Ashara & the mysteries of the Royal Children, explained

[maudisdottir]

I'm certain someone else already posted it but Valyrians are NOT albinos.  Bloodraven was an albino, so they do exist in the world.  But he's the only Targ described that way IIRC.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

9 hours ago, tugela said:

The Tower of Joy was just down the road from Starfall, and the were apparently using servants in the Dayne's employ, plus Ashara was the Lady of the castle. There is no way she would not have known that Rhaegar was there, and she would have known that Lyanna was there too. Most likely she visited as well.

The Valyrian dragonlords are albinos. That is pretty obvious from their characteristics. Albinos with deep blue structural color in their eyes will appear to violet eyes. Not all of them do of course, but there are some that do. It is a completely natural color for the condition. The descriptions of the Targaryens have them with eyes ranging from indigo (Rhaegar) to violet (Viserys) to purple (Daenerys). This is perfectly normal for albinos. True purple however would require a red pigment in the eyes rather than melanin. Albinos can't quite achieve that since blood vessels are not a full substitute for pigment. Anyone who was true purple eyes will have a unique genetic makeup that is different from human beings. Silver hair is only possible if you are an albino, since you have no melanin. If you have melanin you can't have purple eyes UNLESS you have an extra red pigment in your eyes that no living human has. Ashara has dark hair, so she obviously has melanin. But she also has purple eyes, hence she is an alien (or not quite human). She is one of the magical beings of Westeros, or at least descended from them.

Keep in mind that there IS a character in the book who has red eyes btw (the ghost of highheart) so there are some other individuals who also have this trait. In the book some speculate that she is one of the children of the forest, she is definitely different from regular people and is closely tied to the weirwoods (which also have red pigmentation btw).

Ashara is not just anyone, she is special, and tied in a fundamental way to the old ways of Westeros.

Martin said that early on. He used the term "probably", meaning he was not sure at that point. Until the book makes it more explicit, it is still up in the air, because we don't know how long Rhaella was pregnant before she left KL, and we don't know who long it took for Ned to reach ToJ after the sack of KL. Rhaella must have been pregnant before she left KL, and Ned does not have a teleporter, nor would he have known where Lyanna was initially. Reaching her would have taken time, probably a considerable amount of time. Consequently the estimate that Daenerys was 8-9 months younger than Jon is physically impossible if she is Aerys's child, no matter what the author said.

Where do you get your information?

The tower of joy is in the Prince's Pass, which is on the northern edge of the Red mountains. Starfall is clear across the region southeast by quite a way, and nothing is "down the road" from it because it's right on the sea, hence Ashara supposedly hurling herself into the sea from the Palestone Tower at Starfall.  If you don't believe me, check out this map. Ashara may or may not have been the lady of the castle. Her mother and/or her older brother's wife might have been living and in residence making one of them the lady of the castle, not her.

Nothing is obvious from anyone's characteristics in a fantasy series. Albinos can have blue eyes, and unless they are very light blue they appear blue. Purple eyes are not a trait of albinism. Elizabeth Taylor had purple eyes. She was not an albino. There are tons of people in the world with white/platinum-blond(e) hair--most of them are not albinos. And again FANTASY SERIES.  No human in the real world having red pigment in their eyes doesn't mean people in a fantasy series can't.

Melanin IS the pigment in eyes. Eye color is not determined solely by pigment anyway, but also by the way light is reflected in them. Blue and green pigments aren't found in human eyes either. The color effects are produced by the way the turbid medium in the stroma scatters light. So by your logic the Tullys and Lannisters aren't human either because they don't have blue or green pigment in their eyes.

If you're so sure that the Targs and other Dragonlords had albinism then please give me examples of the visual impairments they had that were caused by the disorder. Vision impairment is a key feature in all types of albinism and is often the first sign (unless the skin and eyes are lacking significant pigmentation) of the disorder. Also please explain how they don't seem to sunburn, freckle, or tan.  

There are a some things that make Ashara special: 1) Howland Reed paid close attention to her dance partners at Harrenhal; 2) she comes from a family with purple eyes, and often with silver/silver-gold hair that is not Valyrian; 3) her family claims to be 10,000 years old and has a magic sword; 4) Ned may have loved her, and she may have loved him; 5) after the alleged suicide, her body was never found. That's it. We don't even know if the Daynes still follow the old ways and keep the Old Gods. So to say that she alone among all the Daynes is tied in a fundamental way to Old Westeros, is a bit of an exaggeration. I agree that there's some importance to her, but mostly because she's of House Dayne and may not be dead at all.

Actually we do know how long she was pregnant. We know that Daenerys was born nine months after the siege of King's Landing. And we know that Aerys had someone burned the night before sending Rhaella and Viserys to Dragonstone. Their marriage had long been one lacking affection and at that point Aerys only became "amorous" when he burned someone. Hadn't burned anyone in a while, so it's not possible that Daenerys was conceived any earlier than that point, and it's not possible for her to be conceived afterwards.

It's Jon's birthday that's not 100% nailed down, due to us not knowing exactly when he was conceived, whether the pregnancy went to term, and exactly when Ned got there. No woman in medieval times survived more than two weeks post-partum with puerperal fever, so Lyanna gave birth no more than two weeks prior to Ned's finding her.  Dany wasn't born until later, but as GRRM said less than a year later.

No, actually it's not. Because it wouldn't have taken Ned that long to find Lyanna. It took about a month for Ned and company to get from Winterfell to King's Landing, which is more than twice the distance it is from KL to the Tower of Joy.  Ned was there for the sack of the city. So if we allow two weeks for intel and recon, and another two weeks' travel time then he arrives at the ToJ eight months before Daenerys is born. 

Here's another very good map, if you need a more inclusive reference of Westerosi travel distances. I'm going to bookmark that one because it's the best map I've seen and it actually pinpoints the ToJ, which is so handy for discussions.

[Wayward Sand Star]

On 02/08/2016 at 4:23 PM, OuttaOldtown said:

I don't think so, I'm saying a lack of clues/evidence is a reason to look elsewhere for clues/evidence. I'm not building a theory upon the lack of info about Ashara we have in Ned's chapters, I'm basing it on everything else we've learned, I can only see it as a cause to deduce the unlikelihood of Ned and Ashara having this great love affair as rumors suggest. But I do see your point..

The point is, there's really very little to go by in the way of clues/evidence. It's just about entirely speculation at this point, which means that any theories about Jon's parentage involving Ashara are weak, weak, weak.

[OuttaOldtown]

2 hours ago, Wayward Sand Star said:

The point is, there's really very little to go by in the way of clues/evidence. It's just about entirely speculation at this point, which means that any theories about Jon's parentage involving Ashara are weak, weak, weak.

Explain to me the literary purpose of Barbrey Dustin going into detail about Brandon's prowess in taking the virginity of maidens? George chose to have Bran take Brandon's sword, this leads to the reader gaining information about Brandon's other sword, why do you suppose this topic arose? 

I agree with you about the Jon's parentage part btw..

[Wayward Sand Star]

19 hours ago, OuttaOldtown said:

Explain to me the literary purpose of Barbrey Dustin going into detail about Brandon's prowess in taking the virginity of maidens? George chose to have Bran take Brandon's sword, this leads to the reader gaining information about Brandon's other sword, why do you suppose this topic arose? 

I agree with you about the Jon's parentage part btw..

Well, for one thing, the literary purpose of a part of a story can only be properly explained within the context of the entire story. So, unless I wildly speculate about where the story goes, I can't really offer a proper explanation. At this point, I'm not even sure I have enough for an educated guess.