Lyanna Stark's death?

[Notlad]

This may have been covered, but I haven't run across the post. What was Robert Baratheon told with regard to how Lyanna Stark actually died?

 

 

[Lord Lyman]

I don't think it was ever mentioned what exactly was said to him or anyone, except maybe, "by the time we got there she was dead" or "she died soon after we got to her".

[Ser Scott Malkinson]

We don't know, but I dont think it was:

"She died of a miscarriage. Wanna hold my son Jon?"

[aryagonnakill#2]

I'm pretty sure the official record is that she died of a fever.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

This has always been a major plot hole for me, since nothing concrete has really been said about it, in text. Robert says Rhaegar kidnapped her and raped her hundreds of times, but neither he, nor anyone else, has deduced that a pregnancy may have occurred  from months of copulation and that a woman dying from birthing complications was quite commonplace in the setting of the story. And the far fetched and coincidental fathering of a similarly aged bastard by the über honorable and prudish Shy Wolf, who can hardly kick game to a broad without a stiff shove in the back in that direction, doesn't seem to bother anyone either. It seems either carelessly foolish or intentionally done that way by the author. But why? To what end? Convenience? Set up for a huge twist?

[The hairy bear]

20 minutes ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

This has always been a major plot hole for me, since nothing concrete has really been said about it, in text. Robert says Rhaegar kidnapped her and raped her hundreds of times, but neither he, nor anyone else, has deduced that a pregnancy may have occurred  from months of copulation and that a woman dying from birthing complications was quite commonplace in the setting of the story. And the far fetched and coincidental fathering of a similarly aged bastard by the über honorable and prudish Shy Wolf, who can hardly kick game to a broad without a stiff shove in the back in that direction, doesn't seem to bother anyone either. It seems either carelessly foolish or intentionally done that way by the author. But why? To what end? Convenience? Set up for a huge twist?

Well, Eddard was very lucky: Jon looked exactly like him and had no Targaryen feature, the only survivor at the Tower of Joy was one of the reclusive crannogmen, and the only ones who really knew him at the end of the war were Robert and Jon Arryn (not precisely perceptive *ehem* the seed is strong *ehem*).

We must also keep in mind that the war was very short. Close to a year, it's said somewhere. Rhaegar and Lyanna were not together that much time.

And when this happened no one knew Eddard was "über honorable". He was just a nineteen year old second son with no public image. And still, in war people often behaves in unexpected ways: it's not that weird that in the heat of war, an usually cold-blooded man had found the nerve to sire a bastard.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

1 hour ago, The hairy bear said:

Well, Eddard was very lucky: Jon looked exactly like him and had no Targaryen feature, the only survivor at the Tower of Joy was one of the reclusive crannogmen, and the only ones who really knew him at the end of the war were Robert and Jon Arryn (not precisely perceptive *ehem* the seed is strong *ehem*).

We must also keep in mind that the war was very short. Close to a year, it's said somewhere. Rhaegar and Lyanna were not together that much time.

And when this happened no one knew Eddard was "über honorable". He was just a nineteen year old second son with no public image. And still, in war people often behaves in unexpected ways: it's not that weird that in the heat of war, an usually cold-blooded man had found the nerve to sire a bastard.

The most dangerous person to know he was uber honorable and highly unlikely to father a bastard, especially after being wed, was his foster brother, the new King Robert I, who had spent the last 10 years or so with him, day in and day out, and even stated "you never were the boy you were" or something to that effect. Also everybody else I'm the story, who don't know Ned as intimately as Robert, that talks about him, recognizes that he is one of the most honorable people in the 7K, over and over. So I can't agree with you. 

[Jenny of Dorne]

3 hours ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

This has always been a major plot hole for me, since nothing concrete has really been said about it, in text. Robert says Rhaegar kidnapped her and raped her hundreds of times, but neither he, nor anyone else, has deduced that a pregnancy may have occurred  from months of copulation and that a woman dying from birthing complications was quite commonplace in the setting of the story. And the far fetched and coincidental fathering of a similarly aged bastard by the über honorable and prudish Shy Wolf, who can hardly kick game to a broad without a stiff shove in the back in that direction, doesn't seem to bother anyone either. It seems either carelessly foolish or intentionally done that way by the author. But why? To what end? Convenience? Set up for a huge twist?

I completely agree about the plot hole but maybe it was done on purpose and we'll get the explanation in the next book. Personally, I can rationalize it by Ned telling Robert and everyone that Lyanna was already dead when he arrived. Robert was so furious that he did not think any further. As concerns the baby Jon, wasn't the rumor about Ned and Ashara Dayne enough for people to believe it? If anybody in the Seven Kingdoms had any doubts, there was the honourable Ned's word saying that Lyanna died and he's made a bastard, nothing more.

(But honestly, the fact that nobody - to our knowledge - has ever had a suspicion that Rhaegar might have made a child on Lyanna and that the child is alive somewhere, that is intriguing. Nor some Targaryen loyalist, nor Tywin Lannister, nor Robert's small council... just wow.)

Reconsidering and getting on a thin ice, maybe Ned told Robert that Lyanna died of miscarriage. That would explain the lack of general curiousness about the fruits of Rhaegar and Lyanna having sex.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

1 hour ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

The most dangerous person to know he was uber honorable and highly unlikely to father a bastard, especially after being wed, was his foster brother, the new King Robert I, who had spent the last 10 years or so with him, day in and day out, and even stated "you never were the boy you were" or something to that effect. Also everybody else I'm the story, who don't know Ned as intimately as Robert, that talks about him, recognizes that he is one of the most honorable people in the 7K, over and over. So I can't agree with you. 

For one thing, it's considered impolite for someone to delve too deeply into the origins of some lord's byblow. I think it's Catelyn who mentions this.

For another thing, the people who do openly talk about Ned Stark's bastard (Tyrion, Robert, Cersei, Godric Borrell who told Davos the story of the fisherman's daughter) are mainly bemused by the idea of uber honorable Ned Stark having fallen off his high horse enough to father a bastard. They're not concerning themselves with Jon Snow as a person in his own right. Tyrion comes the closest but even he initially characterizes Jon as "Ned Stark's bastard". Ned is the focus of their discussion and Jon's existence is only invoked as a comment / observation / gloat on Ned. I doubt Robert, Cersei or Godric Borrell even know what Jon Snow's name is.

 

[LittleDove21]

6 minutes ago, Jenny of Dorne said:

Reconsidering and getting on a thin ice, maybe Ned told Robert that Lyanna died of miscarriage. That would explain the lack of general curiousness about the fruits of Rhaegar and Lyanna having sex.

That is a possibility and maybe where Robert's idea that Rhaegar raped Lyanna came from.

[cgrav]

1 hour ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

This has always been a major plot hole for me, since nothing concrete has really been said about it, in text. Robert says Rhaegar kidnapped her and raped her hundreds of times, but neither he, nor anyone else, has deduced that a pregnancy may have occurred  from months of copulation and that a woman dying from birthing complications was quite commonplace in the setting of the story. And the far fetched and coincidental fathering of a similarly aged bastard by the über honorable and prudish Shy Wolf, who can hardly kick game to a broad without a stiff shove in the back in that direction, doesn't seem to bother anyone either. It seems either carelessly foolish or intentionally done that way by the author. But why? To what end? Convenience? Set up for a huge twist?

This has stuck out to me, as well. It seems that "the seed is strong" among the great houses and that it's very common for highborn to impregnate women with very few attempts. Catelyn recalls that Ned knocked her up on their wedding night, while Robb and Jeyne are disappointed with their lack of child after even just a short time of trying.

The obvious likelihood of Lyanna having gotten pregnant is so conspicuously unmentioned that I have to wonder if people have made assumptions or actually figured out that there's probably a Targ bastard floating around out there. 

Amd maybe it was dangerous to talk about such things, after people heard what happened to Rhaegar's other children.

You'd think someone like Littlefinger would have made such a deduction and investigated, given his obsession with Catelyn and Sansa and royal intrigue in general. And as far as we can tell, even Varys is in the dark about Jon. 

I guess the big question is who else knows RLJ? Do other characters know and simply stay mum to keep their own heads? 

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

21 minutes ago, cgrav said:

This has stuck out to me, as well. It seems that "the seed is strong" among the great houses and that it's very common for highborn to impregnate women with very few attempts. Catelyn recalls that Ned knocked her up on their wedding night, while Robb and Jeyne are disappointed with their lack of child after even just a short time of trying.

The obvious likelihood of Lyanna having gotten pregnant is so conspicuously unmentioned that I have to wonder if people have made assumptions or actually figured out that there's probably a Targ bastard floating around out there. 

Amd maybe it was dangerous to talk about such things, after people heard what happened to Rhaegar's other children.

You'd think someone like Littlefinger would have made such a deduction and investigated, given his obsession with Catelyn and Sansa and royal intrigue in general. And as far as we can tell, even Varys is in the dark about Jon. 

I guess the big question is who else knows RLJ? Do other characters know and simply stay mum to keep their own heads? 

Yes, some stay mum, mainly Howland Reed, who the author has obviously left off the page in the present for just that reason. I do wonder if Jojen and Meera know or suspect, they stop themselves short often enough to be suspicious, also what about their momma, Jyanna, whose name is quite interesting. BR knows and I think Benjen might. But it's oddly true that not even Varys the Omniscient ever hints or alludes to his having that knowledge. I think if he did, it would've come out when he visited Ned in the Black cells, but it did not. Nobody, not even Cat, knows exactly who Jon's mom is. Many people have many different candidates, but none are etched in stone, which I find comical. 

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

41 minutes ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

For one thing, it's considered impolite for someone to delve too deeply into the origins of some lord's byblow. I think it's Catelyn who mentions this.

For another thing, the people who do openly talk about Ned Stark's bastard (Tyrion, Robert, Cersei, Godric Borrell who told Davos the story of the fisherman's daughter) are mainly bemused by the idea of uber honorable Ned Stark having fallen off his high horse enough to father a bastard. They're not concerning themselves with Jon Snow as a person in his own right. Tyrion comes the closest but even he initially characterizes Jon as "Ned Stark's bastard". Ned is the focus of their discussion and Jon's existence is only invoked as a comment / observation / gloat on Ned. I doubt Robert, Cersei or Godric Borrell even know what Jon Snow's name is.

 

Oh, they all know what his name is. They may feign ignorance, as highborns often do when discussing matters concerning small folk or bastards. You're right about  the subject being a bit taboo, and that many gloat about the Honorable Ned having shown himself just as human and fallible as anyone else. 

[Little Scribe of Naath]

7 minutes ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

Oh, they all know what his name is. They may feign ignorance, as highborns often do when discussing matters concerning small folk or bastards. You're right about  the subject being a bit taboo, and that many gloat about the Honorable Ned having shown himself just as human and fallible as anyone else. 

I think it might also have to do with the fact that Robert wasn't the sharpest tool in the box; he didn't realise his own children weren't his. Cersei states (IIRC?) that she used to bring him off with hand or mouth whenever she could avoid sleeping with him. 

[Livesundersink]

1 hour ago, cgrav said:

This has stuck out to me, as well. It seems that "the seed is strong" among the great houses and that it's very common for highborn to impregnate women with very few attempts. Catelyn recalls that Ned knocked her up on their wedding night, while Robb and Jeyne are disappointed with their lack of child after even just a short time of trying.

The obvious likelihood of Lyanna having gotten pregnant is so conspicuously unmentioned that I have to wonder if people have made assumptions or actually figured out that there's probably a Targ bastard floating around out there. 

Amd maybe it was dangerous to talk about such things, after people heard what happened to Rhaegar's other children.

You'd think someone like Littlefinger would have made such a deduction and investigated, given his obsession with Catelyn and Sansa and royal intrigue in general. And as far as we can tell, even Varys is in the dark about Jon. 

I guess the big question is who else knows RLJ? Do other characters know and simply stay mum to keep their own heads? 

Robb and Jeyne never conceived a child because Jeyne's mother Sybill was secretly slipping Jeyne moon tea under the guise of it being fertility tonics and such.

The seed is strong refers to the strength of Baratheon genes, all of Robert's bastards and Shireen have strong Baratheon features. Some of them have a few features of their mothers, but most of their traits come from their fathers.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

25 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

I think it might also have to do with the fact that Robert wasn't the sharpest tool in the box; he didn't realise his own children weren't his. Cersei states (IIRC?) that she used to bring him off with hand or mouth whenever she could avoid sleeping with him. 

Well, there's no denying any of that. The brightest star in the sky, Robert was not. Especially him being a black haired, blue eyed prototypical Baratheon specimen, that popped off mostly little black haired, blue eyes bastards,of either sex, with women of many different colorings. But when it came to his "legitimate" children with Cersei, he didn't bat an eye or raise an eyebrow that all 3 were purely gold and green, not even at least one with darker hair and green eyes or blond with his deep blue eyes, nothing. 

[The Ned's Little Girl]

46 minutes ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

Oh, they all know what his name is. They may feign ignorance, as highborns often do when discussing matters concerning small folk or bastards. You're right about  the subject being a bit taboo, and that many gloat about the Honorable Ned having shown himself just as human and fallible as anyone else. 

I think it's a bit more than that. I believe most people who think about "Ned Stark's bastard" are distracted enough by that idea that they don't stop to put 2 and 2 together with regard to Jon's age. I think Ned counted on that when he took Jon in. It was part of Ned's calculated risk, that people would be more interested in the idea of him fathering a bastard than working out the dates of Jon's likely conception and connecting the dots.

Keeping Jon at Winterfell and raising him with his other kids was a bigger part of the calculated risk, though. Most likely, it was Ned's promise to his sister that caused him to do that, but it also allowed the idea of Jon as Ned's bastard to become entrenched in people's minds. Because that's such a flagrantly unusual thing to do, it tended to operate as yet another obfuscation to distract people from puzzling out the truth. 

Just my 0.02 groats.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

21 minutes ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

I think it's a bit more than that. I believe most people who think about "Ned Stark's bastard" are distracted enough by that idea that they don't stop to put 2 and 2 together with regard to Jon's age. I think Ned counted on that when he took Jon in. It was part of Ned's calculated risk, that people would be more interested in the idea of him fathering a bastard than working out the dates of Jon's likely conception and connecting the dots.

Keeping Jon at Winterfell and raising him with his other kids was a bigger part of the calculated risk, though. Most likely, it was Ned's promise to his sister that caused him to do that, but it also allowed the idea of Jon as Ned's bastard to become entrenched in people's minds. Because that's such a flagrantly unusual thing to do, it tended to operate as yet another obfuscation to distract people from puzzling out the truth. 

Just my 0.02 groats.

All you say is true. Especially for the average Westerosi noble. But for those that thrive on such occult information, like Varys, LF, or even Doran Martell, it's just hard to believe that none of them ever were inclined to put the 2 and 2 together, or at least entertain the thought, even by accident. But, maybe they did, and we the readers just don't know about it yet, kinda like what the hell Howland Reed has been doing for the last 17 years, especially the most recent last 3 or so.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

3 minutes ago, Beautiful Bloody Sword said:

All you say is true. Especially for the average Westerosi noble. But for those that thrive on such occult information, like Varys, LF, or even Doran Martell, it's just hard to believe that none of them ever were inclined to put the 2 and 2 together, or at least entertain the thought, even by accident. But, maybe they did, and we the readers just don't know about it yet, kinda like what the hell Howland Reed has been doing for the last 17 years, especially the most recent last 3 or so.

A large reason could also be because of the entire Ashara Dayne story. There seems to be various versions of that gossip floating around, but the primary one is that she got pregnant at HH, most probably from Ned, and then gave birth to the baby which Ned took away, and she killed herself from the heartbreak of it all - her lover killing her brother, him married to another woman, the baby being snatched away.......

Makes for compelling gossip, you have to admit. Guys like LF, Varys and the rest may have thought that he was lying about the whore being Jon's mother to cover up for the fact of Ashara.

Plus there's this whole romantic tragedy aspect to it....and the angle of "oh, even the honourable Ned Stark was once in love and made a mistake too....blah blah." People (specially guys like Varys and LF) love to hear that seemingly perfect figures have failings. That's what they believe of most nobles anyway.

[Beautiful Bloody Sword]

4 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

A large reason could also be because of the entire Ashara Dayne story. There seems to be various versions of that gossip floating around, but the primary one is that she got pregnant at HH, most probably from Ned, and then gave birth to the baby which Ned took away, and she killed herself from the heartbreak of it all - her lover killing her brother, him married to another woman, the baby being snatched away.......

Makes for compelling gossip, you have to admit. Guys like LF, Varys and the rest may have thought that he was lying about the whore being Jon's mother to cover up for the fact of Ashara.

Plus there's this whole romantic tragedy aspect to it....and the angle of "oh, even the honourable Ned Stark was once in love and made a mistake too....blah blah." People (specially guys like Varys and LF) love to hear that seemingly perfect figures have failings. That's what they believe of most nobles anyway.

Yeah, but then we have Ned telling Robert it was Wylla, and again Ned Dayne telling Arya the same thing about Wylla, with the addition of Ashara and Ned's past and her suicide. Then we have fishwives, small folk, and whores. It's funny to me.