"He has to know, we have to tell him..." WHY?

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

4 minutes ago, Hajk1984 said:

Ned thought he was living in a very different world. Would he have done this with an impending White Walker threat and an essential alliance with the Dragon queen?

maybe, not entirely sure.  

[Tagganaro]

2 hours ago, Hajk1984 said:

So Bran keeps quiet about Jon's parentage all season and never tells his sisters. But somehow, now, in the middle of the greatest existential threat the North has ever faced, he "has to " reveal a secret that can cause heavy tension at the very top of the coalition that Jon has built to oppose it. Dropping this secret at this time immediately opens up the following problems:

1. Jon's dedication and loyalty to the North, in fact his whole self-image is based on being Ned Stark's bastard. Putting a leader of the war in a severe identity crisis during a war seems unwise.

2. The incest thing may potentially cause severe heartache for both Jon and Dany, who are both pivotal at this stage.

3. Jon's rival claim to the Iron Throne can cause severe mistrust with Dany (as opposed to the deep trust he seems to have now) and that cannot make sense at the highest levels of your command structure.

So why does Bran "have to" drop this truth at this point? Why not maintain silence until the threat is dealt with? Whatever Jon's concerns about his mother's identity may be, for now he is in a stable state of mind and focused on the issue at hand. Which is what is needed. 

FYI, there is an interview here with Issac Hempstead-Wright (the actor who plays Bran) basically answering your questions.  http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08/30/game-of-thrones-bran-answers-9-burning-questions-from-night-king-theories-to-jon-snow-plans

In short, the actor, as do I, think it is somewhat connected to Bran being aware of Dany and Jon's developing relationship and wanting to put a stop to it before it goes further, as well as Bran being shaken out of his obsession with the Night King by this piece of crucial information regarding his "brother" and the Iron Throne.  

[Hajk1984]

6 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

Because he's fucking his auntie and Starks don't think that is A-OK.

They haven't shown that Bran knows this. But even this seems like a minor concern compared to the bigger threat right now. Also Bran could block this by telling him that his mother was a bastard daughter of Aerys etc. I'm not sure on how Tsarks view avunculate marriage. It certainly existed in medieval aristocracy. I think there are old examples in the history of the Starks as well. But Bran seems to think that telling him that he's the heir to the Iron Throne is also important for some reason.

[Hajk1984]

27 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

FYI, there is an interview here with Issac Hempstead-Wright (the actor who plays Bran) basically answering your questions.  http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08/30/game-of-thrones-bran-answers-9-burning-questions-from-night-king-theories-to-jon-snow-plans

In short, the actor, as do I, think it is somewhat connected to Bran being aware of Dany and Jon's developing relationship and wanting to put a stop to it before it goes further, as well as Bran being shaken out of his obsession with the Night King by this piece of crucial information regarding his "brother" and the Iron Throne.  

Hmmm... Thank you. That was interesting. In that case I suspect he is already too late. He says he recognizes that their alliance is essential but it can break up if Daenerys sees Jon as a threat. Interestingly enough, I've been arguing that that is precisely a reason to stay shut on it. As far as not allowing their relationship to go too far, he may have already missed the boat on that one. I wonder what his calculus will be with updated info.

Of course it isn't clear to me how telling Jon can help prevent Daenerys seeing him as a threat to her. To do that it may be better to never reveal it (unless he thinks Jon will keep a lid on it, which seems like a bad bet). It isn't clear why his legitimacy would be needed to just block the incestuous relationship. Bran already knows that Jon is Rhaegar's son before Sam shows up and he doesn't seem to care much about hurrying to tell him that (and that would be the core point if he just wanted to block the Jon/Dany relationship). Sam doesn't prove that Rhaegar is his father, but that Jon is a legit IT claimant.

[Tucu]

11 minutes ago, Hajk1984 said:

They haven't shown that Bran knows this. But even this seems like a minor concern compared to the bigger threat right now. Also Bran could block this by telling him that his mother was a bastard daughter of Aerys etc. I'm not sure on how Tsarks view avunculate marriage. It certainly existed in medieval aristocracy. I think there are old examples in the history of the Starks as well. But Bran seems to think that telling him that he's the heir to the Iron Throne is also important for some reason.

There are a couple of uncle-niece marriages in the Stark lineage in TWOIAF book. It also mentions that is was common among Valyrian dragonlords.

[Hajk1984]

9 minutes ago, Tucu said:

There are a couple of uncle-niece marriages in the Stark lineage in TWOIAF book. It also mentions that is was common among Valyrian dragonlords.

Do we have any indication of how the current Starks view this sort of stuff? The Valyrians were even ok with sibling marriage so this isn't surprising for them.

[falcotron]

30 minutes ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

Because he's fucking his auntie and Starks don't think that is A-OK.

Sure they do. It's pretty clear that in Westeros, just as in medieval Christian Europe, incest is taboo, but incest only means fucking your siblings or children.

Of course you, as a 21st century American, have different taboos than Westerosi, so you think of an aunt or a first cousin as incest. But that doesn't mean the Starks do—as evidenced by Ned's own parents being cousins, and plenty of other examples in the family trees. Insisting otherwise is like insisting that Drogo would be squicked out by the idea of drinking horse milk.

 

[Tucu]

10 minutes ago, Hajk1984 said:

Do we have any indication of how the current Starks view this sort of stuff? The Valyrians were even ok with sibling marriage so this isn't surprising for them.

We only have that. But it was relatively recent. It was 2 and 3 generations after Cregan Stark, so probably around 200 AC

[falcotron]

14 minutes ago, Hajk1984 said:

Do we have any indication of how the current Starks view this sort of stuff? The Valyrians were even ok with sibling marriage so this isn't surprising for them.

Does Ned ever seem bothered that his parents were cousins, or that his mentor's first wife was a cousin? Do any of the Starks find the idea of Tywin marrying his cousin even remotely disturbing, in contrast to the fact that they all find Jaime fucking his sister viscerally disgusting? They obviously view it the same way as everyone else in their culture: They have strong incest taboos, but they have the standard medieval-aristocracy definition of incest, not the 21st century one.

[snow is the man]

I think it will make him suddenly able to ride a dragon

[snow is the man]

5 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Does Ned ever seem bothered that his parents were cousins, or that his mentor's first wife was a cousin? Do any of the Starks find the idea of Tywin marrying his cousin even remotely disturbing, in contrast to the fact that they all find Jaime fucking his sister viscerally disgusting? They obviously view it the same way as everyone else in their culture: They have strong incest taboos, but they have the standard medieval-aristocracy definition of incest, not the 21st century one.

basically sister brother incest is bad and probably parent and child as well but everything else is no big deal to them.  I may be mistaken but I believe this line of thought was the same type that nobels from mid evil times were okay with

[falcotron]

11 minutes ago, snow is the man said:

basically sister brother incest is bad and probably parent and child as well but everything else is no big deal to them.  I may be mistaken but I believe this line of thought was the same type that nobels from mid evil times were okay with

Yes—and even long after the medieval era, up to the early 20th century or so.

I don't get why so many viewers have no trouble accepting Queen Victoria and her cousin Albert as a love story, but can't handle the same thing in a fantasy world. Do people really identify with the Starks that much more than the Windsors?

[LucyMormont]

1 hour ago, Hajk1984 said:

She will help in the war against the WW, after which Jon will help in her struggle for the IT. Why should Bran disturb this at this point?

The problem with this, is that Jon  pledged not just himself, but the whole North, without asking anybody's opinion, and that is something the northeners Lords might not be okey with. They will welcome the help against the WW in the moment they get to see the first one of them, but that does not mean that they'll accept Dany as their Queen, or having to eventually go south to fight Cersei. An alliance is a very different thing than giving up the North independency, so to speak. We know as fact, that Sansa wasn't happy at all when she read Jon's scroll about this, and didn't consider the idea of  "unnaming"a "named" king out of the possibilities. 

[Hajk1984]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Does Ned ever seem bothered that his parents were cousins, or that his mentor's first wife was a cousin? Do any of the Starks find the idea of Tywin marrying his cousin even remotely disturbing, in contrast to the fact that they all find Jaime fucking his sister viscerally disgusting? They obviously view it the same way as everyone else in their culture: They have strong incest taboos, but they have the standard medieval-aristocracy definition of incest, not the 21st century one.

No, but many societies will view cousin and avunculate marriage differently. For example, as far as I know, Islamic societies allow 1st cousin marriage but consider avunculate marriage taboo. I wonder if there are cultures where it's reversed.

[Hajk1984]

11 minutes ago, LucyMormont said:

The problem with this, is that Jon  pledged not just himself, but the whole North, without asking anybody's opinion, and that is something the northeners Lords might not be okey with. They will welcome the help against the WW in the moment they get to see the first one of them, but that does not mean that they'll accept Dany as their Queen, or having to eventually go south to fight Cersei. An alliance is a very different thing than giving up the North independency, so to speak. We know as fact, that Sansa wasn't happy at all when she read Jon's scroll about this, and didn't consider the idea of  "unnaming"a "named" king out of the possibilities. 

I don't think anything Sansa did at that point can be taken at face value. She may be serious, or playing Littlefinger. Given how the issue simply vanished once Baelish was disposed of, I incline towards the later. But the question is, how in the world would bran telling Jon that he is Rhaegar's legitimate son and an Iron Throne heir help with any of this? This problem stands whoever Jon is. How would telling him solve it?

I'm not clear on the rules for this. It seems that the high lords do have the right to bend the knee on behalf of their people in general. Jon's case is a bit unusual since he (at least in the show--in the books Robb writes a willin which he name Jon as heir to the King in the North title) is sort of 'elected' to office.

[falcotron]

32 minutes ago, LucyMormont said:

The problem with this, is that Jon  pledged not just himself, but the whole North, without asking anybody's opinion

Well, that is kind of the point of having a king (or even a representative democracy).

But yeah, he was sure his men wouldn't accept it two weeks earlier, and now he's sure they will accept it, and he doesn't have any new information to give them except "Trust me because I've seen what she's like and she's good", which isn't the kind of thing people generally just accept even when it's not being said about the woman you've just started sleeping with, so…

[Yukle]

5 hours ago, Hajk1984 said:

The incest thing may potentially cause severe heartache for both Jon and Dany, who are both pivotal at this stage.

The incest thing is what led to the Targaryens having a long history of mental illness. It's imperative that they find out now rather than have another child who could be completely insane.

[falcotron]

25 minutes ago, Hajk1984 said:

I'm not clear on the rules for this. It seems that the high lords do have the right to bend the knee on behalf of their people in general. Jon's case is a bit unusual since he (at least in the show--in the books Robb writes a willin which he name Jon as heir to the King in the North title) is sort of 'elected' to office.

Well, there really aren't any clear rules. When there are as few precedents as there are here, especially when they're almost all by definition before the current form of the state even existed, they're pretty much all special cases.

Whether the Lords accept Jon bending the knee or not won't come down to asking the Maester to dig through the rules and figure out what the law saws, it'll depend on whether they agree with his reasons, whether they have a plausible pretender to replace him with, whether they think they can get away with it, whether it's worth fighting over when the dead are already in the North, etc.

ETA: At any rate, we don't have to guess whether it could be a problem. Both Jon and Davos were sure there was a big risk. Either nothing's changed, so there's still a big risk, or people know that HOLY SHIT THE DEAD ARE THROUGH THE WALL WHO CARES WHO THE KING IS NOW, so it's not even worth discussing.

[WSmith84]

2 hours ago, falcotron said:

Sure they do. It's pretty clear that in Westeros, just as in medieval Christian Europe, incest is taboo, but incest only means fucking your siblings or children.

Of course you, as a 21st century American, have different taboos than Westerosi, so you think of an aunt or a first cousin as incest. But that doesn't mean the Starks do—as evidenced by Ned's own parents being cousins, and plenty of other examples in the family trees. Insisting otherwise is like insisting that Drogo would be squicked out by the idea of drinking horse milk.

 

The only thing that makes me think that they might not be OK with it (in the show) is that the show characters sometimes have some very modern views when it comes to certain things. For instance, very few people in the show seem to care about lines of succession (anymore). I'm sure they will once Jon is revealed to be Rhaegar's heir, but no one seems to have batted an eyelid even though Cersei's on the throne.

[Hajk1984]

42 minutes ago, Yukle said:

The incest thing is what led to the Targaryens having a long history of mental illness. It's imperative that they find out now rather than have another child who could be completely insane.

Even then, in the larger scheme, that seems worth risking rather than jeopardize an alliance that is essential to the survival of the world. Moreover, its not like they all went mad. 

 

13 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

The only thing that makes me think that they might not be OK with it (in the show) is that the show characters sometimes have some very modern views when it comes to certain things. For instance, very few people in the show seem to care about lines of succession (anymore). I'm sure they will once Jon is revealed to be Rhaegar's heir, but no one seems to have batted an eyelid even though Cersei's on the throne.

Where else should that succession have gone? She's the last king's closest living relative. No children or even siblings of Tommen exist. The Baratheon house, to which he supposedly belonged has gone extinct.