Lyanna's winter rose crown

[White Ravens]

I always assumed that the winter rose was a hellebore flower which is often referred to as a winter rose.  Hellebores don't grow in true winter conditions but they are one of the very earliest flowers to appear in the spring.   I live in a mild Canadian city and my wife has grown hellebores that were in bloom as early as January.

[WSmith84]

3 hours ago, Lord Highland said:

Is it possible that the winter rose became her favorite flower after and because of the tourney? Is there any evidence she liked them before it?

I was about to suggest the same. That seems to be the most likely option, unless the text says otherwise.

[purple-eyes]

7 hours ago, Ralphis Baratheon said:

My theory is that Robert Baratheon went to great lengths to make Lyanna that Crown of winter roses(Ned would have told him she loved them) and he was going to gift it to Lyanna before she departed from the tourney. Rhaegar overheard Robert telling Ned about his gift then went into Robert's tent and stole it. The rest as they say is history.

As far as we know, Robert only joined melee. Garland is only the prize for jousting.  

[Ralphis Baratheon]

5 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

As far as we know, Robert only joined melee. Garland is only the prize for jousting.

I feel like Bob would have bucked tradition and given it to her after the melee anyway since he made it. If he didn't win then he would have just given her the rose crow in private for she would become the Queen of his heart.

[The Fattest Leech]

3 hours ago, White Ravens said:

I always assumed that the winter rose was a hellebore flower which is often referred to as a winter rose.  Hellebores don't grow in true winter conditions but they are one of the very earliest flowers to appear in the spring.   I live in a mild Canadian city and my wife has grown hellebores that were in bloom as early as January.

I was just coming here to say almost this same thing. I too think it might actually be hellebore the "winter rose".

A few extra notes on hellebore...

Here is a pic of a blue hellebore.

Many species are poisonous. This is another reason why I do not think the blue rose in a chink of ice in Dany's vision is meant to be a sign of marriage. It seems more of a warning to her to avoid it.

Despite names such as "winter rose", "Christmas rose" and "Lenten rose", hellebores are not closely related to the rose family.

The sepals do not fall as petals would, but remain on the plant, sometimes for many months. This would maybe explain why the garland was still intact, even though black, later in Ned's fever dream.

They are particularly valued by gardeners for their winter and early spring flowering period; the plants are surprisingly frost-resistant and many are evergreen. This could play in to the many green god symbols we have in the story- green men, green children, green hands, etc. Also, the tourney at Harrenhal was in the false spring, and these flowers bloom in spring. 

And if anyone here has read GRRM's story Bitterblooms, then you will see how he uses this same type of flower in that story, even down to blooming in winter and being worn in the girl's hair. And the title Bitterblooms kinda makes me think of how George says the ending to ASOIAF will be bittersweet.

But, it could be nothing. I dunno.

[The Twinslayer]

19 hours ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

Rhaegar Targaryen crowned Lyanna as Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of Harrenhal and the flower crown was made with winter roses, her favourite flower.

Winter roses are said to be very rare and, as the name implies, only grow in the winter.

How did the people who organised the tourney have time to not only find winter roses, but also make them into a crown for the Queen of Love and Beauty? We know Rhaegar was an okay jouster, but he won the biggest joust in the series, where he crowns Lyanna Queen of Love and Beauty and it just happens to be her favourite flower.

Seems a little bit too convenient.

Did Rhaegar set this up? Did he and/or someone else pay the other jousters to let him win so he could specifically win for Lyanna?

It has to be a coincidence.  The Whent lady reigned as queen of beauty until the final joust.  Rhaegar took her crown and gave it to Lyanna.  The flowers in that crown have no special significance for Lyanna.

18 hours ago, Romaine3 said:

Rhaegar was better than fair at jousting. I was looking through tournament results not to long ago to develop a theory about Ser Barristan Selmy... The only two knights that really ever beat Rhaegar were Selmy (who lost in the finals to Rhaegar at Harrenhall) and Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning.

Ser Barristan had defeated Rhaegar recently, so it is possible that he may have held back at Harrenhall. But he has never flat out said he threw the match either.

Keep thinking about this.  Barristan says if he had been a better knight, he would have won the joust against Rhaegar.  Elsewhere he says that prowess at arms does not make a good knight, honor does.

We also see in The Mystery Knight an attempt to rig an important tourney.  

Perhaps Rhaegar rigged the tourney at Harrenhal to make himself look better than he was.

[Sigella]

On 2017-09-03 at 5:56 PM, kissdbyfire said:

My point was more to do w/ blue winter roses being more of a northern thing, and therefore not so readily available in the south. That's just conjecture, though, since we are not specifically told that. 

Ok I get that it might be a northern thing.

But that aside I think the rarity (= value) of the flower works well with the overly extravagant theme the Harrenhall tourney went for. Remember people even gossiped about how House Whent (or was it Lothston?) could afford it.

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Sigella said:

Ok I get that it might be a northern thing.

But that aside I think the rarity (= value) of the flower works well with the overly extravagant theme the Harrenhall tourney went for. Remember people even gossiped about how House Whent (or was it Lothston?) could afford it.

Yup, I agree w/ that. (Whent).

 

[TMIFairy]

An interesting theory I've seen somewhere - I  cannot remember where - was that the Harrenhall joust was "fixed".

The Kings Guard were deliberately drawn up against the strongest opponents, all the 1st class fighters being put in "ladders" leading to their mutual elimination and then making them face a KG. Thus allowing Rheagar to progress to the Quarter Finals versus 2nd and 3rd string opposition. And then the KG threw their jousts to Rheagar to make him look good and score PR points.

 

[LindsayLohan]

I've always been under the impression Selmy threw the final to Rhaegar.

[Sigella]

19 hours ago, White Ravens said:

I always assumed that the winter rose was a hellebore flower which is often referred to as a winter rose.  Hellebores don't grow in true winter conditions but they are one of the very earliest flowers to appear in the spring.   I live in a mild Canadian city and my wife has grown hellebores that were in bloom as early as January.

Haha, where I live there are insane amounts of : https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blåsippa literally everywhere in spring, they bloom before the grass starts growing so they turn the ground shimmery blue - and I've always associated the winter roses with them.  

[White Ravens]

1 hour ago, LindsayLohan said:

I've always been under the impression Selmy threw the final to Rhaegar.

That might be a refreshing reveal.  As the story stands so far Rhaegar was an incredibly beautiful man who was bookish and scholarly in his youth.  He was very intelligent and well educated, he wrote beautiful poetry, he performed exquisite songs on his silver-stringed high harp and attracted loyalty wherever he went.  Although uninterested in combat and the martial arts in his youth he happens upon something in his books that makes him decide that he must become a warrior and then exceeds in all of the skills necessary to reach that goal.  I would love to learn that Mr. Perfect isn't perfect after all. (And I have a strong feeling that GRRM will grant me my wish)

[White Ravens]

1 hour ago, Sigella said:

Haha, where I live there are insane amounts of : https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blåsippa literally everywhere in spring, they bloom before the grass starts growing so they turn the ground shimmery blue - and I've always associated the winter roses with them.  

I can see that.  The anemone hepatica in your link grows early in the season when snow is on the ground so winter rose is a good name for it too.

[LindsayLohan]

59 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

That might be a refreshing reveal.  As the story stands so far Rhaegar was an incredibly beautiful man who was bookish and scholarly in his youth.  He was very intelligent and well educated, he wrote beautiful poetry, he performed exquisite songs on his silver-stringed high harp and attracted loyalty wherever he went.  Although uninterested in combat and the martial arts in his youth he happens upon something in his books that makes him decide that he must become a warrior and then exceeds in all of the skills necessary to reach that goal.  I would love to learn that Mr. Perfect isn't perfect after all. (And I have a strong feeling that GRRM will grant me my wish)

One thing about Selmy's recollections of Harrenhall is that he doesn't consider Robert's Rebellion as the most serious consequence.  Having been through so many wars, and being largely apolotical himself (he didn't attend Small Council meetings as Lord Commander), I wonder if he only views wars as events he took part of, and not considering his place in them.

For Selmy, the negative outcome of losing to Rhaegar wasn't a gigantic generational war that wiped out the entire royal family, it was the death of Ashara Dayne.  He doesn't feel the ego part of losing the tournament, nor regret for the war it spawned, but instead how the event pushed Ashara Dayne towards a Stark.

He's a unique, cool guy, with an interesting perspective. 

[TMIFairy]

35 minutes ago, LindsayLohan said:

He's a unique, cool guy, with an interesting perspective. 

The more I learn about Selmy, the more he makes Ser Jaime look like a thinker of Plato's or Aristoteles' calibre.

[White Ravens]

2 hours ago, Sigella said:

Ok I get that it might be a northern thing.

But that aside I think the rarity (= value) of the flower works well with the overly extravagant theme the Harrenhall tourney went for. Remember people even gossiped about how House Whent (or was it Lothston?) could afford it.

Indeed.  There are some who suspect that the tourney was funded by Rhaegar and that he wanted it to be extravagant so that he could attract as many Lords as possible to the event because he was secretly planning to call a Great Council so that he could overthrow his batshit crazy old dad.  If so, his plans came to naught. 

[LindsayLohan]

22 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

The more I learn about Selmy, the more he makes Ser Jaime look like a thinker of Plato's or Aristoteles' calibre.

Selmy doesn't try to be anything other than who he is.  He even tells Dany that at his core, he's just a simple soldier.  Jaime IS a thinker, although his relationships with his family cloud his judgement. 

[White Ravens]

36 minutes ago, LindsayLohan said:

One thing about Selmy's recollections of Harrenhall is that he doesn't consider Robert's Rebellion as the most serious consequence.  Having been through so many wars, and being largely apolotical himself (he didn't attend Small Council meetings as Lord Commander), I wonder if he only views wars as events he took part of, and not considering his place in them.

For Selmy, the negative outcome of losing to Rhaegar wasn't a gigantic generational war that wiped out the entire royal family, it was the death of Ashara Dayne.  He doesn't feel the ego part of losing the tournament, nor regret for the war it spawned, but instead how the event pushed Ashara Dayne towards a Stark.

He's a unique, cool guy, with an interesting perspective. 

I like your take on Barristan Selmy.

[Sigella]

19 hours ago, White Ravens said:

Indeed.  There are some who suspect that the tourney was funded by Rhaegar and that he wanted it to be extravagant so that he could attract as many Lords as possible to the event because he was secretly planning to call a Great Council so that he could overthrow his batshit crazy old dad.  If so, his plans came to naught. 

Yes, batshit-dad crashed it

Wish we knew more of Rhaegar as a politican though. Right now it could be either or. But it be fun to know.

[The Twinslayer]

On 9/4/2017 at 1:41 PM, TMIFairy said:

An interesting theory I've seen somewhere - I  cannot remember where - was that the Harrenhall joust was "fixed".

The Kings Guard were deliberately drawn up against the strongest opponents, all the 1st class fighters being put in "ladders" leading to their mutual elimination and then making them face a KG. Thus allowing Rheagar to progress to the Quarter Finals versus 2nd and 3rd string opposition. And then the KG threw their jousts to Rheagar to make him look good and score PR points.

 

 

On 9/4/2017 at 1:51 PM, LindsayLohan said:

I've always been under the impression Selmy threw the final to Rhaegar.

I think Selmy pretty much admits that he threw the final tilt to let Rhaegar win the tournament.

In AGOT, Ned tells us that in an earlier round, Rhaegar unhorsed Brandon.  I have sometimes wondered whether Brandon was part of the conspiracy and if he let Rhaegar win, too.

That would give Brandon added reason to be angry at Rhaegar for first crowning Lyanna queen of beauty and later abducting her.  "I let you win the tournament and you repay me by using that victory  as a means to insult my house and try to seduce my sister?"