Do we REALLY know Dominic Bolton was Bethany Bolton-née-Ryswell's son?

[M_Tootles]

Threw this up on reddit, figured I'd put it here too. Given the responses over there so far, I don't think I'm overlooking anything, but lemme know if I have.

 

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There seems to be a universal assumption that Domeric Bolton is the son of Roose Bolton and Bethany Bolton-née-Ryswell, rather than the son of Roose and his mysterious first wife. From the wiki:

 

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Domeric Bolton was the only trueborn son and heir of Lord Roose Bolton and Lady Bethany Bolton.

 

I could be completely missing something super-obvious, and please tell me if I am, but this seems wholly without direct support in the text. The "fact" that Domeric is Bethany's son is not stated in any appendix. Here's what's in AFFC's appendix:

 

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—ROOSE BOLTON, Lord of the Dreadfort, the turncloak,

—{DOMERIC BOLTON}, his trueborn son and heir, died of a bad belly,

 

 

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—RODRIK RYSWELL, Lord of the Rills,…

—{BETHANY BOLTON}, his daughter, second wife of Lord Roose Bolton, died of a fever

 

 

 

The ADWD appendix is identical for Roose and Dom save that it omits "the turncloak" and "trueborn son and". It is identical for Bethany.

Sure, it's possible to see "Domeric" as a kind of poetic echo of Bethany's father's name, "Rodrik", but that's hardly definitive.

And sure, we can make all kinds of probabilistic inferences from what we're told about Dom:

 

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"Barbrey Dustin is my second wife's younger sister, Rodrik Ryswell's daughter, sister to Roger, Rickard, and mine own namesake, Roose, cousin to the other Ryswells. She was fond of my late son and suspects you of having some part in his demise. Lady Barbrey is a woman who knows how to nurse a grievance. (DWD R III)

 

It's easy to assume that Barbrey's fond of Domeric because Dom is her sister's son. Yet Roose doesn't say "She was fond of her nephew" or "She was fond of her sister's son" or even "She was fond of my late son, her sister's boy", any of which would make good in-world sense for him to say to Theon as an explanatory detail.

Indeed, in light of those examples it suddenly feels a bit odd and distancing that The Roose actually says "She [i.e. the boy's putative aunt and blood relation] was fond of my late son", almost as if he's describing their warm relationship as a curiosity rather than something natural. In any case, the assumption that Dom must be Bethany's is still conjecture, not deduction.

Here's the other bit we're given:

 

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"[Ramsay] is your only son."

"For the moment. I had another, once. Domeric. A quiet boy, but most accomplished. He served four years as Lady Dustin's page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. He played the high harp, read histories, and rode like the wind. Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard's daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. Redfort said he showed great promise in the lists. A great jouster must be a great horseman first."

"Yes, m'lord. Domeric. I … I have heard his name …"

"Ramsay killed him. A sickness of the bowels, Maester Uthor says, but I say poison. In the Vale, Domeric had enjoyed the company of Redfort's sons. He wanted a brother by his side, so he rode up the Weeping Water to seek my bastard out. I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father. Now his bones lie beneath the Dreadfort with the bones of his brothers, who died still in the cradle, and I am left with Ramsay. Tell me, my lord … if the kinslayer is accursed, what is a father to do when one son slays another?" (DWD R III)

 

 

 

Domeric serving as Barbrey Dustin née Ryswell's page and Barbrey's intimate knowledge of and propensity to speak about the boy can again be read to suggest that the boy is Barbrey's sister Bethany's son, but it again proves nothing. And as before, Roose does not say "he served four years as his aunt's page" or "he served four years as his aunt Lady Dustin's page" or "he served four years as page to his mother's sister, Lady Dustin." Nor does he say "the boy was made for horses, his aunt will tell you" or some such thing. Instead his words are exactly as they would be if there were no natural relationship between "Lady Dustin" and Domeric at all.

 

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Is it really so impossible to think that Roose might have sent the motherless son of his dead first wife to foster in the home of his second wife's powerful, widowed, childless sister, or that said childless widow might have become fond of a boy to whom she bore no immediate blood relation? Wouldn't a possibly barren, apparently childless woman be inclined to take pity on any motherless boy, regardless of who his mother is?

Indeed, what if Roose's first wife is Domeric's mother and she was born a Dustin? Barbrey now (oddly) sits as Lady of that House in her dead husband's absence, so she could hardly turn a child with Dustin blood away. If Domeric were half-Dustin, his fostering at Barrowton arguably makes more sense than it does if Dom is Bethany Bolton-Ryswell's son. Roose would see it as a way to shore up a Dustin-Bolton relationship made fragile by the death of Roose's Dustin wife. Assuming Bethany is dead by the time Dom is fostered, sending "Domeric Bolton-Dustin" to live with Barbrey Dustin-Ryswell helps bolster both his (now potentially tenuous) marriage alliances.

A Dustin-Bolton first marriage would also make more sense—both literally and dramatically—of something Jon says:

 

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"The Ryswells and Dustins are tied to House Bolton by marriage," Jon informed him. (DWD J IV)

 

Sure, this has an obvious reading given established wisdom (or in the event that Dom is Roose's first wife's boy, but she is not a Dustin): The Ryswells are tied to House Bolton by marriage, directly, and House Dustin is tied in a lesser, roundabout way via Barbrey Dustin because she was born a Ryswell. Yet look at the odd way Theon characterizes Barbrey when she is enumerating and dismissing potential sources of trouble for Roose Bolton like the Manderlys, Freys and Stannis.

 

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"You," said Theon. "There is you. The Lady of Barrowton, a Dustin by marriage, a Ryswell by birth."

That pleased her. She took a sip of wine, her dark eyes sparkling, and said, "The widow of Barrowton … and yes, if I so choose, I could be an inconvenience. Of course, Roose sees that too, so he takes care to keep me sweet." (DWD tPoW)

 

 

What is Theon's point, given that the context is pointing out potential problems facing Roose? Since being "Ryswell by birth" seems to straightforwardly predispose her to be an ally to Roose, this reads like Theon is pointing to her bifurcated identity as a source of divided loyalty, and saying that "a Dustin by marriage" wouldn't be predisposed to ally with the Dreadfort like a Ryswell, thereby gainsaying Jon's analysis. Do Barbrey's eyes sparkle because she is amused that Theon, like us, is ignorant of the potential fact that Roose's first marriage is to a Dustin?

Consider: Barbrey Dustin-née-Ryswell's Dustin husband is dead, she has not remarried and she has apparently given birth to no Dustin child. Presumably Barrowton will revert to some blood Dustin when she dies. If Roose's first wife was not Dustin and his recently-deceased heir had not been half-Dustin, would the knights and petty lords owing fealty to House Dustin be overly eager to fall in place behind a Lady in Barbrey's position advocating alliance with House Bolton because of her non-Dustin sister's former marriage to the Lord of the Dreadfort? Can House Dustin truly be said to be tied to House Bolton by marriage to the same extent the Ryswells are simply because a Dustin-in-name-only's Ryswell sister was once married to Roose?

It would obviously be different if Barbrey had birthed a Dustin heir with half-Ryswell blood. That's a tie-by-marriage. But as things stand, House Dustin is putatively "tied" to the Boltons only because Barbrey is personally tied in her capacity as a Ryswell!

To be sure, I'm not arguing that the Dustins flat-out aren't tied to House Bolton. I'm not saying "this is total bullshit." It's just tenuous and suspect, and Jon's analysis isn't as cut-and-dried as it first appears. Nor am I suggesting that Jon is speaking because in-world his character has knowledge of e.g. a Bolton-Dustin marriage that we don't. It's eminently plausible that Jon knows Lady Dustin is a Ryswell by birth and that seems to be "enough" for him to think that House Dustin is tied to House Bolton, particularly given that events on the ground are making it clear that the Dustins have allied with Roose Bolton.

I am, however, saying that Jon's statement will make for some great dramatic irony and wonderful foreshadowing if it is revealed that there exist far firmer ties between the (blood) Dustins and the Boltons in the form of a marriage and a lately-deceased Bolton-Dustin heir.

All that being said, I don't want to dismiss the possibility that that Domeric's mother is not Bethany Ryswell nor an unknown Dustin but someone else entirely: perhaps a Redfort or a Hunter from the Vale, since Dom fosters there after his time in Barrowton and those Houses share motifs with House Bolton. Such a scenario matches with the verbiage Roose uses when speaking of Barbrey and Dominic, and Barbrey being a childless widow still easily explains her willingness to foster an unrelated, motherless boy.

 

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A further perusal of the appendices reveals something interesting: despite claiming descent from the First King and the Barrow Kings and being a House with its seat in a large (for the North), centrally-located (for the North) town with Lords beholden to them, House Dustin never merits a line of its own in the appendices. The only appendix references to the Dustins come in AFFC and ADWD, when Barbrey is listed in her capacity of daughter to Rodrik Ryswell, with her title and Lord Stout's fealty noted thereafter. Dustin troops make it to the text in ADWD, so they seem to have military power worthy of mention, yet aside from two fleeting mentions of Lord Willam Dustin, Ned's companion at the Tower of Joy (about whom I will someday have much more to say), it's as if House Dustin doesn't exist in the text itself at all prior to ADWD.

Suddenly this "typo" of "no consequence" has me squinting and harumphing and scratching my head:

 

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Ramsay Bolton, Lord of the Hornwood, it read, in a huge, spiky hand. The brown ink came away in flakes when Jon brushed it with his thumb. Beneath Bolton's signature, Lord Dustin, Lady Cerwyn, and four Ryswells had appended their own marks and seals. (ADWD J VI)

 

I'm aware of the explanations that it's just a typo or that Jon is speaking of "the office" not the (female) person. But it's still curious that this oddity just so happens to involve a relatively mysterious house that never appears in the appendices in its own right, despite Ser Willam appearing very early in AGOT.

The notion that there's a Lord Dustin caused another left-field possibility to occur to me—one which doesn't need Jon's "Lord Dustin" to anything more than the typo or reference to the office most everyone thinks it is. What if—typo (or not) aside—Lady Dustin was impregnated by Willam before he left for war and there is, in fact, a new "young Lord Dustin", all of 18 years old as of ADWD?

This could explain the otherwise bizarre fact that Lady Dustin was never forced to remarry in the way Luwin and Rodrik are certain the (recently widowed, much older at-the-time) Lady Hornwood must (nevertheless) remarry in ACOK B II. It would also explain the fact that the Dustins are not given their own entry as Stark bannermen in the appendices: the omission would be hiding that fact that "The Lady of Barrowton" is (for now) ruling the house in young Lord Dustin's stead.

Such a lord may not be present, allowing Lady Dustin to continue to serve as The Lady of Barrowton. I happen to believe there is very good (wonderfully, deliciously, humorously good) reason to think Ser Willam is actually alive and living far away—it's contained in a massive, 400-page paradigm-shifting tinfoil essay I've been working on off-and-on for almost a year, but will hopefully start "publishing" soon—so perhaps the young Lord is with his father. Or perhaps he is "feeble-minded" or such thing.

I completely admit that the existence of a young Lord Dustin is a massive longshot, but there is a potential hint that something like this is afoot in Theon and Barbrey's exchange, above. Recall that Theon calls Barbrey "The Lady of Barrowton, a Dustin by marriage, a Ryswell by birth", and she echoes him… sort of. She instead muses, "The widow of Barrowton …" It's almost as if she's subtly correcting him: she's the widow rather than the Lady everyone assumes.

Like I said: total longshot—indeed, the idea that Domeric isn't Bethany's is admittedly a longshot—but the kernel of foreshadowing is there if that's where GRRM is headed. Whatever the case, a "secret young Lord Dustin" scenario could work whether Domeric is the son of Bethany, an unknown Dustin sister, or some other woman. And it could mean the odd mention of "Lord Dustin" in ADWD was intentional after all: "in-world", it was "merely" a reference to the office, as many have speculated; metatextually, it was an intentional wink at the truth. (Since I believe Willam Dustin is alive, I tend to think this is the case, regardless.)

 

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OK. Unless I'm missing something, that's the sum total of our knowledge of Domeric, and there is no direct evidence that he is Bethany's son. So why does everyone assume it's a fact that Domeric is Bethany's?

The only thing I can figure is that the AWOIAF App states definitively that Domeric is Bethany's son under its Bethany Bolton entry, and calls Barbrey Domeric's "aunt" in its Domeric Bolton entry (while otherwise copying the Roose-only language of the appendix, calling Dom "The deceased son and heir of Lord Roose Bolton, who was said to have died of a bad belly"). However, the very first iteration of the Domeric Bolton wiki entry contained that same "fact" in 2009, three full years before the AWOIAF App was released, making it plausible that the app copied the wiki or simply that Elio and Linda made the same assumptions everybody else has.

So I am just missing something embarrassingly obvious? Or is the only (semi)official word that Bethany is Domeric's mother contained in the AWOIAF app, rendering said AWOIAF entries dubious inasmuch as Dom's mother has hardly been a widely-debated questoin likely to be double-checked by GRRM (whereas I assume he signed off on certain other App reveals, like Rhaegar's companions on his Lyanna-fetching expedition)?

To be clear: I'm not saying I firmly believe Dom is not Bethany's. I'm just suggesting it seems like a possibility that could have interesting dramatic consequences and actually explain a few oddities in the text.

 

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Since publishing the above there, one brilliant comment led me to this thought.

There's a weird parallel between Littlefinger and Brandon. Both are fostered at houses with two sisters: Lysa and Catelyn at Riverrun and Bethany and Barbrey in the Rills. We know Littlefinger is in love with the older Cat and claims to have had sex with her. We're led to believe he did not, but persuasive arguments have been made that this is not so cut and dried as it appears. He definitely bones Lysa.

In like manner, Brandon bones the younger Ryswell sister, Barbrey. But does the lusty wild wolf have sex with her sister, too? Might Roose Bolton unwittingly marry a pregnant Bethany Ryswell? Surely that's preposterous, you say. Probably. But there's this.

 

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Domeric. A quiet boy, but most accomplished. He served four years as Lady Dustin's page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. He played the high harp, read histories, and rode like the wind. Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard's daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself.

 

As it happens, that same Lady Dustin does tell us all about someone's Domeric-esque love for horses: Who's that?

 

 

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[Brandon] loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. (DWD Turncloack)

 

Huh.

[Jak Scaletongue]

He wasn't fostered with the Ryswell's, he was fostered with old Lord Dustin. 

ADWD, Turncloak:

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"You knew him," Theon said. 

"The lantern light in her eyes made them seem as if they were afire. "Brandon was fostered at Barrowton with old Lord Dustin, the father of the one I'd later wed, but he spent most of his time riding the Rills. He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. And my lord father was always pleased to play host to the heir to Winterfell. My father had great ambitions for House Ryswell. He would have served up my maidenhead to any Stark who happened by, but there was no need."

 

I noticed that on another thread too. Not just you! 

But yeah, he was still pretty close to at least one of the sisters, fostered or not. And you make some pretty good other points, especially about assuming stuff!

 

[M_Tootles]

39 minutes ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

He wasn't fostered with the Ryswell's, he was fostered with old Lord Dustin. 

Derp. Of course. But he was banging the neighbor's daughter, that's the point.

[Jak Scaletongue]

Definitely. I simply couldn't help myself! (Technicalities are my specialty! LOL!)

[M_Tootles]

Don't wanna make a new topic, but:

Can anyone help me find a certain quote about the Boltons? I saw it the other day and figured I'd be able to find it again, but now I can't. It was Ramsay or Roose saying something very broadly misogynist. Something like "how dare a WOMAN of all people talk to a Bolton that way" or something like that. If this rings a bell, feel free to post or PM. I've searchoficeandfired a buncha words but come up empty (yet I know that's where I saw it, it just wasn't germane at the time. Cheers.

[LindsayLohan]

1 hour ago, M_Tootles said:

Don't wanna make a new topic, but:

Can anyone help me find a certain quote about the Boltons? I saw it the other day and figured I'd be able to find it again, but now I can't. It was Ramsay or Roose saying something very broadly misogynist. Something like "how dare a WOMAN of all people talk to a Bolton that way" or something like that. If this rings a bell, feel free to post or PM. I've searchoficeandfired a buncha words but come up empty (yet I know that's where I saw it, it just wasn't germane at the time. Cheers.

Not sure if it's misogynistic thing, but when Ramsay asked Roose why the marriage to (f)Arya was not taking place in Barrowtown Hall, Roose told Ramsay that Lady Dustin "could not abide him".  Ramsay lost his temper and threatened to cut off her breasts and turn her into boots.

Roose lectured Ramsay that this would only make inferior boots, as human skin wasn't tough enough for that purpose, and wondered if Ramsay really had learned anything about being a Bolton.

LMAO.  I love my man Roose.

[M_Tootles]

16 minutes ago, LindsayLohan said:

Not sure if it's misogynistic thing, but when Ramsay asked Roose why the marriage to (f)Arya was not taking place in Barrowtown Hall, Roose told Ramsay that Lady Dustin "could not abide him".  Ramsay lost his temper and threatened to cut off her breasts and turn her into boots.

Roose lectured Ramsay that this would only make inferior boots, as human skin wasn't tough enough for that purpose, and wondered if Ramsay really had learned anything about being a Bolton.

LMAO.  I love my man Roose.

That was somebody else's private response, too. As I said to him, this was a much more general response, and I'm pretty familiar with the text and it WASN'T something I'd noticed before. It felts like very metatextual, very much like the book informing us that House Bolton is uniquely misogynist, but not in some weird graphic way like the teat chopping stuff. FWIW it popped up while searching for something unrelated on asearchoficeandfire (wish I remembered what) and I figured I'd find it easily but I just can't. Like I told him, at this point I'm gaslighting myself.

thanks though!

[lidsa]

2 hours ago, M_Tootles said:

It was Ramsay or Roose saying something very broadly misogynist. Something like "how dare a WOMAN of all people talk to a Bolton that way" or something like that.

 

1 hour ago, M_Tootles said:

it popped up while searching for something unrelated on asearchoficeandfire

Maybe you came across the conversation where Roose tells Reek how he met Ramsay's mother, where he casually mentions that the Boltons and the Umbers still practice the "lord's right to the first night"?

[M_Tootles]

33 minutes ago, lidsa said:

 

Maybe you came across the conversation where Roose tells Reek how he met Ramsay's mother, where he casually mentions that the Boltons and the Umbers still practice the "lord's right to the first night"?

I've been mining that fucker dry for two days now, actually. But "shrewish queen" and the whole rape certainly speaks to the point.

I want to say the language was VERY plain. That's why it struck me as something novel I hadn't picked up on in 7 read throughs and countless hundreds of hours researching and writing. It was WHAT it said, not HOW it said it.

[M_Tootles]

5 hours ago, LindsayLohan said:

Not sure if it's misogynistic thing, but when Ramsay asked Roose why the marriage to (f)Arya was not taking place in Barrowtown Hall, Roose told Ramsay that Lady Dustin "could not abide him".  Ramsay lost his temper and threatened to cut off her breasts and turn her into boots.

Roose lectured Ramsay that this would only make inferior boots, as human skin wasn't tough enough for that purpose, and wondered if Ramsay really had learned anything about being a Bolton.

LMAO.  I love my man Roose.

 

4 hours ago, lidsa said:

 

Maybe you came across the conversation where Roose tells Reek how he met Ramsay's mother, where he casually mentions that the Boltons and the Umbers still practice the "lord's right to the first night"?

 

GOT IT! hollowaydivision on reddit saved me. I was going nuts.

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"Bolton's bastard is massing men at the Dreadfort," [Lady Hornwood] warned them. "I hope he means to take them south to join his father at the Twins, but when I sent to ask his intent, he told me that no Bolton would be questioned by a woman." (COK B II)

 

[M_Tootles]

Another quick question (related to what I realized and am working on as a result of this thread) that doesn't deserve it's own thread but that someone could potentially quickly answer:

What's the in-world term for "damaged goods"? *I.e. lysa with jon arryn, etc.) I wanna say I've read spoiled or something like that, but maybe I'm imagining it and it's only referred to obliquely. Thanks in advance.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎3‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 7:45 PM, M_Tootles said:

snip

My theory on the Boltons is a slight alteration of Bolt-on:

Roose is the last surviving son of the Night's King. When Jorumon and the KoW slew the NK and his bride, Roose was about to be "sacrificed" to the Others the way Craster's sons are. This makes Roose half-human/half-wight and, depending on who the NK was, lord of whatever castle that was his birthright. Might have been the DF, might have been Winterfell, or any of the other northern seats.

This same being has survived through the millennia by fathering sons on human brides and when the time is right, killing them, flaying them (thus, the Bolton sigil) and then donning their skins in a perfect likeness -- all accept the eyes, which remain pale as milkglass. This is why Roose never sweats, barely eats, has very little body hair and has a unique ability to shut down even big, boisterous louts like the Greatjon with little more than a whisper. It's also the reason why he has to leach himself constantly: to prevent the blood from pooling in his hands and feet.

So each time he kills a son and assumes his identity, he maintains his position as lord of his castle. And he has probably managed to switch houses from time to time, including the Starks. You may recall the story of Brandon Ice-Eyes, who threw the slavers out of the Wolf's Den; that was probably Roose.

This would also explain why Roose would not only fail to mourn the loss of his trueborn son -- one who had all the makings of a champion jouster and an exceptional lord -- but then reward his bastard killer with legitimacy and all the Bolton titles. Domeric, apparently, is not Roose's son but Brandon Stark's. In order to maintain his lordship after Roose's death, he needs his own natural son to inherit the DF so he can make the switch when the time is right. With Ramsey, of course, he not only gets the DF, but Winterfell as well.

We also have this little tidbit from Lady Barbrey:

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"Roose has no feelings, you see. Those leeches that he loves so well sucked all the passions out of him years ago. He does not love, he does not hate, he does not grieve. This is a game to him, mildly diverting. Some men hunt, some hawk, some tumble dice. Roose plays with men. You and me, these Freys, Lord Manderly, his plump new wife, even his bastard, we are but his playthings."

Sounds like the attitude of a being who has seen humans come and go so often that they are no more significant to him then mice.

This also plays to the idea that The Song of Ice and Fire is about blood magic, with the Targaryens having Fire blood and the Starks having Ice blood, courtesy of the creature that calls itself Roose Bolton.

At some point in the future, when Roose dies, look for Ramsey to calm down, start speaking in whispers and begin to leach himself. You'll know the switch has been made.

[Therae]

On 3/21/2017 at 6:46 PM, M_Tootles said:

Another quick question (related to what I realized and am working on as a result of this thread) that doesn't deserve it's own thread but that someone could potentially quickly answer:

What's the in-world term for "damaged goods"? *I.e. lysa with jon arryn, etc.) I wanna say I've read spoiled or something like that, but maybe I'm imagining it and it's onlyreferred to obliquely. Thanks in advance.

"Soiled"

SoS, Sansa VII

Father said I ought to thank the gods that so great a lord asJon Arryn was willing to take me soiled, but I knew it was only for the swords.

[M_Tootles]

On 3/21/2017 at 9:17 PM, John Suburbs said:

 

[M_Tootles]

5 hours ago, Therae said:

"Soiled"

SoS, Sansa VII

Father said I ought to thank the gods that so great a lord asJon Arryn was willing to take me soiled, but I knew it was only for the swords.

Yeah, worked this out a while after posting that. 1 letter off. Cheers. (Sorry for the post above. I couldn't get rid of that non-quote quote no matter what I did.)

[Therae]

@M_Tootles - No worries, I have a dreadful time getting those little boxes to behave while simultaneously getting Flash or Shockwave or whatever not to crash.

Anyway, yeah, you totally had it.  It was just about all I had really to contribute to this thread.

[Tralalala]

Interesting theories,but a little bit too tinfoil for me,i don't think Domeric Bolton was Brandon Stark's son,or that he was anyone else but Bethany's too. Neither do i put much stock in that bolt-on theory i do get it it's a fun theory,but it also makes everything too fantastical.

Now that i've shared my opinion which was a necessary good,please feel free to continue your speculations,discussions and so on,i'll be reading with interest.

[M_Tootles]

4 hours ago, Therae said:

@M_Tootles - No worries, I have a dreadful time getting those little boxes to behave while simultaneously getting Flash or Shockwave or whatever not to crash.

Anyway, yeah, you totally had it.  It was just about all I had really to contribute to this thread.

To be sure, I didn't have it, /u/hollowaydivision on reddit dope-slapped me with it.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

TL/DR

High Born women did not generally give birth unattended. There would have been at least one Maester in attendance, and numerous ladies in waiting and servants buzzing around.  The chances that at least a half dozen people didn't see him coming out of her vagina are extremely slim.  Domeric Ramsey is Bethany Ryswell's son. 

And before someone says, Aha! But what if someone swapped the baby. Nope. Highly unlikely he'd never have been left without eyes on him. And as soon as he stopped looking like a generic baby it would be impossible to swap him without everyone noticing. 

[M_Tootles]

3 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

TL/DR

High Born women did not generally give birth unattended. ETC.

So you are fond of saying, as I recall. Do you have this on cut and paste? I'm glad you take this as having the force of irresistible fact, and look forward to your response when several characters are revealed to have different parentage than alleged.