westeros. Very few people have them, so anyone who does is going to stand out.

Ashara was Princess Elia's lady in waiting. She would have known Rhaegar extremely well. Rhaegar was also well known as being exceptionally charismatic with the ladies. If Ashara suddenly turned up with a silver haired purple eyed baby, everyone would have known who the father was. So she would have had to hide that, and figure out some way to protect the child from Robert. The Daynes themselves would not be able to provide that help without risk of being wiped out for treason, so it would be necessary to hide the baby as a Targaryen. That was the only way short of infanticide.

Paint pigment would have been produced with materials locally available. It would not be imported. At Bravos they would probably use whitewash or some grey material for pigment.

Rhaella gave birth during a storm, hence the name. But, if the baby was stillborn, and was subsequently swapped for Ashara's baby and passed off as Rhaella's, the baby would have the same name. She would still be called Stormborn. They wouldn't call her Swapped-Stormborn, or something like that, because they want to pass the child off as the princess. So your argument of the name as "proof" is nonsense.

Ashara would have left her child with the knights who smuggled Viserys out of Dragonstone because she was alone, without means of support, and because the knights could defend her child. Also, she could be sure that her child would get her birthright if she was known as Rhaella's child. If she was Ashara's child, then Daenerys would be a bastard and have no birthright. And remember, there was a woman who went with the knights when they escaped. That woman was probably Ashara herself. Later on she would have left for Asshai to learn more about the prophecy that had motivated Rhaegar in the first place. So Quaithe being where she was makes perfect sense and fits with the story.

We do have characters from Starfall. Two in fact, including Lord Dayne. They don't talk about Ashara killing herself. They only talk about Wylla and that she was Jon's mother. And remember, after killing Arthur, and taking Dawn to Starfall, where Ashara supposedly promptly killed herself as a result, the Daynes appear surprisingly fond of Ned, even going so far as to nickname Edrik "Ned" in honor of Ned Stark. You would think that after bringing all that tragedy to their family they would be pretty hostile to Ned, but the exact opposite is the case. Which makes one think that the story about what all happened did not play out as everyone thinks.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

2 minutes ago, tugela said:

Purple eyes are extremely uncommon in Westeros. Very few people have them, so anyone who does is going to stand out.

Which doesn't mean that if someone has purple eyes is a Targ. Especially since all the Daynes we have seen have purple eyes.

4 minutes ago, tugela said:

Paint pigment would have been produced with materials locally available. It would not be imported. At Bravos they would probably use whitewash or some grey material for pigment.

That is what you believe. I haven't seen something like that being mentioned in the books.

5 minutes ago, tugela said:

Rhaella gave birth during a storm, hence the name. But, if the baby was stillborn, and was subsequently swapped for Ashara's baby and passed off as Rhaella's, the baby would have the same name. She would still be called Stormborn. They wouldn't call her Swapped-Stormborn, or something like that, because they want to pass the child off as the princess. So your argument of the name as "proof" is nonsense.

By your logic what would stop the people in DS to know everyone about how the last Targaryen isn't a Targaryen?

6 minutes ago, tugela said:

Ashara would have left her child with the knights who smuggled Viserys out of Dragonstone because she was alone, without means of support, and because the knights could defend her child.

No mother would had abandoned her child with people who could had betrayed him and sold him at the enemy and even if this happened why she didn't went to take Dany when they ended up on the streets?

7 minutes ago, tugela said:

Also, she could be sure that her child would get her birthright if she was known as Rhaella's child.

There is no birthright.

10 minutes ago, tugela said:

And remember, there was a woman who went with the knights when they escaped.

How do you know that?

10 minutes ago, tugela said:

That woman was probably Ashara herself. Later on she would have left for Asshai to learn more about the prophecy that had motivated Rhaegar in the first place. So Quaithe being where she was makes perfect sense and fits with the story.

A mother would abandoned her child to leave in the streets, being abused and being sold just because someone said something about a prophecy. Makes sense.

12 minutes ago, tugela said:

We do have characters from Starfall. Two in fact, including Lord Dayne. They don't talk about Ashara killing herself. They only talk about Wylla and that she was Jon's mother.

One, Ned and what he told was;

Quote

"My father was Ser Arthur's elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born."
"Why would she do that?" said Arya, startled.
Ned looked wary. Maybe he was afraid that she was going to throw something at him. "Your lord father never spoke of her?" he said. "The Lady Ashara Dayne, of Starfall?"
"No. Did he know her?"
"Before Robert was king. She met your father and his brothers at Harrenhal, during the year of the false spring."
"Oh." Arya did not know what else to say. "Why did she jump in the sea, though?"
"Her heart was broken."
Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid. She couldn't say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. "Did someone break it?"
He hesitated. "Perhaps it's not my place . . ."
"Tell me."
He looked at her uncomfortably. "My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal—"

Thus the only person we have from Starfall confirms that Ashara threw herself from Palestone sword.

[tugela]

1 hour ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Which doesn't mean that if someone has purple eyes is a Targ. Especially since all the Daynes we have seen have purple eyes.

That is what you believe. I haven't seen something like that being mentioned in the books.

By your logic what would stop the people in DS to know everyone about how the last Targaryen isn't a Targaryen?

No mother would had abandoned her child with people who could had betrayed him and sold him at the enemy and even if this happened why she didn't went to take Dany when they ended up on the streets?

There is no birthright.

How do you know that?

A mother would abandoned her child to leave in the streets, being abused and being sold just because someone said something about a prophecy. Makes sense.

One, Ned and what he told was;

Thus the only person we have from Starfall confirms that Ashara threw herself from Palestone sword.

No they don't. Ashara had purple eyes. Cedric had dark blue eyes. Arthur we don't know.

This was medieval society, they would have done things in a medieval way, which means that common goods would have produced from local materials. Paint pigment for common objects would not be imported. The only things that would be imported are items that are either unavailable locally, or have great value. I am pretty sure that there were no Home Depots in every Westerosi city.

People would think she was a Targaryen because Rhaella was pregnant and the people who smuggled the family out of Dragonstone said that she was Rhaella's baby. That would be the obvious conclusion under the circumstances. People would not think that a baby swap had occurred, because the baby had Targaryen characteristics, which are very rare. Ashara would have been able to produce such a baby, but the story being put out was that Ashara's baby was stillborn and she was dead. So she would not come to mind, especially if the baby was being raised alongside Viserys. It is all in the optics, and using sleight of hand to deceive people.

Ashara would have been the woman that left along with the knights, so she did not abandon them. Later on she left them with Darry because he was trusted and could be expected to protect them. It may have been necessary for her to leave later in order to preserve the story that Daenerys was actually Rhaella's daughter. You also need to remember that highborn parents in medieval society did NOT look after their kids as you or I might. Those children were raised by servants, while the parents went about their business, so Ashara behaving in this way is not strange or unexpected at all.

There is a birthright involved. As Rhaella's trueborn daughter Daenerys  would have a legitimate claim to the throne. As Ashara's bastard daughter Daenerys would have a claim to looking after the family's mules. There is a massive difference. Not to mention, the deception would have the dual purpose of providing Daenerys with protection while at the same time shielding the Daynes from Roberts wrath.

Because the book said so.

Ashara would have been well aware of Rhaegar's obsession with prophecy, and if she had a child with him to help him fulfill it, it would mean that she bought into that. So she would have strong motivation to seek out more information that could be useful later on in helping Daenerys achieve it. The best place to do that would be Asshai, since that is where the stories of Azor Ahai were being preserved.

Ok, Edrik did mention the jump. But, he was not there himself since he had not been born, it was a story recounted to him by his aunt Allyria (presumably also by his father). Note that he hesitates when saying who broke her heart. That is because it is something he is not supposed to say, and he knows it, so he comes up with something else. He almost let the cat out of the bag. At another point Arya hears a bard song about an event eerily similar, and in that song the lady jumped from the tower because her prince was killed. Clearly that is not referring to Ned, but someone else, who happens to be a prince. How many princes do we know who were killed at that time? And that someone else is the father of her daughter.

The connection between the Daynes and Ned is that they preserve his dread secret and he preserves their dread secret. That is why they have a bond that otherwise is irrational.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Your last paragraph raises an interesting point. What, indeed, could be Jon's role that is on a par with what Dany has done? I would first ask why Azor Ahai or the Prince who was Promised must be defined by the level of his magical acts? Because if that was the definition then surely Bran or Bloodraven would exceed any other characters in importance.

The point isn't necessarily magical abilities. Just what the point of the ancestry is related to the plot.

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So the answer is I don't think Jon's role has to be defined by the level of magical acts he performs. That said, Dany herself has not committed a single magical act.

That is wrong. Dany made the spell that hatched the dragon eggs. Just reread the chapter. Mirri Maz Duur is an ingredient to the spell, not the sorcerer. She offers Dany her help at first and is contemptuous of her intuitive magic but that changes before her death. She realizes that Dany will succeed.

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

She did not cast the spell that woke the Dragons. Mirri Maz Duur did. She has no magical power whatsoever.

That is also wrong. Dany has prophetic dragon dreams. I really think you should reread her AGoT chapters on occasion.

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Jon does. He is a powerful warg. And it may well be that once he awakens to his destiny other abilities are manifested.

That is nothing especially special. Arya, Sansa, and Rickon are skinchangers, too. And just as Dany's magic is intuitive Jon is also an intuitive skinchanger. He isn't trained as of yet he had no interest in exploring that side of his character. He actively pushes Ghost and the skinchanging thing away in ADwD.

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

But ultimately it will be his choices and something connected to his unique lineage that will set him apart. Perhaps the ritual that created the Others had some connection to House Stark, and some connection to House Targaryen is required to undo it. Perhaps we indeed need a warged dragon to fly to the Heart of Winter to destroy it, and perhaps only a warg with Targaryen blood can achieve this?

Skinchanger. Wargs are only skinchangers bonding with wolves. I agree that Jon being a skinchanger and Targaryen might have some meaning. But without being overly pedantic Daenerys is as much half-Blackwood as Jon is half Stark. Dany's parents and grandparents married each other and her great-grandfather Aegon V married Betha Blackwood. That means Dany does not only have First Men blood she is also, quite literally, genetically half Blackwood.

She could become a skinchanger as well if we assume Bloodraven inherited his skinchanger/greenseer ability from his Blackwood mother.

If the Children of the Forest (or a faction of them) are behind the Others then it is very unlikely that the Starks had anything to do with them nor does the idea make much sense that a Stark would have any special powers that could stop them. And the idea that you could talk to the Others or reason with them was always kind of problematic considering that their use of the wights made it very clear that they do neither respect nor care about humanity at all.

And in general I must say that a union of 'ice and fire' in Jon always seems sort of strange in my eyes. I mean, what is he then? A melted snowball? Or an extinguished fire? Ice and fire don't make a very good union.

And we have also to consider the effect of the revelation of his true parentage. It will make him a Targaryen, not a Stark. You always have two parents in this world but Jon is not going to remain a Stark if he accept his true biological identity. Just as Tyrion won't remain a Lannister if it turned out that Aerys was his father. The woman might be important, too, but the family name goes with the paternal line.

[MinotaurWarrior]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And the idea that you could talk to the Others or reason with them was always kind of problematic considering that their use of the wights made it very clear that they do neither respect nor care about humanity at all.

Could you expound upon your reasoning here?

[Lord Varys]

56 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

Could you expound upon your reasoning here?

Well, they kill people when they see them and make their corpses into killing machines to kill even more people. I very much doubt that they will stop this if you show up with a flag of truce and try to convince them that humans also have a right to live and that they should send their wights against us.

And the idea that this is different if you have some guy with you with a special ancestry or special blood makes little sense. Why should the Others care about your family tree?

[MinotaurWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, they kill people when they see them and make their corpses into killing machines to kill even more people. I very much doubt that they will stop this if you show up with a flag of truce and try to convince them that humans also have a right to live and that they should send their wights against us.

And the idea that this is different if you have some guy with you with a special ancestry or special blood makes little sense. Why should the Others care about your family tree?

I mean, Tywin kills people to lure out more people to kill so he can kill them, so he can build a position of strength from which to negotiate the killing of more people, all after killing some children to make up for all the time he didn't spend killing people. But you can talk with Tywin.

I happen to hold the belief that a lot of Others (possibly including their leadership) are Starks by blood, based on the story of the Night King and how Brandon the Builder was a guy who built a giant magic ice wall, but laying that aside because it's much more a guess than a theory, we know that Craster was safe because he was father to several Others. At very least, they care about your family tree far enough to avoid killing their dad.

I'm really just curious if there's something I'm missing about their use of wights in particular. I agree with you that they clearly like killing people and don't want to stop killing people, but what does what they do with the bodies have to do with it? Would you feel differently if they mostly fought their own battles, or if they fought with, say, warged animals (like the CotF)?

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

I mean, Tywin kills people to lure out more people to kill so he can kill them, so he can build a position of strength from which to negotiate the killing of more people, all after killing some children to make up for all the time he didn't spend killing people. But you can talk with Tywin.

Tywin isn't some ice demon who can control the weather and bring a deadly winter. Neither does he control an army of zombies.

4 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

I happen to hold the belief that a lot of Others (possibly including their leadership) are Starks by blood, based on the story of the Night King and how Brandon the Builder was a guy who built a giant magic ice wall, but laying that aside because it's much more a guess than a theory, we know that Craster was safe because he was father to several Others. At very least, they care about your family tree far enough to avoid killing their dad.

The story of the Night's King is just a story, and a story that doesn't fit all that well with what else we know about the Others, for instance this story of a female Other seducing him. There are no female Others is any of the other stories and Craster had only to give his sons to them, not his daughters.

If there is any truth to this then his queen would have just been a female wight.

The time line is also very off there. The Night's King was supposedly the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. This would have been a few generations after the end of the Long Night and the War for the Dawn so there is no reason to believe he had anything to do with the origin of the Others.

If the Others are human children turned into Others (and Craster's wives suggest as much) then their human ancestry is completely irrelevant.

How safe Craster was is another question. The fact that you can serve the Others (for a time) doesn't mean you can convince them not to kill you if they want to. Nor does this mean that you will escape your ultimate fate. Pact or not I doubt Craster would survive the final winter that turns the entire world into a desolation of ice.

4 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

I'm really just curious if there's something I'm missing about their use of wights in particular. I agree with you that they clearly like killing people and don't want to stop killing people, but what does what they do with the bodies have to do with it? Would you feel differently if they mostly fought their own battles, or if they fought with, say, warged animals (like the CotF)?

Actually, yeah. Using your own slain corpses as weapons against shows a sort of ultimate contempt. It is both very cruel and is a very effective mockery. Something like 'Now there, look, you fertile species! We are sending your own dead against you. Have fun!' You can see how those Children of the Forest who wanted to fight the First Men might have relished in such ideas. And even more so in creating other twisted humans to send against the real men. That should be the origin of the name 'Others', originally meaning 'other humans'.

[lojzelote]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The point isn't necessarily magical abilities. Just what the point of the ancestry is related to the plot.

That is wrong. Dany made the spell that hatched the dragon eggs. Just reread the chapter. Mirri Maz Duur is an ingredient to the spell, not the sorcerer. She offers Dany her help at first and is contemptuous of her intuitive magic but that changes before her death. She realizes that Dany will succeed.

That is also wrong. Dany has prophetic dragon dreams. I really think you should reread her AGoT chapters on occasion.

That is nothing especially special. Arya, Sansa, and Rickon are skinchangers, too. And just as Dany's magic is intuitive Jon is also an intuitive skinchanger. He isn't trained as of yet he had no interest in exploring that side of his character. He actively pushes Ghost and the skinchanging thing away in ADwD.

Skinchanger. Wargs are only skinchangers bonding with wolves. I agree that Jon being a skinchanger and Targaryen might have some meaning. But without being overly pedantic Daenerys is as much half-Blackwood as Jon is half Stark. Dany's parents and grandparents married each other and her great-grandfather Aegon V married Betha Blackwood. That means Dany does not only have First Men blood she is also, quite literally, genetically half Blackwood.

She could become a skinchanger as well if we assume Bloodraven inherited his skinchanger/greenseer ability from his Blackwood mother.

If the Children of the Forest (or a faction of them) are behind the Others then it is very unlikely that the Starks had anything to do with them nor does the idea make much sense that a Stark would have any special powers that could stop them. And the idea that you could talk to the Others or reason with them was always kind of problematic considering that their use of the wights made it very clear that they do neither respect nor care about humanity at all.

And in general I must say that a union of 'ice and fire' in Jon always seems sort of strange in my eyes. I mean, what is he then? A melted snowball? Or an extinguished fire? Ice and fire don't make a very good union.

And we have also to consider the effect of the revelation of his true parentage. It will make him a Targaryen, not a Stark. You always have two parents in this world but Jon is not going to remain a Stark if he accept his true biological identity. Just as Tyrion won't remain a Lannister if it turned out that Aerys was his father. The woman might be important, too, but the family name goes with the paternal line.

Children usually inheriting father's name is only a convention, just like trueborn heirs vs bastards. Genetics don't care about any of that. Anyway, there have been instances where paternal descent has been deemed the less important one. In Dorne it happens regularly in some 50% cases. But not only there. Lannisters are still Lannisters today and not Lyddens, and they still seem to consider Lann the Clever the founder of their House, not Joffrey Lydden or his ancestors.

Neither Tyrion or Jon should be exactly thrilled about any such revelation. Tyrion would lose his claim to Casterly Rock, though he may get a worthy consolation prize in the form of a dragon. hard to say how would he feel about Tywin vs Aerys; he knows Aerys was a nutjob, but Tywin treated him like shit his entire life, so he might not take it too hard.

OTOH Jon... well, so Ned wasn't his father, but Ned was the guy who raised him and with whom he had a good relationship and whom he resembles physically and personality-wise. Not taking into account the fact the Stark children believe Rhaegar Targaryen was a rapist, he was a silver-haired, strikingly handsome Valyrian harpist, tourney champion and intellectual with interest in old dusty books. Plenty of stuff to relate for good ol' Jon Snow, right? Well, even if wanted to find any similarity between them, he really can't, since Rhaegar died some 17 years ago. At least if he hears that Lyanna was a lot like Arya, he will be able to imagine her. Also the addedd bonus of the Mad King for a grandfather. He doesn't even care for dragons like Tyrion does. Anyway, connection to them might prove useful one faraway day once Dany finally makes it to Westeros and deals with the clusterfuck in the South (though I believe she would help the North anyway; she has a bit of a savior complex). Until then his connection to the Starks is much more important - since the start, people take him seriously exactly because he's suposed to be Ned's son - it's the reason Jeor Mormont made him his squire, what sets him apart from the other black crows to the wildlings, why Maester Aemon believes he can lead the defence of the Wall, etc.

Yeah, the Targaryens are much bigger beasts in the South, but in the North the Starks have a much longer tradition and a much better reputation, and Jon's not leaving the North anytime soon.

As for the magic stuff, I do actually believe that the Starks (and some other Northern Houses) may have dabbled in the Ice magic, once upon the time. They could have learnt it from the Children or discovered it accidentally - for example, they could have entrapped an Other and try some... experiments with him.

There's plenty of weird stuff connecting some of the nortmen to ice and some kind of magic.

The Boltons
- cold eyes of the color of dirty ice
- Ramsay hunts maidens through forrests in a manner similar to the Others' (according to Old Nan's tales)
- Roose's ageless appearance, obsession with healthy lifestyle and the mysterious book he burned at Harrenhal led some people to speculate he may be dabbling in magic to prolong his life (Ice preserves, while Fire consumes?)
- Roose's leeching himself regularly in order to rid himself off of bad blood - this may be significant in relation to all the blood-hating and blood-sucking mentioned under.
Also this:
The hearth was caked with cold black ash, the room unheated but for candles. Every time a door
opened their flames would sway and shiver. The bride was shivering too. They had dressed her in white
lambs-wool trimmed with lace. Her sleeves and bodice were sewn with freshwater pearls, and on her
feet were white doeskin slippers—pretty, but not warm. Her face was pale, bloodless.
A face carved of ice, Theon Greyjoy thought as he draped a fur-trimmed cloak about her
shoulders. A corpse buried in the snow. “My lady. It is time.” Beyond the door, the music called them,
lute and pipes and drum.

Blood is warm and life-giving, OTOH bloodlessness the opposite.

The Dustins
TWoIaF mentions this:
The rusted crown upon the arms of House Dustin derives from their claim that they are themselves descended from the First King and the Barrow Kings who ruled after him. The old tales recorded in Kennet's Passages of the Dead claim that a curse was placed on the Great Barrow that would allow no living man to rival the First King. This curse made these pretenders to the title grow corpselike in their appearance as it sucked away their vitality and life. This is no more than legend, to be sure, but that the Dustins share blood and descent from the Barrow Kings of old seems sure enough.

And of course the dead Starks are presented as cold, hateful wraiths.

AGoT Ned
Their footsteps rang off the stones and echoed
in the vault overhead as they walked among the dead of House Stark. The Lords of Winterfell watched them pass. Their likenesses were carved into the stones that sealed the tombs. In long rows they sat, blind eyes staring out into eternal darkness, while great stone direwolves curled round their feet. The shifting shadows made the stone figures seem to stir as the living passed by. By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now. He hoped not. The first Lords of Winterfell had been men hard as the land they ruled.
(according to Old Nan, the Others also hated iron)

He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand
times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. “Promise me, Ned, “ Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood.
(reminiscent of Jon's and Theon's dreams)

Sansa blamed Arya and told her that it should have been
Nymeria who died. And Arya was lost after she heard what had happened to her butcher’s boy. Sansa cried herself to sleep, Arya brooded silently all day long, and Eddard Stark dreamed of a frozen hell reserved for the Starks of Winterfell.

AGoT Catelyn
She gave her uncle a grim smile. “And when night falls, there are
said to be ghosts, cold vengeful spirits of the north who hunger for southron blood.”
(sounds like the Others who are said to smell and hate the warm blood of humans, doesn't it?)
 

ACoK Theon
That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell.The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time... until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding.
Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead.
King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life.
But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures halfseen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

ADwD Theon
Lady Dustin’s serjeant raised the lantern. Shadows slid and shifted. A small light in a great darkness. Theon had never felt comfortable in the crypts. He could feel the stone kings staring down at him with their stone eyes, stone fingers curled around the hilts of rusted longswords. None had any love for ironborn. A familiar sense of dread filled him.

“That king is missing his sword,” Lady Dustin observed.
It was true. Theon did not recall which king it was, but the longsword he should have held was gone. Streaks of rust remained to show where it had been. The sight disquieted him. He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs. If a sword was missing …
There are ghosts in Winterfell. And I am one of them.

The world is gone. King’s Landing, Riverrun, Pyke, and the Iron Islands, all the Seven Kingdoms, every place that he had ever known, every place that he had ever read about or dreamed of, all gone. Only Winterfell remained.
He was trapped here, with the ghosts. The old ghosts from the crypts and the younger ones thathe had made himself, Mikken and Farlen, Gynir Rednose, Aggar, Gelmarr the Grim, the miller’s wife from Acorn Water and her two young sons, and all the rest. My work. My ghosts. They are all here, and they are angry. He thought of the crypts and those missing swords.

TWoW spoilers

 

TWoW Theon
She has to understand. She is my sister. He never wanted to do any harm to Bran or Rickon. Reek made him kill those boys, not him Reek but the other one. "I am no kinslayer," he insisted. He told her how he bedded down with Ramsay's bitches, warned her that Winterfell was full of ghosts. "The swords were gone. Four, I think, or five. I don't recall. The stone kings are angry."
 

Yeah, I doubt we will ever get literal haunting in Winterfell, but surely GRRM must be trying to express something with this stuff, right? Why are the Starks of old portrayed as cold and demonic? I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out the very first Ice was actually forged from ice. It's not so hard to imagine.

Then there are Jon's nightmares about the crypts and the foreshadowing of his death:

AGoT Jon
“Do you ever find anyone in your dream?” Sam asked.
Jon shook his head. “No one. The castle is always empty.” He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. “Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It’s black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don’t want to. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their
laps, but it’s not them I’m afraid of. I scream that I’m not a Stark, that this isn’t my place, but it’s no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream.”

AGoT Bran
Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. (is the first part truly only about Jon feeling cold and lonely at the moment of Bran's vision, or does it foreshadow his death? I'd say both.)

AGoT Arya
Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. “There are worse things than spiders and rats,” he whispered. “This is where the dead walk.” That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya’s hand.
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

Ant then there is Bran's and Rickon's strange dream where they speak to their dead father:

The mention of dreams reminded him. “I dreamed about the crow again last night. The one with three eyes. He flew into my bedchamber and told me to come with him, so I did. We went down to the crypts. Father was there, and we talked. He was sad.” “And why was that?” Luwin peered through his tube.
 “It was something to do about Jon, I think.” The dream had been deeply disturbing, more so than any of the other crow dreams. “Hodor won’t go down into the crypts.”
 The maester had only been half listening, Bran could tell. He lifted his eye from the tube,
blinking. “Hodor won’t...”
 “Go down into the crypts. When I woke, I told him to take me down, to see if Father was  truly there. At first he didn’t know what I was saying, but I got him to the steps by telling him to go here and go there, only then he wouldn’t go down. He just stood on the top step and said ‘Hodor,’ like he was scared of the dark, but I had a torch. It made me so mad I almost gave him a swat in the head, like Old Nan is always doing.” He saw the way the maester was frowning andhurriedly added, “I didn’t, though.”

“Shaggy,” a small voice called. When Bran looked up, his little brother was standing in the mouth of Father’s tomb. With one final snap at Summer’s face, Shaggydog broke off and bounded to Rickon’s side. “You let my father be,” Rickon warned Luwin. “You let him be.”
 “Rickon,” Bran said softly. “Father’s not here.”
 “Yes he is. I saw him.” Tears glistened on Rickon’s face. “I saw him last night.”
 “In your dream... ?’
 Rickon nodded. “You leave him. You leave him be. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”

“All of us have dreams that come true sometimes. You dreamed of your lord father in the crypts before we knew he was dead, remember?”
 “Rickon did too. We dreamed the same dream.”

Winterfell certainly isn't a wholly mundane castle.

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Tywin isn't some ice demon who can control the weather and bring a deadly winter. Neither does he control an army of zombies.

So, to be clear, I understand humanity is relevant (because, e.g. Tywin can make marriage alliances), and I agree that the weather thing is likely relevant (because Tywin only sometimes makes land inhospitable to humans), it's just the zombie thing where I'm still curious about your reasoning.

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Actually, yeah. Using your own slain corpses as weapons against shows a sort of ultimate contempt. It is both very cruel and is a very effective mockery. Something like 'Now there, look, you fertile species! We are sending your own dead against you. Have fun!' You can see how those Children of the Forest who wanted to fight the First Men might have relished in such ideas. And even more so in creating other twisted humans to send against the real men. That should be the origin of the name 'Others', originally meaning 'other humans'.

But so, for instance, Cersei has a zombie who she's planning to make fight for her in a mockery of a trial by combat after the cadaver was killed in another mockery of a trial by combat, and she can technically be reasoned with. Thoros could be reasoned with, at least when his zombie of choice was Beric Dondarrion. Aeron Damphair thinks he has zombie warriors, and he's very unreasonable, but he's not like a force of nature or a wild animal or anything. Rattleshirt wore NW and Giant bones in mockery of the slain, but he was able to (at least for a time) work with them. Is the difference about some specific detail of the wights, or is it the scope of their use, or is it actually that you just mean that the Others can't be reasoned with in the same way you might say that of Cersei?

Also, I'm not sure I'm getting your full argument when it comes to mocking human fertility? It's not like the wights have their genitals mutilated or unduly exposed, nor have we seen many baby wights. Are you just referring to the sort of opposites of dying and giving birth? Like, "ha! Every time you have a child, that's another soldier for you, but every time a man dies, that's a soldier for us"? Is there something I'm missing in the way wights are described?

 

I've spoilered all of the tangential stuff about my OtherStark speculation / guesses.

Spoiler

 

 

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The story of the Night's King is just a story, and a story that doesn't fit all that well with what else we know about the Others, for instance this story of a female Other seducing him. There are no female Others is any of the other stories and Craster had only to give his sons to them, not his daughters.

If there is any truth to this then his queen would have just been a female wight.

 

I mean, it's a story from more or less 8,000 years ago, if it's true at all, so I agree the details are unreliable. I personally think it makes most sense that what was going on was that the Stark in the nightfort was giving babies to the Others through the Black Gate, and that over time people said, "wait, he was giving his seed to the Others? What does that mean? Must be he was ejaculating inside of one." But in no way is there sufficient evidence for me to say that my guess is better than anyone else's. What we have is a story that doesn't fully make sense, and a dozen different ways you can invent details to change things to fit better. Yours is less crackpot than mine.   

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The time line is also very off there. The Night's King was supposedly the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. This would have been a few generations after the end of the Long Night and the War for the Dawn so there is no reason to believe he had anything to do with the origin of the Others.

To be clear, I don't think it's the origin of the Others. Just the origin of some Others, and an example of where yet more might have come from. The first Others came from before the Starks were Starks, because Bran the Builder founded the house and built the wall, so the Starks absolutely are not the sole progenitors of the Others or anything like that.

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If the Others are human children turned into Others (and Craster's wives suggest as much) then their human ancestry is completely irrelevant.

 

I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make here at all.

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How safe Craster was is another question. The fact that you can serve the Others (for a time) doesn't mean you can convince them not to kill you if they want to. Nor does this mean that you will escape your ultimate fate. Pact or not I doubt Craster would survive the final winter that turns the entire world into a desolation of ice.

I think how safe he was is pretty clear. As a godly man, he had nothing to fear. Despite his inadequate defenses no man dared steal his daughters, the cold winds stayed away for so long as he lived, et cetera. I will admit though that we have absolutely no clue how safe he would have been. But the fact that he made a deal at all, for any period of time, says something.

 

 

[Lord Varys]

11 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

But so, for instance, Cersei has a zombie who she's planning to make fight for her in a mockery of a trial by combat after the cadaver was killed in another mockery of a trial by combat, and she can technically be reasoned with. Thoros could be reasoned with, at least when his zombie of choice was Beric Dondarrion. Aeron Damphair thinks he has zombie warriors, and he's very unreasonable, but he's not like a force of nature or a wild animal or anything. Rattleshirt wore NW and Giant bones in mockery of the slain, but he was able to (at least for a time) work with them. Is the difference about some specific detail of the wights, or is it the scope of their use, or is it actually that you just mean that the Others can't be reasoned with in the same way you might say that of Cersei?

The point there is that the Others deliberately chose walking human corpses as their foot soldiers. They are making a point by doing that. And they are making a different point by changing the climate/weather/temperature in such a way that human life is no longer possible regardless whether there is much fighting or not.

11 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

Also, I'm not sure I'm getting your full argument when it comes to mocking human fertility? It's not like the wights have their genitals mutilated or unduly exposed, nor have we seen many baby wights. Are you just referring to the sort of opposites of dying and giving birth? Like, "ha! Every time you have a child, that's another soldier for you, but every time a man dies, that's a soldier for us"? Is there something I'm missing in the way wights are described?

I was more referring to the Children there if we assume they or a faction of them created the Others. Then both the fact that they are human children to create them as well as the fact that they turn dead humans against them is a sign that they were using the fertility of the First Men (much better than that of the Children) against them.

11 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

To be clear, I don't think it's the origin of the Others. Just the origin of some Others, and an example of where yet more might have come from. The first Others came from before the Starks were Starks, because Bran the Builder founded the house and built the wall, so the Starks absolutely are not the sole progenitors of the Others or anything like that.

Yeah, well, there might be some Starks among the Others alongside with a lot of other Others. I'm not seeing the relevance of this.

11 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make here at all.

 

That point would be that I don't think that the blood or ancestry of a child being turned into an Other matters. Why should it?

11 minutes ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

I think how safe he was is pretty clear. As a godly man, he had nothing to fear. Despite his inadequate defenses no man dared steal his daughters, the cold winds stayed away for so long as he lived, et cetera. I will admit though that we have absolutely no clue how safe he would have been. But the fact that he made a deal at all, for any period of time, says something.

Oh, you have to go back and check the Craster chapters. It is indicated that Craster doesn't have as many animals as one should expect of him because the Others are demanding more and more sacrifices. That suggests that the terms of their agreement are fluid and subject to change. I mean, do you think the Others would feed Craster in winter? Without sufficient provisions he and his women are going to die.

[MinotaurWarrior]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The point there is that the Others deliberately chose walking human corpses as their foot soldiers. They are making a point by doing that. And they are making a different point by changing the climate/weather/temperature in such a way that human life is no longer possible regardless whether there is much fighting or not.I was more referring to the Children there if we assume they or a faction of them created the Others. Then both the fact that they are human children to create them as well as the fact that they turn dead humans against them is a sign that they were using the fertility of the First Men (much better than that of the Children) against them.

So, would it be fair to summarize your position as, "the Others are engaged in offensive acts which indicate they are not interested in peace"? I think at first read I was thinking your position was a bit stronger than that, something more like, "the fact that they use wights means they're literally impossible to talk to."

 

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Yeah, well, there might be some Starks among the Others alongside with a lot of other Others. I'm not seeing the relevance of this.

 

The relevance might be that, for example, Brandon XIII of the Heart of Winter Starks might like the idea of more Stark babies being handed over to become new Others, and so he might want to make sure there's a Stark or two among the captive breeding population they use to make new Others. Or the blood ties between them might allow blood magic fueled by Stark blood more effective, or any number of things.

I mean, this barely moves the subject past "why would Stark blood matter." I say "Because it might be the same blood that once ran in the veins of several Others" and then the next question is "why does that matter" and there's no answer. I freely admit that.

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That point would be that I don't think that the blood or ancestry of a child being turned into an Other matters. Why should it?

 

Why shouldn't it? The Other's have personalities and language and interpersonal relationships and are capable of play, based on the way they killed Waymar. Presumably the baby human -> adult Other process takes time, Craster's sons grew up together as brothers, with their closest siblings in age as the most appropriate sparring partners and companions. And since, honestly, being an Other seems pretty great, they might have some gratitude towards their father. Plus there's the practical element that treating breeding families comparatively well encourages them to keep giving you babies, and the ego element that being worshipped as gods probably feels nice.

Now, does that ancestry matter more than the bond between Others? I see no reason to believe so. We don't know of any Other's turning traitor to their own kind. And maybe liking your dad doesn't stop you from being an ice demon. But, I mean, Jon, Bran, and Arya are all definitely huge fans of the taste of warm blood in their mouths and I believe Bran Arya and Robb all specifically acquired a taste for human flesh (though Robb is speculative, since we don't have any PoV). Their family ties don't stop them from being monsters, but neither does being monsters stop them from having family ties.

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Oh, you have to go back and check the Craster chapters. It is indicated that Craster doesn't have as many animals as one should expect of him because the Others are demanding more and more sacrifices. That suggests that the terms of their agreement are fluid and subject to change. I mean, do you think the Others would feed Craster in winter? Without sufficient provisions he and his women are going to die.

That's very interesting, I never put that together, but it makes sense.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

No they don't. Ashara had purple eyes. Cedric had dark blue eyes. Arthur we don't know.

You mean Ned? So we have three Daynes; Ashara, Ned and Arthur and two of them had puple eyes a trait that is present in their cadet branch since Darkstar has also purple eyes. So it's safe to say that so far for the Daynes purple eyes is common.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

This was medieval society, they would have done things in a medieval way, which means that common goods would have produced from local materials. Paint pigment for common objects would not be imported. The only things that would be imported are items that are either unavailable locally, or have great value. I am pretty sure that there were no Home Depots in every Westerosi city.

We are not talking about Real World or real world's society, we are talking about a fantasy world where the seasons last for year, there are ice zombies and the city we are talking about has an assassin cult with people who can change their faces. There is no reason to believe that those two world would had been the same and isn't logical to expect that a Sealord who commands a city with the biggest and richest bank in GRRTH cannot find red dye.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

People would think she was a Targaryen because Rhaella was pregnant and the people who smuggled the family out of Dragonstone said that she was Rhaella's baby. That would be the obvious conclusion under the circumstances. People would not think that a baby swap had occurred, because the baby had Targaryen characteristics, which are very rare. Ashara would have been able to produce such a baby, but the story being put out was that Ashara's baby was stillborn and she was dead. So she would not come to mind, especially if the baby was being raised alongside Viserys. It is all in the optics, and using sleight of hand to deceive people.

There is a difference between being raisen in a stable family, like the Starks or the Daynes, and a fugitive family with no friends. The Targ family had lost everything and had nothing left. No mother would had abandoned her child in a family like this especially if she already had a stable family who could had raised the child.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

There is a birthright involved. As Rhaella's trueborn daughter Daenerys  would have a legitimate claim to the throne. As Ashara's bastard daughter Daenerys would have a claim to looking after the family's mules. There is a massive difference. Not to mention, the deception would have the dual purpose of providing Daenerys with protection while at the same time shielding the Daynes from Roberts wrath.

There isn't one. The Targs had lost the Throne so they had no right, even if they had from what we know so far they didn't allowed a woman or her descendants to inherit. What you say isn't how a mother would think. You keep speaking about names, prophecies and birthrights and you forget that a mother would want her child to be safe. A child wouldn't be safe being a fugitive and living on the streets when her mother was God knows where.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

Because the book said so.

What it said? I can't recall.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

Ashara would have been well aware of Rhaegar's obsession with prophecy, and if she had a child with him to help him fulfill it, it would mean that she bought into that. So she would have strong motivation to seek out more information that could be useful later on in helping Daenerys achieve it. The best place to do that would be Asshai, since that is where the stories of Azor Ahai were being preserved.

Again; What you say isn't how a mother would think. You keep speaking about names, prophecies and birthrights and you forget that a mother would want her child to be safe. A child wouldn't be safe being a fugitive and living on the streets when her mother was God knows where.

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

Ok, Edrik did mention the jump. But, he was not there himself since he had not been born, it was a story recounted to him by his aunt Allyria (presumably also by his father). Note that he hesitates when saying who broke her heart. That is because it is something he is not supposed to say, and he knows it, so he comes up with something else. He almost let the cat out of the bag. At another point Arya hears a bard song about an event eerily similar, and in that song the lady jumped from the tower because her prince was killed. Clearly that is not referring to Ned, but someone else, who happens to be a prince. How many princes do we know who were killed at that time? And that someone else is the father of her daughter.

I love how you use the world "clearly" for something that you have no text proof. Again; If the Lady of Casterly Rock could just disappeared and not faked her death, Ashara could had done the same. She could just left Starfall and never come back, she didn't had to fake her death. 

On 8/7/2016 at 1:34 AM, tugela said:

The connection between the Daynes and Ned is that they preserve his dread secret and he preserves their dread secret. That is why they have a bond that otherwise is irrational.

Why Ned would care about Ashara's and Rhaegar's bastard? Especially since when Ned arrived in Starfall Ashara would had been about two months pregnant. I do believe that Ned has a connection with Ashara and her bastard daughter but is a blood connection and Ashara is one of his "broken promises".

[Lord Asher Forrester]

I believe that AA is either Dany, Jon, or both plus one more, (the dragon have three heads theory).

I also believe that the  bleeding star is the comet, and it was it what brought the dragons to life and strengthened all fire magic on the world (see Melisandre, Fire ladder makers, Glass candles awekening)

I think the ressurections of Beric Dondarrion and the magic that he uses to put his sword at flame when fighting the hound proves that he truly is part of the path that leads Jon to become AA. This is what i thing that MIGHT happen: Lady Stoneheart will be the one who ressurect Jon with the kiss of life, not Melisandre, then Jon will become AA, or part of it.

[tugela]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 1:02 AM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

You mean Ned? So we have three Daynes; Ashara, Ned and Arthur and two of them had puple eyes a trait that is present in their cadet branch since Darkstar has also purple eyes. So it's safe to say that so far for the Daynes purple eyes is common.

We are not talking about Real World or real world's society, we are talking about a fantasy world where the seasons last for year, there are ice zombies and the city we are talking about has an assassin cult with people who can change their faces. There is no reason to believe that those two world would had been the same and isn't logical to expect that a Sealord who commands a city with the biggest and richest bank in GRRTH cannot find red dye.

There is a difference between being raisen in a stable family, like the Starks or the Daynes, and a fugitive family with no friends. The Targ family had lost everything and had nothing left. No mother would had abandoned her child in a family like this especially if she already had a stable family who could had raised the child.

There isn't one. The Targs had lost the Throne so they had no right, even if they had from what we know so far they didn't allowed a woman or her descendants to inherit. What you say isn't how a mother would think. You keep speaking about names, prophecies and birthrights and you forget that a mother would want her child to be safe. A child wouldn't be safe being a fugitive and living on the streets when her mother was God knows where.

What it said? I can't recall.

Again; What you say isn't how a mother would think. You keep speaking about names, prophecies and birthrights and you forget that a mother would want her child to be safe. A child wouldn't be safe being a fugitive and living on the streets when her mother was God knows where.

I love how you use the world "clearly" for something that you have no text proof. Again; If the Lady of Casterly Rock could just disappeared and not faked her death, Ashara could had done the same. She could just left Starfall and never come back, she didn't had to fake her death. 

Why Ned would care about Ashara's and Rhaegar's bastard? Especially since when Ned arrived in Starfall Ashara would had been about two months pregnant. I do believe that Ned has a connection with Ashara and her bastard daughter but is a blood connection and Ashara is one of his "broken promises".

Edric had dark blue eyes, not purple. The only one we know had purple eyes was Ashara, and there not a whole lot of other characters with purple eyes. Rhaegar had indigo eyes, while his brother had lilac eyes. So even among the Targeryens, purple was not all that common. Both Ashara and Daenerys have unique eyes, the same unique eyes. And Ashara just happens to have an extremely close social relationship with the current Targaryen rulers at the time. Does that not make you wonder? At all?

Daenerys was not living in a sealords house, she was supposedly living in Darry's house. He would have had an ordinary house in Bravos, if that is where he lived, which means that it would have been painted with local materials. Which of course raises the question....Darry presumably did not have significant resources, yet he was living in a great stone house with ornately carved massive wooden beams. Wow could he afford that if he was a refugee in a foreign land? Unless he was not really there at all.

Being raised in a fugitive family with means is a vast improvement over being raised by a single fugitive mother without means.

The Targaryens were deposed, but that did not remove their claim to the throne. There were still loyalists, and if their banners were raised again, the family could be restored. Politically it would have been advantageous for Viserys to be married to a sister. Having a bastard niece as his wife would not do, so there was a strong imperative for Daenerys to be recast as his trueborn sister. After all, this is exactly the same thing and motivations for Aegon in the books, so it is  not as though it is an alien concept.

If Ashara did not give Daenerys up, she would have been living on the streets anyway, and for more vulnerable. Ashara would have made the best choice available for her daughter.

[tugela]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 1:02 AM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

You mean Ned? So we have three Daynes; Ashara, Ned and Arthur and two of them had puple eyes a trait that is present in their cadet branch since Darkstar has also purple eyes. So it's safe to say that so far for the Daynes purple eyes is common.

 

Eye color is derived from two sources. Firstly, you have pigment called melanin that gives it color ranging from browns through to almost black. Secondly, the cellular arrangement in your eyes causes light scattering which appears blue (similar in the way the sky appears blue). These are called structural colors. All eye colors are derived from the interaction between these two types of color and to what degree they are present. Some people (very few) have "purple" eyes, where there are very low levels of melanin present, allowing the red from blood vessels to contribute. These individuals are all albinos.

The Targaryens have albino traits (such as silver hair). So, their eye color comes from pronounced blue together with low levels of melanin. As a result their eyes will range from dark blue to purple to lilac.

The Daynes are different. They are not albinos. But they still have eyes similar to the Targaryens. The only way that Daynes can have eyes like that is if they have different eye pigment in addition to the melanin, specifically something red. No one else in Westeros or anywhere else is like them. Edrik has dark blue eyes that seem almost purple. So his eyes are dominated by the deep blue from scattered light, but with a flash of red from the Dayne pigment. Ashara has more pigmentation in her eyes, and the combination will turn the deep blue of her eyes into true purple.

It will be a very unique color that no one, including the Targaryens, can quite match. Anyone who has eyes that look like that can only be a Dayne, because they will be the only ones with red eye pigmentation rather than brown.

[Roza Ahai]

I believe that AA not is not reborn yet. The prophesy says that AA will be reborn when the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. That time hasn't come yet. AA returns when the winter comes to Westeros.  Dany is missing that timing criteria. I think AA will be reborn quietly without that much noise that accompanied the birth of dragons.