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J. Stargaryen

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34 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

You missed the point.

The idea that that there was sexual intercourse between Rhaegar and Lyanna is explicitly introduced by the author in the very first book via the belief of Robert and Bran that Rhaegar raped Lyanna.

I don't believe Rhaegar raped Lyanna, and I certainly don't believe Robert's and Bran's belief proves that he did. The point is that the idea that Rhaegar and Lyanna had sexual intercourse is something we know characters in the books believe.

The idea that Lyanna had sex with any of her siblings is not only never introduced via any characters, it is never even hinted at in any way. To compare this idea, which is neither stated nor hinted at, to the idea that Rhaegar and Lyanna had sex, which characters in the books state and believe, is absurd.

Oh i got your point i'm saying the using belief of people who add nothing more than their belief isn't proof.

Or the fact that Grrm repeatedly have chatacters believe a certain way comes under the same thing.Case in point Grrm repeatedly have characters believe Jon is Ned's bastard son.See what i mean?

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10 minutes ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Oh i got your point i'm saying the using belief of people who add nothing more than their belief isn't proof.

Or the fact that Grrm repeatedly have chatacters believe a certain way comes under the same thing.Case in point Grrm repeatedly have characters believe Jon is Ned's bastard son.See what i mean?

I didn't say anything about proof, so again, you don't seem to have understood the point, as your comments thus far are not relevant to mine. The person I was responding to compared something that is not stated, implied, or in any way hinted at, to something which several characters in the books explicitly state and believe to be true. That belief may be false or true, but that is not the point in this case.

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2 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

GRRM isn't canon! :P

 

1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

Of course, how stupid of me :P He only wrote the books, after all...

Here is an SSM from November 1999:  "the Watch would not give the oath to a boy that was seriously minor, like a 12 year old."  

Here is a quote from Sam in AFFC:  "Osric Stark was ten when he was chosen [to be Lord Commander], but he served for sixty years. That's four, my lord.  You're not even close to being the youngest chosen."

Back OT, do you think the love-struck price is Rhaegar?  Or Duncan the Small?

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2 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

 

Here is an SSM from November 1999:  "the Watch would not give the oath to a boy that was seriously minor, like a 12 year old."  

Here is a quote from Sam in AFFC:  "Osric Stark was ten when he was chosen [to be Lord Commander], but he served for sixty years. That's four, my lord.  You're not even close to being the youngest chosen."

It would be interesting to know how many of those other three are Stark children. It would seem like there are all kinds of exceptions made for House Stark among the Watch. Who would have guessed?

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3 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Back OT, do you think the love-struck price is Rhaegar?  Or Duncan the Small?

Rhaegar? It appears to be a time lined response. :) 

Without dragons, it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos.

Sickly Jaehaerys II >> Aerys II >> Rhaegar >> War of the Usurper (Robert's Rebellion) >> Robert I >> Wot5K

dissolute: lax in morals; licentious (promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters.)

 

 

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2 hours ago, IceFire125 said:

Rhaegar? It appears to be a time lined response. :) 

Without dragons, it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos.

Sickly Jaehaerys II >> Aerys II >> Rhaegar >> War of the Usurper (Robert's Rebellion) >> Robert I >> Wot5K

dissolute: lax in morals; licentious (promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters.)

 

 

I thought perhaps the sneeze referred to the Spring Sickness killing off a large portion of House Targaryen, brought Aerys I to the throne, and raised Bloodraven to become Hand.  

2 hours ago, SFDanny said:

It would be interesting to know how many of those other three are Stark children. It would seem like there are all kinds of exceptions made for House Stark among the Watch. Who would have guessed?

Probably a significant number.  Maybe all of them.

My point, of course, was just that the SSMs have, shall we say, varying degrees of reliability.  

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On 4/13/2017 at 8:05 PM, The Twinslayer said:

Probably a significant number.  Maybe all of them.

My point, of course, was just that the SSMs have, shall we say, varying degrees of reliability.  

Sorry, my friend, I was being sarcastic. The answer to my question of "Who would have guessed?" is Jon Snow. You should know that from the quote you give about Osric Stark. The next part of the text is Jon's response to Sam. He says the following:

Quote

"The younger four all being sons, brothers, or bastards of the King in the North." (AFfC 80)

When Martin responded to the question in the SSM you quote from the question put to him is this:

Quote

NOVEMBER 04, 1999

AGE OF MAJORITY

At what age does a boy in Westeros legally become a man?

16

And how does age effect the enforceability of oaths? Specifically, if Jon Snow was 14-15 years at the time he swore his oaths to the Night Watch can he avoid them as he was, maybe, a minor?

No loopholes. Once you say the words, you're in.

That being said, the Watch would not give the oath to a boy that was seriously minor, like a 12 year old.

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Martin clearly is giving a general response to the idea of the Night's Watch's oath being enforceable - to which he says "no loopholes" - and a general response of what the age boys would be allowed to say the oath. That there is at least one person under the age of twelve who was allowed to take the oath because he is related directly to the King in the North, doesn't contradict the general rule Martin speaks about. The general rule applies, with the one known exception. Did Martin change his mind about this? We don't know, but the quotes you give don't show he did.

That does not mean that all SSMs, or more importantly the comments made in them, are to be treated as still valid. Martin has said many times he reserves the right to change his mind, and sometimes he does. We just need evidence that he has. The above isn't convincing evidence he did.

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On 4/13/2017 at 0:58 PM, Bael's Bastard said:

I didn't say anything about proof, so again, you don't seem to have understood the point, as your comments thus far are not relevant to mine. The person I was responding to compared something that is not stated, implied, or in any way hinted at, to something which several characters in the books explicitly state and believe to be true. That belief may be false or true, but that is not the point in this case.

I do get it but i am following the processes to its natural conclusion.Ok to make it simple ,what was the something?

Again,such things as whether or not a thing is a hint or and implication is subjective.What you may deem not a hint might be a hint.So my point overall does stand.

So what was the something you think wasn't implied or hinted at?

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Maybe read the actual discussion instead of making someone repeat themselves? There was a question of whether there was any hint of Starkcest in the books, other than "it's not impossible". A comparison was then made between Starkcest and Rhaegar and Lyanna. It was pointed out that Ned's POV chapters would be the only source of info on Lyanna secretly hooking up with any of her brothers, yet there are other characters who know of and refer to Rhaegar and Lyanna, so their story is still there even without Ned's POV.

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On 4/14/2017 at 1:46 AM, SFDanny said:

Sorry, my friend, I was being sarcastic. The answer to my question of "Who would have guessed?" is Jon Snow. You should know that from the quote you give about Osric Stark. The next part of the text is Jon's response to Sam. He says the following:

When Martin responded to the question in the SSM you quote from the question put to him is this:

Martin clearly is giving a general response to the idea of the Night's Watch's oath being enforceable - to which he says "no loopholes" - and a general response of what the age boys would be allowed to say the oath. That there is at least one person under the age of twelve who was allowed to take the oath because he is related directly to the King in the North, doesn't contradict the general rule Martin speaks about. The general rule applies, with the one known exception. Did Martin change his mind about this? We don't know, but the quotes you give don't show he did.

That does not mean that all SSMs, or more importantly the comments made in them, are to be treated as still valid. Martin has said many times he reserves the right to change his mind, and sometimes he does. We just need evidence that he has. The above isn't convincing evidence he did.

Martin is clearly giving a specific response to the question whether Jon could get out of his NW oath on the grounds that he was too young when he made it.  GRRM is saying that (1) Jon said the words, so he is stuck in the NW, but (2) if he had been as young as 12, he would not have been permitted to take the oath.  Meaning that a 12 year old Stark bastard would be too young to take the oath.  

That in no way implies that being related to the King in the North would create an exception to that rule.

Clearly, GRRM changed his mind about this.  Which is understandable given that the SSMs are mostly just off the cuff responses to fan questions while the books themselves are carefully crafted, heavily edited, and very complex.  He probably did not even remember that old 1999 SSM when he published ADWD, 12 years later.  Because (like all of the other SSMs) it was nowhere close to canon and therefore did not matter.  

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2 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Martin is clearly giving a specific response to the question whether Jon could get out of his NW oath on the grounds that he was too young when he made it.  GRRM is saying that (1) Jon said the words, so he is stuck in the NW, but (2) if he had been as young as 12, he would not have been permitted to take the oath.  Meaning that a 12 year old Stark bastard would be too young to take the oath.  

(1) Yes, the response of "no loopholes" applies to Jon as well, but it is clearly a general rule. Martin is not saying a rule that only applies to Jon or his situation. Of interest here is not whether or not the general rule applies to Jon's situation, but rather if there might be other types of loopholes? For instance, does death release a Black Brother from his oath? Or, as Robb seems to think, the Watch might be induced to release Jon from his oaths if he is the new King in the North? These are specific situations Martin doest't deal with, for obvious reasons, in his response. He sticks to a general response not because he had no idea that these exceptions might be important. As early as A Storm of Swords he creates the possibility of such exceptions with Robb's will, and it is hard to think he didn't know Jon would face a possible death. 

(2) No, he is not saying that if Jon had tried to say the oath as young as twelve he would not have been allowed to do so. He only refers to "a boy" as young as twelve. Being that is not Jon's situation it is not in contradiction to the general rule, but that does not rule out specific exceptions. Do you really think a twelve year old Jon would have been denied the ability to join the Watch if Lord Eddard of Winterfell had sent him at that age to take the oath? The Watch's existence is, in large measure, dependent on the good will of Winterfell. Which is why Osric is allowed to not only take the oath at ten years of age, but he becomes the Lord Commander as well.

No, these are general responses to a reader who has guessed wrong about possible conflicts Jon might face about his oath to the Night's Watch. He is not getting out because he was too young when he took the oath. He may get out of his oath because he has died in its service, or because his role as King in the North is more important to the Watch than his role as Lord Commander. We shall have to wait and see, but the answers to those questions are not the ones he answered in 1999. If someone had foreseen those specific possibilities way back in 1999 then, no doubt, he would have said "no comment" or "read on." The general responses to these specific circumstances  still apply. Martin didn't change his mind about that.

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1 hour ago, SFDanny said:

No, these are general responses to a reader who has guessed wrong about possible conflicts Jon might face about his oath to the Night's Watch. He is not getting out because he was too young when he took the oath. He may get out of his oath because he has died in its service, or because his role as King in the North is more important to the Watch than his role as Lord Commander. We shall have to wait and see, but the answers to those questions are not the ones he answered in 1999. If someone had foreseen those specific possibilities way back in 1999 then, no doubt, he would have said "no comment" or "read on." The general responses to these specific circumstances  still apply. Martin didn't change his mind about that.

GRRM is consistent with bigger things and will not change his mind, Jon's vows to the Night's Watch will end, but his duty to protect the realm will continue via the Great Council, the moment they elect him as King...

1. Could Ned's evidence about the bastardy of Cersei's children have convinced a Great Council, such as gave Aegon V his crown? Is this evidence completely unequivocal in the context of this fantasy world (it wouldn't be in our own)?

Having just given a real life deposition in a court case in which I am a witness, I can tell you that no evidence is "completely unequivocal," either in Westeros or the USA. Lawyers will argue about anything. And the Great Council is a very rare event. Westeros has no equivilent of a Parliament meeting at regular time.  If Ned had been able to establish his authority as regent and summon a Great Council... well, the lords would have presumably heard the evidence and decided...

- June 10, 1999 http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Great_Councils_and_the_Law

 

Granny: Is there any chance that Jon could be released from his oaths of the nightwatch?

GRRM: The great council would have released Aemon from his maester’s oath, so I suppose it would be possible. With an appropriate authority.

- March 18, 1999 http://www.astralgia.com/sfzine/chats/transcripts/031899.html

 

“Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel,” the old man had said, “the same counsel that I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born.” The old man felt Jon’s face. “You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born.”

- ADWD 2011 (writing process begin in unison with AFFC, post 2000); Aemon's counsel to Jon came early in ADWD, correlates with Sam's POV chapter, early in AFFC.

He met the queen’s (Selyse) party by the stables, accompanied by Satin, Bowen Marsh, and half a dozen guards in long black cloaks. It would never do to come before this queen without a retinue of his own, if half of what they said of her was true. She might mistake him for a stableboy and hand him the reins of her horse.

- ADWD; Egg was mistaken as a stableboy in The Hedge Knight (originally released in 1998).

-----

 

I'm of the opinion that GRRM will fulfill the foreshadowing he has laid out with Jon, being elected King by the Great Council.

When the count was done, Jon found himself surrounded. Some clapped him on the back, whilst others bent the knee to him as if he were a lord in truth. Satin, Owen the Oaf, Halder, Toad, Spare Boot, Giant, Mully, Ulmer of the Kingswood, Sweet Donnel Hill, and half a hundred more pressed around him. Dywen clacked his wooden teeth and said, “Gods be good, our Lord Commander’s still in swaddling clothes.” Iron Emmett said, “I hope this don’t mean I can’t beat the bloody piss out of you next time we train, my lord.” Three-Finger Hobb wanted to know if he’d still be eating with the men, or if he’d want his meals sent up to his solar. Even Bowen Marsh came up to say he would be glad to continue as Lord Steward if that was Lord Snow’s wish.

Jon did not wait to eat. He walked across the castle, wondering if he were dreaming, with the raven on his shoulder and Ghost at his heels. Pyp, Grenn, and Sam trailed after him, chattering, but he hardly heard a word until Grenn whispered, “Sam did it,” and Pyp said, “Sam did it!” Pyp had brought a wineskin with him, and he took a long drink and chanted, “Sam, Sam, Sam the wizard, Sam the wonder, Sam Sam the marvel man, he did it. But when did you hide the raven in the kettle, Sam, and how in seven hells could you be certain it would fly to Jon? It would have mucked up everything if the bird had decided to perch on Janos Slynt’s fat head.”
I had nothing to do with the bird,” Sam insisted. “When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself.”

- ADWD; when Jon gets elected as king, there will be knees bending as well as people left standing (wildlings, who do not kneel), all congratulating him.  

- His companions will look to Sam again, as if he did some magic to convince a black winged dragon flying to Jon (to where it allows Jon to mount his shoulder) the ultimate factor for the lords to elect him as king.

 

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On 13/04/2017 at 11:21 AM, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Why indeed. The Targs and the Lannisters are famously blonde, so why couldn't the Starks be, too? No reason, really. They could be. Are they? Instead of theorizing about possibilities, you should just go and find a bunch of blonde Starks.

The Targs have practiced brotherfucking openly and proudly since always. The Lannisters do not, Jaime and Cersei's twincest is an abomination and a fiercely guarded secret. And the Starks? You talk about patterns. Well, to have that, you need to find and show us a bunch of incest-practicing Starks. "I know of none, but if we assume without proof that there's one case, then there'll be this one case" does not constitute what most people call a "pattern".

Sorry, this argument makes no sense. Where are the "bunch of incest-practising" Lannisters? Do I need to find and show those before you'll accept that Jaime is bonking Cersei? Of course, that's a "an abomination and a fiercely guarded secret" - but somehow it's impossible that if there was Starkcest, it would be a fiercely guarded secret that Ned would shy away from?

You seem to be confusing "pattern" with "similarity". Not everything that is shared by 2 out of 3 members of a group should be expected to be shared by the third, of course. That's why we look to see if the author has set up a literary theme which may illustrate a pattern. The blondness of Lannisters and Targs is an identifying detail, not a literary pattern. Hair colour is an identifier that helps illuminate the blood of an individual house -- the purity of Targ genes through inbreeding, the way Lannisters stand out with their golden hair, obviously representative of their position as the wealthy house, the way Jon and Arya show their undiluted Starkness.

The concept of what GRRM terms "bastards and broken things" is a pattern, because we see the way it is paralleled through the three houses. The concept of exemplars is similarly part of this pattern. The individual member of each house who is both an outsider and yet in some ways the ultimate representative of the house, is. Blood, the blood of houses, is. This is the thematic language of the story. Within that context, we can see patterns of meaning. The concept of Targcest is explicitly part of this pattern, and explicitly reaches its apotheosis in Dany. At this juncture in time, when the Targ exemplar appears, we also have an instance of Lannister incest, of a concentration of Lannister genes through two generations, that similarly produces an exemplar. At this same time, the third house has a member who's parentage is secret and who is repeatedly described in terms that present him as an exemplar of Starkness.  Starkcest fits into this pattern rather nicely. It makes the pattern more complete than it would be without it. 

The fact that it would fit this pattern nicely obviously does not inherently mean it must be true. That may not be the story GRRM is telling. Indeed I believe it isn't the story that GRRM is telling. The pattern is there, but exactly what shape that pattern will be revealed to take by the end of the books is, as yet, unknown by all but GRRM (and presumably Dan & Dave).  However if something that fits this pattern so cleanly turns out to indeed be part of the story GRRM is telling, then it certainly isn't coming out of left field, because the pattern has been established.  If you don't like it, fair enough. If you don't believe the pattern will unfold in that way, fair enough -- I'd agree with you. If you think there is no pattern to support it and this would be entirely out of left field, then you've either just missed the pattern or are unwilling to recognise that Starkcest would fit that pattern. 

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On 13/04/2017 at 11:30 AM, maudisdottir said:

How would we know of Ned's incestuous leanings, or even suspicions about his other siblings, if not from his own thoughts?

Given RLJ rather depends on the revelation not coming from Ned's thoughts but from somewhere else too, what's the problem? If Howland can tell the reader of RLJ, he can tell the reader of SLJ. 

On 13/04/2017 at 11:25 AM, Ygrain said:

Couldn't agree more. The twincest is an exception, not a pattern, and one house out of three is not a pattern, either.

Nobody said "twincest" was anything other than an exception, after all Aerys & Rhaell weren't twins. Just brother and sister, which is what's being discussed. That's two out of three, with the third as yet undetermined.

On 13/04/2017 at 5:23 PM, SFDanny said:

You know I appreciate your approach to these discussions, but I don't know if I've told you how much in awe I am of the precision in which you calculate the odds for each Stark. Although, Rickard is left out here. Is that because his odds are so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from nothing? Or are you just rounding to the nearest tenth of one percent? Could I hope that you calculated Rickard to less than .01% probability? ^_^

Ah, a sensible critique from someone who's read the essay, how refreshing! ;)  Actually I rated Rickard rather higher than that. I had already eliminated him from the argument with a separate, equally scientific set of numbers I'd pulled out of my arse but omitted from the essay for simplicity, which were as follows:

Probability of source of Starkcest paternity:

Father: 6.24%

Brother: 90.46%

Great Other, who is secretly a Stark: 1.82%

Time-travelling Bran: 1.07%

Time-travelling Hodor, who turns out to have been baby-swapped for William Stark's eldest son Brandon, and is the true heir of Winterfell: 0.31%

Random wandering direwolf descended from an ancient Stark warg: 0.04%

Time-travelling Jon Snow, being his own father: 0.03

Tony Stark (Iron Man) 0.01%

GRRM (honorary Stark): 0.01%

I hope that satisfies your curiosity.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

~~~

Nobody said "twincest" was anything other than an exception, after all Aerys & Rhaell weren't twins. Just brother and sister, which is what's being discussed. That's two out of three, with the third as yet undetermined.

~~~

If you really wanted to add "starkcest" to your theory, then yeah, it has happened already, and then the old gods nipped that branch down to the trunk and it never went any further.

Incest is an abomination against the old gods and the new. The Starks keep to the old gods. They pushed that temptation in the past and their particular lines mostly "died out" because of it when the uncles to Sansa and Serena Stark married them for what seems to be inheritance, yet it failed because other Starks were chosen in their place. Of the offspring that did go on, non of them repeated the offense. The old gods spoke. 

This is exactly the type of situation that GRRM describes with Tywin marrying his own cousin in an SSM. It was more for claim than it was for "love". The overall reaching "lesson" in incest is that it is a ridiculous notion that is used for either blood purity elitism and/or staking a claim. This is incredibly consistent in George's ideals both in this ASOIAF world, and most all of his other stories that deal with genetic superiority and incest. (the ones that have it all use it as a cautionary tale)

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3 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

Given RLJ rather depends on the revelation not coming from Ned's thoughts but from somewhere else too, what's the problem? If Howland can tell the reader of RLJ, he can tell the reader of SLJ. 

Five books later? At least we get hints about RLJ, not to mention plenty of other characters who talk about them and fill in some of their story. Now, after five books, apparently one of the characters we haven't met yet is going to introduce a twist that has not been hinted at once in the previous gazillion pages?

Saying "there's a theme" isn't evidence. If the three main houses are all connected, then the Targaryens have their dragons and the Starks have their direwolves, so it stands to reasons the Lannisters should be running around the countryside with roaring lions. Because themes! And the Targaryens are mad, and Cersei Lannister is mad, so one of the Starks is also mad. Right? THEMES!

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1 hour ago, maudisdottir said:

Now, after five books, apparently one of the characters we haven't met yet is going to introduce a twist that has not been hinted at once in the previous gazillion pages?

Well, just to play devil's advocate (not that Kingmonkey is the devil)... it doesn't have to be Howland. 

It could be Benjen himself.   Who popped up in book one and told Jon that maybe he shouldn't give up women for life at such a tender age (as he himself did, for no given canonical reason).

Hard to imagine a more credible or well-informed source on the subject of Jon's parents than one of Jon's parents.

That said, I admit that if Benjen suddenly returns and says "BTW, Jon, you are the fruit of my incestuous union with your mother Lyanna... and that's why you look more like a Stark than any of Ned's kids with the possible exception of Arya," I'm going to be a tad surprised.

Actually, I'm not even sure Benjen was able to make sperm yet at the time Lyanna would theoretically have been knocked up.  The wiki says he was only a year younger than Lyanna, but there is no actual evidence cited for that in the Benjen Age Calculation, which seems more like a wild guess.  Given the way she was whipping him in Bran's weirwood vision, I'm guessing she had more than a year's advantage.

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2 hours ago, JNR said:

Actually, I'm not even sure Benjen was able to make sperm yet at the time Lyanna would theoretically have been knocked up.  The wiki says he was only a year younger than Lyanna, but there is no actual evidence cited for that in the Benjen Age Calculation, which seems more like a wild guess.  Given the way she was whipping him in Bran's weirwood vision, I'm guessing she had more than a year's advantage.

There are only wild guesses for Benjen's age. He must have been born at least 9 months after Lyanna, but could be some time after. Two things lead me to suspect that a 1 year difference is about right.

1. Benjen tells Jon at the feast celebrating Robert's arrival at Winterfell that he was younger than Jon the first time he got drunk. This fits in nicely with the Tourney at Harrenhal if Benjen is a year younger than Lyanna.

2. That weirwood vision. Bran initially Benjen and Lyanna for himself and Arya, suggesting that the age gap was similar -- " If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself..."

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4 hours ago, maudisdottir said:

Five books later? At least we get hints about RLJ, not to mention plenty of other characters who talk about them and fill in some of their story. Now, after five books, apparently one of the characters we haven't met yet is going to introduce a twist that has not been hinted at once in the previous gazillion pages?

If RLJ is not true, then all those things you've been reading as hints for RLJ turn out not to have been hints after all. 

If Starkcest is not true, then all those hints for Starkcest turn out not to have been hints at all.

If you flatly chose to say "I don't believe in Starkcest, none of that stuff is hints", then of course you see no hints. Just as if someone flatly choses to say "I don't believe in RLJ, none of that stuff is hints", then they see no hints either. That doesn't mean, in either case, that there are no hints. 

I've written an essay full of hints. If you want to dispute the interpretation of those hints, great. All for the good. I'll happily discuss them, I'll happily continue acting as devil's advocate for them. These interpretations can certainly be challenged. If you consider those interpretations and decide they are significantly less likely than the interpretations that lead to RLJ -- great, I agree. You're not going to be able to disprove them though, because there is as yet not enough information to do so. We can have that discussion over on that thread, 'cos it's not really an RLJ discussion. 

If on the other hand all you have is "There are no hints", then that's not a debate, that's just putting your fingers in your ears and refusing to listen. Which is fine too, each to their own. It makes for a very dull discussion though.

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