Was Lyanna Stark the Knight of the Laughing Tree?

[sweetsunray]

9 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

We do have evidence, per Ned's POV: "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it." Weird how you assert one can't make a positive claim without evidence, then you do literally the same thing. 

Ned was in the Vale. He doesn't know what Lyanna and Brandon did, while he was there. We're talking lance, not swords. Not what Lord Rickard would have allowed or not, if he had known what Lyanna trained at.

And no, I totally not make a positive claim without evidence. I believe I explicitly said there is no evidence, and I used IF with capitals and stressed it again between brackets. What I do point out is that it would take only one vision from Bran seeing Lyanna train joust with Brandon somewhere between Barrowton and the Rills and we're done talking about whether or not Lyanna was trained at jousting or not....regardless what Rickard could have allowed or not. If Rickard didn't know, he coudln't forbid it either.

[aryagonnakill#2]

Lets look at this another way, since we aren't really making any progress on the Lyanna front.  Why on earth would Ned hide his identity?  That is probably the single biggest reason I can't picture it being him.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

8 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

We do have evidence, per Ned's POV: "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it." Weird how you assert one can't make a positive claim without evidence, then you do literally the same thing. 

Considering that her first appearance in the Harrenhal story was with a (blunt) sword in her hand, I gather that Lyanna disregarded her lord father's ban.

[sweetsunray]

2 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Considering that her first appearance in the Harrenhal story was with a (blunt) sword in her hand, I gather that Lyanna disregarded her lord father's ban.

Also, Ned's statement implies Lyana was good enough with sword, despite her father's ban. Being able to carry sword means you know how to use one. Ned's statement does not say Lyanna was not any good at swords, just that Rickard would not have allowed her carrying swords if he ever found out.

[Kienn]

4 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

Lets look at this another way, since we aren't really making any progress on the Lyanna front.  Why on earth would Ned hide his identity?  That is probably the single biggest reason I can't picture it being him.

1 - He's shy. He doesn't want the attention of being a great jouster.

2 - He doesn't want to shame his elder brother and future Lord by showing him up in the lists.

3 - He wasn't planning on jousting at the tourney so he didn't bring his armor - see Baelor Breakspear in "The Hedge Knight". Without a full set available he had to make do with pieces cobbled together from friends.

4 - Any other unknown reason. As someone else has said - absence of evidence of a reason for Ned is not evidence of absence of a reason.

[OwloftheRainwood]

4 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Ned was in the Vale. He doesn't know what Lyanna and Brandon did, while he was there. We're talking lance, not swords. Not what Lord Rickard would have allowed or not, if he had known what Lyanna trained at.

And no, I totally not make a positive claim without evidence. I believe I explicitly said there is no evidence, and I used IF with capitals and stressed it again between brackets. What I do point out is that it would take only one vision from Bran seeing Lyanna train joust with Brandon somewhere between Barrowton and the Rills and we're done talking about whether or not Lyanna was trained at jousting or not.

You definitely did, and did not use "if" or brackets in the post I quoted so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You are ignoring and discounting actual textual evidence from POV characters in favor of at best shaky circumstantial evidence. Is it impossible that LS = KLT? Of course not, and it would be awesome if she is but actual textual evidence is rather limited, and favors Ned. Again, I'm not a partisan for either character, the story is great either way, it's weird how tribal readers get on these issues.

[aryagonnakill#2]

2 minutes ago, Kienn said:

1 - He's shy. He doesn't want the attention of being a great jouster.

2 - He doesn't want to shame his elder brother and future Lord by showing him up in the lists.

3 - He wasn't planning on jousting at the tourney so he didn't bring his armor - see Baelor Breakspear in "The Hedge Knight". Without a full set available he had to make do with pieces cobbled together from friends.

4 - Any other unknown reason. As someone else has said - absence of evidence of a reason for Ned is not evidence of absence of a reason.

While I don't really agree with those reasons, they're not crazy either.  How do you envision Rhaegar and lyanna met tho?

Edit: Would you agree that the theory it is Lyanna explains their meeting and Rhaegar falling for her?

[OwloftheRainwood]

10 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

Lets look at this another way, since we aren't really making any progress on the Lyanna front.  Why on earth would Ned hide his identity?  That is probably the single biggest reason I can't picture it being him.

 

3 minutes ago, Kienn said:

1 - He's shy. He doesn't want the attention of being a great jouster.

2 - He doesn't want to shame his elder brother and future Lord by showing him up in the lists.

3 - He wasn't planning on jousting at the tourney so he didn't bring his armor - see Baelor Breakspear in "The Hedge Knight". Without a full set available he had to make do with pieces cobbled together from friends.

4 - Any other unknown reason. As someone else has said - absence of evidence of a reason for Ned is not evidence of absence of a reason.

These are all possibilities, for some reason my inclination is 2 or 3.

[sweetsunray]

@OwloftheRainwood

Wolfmaid7 quoted this post of mine

1 hour ago, sweetsunray said:

Such a claim cannot be made. All that can be said is that we do not have evidence that Lyanna trained on lance. But you cannot positive claim she was untrained. IF (and I do say IF) Brandon Stark was willing, then Lyanna had opportunity enough to train with Brandon in the Rills where they were often seen riding together, with neither Brandon's foster father nor Lord Rickard Stark knowing any better.

And claimed she could make the positive claim that Lyanna was untrained in lance. To which I replied

53 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

No, you can't make a positive claim about something you have no evidence on whatsoever.

You cannot claim that Lyanna was at WF all the time. We know she was not.

All it takes is Bran seeing Brandon and Lyanna practice somewhere between Ryswell home and Barrowton in a vision and you're done talking. And that's all I'm pointing out. My point about the IF-case is not to argue that was actually the case. But it's enough for me to show that there is room for George to insert it. We know too little of Brandon and Lyanna as brother and sister to say "no, absolutely not" and "yes, certainly". We do know they were often seen riding the Rills together, and they could have only gotten there starting out from Barrowton. Many miles between Barrowton and Barbrey's birth home.

And you come with some nonsensical non-related Ned quote, only taking a portion of my post, ignoring the rest and completely ignoring what Wolfmaid and I were discussing.

46 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

We do have evidence, per Ned's POV: "Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it." Weird how you assert one can't make a positive claim without evidence, then you do literally the same thing. 

Learn some basics about claims, assertions and evidence in debate, and at least read the posts before that, so that you know what you're opponent was going on about in the first place.

[wolfmaid7]

55 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

Well, as to the "lack of formal training" - how do we know Lyanna never had any "formal" training?  What is "formal" training anyway?  If her oldest brother, Brandon, humored her a bit and gave her some pointers/training, would that constitute "formal" training?  My point is, we don't know for certain one way or the other.  Also, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  

What we do know, for a fact, is that Lyanna defeated/chased off three squires at the same time with nothing but a blunted practice sword.  And, of course, squires do have some "formal training" with swords, other weapons, and fighting in general.

I love Carl Sagan,but this popularized quote from him is an overused fallacy. One he had constantly gotten dinged for.Its an argument from ignorance fallacy and to this this day we still have no proof of intelligent life other than us in the cosmos.

If we look in places where X should be,at times X should be there and don't find X.There's most likely no X.

What we know for a fact is that Lyanna a "High Lord's daughter" beat three squires with a blunt sword.They were really going to hit her back? fight a girl? To Howland who didn't know there ways that might have looked that way,but to the squires...ehhhh.

The may have let her have that.

29 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

No, you can't make a positive claim about something you have no evidence on whatsoever.

You cannot claim that Lyanna was at WF all the time. We know she was not.

All it takes is Bran seeing Brandon and Lyanna practice somewhere between Ryswell home and Barrowton in a vision and you're done talking. And that's all I'm pointing out. My point about the IF-case is not to argue that was actually the case. But it's enough for me to show that there is room for George to insert it. We know too little of Brandon and Lyanna as brother and sister to say "no, absolutely not" and "yes, certainly". We do know they were often seen riding the Rills together, and they could have only gotten there starting out from Barrowton. Many miles between Barrowton and Barbrey's birth home.

No evidence for her having no training at Jousting? Umm there is none!!! Sweets,your basically telling me that the evidence is

a.Brandon "could have" taught her against their fathers wishes......because they often went riding in the rills.

and

b.We "could" get a weirwood vision coourtesy Bran, of Brandon teaching her to Joust?

Sure there's room for GRRM to insert that,he could insert anything like Bradon and Lyanna meeting someone when they went riding,or Brandon and Lyanna smooching.Or they were just simply riding.

I did make a claim base on what we have,not what may have happened and could happen.

Could GRRM input the things you say,certainly..Along with a few other things that could make sense.

 

 

 

[J. Stargaryen]

6 minutes ago, Sly Wren said:

Right--but Jaime says that while watching people train. Even extraordinary riders like Loras NEED training. And Brandon, also half a centaur, even with all of his training, is still defeated at Harrenhal. 

All due respect, but this sure looks like a case of missing the forest for the trees. It appears to me that you're focusing on this one detail from this one example, and ignoring the bigger picture which connects Lyanna, horsemanship and jousting.

Brandon losing to arguably the best jouster in the 7K at the time doesn't seem like much of an argument, since the KotLT didn't square off against a jouster of Rhaegar's (or Barristan's, or Arthur's) skill.

1 hour ago, Sly Wren said:

Clearly, as important as riding is, jousting still requires open, specialized, and extensive training. Especially to beat three champions.

From what I see it seems like you're really trying to sell this idea about "open" training, but I'm not buying. Especially since we know that Lyanna would resort to secret training if she really wanted to, as she did with "swords."

1 hour ago, Sly Wren said:

Well, a lot of people have come organically to ideas that may or may not be true in these novels.

Right, but how often do the books seem to show the "opposite" of the most popular theory? Maybe I'm making too much out of the use of the word opposite, but to me it looks like you're arguing that the majority of the people who have opinions on this got completely turned around somehow.

To look at it another way-- in your opinion, to what end has GRRM written:

• that horse riding is most important part of jousting
• that Lyanna was a great rider
• given her a starring role in the KotLT story
• given her the best motive for being that mystery knight

To me these are all parts of a greater whole, a bigger picture.

1 hour ago, Sly Wren said:

As for showing the opposite: one way or another, the novels show again and again that fighting takes training. That seems like a strong clue against Lyanna. As I said above, she may turn out to be some sort of savant. But given what the books say about fighters, seems like they are telling us to be wary of such an idea.

I think this has already been well addressed by others, re: absence of evidence.

[sweetsunray]

24 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

No evidence for her having no training at Jousting? Umm there is none!!! Sweets,your basically telling me that the evidence is

a.Brandon "could have" taught her against their fathers wishes......because they often went riding in the rills.

and

b.We "could" get a weirwood vision coourtesy Bran, of Brandon teaching her to Joust?

Just pure intellectual honesty, wolfmaid7. There is absence of evidence. If you were to say that I would 100% agree with you.

The above argument is intellectually dishonest. I do not say that the evidence is that they "could" or that we "could" get a weirwood vision. You claiming that I proposed that we "could have" as evidence if completely FALSE, and totally miscromprehends my point.

Analogues: law of gravity is a theory not a fact and it's a theory that cannot be proven, despite the millions of apples falling from a tree onto the ground. All it takes to disprove the theory is that one day an apple falls upward into the sky. When I say that (as a physics student btw), I'm not claiming or even arguing that the law of gravity is false. No, it's an argument with regards understanding what is proven, what can be proven and what cannot. And no, that's not a fallacy. Even Richard Dawkins (of whom I am a fan) admits he cannot prove that a god does not exist, even though he does not believe in one, and is 99,9999999% convinced there isn't one. And I'm as much an atheist as Dawkins is.

The big difference is that we have reports of Lyanna often being away from WF without her father having any control over her, in the company of a skilled jouster. That's like a witness report of someone seeing an apple flying in the sky high above the treeline. Though I would not suddenly use that report to claim the law of gravity was proven false. It's possible (and very likely) that that apple fell out of a plane.

 

Quote

 

Sure there's room for GRRM to insert that,he could insert anything like Bradon and Lyanna meeting someone when they went riding,or Brandon and Lyanna smooching.Or they were just simply riding.

I did make a claim base on what we have,not what may have happened and could happen.

 

And what we have is very little, and a lot of uncertainty.

Quote

Could GRRM input the things you say,certainly..Along with a few other things that could make sense.

Thank you for recognizing that. Hence, it cannot be positively claimed that Lyanna had no training. All anyone (including me and you and others) can say is that for now we have no evidence that she was trained, and that the likelihood that she was trained at WF behind Rickard's back is pretty much non-existent, because it requires riding horse at speed, a field and large heavy lances. It's obviously not something you can do secretly in the godswood and drop the wooden stick if anyone enters to avoid being caught. 

Personally, I'm on the fence for both Ned and Lyanna.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

@sweetsunray, your post reminded me of this:

 

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy, coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.^[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong. Russell's teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and in various other contexts.

 

In case it's not clear, the assertion here which is not believable even though we cannot prove it wrong is: "Lyanna could never possibly have had any opportunity to train with the lance."

[LiveFirstDieLater]

14 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

@sweetsunray, your post reminded me of this:

 

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy, coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.^[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong. Russell's teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and in various other contexts.

 

In case it's not clear, the assertion here which is not believable even though we cannot prove it wrong is: "Lyanna could never possibly have had any opportunity to train with the lance."

Haha this makes me think of a philosophical cat in a box...

Until Winds of Winter comes out, The Knight of the Laughing Tree is both Lyanna, and Ned, and Howland, and Bran, and Daario lol

[sweetsunray]

11 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

@sweetsunray, your post reminded me of this:

 

Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy, coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion.^[1] He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong. Russell's teapot is still invoked in discussions concerning the existence of God, and in various other contexts.

 

In case it's not clear, the assertion here which is not believable even though we cannot prove it wrong is: "Lyanna could never possibly have had any opportunity to train with the lance."

Yes, that is another good example on the principle of which claims can be made.

If I were to make the claim that Lyanna trained at jousting with Brandon somewhere between the Rills and Barrowton, I would be in the wrong. There is no evidence that they trained at it. That is exactly why I did not make that claim.

But if someone makes the claim that Lyanna was never trained at jousting because Rickard would never have approved of her training at jousting at Winterfell and it is impossible for her to train at Winterfell without him knowing it, then it is enough for me that claim is false if I can point out the possibility for Lyanna to have trained at it somewhere else than Winterfell.

The only positive assertion that can be made with regards to Lyanna's training in jousting is "we don't know" or that we "have no evidence that she trained".

[Little Scribe of Naath]

7 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Haha this makes me think of a philosophical cat in a box...

Until Winds of Winter comes out, The Knight of the Laughing Tree is both Lyanna, and Ned, and Howland, and Bran, and Daario lol

Yep. Nothing is proven for a certainty, or else it wouldn't be a theory.

And every theory has it's holes. But if the positives outweigh the negatives, that's when a theory becomes "likely" rather than "not likely". Lyanna not being able to train doesn't negate all of the other overwhelming evidence in her favour.

 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

2 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The only positive assertion that can be made with regards to Lyanna's training in jousting is "we don't know" or that we "have no evidence that she trained".

Exactly right.

[Clegane'sPup]

14 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Haha this makes me think of a philosophical cat in a box...

I’d be interested to know about the reference of the cat in the box. I gave my cat a small box lined  with tissue paper, like the stuff that is stuffed in gift bags and shite and the bugger goes and sits in it whenever he has been rambunctious. Cracks me up! It is like he thinks he is invisible while he is sitting in that box.

[sweetsunray]

13 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Exactly right.

@Kienn makes a valid point when he says that some of the arguments for Lyanna as KotL are based on assumptions and premisses that we cannot intellectually accept as being true (wouldn't call it fanfic though), but Kienn makes fair points in that regard.

But when people argue it's Ned because Lyanna "never trained at jousting" then that is as much an unproven assumption.

And I'd be willing to give it a pass if indeed the books never separate Lyanna from WF from under her father's notice in the company of a trained jouster before the Tourney of HH. But we do get a mention of her being away from WF with a trained jouster, her eldest brother. And it opens doors. We don't know what lies behind that door. But there it is.

So, I'm 60% pro-Lyanna and 40% pro-Ned

ETA: I also noticed the Jaime quote as he watches Loras, and the mention a "cat"... that does bring Arya to mind, who looks like Lyanna. That's one of those tiny typical things of GRRM, which is why I favor Lyanna over Ned, but not convincing enough to feel certain about it. 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

Just now, sweetsunray said:

@Kienn makes a valid point when he says that some of the arguments for Lyanna as KotL are based on assumptions and premisses that we cannot intellectually accept as being true (wouldn't call it fanfic though), but Kienn makes fair points in that regard.

But when people argue it's Ned because Lyanna "never trained at jousting" then that is as much an unproven assumption.

And I'd be willing to give it a pass if indeed the books never separate Lyanna from WF from under her father's notice in the company of a trained jouster before the Tourney of HH. But we do get a mention of her being away from WF with a trained jouster, her eldest brother. And it opens doors. We don't know what lies behind that door. But there it is.

So, I'm 60% pro-Lyanna and 40% pro-Ned

Yep, I'm about 80% Lyanna and 20% Ned/Benjen/Howland because it being Lyanna services the plot much better (but that's of course assuming R + L = J). The other alternatives can't be totally ruled out obviously, but they have their own issues and don't fit into the larger picture as well as Lyanna does, IMO. 

As Ferocious Veldt Roarer and some others stated in the early pages of the thread, we may have to employ some suspension of disbelief and go more by what hints GRRM seems to be planting, because this is literature. He has taken pains to highlight that jousting is heavily related to being a great rider, Lyanna was a great rider, the clue of Elia Sand, so forth.