Heresy Project X+Y=J: Wrap up thread 3

[wolfmaid7]

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

She's there in Ned's dream. Ned's dream is a part of the text. Therefore the text places her there. This isn't a matter of opinion, or interpretation, but a matter of fact. You can dispute the reliability of the text via Ned's dream, but to say that the text doesn't place her at the tower is simply wrong.

Fast and lose with text and reality of it per Ned's dream. Her screaming in the dream doesn't put her at the tower "in reality" 

 

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

As far as I know, Lyanna's place of death is not even a debate anywhere else in the fandom. The reason I bring this up is because, it doesn't even seem to have registered with the vast majority of hardcore fans that this is something we're meant to question. Why is that? If GRRM meant it to be a mystery, he did a piss poor job communicating that to his audience.

At this point in time, the revelation that Lyanna didn't die at the ToJ would be an out-of-nowhere gotcha! to the vast majority of the readers. I don't think that is how GRRM works.

I really think this is one of those cases where you guys asked, Hey, what if Lyanna didn't die at the ToJ? And then spent many moons convincing yourselves that she didn't. What I find telling, though, is that you haven't managed to convince anyone else.

And you are doing it again Jstar....That thing you do where you weigh the validity of a claim against how much of the fandom believes it or questions it. That has nothing to do with if something is true or not.You don't seem it remotely possible that 'hardcore fans' got this wrong.

If it turns out that Lyanna didn't die at the tower its not a gotcha,its a you happened to be  part of the vast majority that got this wrong.If it was amystery it has nothing to do with GRRM doing a piss poor job communicating to "his audience".You act as if the man is writing for you and yours.If you didn't realize it was a mystery,you didn't realize it was a mystery because it went over your head.

You guys spend how much time talking about how many people did realize RLJ......So what the "GRRM is a pissed poor author" when it suits "you" and the audience you think he's writing for?

 

No, this is not "one of these cases where anyone asked "what if".....I do not deal in "what ifs" it is the foundation of "arguement from ignorance" rebuttal which i find it a cop out.

We have pointed out specific things that leads some of us to question " common view" that Lyanna died at toj.Its as simple as that.

 

[Sly Wren]

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

She's there in Ned's dream. Ned's dream is a part of the text. Therefore the text places her there. This isn't a matter of opinion, or interpretation, but a matter of fact. You can dispute the reliability of the text via Ned's dream, but to say that the text doesn't place her at the tower is simply wrong.

But she's not in the part of the dream we see before Ned wakes.

Ned hears her screaming--at the same moment he sees a storm of rose petals blowing across a blood streaked sky. Given that it's in that moment that Ned hears the scream, the idea that the scream itself is a conflation/exaggeration/symbolic image (like the wraiths and rose-storm) has to be on the table. 

I strongly doubt Ned saw a "storm of petals" in real life. Sounds like My Little Pony meets a b-grade horror movie. And Ned himself notes that his friends were not actually wraiths when they rode with him. And Martin has said to be careful re: literality in the dream--which leaves a LOT of room.

And one of the things it leaves room for: Ned conflates Lyanna's scream with the beginning of the fight at the tower. Thus, she may not have been there at all. 

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

That's one way of saying that the text places her at the ToJ.

???

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

As far as I know, Lyanna's place of death is not even a debate anywhere else in the fandom. The reason I bring this up is because, it doesn't even seem to have registered with the vast majority of hardcore fans that this is something we're meant to question. Why is that? If GRRM meant it to be a mystery, he did a piss poor job communicating that to his audience.

Then when did he leave the gap? Readers fill it in and assume she's there--but the text never says it. Martin left that gap.

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

At this point in time, the revelation that Lyanna didn't die at the ToJ would be an out-of-nowhere gotcha! to the vast majority of the readers. I don't think that is how GRRM works.

Not a "gotcha!" Just an "I warned you that our dreams aren't always literal. And I did tell you to keep reading."

And I really felt like he'd "gotcha'd" us with Lysa's Moon Door Confessional. Martin's not above making one solution/issue more obvious than another, but then going with the far less obvious option.

1 hour ago, J. Stargaryen said:

I really think this is one of those cases where you guys asked, Hey, what if Lyanna didn't die at the ToJ? And then spent many moons convincing yourselves that she didn't. What I find telling, though, is that you haven't managed to convince anyone else.

Well, can't speak for anyone else, but in my case, the issue started with--"wait--he pulled down a tower and then lugged a corpse. . . etc."--then I looked at the text again. And noticed the large gap in data re: Lyanna's locale. Martin hasn't filled that gap yet. And he's burned me before when I filled gaps without noticing how gappy they actually were. Might be more paranoia than anything else. But, one way or another--that gap is there.

As for convincing others. . . not sure how to crowd source that one. But given that Martin has disproven popular assumptions already (IE: Murder of Jon Arryn), the issues around Jon's origins seem open to being not what most readers got on the first read.

Or they might be just that--absolutely. But the issue is not yet closed.

One way or another, I do think Jon was Born in Dorne (that sounds like a really stupid T-Shirt, sorry.). "The Dornishman's Wife" is first heard in text by Jon and recurs multiple times in his POV's and thoughts. Jon has moments where he thinks about the odd connections between the North and the Red Mountains of Dorne. 

And there's the Daynes' recurring presence in the story.

So Jon might have been born in the tower. But anywhere in the Red Mountains would also do. And Starfall would make a LOT of symbolic and practical sense.

[Ygrain]

8 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

I disagree.Blood,roses and her saying Promise me Ned doesn't put her death there.It would make sense elsewhere because those elements are symbolic and transient.

Does blood,roses and promise me put her location in the Crypts to when she died?

Sigh. The crypts have nothing to do with her death, as you know pretty well yourself. It is only a place where Ned is when remembering her last moments - in a room that smelled of blood and roses, where she made him promise her something right before she died. The location of that room is unknown at that point, the reader only knows that she died inside some building.

And then, GRRM has Ned dreaming about a tower (= building) and Lyanna, has the dream contain the roses and blood and has Ned respond with "I promise" to Lyanna's addressation. That means that the room where Lyanna died and the tower are the same place because as a writer, you don't introduce the trademark elements of some important event to a place which has nothing to do with the event. 

Besides, when you are slowly unravelling the mystery of Lyanna's death and its circumstances, you need to reveal the location at some point, anyway. The dream reveals the location, nothing else does. 

[Ygrain]

43 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

We have pointed out specific things that leads some of us to question " common view" that Lyanna died at toj.Its as simple as that.

And you do so while twisting yourself into pretzels, while deconstructing the text in a completely absurd way. The location of Lyanna's death isn't the mystery of the books, doesn't require tons of red herrings before the big reveal. The location is only a little piece of the big picture, and that's her being Jon's mother. 

[J. Stargaryen]

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Fast and lose with text and reality of it per Ned's dream.

Her screaming in the dream doesn't put her at the tower "in reality"

Not my fault that you confused "(in universe) reality" with "the text."

Nor does it put her anywhere else.

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

And you are doing it again Jstar....That thing you do where you weigh the validity of a claim against how much of the fandom believes it or questions it. That has nothing to do with if something is true or not.You don't seem it remotely possible that 'hardcore fans' got this wrong.

Oh no, I'm doing it again! And this close to Halloween. I'm just asking for trouble.

I feel like you're contradicting yourself here. You claim to be familiar with my references to polls, and/or majority opinion, etc., but then you appear to be ignorant about how I apply that information. I've explained this before, so I'd appreciate if you'd pay attention this time. Poll results and the like are not evidence, per se. They are, however, indicators of how the fandom is interpreting and evaluating evidence.

Extrapolating to our discussion, the fact that Lyanna's place of death isn't even a question for the vast majority of fandom indicates to me that it's probably not meant to be one.

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

If it turns out that Lyanna didn't die at the tower its not a gotcha,its a you happened to be  part of the vast majority that got this wrong.If it was amystery it has nothing to do with GRRM doing a piss poor job communicating to "his audience".You act as if the man is writing for you and yours.If you didn't realize it was a mystery,you didn't realize it was a mystery because it went over your head.

My gods, "his audience" simply means the people who read the books. Way to read into something that wasn't there. Though I do suppose that is one of your talents.

As for the rest, it's a gotcha! if Lyanna is revealed to have died somewhere other than the ToJ, without any clues indicating she had. So far, the only evidence we have places her death at the tower.

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

You guys spend how much time talking about how many people did realize RLJ......So what the "GRRM is a pissed poor author" when it suits "you" and the audience you think he's writing for?

I don't even know what you're trying to say here.

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

No, this is not "one of these cases where anyone asked "what if".....I do not deal in "what ifs" it is the foundation of "arguement from ignorance" rebuttal which i find it a cop out.

We have pointed out specific things that leads some of us to question " common view" that Lyanna died at toj.Its as simple as that.

Quibble with my phrasing if you like, but I stand by the opinion.

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Sly Wren said:

Ned hears her screaming--at the same moment he sees a storm of rose petals blowing across a blood streaked sky.

You're right.  Those who argue for conventional RLJ always dismiss and forget the surrealistic elements of the dream because of their inconvenience to the argument.

It's just typical cherry-picking. Another similar example, from the same folks, would be that the SSM that declares Jon was born 8-9 months before Dany is holy and canonical.  But the SSM that declares Aegon was just about one year old when the Sack happened?  Dismissed and forgotten, because wow is that a problem for RLJ.

9 hours ago, Ygrain said:

The location of Lyanna's death isn't the mystery of the books

What is the mystery of the books? 

GRRM hasn't said there is any such thing; it's just a commonplace assumption made by people who don't know.

2 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

Extrapolating to our discussion, the fact that Lyanna's place of death isn't even a question for the vast majority of fandom indicates to me that it's probably not meant to be one.

Are you really going to cite "the vast majority of the fandom" as some sort of authority, when the RLJ FAQ says... this?

Quote

 

This theory is too obvious and too many people believe it to be fact. How can it be true?

It is not so obvious to the majority of readers. Some will get it on their first read, but most will not. Readers who go to online fan forums, such as this, still represent a very small minority of the readership.

 

The vast majority of the fandom is totally clueless on these topics.  And any sort of argumentum ad populum is by definition a logical fallacy. 

The presumption that GRRM wouldn't do something in his books because X group or Y group of fans never saw it coming is just... hilariously mistaken.   He is a professional storyteller and his stated goal is to surprise and delight the audience.   The thing you say he wouldn't do is the very thing he intends to do and predicted he would do, years ago.

That some fans might think a given revelation wasn't set up adequately, in earlier books, is certainly not going to stop him.  He's going to set it up as he sees fit, to suit his tastes and standards.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

Those who argue for conventional RLJ always dismiss and forget the surrealistic elements of the dream because of their inconvenience to the argument.

And those who argue AGAINST conventional R+L=J always dismiss and forget the realistic elements of the dream because of their inconvenience to the argument. For example, all the times when awake Ned thinks about his sister and his promise(s) and then bingo! there is Ned "I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise ...". In the dream.

 

[J. Stargaryen]

4 hours ago, JNR said:

Are you really going to cite "the vast majority of the fandom" as some sort of authority, when the RLJ FAQ says... this?

Fandom does not necessarily include every person who read the books. I don't know the exact definition, but it seems to imply some sort of participation, usually online. For example, there is a large Sherlock fandom, I'm told. I've seen every episode of that show, yet I'm not a member of this fandom.

4 hours ago, JNR said:

The vast majority of the fandom is totally clueless on these topics.  And any sort of argument ad populum is by definition a logical fallacy. 

From the link you provided:

Quote

In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so."

If you can't figure out how or why this is different from what I said, then perhaps you should have read the link before you posted it.

4 hours ago, JNR said:

The presumption that GRRM wouldn't do something in his books because X group or Y group of fans never saw it coming is just... hilariously mistaken. He is a professional storyteller and his stated goal is to surprise and delight the audience.   The thing you say he wouldn't do is the very thing he intends to do and predicted he would do, years ago.

Agreed. And if you're implying I said anything like that, you're wrong.

[wolfmaid7]

11 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Sigh. The crypts have nothing to do with her death, as you know pretty well yourself. It is only a place where Ned is when remembering her last moments - in a room that smelled of blood and roses, where she made him promise her something right before she died. The location of that room is unknown at that point, the reader only knows that she died inside some building.

And then, GRRM has Ned dreaming about a tower (= building) and Lyanna, has the dream contain the roses and blood and has Ned respond with "I promise" to Lyanna's addressation. That means that the room where Lyanna died and the tower are the same place because as a writer, you don't introduce the trademark elements of some important event to a place which has nothing to do with the event. 

Besides, when you are slowly unravelling the mystery of Lyanna's death and its circumstances, you need to reveal the location at some point, anyway. The dream reveals the location, nothing else does. 

Ygrain,yes i know the Crypts have nothing to do directly with her death.I was making a point that using these elements as an indicator of when and where she died makes nosense given that Ned's dream is not unique to the appearance of those elements.

You are also incorrect in assuming that George must follow a certain path.For instance you assume Ned's overview of his dream....Men in white,and a tower and Lyanna in her bed of blood all means they took place there.No,it doesn't.He doesn't have to make that in sequence to toj.

He can introduce elements to mimic the disconnected nature of dreams.An element which he points out by reminding us that it is a dream.

Also,you don't get to say when he reveals where Lyanna died.He can lay clues and reveal it where he sees fit.

In the case of the conventional view the assumption is toj because of the dream.

11 hours ago, Ygrain said:

And you do so while twisting yourself into pretzels, while deconstructing the text in a completely absurd way. The location of Lyanna's death isn't the mystery of the books, doesn't require tons of red herrings before the big reveal. The location is only a little piece of the big picture, and that's her being Jon's mother. 

No one saying the location is "the" mystery.Only that the common view that Lyanna was found dying at toj might be wrong.Certainly not twisting anything.All a reasonable person has to do is consider GRRM's words and why he might of said that.

Ned's behavior and recollection compared to his dream ...big red flag.

4 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

Not my fault that you confused "(in universe) reality" with "the text."

Nor does it put her anywhere else.

Oh no, I'm doing it again! And this close to Halloween. I'm just asking for trouble.

I feel like you're contradicting yourself here. You claim to be familiar with my references to polls, and/or majority opinion, etc., but then you appear to be ignorant about how I apply that information. I've explained this before, so I'd appreciate if you'd pay attention this time. Poll results and the like are not evidence, per se. They are, however, indicators of how the fandom is interpreting and evaluating evidence.

Extrapolating to our discussion, the fact that Lyanna's place of death isn't even a question for the vast majority of fandom indicates to me that it's probably not meant to be one.

My gods, "his audience" simply means the people who read the books. Way to read into something that wasn't there. Though I do suppose that is one of your talents.

As for the rest, it's a gotcha! if Lyanna is revealed to have died somewhere other than the ToJ, without any clues indicating she had. So far, the only evidence we have places her death at the tower.

I don't even know what you're trying to say here.

Quibble with my phrasing if you like, but I stand by the opinion.

Jstar you are saying exactly what we are getting.You are using how most of the fandom is interpreting pieces of text as an indicator of it being correct.

You couldn't be any more transparent.You then conclude incorrectly that because the majority of the fandom doesn't question it means there's no question.

You forget that the majority of the fandom never question Jon being anybody else's but Ned's son.You yourself have touted it by stating that the obvious wasn't obvious.

Yet,a small group at the time questioned it so your own reaeoning implodes.

Jstar your tone whether intentional or oblivious does assert some form of superior understanding to those who believe a certain way.

I know what you consider clues.I reject that they are in truth.However,i understand why you believe they are.I believe GRRM writes in such a way it plays on readers expectation and perception.The man tells us his style in such lessons of the Sealord's cat or Little finger's lesson to Sansa.A deeper look at the subtle tells some of us that Lyanna's place of death and the toj wasn't the same place or it didn't occur at the same time.And a reminder her location is by no way an indicator of who impregnated her.

It is "your" belief that there are no clues to a place other than you,that is just not true as have been shown countless of times.

You don't have to accept that they are.Only time will tell.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

It's just typical cherry-picking. Another similar example, from the same folks, would be that the SSM that declares Jon was born 8-9 months before Dany is holy and canonical.  But the SSM that declares Aegon was just about one year old when the Sack happened?  Dismissed and forgotten, because wow is that a problem for RLJ.

A total false equivalency, because:

We have no information which is contradictory, currently, to the SSM about Jon and Dany's ages. However, we do have the World Book which provides conflicting information on Aegon's birthday.

 The reasoning for choosing the more recent information as compared to the older one:

Quote

The person asked whether, since George's works are serial, were there any changes he would make? George said that there are a few minor details he's noticed that are inconsistent between books, and these are the only things he would change (and *has* changed in later editions).

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1293

Quote

I know that you've said that somewhere in the course of writing A Clash of Kings you put everything on hold to -- maybe not outline, but just rough out the major events you wanted to do. How much of that is still in play or has it changed a lot?

I've talked in general about the chronological changes, so for example I had wanted the kids to get older in the course of the books originally, but that wasn't working out the way the story was going. When that became obvious, I came up with the five year gap, and then I abandoned the five year gap. All of this impacted the chronology. That's the biggest change, other than that things are more or less on course the way I did them. But as you said, I'm a gardener, I'm not an architect. So my road-map is in very broad strokes... We're starting to mix our metaphors, with gardeners and architects and road-maps.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/5431/

Quote

From 2016:

My friend asked about Arya and Jon again. This time GRRM gave some very pointed replies:

a. Friend: Ok, if you foreshadowed something in the first book, like, really cleverly hidden, would you then follow through on that hint? For sure?.. GRRM: Well, this goes with what I said before, the story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that's not going to happen. (He said way more than this, but this summarizes it. )

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Balticon_Report

I could go on, but I get this feeling it's pointless.

The other reason for choosing the recent information in the WB over the SSM: Not a single logical argument has been put forth in this thread about HOW this entire birth of Aegon was fudged, with all the logistics in place. How Elia's pregnancy was kept secret, why either parent didn't inform their families, how the whole of the household of Dragonstone kept silent, etc. 

As Areo Hotah told us: "Someone always tells."

 

However, the cherry-picking is quite an interesting argument. Often, the information in the WB is dismissed because GRRM has said it is unreliable. Fair enough, but then, why is the vision depicting Aegon, Elia and Rhaegar taken as gospel, when, GRRM gave an explicit disclaimer before Dany entered the HoTU saying that she might be shown visions "that never were"? It'd be interesting to know what exactly are the standards for "unreliability" applied here. 

[Clegane'sPup]

Martin speaks

 

[J. Stargaryen]

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Jstar you are saying exactly what we are getting.You are using how most of the fandom is interpreting pieces of text as an indicator of it being correct.

Yes. But to be clear, we're talking in terms of likelihood.

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

You couldn't be any more transparent.

You then conclude incorrectly that because the majority of the fandom doesn't question it means there's no question.

Good. That was my intention.

Not quite.

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

You forget that the majority of the fandom never question Jon being anybody else's but Ned's son.You yourself have touted it by stating that the obvious wasn't obvious.

Leaving aside the difference between readers and "fandom" as I defined up thread, let's consider the differences in the theories. We are explicitly told that the identity of Jon's mother is a mystery. In solving that mystery, we are presented with the twist that Ned is not Jon's father. On the other hand, the location of Lyanna's death is never presented as a mystery. We're simply given that information in Ned's fever dream, with nothing to contradict it.

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Yet,a small group at the time questioned it so your own reaeoning implodes.

That's not at all what happened, but okay. As I said above, people realized Ned was not the father when they figured out the identity of Jon's mother. Which was explicitly presented to the audience as a mystery, unlike the information we're given about the location of Lyanna's death.

Since what you actually said was wrong, let's focus on the idea which I believe you were trying to get across. That a small minority can see something that the great majority misses. I enthusiastically agree with this sentiment. If you think this contradicts my position, you've misunderstood my point.

This "vast majority" point I made does not exist in a vacuum. It works in tandem with, or in addition to, what I see as the total lack of evidence supporting the hypothesis that Lyanna died somewhere other than the ToJ. I mean, if someone found actual evidence -- re: not speculation -- that Lyanna died elsewhere, I certainly wouldn't claim that it didn't count simply because most people didn't think to question it in the first place.

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Jstar your tone whether intentional or oblivious does assert some form of superior understanding to those who believe a certain way.

This is really interesting coming from you. How many times have you invoked your supposed ability to understand the subtleties of this series? And then contrasted that with RLJers, who just went for the obvious answer, according to you.

3 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

I know what you consider clues.I reject that they are in truth.However,i understand why you believe they are.I believe GRRM writes in such a way it plays on readers expectation and perception.The man tells us his style in such lessons of the Sealord's cat or Little finger's lesson to Sansa.A deeper look at the subtle tells some of us that Lyanna's place of death and the toj wasn't the same place or it didn't occur at the same time.

It is "your" belief that there are no clues to a place other than you,that is just not true as have been shown countless of times.

You don't have to accept that they are.Only time will tell.

Hey, remember what I was saying just above?

[Ygrain]

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Ygrain,yes i know the Crypts have nothing to do directly with her death.I was making a point that using these elements as an indicator of when and where she died makes nosense given that Ned's dream is not unique to the appearance of those elements.

Wolfmaid. Get your mind off the crypts and read actually, alright?

- Ned remembers Lyanna's last moments, right?

- Lyanna died in some room which smelled of blood and roses, right?

- Lyanna made Ned promise her something just before she died, right?

The roses, blood and the promise were all present at the moment of Lyanna's death, in Ned's lucid memory. Meaning, those three elements are sort of representation of that particular moment and their joint occurence in the dream is meaningful exactly because the dream is not their unique occurence. The memory of the blood, roses and the promise is a clue to what their presence in the dream signifies.

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

You are also incorrect in assuming that George must follow a certain path.For instance you assume Ned's overview of his dream....Men in white,and a tower and Lyanna in her bed of blood all means they took place there.No,it doesn't.He doesn't have to make that in sequence to toj.

We have had this debate and it apparently leads nowhere. The description of the dream means that these three things are connected - the knights, the tower and Lyanna's bed of blood. Ned's dreaming mind has made that connection at least once before since the dream is "old". What other connection do you propose?

Not to mention that those elements are repeated elsewhere, in exactly the same connection of Lyanna's death:

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

 

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

He can introduce elements to mimic the disconnected nature of dreams.An element which he points out by reminding us that it is a dream.

Christ, you're not serious here, I hope. This is literature. If you write a dream using elements that you are using elsewhere to symbolize something, then they have their function in the dream, especially in a dream that reflects reality ("as it had been in life"). 

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Also,you don't get to say when he reveals where Lyanna died.He can lay clues and reveal it where he sees fit.

And the point of keeping the location super secret while giving away that Lyanna gave birth is...?

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

In the case of the conventional view the assumption is toj because of the dream.

The "conventional" view is the natural reading of what the author has been doing with the clues.

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

No one saying the location is "the" mystery.Only that the common view that Lyanna was found dying at toj might be wrong.Certainly not twisting anything.All a reasonable person has to do is consider GRRM's words and why he might of said that.

Of course that no-one is saying that the location is the big mystery, I'm only saying that it is unreasonable to think that the location of Lyanna's death has been kept secret while the real big mystery is already out.

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Ned's behavior and recollection compared to his dream ...big red flag.

And the supposed big red flag is supposed to be the lack of Ned's recollection of what he had done with Lyanna's body, which has been known for some two hundred pages already. Ned doesn't mention how exactly he built the cairns, or what he ate and drank meanwhile, is this supposed to be suspicious, as well?

For one who concocts a big love story from nonexistent clues, you seem to demand a great deal of explicit and literal information from the competing theories.

[Kingmonkey]

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

What was established was Ned brought Lyanna's body from somehere. It was not established that he tool Lyanna's body from "that" tower before he pulled it down to make the cairns for the KGS and his friends.That is the only body unaccounted for when it has to do with "that place."

Agreed. He talks about the bodies he buried there. He doesn't talk about having carried Lyanna's body from the ToJ. No dispute with that. What I have a problem with is your notion that the fact it isn't discussed argues that it did not happen. 

We are given absolutely no details whatsoever of Ned's journey south from the ToJ, so the fact that one particular detail is missing from amongst those zero details is only to be expected.

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

To your second point i agree it was an emotional internal monologue and not mentioning removing your sister's body from a structure before tearing it down isn't emotional. I think it is.Ned told us what he did with the bodies of his friends and Kgs and it is in such a saw it isn't just factual it was emotional because of how stuff went down. Eh eh,i don't think at that moment where Ned was speaking about pulling down the structure a mention of taking Lyanna's  body out would be out of place.

It would be out of place, because Ned was thinking about the burial of his men who fought in the battle at the ToJ. Lyanna was not one of the combatants at the ToJ.

Ask yourself why GRRM wrote that passage. We'd just had the dream, which ends with the clash of blades and the scream. On waking, Ned thinks about the burial of Jory, which gives GRRM a reason to tell us the results of that battle. "They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away." The disposition of Lyanna's body does not tell us anything about the results of that fight. It's not what GRRM was concerned about when writing that passage. 

That's not to say that he couldn't have mentioned it there, but it was certainly not necessary to what GRRM was saying, thus the fact that he does not mention it there has no bearing on whether or not Lyanna's body was at the tower. 

Let's be realistic about this, please. Ned does not at any point make any mention of collecting Lyanna's body from anywhere. Thus to suggest that the lack of a mention of removing her body from a particular place implies her body was not at that place is simply nonsense, as it would equally apply to anywhere else. 

Lyanna's body must have been somewhere. Wherever it was, we do not get Ned thinking about removing it from that place, yet still it must have happened. Therefore Ned not thinking of removing Lyanna's body from a place has zero impact on whether or not he removed her body from that place. 

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

This here is my point.

Ned imagining her screaming at that moment the swords clashed could have been as simple as her getting into a sword fight and him not being there to defend her when it happened.Or as you say Lyanna may not have screamed at all and that is very likely.

Or, as another alternative, it could have happened the way it happened in the dream. That it is possible to speculate B does not make A less likely, it merely makes A less than certain. 

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

The dialogue in the dream is specific and that is something without symbolism ascribed to it.Its a simple Ned asked and they said- No distortion of that portion of the dream.

Ned asked nothing. He only makes statements. The 3KG answer nothing, they only sidestep the issue. And make boasts. 

The dialogue is highly ritualised, stylised, and intentionally obscure. We are given nothing that we don't have to unpick to glean any kind of meaning from. As it stands, there is absolutely no reason for them to have fought. Ned makes no demands of the 3KG. It is strongly hinted to the reader that both Ned and the King's Guard (or at the very least Arthur) don't want that fight, but feel there is no choice other than to have it -- yet the reason why is far from explicit.

GRRM could have given us a dialogue that explained the situation clearly and succinctly, but he chose not to. He chose instead to give us the deliberate mystery and ambiguity of a highly stylized dream (and a fever dream at that). Of course the mysterious, ambiguous and highly stylized dialogue of that dream is a part of that.

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

Essentially Ned is telling them he thought they "ran away to" which got the response that running away isn't what they do which Ned was about to find out at the moment when Arthur unsheath Dawn.

No he didn't. You're taking the text to literally. How could he have thought they had run away to Dragonstone if he was "certain" they were at Storm's End? Each of the three situations he poses to them are challenges, raising situations where the 3KG might have been expected to be present -- where indeed honour and duty might be thought to have demanded it -- but were not. There answers are evasive, giving no reason as to why they were not, but implying that there were more important things for them to be doing. 

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

I'm not buying that explanation.I mean he's already of noble blood because of Lyanna....This is one of those things to subjective because of varying interpretation that can come from that.

Yes, but that doesn't stop him being a bastard. Looked down on as a lesser thing by the nobility. Unable to inherit. A bastard is in direct contrast to a prince, and indeed GRRM makes much of that very contrast. Thus Rhaegar's Rubies and Jon (if Jon were Rhaegar's son) could perfectly well match the shiny sword/rusty helmet pairings as two opposing examples of Rhaegar's blood.

On 12/10/2016 at 9:21 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

I mean i can make an association with the dead cow and the deer (horned animals) pig (killed Robert) and throw in how he's strongly associated with the dead per Mel and Jon's own vision and boom we got something.

Well yep. Of course when you're looking for symbolism in a pile of trash, you can find pretty much anything. The advantage of this Jon/ruby pairing is that it actually follows a pattern that pre-exists in the text. The disadvantage is, of course, that there is literally nothing in the text to imply that Jon was ever at the Quiet Isle, so I'm not going to argue too strongly for this one.

[Kingmonkey]

14 hours ago, JNR said:

You're right.  Those who argue for conventional RLJ always dismiss and forget the surrealistic elements of the dream because of their inconvenience to the argument.

It's just typical cherry-picking. Another similar example, from the same folks, would be that the SSM that declares Jon was born 8-9 months before Dany is holy and canonical.  But the SSM that declares Aegon was just about one year old when the Sack happened?  Dismissed and forgotten, because wow is that a problem for RLJ.

How are either of these things a problem for RLJ? Honest question. I can see how they could cause problems for certain very specific narratives that include RLJ (maybe that's what you mean by "conventional RLJ"), but I don't see how either is a problem for RLJ itself. 

 

 

[wolfmaid7]

8 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

Yes. But to be clear, we're talking in terms of likelihood.

The point being?

8 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

Not quite.

If not quite .Then what?

9 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

Leaving aside the difference between readers and "fandom" as I defined up thread, let's consider the differences in the theories. We are explicitly told that the identity of Jon's mother is a mystery. In solving that mystery, we are presented with the twist that Ned is not Jon's father. On the other hand, the location of Lyanna's death is never presented as a mystery. We're simply given that information in Ned's fever dream, with nothing to contradict it.

Jstar,it is "your" opnion that it is not presented as a mystery.Some of us recognize more subtle clues...The ambiguity,stye,disconnection and misdirection,unreliable narrator testimony which tell us that the location is possibly different.Yes,there is contradiction you just don't want to achknowledge it or you dismiss it.

1.Starting with GRRM's statement about Ned's dream.There is a reason why he cautioned that and by extrapolating what we know to be true based upon Ned's waking recollection then its obvious that issue is assuming Lyanna screaming in the dream means he was there.

2.Just the irrationality of Lyanna being there for almost a year shacked up with Rhaegar in what has to be the most conspicous hidey hole ever.And no one saw s**t  for an entire year.Negative evidence kind of kills that and by negative evidence i mean every element needed to support why she "should" be there.

      a.Private enough where activity at that place so close to the Stormlands would have gone unnoticed for a year.

      b.Ned's crypt recollection, waking recollection compared to dream the disconnect is glearing.

9 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

I mean, if someone found actual evidence -- re: not speculation -- that Lyanna died elsewhere, I certainly wouldn't claim that it didn't count simply because most people didn't think to question it in the first place.

I'm going to dismiss replying to anything about what and why the fandom believes X because its not roof on anything.I'll focus on the evidence which as i said starts with negative evidence.In this case for i.e. The need for secrecy and the fact that being there goes against that need.Also,that Lyanna possibly had helpers to deliver Jon and they wouldn't talk because  goodness of their heart..

GRRM provides us with a location that not only facilitates secrecy,silence and skills for noble pregnant girls,injured or sick.

10 hours ago, J. Stargaryen said:

This is really interesting coming from you. How many times have you invoked your supposed ability to understand the subtleties of this series? And then contrasted that with RLJers, who just went for the obvious answer, according to you.

Never did any such thing...I've only ever said that i think there are subtle clues that some of you ignore or it just goes over your head.

7 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Of course that no-one is saying that the location is the big mystery, I'm only saying that it is unreasonable to think that the location of Lyanna's death has been kept secret while the real big mystery is already out.

This makes no sense.We are discussing what we believe are clues that point to X+Y=J.Therefore,declaring something unreasonable because you think a secret that's linked to it has already been answered and the answer is your belief makes no sense.Its kind of an existential fallacy.

7 hours ago, Ygrain said:

And the supposed big red flag is supposed to be the lack of Ned's recollection of what he had done with Lyanna's body, which has been known for some two hundred pages already. Ned doesn't mention how exactly he built the cairns, or what he ate and drank meanwhile, is this supposed to be suspicious, as well?

For one who concocts a big love story from nonexistent clues, you seem to demand a great deal of explicit and literal information from the competing theories.

(Facepalm):

Ygrain you don't know what Ned did with the body (if it was there to begin with) between:

"After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his.”

And this:

“Ned had pulled the tower down afterward, and used its bloody stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. "

So somewhere in between that there should be Ned removing Lyanna from the toj and then pulling down the tower.

8 hours ago, Ygrain said:

The roses, blood and the promise were all present at the moment of Lyanna's death, in Ned's lucid memory. Meaning, those three elements are sort of representation of that particular moment and their joint occurence in the dream is meaningful exactly because the dream is not their unique occurence. The memory of the blood, roses and the promise is a clue to what their presence in the dream signifies.

Ygrain,really? those lements are transplantable....It is not and indicator of place....No matter where she was there will be blood,no matter where she was she still had roses spilling from her hand etc.There presence in the dream has nothing to do with actual location.They are directly tied to Lyanna and she again could have been anywhere.

8 hours ago, Ygrain said:

We have had this debate and it apparently leads nowhere. The description of the dream means that these three things are connected - the knights, the tower and Lyanna's bed of blood. Ned's dreaming mind has made that connection at least once before since the dream is "old". What other connection do you propose?

Not to mention that those elements are repeated elsewhere, in exactly the same connection of Lyanna's death:

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

Ygrain,i am not doubting that there is a connection and it being and old dream has nothing to do with the elements actually being sequential in a relatively short time.

Let's look at this:

He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood."

The connection could be association of these elements in Ned's dream.

The connection could be that Lyanna's death was a bloody violent affair ( A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death).

Just like the KGs and Ned's friends.

Both could have been senseless deaths , meaning Kgs didn't need to fight and Lyanna possibly didn't need to fight.Much like Elia did with her kids and got killed for it.

9 hours ago, Ygrain said:

The "conventional" view is the natural reading of what the author has been doing with the clues.

Subjective Ygrain.That natural reading of yours takes into consideration the clear ambiguities,misdirection,holes where there shouldn't be? The natural reading imo would be mentioning taking Lyanna's body out of the tower "before" you pull it down.

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

How are either of these things a problem for RLJ? Honest question. I can see how they could cause problems for certain very specific narratives that include RLJ (maybe that's what you mean by "conventional RLJ"), but I don't see how either is a problem for RLJ itself.

Well, first I'll define terms.  By "conventional RLJ" I mean any theory that involves this sequence:

1. Rhaegar "abducts" Lyanna.

2. Weeks or months pass as Brandon rides to Red Keep, is captured, Rickard is summoned to the Red Keep, he and Brandon are killed, Aerys then summons Ned and Robert, and Arryn calls his banners.

3. The Rebellion then begins and lasts about a year.

OK, that's all simple enough.  Now...

If Aegon was right at one at the time of the Sack -- per GRRM, the world's leading authority on ASOIAF -- then obviously Aegon was born about the time the Rebellion began.  Point 3 above.  Still with me?

We also have this vision from Dany's HOTU experience:

Quote

The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

This is almost universally accepted among Conventional RLJ supporters as being a vision of Rhaegar, Elia, and Aegon, and it is believed really to have occurred as described.  It is in other words a true vision of the past.

When did the events in the vision happen?  Thanks to GRRM's statement about Aegon's age at the Sack, we can date this true vision of the past.  We know it happened about the time the Rebellion began.  Point 3 in my list above.

So there we have Rhaegar...  with Elia... right after Aegon was born... right when the Rebellion was beginning. On Dragonstone, I imagine.

It seems difficult to reconcile this with the traditional RLJ concept of Rhaegar instead at this time being in the ToJ with Lyanna, more than a thousand miles away, busily banging, having eloped and married some weeks or months before, and now deeply in love with each other.

The World book, of course, solves this through a Trumplike complete denial.   It tells us a totally different tale, in which first Aegon is born, then Rhaegar hit the road in the middle of the worst winter of his lifetime, and weeks or months later, he "ultimately" fell upon Lyanna near Harrenhal... and then the whole sequence happens (point 2 above) that leads to war.

The World book, in other words, rearranges events, when compared to GRRM's statement about Aegon's age and the canon, in order to make conventional RLJ plausible.

Which brings us to:

Quote

it might be worth taking the very deep dive, so long as you keep in mind that The World shouldn't necessarily be taken as gospel. The book is written from the viewpoint of a maester at the Citadel, one who hopes to pass its knowledge on to someone sitting on the Iron Throne. As such, the author may have ... rearranged events to suit the interests of a particular royal family. "So who knows if it's really true or not!" Martin chuckled.

So on the subject of Aegon's age at the Sack, we have to decide: Do we believe the World book, written by Yandel, the accuracy of which GRRM literally laughs off?  Or do we believe GRRM, who had written about a million words of ASOIAF at the time he said Aegon (Rhaegar's heir, quite an important little guy) was right at a year old at the time of the Sack?

[Kingmonkey]

8 minutes ago, JNR said:

Well, first I'll define terms.  By "conventional RLJ" I mean any theory that involves this sequence:

1. Rhaegar "abducts" Lyanna.

2. Weeks or months pass as Brandon rides to Red Keep, is captured, Rickard is summoned to the Red Keep, he and Brandon are killed, Aerys then summons Ned and Robert, and Arryn calls his banners.

3. The Rebellion then begins and lasts about a year.

Ok, with you so far.

8 minutes ago, JNR said:

This is almost universally accepted among Conventional RLJ supporters as being a vision of Rhaegar, Elia, and Aegon, and it is believed really to have occurred as described.  It is in other words a true vision of the past.

Right. I see where you're coming from, thanks. However, how is this being a true vision of the past part of RLJ? It's not, it's just something that you suggest is almost universally accepted by people who follow conventional RLJ. Let's take this out of the equation with the proposal "it is not a true vision of the past" -- and no part of RLJ is impacted in any way.

What you have shown is that there is a problem with simultaneously holding two separate beliefs. They cannot both be true, unless GRRM got something wrong (which would hardly be a first, let's be honest). Agreed. It's not a problem for either of these beliefs individually though, only the combination of the two. 

So, not a problem for conventional RLJ.

Let's imagine that someone believes that Julius Caesar was killed in 44BC. They also believe that Julius Caesar attended the wedding of his adoptive son Octavius to Clodia Pulchra. Now we can show that the wedding actually happened in 42 BC, 2 years after the date believed for Caesar's assassination. Clearly both these beliefs cannot be true. However, the evidence that the wedding occurred in 42 BC does not disprove that Caesar was assassinated in 44BC. 

See what I mean?

 

8 minutes ago, JNR said:

The World book, in other words, rearranges events, when compared to GRRM's statement about Aegon's age and the canon, in order to make conventional RLJ plausible.

Now you've lost me.

Firstly, as above, this has no bearing on making RLJ plausible. Only on making it plausible to believe both in conventional RLJ AND that that HOTU vision falls into the first category of "Sights and sounds of days gone by and days to come and days that never were", rather than the last.

Secondly, I don't really understand what you mean by "...in order to..." Are you implying that there was a conspiracy (on Ran's part?) to twist GRRM's narrative to make it possible to simultaneously believe RLJ and the objective reality of the HOTU dream without contradiction for a couple more years until GRRM reveals the truth? 

You also proposed that "Those who argue for conventional RLJ always dismiss and forget the surrealistic elements of the dream because of their inconvenience to the argument." How are these surrealistic elements of the dream inconvenient to RLJ?

 

[Kingmonkey]

9 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

2.Just the irrationality of Lyanna being there for almost a year shacked up with Rhaegar in what has to be the most conspicous hidey hole ever.And no one saw s**t  for an entire year.Negative evidence kind of kills that and by negative evidence i mean every element needed to support why she "should" be there.

I know in these informal debates it's fun to throw in a bit of hyperbole from time to time, but do you really not see the subjectivity in this argument? The Quiet Isle, for all its vows of silence, is not exclusively populated by mutes. It's a busy place, within sight of the town of Saltpans, and close to several major population centres, and right in the middle of contested territory, which actually has guest houses. By contrast, the toj is an old abandoned watchtower up in the mountains and out of the way. 

What reason is there to think that the toj was even remotely conspicuous? Some people have proposed that it would be seen from the main road through the Prince's Pass, but let's remember that's purely supposition based on nothing in the text. 

 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

If we're going to ignore the WB information on Aegon's birthday based on nothing more than a disclaimer from GRRM:

Quote

it might be worth taking the very deep dive, so long as you keep in mind that The World shouldn't necessarily be taken as gospel. The book is written from the viewpoint of a maester at the Citadel, one who hopes to pass its knowledge on to someone sitting on the Iron Throne. As such, the author may have ... rearranged events to suit the interests of a particular royal family. "So who knows if it's really true or not!" Martin chuckled.

The above quote tells us nothing about which events were rearranged, and why. It only says that events could have possibly been rearranged. 

So with no other reasoning provided, solely on the basis of the above quote, if we're going to discard Aegon's birthday from the WB,

Using the same standards:

Quote

By no means," Pyat Pree said. "Leaving and coming, it is the same. Always up. Always the door to your right. Other doors may open to you. Within, you will see many things that disturb you. Visions of loveliness and visions of horror, wonders and terrors. Sights and sounds of days gone by and days to come and days that never were. Dwellers and servitors may speak to you as you go. Answer or ignore them as you choose, but enter no room until you reach the audience chamber."

Just like with the quote from GRRM, we have no idea what specific vision Pyat Pree is talking about here when he tells Dany "You will see visions that never were." We just know some visions would have never occurred.

So, using the exact same basis as the Aegon birthday example, we can also discard the vision of Rhaegar being with Elia and Aegon on DS, which brings us right back to where we started -  there's no problem at all for "Conventional RLJ", as @JNR puts it.

 

You cannot discard the WB information for Aegon, without doing the same for the R-E-A vision from the HotU, because it is exactly the same standards applied in both cases - a disclaimer from the author with no specification provided as to which exact event was rearranged/never happened.