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Jon & Dany, true identities ***UPDATING***


AlaskanSandman

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                                                      ***** UNDER CONSTRUCTION********

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  "Remember who you are, Daenerys, ... The dragons know. Do you?"-Quiathe-A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X  

 

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What do you want of me, Quaithe?"

Moonlight shone in the woman's eyes. "To show you the way."                                           ADWD-Daenerys II

 

Daenyery Targaryen, daughter of Ashara Dayne. Jon Snow, son of Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Ashara Dayne- Paramore to Rhaegar Targaryen, or Victim of Aerys Targaryen?

  • The Dayne Heiress- Daenerys (homophone)           Daenerys- Ser Dayne (Anagram), possible tribute from Ashara to her fallen brother?
  • Daenerys looks like Naerys, wife of Aegon IV Unworthy, parents of Daenerys who wed Maron Martell and had many children. http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1463/
  • Could a member of House Dayne have married one of Daenerys's children as vassals often do?
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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"My brother was not the cause of this quarrel," Cersei told the king. "Lord Stark was returning drunk from a brothel. His men attacked Jaime and his guards, even as his wife attacked Tyrion on the kingsroad."
"You know me better than that, Robert," Ned said. "Ask Lord Baelish if you doubt me. He was there."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"… the dragon …"
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.
After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.

In this thread ill be constructing the events from the beginning along with clues littered through out the books that believe prove who their parents are and what may have happened up to them being hidden. 

 

_____Table of Contents_______

  • Jon & Dany 8-9 mo. apart, Jon born around Sack of K.L.
  • Does the first book support this idea of Dany being Ashara's?
  • Wouldn't Viserys know it wasn't his sister?
  • A Note on Paramours of Dorne, home of Elia Martell  & Ashara Dayne
  • The Dishonoring of Harrenhal and a case for Rhaegar
  • Ashara-Rhaegar over Eddard, Brandon, Jamie, or Baristan.
  • Aerys and a case for rape
  • Aerys and Maegor's secret passages.
  • Eddard and Ashara Dayne
  • Catelyn's tale. AGOT
  • Eddard's tale AGOT
  • Cersei's tale. AGOT
  • Edrics tale. ASOS
  • Barristan's tale. ADWD
  • .Lord Godric's Tale. ADWD
  • A Note on Hair and Eye Color
  • Discrepancies of Accounts
  • Flight from K.L.
  • The Storm of Dragonstone
  • Ser Willem Darry
  • My Lady-Little Princess
  • Lemon Tree and a Red Door
  • Dany and Visery robbed and put out
  • Viserys can't speak Valyrian but Dany can
  • Illyrio and Varys
  • A Quick Note on Traveling and time
  • A Time Line of Quotes
  1. The set up
  2. Rhaella and Ser Bonifer Hasty
  3. Aerys's many infidelities and failed births with Rhaella
  4. Rhaegar, prophecy obsessed, & Ashara as mother of 3rd kid?
  5. Rhaegar expected a daughter, Visenya?
  6. The False Spring & Tourney of Harrenhal- Late 281AC
  7. Kidnap & Start of Robert's Rebellion early 282AC
  8. Battle of Gulltown and the War begins-Mid 282AC
  9. Summerhall & Battle of Ashford mid to late 282AC
  10. The Siege of Storm's End- Late 282Ac
  11. Battle of the Bells- Early 283AC
  12. Cat Weds Ned, Lysa Weds Jon- Early283AC
  13. The Trident and The Sack of King's Landing- mid 283AC
  14. The Siege of Storms End lifted- Late 283AC
  15. The Tower of Joy- Late 283AC
  16. Starfall and Ashara Dayne- Early 284AC
  • Known Accounts from Dragonstone to present
  • The Quaithe- Ashara Dayne connection
  • Quaithe, Mirri, and Hatching Dragons
  • Dany, Dawn, Dorne, matriarchy & the Sword of the Morning.
  • Nissa Nissa the Sword of the Morning & Dany's role.
  • Basic Narrative and thoughts

_______________________________________________________

 

 

So lets begin to unravel this mystery and where it leads

 

___Jon & Dany 8-9 mo. apart, Jon born around Sack of K.L.____

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JULY 11, 1999

CHRONOLOGY

I'm trying to figure out how Jon's day of birth fits in the timeline of the war, and assumed you wouldn't just tell me when he was exactly born.:-)

In his first chapter at the Wall, Jon reflects that his name day passed a fortnight before. I assume this was his 15th one. Dany's 14th name day was at the end of her chapter, on the far side of the Dothraki sea.

Now, if this was after Jon's chapter -- and (apparent) name day, it could be concluded, that Jon was born more than 1 year before Dany, and at least 3 months before Queen Rhaella left King's Landing.

I will spare you the rest of my speculations about the date of Jon's birth, since their only real conclusion is that Catelyn seems a little thick when she thinks that Ned fathered Jon as he returned 'Dawn' to Ashara Dayne.

Ah... I see what you're driving at here, I guess...

I will confess, the chronology of these books sometimes gives me fits. You would not believe how often I reshuffle the chapters, trying to find the one true perfect sequence. And then just when I have it exactly right, my editors weigh in from both sides of the Atlantic, each suggesting a slightly different chapter order.

It is always a balancing act, since I want the chapters to have a certain dramatic flow, I worry about certain storylines being forgotten if they are "off stage" too long, and there is a constant tug of war between character time and reader time (a character may have two chapters, taking place one day apart, but if two hundred pages of stuff about other characters separate those two chapters, the reader is going to perceive a long time as having passed, even if I begin the second chapter with, "When he woke up the very next morning..."

All of which is a long winded way of saying, no, Jon was not born "more than 1 year" before Dany... probably closer to eight or nine months or thereabouts.

I do intend to publish a timeline as an appendix in one or other of the later volumes, but even when I do, I am not certain I'm going to start detailing things down to months and days. With such a huge cast of characters, just keeping track of the =years= drives me half mad sometimes. Not to mention the colors of everybody's eyes.

As to your speculations about Catelyn and Ashara Dayne... sigh... needless to say, All Will Be Revealed in Good Time. I will give you this much, however; Ashara Dayne was not nailed to the floor in Starfall, as some of the fans who write me seem to assume. They have horses in Dorne too, you know. And boats (though not many of their own). As a matter of fact (a tiny tidbit from SOS), she was one of Princess Elia's lady companions in King's Landing, in the first few years after Elia married Rhaegar.

The rest I will save for the books.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1040/

 

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6.2.1. WHO ARE JON SNOW’S PARENTS?

The question of Jon Snow’s parentage is a complex one. In this article, we propose to tackle it by laying out what facts we know of his birth and its timing in relation to the war and then surveying the potential parents in terms of where they were likely to be at the time of his conception. We will then focus on the possible pairings to see which are the likeliest. This article will make heavy reference to the FAQ entry on Robert’s Rebellion:

We know from this e-mail that Jon’s birth is 8-9 months prior to Daenerys’s, and that Daenerys is born almost precisely 9 months after the death of Rhaegar and the Sack of King’s Landing (I: 25). This would place Jon’s birth within one month, give or take, of the Sack. As we know the war lasts “close” to a year which is often just referred to as a “year” (I: 96, 233), suggesting 10-11 months is likelier than 9 months. Given this, his conception seems to have been between 1-3 months into the war. Interestingly, this contradicts suggestions from Catelyn and Ned that Jon was concieved some time after Robb’s conception (in itself an event taking place several months into the war), so either GRRM is mistaken or he has accidentally clarified a piece of information which was intended to be obfuscated in the series (I: 54, 92). Our own view is that the latter is the case, as GRRM is rather precise about the relative birthdates in a way that seems too absolute to be a random error.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/FAQ/Entry/Who_are_Jon_Snows_parents

 

__Does the first book support this idea of Dany being Ashara's? Yes.__

Spoiler

AGOT

*Lyanna & Rhaegar banging in a tower

*Eddard super honorable

*Eddard brings Jon home from the south

*Jon told he is definitely a Stark

*Robert killing Targ babies

*Eddard not ok with killing Targ babies

.........R+L=J.    Literally laid out in the first book. 

*Brandon died days before he was to wed cat. Cat wed's Eddard a year later, Rob born that same year= Brandon died to early to father Jon or Dany

*Eddard again super honorable

*Eddard not ok with killing Targ babies

*Eddard accused of Ashara's death by killing her brother and stealing her child. 

*Jon is the child Eddard got from Tower of Joy and child of R+L.

*Eddard's instant response is that he doesn't kill babies, then warns Cersei to get her children to safety, tipping his hand and getting him killed.

*Eddard took a child from Ashara that was not Jon.

Literally everything is laid out in the first books.

_____Wouldn't Viserys know it wasn't his sister?_________
 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Her brother hung the gown beside the door. "Illyrio will send the slaves to bathe you. Be sure you wash off the stink of the stables. Khal Drogo has a thousand horses, tonight he looks for a different sort of mount." He studied her critically. "You still slouch. Straighten yourself." He pushed back her shoulders with his hands. "Let them see that you have a woman's shape now." His fingers brushed lightly over her budding breasts and tightened on a nipple. "You will not fail me tonight. If you do, it will go hard for you. You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" His fingers twisted her, the pinch cruelly hard through the rough fabric of her tunic. "Do you?" he repeated.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

"She is a vision, Your Grace, a vision," he told her brother. "Drogo will be enraptured."
"She's too skinny," Viserys said. His hair, the same silver-blond as hers, had been pulled back tightly behind his head and fastened with a dragonbone brooch. It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face. He rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that Illyrio had lent him, and said, "Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?"
"She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal," Illyrio told him, not for the first time. "Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes … she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt … and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo."
When he released her hand, Daenerys found herself trembling.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

"A gift from the Magister Illyrio," Viserys said, smiling. Her brother was in a high mood tonight. "The color will bring out the violet in your eyes. And you shall have gold as well, and jewels of all sorts. Illyrio has promised. Tonight you must look like a princess."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

"Oh, yes," Viserys said darkly. "He has tried, Illyrio, I promise you that. His hired knives follow us everywhere. I am the last dragon, and he will not sleep easy while I live."

Viserys may not know about the switch as he blames Dany for Rhaella's death. Though some of the other passages do seem suspicious, especially with Illyrio reassuring Viserys that she looks like she has the blood of Old Valyria. It almost seems as though Illyrio were trying to help convince Viserys that she looked the part. The part.... keep in mind that Illyrio is amigos with Varys the mummer. The same two we know later may well be planting a fake Aegon.

The switch may have happened on dragon stone in the nursery where one guard is grabbing Dany while Viserys is being grabbed from a different area of the Castle. So Viserys may not be aware that his true sister died and that the child grabbed was not his sister.

Or Viserys does know. The Marriage Pact makes no mention of Dany and the above quotes do look suspicious.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"She warned you?" Selmy frowned. "Why are you still here?"
Prince Quentyn flushed. "The marriage pact—"
"—was made by two dead men and contained not a word about the queen or you. It promised your sister's hand to the queen's brother, another dead man. It has no force. Until you turned up here, Her Grace was ignorant of its existence. Your father keeps his secrets well, Prince Quentyn. Too well, I fear. If the queen had known of this pact in Qarth, she might never have turned aside for Slaver's Bay, but you came too late. I have no wish to salt your wounds, but Her Grace has a new husband and an old paramour, and seems to prefer the both of them to you."
 
 

___A Note on Paramours of Dorne, home of Elia Martell  & Ashara Dayne___

Spoiler
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AUGUST 29, 2002

CONJOSE (SAN JOSE, CA; AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 2)

A few questions I asked for Ran and a few I asked myself.

Can any noble have a paramour regardless of gender, rank, or marital status? For example, an unwed young heiress having a paramour. 
No comment.

Could each partner in a marriage have their own paramour? 
Yes, but it would depend on the rank of the partners.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/1285

 

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Scifi.com Chat, December 2000:
Moderator: Elio> to <Moderator>: Hi, GRRM.  Ser Arthur Dayne is an evocative figure, both to characters in the books and to the readers. But ... after seeing that Barristan the Bold's illustrious career spans more than half a century, how is it that Dayne is so famed and well-regarded? He couldn't have been much older than his mid-20's when he died. 
GRRM: As for Arthur Dayne... well, you'll learn more of him in future books, but part of the mystique was certainly the sword he carried, which had an illustrious history of its own.

Moderator: <Linda> to <Moderator>: A couple of times in the books, the word "paramour" is used in connection with the Dornishmen (Lord Yronwood's paramour and Ellaria Sand), but no one else. Is that meant to connote customs and habits peculiar to the Dornish, or is it simply coincidence? 
GRRM: Dornish customs and habits. The Rhoynar influence. A Dornishman's paramour has a certain status, below that of a wife but not insignifcant



Read more: http://thelasthearth.com/thread/366?page=3#ixzz4tUdygXg8

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion V

He raised a slender hand toward a black-haired woman to the rear, beckoning her forward. "And this is Ellaria Sand, mine own paramour."

Tyrion swallowed a groan. His paramour, and bastard-born, Cersei will pitch a holy fit if he wants her at the wedding. If she consigned the woman to some dark corner below the salt, his sister would risk the Red Viper's wrath. Seat her beside him at the high table, and every other lady on the dais was like to take offense. Did Prince Doran mean to provoke a quarrel?

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion V

He knew the man only by reputation, to be sure . . . but the reputation was fearsome. When he was no more than sixteen, Prince Oberyn had been found abed with the paramour of old Lord Yronwood, a huge man of fierce repute and short temper.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion V

"I will make certain to keep my pouch full of pennies. Even a prince must pay his taxes."
"Why should you need to go whoring?" He glanced back to where Ellaria Sand rode among the other women. "Did you tire of your paramour on the road?"
"Never. We share too much." Prince Oberyn shrugged. "We have never shared a beautiful blonde woman, however, and Ellaria is curious. Do you know of such a creature?"
 
 
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A Storm of Swords - Sansa IV

As they were crossing the yard, Prince Oberyn of Dorne fell in beside them, his black-haired paramour on his arm. Sansa glanced at the woman curiously. She was baseborn and unwed, and had borne two bastard daughters for the prince, but she did not fear to look even the queen in the eye. Shae had told her that this Ellaria worshiped some Lysene love goddess. "She was almost a whore when he found her, m'lady," her maid confided, "and now she's near a princess." Sansa had never been this close to the Dornishwoman before. She is not truly beautiful, she thought, but something about her draws the eye.
 
 
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A Feast for Crows - The Soiled Knight

"I swore a vow . . ."
". . . not to wed or father children. Well, I have drunk my moon tea, and you know I cannot marry you." She smiled. "Though I might be persuaded to keep you for my paramour."
"Now you mock me."

"Perhaps a little. Do you think you are the only Kingsguard who ever loved a woman?"

"There have always been men who found it easier to speak vows than to keep them," he admitted. Ser Boros Blount was no stranger to the Street of Silk, and Ser Preston Greenfield used to call at a certain draper's house whenever the draper was away, but Arys would not shame his Sworn Brothers by speaking of their failings. "Ser Terrence Toyne was found abed with his king's mistress," he said instead. "'Twas love, he swore, but it cost his life and hers, and brought about the downfall of his House and the death of the noblest knight who ever lived."------

-------

"I never had the honor to know Prince Lewyn," Ser Arys said, "but all agree that he was a great knight."
"A great knight with a paramour. She is an old woman now, but she was a rare beauty in her youth, men say."
Prince Lewyn? That tale Ser Arys had not heard. It shocked him. Terrence Toyne's treason and the deceits of Lucamore the Lusty were recorded in the White Book, but there was no hint of a woman on Prince Lewyn's page.

 

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A Feast for Crows - The Queenmaker

The Red Viper had been fostered at Sandstone, and Prince Oberyn's paramour Ellaria Sand was Lord Uller's natural daughter; four of the Sand Snakes were his granddaughters. I will crown Myrcella at the Hellholt and raise my banners there.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Merchant's Man

After Ynys had come the Drinkwater twins, a pair of tawny young maidens who loved hawking, hunting, climbing rocks, and making Quentyn blush. One of them had given him his first kiss, though he never knew which one. As daughters of a landed knight, the twins were too lowborn to marry, but Cletus did not think that was any reason to stop kissing them. "After you're wed you can take one of them for a paramour. Or both, why not?" But Quentyn thought of several reasons why not, so he had done his best to avoid the twins thereafter, and there had been no second kiss.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Discarded Knight

"—was made by two dead men and contained not a word about the queen or you. It promised your sister's hand to the queen's brother, another dead man. It has no force. Until you turned up here, Her Grace was ignorant of its existence. Your father keeps his secrets well, Prince Quentyn. Too well, I fear. If the queen had known of this pact in Qarth, she might never have turned aside for Slaver's Bay, but you came too late. I have no wish to salt your wounds, but Her Grace has a new husband and an old paramour, and seems to prefer the both of them to you."

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Discarded Knight

"So do others," suggested Gerris Drinkwater. "Naharis, for one. The queen's …"
"… paramour," Ser Barristan finished, before the Dornish knight could say anything that might besmirch the queen's honor. "That is what you call them down in Dorne, is it not?" He did not wait for a reply. "Prince Lewyn was my Sworn Brother. In those days there were few secrets amongst the Kingsguard. I know he kept a paramour. He did not feel there was any shame in that."
"No," said Quentyn, red-faced, "but …"
 
 
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A Dance with Dragons - The Dragontamer

The gibe stung. Quentyn had never felt so much a boy as when he'd stood before Daenerys Targaryen, pleading for her hand. The thought of bedding her terrified him almost as much as her dragons had. What if he could not please her? "Daenerys has a paramour," he said defensively. "My father did not send me here to amuse the queen in the bedchamber. You know why we have come."

 

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The Winds of Winter - Barristan I

"And if we come upon the captain?" asked the Widower.
Daario Naharis. "Give him a sword and follow him." Though Barristan Selmy had little love and less trust for the queen's paramour, he did not doubt his courage, nor his skill at arms. And if he should die heroically in battle, so much the better. "If there are no further questions, go back to your men and say a prayer to whatever god you believe in. Dawn will be on us soon."
"A red dawn," said Jokin of the Stormcrows.
 
 
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The Sworn Sword

"Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven's paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty. And once my sister Rhae put a love potion in my drink, so I'd marry her instead of my sister Daella."
So we can see that dispite Westeros custom and feelings, Dorne is openly accepting of Paramours. Even Dany takes a Paramour while in Mereen.

____The Dishonoring of Harrenhal and a case for Rhaegar_________

Spoiler
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"As you wish," said Whitebeard. "As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father's knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

 

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Dany pulled the lion pelt tighter about her shoulders. "Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late." She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. "If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl."

"Perhaps so, Your Grace." Whitebeard paused a moment. "But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy."

"You make him sound so sour," Dany protested.

"Not sour, no, but . . . there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense . . ." The old man hesitated again.

"Say it," she urged. "A sense . . . ?"

". . . of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days."

 

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"No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. "I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger."

 
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but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on.

Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise.The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire."He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

So we can clearly see that Rhaegar was definitely obsessed with prophecy

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"And if he does not fail? What will Your Grace do then?"

"Her duty." The word felt cold upon her tongue. "You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?"

The old knight hesitated. "Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her."

It may have been Elia who brought Ashara Dayne to court for Rhaegar. Hard to say.

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 His choice would have been a young maiden not long at court, one of Elia's companions …though compared to Ashara Dayne, the Dornish princess was a kitchen drab.

 

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haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …

But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost
  • So above i bring up Paramours as a relevant topic given both Ashara Dayne and Elia Martel are of Dorne. Dornish customs and what they find acceptable is greatly different. So it may be possible that Ashara Dayne was Rhaegars paramour and the Elia Martel was aware and ok with this. Lyanna Stark though disrupted everything as the new comer who stole Rhaegar away from both women. 
  • So when Rhaegar crowned Lyanna, he dishonored is paramour who was clearly in love him.
  • Barristan even thinks that if he had won he could've prevented her dishonor and her from turning to Stark.
  • Did Ashara turn to Eddard Stark, or Lyanna Stark?? Who started the story that Rhaegar "Kidnapped" Lyanna?
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GRRM on Rhaegar/Elia's relationship: "It's complicated." 

 

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Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.

 

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his fair lady (Ashara) had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well.

 

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Barristan- If I had unhorsed Rhaegar and crowned Ashara queen of love and beauty, might she have looked to me instead of Stark?
He would never know. But of all his failures, none haunted Barristan Selmy so much as that.

 

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stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead

 

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had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well

When Rhaegar returned to K.L. from the south, did he sleep with Ashara Dayne one last time before riding off to war? Around the same time as Aery's was supposedly raping Rhaella getting her pregnant as Jonothor Darry held vigil outside the doors with Jamie, then later died at the Trident with Rhaegar

___Ashara-Rhaegar over Eddard, Brandon, Jamie, or Baristan____

Spoiler

 

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

If he is cowed, he hides it well, Catelyn thought. "A man chained hand and foot should keep a more courteous tongue in his mouth, ser. I did not come here to be threatened."
"No? Then surely it was to have your pleasure of me? It's said that widows grow weary of their empty beds. We of the Kingsguard vow never to wed, but I suppose I could still service you if that's what you need. Pour us some of that wine and slip out of that gown and we'll see if I'm up to it."
Catelyn stared down at him in revulsion. Was there ever a man as beautiful or as vile as this one? "If you said that in my son's hearing, he would kill you for it."

 

Quote

The Winds of Winter - Arianne I

"Everyone says that Prince Rhaegar was beautiful. Was Viserys beautiful as well?"

 

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Cersei V
Seventeen and new to knighthood, Rhaegar Targaryen had worn black plate over golden ringmail when he cantered onto the lists. Long streamers of red and gold and orange silk had floated behind his helm, like flames. Two of her uncles fell before his lance, along with a dozen of her father's finest jousters, the flower of the west. By night the prince played his silver harp and made her weep. When she had been presented to him, Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy.The prince is going to be my husband, she had thought, giddy with excitement, and when the old king dies I'll be the queen. Her aunt had confided that truth to her before the tourney. "You must be especially beautiful," Lady Genna told her, fussing with her dress, "for at the final feast it shall be announced that you and Prince Rhaegar are betrothed."

Rhaegar was thee most desirable man.

____________Aerys and a case for rape________________________

Spoiler
Quote

Ser Barristan went on. "I saw your father and your mother wed as well. Forgive me, but there was no fondness there, and the realm paid dearly for that, my queen."

"Why did they wed if they did not love each other?"
"Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line."
"A woods witch?" Dany was astonished.
"She came to court with Jenny of Oldstones. A stunted thing, grotesque to look upon. A dwarf, most people said, though dear to Lady Jenny, who always claimed that she was one of the children of the forest."

 

Quote

Jaehaerys and Shaera would have two children, Aerys and Rhaella. On the word of Jenny of Oldstone's woods witch, Prince Jaehaerys determined to wedAerys to Rhaella, or so the accounts from his court tell us. King Aegon washed his hands of it in frustration, letting the prince have his way.

So here we can see that Aerys and Rhaella were forced to marry against their will or desires.

Would Rhaegar not being Aery's son change the outcome of the prophecy. A lil if true but still full fills it.

 

Ashara=Aerys      Rhaella=Bonifer Hasty

          I                               I

          I                           Rhaegar=Lyanna

          I                               I
       Dany       =            Jon
                       I
                   TPTWP
 
Rhaella had love affair with Bonifer ending with her marriage? Knocked up right before marriage? Close enough in time to Rhaegars birth the same year? 
 
or
 
             Aerys= Rhaella
                       I
  Ashara= Rhaegar=Lyanna
               I               I
            Dany   =   Jon
                        I
                   TPTWP
 
Rhaegar immitating Aegon the Conqueror by knocking up two women?
 
Or
 
 
               Aerys=Rhaella
                I                  I
 Lyanna=Rhaegar      I
             I                    I
           Jon ?    =     Dany?
                        I
                        ?

________________Rhaella and Ser Bonifer Hasty_________________
 

Quote

Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his lance for good and all.

 

Quote

"What happened to this knight?"
"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood."

Now Rhaella wed Aerys the same year that her and Bonifer stopped seeing each other. If these two mated near the time of the marriage, Rhaella would be able to pass Rhaegar off as Aerys's child.

 ___Aerys's many infidelities and failed births with Rhaella _________

Quote

"I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and … the rest."

"As you command." The white knight chose his words with care. "Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the … the liberties your father took during the bedding." His face reddened. "I have said too much, Your Grace. I—"

So aside from Rhaella having her feelings for Bonifer, it appears that Aerys had feelings for Joanna Lannister. In his fustrations he may have even raped Joanna later and father Tyrion on her (a topic really for another thread, but a funny what if in the next quote.

Quote

Sadly, the marriage between Aerys II Targaryen and his sister, Rhaella, was not as happy; though she turned a blind eye to most of the king's infidelities, the queen did not approve of his "turning my ladies into his whores." (Joanna Lannister was not the first lady to be dismissed abruptly from Her Grace's service, nor was she the last). Relations between the king and queen grew even more strained when Rhaella proved unable to give Aerys any further children. Miscarriages in 263 and 264 were followed by a stillborn daughter born in 267. Prince Daeron, born in 269, survived for only half a year. Then came another stillbirth in 270, another miscarriage in 271, and Prince Aegon, born two turns premature in 272, dead in 273.
 

The scurrilous rumor that Joanna Lannister gave up her maidenhead to Prince Aerys the night of his father's coronation and enjoyed a brief reign as his paramour after he ascended the Iron Throne can safely be discounted. As Pycelle insists in his letters, Tywin Lannister would scarce have taken his cousin to wife if that had been true, "for he was ever a proud man and not one accustomed to feasting upon another man's leavings."
 
It has been reliably reported, however, that King Aerys took unwonted liberties with Lady Joanna's person during her bedding ceremony, to Tywin's displeasure. Not long thereafter, Queen Rhaella dismissed Joanna Lannister from her service. No reason for this was ever given, but Lady Joanna departed at once for Casterly Rock and seldom visited King's Landing thereafter.
 
At first His Grace comforted Rhaella in her grief, but over time his compassion turned to suspicion. By 270 AC, he had decided that the queen was being unfaithful to him. "The gods will not suffer a bastard to sit the Iron Throne," he told his small council; none of Rhaella's stillbirths, miscarriages, or dead princes had been his, the king proclaimed. Thereafter, he forbade the queen to leave the confines of Maegor's Holdfast and decreed that two septas would henceforth share her bed every night, "to see that she remains true to her vows."
 
What Tywin Lannister made of this is not recorded, but in 266 AC, at Casterly Rock, Lady Joanna gave birth to a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, "healthy and beautiful, with hair like beaten gold." This birth only exacerbated the tension between Aerys II Targaryen and his Hand. "I appear to have married the wrong woman," His Grace was reported to have said, when informed of the happy event. Nonetheless, he sent each child its weight in gold as a nameday gift and commanded Tywin to bring them to court when they were old enough to travel. "And bring their mother, too, for it has been too long since I gazed upon that fair face," he insisted.
 
The march of the king's madness seemed to abate for a time in 274 AC, when Queen Rhaella gave birth to a son. So profound was His Grace's joy that it seemed to restore him to his old self once again...but Prince Jaehaerys died later that same year, plunging Aerys into despair. In his black rage, he decided the babe's wet nurse was to blame and had the woman beheaded. Not long after, in a change of heart, Aerys announced that Jaehaerys had been poisoned by his own mistress, the pretty young daughter of one of his household knights. The king had the girl and all her kin tortured to death. During the course of their torment, it is recorded, all confessed to the murder, though the details of their confessions were greatly at odds.

Afterward, King Aerys fasted for a fortnight and made a walk of repentance across the city to the Great Sept, to pray with the High Septon. On his return, His Grace announced that henceforth he would sleep only with his lawful wife, Queen Rhaella. If the chronicles can be believed, Aerys remained true to this vow, losing all interest in the charms of women from that day in 275 AC.

His Grace's new fidelity was apparently pleasing to the Mother Above, it must be said, for the following year, Queen Rhaella gave the king the second son that he had prayed for. Prince Viserys, born in 276 AC, was small but robust, and as beautiful a child as King's Landing had ever seen. Though Prince Rhaegar at seventeen was everything that could be wanted in an heir apparent, all Westeros rejoiced to know that at last he had a brother, another Targaryen to secure the succession.

  So clearly when Joanna mated with Tywin she had no problems birthing any healthy children. Though when potentially raped by Aerys produces a stunted twisted Tyrion with one green eye and one black eye, with silver gold hair.

A funny idea that Rhaegar who Aerys and every one though looked sooo Targaryen may have actually been Bonifer's. Aerys's only real legitimate son surviving being Viserys, small feverish man with eyes not even like Rhaegar's.

Also, clearly Aerys else wise is having problems having children with Rhaella repeatedly. 

Also, Doran Martell's mother was also a Lady in Waiting to Rhaella and may have been one of the women dismissed for Aerys having sex with them.

Quote

. Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth . . . even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."

Hence the possible Irony that Rhaegar may not actually be Aerys's child.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Jaime II

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. "You're hurting me," they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. "You're hurting me." In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted's screaming. "We are sworn to protect her as well," Jaime had finally been driven to say. "We are," Darry allowed, "but not from him."

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

So here we can see that Jamie never made visual confirmation that it was Rhaella in the room and just assumed, then backed his assumptions by the whispers he over heard of her hand maidens. Jamie never see's Rhaella leave either as the woman is hooded and cloaked, once again Jamie is unable to verify and just goes off assumptions. 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.

Now here, what Viserys recalls and what Jamie recalls are different. It may be that both are remembering correctly. That Rhaella and Viserys left at night on what sounds like a smugglers ship judging by the quote below. While some other woman hooded and cloaked left during the day. Some one wanted every one to think Rhaella left at a different time than when she secretly left.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Prologue

His little ship had a black hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish. Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

 

______Aerys and Maegor's secret passages________

Spoiler

So first lets point out the secret passages.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IV

His son Maegor the Cruel had seen it completed. Afterward he had taken the heads of every stonemason, woodworker, and builder who had labored on it. Only the blood of the dragon would ever know the secrets of the fortress the Dragonlords had built, he vowed.

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

The dungeon was under the Red Keep, deeper than he dared imagine. He remembered the old stories about Maegor the Cruel, who murdered all the masons who labored on his castle, so they might never reveal its secrets.

 

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion X

"I might be able to slip the child into your bedchamber unseen. Chataya's is not the only house to boast a hidden door."
"A secret access? To my chambers?" Tyrion was more annoyed than surprised. Why else would Maegor the Cruel have ordered death for all the builders who had worked on his castle, except to preserve such secrets? "Yes, I suppose there would be. Where will I find the door? In my solar? My bedchamber?"
"My friend, you would not force me to reveal all my little secrets, would you?"

So in this next quote, Varys confirms that there is indeed a secret passage in and out of Maegor Holdfast/ The Royal Apartments. He 'claims' they merely dont connect to any of the other tunnels. The tunnel from Maegor's Holdfast still has to have an entrance and exit, Vary just doesn't want to admit more about these passages than he has to. So it is quite possible for some one to get in and out of Rhaella's room with out Jamie knowing.

Further, Varys, the one who knows about these secret passages, was around in K.L. when Rhaella was being raped.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Tyrion II

Tyrion laughed as well. He was not so great a fool as to trust Varys any further than he had to—but the eunuch already knew enough about Shae to get her well and thoroughly hanged. "You will bring Shae to me through the walls, hidden from all these eyes. As you have done before."
Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but . . . King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning. He did require a means of secret egress, should he ever be trapped by his enemies, but that door does not connect with any other passages. I can steal your Shae away from Lady Lollys for a time, to be sure, but I have no way to bring her to your bedchamber without us being seen."

 

________Eddard and Ashara Dayne_________

Spoiler

Ned say's Jon's mother is Wylla and Edric and Allyria Dayne confirm that Ashara killed her self over this. So the official story from House Dayne and Eddard is that Eddard fell for Ashara at Harrenhal but broke Ashara's heart by fathering Jon on Wylla after he had married Catelyn. 

1. Catelyn's tale. AGOT

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

He did more than that. The Starks were not like other men. Ned brought his bastard home with him, and called him "son" for all the north to see. When the wars were over at last, and Catelyn rode to Winterfell, Jon and his wet nurse had already taken up residence.
That cut deep. Ned would not speak of the mother, not so much as a word, but a castle has no secrets, and Catelyn heard her maids repeating tales they heard from the lips of her husband's soldiers. They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys's Kingsguard, and of how their young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes. It had taken her a fortnight to marshal her courage, but finally, in bed one night, Catelyn had asked her husband the truth of it, asked him to his face.
That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. "Never ask me about Jon," he said, cold as ice. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady." She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne's name was never heard in Winterfell again.
 Whoever Jon's mother had been, Ned must have loved her fiercely, for nothing Catelyn said would persuade him to send the boy away.

2. Eddard's tale AGOT

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

"You were never the boy you were," Robert grumbled. "More's the pity. And yet there was that one time … what was her name, that common girl of yours? Becca? No, she was one of mine, gods love her, black hair and these sweet big eyes, you could drown in them. Yours was … Aleena? No. You told me once. Was it Merryl? You know the one I mean, your bastard's mother?"
"Her name was Wylla," Ned replied with cool courtesy, "and I would sooner not speak of her."
"Wylla. Yes." The king grinned. "She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like …"

Ned's mouth tightened in anger. "Nor will I. Leave it be, Robert, for the love you say you bear me. I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sight of gods and men."

"Gods have mercy, you scarcely knew Catelyn."
"I had taken her to wife. She was carrying my child."
"You are too hard on yourself, Ned. You always were. Damn it, no woman wants Baelor the Blessed in her bed." He slapped a hand on his knee. "Well, I'll not press you if you feel so strong about it, though I swear, at times you're so prickly you ought to take the hedgehog as your sigil."

3.Cersei's tale. AGOT

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

She slapped him.

"I shall wear that as a badge of honor," Ned said dryly.

"Honor," she spat. "How dare you play the noble lord with me! What do you take me for? You've a bastard of your own, I've seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"

"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow."

4. Edrics tale. ASOS

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"He's with the Night's Watch on the Wall." Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair . . . "Jon looks like me, even though he's bastard-born. He used to muss my hair and call me 'little sister.'" Arya missed Jon most of all. Just saying his name made her sad. "How do you know about Jon?"

"He is my milk brother."

"Brother?" Arya did not understand. "But you're from Dorne. How could you and Jon be blood?"

"Milk brothers. Not blood. My lady mother had no milk when I was little, so Wylla had to nurse me."

Arya was lost. "Who's Wylla?"

"Jon Snow's mother. He never told you? She's served us for years and years. Since before I was born."

"Jon never knew his mother. Not even her name." Arya gave Ned a wary look. "You know her? Truly?" Is he making mock of me? "If you lie I'll punch your face."

"Wylla was my wetnurse," he repeated solemnly. "I swear it on the honor of my House."

"You have a House?" That was stupid; he was a squire, of course he had a House. "Who are you?"

"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall."

-----

"The fault is mine, my lady." He was very polite.

Jon has a mother. Wylla, her name is Wylla. She would need to remember so she could tell him, the next time she saw him. She wondered if he would still call her "little sister." I'm not so little anymore. He'd have to call me something else. Maybe once she got to Riverrun she could write Jon a letter and tell him what Ned Dayne had said. "There was an Arthur Dayne," she remembered. "The one they called the Sword of the Morning."

"My father was Ser Arthur's elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born."

"Why would she do that?" said Arya, startled.

Ned looked wary. Maybe he was afraid that she was going to throw something at him. "Your lord father never spoke of her?" he said. "The Lady Ashara Dayne, of Starfall?"

"No. Did he know her?"

"Before Robert was king. She met your father and his brothers at Harrenhal, during the year of the false spring."

"Oh." Arya did not know what else to say. "Why did she jump in the sea, though?"

"Her heart was broken."

Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid. She couldn't say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. "Did someone break it?"

He hesitated. "Perhaps it's not my place . . ."

"Tell me."

He looked at her uncomfortably. "My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal—"

"That's not so. He loved my lady mother."

"I'm sure he did, my lady, but—"

"She was the only one he loved."

"He must have found that bastard under a cabbage leaf, then," Gendry said behind them.

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cat Of The Canals

He is a man of the Night's Watch, she thought, as he sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead. The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the Wall. When Dareon had first appeared at the Happy Port, Arya had almost asked if he would take her with him back to Eastwatch, until she heard him telling Bethany that he was never going back.

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

Arya was remembering the stableboy at King's Landing. After him there'd been that guard whose throat she cut at Harrenhal, and Ser Amory's men at that holdfast by the lake. She didn't know if Weese and Chiswyck counted, or the ones who'd died on account of the weasel soup . . . all of a sudden, she felt very sad. "My father was called Ned too," she said.
 
"I know. I saw him at the Hand's tourney. I wanted to go up and speak with him, but I couldn't think what to say." Ned shivered beneath his cloak, a sodden length of pale purple. "Were you at the tourney? I saw your sister there. Ser Loras Tyrell gave her a rose."
5. Barristan's tale. ADWD
Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

Rhaegar had chosen Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. Barristan Selmy would have made a different choice. Not the queen, who was not present. Nor Elia of Dorne, though she was good and gentle; had she been chosen, much war and woe might have been avoided. His choice would have been a young maiden not long at court, one of Elia's companions … though compared to Ashara Dayne, the Dornish princess was a kitchen drab.

Even after all these years, Ser Barristan could still recall Ashara's smile, the sound of her laughter. He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter

But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well. She died never knowing that Ser Barristan had loved her. How could she? He was a knight of the Kingsguard, sworn to celibacy. No good could have come from telling her his feelings. No good came from silence either. If I had unhorsed Rhaegar and crowned Ashara queen of love and beauty, might she have looked to me instead of Stark?

He would never know. But of all his failures, none haunted Barristan Selmy so much as that.

6.Lord Godric's Tale. ADWD

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

Candlelight gleamed in Lord Godric's black eyes. "If it were, you'd be in chains. It's the queen who rules."

Davos understood. He nurses doubts. He does not want to find himself upon the losing side. "Stannis held Storm's End against the Tyrells and the Redwynes. He took Dragonstone from the last Targaryens. He smashed the Iron Fleet off Fair Isle. This child king will not prevail against him."

"This child king commands the wealth of Casterly Rock and the power of Highgarden. He has the Boltons and the Freys." Lord Godric rubbed his chin. "Still … in this world only winter is certain. Ned Stark told my father that, here in this very hall."

"Ned Stark was here?"

"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gulltown stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true … but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.' "

"No more than I was," said Davos Seaworth.

Quote

Cat- Eddard and Ashara hooked up and had Jon

Cersei- Eddard killed Arthur and took Ashara's child, so she killed herself.

Edric-   Eddard broke Ashara's heart by fathering Jon on Wylla.

Barristan- Ashara killed herself over her still born child, and the man who dishonored her at Harrenhal. No mention or hate for Eddard. 

Ned- Claims he fathered Jon with Wylla after he was already married.

Lord Godric- Claims Ned got Jon on Fisher Man's daughter before Ned had wed Cat.

Ned say's it's Wylla and Edric and Allyria confirm that Ashara killed her self over this. So the official story from House Dayne and Eddard is that Eddard fell for Ashara at Harrenhal but broke Ashara's heart by fathering Jon on Wylla after he had married Catelyn. 

Ned is blatantly lying as Jon was born around summer of 283Ac and Eddard wed Cat no later than march of 283AC. Jon is not Eddard through cheating on Cat with Wylla. So why make up the lie and why is House Dayne telling the same story?

 IMO the truth is in those accounts, specifically Cersei's and Eddard's response to her. The onlyyyyy time we see how Eddard might feel regarding any of this.

What does Ned think? 

The children. Saving the children. That is literally all Eddard is about.

It's clear from the text that Eddard liked Ashara. It's clear Eddard was not happy about having to marry Cat to win the war. It's clear that Ashara was heart broken at Eddard killing her brother, whether it was self defense or not. 

Did she have a living child or stillborn child and when did she have it is more the questions to be asking IMO. especially given the Eddard/Cersei conversation.

Lets not forget Edric is named for Eddard. So why? If Jon's not hers. What did he do for House Dayne? He hid her child after her death or disappearance. It seems to me the only possibility left., based on similarities in the name combined with Edric's excitement at meeting Eddard at the Hands Tourney, though he never finds anything to say to him. Clearly House Dayne doesn't seem to harbor ill feelings and even seem to talk highly of Eddard as Edric was excited to meet the man who killed his uncle and supposedly broke Ashara's heart and cheated on her.

Combine in the song Arya hears that may be about Ashara, and we now have the missing piece from the puzzle. The man who dishonored her at Harrenhal that she killed herself over the loss of was a prince.

The only princes are the princes's of Dorne, and Prince Rhaegar.

The only two who died are Prince Rhaegar and Prince Lewyn Martell (who is known to have a mistress)

Lewyn kinda old though so i doubt him, but hey, could be i guess. 

Most likely option for man who dishonored her at Harrenhal and potential father of her kid by these accounts alone is Rhaegar.

_________A Note on Hair and Eye Color_______________

Spoiler
Quote

Rhaenyra's children with Laenor Velaryon or Hawin Strong all had brown hair and eyes. All were also dragon riders

Daeron II married Mariah Martell (Brown hair) and had a few kid

  • Baelor Breakspear- Dark Hair who weds Jena Dondarrion ? and have
  1. Valarr- Brown Hair with streak of gold- sound like any particular Dayne? Gerold Dayne?
  2. Matarys?
  • Aerys I ?
  • Rhaegel? marries Alys Arryn and 2 kids mysteriously die and 3rd's claim disputed in council of 233AC maybe they looked liked Targs?
  • and Maekar who married Dyanna Dayne. Who came to the throne after he mysteriously killed his brother to which he does not remember. Looks full Targaryen. Silver hair purple eyes

Maekar married Dyanna Dayne (?) who have

  • Aerion Brightflame- Purple Eyes and silver hair, drinks wildfire
  • Daeron- Sandy brown hair with blonde beard
  • Maester Aemon ?
  • Daella?
  • Rhae?
  • Aegon V (Egg) marries Betha Blackwood (Who has black hair and eyes)

So the we have Aegon who weds BethaBlackwood who have

  • Duncan ?
  • Jaehaerys- Silver hair and purple eyes
  • Shaera- Silver hair and purple eyes
  • Daeron?
  • Rhaelle?

Jaehaerys weds Shaera and have

  • Aerys - Silver hair purple eyes
  • Rhaella-Silver hair purple eyes

So how does Jon (Brown) son of Rhaegar (Silver) and Lyanna (Brown) have brown hair? 

Or how does Dany have silver hair despite my claim that she only has one Targaryen parent and, Ashara Dayne (Brown-purple eyes)?

Simple, through all the example of Targs mixing with people who have non silver hair. Causing a mix of genes to show them selves through out different children, as mixing any breed should. 

I dont think the silver hair and purple eyes is tied to their ability to ride or hatch dragons. Just features that got concentrated in them through inbreeding, likely receiving it all through some mixing or something with the Empire of the Dawn or among other colors like Red, are listed to have Amethyst (purple colored eyes)

__________Discrepancies of Accounts______________

Spoiler

_____Flight from K.L._____

Spoiler
Quote

A Feast for Crows - Jaime II

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed insidethe royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.

Is Jamie or Viserys mis-remembering?

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."

Eddard is the only person to make mention of Darry going to Dragonstone. Stannis never mentions Darry, nor does Jamie. So if Darry did go, it's possible Darry left after Queen Rhaella did.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

"My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father's son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could watch me, day and night. So I heard it all." He remembered how Rossart's eyes would shine when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed. Garigus and Belis were the same. "Rhaegar met Robert on the Trident, and you know what happened there. When the word reached court, Aerys packed the queen off to Dragonstone with Prince Viserys. Princess Elia would have gone as well, but he forbade it. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that Prince Lewyn must have betrayed Rhaegar on the Trident, but he thought he could keep Dorne loyal so long as he kept Elia and Aegon by his side. The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

 

Quote

The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The End

Birds flew and couriers raced to bear word of the victory at the Ruby Ford. When the news reached the Red Keep, it was said that Aerys cursed the Dornish, certain that Lewyn had betrayed Rhaegar. He sent his pregnant queen, Rhaella, and his younger son and new heir, Viserys, away to Dragonstone, but PrincessElia was forced to remain in King's Landing with Rhaegar's children as a hostage against Dorne. Having burned his previous Hand, Lord Chelsted, alive for bad counsel during the war, Aerys now appointed another to the position: the alchemist Rossart—a man of low birth, with little to recommend him but his flames and trickery.

 

_____The Storm of Dragonstone_______

Spoiler
Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys I

No squall could frighten Dany, though. Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greateststorm in the memory of Westeros howled outside, a storm so fierce that it ripped gargoyles from the castle walls and smashed her father's fleet to kindling.

Danny claims(through Viserys) that she was born during a summer storm that not only destroyed their fleet but also ripped parts of the castle apart.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Prologue

"His," Stannis broke in, "when by rights they should be mine. I never asked for Dragonstone. I never wanted it. I took it because Robert's enemies were hereand he commanded me to root them out. I built his fleet and did his work, dutiful as a younger brother should be to an elder, as Renly should be to me. And what was Robert's thanks? He names me Lord of Dragonstone, and gives Storm's End and its incomes to Renly. Storm's End belonged to House Baratheon for three hundred years; by rights it should have passed to me when Robert took the Iron Throne."

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper's brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstoneitself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had beenprepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

So supposedly this storm was fierce enough to destroy the Targaryen fleet and rip stones and gargoyles from the castle, yer the storm is not mentioned by Stannis or any one else in K.L. and it also didn't effect Stannis's fleet. K.L being really close.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Samwell II

The ship was Blackbird, the largest of the Watch's galleys. Storm Crow and Talon were faster, Cotter Pyke told Maester Aemon back at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, but they were fighting ships, lean, swift birds of prey where the rowers sat on open decks. Blackbird was a better choice for the rough waters of the narrow sea beyond Skagos. "There have been storms," Pyke warned them. "Winter storms are worse, but autumn's are more frequent."

So here we see that Summer storms shouldn't be that bad.

_______Ser Willem Darry_____________

Spoiler
Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left hisbed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

So here Dany claims Darry had hands soft as old leather.

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys I

"As you wish," said Whitebeard. "As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella musthave swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by hiswits, but his father's knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

 

Quote

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

The growing rift between the king and the King's Hand was also apparent in the matter of appointments. Whereas previously His Grace had always heeded his Hand's counsel, bestowing offices, honors, and inheritances as Lord Tywin recommended, after 270 AC he began to disregard the men put forward by his lordship in favor of his own choices. Many westermen found themselves dismissed from the king's service for no better cause than the suspicion that they might be "Hand's men." In their places, King Aerys appointed his own favorites...but the king's favor had become a chancy thing, his mistrust easy to awaken. Even the Hand's own kin were not exempt from royal displeasure. When Lord Tywin wished to name his brother Ser Tygett Lannister as the Red Keep's master-at-arms, King Aerys gave the post to Ser Willem Darry instead.

Yet here we see that Darry was the Master of Arms and lived his life by the sword, and shouldn't have soft hands.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Cersei IX

She almost slapped his face. Almost. But she had gone too far, and too much was at stake. All I do, I do for Tommen. She turned her head and caught SerOsney's hand with her own, kissing his fingers. They were rough and hard, callused from the sword. Robert had hands like that, she thought.

Here we see that some one like Darry should be like Robert and Osney, with rough, hard callused hands from the sword.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IV

The eunuch spread his soft hands. "On more than that, I hope, sweet lady. I have great esteem for your husband, our new Hand, and I know we do both loveKing Robert."

So who has soft hands??? Vary has soft hands, who's tied to Illyrio.

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A Feast for Crows - Samwell V

". . . obsidian," said the other man in the room, a pale, fleshy, pasty-faced young fellow with round shoulders, soft hands, close-set eyes, and food stains on hisrobes.

And Maesters.

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Iron Suitor

A fool's question. Maesters had their uses, but Victarion had nothing but contempt for this Kerwin. With his smooth pink cheeks, soft hands, and brown curls, he looked more girlish than most girls. When first he came aboard the Iron Victory, he had a smirky little smile too, but one night off the Stepstones he had smiled at the wrong man, and Burton Humble had knocked out four of his teeth. Not long after that Kerwin had come creeping to the captain to complain that four of the crew had dragged him belowdecks and used him as a woman. "Here is how you put an end to that," Victarion had told him, slamming a dagger down on the table between them. Kerwin took the blade—too afraid to refuse it, the captain judged—but he had never used it.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Davos III

"Can you offer any proof of this incest, ser?" Maester Theomore asked, folding his soft hands atop his belly.

So Maesters and Varys are the only two people mentioned to have soft hands.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for. Her father had been slain before she was born, and her splendid brother Rhaegar as well. Her mother had died bringing her into the world while the storm screamed outside. Gentle Ser Willem Darry, who must have loved her after a fashion, had been taken by a wasting sickness when she was very young. Her brother Viserys, Khal Drogo who was her sun-and-stars, even her unborn son, the gods had claimed them all. They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not.

Next Dany claims he was bed ridden from a wasting sickness and smelled all the time

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn XI

Hoster Tully had always been a big man; tall and broad in his youth, portly as he grew older. Now he seemed shrunken, the muscle and meat melted off hisbones. Even his face sagged. The last time Catelyn had seen him, his hair and beard had been brown, well streaked with grey. Now they had gone white as snow.

This is what a wasting sickness does to some one.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

Then one moment he's bed ridden

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. "Little princess, there you are," he said in his gruff kind voice. "Come," he said, "come to me, my lady, you're home now, you're safe now." His big wrinkled hand reached for her, soft as old leather, and Dany wanted to take it and hold it and kiss it, she wanted that as much as she had ever wanted anything. Her foot edged forward, and then she thought, He's dead, he's dead, the sweet old bear, he died a long time ago. She backed away and ran.

Then, he's able to walk around on a cane. So did he never leave his bed, or not?

___________My Lady-Little Princess______________
 

Spoiler

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady,"

Now here Darry calls her Little Princess and My Lady, which is odd as My Lady is not a term for a princess.

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Jaime I

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."

Here we can see what a child of the King should be called, to which Darry should know.

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

"I ought to know better than to argue with a Tully," he said with a rueful smile. He slid Ice back into its sheath. "You did not come here to tell me crib tales. I know how little you like this place. What is it, my lady?"

Eddard, a lord, calls his wife My Lady

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

 And the people … there is no end of them. I sit on that damnable iron chair and listen to them complain until my mind is numb and my ass is raw. They all want something, money or land or justice. The lies they tell … and my lords and ladies are no better. I am surrounded by flatterers and fools. It can drive a man to madness, Ned. Half of them don't dare tell me the truth, and the other half can't find it. There are nights I wish we had lost at the Trident. Ah, no, not truly, but …"

The Kings calls them Lords and Ladies, when they are vassals beneath him

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

Luwin did not stir. "Pardons, my lord. The message is not for you either. It is marked for the eyes of the Lady Catelyn, and her alone. May I approach?"

And Luwin, lower than a lord, callls Eddard and Cat My Lord and My Lady

________Lemon Tree and a Red Door_______

Spoiler
Quote

Dany remembers a lemon tree outside the house with the red door in Braavos, but citrus tree's shouldn't really grow in Braavos's cold, foggy climate. Is that discrepancy significant? Does it point to future revelations about Dany's past? Thank you so much.

GRRM

Very perceptive of you.

Yes, it does point to.... well, that would be telling.

https://imgur.com/EXN26tk

So ill skip all the quotes here and simply point out that even Martin has alluded to this as something telling.

_____Dany and Visery robbed and put out_____

Spoiler

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her "Little Princess" and sometimes "My Lady," and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

Here Dany claims they were robbed of what money they had left and put out

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother's crown had gone. In the alleys and wine sinks of Pentos, they called her brother "the beggar king." Dany did not want to know what they called her.

Yet later claims they had money for some years after even still having their mother's crown till being forced to sell it. A nice way to let the world know through their wanderings that they are indeed the Queens children.

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys III

Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered. "I have sellswords too."

And Viserys had money to treat the Golden Company at some point which must have cost quite a bit

____________Viserys can't speak Valyrian but Dany can____________

Spoiler

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"No!" Viserys screamed. He turned to Ser Jorah, pleading in the Common Tongue with words the horsemen would not understand. "Hit her, Mormont. Hurther. Your king commands it. Kill these Dothraki dogs and teach her."

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

Viserys was less impressed. "The trash of dead cities," he sneered. He was careful to speak in the Common Tongue, which few Dothraki could understand, yet even so Dany found herself glancing back at the men of her khas, to make certain he had not been overheard. He went on blithely. "All these savages know how to do is steal the things better men have built … and kill." He laughed. "They do know how to kill. Otherwise I'd have no use for them at all."

 

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

"The dragon speaks as he likes," Viserys said … in the Common Tongue. He glanced over his shoulder at Aggo and Rakharo, riding behind them, and favored them with a mocking smile. "See, the savages lack the wit to understand the speech of civilized men." A moss-eaten stone monolith loomed over the road, fifty feet tall. Viserys gazed at it with boredom in his eyes. "How long must we linger amidst these ruins before Drogo gives me my army? I grow tired of waiting."

So here we can see that Viserys speaks the common tongue when wanting to speak in secret from the Dothraki

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys I

"So I see. Dracarys?"
All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word, and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. "Be careful with that word, ser, or they're like to singe your beard off. It means 'dragonfire' in High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like to utter by chance."

D

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

"I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own." Dany turned away from him, to the slave girl standing meekly beside her litter. "Do you have a name, or must you draw a new one every day from some barrel?"
"That is only for Unsullied," the girl said. Then she realized the question had been asked in High Valyrian. Her eyes went wide. "Oh."

Dany not only uses High Valyrian but remarks about the scarcity of it's usage

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, itsbrick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghiswere dead, and so too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

Kraznys's High Valyrian was twisted and thickened by the characteristic growl of Ghis, and flavored here and there with words of slaver argot. Dany understood him well enough, but she smiled and looked blankly at the slave girl, as if wondering what he might have said.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII

Then the heralds summoned another singer; Collio Quaynis of Tyrosh, who had a vermilion beard and an accent as ludicrous as Symon had promised. Collio began with his version of "The Dance of the Dragons," which was more properly a song for two singers, male and female. Tyrion suffered through it with a double helping of honey-ginger partridge and several cups of wine. A haunting ballad of two dying lovers amidst the Doom of Valyria might have pleased the hall more if Collio had not sung it in High Valyrian, which most of the guests could not speak. But "Bessa the Barmaid" won them back with its ribald lyrics. Peacocks were served in their plumage, roasted whole and stuffed with dates, while Collio summoned a drummer, bowed low before Lord Tywin, and launched into "The Rains of Castamere."

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cersei IX

"The maegi." The words came tumbling out of her. She could still hear Melara Hetherspoon insisting that if they never spoke about the prophecies, they would not come true. She was not so silent in the well, though. She screamed and shouted. "Tyrion is the valonqar," she said. "Do you use that word in Myr? It's High Valyrian, it means little brother." She had asked Septa Saranella about the word, after Melara drowned.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion I

The wine has blurred my wits. He had learned to read High Valyrian at his maester's knee, though what they spoke in the Nine Free Cities … well, it was not so much a dialect as nine dialects on the way to becoming separate tongues. Tyrion had some Braavosi and a smattering of Myrish. In Tyrosh he should be able to curse the gods, call a man a cheat, and order up an ale, thanks to a sellsword he had once known at the Rock. At least in Dorne they speak the Common Tongue. Like Dornish food and Dornish law, Dornish speech was spiced with the flavors of the Rhoyne, but a man could comprehend it. Dorne, yes, Dorne for me. He crawled into his bunk, clutching that thought like a child with a doll.

 

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When she saw the guardsmen on the third pier, in grey woolen cloaks trimmed with white satin, her heart almost stopped in her chest. The sight of Winterfell's colors brought tears to her eyes. Behind them, a sleek three-banked trading galley rocked at her moorings. Arya could not read the name painted on the hull; the words were strange, Myrish, Braavosi, perhaps even High Valyrian. She grabbed a passing longshoreman by the sleeve. "Please," she said, "what ship is this?"

Here we can see that barely any one uses it and the Valyrian used by the Free Cities and Ghis are different and almost their own languages now. 

______Illyrio and Varys________________

Spoiler

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

A princess, Dany thought. She had forgotten what that was like. Perhaps she had never really known. "Why does he give us so much?" she asked. "What does he want from us?" For nigh on half a year, they had lived in the magister's house, eating his food, pampered by his servants. Dany was thirteen, old enough to know that such gifts seldom come without their price, here in the free city of Pentos.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion II

"Dothraki neither buy nor sell. Say rather that her brother Viserys gave her to Drogo to win the khal's friendship. A vain young man, and greedy. Viserys lusted for his father's throne, but he lusted for Daenerys too, and was loath to give her up. The night before the princess wed he tried to steal into her bed, insisting that if he could not have her hand, he would claim her maidenhead. Had I not taken the precaution of posting guards upon her door, Viserys might have undone years of planning."

 

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Were Varys and Illyrio aware of the betrothal contract that Prince Doran and Ser Willem Darry had made? And why didn't Darry or someone tell Viserys about this agreement before his death?

To the first question: no. As to the second, Viserys was an immature child when it was decided, and he wasn't ready for the information.

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/6539

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Arya III

Arya peered over the edge and felt the cold black breath on her face. Far below, she saw the light of a single torch, small as the flame of a candle. Two men, she made out. Their shadows writhed against the sides of the well, tall as giants. She could hear their voices, echoing up the shaft.
"… found one bastard," one said. "The rest will come soon. A day, two days, a fortnight …"

And when he learns the truth, what will he do?" a second voice asked in the liquid accents of the Free Cities.
"The gods alone know," the first voice said. Arya could see a wisp of grey smoke drifting up off the torch, writhing like a snake as it rose. "The fools tried to kill his son, and what's worse, they made a mummer's farce of it. He's not a man to put that aside. I warn you, the wolf and lion will soon be at each other's throats, whether we will it or no."

"Too soon, too soon," the voice with the accent complained. "What good is war now? We are not ready. Delay."
"As well bid me stop time. Do you take me for a wizard?"

The other chuckled. "No less." Flames licked at the cold air. The tall shadows were almost on top of her. An instant later the man holding the torch climbed into her sight, his companion beside him. Arya crept back away from the well, dropped to her stomach, and flattened herself against the wall. She held her breath as the men reached the top of the steps.
"What would you have me do?" asked the torchbearer, a stout man in a leather half cape. Even in heavy boots, his feet seemed to glide soundlessly over the ground. A round scarred face and a stubble of dark beard showed under his steel cap, and he wore mail over boiled leather, and a dirk and shortsword at his belt. It seemed to Arya there was something oddly familiar about him.

"If one Hand can die, why not a second?" replied the man with the accent and the forked yellow beard. "You have danced the dance before, my friend." He was no one Arya had ever seen before, she was certain of it. Grossly fat, yet he seemed to walk lightly, carrying his weight on the balls of his feet as a water dancer might. His rings glimmered in the torchlight, red-gold and pale silver, crusted with rubies, sapphires, slitted yellow tiger eyes. Every finger wore a ring; some had two.

"Before is not now, and this Hand is not the other," the scarred man said as they stepped out into the hall. Still as stone, Arya told herself, quiet as a shadow. Blinded by the blaze of their own torch, they did not see her pressed flat against the stone, only a few feet away.

"Perhaps so," the forked beard replied, pausing to catch his breath after the long climb. "Nonetheless, we must have time. The princess is with child. The khal will not bestir himself until his son is born. You know how they are, these savages."

The man with the torch pushed at something. Arya heard a deep rumbling. A huge slab of rock, red in the torchlight, slid down out of the ceiling with a resounding crash that almost made her cry out. Where the entry to the well had been was nothing but stone, solid and unbroken.
"If he does not bestir himself soon, it may be too late," the stout man in the steel cap said. "This is no longer a game for two players, if ever it was. Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn have fle

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

"Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and bravos," Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Khal Drogo; Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their constant companion ever since.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

The streets of Pentos were pitch-dark when they set out in Illyrio's elaborately carved palanquin. Two servants went ahead to light their way, carrying ornate oil lanterns with panes of pale blue glass, while a dozen strong men hoisted the poles to their shoulders. It was warm and close inside behind the curtains. Dany could smell the stench of Illyrio's pallid flesh through his heavy perfumes.
Her brother, sprawled out on his pillows beside her, never noticed. His mind was away across the narrow sea. "We won't need his whole khalasar," Viserys said. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest. "Ten thousand, that would be enough, I could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers. The realm will rise for its rightful king. Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, they have no more love for the Usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children. And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry out for their king." He looked at Illyrio anxiously. "They do, don't they?"
"They are your people, and they love you well," Magister Illyrio said amiably. "In holdfasts all across the realm, men lift secret toasts to your health while women sew dragon banners and hide them against the day of your return from across the water." He gave a massive shrug. "Or so my agents tell me."

Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio's sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio. Her brother was nodding eagerly, however. "I shall kill the Usurper myself," he promised, who had never killed anyone, "as he killed my brother Rhaegar. And Lannister too, the Kingslayer, for what he did to my father."

"That would be most fitting," Magister Illyrio said. Dany saw the smallest hint of a smile playing around his full lips, but her brother did not notice. Nodding, he pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night, and Dany knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again.
The nine-towered manse of Khal Drogo sat beside the waters of the bay, its high brick walls overgrown with pale ivy. It had been given to the khal by the magisters of Pentos, Illyrio told them. The Free Cities were always generous with the horselords. "It is not that we fear these barbarians," Illyrio would explain with a smile. "The Lord of Light would hold our city walls against a million Dothraki, or so the red priests promise … yet why take chances, when their friendship comes so cheap?"

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Magister Illyrio's words were honey. "Many important men will be at the feast tonight. Such men have enemies. The khal must protect his guests, yourself chief among them, Your Grace. No doubt the Usurper would pay well for your head." "Oh, yes," Viserys said darkly. "He has tried, Illyrio, I promise you that. His hired knives follow us everywhere. I am the last dragon, and he will not sleep easy while I live." The palanquin slowed and stopped. The curtains were thrown back, and a slave offered a hand to help Daenerys out. His collar, she noted, was ordinary bronze. Her brother followed, one hand still clenched hard around his sword hilt. It took two strong men to get Magister Illyrio back on his feet.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder. "Over there, sweet princess," he whispered, "there is the khal himself."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

"Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and bravos," Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Khal Drogo; Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their constant companion ever since.

Magister Illyrio laughed lightly through his forked beard, but Viserys did not so much as smile. "He can have her tomorrow, if he likes," her brother said. He glanced over at Dany, and she lowered her eyes. "So long as he pays the price."

Illyrio waved a languid hand in the air, rings glittering on his fat fingers. "I have told you, all is settled. Trust me. The khal has promised you a crown, and you shall have it."

"Yes, but when?"

"When the khal chooses," Illyrio said. "He will have the girl first, and after they are wed he must make his procession across the plains and present her to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak. After that, perhaps. If the omens favor war."

Viserys seethed with impatience. "I piss on Dothraki omens. The Usurper sits on my father's throne. How long must I wait?"

Illyrio gave a massive shrug. "You have waited most of your life, great king. What is another few months, another few years?"
Ser Jorah, who had traveled as far east as Vaes Dothrak, nodded in agreement. "I counsel you to be patient, Your Grace. The Dothraki are true to their word, but they do things in their own time. A lesser man may beg a favor from the khal, but must never presume to berate him."

Viserys bristled. "Guard your tongue, Mormont, or I'll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg."
Ser Jorah lowered his eyes respectfully. Illyrio smiled enigmatically and tore a wing from the duck. Honey and grease ran over his fingers and dripped down into his beard as he nibbled at the tender meat. There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"As you will, Khaleesi," Ser Jorah said respectfully.
She heard the sound of voices and turned to look behind her. She and Mormont had outdistanced the rest of their party, and now the others were climbing the ridge below them. Her handmaid Irri and the young archers of her khas were fluid as centaurs, but Viserys still struggled with the short stirrups and the flat saddle. Her brother was miserable out here. He ought never have come. Magister Illyrio had urged him to wait in Pentos, had offered him the hospitality of his manse, but Viserys would have none of it. He would stay with Drogo until the debt had been paid, until he had the crown he had been promised. "And if he tries to cheat me, he will learn to his sorrow what it means to wake the dragon," Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borrowed sword. Illyrio had blinked at that and wished him good fortune.
Dany realized that she did not want to listen to any of her brother's complaints right now. The day was too perfect. The sky was a deep blue, and high above them a hunting hawk circled. The grass sea swayed and sighed with each breath of wind, the air was warm on her face, and Dany felt at peace. She would not let Viserys spoil it.

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

Dany thought about that. "He would not be a very good king, would he?"

"There have been worse … but not many." The knight gave his heels to his mount and started off again.
Dany rode close beside him. "Still," she said, "the common people are waiting for him. Magister Illyrio says they are sewing dragon banners and praying for Viserys to return from across the narrow sea to free them."
"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are."

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

Dany was relieved, yet no less anxious. "I pray that my sun-and-stars will not keep him waiting too long," she told Ser Jorah when her brother was out of earshot.
The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully. "Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos. There is no place for him in a khalasar. Illyrio tried to warn him."
"He will go as soon as he has his ten thousand. My lord husband promised a golden crown."

Ser Jorah grunted. "Yes, Khaleesi, but … the Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west. I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen. The horselords are no traders. Viserys thinks he sold you, and now he wants his price. Yet Khal Drogo would say he had you as a gift. He will give Viserys a gift in return, yes … in his own time. You do not demand a gift, not of a khal. You do not demand anything of a khal."

"It is not right to make him wait." Dany did not know why she was defending her brother, yet she was. "Viserys says he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

Doreah led her to the hollow hill that had been prepared for her and her khal. It was cool and dim within, like a tent made of earth. "Jhiqui, a bath, please," she commanded, to wash the dust of travel from her skin and soak her weary bones. It was pleasant to know that they would linger here for a while, that she would not need to climb back on her silver on the morrow.
The water was scalding hot, as she liked it. "I will give my brother his gifts tonight," she decided as Jhiqui was washing her hair. "He should look a king in the sacred city. Doreah, run and find him and invite him to sup with me." Viserys was nicer to the Lysene girl than to her Dothraki handmaids, perhaps because Magister Illyrio had let him bed her back in Pentos. "Irri, go to the bazaar and buy fruit and meat. Anything but horseflesh."

She was arranging the last of his gifts—a sandsilk cloak, green as grass, with a pale grey border that would bring out the silver in his hair—when Viserys arrived, dragging Doreah by the arm. Her eye was red where he'd hit her. "How dare you send this whore to give me commands," he said. He shoved the handmaid roughly to the carpet.
The anger took Dany utterly by surprise. "I only wanted … Doreah, what did you say?"

"Khaleesi, pardons, forgive me. I went to him, as you bid, and told him you commanded him to join you for supper."
"No one commands the dragon," Viserys snarled. "I am your king! I should have sent you back her head!"

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys V

Suddenly Doreah was tugging at her elbow. "My lady," the handmaid whispered urgently, "your brother …"

Dany looked down the length of the long, roofless hall and there he was, striding toward her. From the lurch in his step, she could tell at once that Viserys had found his wine … and something that passed for courage.
He was wearing his scarlet silks, soiled and travel-stained. His cloak and gloves were black velvet, faded from the sun. His boots were dry and cracked, his silver-blond hair matted and tangled. A longsword swung from his belt in a leather scabbard. The Dothraki eyed the sword as he passed; Dany heard curses and threats and angry muttering rising all around her, like a tide. The music died away in a nervous stammering of drums.

A sense of dread closed around her heart. "Go to him," she commanded Ser Jorah. "Stop him. Bring him here. Tell him he can have the dragon's eggs if that is what he wants." The knight rose swiftly to his feet.

"Where is my sister?" Viserys shouted, his voice thick with wine. "I've come for her feast. How dare you presume to eat without me? No one eats before the king. Where is she? The whore can't hide from the dragon."

He stopped beside the largest of the three firepits, peering around at the faces of the Dothraki. There were five thousand men in the hall, but only a handful who knew the Common Tongue. Yet even if his words were incomprehensible, you had only to look at him to know that he was drunk.
Ser Jorah went to him swiftly, whispered something in his ear, and took him by the arm, but Viserys wrenched free. "Keep your hands off me! No one touches the dragon without leave."

Dany glanced anxiously up at the high bench. Khal Drogo was saying something to the other khals beside him. Khal Jommo grinned, and Khal Ogo began to guffaw loudly.
The sound of laughter made Viserys lift his eyes. "Khal Drogo," he said thickly, his voice almost polite. "I'm here for the feast." He staggered away from Ser Jorah, making to join the three khals on the high bench.

Khal Drogo rose, spat out a dozen words in Dothraki, faster than Dany could understand, and pointed. "Khal Drogo says your place is not on the high bench," Ser Jorah translated for her brother. "Khal Drogo says your place is there."

Viserys glanced where the khal was pointing. At the back of the long hall, in a corner by the wall, deep in shadow so better men would not need to look on them, sat the lowest of the low; raw unblooded boys, old men with clouded eyes and stiff joints, the dim-witted and the maimed. Far from the meat, and farther from honor. "That is no place for a king," her brother declared.

"Is place," Khal Drogo answered, in the Common Tongue that Dany had taught him, "for Sorefoot King." He clapped his hands together. "A cart! Bring cart for Khal Rhaggat!"

Five thousand Dothraki began to laugh and shout. Ser Jorah was standing beside Viserys, screaming in his ear, but the roar in the hall was so thunderous that Dany could not hear what he was saying. Her brother shouted back and the two men grappled, until Mormont knocked Viserys bodily to the floor.

Her voice made Viserys turn his head, and he saw her for the first time. "There she is," he said, smiling. He stalked toward her, slashing at the air as if to cut a path through a wall of enemies, though no one tried to bar his way.
"The blade … you must not," she begged him. "Please, Viserys. It is forbidden. Put down the sword and come share my cushions. There's drink, food … is it the dragon's eggs you want? You can have them, only throw away the sword."

"Do as she tells you, fool," Ser Jorah shouted, "before you get us all killed."
Viserys laughed. "They can't kill us. They can't shed blood here in the sacred city … but I can." He laid the point of his sword between Daenerys's breasts and slid it downward, over the curve of her belly. "I want what I came for," he told her. "I want the crown he promised me. He bought you, but he never paid for you. Tell him I want what I bargained for, or I'm taking you back. You and the eggs both. He can keep his bloody foal. I'll cut the bastard out and leave it for him." The sword point pushed through her silks and pricked at her navel. Viserys was weeping, she saw; weeping and laughing, both at the same time, this man who had once been her brother.

Distantly, as from far away, Dany heard her handmaid Jhiqui sobbing in fear, pleading that she dared not translate, that the khal would bind her and drag her behind his horse all the way up the Mother of Mountains. She put her arm around the girl. "Don't be afraid," she said. "I shall tell him."
She did not know if she had enough words, yet when she was done Khal Drogo spoke a few brusque sentences in Dothraki, and she knew he understood. The sun of her life stepped down from the high bench. "What did he say?" the man who had been her brother asked her, flinching.

It had grown so silent in the hall that she could hear the bells in Khal Drogo's hair, chiming softly with each step he took. His bloodriders followed him, like three copper shadows. Daenerys had gone cold all over. "He says you shall have a splendid golden crown that men shall tremble to behold."
Viserys smiled and lowered his sword. That was the saddest thing, the thing that tore at her afterward … the way he smiled. "That was all I wanted," he said. "What was promised."

When the sun of her life reached her, Dany slid an arm around his waist. The khal said a word, and his bloodriders leapt forward. Qotho seized the man who had been her brother by the arms. Haggo shattered his wrist with a single, sharp twist of his huge hands. Cohollo pulled the sword from his limp fingers. Even now Viserys did not understand. "No," he shouted, "you cannot touch me, I am the dragon, the dragon, and I will be crowned!"
Khal Drogo unfastened his belt. The medallions were pure gold, massive and ornate, each one as large as a man's hand. He shouted a command. Cook slaves pulled a heavy iron stew pot from the firepit, dumped the stew onto the ground, and returned the pot to the flames. Drogo tossed in the belt and watched without expression as the medallions turned red and began to lose their shape. She could see fires dancing in the onyx of his eyes. A slave handed him a pair of thick horsehair mittens, and he pulled them on, never so much as looking at the man.

Viserys began to scream the high, wordless scream of the coward facing death. He kicked and twisted, whimpered like a dog and wept like a child, but the Dothraki held him tight between them. Ser Jorah had made his way to Dany's side. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Turn away, my princess, I beg you."
"No." She folded her arms across the swell of her belly, protectively.

At the last, Viserys looked at her. "Sister, please … Dany, tell them … make them … sweet sister …"
When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother.

He was no dragon, Dany thought, curiously calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

Home? The word made her feel sad. Ser Jorah had his Bear Island, but what was home to her? A few tales, names recited as solemnly as the words of a prayer, the fading memory of a red door … was Vaes Dothrak to be her home forever? When she looked at the crones of the dosh khaleen, was she looking at her future?
Ser Jorah must have seen the sadness on her face. "A great caravan arrived during the night, Khaleesi. Four hundred horses, from Pentos by way of Norvos and Qohor, under the command of Merchant Captain Byan Votyris. Illyrio may have sent a letter. Would you care to visit the Western Market?"
Dany stirred. "Yes," she said. "I would like that." The markets came alive when a caravan had come in. You could never tell what treasures the traders might bring this time, and it would be good to hear men speaking Valyrian again, as they did in the Free Cities. "Irri, have them prepare a litter."

 

 

___A Quick Note on Traveling and time____________

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Since the ugliness on the Trident, the Starks and their household had ridden well ahead of the main column, the better to separate themselves from the Lannisters and the growing tension. Robert had hardly been seen; the talk was he was traveling in the huge wheelhouse, drunk as often as not. If so, he might be hours behind, but he would still be here too soon for Ned's liking. He had only to look at Sansa's face to feel the rage twisting inside him once again. The last fortnight of their journey had been a misery. 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn V

Ser Rodrik found them an empty place on the bench near the kitchen. Across the table a handsome youth was fingering a woodharp. "Seven blessings to you, goodfolk," he said as they sat. An empty wine cup stood on the table before him.

"And to you, singer," Catelyn returned. Ser Rodrik called for bread and meat and beer in a tone that meant now. The singer, a youth of some eighteen years, eyed them boldly and asked where they were going, and from whence they had come, and what news they had, letting the questions fly as quick as arrows and never pausing for an answer. "We left King's Landing a fortnight ago," Catelyn replied, answering the safest of his questions.

"That's where I'm bound," the youth said. As she had suspected, he was more interested in telling his own story than in hearing theirs. Singers loved nothing half so well as the sound of their own voices. "The Hand's tourney means rich lords with fat purses. The last time I came away with more silver than I could carry … or would have, if I hadn't lost it all betting on the Kingslayer to win the day."

So we can see through Eddard's chapter that it takes 2 weeks/a fortnight to get down the Trident to K.L. With the King taking longer riding with the Royal procession . This is backed up in Cat's chapter.

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard VIII

"I shall begin making arrangements at once, my lord. We will need a fortnight to ready everything for the journey."
"We may not have a fortnight. We may not have a day. The king mentioned something about seeing my head on a spike." Ned frowned. He did not truly believe the king would harm him, not Robert. He was angry now, but once Ned was safely out of sight, his rage would cool as it always did.
Suddenly, uncomfortably, he found himself recalling Rhaegar Targaryen. Fifteen years dead, yet Robert hates him as much as ever. It was a disturbing notion … and there was the other matter, the business with Catelyn and the dwarf that Yoren had warned him of last night. That would come to light soon, as sure as sunrise, and with the king in such a black fury … Robert might not care a fig for Tyrion Lannister, but it would touch on his pride, and there was no telling what the queen might do.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

"When shall we tell Jon?" the maester asked.
"When I must. Preparations must be made. It will be a fortnight before we are ready to depart. I would sooner let Jon enjoy these last few days. Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well. When the time comes, I will tell him myself."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

"Only a fortnight?" asked Dany. Even I was given more happiness than that, with Drogo who was my sun-and-stars.

"A fortnight was how long it took us to sail from Lannisport back to Bear Island. My home was a great disappointment to Lynesse. It was too cold, too damp, too far away, my castle no more than a wooden longhall. We had no masques, no mummer shows, no balls or fairs. Seasons might pass without a singer ever coming to play for us, and there's not a goldsmith on the island. Even meals became a trial. My cook knew little beyond his roasts and stews, and Lynesse soon lost her taste for fish and venison."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion IV

"I have little doubt you'll be equal to the task."
"I once told Ned Stark that when you find yourself naked with an ugly woman, the only thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it." Littlefinger steepled his fingers and gazed into Tyrion's mismatched eyes. "Give me a fortnight to conclude my affairs and arrange for a ship to carry me to Gulltown."
"That will do nicely."
 
 
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A Feast for Crows - The Soiled Knight

"You should not say such things." Remember, she is Dornish. In the Reach men said it was the food that made Dornishmen so hot-tempered and their women so wild and wanton. Fiery peppers and strange spices heat the blood, she cannot help herself. "I love Myrcella as a daughter." He could never have a daughter of his own, no more than he could have a wife. He had a fine white cloak instead. "We are going to the Water Gardens."
"Eventually," she agreed, "though with my father, everything takes four times as long as it should. If he says he means to leave upon the morrow, you will certainly set out within a fortnight. You will be lonely in the Gardens, I promise you. And where is the brave young gallant who said he wished to spend the rest of his life in my arms?"
"I was drunk when I said that."
Here we can see that it takes 2 weeks/ a fortnight to generally get a ship ready for travel, with it being possible to get way sooner. Through Jora's Chapter we learn that it would have taken Eddard 2 weeks/ a fortnight to sail from Sisterton to Winterfell during the war.

_____A Time Line of Quotes______________________

Spoiler

 

________________________The set up__________________________


 

________________Rhaella and Ser Bonifer Hasty_________________

Spoiler

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime III

Ser Bonifer himself had been a promising knight in his youth, but something had happened to him, a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death, and afterward he had decided that jousting was an empty vanity and put away his lance for good and all.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"What happened to this knight?"
"He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood."

 

___Aerys's many infidelities and failed births with Rhaella _________

Spoiler

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"I want to know. I never knew my father. I want to know everything about him. The good and … the rest."

"As you command." The white knight chose his words with care. "Prince Aerys … as a youth, he was taken with a certain lady of Casterly Rock, a cousin of Tywin Lannister. When she and Tywin wed, your father drank too much wine at the wedding feast and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the … the liberties your father took during the bedding." His face reddened. "I have said too much, Your Grace. I—"

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Sadly, the marriage between Aerys II Targaryen and his sister, Rhaella, was not as happy; though she turned a blind eye to most of the king's infidelities, the queen did not approve of his "turning my ladies into his whores." (Joanna Lannister was not the first lady to be dismissed abruptly from Her Grace's service, nor was she the last). Relations between the king and queen grew even more strained when Rhaella proved unable to give Aerys any further children. Miscarriages in 263 and 264 were followed by a stillborn daughter born in 267. Prince Daeron, born in 269, survived for only half a year. Then came another stillbirth in 270, another miscarriage in 271, and Prince Aegon, born two turns premature in 272, dead in 273.
 

The scurrilous rumor that Joanna Lannister gave up her maidenhead to Prince Aerys the night of his father's coronation and enjoyed a brief reign as his paramour after he ascended the Iron Throne can safely be discounted. As Pycelle insists in his letters, Tywin Lannister would scarce have taken his cousin to wife if that had been true, "for he was ever a proud man and not one accustomed to feasting upon another man's leavings."
 
It has been reliably reported, however, that King Aerys took unwonted liberties with Lady Joanna's person during her bedding ceremony, to Tywin's displeasure. Not long thereafter, Queen Rhaella dismissed Joanna Lannister from her service. No reason for this was ever given, but Lady Joanna departed at once for Casterly Rock and seldom visited King's Landing thereafter.
 
At first His Grace comforted Rhaella in her grief, but over time his compassion turned to suspicion. By 270 AC, he had decided that the queen was being unfaithful to him. "The gods will not suffer a bastard to sit the Iron Throne," he told his small council; none of Rhaella's stillbirths, miscarriages, or dead princes had been his, the king proclaimed. Thereafter, he forbade the queen to leave the confines of Maegor's Holdfast and decreed that two septas would henceforth share her bed every night, "to see that she remains true to her vows."
 
What Tywin Lannister made of this is not recorded, but in 266 AC, at Casterly Rock, Lady Joanna gave birth to a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, "healthy and beautiful, with hair like beaten gold." This birth only exacerbated the tension between Aerys II Targaryen and his Hand. "I appear to have married the wrong woman," His Grace was reported to have said, when informed of the happy event. Nonetheless, he sent each child its weight in gold as a nameday gift and commanded Tywin to bring them to court when they were old enough to travel. "And bring their mother, too, for it has been too long since I gazed upon that fair face," he insisted.
 
The march of the king's madness seemed to abate for a time in 274 AC, when Queen Rhaella gave birth to a son. So profound was His Grace's joy that it seemed to restore him to his old self once again...but Prince Jaehaerys died later that same year, plunging Aerys into despair. In his black rage, he decided the babe's wet nurse was to blame and had the woman beheaded. Not long after, in a change of heart, Aerys announced that Jaehaerys had been poisoned by his own mistress, the pretty young daughter of one of his household knights. The king had the girl and all her kin tortured to death. During the course of their torment, it is recorded, all confessed to the murder, though the details of their confessions were greatly at odds.

Afterward, King Aerys fasted for a fortnight and made a walk of repentance across the city to the Great Sept, to pray with the High Septon. On his return, His Grace announced that henceforth he would sleep only with his lawful wife, Queen Rhaella. If the chronicles can be believed, Aerys remained true to this vow, losing all interest in the charms of women from that day in 275 AC.

His Grace's new fidelity was apparently pleasing to the Mother Above, it must be said, for the following year, Queen Rhaella gave the king the second son that he had prayed for. Prince Viserys, born in 276 AC, was small but robust, and as beautiful a child as King's Landing had ever seen. Though Prince Rhaegar at seventeen was everything that could be wanted in an heir apparent, all Westeros rejoiced to know that at last he had a brother, another Targaryen to secure the succession.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys VI

. Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth . . . even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."

 

___Rhaegar, prophecy obsessed, & Ashara as mother of 3rd kid?____

Spoiler

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys I

"As you wish," said Whitebeard. "As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his father's knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been, only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, 'I will require sword and armor. It seems I must be a warrior.'"

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV

Dany pulled the lion pelt tighter about her shoulders. "Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late." She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. "If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl."
"Perhaps so, Your Grace." Whitebeard paused a moment. "But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy."
"You make him sound so sour," Dany protested.

"Not sour, no, but . . . there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense . . ." The old man hesitated again.

"Say it," she urged. "A sense . . . ?"

". . . of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days."

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IV

"And if he does not fail? What will Your Grace do then?"
"Her duty." The word felt cold upon her tongue. "You saw my brother Rhaegar wed. Tell me, did he wed for love or duty?"
The old knight hesitated. "Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit. I know the prince was very fond of her."

 

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A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV

"No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. "I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on.
Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

 His choice would have been a young maiden not long at court, one of Elia's companions … though compared to Ashara Dayne, the Dornish princess was a kitchen drab.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …
But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost

 

________Rhaegar expected a daughter, Visenya?_____________

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest

Aegon had two trueborn siblings; an elder sister, Visenya, and a younger sister, Rhaenys. It had long been the custom amongst the dragonlords of Valyria to wed brother to sister, to keep the bloodlines pure, but Aegon took both his sisters to bride. By tradition, he was expected to wed only his older sister, Visenya; the inclusion of Rhaenys as a second wife was unusual, though not without precedent. It was said by some that Aegon wed Visenya out of duty and Rhaenys out of desire.

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Nor did the birth of King Aerys's first grandchild, a girl named Rhaenys, born on Dragonstone in 280 AC, do aught to reconcile father and son.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring

Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

"Prince Rhaegar had two children," Ser Barristan told him. "Rhaenys was a little girl, Aegon a babe in arms.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys V

She nodded. "There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon."
"Prince Aegon was Rhaegar's heir by Elia of Dorne," Ser Jorah said. "But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall."
"I remember," Dany said sadly. "They murdered Rhaegar's daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon's sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?"

 

______The False Spring & Tourney of Harrenhal- Late 281AC_____

Spoiler

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

What Tywin Lannister made of this is not recorded, but in 266 AC, at Casterly Rock, Lady Joanna gave birth to a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, "healthy and beautiful, with hair like beaten gold." 

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime VIII

Rescued Lady Jeyne Swann and her septa from the Kingswood Brotherhood, defeating Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, and slaying the former. In the Oldtown tourney, defeated and unmasked the mystery knight Blackshield, revealing him as the Bastard of Uplands. Sole champion of Lord Steffon's tourney at Storm's End, whereat he unhorsed Lord Robert Baratheon, Prince Oberyn Martell, Lord Leyton Hightower, Lord Jon Connington, Lord Jason Mallister, and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. Wounded by arrow, spear, and sword at the Battle of the Trident whilst fighting beside his Sworn Brothers and Rhaegar Prince of Dragonstone. Pardoned, and named Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, by King Robert I 

 And Ser Gerold might have written a few more words about the deeds he'd performed when Ser Arthur Dayne broke the Kingswood Brotherhood. He had saved Lord Sumner's life as Big Belly Ben was about to smash his head in, though the outlaw had escaped him. And he'd held his own against the Smiling Knight, though it was Ser Arthur who slew him. What a fight that was, and what a foe. The Smiling Knight was a madman, cruelty and chivalry all jumbled up together, but he did not know the meaning of fear. And Dayne, with Dawn in hand . . . The outlaw's longsword had so many notches by the end that Ser Arthur had stopped to let him fetch a new one. "It's that white sword of yours I want," the robber knight told him as they resumed, though he was bleeding from a dozen wounds by then. "Then you shall have it, ser," the Sword of the Morning replied, and made an end of it.

The world was simpler in those days, Jaime thought, and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen? They were all in their graves now, the Sword of the Morning and the Smiling Knight, the White Bull and Prince Lewyn, Ser Oswell Whent with his black humor, earnest Jon Darry, Simon Toyne and his Kingswood Brotherhood, bluff old Sumner Crakehall. And me, that boy I was . . . when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys's throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the SmilingKnight instead.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV

"He won some tourneys, surely," said Dany, disappointed.
"When he was young, His Grace rode brilliantly in a tourney at Storm's End, defeating Lord Steffon Baratheon, Lord Jason Mallister, the Red Viper of Dorne, and a mystery knight who proved to be the infamous Simon Toyne, chief of the kingswood outlaws. He broke twelve lances against Ser Arthur Dayne that day."
"Was he the champion, then?"

 

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The information about this tourney is problematic because some details in A Storm of Swords conflict. In response, George R. R. Martin suggested that the outlaw Simon Toyne was already dead by this time and the elderly Ser Barristan misremembered.[15]

 
FEBRUARY 12, 2001

SOME CONTINUITY ODDITIES

[Note: The first part of this entry is an excerpt from a mail in response to a note that there seems to be a continuity error in SoS, concerning the date of the death of the outlaw Simon Toyne and Rhaegar's defeat of him at the tourney at Storm's End, as reported by Ser Barristan early in the book and as recorded in The White Book.]

Ooops. Good catch...

As to this glitch... I think my defense in that the account in The White Book is correct. Ser Barristan is an old man, after all, recounting things that happened in his youth. You ought to see me and my friends sitting around at a con:

ME: Hey, remember Torcon 2, when Joe Haldeman found two naked girls in a bathtub of grape jello. Alice and Angela, wasn't it?

SOMEONE ELSE: It was lime jello, you idiot, and it was Big Mac, not Torcon. Three were three girls -- Betty, Veronica, and Lee.

JOE: Lime jello, two girls, it was Applesusan and Avedon, and it was Discon.

In other words, Ser Barristan is undoubtingly conflating events that happened at two or three different tourneys. Any way, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So lets make clear now that the Tourney happens late in 281AC with the Smiling knight and kings wood outlaws early in the year while Jamie is 15, followed by the Tourney at Old Town, followed by Lord Steffon's Tourney at Storm's End, then come Harrenhal. 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dr8agons: The Year of the False Spring

In the annals of Westeros, 281 AC is known as the Year of the False Spring. Winter had held the land in its icy grip for close on two years, but now at last the snows were melting, the woods were greening, the days were growing longer. Though the white ravens had not yet flown, there were many even at the Citadel of Oldtown who believed that winter's end was nigh.

The False Spring of 281 AC lasted less than two turns. As the year drew to a close, winter returned to Westeros with a vengeance. On the last day of the year, snow began to fall upon King's Landing, and a crust of ice formed atop the Blackwater Rush. The snowfall continued off and on for the best part of a fortnight, by which time the Blackwater was hard frozen, and icicles draped the roofs and gutters of every tower in the city.

As cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics. Huge green fires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn. Prince Rhaegar was not in the city to observe them, however. Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon. With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands. Not ten leagues from Harrenhal, Rhaegar fell upon Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all those he loved—and half the realm besides.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one."

"It was the green men he meant to find. So he donned a shirt sewn with bronze scales, like mine, took up a leathern shield and a three-pronged spear, like mine, and paddled a little skin boat down the Green Fork." 

Bran closed his eyes to try and see the man in his little skin boat. In his head, the crannogman looked like Jojen, only older and stronger and dressed like Meera.

"All that winter the crannogman stayed on the isle, but when the spring broke he heard the wide world calling and knew the time had come to leave. His skin boat was just where he'd left it, so he said his farewells and paddled off toward shore. He rowed and rowed, and finally saw the distant towers of a castle rising beside the lake. The towers reached ever higher as he neared shore, until he realized that this must be the greatest castle in all the world."

"Sometimes the knights are the monsters, Bran. The little crannogman was walking across the field, enjoying the warm spring day and harming none, when he was set upon by three squires. They were none older than fifteen, yet even so they were bigger than him, all three. This was their world, as they saw it, and he had no right to be there. They snatched away his spear and knocked him to the ground, cursing him for a frogeater."

"Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

"Under Harren's roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night's Watch.  The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

"Robert will never keep to one bed," Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm's End. "I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale." Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"Then, as now," she agreed. "The wolf maid saw them too, and pointed them out to her brothers. 'I could find you a horse, and some armor that might fit,' the pup offered. The little crannogman thanked him, but gave no answer. His heart was torn. Crannogmen are smaller than most, but just as proud. The lad was no knight, no more than any of his people. We sit a boat more often than a horse, and our hands are made for oars, not lances. Much as he wished to have his vengeance, he feared he would only make a fool of himself and shame his people. The quiet wolf had offered the little crannogman a place in his tent that night, but before he slept he knelt on the lakeshore, looking across the water to where the Isle of Faces would be, and said a prayer to the old gods of north and Neck . . ."

"Perhaps they did. The mystery knight dipped his lance before the king and rode to the end of the lists, where the five champions had their pavilions. You know the three he challenged."

"The porcupine knight, the pitchfork knight, and the knight of the twin towers." Bran had heard enough stories to know that. "He was the little crannogman, I told you."

"Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called. When his fallen foes sought to ransom horse and armor, the Knight of the Laughing Tree spoke in a booming voice through his helm, saying, 'Teach your squires honor, that shall be ransom enough.' Once the defeated knights chastised their squires sharply, their horses and armor were returned. And so the little crannogman's prayer was answered . . . by the green men, or the old gods, or the children of the forest, who can say?"

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Bran II

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three-eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek, and into his neck.

"A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." The clothes he wore were rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been black. "I have been many things, Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you … except in dreams. I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Bran II

"No," said Meera. "That night at the great castle, the storm lord and the knight of skulls and kisses each swore they would unmask him, and the king himself urged men to challenge him, declaring that the face behind that helm was no friend of his. But the next morning, when the heralds blew their trumpets and the king took his seat, only two champions appeared. The Knight of the Laughing Tree had vanished. The king was wroth, and even sent his son the dragon prince to seek the man, but all they ever found was his painted shield, hanging abandoned in a tree. It was the dragon prince who won that tourney in the end."
 
"Oh." Bran thought about the tale awhile. "That was a good story. But it should have been the three bad knights who hurt him, not their squires. Then the little crannogman could have killed them all. The part about the ransoms was stupid. And the mystery knight should win the tourney, defeating every challenger, and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty."
"She was," said Meera, "but that's a sadder story."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in: gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no lance could touch him. Brandon fell to him, and Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.
Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost

.

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

his fair lady (Ashara) had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime VIII

Ser Barristan of House Selmy. --------. Sole champion of Lord Steffon's tourney at Storm's End, whereat he unhorsed Lord Robert Baratheon, Prince Oberyn Martell, Lord Leyton Hightower, Lord Jon Connington, Lord Jason Mallister, and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV

"Was he the champion, then?"

"No, Your Grace. That honor went to another knight of the Kingsguard, who unhorsed Prince Rhaegar in the final tilt."

Dany did not want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed. "But what tourneys did my brother win?"

"Your Grace." The old man hesitated. "He won the greatest tourney of them all."

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

Barristan- If I had unhorsed Rhaegar and crowned Ashara queen of love and beauty, might she have looked to me instead of Stark?
He would never know. But of all his failures, none haunted Barristan Selmy so much as that.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cat Of The Canals

stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well

 

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A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

so maybe some words were whispered in a tent of a night, who can say? Words or kisses, maybe more, but where's the harm in that? Spring had come, or so they thought, and neither one of them was pledged

 

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A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal—"

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring

The False Spring of 281 AC lasted less than two turns. As the year drew to a close, winter returned to Westeros with a vengeance. On the last day of the year, snow began to fall upon King's Landing, and a crust of ice formed atop the Blackwater Rush. The snowfall continued off and on for the best part of a fortnight, by which time the Blackwater was hard frozen, and icicles draped the roofs and gutters of every tower in the city.

As cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics. Huge green fires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn. Prince Rhaegar was not in the city to observe them, however. Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon. With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands. Not ten leagues from Harrenhal, Rhaegar fell upon Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all those he loved—and half the realm besides.

 

_____Kidnap & Start of Robert's Rebellion early and mid 282AC_________

Spoiler

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn IV

When it was announced that I was to wed Brandon Stark, Petyr challenged for the right to my hand. It was madness. Brandon was twenty, Petyr scarcely fifteen. I had to beg Brandon to spare Petyr's life. He let him off with a scar. Afterward my father sent him away. I have not seen him since."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VII

They met in the lower bailey of Riverrun. When Brandon saw that Petyr wore only helm and breastplate and mail, he took off most of his armor. Petyr had begged her for a favor he might wear, but she had turned him away. Her lord father promised her to Brandon Stark, and so it was to him that she gave her token, a pale blue handscarf she had embroidered with the leaping trout of Riverrun. As she pressed it into his hand, she pleaded with him. "He is only a foolish boy, but I have loved him like a brother. It would grieve me to see him die." And her betrothed looked at her with the cool grey eyes of a Stark and promised to spare the boy who loved her.

That fight was over almost as soon as it began. Brandon was a man grown, and he drove Littlefinger all the way across the bailey and down the water stair, raining steel on him with every step, until the boy was staggering and bleeding from a dozen wounds. "Yield!" he called, more than once, but Petyr would only shake his head and fight on, grimly. When the river was lapping at their ankles, Brandon finally ended it, with a brutal backhand cut that bit through Petyr's rings and leather into the soft flesh below the ribs, so deep that Catelyn was certain that the wound was mortal. He looked at her as he fell and murmured "Cat" as the bright blood came flowing out between his mailed fingers. She thought she had forgotten that.

That was the last time she had seen his face … until the day she was brought before him in King's Landing.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

"He was on his way to Riverrun when . . ." Strange, how telling it still made her throat grow tight, after all these years. ". . . when he heard about Lyanna, and went to King's Landing instead. It was a rash thing to do." She remembered how her own father had raged when the news had been brought to Riverrun. The gallant fool, was what he called Brandon.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

Brandon Stark had bid her wait as well. "I shall not be long, my lady," he had vowed. "We will be wed on my return." Yet when the day came at last, it was his brother Eddard who stood beside her in the sept.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

Jaime poured the last half cup of wine. "He rode into the Red Keep with a few companions, shouting for Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. But Rhaegar wasn't there. Aerys sent his guards to arrest them all for plotting his son's murder. The others were lords' sons too, it seems to me."

"There were trials. Of a sort. Lord Rickard demanded trial by combat, and the king granted the request. Stark armored himself as for battle, thinking to duel one of the Kingsguard. Me, perhaps. Instead they took him to the throne room and suspended him from the rafters while two of Aerys's pyromancers kindled a blaze beneath him. The king told him that fire was the champion of House Targaryen. So all Lord Rickard needed to do to prove himself innocent of treason was . . . well, not burn.

"When the fire was blazing, Brandon was brought in. His hands were chained behind his back, and around his neck was a wet leathern cord attached to a device the king had brought from Tyrosh. His legs were left free, though, and his longsword was set down just beyond his reach.

"The pyromancers roasted Lord Rickard slowly, banking and fanning that fire carefully to get a nice even heat. His cloak caught first, and then his surcoat, and soon he wore nothing but metal and ashes. Next he would start to cook, Aerys promised . . . unless his son could free him. Brandon tried, but the more he struggled, the tighter the cord constricted around his throat. In the end he strangled himself.

"As for Lord Rickard, the steel of his breastplate turned cherry-red before the end, and his gold melted off his spurs and dripped down into the fire. I stood at the foot of the Iron Throne in my white armor and white cloak, filling my head with thoughts of Cersei. After, Gerold Hightower himself took me aside and said to me, 'You swore a vow to guard the king, not to judge him.' That was the White Bull, loyal to the end and a better man than me, all agree."

 

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AGOT Eddard I

"Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by the order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. "

 

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII

"They strangled Brandon while his father watched, and then killed Lord Rickard as well." An ugly tale, and sixteen years old. Why was he asking about it now?

 

_____Battle of Gulltown and the War begins-Mid 282AC______

Spoiler

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

Instead of granting them fair hearing, King Aerys had them brutally slain, then followed these murders by demanding that Lord Jon Arryn execute his former wards, Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark. Many now agree that the true start of Robert's Rebellion began with Lord Arryn's refusal and his courageous calling of his banners in the defense of justice. Yet not all the lords of the Vale agreed with Lord Jon's decision, and soon fighting broke out as loyalists to the crown attempted to bring Lord Arryn down.

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

Robert Baratheon proved himself a fearless, indomitable warrior as more and more men flocked to his banner. Robert was the first over the walls at Gulltown, when Lord Grafton raised his banner for Targaryens,

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

"Ned Stark was here?"
"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gull town stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true … but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.' "

 

___Summerhall & Battle of Ashford mid to late 282AC_____

Spoiler

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

 and from there he sailed to Storm's End—risking capture by the royal fleet—to call his banners. Not all came willing: Aerys's Hand, Lord Merryweather, encouraged certain stormlords to rise up against Lord Robert. Yet it was an effort that proved fruitless following Lord Robert's victories at Summerhall, where he won three battles in a single day. His hastily gathered forces defeated Lords Grandison and Cafferen in turn, and Robert went on to kill Lord Fell in single combat before taking his famous son Silveraxe captive

 

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A Storm of Swords - Davos IV

At Summerhall he won three battles in a single day, and brought Lords Grandison and Cafferen back to Storm's End as prisoners. He hung their banners in the hall as trophies. Cafferen's white fawns were spotted with blood and Grandison's sleeping lion was torn near in two. Yet they would sit beneath those banners of a night, drinking and feasting with Robert. He even took them hunting. 'These men meant to deliver you to Aerys to be burned,' I told him after I saw them throwing axes in the yard. 'You should not be putting axes in their hands.' Robert only laughed. I would have thrown Grandison and Cafferen into a dungeon, but he turned them into friends.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

"Ned Stark was here?"
"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gull town stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.
"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true … but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.' "

 

 

 

______The Siege of Storm's End- Late 282Ac___________

Spoiler

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

And after a partial victory at Ashford, which led to Robert's withdrawal, the Stormlands were left open to Lord Tyrell. Bringing the might of the Reach to bear, the reachlords swept away all resistance and settled in to besiege Storm's End. Shortly afterward, the host was joined by Lord Paxter Redwyne's mighty fleet from the Arbor, completing the siege by land and sea. That siege wore on until the conclusion of the war.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

Lord Stannis and a small garrison had held the castle for close to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne. Even the sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying the burgundy banners of the Arbor. Within Storm's End, the horses had long since been eaten, the dogs and cats were gone, and the garrison was down to roots and rats. Then came a night when the moon was new and black clouds hid the stars. Cloaked in that darkness, Davos the smuggler had dared the Redwyne cordon and the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay alike. His little ship had a black hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish. Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

The siege of Storm'sEnd, where Mace Tyrell actually did hold the command, had dragged on a year to no result, and after the Trident was fought, the Lord of Highgarden had meekly dipped his banners to Eddard Stark.

 

____Battle of the Bells- Early 283AC_________

Spoiler

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

More victories were to come for Lord Robert and the stormlords as they marched to join forces with Lord Arryn and the Northmen who supported their cause. Rightly famed is Robert's grand victory at Stoney Sept, also called the Battle of the Bells, where he slew the famous Ser Myles Mooton—once Prince Rhaegar's squire—and five men besides, and might well have killed the new Hand, Lord Connington, had the battle brought them together. The victory sealed the entry of the riverlands into the conflict, following the marriage of Lord Tully's daughters to Lords Arryn and Stark.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Griffin Reborn

Robert Baratheon had been hiding somewhere in the town, wounded and alone. Jon Connington had known that, and he had also known that Robert's head upon a spear would have put an end to the rebellion, then and there. He was young and full of pride. How not? King Aerys had named him Hand and given him an army, and he meant to prove himself worthy of that trust, of Rhaegar's love. He would slay the rebel lord himself and carve a place out for himself in all the histories of the Seven Kingdoms.

And so he swept down on Stoney Sept, closed off the town, and began a search. His knights went house to house, smashed in every door, peered into every cellar. He had even sent men crawling through the sewers, yet somehow Robert still eluded him. The townsfolk were hiding him. They moved him from one secret bolt-hole to the next, always one step ahead of the king's men. The whole town was a nest of traitors. At the end they had the usurper hidden in a brothel. What sort of king was that, who would hide behind the skirts of women? Yet whilst the search dragged on, Eddard Stark and Hoster Tully came down upon the town with a rebel army. Bells and battle followed, and Robert emerged from his brothel with a blade in hand, and almost slew Jon on the steps of the old sept that gave the town its name

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A Storm of Swords - Arya V

Stoney Sept was the biggest town Arya had seen since King's Landing, and Harwin said her father had won a famous battle here.

"The Mad King's men had been hunting Robert, trying to catch him before he could rejoin your father," he told her as they rode toward the gate. "He was wounded, being tended by some friends, when Lord Connington the Hand took the town with a mighty force and started searching house by house. Before they could find him, though, Lord Eddard and your grandfather came down on the town and stormed the walls. Lord Connington fought back fierce. They battled in the streets and alleys, even on the rooftops, and all the septons rang their bells so the smallfolk would know to lock their doors. Robert came out of hiding to join the fight when the bells began to ring. He slew six men that day, they say. One was Myles Mooton, a famous knight who'd been Prince Rhaegar's squire. He would have slain the Hand too, but the battle never brought them together. Connington wounded your grandfather Tully sore, though, and killed Ser Denys Arryn, the darling of the Vale. But when he saw the day was lost, he flew off as fast as the griffins on his shield. The Battle of the Bells, they called it after. Robert always said your father won it, not him."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Jaime V

. "After dancing griffins lost the Battle of the Bells, Aerys exiled him."

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime III

"No." It all came back to him. Jon Connington had been Prince Rhaegar's friend. When Merryweather failed so dismally to contain Robert's Rebellion and Prince Rhaegar could not be found, Aerys had turned to the next best thing, and raised Connington to the Handship. But the Mad King was always chopping off his Hands. He had chopped Lord Jon after the Battle of the Bells, stripping him of honors, lands, and wealth, and packing him off across the sea to die in exile, where he soon drank himself to death. The cousin, though—Red Ronnet's father—had joined the rebellion and been rewarded with Griffin's Roost after the Trident. He only got the castle, though; Robert kept the gold, and bestowed the greater part of the Connington lands on more fervent supporters.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Lost Lord

Seventeen years had come and gone since the Battle of the Bells, yet the sound of bells ringing still tied a knot in his guts. Others might claim that the realm was lost when Prince Rhaegar fell to Robert's warhammer on the Trident, but the Battle of the Trident would never have been fought if the griffin had only slain the stag there in Stoney Sept. The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince.

 

_______________Cat Weds Ned, Lysa Weds Jon- Early283AC_______

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VI

The war had not ended until the day she and Lysa had been wed. It was at their wedding feast that Brynden told his brother he was leaving Riverrun to serve Lysa and her new husband, the Lord of the Eyrie. Lord Hoster had not spoken his brother's name since, from what Edmure told her in his infrequent letters.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn X

Ned had lingered scarcely a fortnight with his new bride before he too had ridden off to war with promises on his lips. At least he had left her with more than words; he had given her a son. Nine moons had waxed and waned, and Robb had been born in Riverrun while his father still warred in the south. She had brought him forth in blood and pain, not knowing whether Ned would ever see him. Her son. He had been so small

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VI

I gave Brandon my favor to wear, and never comforted Petyr once after he was wounded, nor bid him farewell when Father sent him off. And when Brandonwas murdered and Father told me I must wed his brother, I did so gladly, though I never saw Ned's face until our wedding day. I gave my maidenhood to this solemn stranger and sent him off to his war and his king and the woman who bore him his bastard, because I always did my duty.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn I

Ned had fostered at the Eyrie, and the childless Lord Arryn had become a second father to him and his fellow ward, Robert Baratheon. When the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen had demanded their heads, the Lord of the Eyrie had raised his moon-and-falcon banners in revolt rather than give up those he had pledged to protect.
And one day fifteen years ago, this second father had become a brother as well, as he and Ned stood together in the sept at Riverrun to wed two sisters, the daughters of Lord Hoster Tully.

 

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Robb Stark

Birth

Robb Stark was 14 years old in 298 AC.[30] He has turned 15 at an unknown moment in time.[31] Robb Stark is mentioned to have turned 16 in 299 AC (this remark is made after the ploy to free Jaime Lannister, created by Tyrion Lannister, has been done and failed; Tyrion Lannister made the ploy on the day of Joffrey's 13th nameday, an event known to take place in 299 AC; the remark is also made before the Purple Wedding, which takes place on the first day of 300 AC).[32] This means that Robb was 15 turning 16 in 299 AC, showing that Robb was born in 283 AC.

 

____The Trident and The Sack of King's Landing- mid 283AC_____

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

The royalist forces were left reeling and scattered by such victories though they did their best to rally. The Kingsguard were dispatched to recover the remnant of Lord Connington's force, and Prince Rhaegar returned from the south to take command of the new levies being raised in the crownlands. And after a partial victory at Ashford, which led to Robert's withdrawal, the Stormlands were left open to Lord Tyrell. Bringing the might of the Reach to bear, the reachlords swept away all resistance and settled in to besiege Storm's End. Shortly afterward, the host was joined by Lord Paxter Redwyne's mighty fleet from the Arbor, completing the siege by land and sea. 

From Dorne, in defense of Princess Elia, ten thousand spears came over the Boneway and marched to King's Landing to bolster the host that Rhaegar was raising. Those who were there at court during this time have recounted that Aerys's behavior was erratic. He was untrusting of any save his Kingsguard—and then only imperfectly, for he kept Ser Jaime Lannister close at all hours to serve as a hostage against his father.

 

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Jaime V, Storm

The king reminded Lewyn Martell gracelessly that he held Elia and sent him to take command of the ten thousand Dornishmen coming up the kingsroad. Jon Darry and Barristan Selmy rode to Stoney Sept to rally what they could of griffins' men, and Prince Rhaegar returned from the south and persuaded his father to swallow his pride and summon my father. But no raven returned from Casterly Rock, and that made the king even more afraid. He saw traitors everywhere, and Varys was always there to point out any he might have missed. So His Grace commanded his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King's Landing. Beneath Baelor's Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom, under stables and storehouses, at all seven gates, even in the cellars of the Red Keep itself.

"Everything was done in the utmost secrecy by a handful of master pyromancers. They did not even trust their own acolytes to help. The queen's eyes had been closed for years, and Rhaegar was busy marshaling an army. But Aerys's new mace-and-dagger Hand was not utterly stupid, and with Rossart, Belis, and Garigus coming and going night and day, he became suspicious. Chelsted, that was his name, Lord Chelsted." It had come back to him suddenly, with the telling. "I'd thought the man craven, but the day he confronted Aerys he found some courage somewhere. He did all he could to dissuade him. He reasoned, he jested, he threatened, and finally he begged. When that failed he took off his chain of office and flung it down on the floor. Aerys burnt him alive for that, and hung his chain about the neck of Rossart, his favorite pyromancer. The man who had cooked Lord Rickard Stark in his own armor. And all the time, I stood by the foot of the Iron Throne in my white plate, still as a corpse, guarding my liege and all his sweet secrets.

 

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A Feast for Crows - Jaime II

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. "You're hurting me," they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. "You're hurting me." In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted's screaming. "We are sworn to protect her as well," Jaime had finally been driven to say. "We are," Darry allowed, "but not from him."

Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

His little ship had a black hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish. Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion I

"Aerys Targaryen's last Hand was killed during the Sack of King's Landing, though I doubt he'd had time to settle into the Tower. He was only Hand for a fortnight. The one before him was burned to death. And before them came two others who died landless and penniless in exile, and counted themselves lucky. I believe my lord father was the last Hand to depart King's Landing with his name, properties, and parts all intact."

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

When Prince Rhaegar at last marched up the kingsroad to the Trident, with him were all but one of the Kingsguard who had remained in King's Landing: Ser Barristan the Bold, Ser Jonothor Darry, and Prince Lewyn of Dorne. Prince Lewyn took command of the Dornish troop sent by his nephew, the Prince Doran, but it is said that he did so only after threats from the Mad King, who feared that the Dornishmen looked to betray him. Only the young Ser Jaime Lannister remained in King's Landing.

 

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Jaime I, Feast

The day had been windy when he said farewell to Rhaegar, in the yard of the Red Keep. The prince had donned his night-black armor, with the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies on his breastplate. "Your Grace," Jaime had pleaded, "let Darry stay to guard the king this once, or Ser Barristan. Their cloaks are as white as mine."

Prince Rhaegar shook his head. "My royal sire fears your father more than he does our cousin Robert. He wants you close, so Lord Tywin cannot harm him. I dare not take that crutch away from him at such an hour."

Jaime's anger had risen up in his throat. "I am not a crutch. I am a knight of the Kingsguard."

"Then guard the king," Ser Jon Darry snapped at him. "When you donned that cloak, you promised to obey."

Rhaegar had put his hand on Jaime's shoulder. "When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made. I meant to do it long ago, but . . . well, it does no good to speak of roads not taken. We shall talk when I return."

Those were the last words Rhaegar Targaryen ever spoke to him. Outside the gates an army had assembled, whilst another descended on the Trident. So the Prince of Dragonstone mounted up and donned his tall black helm, and rode forth to his doom

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. The waters of the Trident ran red around the hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again and again, until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer stove in the dragon and the chest beneath it. When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.

 

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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: The End

Ser Jaime Lannister was meanwhile left in charge of the Red Keep's defenses. The walls were manned by knights and watchmen, awaiting the enemy. When the first army that arrived flew the lion of Casterly Rock, with Lord Tywin at its head, King Aerys anxiously ordered the gates to be opened, thinking that at last his old friend and former Hand had come to his rescue, as he had done at the Defiance of Duskendale. But Lord Tywin had not come to save the Mad King.

This time, Lord Tywin's cause was that of the realm's, and he was determined to bring an end to the reign that madness had brought low. Once within the walls of the city, his soldiers assaulted the defenders of King's Landing, and blood ran red in the streets. A handpicked cadre of men raced to the Red Keep to storm its walls and seek out King Aerys, so that justice might be done.

The Red Keep was soon breached, but in the chaos, misfortune soon fell upon Elia of Dorne and her children, Rhaenys and Aegon. It is tragic that the blood spilled in war may as readily be innocent as it is guilty, and that those who ravished and murdered Princess Elia escaped justice. It is not known who murdered Princess Rhaenys in her bed, or smashed the infant Prince Aegon's head against a wall. Some whisper it was done at Aerys's own command when he learned that Lord Lannister had taken up Robert's cause, while others suggest that Elia did it herself for fear of what would happen to her children in the hands of herdead husband's enemies.

 

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Jaime V, Storm

"My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father's son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could watch me, day and night. So I heard it all." He remembered how Rossart's eyes would shine when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed. Garigus and Belis were the same. "Rhaegar met Robert on the Trident, and you know what happened there. When the word reached court, Aerys packed the queen off to Dragonstone with Prince Viserys. Princess Elia would have gone as well, but he forbade it. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that Prince Lewyn must have betrayed Rhaegar on the Trident, but he thought he could keep Dorne loyal so long as he kept Elia and Aegon by his side. The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

***

"Ned Stark was racing south with Robert's van, but my father's forces reached the city first. Pycelle convinced the king that his Warden of the West had come to defend him, so he opened the gates. The one time he should have heeded Varys, and he ignored him. My father had held back from the war, brooding on all the wrongs Aerys had done him and determined that House Lannister should be on the winning side. The Trident decided him.

"It fell to me to hold the Red Keep, but I knew we were lost. I sent to Aerys asking his leave to make terms. My man came back with a royal command. 'Bring me your father's head, if you are no traitor.' Aerys would have no yielding. LordRossart was with him, my messenger said. I knew what that meant.

"When I came on Rossart, he was dressed as a common man-at-arms, hurrying to a postern gate. I slew him first. Then I slew Aerys, before he could find someone else to carry his message to the pyromancers. Days later, I hunted down the others and slew them as well. Belis offered me gold, and Garigus wept for mercy. Well, a sword's more merciful than fire, but I don't think Garigus much appreciated the kindness I showed him."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

"You took a wound from Rhaegar," Ned reminded him. "So when the Targaryen host broke and ran, you gave the pursuit into my hands. The remnants of Rhaegar's army fled back to King's Landing. We followed. Aerys was in the Red Keep with several thousand loyalists. I expected to find the gates closed to us."

Robert gave an impatient shake of his head. "Instead you found that our men had already taken the city. What of it?"

"Not our men," Ned said patiently. "Lannister men. The lion of Lannister flew over the ramparts, not the crowned stag. And they had taken the city by treachery."

The war had raged for close to a year. Lords great and small had flocked to Robert's banners; others had remained loyal to Targaryen. The mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle, ignoring calls to arms from both rebels and royalists. Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He had opened his city to the lions at the gate.

"Treachery was a coin the Targaryens knew well," Robert said. The anger was building in him again. "Lannister paid them back in kind. It was no less than they deserved. I shall not trouble my sleep over it."

 

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Jaime II, Storm

remembers that. Would that I had taken off that damned cloak as well.

When Aerys saw the blood on his blade, he demanded to know if it was Lord Tywin's. "I want him dead, the traitor. I want his head, you'll bring me his head, or you'll burn with all the rest. All the traitors. Rossart says they are inside the walls! He's gone to make them a warm welcome. Whose blood? Whose?"

"Rossart's," answered Jaime.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

The war had raged for close to a year. Lords great and small had flocked to Robert's banners; others had remained loyal to Targaryen. The mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle, ignoring calls to arms from both rebels and royalists. Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He had opened his city to the lions at the gate.

"Treachery was a coin the Targaryens knew well," Robert said. The anger was building in him again. "Lannister paid them back in kind. It was no less than they deserved. I shall not trouble my sleep over it."

"You were not there," Ned said, bitterness in his voice. Troubled sleep was no stranger to him. He had lived his lies for fourteen years, yet they still haunted him at night. "There was no honor in that conquest."

"The Others take your honor!" Robert swore. "What did any Targaryen ever know of honor? Go down into your crypt and ask Lyanna about the dragon's honor!"

"You avenged Lyanna at the Trident," Ned said, halting beside the king. Promise me, Ned, she had whispered.

"That did not bring her back." Robert looked away, off into the grey distance. "The gods be damned. It was a hollow victory they gave me. A crown … it was the girl I prayed them for. Your sister, safe … and mine again, as she was meant to be. I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? The gods mock the prayers of kings and cowherds alike."

"I cannot answer for the gods, Your Grace … only for what I found when I rode into the throne room that day," Ned said. "Aerys was dead on the floor, drowned in his own blood. His dragon skulls stared down from the walls. Lannister's men were everywhere. Jaime wore the white cloak of the Kingsguard over his golden armor. I can see him still. Even his sword was gilded. He was seated on the Iron Throne, high above his knights, wearing a helm fashioned in the shape of a lion's head. How he glittered!"

"This is well known," the king complained.

"I was still mounted. I rode the length of the hall in silence, between the long rows of dragon skulls. It felt as though they were watching me, somehow. I stopped in front of the throne, looking up at him. His golden sword was across his legs, its edge red with a king's blood. My men were filling the room behind me. Lannister's men drew back. I never said a word. I looked at him seated there on the throne, and I waited. At last Jaime laughed and got up. He took off his helm, and he said to me, 'Have no fear, Stark. I was only keeping it warm for our friend Robert. It's not a very comfortable seat, I'm afraid.'"

The king threw back his head and roared. His laughter startled a flight of crows from the tall brown grass. They took to the air in a wild beating of wings. "You think I should mistrust Lannister because he sat on my throne for a few moments?" He shook with laughter again. "Jaime was all of seventeen, Ned. Scarce more than a boy."

"Boy or man, he had no right to that throne."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

 Some said it had been Gregor who'd dashed the skull of the infant prince Aegon Targaryen against a wall, and whispered that afterward he had raped the mother, the Dornish princess Elia, before putting her to the sword. These things were not said in Gregor's hearing.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion IV

"Why forget?" Tyrion smiled. "I've promised to deliver his sister's killers, alive or dead, as he prefers. After the war is done, to be sure."

Varys gave him a shrewd look. "My little birds tell me that Princess Elia cried a . . . certain name . . . when they came for her."

"Is a secret still a secret if everyone knows it?" In Casterly Rock, it was common knowledge that Gregor Clegane had killed Elia and her babe. They said he had raped the princess with her son's blood and brains still on his hands.

"This secret is your lord father's sworn man."

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys V

She nodded. "There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon."

"Prince Aegon was Rhaegar's heir by Elia of Dorne," Ser Jorah said. "But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall."

"I remember," Dany said sadly. "They murdered Rhaegar's daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon's sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?"

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion V

"Dwarf," said the Red Viper, in a tone grown markedly less cordial, "spare me your Lannister lies. Is it sheep you take us for, or fools? My brother is not a bloodthirsty man, but neither has he been asleep for sixteen years. Jon Arryn came to Sunspear the year after Robert took the throne, and you can be sure that he was questioned closely. Him, and a hundred more. I did not come for some mummer's show of an inquiry. I came for justice for Elia and her children, and I will have it. Starting with this lummox Gregor Clegane . . . but not, I think, ending there. Before he dies, the Enormity That Rides will tell me whence came his orders, please assure your lord father of that." He smiled. "An old septon once claimed I was living proof of the goodness of the gods. Do you know why that is, Imp?"

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VI

"And when Oberyn demands the justice he's come for?"

"I will tell him that Ser Amory Lorch killed Elia and her children," Lord Tywin said calmly. "So will you, if he asks."

"Ser Amory Lorch is dead," Tyrion said flatly.

"Precisely. Vargo Hoat had Ser Amory torn apart by a bear after the fall of Harrenhal. That ought to be sufficiently grisly to appease even Oberyn Martell."

"You may call that justice . . ."

"It is justice. It was Ser Amory who brought me the girl's body, if you must know. He found her hiding under her father's bed, as if she believed Rhaegar could still protect her. Princess Elia and the babe were in the nursery a floor below."

"Well, it's a tale, and Ser Amory's not like to deny it. What will you tell Oberyn when he asks who gave Lorch his orders?"
"Ser Amory acted on his own in the hope of winning favor from the new king. Robert's hatred for Rhaegar was scarcely a secret."

t might serve, Tyrion had to concede, but the snake will not be happy. "Far be it from me to question your cunning, Father, but in your place I do believe I'd have let Robert Baratheon bloody his own hands."
Lord Tywin stared at him as if he had lost his wits. "You deserve that motley, then. We had come late to Robert's cause. It was necessary to demonstrate our loyalty. When I laid those bodies before the throne, no man could doubt that we had forsaken House Targaryen forever. And Robert's relief was palpable. As stupid as he was, even he knew that Rhaegar's children had to die if his throne was ever to be secure. Yet he saw himself as a hero, and heroes do not kill children." His father shrugged. "I grant you, it was done too brutally. Elia need not have been harmed at all, that was sheer folly. By herself she was nothing."
"Then why did the Mountain kill her?"
"Because I did not tell him to spare her. I doubt I mentioned her at all. I had more pressing concerns. Ned Stark's van was rushing south from the Trident, and I feared it might come to swords between us. And it was in Aerys to murder Jaime, with no more cause than spite. That was the thing I feared most. That, and what Jaime himself might do." He closed a fist. "Nor did I yet grasp what I had in Gregor Clegane, only that he was huge and terrible in battle. The rape . . . even you will not accuse me of giving that command, I would hope. Ser Amory was almost as bestial with Rhaenys. I asked him afterward why it had required half a hundred thrusts to kill a girl of . . . two? Three? He said she'd kicked him and would not stop screaming. If Lorch had half the wits the gods gave a turnip, he would have calmed her with a few sweet words and used a soft silk pillow." His mouth twisted in distaste. "The blood was in him."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

You are no Tywin Lannister, to slaughter innocents." It was said that Rhaegar's little girl had cried as they dragged her from beneath her bed to face the swords. The boy had been no more than a babe in arms, yet Lord Tywin's soldiers had torn him from his mother's breast and dashed his head against a wall.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

 Robert's hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him. He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm. Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn II

It was true. The Knight of Flowers could not have reached his second name day when Robert slew Prince Rhaegar on the Trident. Few of the others were very much older. They had been babes during the Sack of King's Landing, and no more than boys when Balon Greyjoy raised the Iron Islands in rebellion. They are still unblooded, Catelyn thought as she watched Lord Bryce goad Ser Robar into juggling a brace of daggers. It is all a game to them still, a tourney writ large, and all they see is the chance for glory and honor and spoils. They are boys drunk on song and story, and like all boys, they think themselves immortal.

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

"Your Grace," said Jorah Mormont, "I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Tyrion VI

"A true friend, our Lord Connington. He must be, to remain so fiercely loyal to the grandson of the king who took his lands and titles and sent him into exile. A pity about that. Elsewise Prince Rhaegar's friend might have been on hand when my father sacked King's Landing, to save Prince Rhaegar's precious little son from getting his royal brains dashed out against a wall."

The lad flushed. "That was not me. I told you. That was some tanner's son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him. His father sold him to Lord Varys for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away."

"Aye." Tyrion moved his elephants. "And when the pisswater prince was safely dead, the eunuch smuggled you across the narrow sea to his fat friend the cheesemonger, who hid you on a poleboat and found an exile lord willing to call himself your father. It does make for a splendid story, and the singers will make much of your escape once you take the Iron Throne … assuming that our fair Daenerys takes you for her consort."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

Ned did not feign surprise; Robert's hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him. He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm. Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south. It had taken another death to reconcile them; Lyanna's death, and the grief they had shared over her passing.

 

____The Siege of Storms End lifted- Late 283AC________
 

Spoiler
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The World of Ice and Fire - The Fall of the Dragons: Robert’s Rebellion

 And after a partial victory at Ashford, which led to Robert's withdrawal, the Stormlands were left open to Lord Tyrell. Bringing the might of the Reach to bear, the reachlords swept away all resistance and settled in to besiege Storm's End. Shortly afterward, the host was joined by Lord Paxter Redwyne's mighty fleet from the Arbor, completing the siege by land and sea. That siege wore on until the conclusion of the war.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard VI

 Ned found it hard to imagine what could frighten Stannis Baratheon, who had once held Storm'sEnd through a year of siege, surviving on rats and boot leather while the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne sat outside with their hosts, banqueting in sight of his walls.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

Maester Cressen remembered the day Davos had been knighted, after the siege of Storm's End. Lord Stannis and a small garrison had held the castle for close to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne. Even the sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying the burgundy banners of the Arbor. Within Storm's End, the horses had long since been eaten, the dogs and cats were gone, and the garrison was down to roots and rats. Then came a night when the moon was new and black clouds hid the stars. Cloaked in that darkness, Davos the smuggler had dared the Redwyne cordon and the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay alike. His little ship had a black hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish. Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

"Why should I avenge Eddard Stark? The man was nothing to me. Oh, Robert loved him, to be sure. Loved him as a brother, how often did I hear that? I was his brother, not Ned Stark, but you would never have known it by the way he treated me. I held Storm's End for him, watching good men starve while Mace Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne feasted within sight of my walls. Did Robert thank me? No. He thanked Stark, for lifting the siege when we were down to rats and radishes. I built a fleet at Robert's command, took Dragonstone in his name. Did he take my hand and say, Well done, brother, whatever should I do without you? No, he blamed me for letting Willem Darry steal away Viserys and the babe, as if I could have stopped it. I sat on his council for fifteen years, helping Jon Arryn rule his realm while Robert drank and whored, but when Jon died, did my brother name me his Hand? No, he went galloping off to his dear friend Ned Stark, and offered him the honor. And small good it did either of them."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Tyrion III

Tyrion had to bite his tongue at that. Robb Stark had won more battles in a year than the Lord of Highgarden had in twenty. Tyrell's reputation rested on one indecisive victory over Robert Baratheon at Ashford, in a battle largely won by Lord Tarly's van before the main host had even arrived. The siege of Storm'sEnd, where Mace Tyrell actually did hold the command, had dragged on a year to no result, and after the Trident was fought, the Lord of Highgarden had meekly dipped his banners to Eddard Stark.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III

Stannis Baratheon's foragers had cut the trees down for his siege towers and catapults. Catelyn wondered how long the grove had stood, and whether Ned had rested here when he led his host south to lift the last siege of Storm's End. He had won a great victory that day, all the greater for being bloodless.

 

_________The Tower of Joy- Late 283AC__________

Spoiler

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.

They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.

"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.

"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.

"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."

"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.

"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."

"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise …"

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard X

It would have to be his grandfather, for Jory's father was buried far to the south. Martyn Cassel had perished with the rest. Ned had pulled the tower down afterward, and used its bloody stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory. They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away; Eddard Stark himself and the little crannogman, Howland Reed. He did not think it omened well that he should dream that dream again after so many years.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Bran III

The finest knight I ever saw was Ser Arthur Dayne, who fought with a blade called Dawn, forged from the heart of a fallen star. They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed." Father had gotten sad then, and he would say no more. Bran wished he had asked him what he meant.

 

_______Starfall and Ashara Dayne- Early 284AC________

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A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

Ned would not speak of the mother, not so much as a word, but a castle has no secrets, and Catelyn heard her maids repeating tales they heard from the lips of her husband's soldiers. They whispered of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, deadliest of the seven knights of Aerys's Kingsguard, and of how their young lord had slain him in single combat. And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes. It had taken her a fortnight to marshal her courage, but finally, in bed one night, Catelyn had asked her husband the truth of it, asked him to his face.
That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. "Never ask me about Jon," he said, cold as ice. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady." She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne's name was never heard in Winterfell again.

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

He had only to close his eyes to see her, with her long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders and those haunting purple eyes. Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter …
But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

 Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"
 
"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow."

"Exile," she said. "A bitter cup to drink from."
"A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar's children," Ned said, "and kinder than you deserve. Your father and your brothers would do well to go with you. Lord Tywin's gold will buy you comfort and hire swords to keep you safe. You shall need them. I promise you, no matter where you flee, Robert's wrath will follow you, to the back of beyond if need be."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard II

You know the one I mean, your bastard's mother?"
"Her name was Wylla," Ned replied with cool courtesy, "and I would sooner not speak of her."
"Wylla. Yes." The king grinned. "She must have been a rare wench if she could make Lord Eddard Stark forget his honor, even for an hour. You never told me what she looked like …"
Ned's mouth tightened in anger. "Nor will I. Leave it be, Robert, for the love you say you bear me. I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sight of gods and men."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

"Brother?" Arya did not understand. "But you're from Dorne. How could you and Jon be blood?"
"Milk brothers. Not blood. My lady mother had no milk when I was little, so Wylla had to nurse me."
Arya was lost. "Who's Wylla?"
"Jon Snow's mother. He never told you? She's served us for years and years. Since before I was born."
"Wylla was my wetnurse," he repeated solemnly. "I swear it on the honor of my House."

"You have a House?" That was stupid; he was a squire, of course he had a House. "Who are you?"
"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall."
"I'm sorry I didn't know who you were. My lord."
Jon has a mother. Wylla, her name is Wylla. She would need to remember so she could tell him, the next time she saw him. She wondered if he would still call her "little sister." I'm not so little anymore. He'd have to call me something else. Maybe once she got to Riverrun she could write Jon a letter and tell him what Ned Dayne had said. "There was an Arthur Dayne," she remembered. "The one they called the Sword of the Morning."
"My father was Ser Arthur's elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born."
"Why would she do that?" said Arya, startled.
Ned looked wary. Maybe he was afraid that she was going to throw something at him. "Your lord father never spoke of her?" he said. "The Lady Ashara Dayne, of Starfall?"

"No. Did he know her?"
"Before Robert was king. She met your father and his brothers at Harrenhal, during the year of the false spring."

"Oh." Arya did not know what else to say. "Why did she jump in the sea, though?"
"Her heart was broken."
Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid.
She couldn't say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. "Did someone break it?"
He hesitated. "Perhaps it's not my place . . ."
"Tell me."
He looked at her uncomfortably. "My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal—"
"That's not so. He loved my lady mother."

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal

 

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A Feast for Crows - Cat Of The Canals

stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead

 

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A Dance with Dragons - The Kingbreaker

had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps forthe man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XII

 Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?"
 
"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow."

"Exile," she said. "A bitter cup to drink from."
"A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar's children," Ned said, "and kinder than you deserve. Your father and your brothers would do well to go with you. Lord Tywin's gold will buy you comfort and hire swords to keep you safe. You shall need them. I promise you, no matter where you flee, Robert's wrath will follow you, to the back of beyond if need be."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper's hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

 

 

_____Known Accounts from Dragonstone to present_____

Spoiler
  • So the first thing we know is that Ser Willem Darry and 4 loyal guards "Break in and smuggle" Dany and Viserys out of Dragonstone and on to Braavos, as told to us by Dany via Viserys to her. The year is 284.
  • Here in Braavos is supposedly where the House with the Red Door is and the Lemon Tree that sat outside of Dany's window of her own personal room. 
  • Now sometime while in Braavos, a marriage pact is supposedly made between Darry on behalf of Viserys, and Oberyn on behalf of Arianne and Dorne with the Sea Lord of Braavos as Witness. Now as to when this happened? I think it happened in 285 to 286 AC. Based on Quentyn's being sent to be fostered for damages caused by Oberyn over 10 years prior when Oberyn was 16. Oberyn claims he was 14 or 15 visiting for Tyrions birth in 273Ac. So he was 16 by 275 at the latest. So i think 285 to 286Ac is when Doran wrote Quentyn having his plans for Arianne already in place. Now why Braavos is a Targaryen, idk. Maybe long as they dont have dragons it's ok? This pact comes from Quentyn to Dany in Mereen but is mentioned again by Doran to Arianne. 
  • Viserys knows nothing of the Pact, and Illyrio and Varys are also unaware that the pact was made (As per GRRM)
  • Now, next thing we know is that Doran claims Arianne at some point (Assuming before Targs are booted from House with lemon tree and red door?) was to go to Tyrosh to serve as cup bearer to the Archon, who's daughter was being fostered in Dorne. There, Arianne was to meet her betrothed for the first time. Though this is dashed due to her mother Mellario threatening to hurt her self if she lost another child. Its unknown if Trystan is born yet at this time, but Trystan was born in 287Ac. Now here we have among Braavos and Dorne, now Tyrosh. 
  • Next thing we know is that 5 years after dragon stone Darry got sick and died shorty after. Making Dany roughly 5 and the year 289AC. Here Dany and Viserys are kicked out of the House with the Red Door in Braavos after being robbed of most there belongings. Though not all as they have a crown and some how enough money to feast the Golden Company some unknown time later.
  • At this time in 289 Jorah Mormont suspiciously wins the Tourney at Lannisport celebrating the Victory of the Ironborn rebellion. Jorah wed Lynesse Hightower the same year.
  • From here Dany and Viserys wander, with accounts of where they went as far as order being mixed up. All we know is that they traveled the Free Cities seeking refuge and under the impression they are hunted by Robert Baratheon. Some time during their wanderings though, they take a boat back to Braavos (again?) to seek refuge. Who from since being kicked out the first time? Idk. Anyone? Dany makes mention of having sailed a hundred times though. Suggesting many manyyyy trips to the Coastal cities. 
  • Again, at some time during these years. Viserys some how have enough money to feast the Golden Company, who eat his food, laugh at him and leave. Though years later are on their way to meet Dany and seem fine with supporting a Targaryen, even after switching to Aegon. The Golden Company being founded by Bitter Steel and historically supporting Blackfyres.
  • Some time during these years, at least 2 years after 289, in 291 or later. Lynesse Hightower leaves Jorah Mormont (who never distinguished him self in a tourney again) for a wealthy magister of Tyrosh. This Tyroshy may or may not be connected to Illyrio and Varys and working against the Archon of Tyrosh. Jorah at some point after travels east where he learns Dothraki custom and language.
  • The next thing we know for sure is in 297 or 298? Dany and Viserys are with Illyrio in his Mance at Pentos and have been staying there for 6 months according to Dany. Though Illyrio speaks to Tyrion of years of planning being ruined when the night before the wedding Viserys tries to sneak in and take her maiden head as if he cant wed her then he'll at least take that. Most interesting given Illyrio's possible Blackfyre connection, and his seemingly disregard for Dany, he gives Dany 3 dragons eggs worth alottttt of money. 
  • Now from here a few weird things happen. Long and short of it is that Illyrio seems to trick Viserys into going with Dany by telling him he'd be better off to stay, while knowing how anxious Viserys is for his army. Either way, while out with them, it is hell for Viserys. Though he does seem to be lead on by Jorah. Even getting drunk before his death when he supposedly has no money. Then Jorah magnifies the situation in the tent rather than doing what Dany says and defusing it. This whole time Jorah keeps telling Dany about Asshai, and after Drogos death, suggesting they go there for some reason. 
  • Now up to Drogo's death there is the assassination attempt sent by the small council. Was this assassin supposed to succeed? Jorah receives a pardon but then saves Dany. Illyrio tells Tryion he expected Dany to die in the Dothraki Sea. Was this when. If so, what was supposed to happen with his dragon eggs? Jorah just returns the eggs? Or was Jorah to take them to Asshai? 
  • Later Drogo dies and possibly due to Mirri Maz Dur, or because Drogo interfered with her healing poultice and Jorah brought a birthing Dany into the tent when Mirri said no one must enter. So was Mirri helping or hurting? Mirri mentions training with Marwyn who we later learn has Alleras/Sarella, daughter of Oberyn with him. Suggesting a connection back to Dorne and House Martell. Then when Dany burns her along with the eggs and such, Mirri begins singing something. Was it a spell to protect Dany from the fire? or a spell to help hatch the eggs? Here forward though, Jorah never mentions Asshai again. 
  • Dany hatches her dragons in the year 299Ac
  • Jorah guides Dany to Qarth where Illyrio gets word of her and her dragons, sending ships to bring her back to Pentos. Jorah advises against it with out an army at her back suggesting he'w aware of Illyrio. Illyrio also send Belwas, and Barristan some how. 
  • The Cinnamon Wind sails to Qarth from Old Town where its captain Quhuru Mo tells Dany they're headed for the Jade Sea and wont return for a year.
  •  299 Ac is the year in ACOK that the Battle of the Blackwater takes place.
  • Now from here Dany goes to Mereen to get her army and we learn that Illyrio has another supposed Targaryen he's been supporting for years. Which begs the question why he wasn't helping Dany and Viserys sooner. Suspicion surrounds Aegon though as a possible Blackfyre. Though Varys claims to Kevan that he's real. If he's not real, it could suggest that Illyrios years of planning with Varys involved putting Dany and Viserys out of the House with the Red Door and drive fear into them thinking that they're being hunted?
  • The year is now 300Ac that Dany is in Mereen and the marked roughly by the Purple wedding, the Alliace between Lannister and Tryell houses following the Battle of the Blackwater.
  • Around this time the Cinnamon Wind pops up in Braavos where it takes on Sam Tarly, Aemon, Gilly, and the babe. Where it's suspected Marwyn has been entering Aemon's dreams in search of Dragon knowledge. The ship arrives in Old Town where it's inspected twice, the second time by Lord Leyton's son Gunthor Hightower himself who has a private conversation with a Qurulu Mo, rather than the captain Quhuru Mo. Maester Marwyn later sails off on an undisclosed ship, which may or may not be the Cinnamon Wind. It is unknown if Marwyn is working with the Hightowers or not, but clear that Marwyn is working independently of the Citidel. The Hightowers who founded the Citidel may well have access to the same glass candles Marwyn uses. In fact one of the four brought from Valyria 100 years before the doom to the Citidel was green rather than black like the other 3. Which may suggest it went to the Hightowers who made up the Green faction during the Dance of the Dragons.
  • Now Illyrio had the Archon of Tyrosh's brother at the Wedding for Drogo and Dany. So is Tyrosh switching sides? Cause there seems to be 2 sides, the Martells and Dorne and Illyrio and Varys. Tyrosh seems to have been with Dorne for some time but now seem to be with Illyrio. Is this all tied to the war between the Free Cities? Could the involvement of Braavos and the Sea Lords seeming death and Tyrosh's flipping alliances all tied to the War with the Free Cities? 

____ The Quaithe- Ashara Dayne connection_________

Spoiler

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

She dreamed. All her cares fell away from her, and all her pains as well, and she seemed to float upward into the sky. She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. "To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back. To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."
"Quaithe?" Dany called. "Where are you, Quaithe?"
Then she saw. Her mask is made of starlight.

 

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Ashara Dayne - of Starfall. 

Jumped from Palestone sword (Cliff/Tower?) - Dawn

Sword of the Morning - Dawn

Dawn- Forged from a falling Star by the first Dayne. Lightbringer?

Sigil- White sword and falling Star

 

 

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

Viserys bristled. "Guard your tongue, Mormont, or I'll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg."
Ser Jorah lowered his eyes respectfully. Illyrio smiled enigmatically and tore a wing from the duck. Honey and grease ran over his fingers and dripped down into his beard as he nibbled at the tender meat. There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.
Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. "You woke the dragon," he screamed as he kicked her. "You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon." Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid …

… until the day of her wedding came at last.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

And the next day, strangely, she did not seem to hurt quite so much. It was as if the gods had heard her and taken pity. Even her handmaids noticed the change. "Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, "what is wrong? Are you sick?"
"I was," she answered, standing over the dragon's eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shell. Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers … or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously.
From that hour onward, each day was easier than the one before it. Her legs grew stronger; her blisters burst and her hands grew callused; her soft thighs toughened, supple as leather.

The khal had commanded the handmaid Irri to teach Dany to ride in the Dothraki fashion, but it was the filly who was her real teacher. The horse seemed to know her moods, as if they shared a single mind. With every passing day, Dany felt surer in her seat. The Dothraki were a hard and unsentimental people, and it was not their custom to name their animals, so Dany thought of her only as the silver. She had never loved anything so much.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

"Khaleesi," Cohollo said to her, in Dothraki. "Drogo, who is blood of my blood, commands me to tell you that he must ascend the Mother of Mountains this night, to sacrifice to the gods for his safe return."
Only men were allowed to set foot on the Mother, Dany knew. The khal's bloodriders would go with him, and return at dawn. "Tell my sun-and-stars that I dream of him, and wait anxious for his return," she replied, thankful. Dany tired more easily as the child grew within her; in truth, a night of rest would be most welcome. Her pregnancy only seemed to have inflamed Drogo's desire for her, and of late his embraces left her exhausted.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.
She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

Wings shadowed her fever dreams.

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She was walking down a long hall beneath high stone arches. She could not look behind her, must not look behind her. There was a door ahead of her, tiny with distance, but even from afar, she saw that it was painted red. She walked faster, and her bare feet left bloody footprints on the stone.
"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She saw sunlight on the Dothraki sea, the living plain, rich with the smells of earth and death. Wind stirred the grasses, and they rippled like water. Drogo held her in strong arms, and his hand stroked her sex and opened her and woke that sweet wetness that was his alone, and the stars smiled down on them, stars in a daylight sky. "Home," she whispered as he entered her and filled her with his seed, but suddenly the stars were gone, and across the blue sky swept the great wings, and the world took flame.
"… don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Ser Jorah's face was drawn and sorrowful. "Rhaegar was the last dragon," he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. "The last dragon," he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.

"… don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

Viserys stood before her, screaming. "The dragon does not beg, slut. You do not command the dragon. I am the dragon, and I will be crowned." The molten gold trickled down his face like wax, burning deep channels in his flesh. "I am the dragon and I will be crowned!" he shrieked, and his fingers snapped like snakes, biting at her nipples, pinching, twisting, even as his eyes burst and ran like jelly down seared and blackened cheeks.

"… don't want to wake the dragon …"
The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

"… don't want to wake the dragon …"

She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo's copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

"… want to wake the dragon …"
Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.

"… wake the dragon …"
The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

"… the dragon …"
And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.
After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.

She woke to the taste of ashes.

"No," she moaned, "no, please."

"Khaleesi?" Jhiqui hovered over her, a frightened doe.

The tent was drenched in shadow, still and close. Flakes of ash drifted upward from a brazier, and Dany followed them with her eyes through the smoke hole above. Flying, she thought. I had wings, I was flying. But it was only a dream. "Help me," she whispered, struggling to rise. "Bring me …" Her voice was raw as a wound, and she could not think what she wanted. Why did she hurt so much? It was as if her body had been torn to pieces and remade from the scraps. "I want …"

"Yes, Khaleesi." Quick as that Jhiqui was gone, bolting from the tent, shouting. Dany needed … something … someone … what? It was important, she knew. It was the only thing in the world that mattered. She rolled onto her side and got an elbow under her, fighting the blanket tangled about her legs. It was so hard to move. The world swam dizzily. I have to …

They found her on the carpet, crawling toward her dragon eggs. Ser Jorah Mormont lifted her in his arms and carried her back to her sleeping silks, while shestruggled feebly against him. Over his shoulder she saw her three handmaids, Jhogo with his little wisp of mustache, and the flat broad face of Mirri MazDuur. "I must," she tried to tell them, "I have to …"

"… sleep, Princess," Ser Jorah said.

"No," Dany said. "Please. Please."

"Yes." He covered her with silk, though she was burning. "Sleep and grow strong again, Khaleesi. Come back to us." And then Mirri Maz Duur was there, the maegi, tipping a cup against her lips. She tasted sour milk, and something else, something thick and bitter. Warm liquid ran down her chin. Somehow she swallowed. The tent grew dimmer, and sleep took her again. This time she did not dream. She floated, serene and at peace, on a black sea that knew no shore.

After a time—a night, a day, a year, she could not say—she woke again. The tent was dark, its silken walls flapping like wings when the wind gusted outside. This time Dany did not attempt to rise. "Irri," she called, "Jhiqui. Doreah." They were there at once. "My throat is dry," she said, "so dry," and they brought her water. It was warm and flat, yet Dany drank it eagerly, and sent Jhiqui for more. Irri dampened a soft cloth and stroked her brow. "I have been sick," Dany said. The Dothraki girl nodded. "How long?" The cloth was soothing, but Irri seemed so sad, it frightened her. "Long," she whispered. When Jhiqui returned with more water, Mirri Maz Duur came with her, eyes heavy from sleep. "Drink," she said, lifting Dany's head to the cup once more, but this time it was only wine. Sweet, sweet wine. Dany drank, and lay back, listening to the soft sound of her own breathing. She could feel the heaviness in her limbs, as sleep crept in to fill her up once more. "Bring me …" she murmured, her voice slurred and drowsy. "Bring … I want to hold …"

"Yes?" the maegi asked. "What is it you wish, Khaleesi?"

"Bring me … egg … dragon's egg … please …" Her lashes turned to lead, and she was too weary to hold them up.

When she woke the third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon's egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter cream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze (Viserion) , and Dany could feel the heat of it. Beneath her bedsilks, a finesheen of perspiration covered her bare skin. Dragondew, she thought. Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracing the wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt something twist and stretch in response. It did not frighten her. All her fear was gone, burned away.

Dany touched her brow. Under the film of sweat, her skin was cool to the touch, her fever gone. She made herself sit. There was a moment of dizziness, and the deep ache between her thighs. Yet she felt strong. Her maids came running at the sound of her voice. "Water," she told them, "a flagon of water, cold as you can find it. And fruit, I think. Dates."

"As you say, Khaleesi."

"I want Ser Jorah," she said, standing. Jhiqui brought a sandsilk robe and draped it over her shoulders. "And a warm bath, and Mirri Maz Duur, and …" Memorycame back to her all at once, and she faltered. "Khal Drogo," she forced herself to say, watching their faces with dread. "Is he—?"

"The khal lives," Irri answered quietly … yet Dany saw a darkness in her eyes when she said the words, and no sooner had she spoken than she rushed away to fetch water.

She turned to Doreah. "Tell me."

"I … I shall bring Ser Jorah," the Lysene girl said, bowing her head and fleeing the tent.

Jhiqui would have run as well, but Dany caught her by the wrist and held her captive. "What is it? I must know. Drogo … and my child." Why had she not remembered the child until now? "My son … Rhaego … where is he? I want him."

Her handmaid lowered her eyes. "The boy … he did not live, Khaleesi." Her voice was a frightened whisper.

Dany released her wrist. My son is dead, she thought as Jhiqui left the tent. She had known somehow. She had known since she woke the first time to Jhiqui's tears. No, she had known before she woke. Her dream came back to her, sudden and vivid, and she remembered the tall man with the copper skin and long silver-gold braid, bursting into flame.

She should weep, she knew, yet her eyes were dry as ash. She had wept in her dream, and the tears had turned to steam on her cheeks. All the grief has been burned out of me, she told herself. She felt sad, and yet … she could feel Rhaego receding from her, as if he had never been.

Ser Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur entered a few moments later, and found Dany standing over the other dragon's eggs, the two still in their chest. It seemed to her that they felt as hot as the one she had slept with, which was passing strange. "Ser Jorah, come here," she said. She took his hand and placed it on the black egg with the scarlet swirls. "What do you feel?"

"Shell, hard as rock." The knight was wary. "Scales."

"Heat?"

"No. Cold stone." He took his hand away. "Princess, are you well? Should you be up, weak as you are?"

"Weak? I am strong, Jorah." To please him, she reclined on a pile of cushions. "Tell me how my child died."

"He never lived, my princess. The women say …" He faltered, and Dany saw how the flesh hung loose on him, and the way he limped when he moved.

"Tell me. Tell me what the women say."

He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted. "They say the child was …"
She waited, but Ser Jorah could not say it. His face grew dark with shame. He looked half a corpse himself.
"Monstrous," Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. "Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wingsof a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years."

Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. "My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent," she said. "I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born."

"That may be as it may be," answered Mirri Maz Duur, "yet the creature that came forth from your womb was as I said. Death was in that tent, Khaleesi."

"Only shadows," Ser Jorah husked, but Dany could hear the doubt in his voice. "I saw, maegi. I saw you, alone, dancing with the shadows."

"The grave casts long shadows, Iron Lord," Mirri said. "Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back."

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. "The shadows have touched you too, Ser Jorah," she told him. The knight made no reply. Dany turned to the godswife. "You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse."

"No," Mirri Maz Duur said. "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price."

Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost. "The price was paid," Dany said. "The horse, my child, Quaro and Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo. The price was paid and paid and paid." She rose from her cushions. "Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godswife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son's life."

 

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

And when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," she said sadly. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before."

Never, the darkness cried, never never never.

Inside the tent Dany found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream.

For more on this and the Dragons Hatching check out my thread below.

 

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

She had heard the longing in Ser Jorah's voice when he spoke of his Bear Island. He can never have me, but one day I can give him back his home and honor. That much I can do for him.

No ghosts troubled her sleep that night. She dreamed of Drogo and the first ride they had taken together on the night they were wed. In the dream it was not horses they rode, but dragons.

The next morn, she summoned her bloodriders. "Blood of my blood," she told the three of them, "I have need of you. Each of you is to choose three horses, the hardiest and healthiest that remain to us. Load as much water and food as your mounts can bear, and ride forth for me. Aggo shall strike southwest, Rakharo due south. Jhogo, you are to follow shierak qiya on southeast."

 

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II

He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to? Unbidden, her thoughts went back to the night on Balerion when the exile knight had kissed her. He should never have done that. He is thrice my age, and of too low a birth for me, and I never gave him leave. No true knight would ever kiss a queen without her leave. She had taken care never to be alone with Ser Jorah after that, keeping her handmaids with her aboard ship, and sometimes her bloodriders. He wants to kiss me again, I see it in his eyes.
What Dany wanted she could not begin to say, but Jorah's kiss had woken something in her, something that had been sleeping since Khal Drogo died. Lying abed in her narrow bunk, she found herself wondering how it would be to have a man squeezed in beside her in place of her handmaid, and the thought was more exciting than it should have been. Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.
Once, so tormented she could not sleep, Dany slid a hand down between her legs, and gasped when she felt how wet she was. Scarce daring to breathe, she moved her fingers back and forth between her lower lips, slowly so as not to wake Irri beside her, until she found one sweet spot and lingered there, touching herself lightly, timidly at first and then faster. Still, the relief she wanted seemed to recede before her, until her dragons stirred, and one screamed out across the cabin, and Irri woke and saw what she was doing.

Dany knew her face was flushed, but in the darkness Irri surely could not tell. Wordless, the handmaid put a hand on her breast, then bent to take a nipple in her mouth. Her other hand drifted down across the soft curve of belly, through the mound of fine silvery-gold hair, and went to work between Dany's thighs. It was no more than a few moments until her legs twisted and her breasts heaved and her whole body shuddered. She screamed then. Or perhaps that was Drogon. Irri never said a thing, only curled back up and went back to sleep the instant the thing was done.

The next day, it all seemed a dream. And what did Ser Jorah have to do with it, if anything? It is Drogo I want, my sun-and-stars, Dany reminded herself. Not Irri, and not Ser Jorah, only Drogo. Drogo was dead, though. She'd thought these feelings had died with him there in the red waste, but one treacherous kiss had somehow brought them back to life. He should never have kissed me. He presumed too much, and I permitted it. It must never happen again. She set her mouth grimly and gave her head a shake, and the bell in her braid chimed softly.

Closer to the bay, the city presented a fairer face. The great brick pyramids lined the shore, the largest four hundred feet high. All manner of trees and vines and flowers grew on their broad terraces, and the winds that swirled around them smelled green and fragrant. Another gigantic harpy stood atop the gate, this one made of baked red clay and crumbling visibly, with no more than a stub of her scorpion's tail remaining. The chain she grasped in her clay claws was old iron, rotten with rust. It was cooler down by the water, though. The lapping of the waves against the rotting pilings made a curiously soothing sound.

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

Ser Jorah had no answer. He only smiled, and touched her hair, so lightly. It was enough.
That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.
She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her, and she heard the faint creak of wood, water lapping against the hull, a football on the deck above her head. And something else.

Someone was in the cabin with her.
"Irri? Jhiqui? Where are you?" Her handmaids did not respond. It was too black to see, but she could hear them breathing. "Jorah, is that you?"
"They sleep," a woman said. "They all sleep." The voice was very close. "Even dragons must sleep."

She is standing over me. "Who's there?" Dany peered into the darkness. She thought she could see a shadow, the faintest outline of a shape. "What do youwant to me?"

"Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."

"Quaithe?" Dany sprung from the bed and threw open the door. Pale yellow lantern light flooded the cabin, and Irri and Jhiqui sat up sleepily. "Khaleesi?" murmured Jhiqui, rubbing her eyes. Viserion woke and opened his jaws, and a puff of flame brightened even the darkest corners. There was no sign of a woman in a red lacquer mask. "Khaleesi, are you unwell?" asked Jhiqui.
"A dream." Dany shook her head. "I dreamed a dream, no more. Go back to sleep. All of us, go back to sleep." Yet try as she might, sleep would not come again.

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys V

Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. The thought was exciting and disturbing, both at once. It is too great a risk. The Tyroshi sellsword was not a good man, no one needed to tell her that. Under the smiles and the jests he was dangerous, even cruel. Sallor and Prendahl had woken one morning as his partners; that very night he'd given her their heads. Khal Drogo could be cruel as well, and there was never a man more dangerous. She had come to love him all the same. Could I love Daario? What would it mean, if I took him into my bed? Would that make him one of the heads of the dragon? Ser Jorah would be angry, she knew, but he was the one who'd said she had to take two husbands. Perhaps I should marry them both and be done with it.
But these were foolish thoughts. She had a city to take, and dreaming of kisses and some sellsword's bright blue eyes would not help her breach the walls of Meereen. I am the blood of the dragon, Dany reminded herself. Her thoughts were spinning in circles, like a rat chasing its tail. Suddenly she could not stand the close confines of the pavilion another moment. I want to feel the wind on my face, and smell the sea. "Missandei," she called, "have my silver saddled. Your own mount as well."

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys VI

Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her handmaid's thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo holding her . . . only somehow his face kept turning into Daario's. If I want Daario I need only say so. She lay with Irri's legs entangled in her own. His eyes looked almost purple today . . .

Dany's dreams were dark that night, and she woke three times from half-remembered nightmares. After the third time she was too restless to return to sleep. Moonlight streamed through the slanting windows, silvering the marble floors. A cool breeze was blowing through the open terrace doors. Irri slept soundly beside her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty.

She rose, leaving Irri asleep in the moonlight. Jhiqui and Missandei slept in their own beds. Dany slipped on a robe and padded barefoot across the marble floor, out onto the terrace. The air was chilly, but she liked the feel of grass between her toes and the sound of the leaves whispering to one another. Wind ripples chased each other across the surface of the little bathing pool and made the moon's reflection dance and shimmer.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys I

"Your Grace," said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, "there is no need for you to see this."

"He died for me." Dany clutched her lion pelt to her chest. Underneath, a sheer white linen tunic covered her to midthigh. She had been dreaming of a house with a red door when Missandei woke her. There had been no time to dress.

"Khaleesi," whispered Irri, "you must not touch the dead man. It is bad luck to touch the dead."

 

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A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys II

What is it?" she cried, as Irri shook her gently by the shoulder. It was the black of night outside. Something is wrong, she knew at once. "Is it Daario? What's happened?" In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door. In her dream he had been kissing her all over—her mouth, her neck, her breasts.

"No, Khaleesi," Irri murmured, "it is your eunuch Grey Worm and the bald men. Will you see them?"

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys II

A bath will help soothe me. She padded barefoot through the grass to her terrace pool. The water felt cool on her skin, raising goosebumps. Little fish nibbled at her arms and legs. She closed her eyes and floated.

A soft rustle made her open them again. She sat up with a soft splash. "Missandei?" she called. "Irri? Jhiqui?"

"They sleep," came the answer.

A woman stood under the persimmon tree, clad in a hooded robe that brushed the grass. Beneath the hood, her face seemed hard and shiny. She is wearing a mask, Dany knew, a wooden mask finished in dark red lacquer. "Quaithe? Am I dreaming?" She pinched her ear and winced at the pain. "I dreamt of you on Balerion, when first we came to Astapor."

"You did not dream. Then or now."

"What are you doing here? How did you get past my guards?"

"I came another way. Your guards never saw me."

"If I call out, they will kill you."
"They will swear to you that I am not here."
"Are you here?"

"No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."

"Reznak? Why should I fear him?" Dany rose from the pool. Water trickled down her legs, and gooseflesh covered her arms in the cool night air. "If you have some warning for me, speak plainly. What do you want of me, Quaithe?"

Moonlight shone in the woman's eyes. "To show you the way."

"I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. "I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you—"

"Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are."

"The blood of the dragon." But my dragons are roaring in the darkness. "I remember the Undying. Child of three, they called me. Three mounts they promised me, three fires, and three treasons. One for blood and one for gold and one for …"

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?"

Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe.

A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once. "I was praying," she told the Naathi girl. "It will be light soon. I had best eat something, before court."

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys V

"And the Stormcrows, Your Grace?"
Daario. "Yes. Yes." Just three nights ago she had dreamed of Daario lying dead beside the road, staring sightlessly into the sky as crows quarreled above his corpse. Other nights she tossed in her bed, imagining that he'd betrayed her, as he had once betrayed his fellow captains in the Stormcrows. He brought me their heads. What if he had taken his company back to Yunkai, to sell her for a pot of gold? He would not do that. Would he? "The Stormcrows too. Send riders after them at once."

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

Hizdahr will bring me peace. He must.
That night her cooks roasted her a kid with dates and carrots, but Dany could only eat a bite of it. The prospect of wrestling with Meereen once more left her feeling weary. Sleep came hard, even when Daario came back, so drunk that he could hardly stand. Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone. She wanted to shake him, wake him, make him hold her, fuck her, help her forget, but she knew that if she did, he would only smile and yawn and say, "It was just a dream, my queen. Go back to sleep."
Instead she slipped into a hooded robe and stepped out onto her terrace. She went to the parapet and stood there gazing down upon the city as she had done a hundred times before. It will never be my city. It will never be my home.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"And bought you too, I do not doubt." He did not trouble to deny it. Dany unrolled the parchment and examined it again. Braavos. This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door. Why did that make her feel so strange?
She found herself remembering her nightmare. Sometimes there is truth in dreams.
Could Hizdahr zo Loraq be working for the warlocks, was that what the dream had meant? Could the dream have been a sending? Were the gods telling her to put Hizdahr aside and wed this Dornish prince instead? Something tickled at her memory. "Ser Barristan, what are the arms of House Martell?"
"A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear."

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VIII

"Home," said Dany. "Naath. Butterflies and brothers. Tell me of the things that make you happy, the things that make you giggle, all your sweetest memories. Remind me that there is still good in the world."
Missandei did her best. She was still talking when Dany finally fell to sleep, to dream queer, half-formed dreams of smoke and fire.
The morning came too soon.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

The hours passed slowly. The stream bent this way and that, and Dany followed, beating time upon her leg with the whip, trying not to think about how far she had to go, or the pounding in her head, or her empty belly. Take one step. Take the next. Another step. Another. What else could she do?
It was quiet on her sea. When the wind blew the grass would sigh as the stalks brushed against each other, whispering in a tongue that only gods could understand. Now and again the little stream would gurgle where it flowed around a stone. Mud squished between her toes. Insects buzzed around her, lazy dragonflies and glistening green wasps and stinging midges almost too small to see. She swatted at them absently when they landed on her arms. Once she came upon a rat drinking from the stream, but it fled when she appeared, scurrying between the stalks to vanish in the high grass. Sometimes she heard birds singing. The sound made her belly rumble, but she had no nets to snare them with, and so far she had not come on any nests. Once I dreamed of flying, she thought, and now I've flown, and dream of stealing eggs. That made her laugh. "Men are mad and gods are madder," she told the grass, and the grass murmured its agreement.
Thrice that day she caught sight of Drogon. Once he was so far off that he might have been an eagle, slipping in and out of distant clouds, but Dany knew the look of him by now, even when he was no more than a speck. The second time he passed before the sun, his black wings spread, and the world darkened. The last time he flew right above her, so close she could hear the sound of his wings. For half a heartbeat Dany thought that he was hunting her, but he flew on without taking any notice of her and vanished somewhere in the east. Just as well, she thought.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep.
She dreamed. All her cares fell away from her, and all her pains as well, and she seemed to float upward into the sky. She was flying once again, spinning, laughing, dancing, as the stars wheeled around her and whispered secrets in her ear. "To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward, you must go back. To touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."
"Quaithe?" Dany called. "Where are you, Quaithe?"

Then she saw. Her mask is made of starlight.
"Remember who you are, Daenerys," the stars whispered in a woman's voice. "The dragons know. Do you?"

The next morning she woke stiff and sore and aching, with ants crawling on her arms and legs and face. When she realized what they were, she kicked aside the stalks of dry brown grass that had served as her bed and blanket and struggled to her feet. She had bites all over her, little red bumps, itchy and inflamed. Where did all the ants come from? Dany brushed them from her arms and legs and belly. She ran a hand across her stubbly scalp where her hair had burned away, and felt more ants on her head, and one crawling down the back of her neck. She knocked them off and crushed them under her bare feet. There were so many …
It turned out that their anthill was on the other side of her wall. She wondered how the ants had managed to climb over it and find her. To them these tumbledown stones must loom as huge as the Wall of Westeros. The biggest wall in all the world, her brother Viserys used to say, as proud as if he'd built it himself.

Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges that grew along the byways of the Seven Kingdoms. Dany would have given much and more for a nice thick hedge. Preferably one without an anthill.
The sun was only just coming up. A few bright stars lingered in the cobalt sky. Perhaps one of them is Khal Drogo, sitting on his fiery stallion in the night lands and smiling down on me. Dragonstone was still visible above the grasslands. It looks so close. I must be leagues away by now, but it looks as if I could be back in an hour. She wanted to lie back down, close her eyes, and give herself up to sleep. No. I must keep going. The stream. Just follow the stream.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again.
She dreamt of her dead brother.
Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes.

"You are dead," Dany said.
Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned.
"I loved you once."

Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed.
"You hurt me. You frightened me."

Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you.
"You sold me. You betrayed me."
No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger.

"You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited."
I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me.
"You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake."

Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead.
"You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …"
I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.

When she woke, gasping, her thighs were slick with blood.

For a moment she did not realize what it was. The world had just begun to lighten, and the tall grass rustled softly in the wind. No, please, let me sleep some more. I'm so tired. She tried to burrow back beneath the pile of grass she had torn up when she went to sleep. Some of the stalks felt wet. Had it rained again? She sat up, afraid that she had soiled herself as she slept. When she brought her fingers to her face, she could smell the blood on them. Am I dying? Then she saw the pale crescent moon, floating high above the grass, and it came to her that this was no more than her moon blood.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.
"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons."

Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.
Her belly was empty, her feet sore and blistered, and it seemed to her that the cramping had grown worse. Her guts were full of writhing snakes biting at her bowels. She scooped up a handful of mud and water in trembling hands. By midday the water would be tepid, but in the chill of dawn it was almost cool and helped her keep her eyes open. As she splashed her face, she saw fresh blood on her thighs. The ragged hem of her undertunic was stained with it. The sight of so much red frightened her. Moon blood, it's only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow. Could it be the water? If it was the water, she was doomed. She had to drink or die of thirst.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

One rider, and alone. A scout. He was one who rode before the khalasar to find the game and the good green grass, and sniff out foes wherever they might hide. If he found her there, he would kill her, rape her, or enslave her. At best, he would send her back to the crones of the dosh khaleen, where good khaleesi were supposed to go when their khals had died.
He did not see her, though. The grass concealed her, and he was looking elsewhere. Dany followed his eyes, and there the shadow flew, with wings spread wide. The dragon was a mile off, and yet the scout stood frozen until his stallion began to whicker in fear. Then he woke as if from a dream, wheeled his mount about, and raced off through the tall grass at a gallop.
Dany watched him go. When the sound of his hooves had faded away to silence, she began to shout. She called until her voice was hoarse … and Drogon came, snorting plumes of smoke. The grass bowed down before him. Dany leapt onto his back. She stank of blood and sweat and fear, but none of that mattered. "To go forward I must go back," she said. Her bare legs tightened around the dragon's neck. She kicked him, and Drogon threw himself into the sky. Her whip was gone, so she used her hands and feet and turned him north by east, the way the scout had gone. Drogon went willingly enough; perhaps he smelled the rider's fear.

 

 

______Quaithe, Mirri, and Hatching Dragons____________

 

__Dany, Dawn, Dorne, matriarchy & the Sword of the Morning____

 

__Nissa Nissa the Sword of the Morning & Dany's role_____

 

____________Dornish alliances___________________

 

________ Basic Narrative and thoughts_____________

Spoiler

Needs to be updated.

*Aerys and Rhaella Targaryen begin our tale with their many failed births. 10 children up to Viserys, only 2 having survived. Rhaegar born in 259Ac with 8 failed births in between (263-274) leading up to a frail and sickly Viserys born in 276, making Rhaella 30 roughly at the time of Visery's birth (No not old). This does show a very consistent fail rate though. Aerys in the end vowing to stay faithful to Rhaella after the last one in 274.

*Next is Rhaegar being obsessed with prophecy. Aware that he was thought to be the prophesied prince that was promise, sought to become a warrior to full fill this, going to Jonothor Darry to teach him. Later though it appears Rhaegar changed his belief to that of his children as shown through the HOTU. Where Rhaegar is seen holding a baby he names as Aegon. Then states that he has a song, the Song of Ice and Fire, but that the dragon always has three heads as he looks up at Dany. Rhaegar is told by the Maester that Elia would not be able to bear another child. This sets up a couple things i think. One is Rhaegar's motivation to have another child to full fill the 3 heads of the dragon (whether the prophecy is real or not, or a trick). It also shows what i believe to be another motivation of Rhaegars and a part of his plan in the beginning before he meets Lyanna.

*Danny's vision. In this vison, Rhaegar looks at Dany as he states there must be 3 heads to the dragon. To this, Dany cannot tell if he is speaking to her or the woman in the bed. I believe neither, but rather the woman who's eyes Dany is seeing out of Ashara Dayne, lady in waiting to Elia Martell not long at court. This is who i believe Rhaegar, best friends to Arthur Dayne, planned to have his third child with. So now we have motivation and a plan. Only one thing first, the Tourney of Harrenhal and the over throw of his father. But first, Howland Reed.

________________Harrenhal_______________________

                                                                                                                

Spoiler

Harrenhal takes place over 10 days during the False Spring which lasted less than two turns (a moons turn is 27-29 days). Ending with snow falling the last day of the year. So Harrenhal happened in the last couple months of 281AC after the birth of Aegon Targaryen, as after the Tourney, Rhaegar kidnaps Lyanna and runs away.

So before the Tourney of Harrenhal, Howland Reed seeks out the Green men of the God's Eye and sails to the Island staying there a long undisclosed amount of time. With the coming of spring though he finally leaves and comes upon Harrenhal being set up. Here he gets bullied by 3 squires and saved by Lyanna Stark who introduces him to her brothers. That night a great feast is held to commence the Tourney after a Jamie had been introduced into the King Guard earlier that day then sent back to K.L. There at the feast a few things happen

Rhaegar plays a sad song on his harp that catches the attention of Lyanna Stark and brings her to tears, to which Benjin mocks her and she pours a drink over his head. 

Howland Reed stares at Ashara Dayne and watches her dance with 4 men. A white sword (any one of the kings guard but likely Barristan or Arthur), a red snake (Oberyn),and the Lord of Griffins (Jon Connington). This causes Eddard Stark to take notice but being to shy to ask Ashara, Brandon asks for him and the two Dance. Helping to spark rumors between Ashara and Eddard.

Howland sleeps in Eddard tent that night but prays to the Old Gods.

The Next day a mystery night, the Knight of the Laughing Tree enters the list and defeats the Knights to which the 3 squires who bullied Howland served. The Knight then disappears and Aerys orders the Knight to be found. To which Rhaegar searches but reports only finding a shield in a tree. This is when Rhaegar meets Lyanna and all of Rhaegars plans change. 

Rhaegar would go on to win the Tourney facing off against Barristan Selmy, of whom he would unhorse. Winning and crowning Lyanna the Queen of Love and Beauty. 

This would be the event the was the Dishonoring of Ashara Dayne. How do we know? Because Barristan tells us so in a couple ways and hints us into Rhaegar in the same breath. He starts off mentioning Ashara Dayne and how Dany looked liked Ashara Dayne child, but that Ashara's daughter had been still born and his lady had thrown her self from a cliff soon after. Perhaps over the loss of the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal and that if only he had unhorsed Rhaegar, might she have turned to him rather than Stark. Right there it all is.

So we know the dishonoring was at the end of the Tourney as Barristan states that if he had won, she would have turned to him rather than Stark. 

We know it was Rhaegar who dishonored her cause Barristan say's that they died. Eddard isn't dead, Rhaegar is dead. And no it's not Brandon, ill cover that in a bit. So Rhaegar dishonored Ashara Dayne at the end of the Tourney when he won and crowned Lyanna instead of her. 

There was no rape and Ashara didn't get pregnant at Harrenhal, because Barristan tells us so. Ashara's daughter had been still born, and Ashara killed herself soon after. Ashara dies in 284 with the Tourney being in 281Ac. Thats not shortly after. 

With the closing of the year the snows would return to Westeros with fierce snows lasting the better part of a fort night (14days) with huge fires burning at Red Keep for a moons turn. Rhaegar never seeing them though as he had taken to the road with Arthur and others to kidnap Lyanna Stark and spark Robert's Rebellion. Taking her not 10 leagues from Harrenhal. 

_____________ Roberts Rebellion__________________________

                                                                                               

Spoiler

Its now the beginning of 282Ac in the first couple months. Brandon Stark duels Little Finger for Caitlynn Stark whom he is to wed soon. Though Brandon upon riding to meet his father coming down the neck hears word of Lyanna's kidnapping and storms off to K.L. to demand for her back. Brandon is taken hostage and his father is called to court.

The two die in the first 3 months of 282Ac. As Brandon dies days before he was to wed Caitlynn Stark.

"Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by the order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. "

~ AGOT Eddard I

Eddard weds Caitlynn a year after she was to wed Brandon. We'll get back to that. So point about this is that Brandon dies way to soon to father Jon who is born at the wars end around the Sack of K.L. a year later. 

Now next the war begins with Aerys demanding Aryn turn over Eddard and Robert. Who instead calls his banners which leads to the battle of Gullstown. Which afterwards, Eddard sneaks off north to rally his forces and march back down, as Robert sails down to Storms End making good time. He is able to launch an attack at Summerhal defeating 3 armies in one day before returning to Storms End and leaving Stannis in charge. 

This is now a couple months after the war started and the Siege of Storms End goes underway as Robert faces of Tarly's forces at Ashford where he loses and has to retreat. 

The year is now 283 and the Battle of the Bells is fought at the start of the year as Eddards forces are able to make their way down the Neck to join forces with Robert Baratheon. Defeating Jon Connington and the Targaryen forces.

Wedding of Caitlynn to Eddard and Jon Arryn to Lysa in 283 no later than March. As Caitlyn gets pregnant with Rob who she gives birth to later that year likely in December. As Robb name day is around the Red Wedding which happens at the end of 299, and marked my the Tyrell-Lannister alliance through the Purple Wedding, the first event of 300Ac.

During this time, Rhaegar comes from the south to K.L. where he rallies Targaryen forces. In this time, after the defeat at Battle of the Bells, Aerys rapes Rhaella Targaryen behind closed doors after burning his hand. All we know is Aerys raped some one and Jamie hears rumors from her hand maids of bruises and bite marks. 

During this time back at K.L. Rhaegar possibly makes good with Ashara Dayne and gets her with child, fulfilling the original agreement. Ashara Dayne who was lady in waiting to Elia Martell, who was at K.L. at the time under Aery's control and threat to Lewyn Martell. GRRM has also stated that Ashara Dayne was not nailed down at Starfall like alot of fans assume. So we have proximity at the least. Rhaegar has one last talk with Jamie who he promises change to upon his return, then marches off to the Trident.

After the wedding and a couple weeks together. Eddard and Robert march off to war and to the Trident. Robert kills Rhaegar at the Trident.

Word quickly reaches K.L. where Aerys has Rhaella and Viserys shipped off to Dragonstone for safety. Now here we have a couple interesting things to point out.

1. Ashara Dayne and where she went is unknown. She was likely at K.L. but may have gone with Rhaella to Dragonstone, or she may have remained at K.L. or fled to Starfall at this time. 

2. Differing accounts of Rhaella's departure. Viserys recalls a midnight flight to Dragonstone where as Jamie recalls seeing a hooded and cloaked Rhaella leaving in the morning. Now, Jamie only see's a woman, hooded and cloaked and may have just assumed that it was Rhaella who had actually left the night before. Which would mean that some one wanted everyone to think she left to Dragonstone when she didnt, or they just wanted when she left hidden, in case she was attacked. Jamie also makes no mention of Darry being with her or Viserys. 

Its important to also keep in mind that Varys is still at K.L. and may be apart of this plan or at the least aware of it. 

Next thing is the Sack of K.L. and the supposed death of Aegon, and the deaths of Aerys, Rhaella, and Rhaeny. Vary's claims to have swapped Aegon with a fake. This may or may not be true as the two children were in different locations and may have only been able to get to one of them. That or Aegon being a baby was the only one easy to hide.

Eddard upon arriving becomes enraged about the killing of the children and even furthered enraged by Roberts indifference and even pleasure at it. Eddard storms of in anger to lift the siege of Storms End. Important note is that it is now a year since Gulltown and the start of the War. The Sack of K.L. marking the end of the war as per most accounts. The lifting of the siege more of an after math to the wars end as Robert is already King. 

Jon Snow is born around the time of the Sack of K.L. and Dany being born 8-9 months after Jon, was conceived around the Sack of K.L. or the month leading up to it (when Rhaegar was in K.L? or Aery's raping Rhaella who can have 2 in 10 kids successfully.

Eddard lifts the siege of Storms End with out a fight and is now free to search for Lyanna to whom he may or may not already have info into her where abouts.

Eddard finds Lyanna at the Tower of Joy dying of a fever from her child birth to Jon. Arthur Dayne is killed by Howland along with Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent dying. Eddard and Howland are the only 2 of the 7 Northmen to survive supposedly. With Eddard burying them there but bringing back Lord Dustins horse, which just as easily could have carried their bones.We'll come back to this.

Eddard from here is reported to have returned Dawn to Starfall. Where many conflicting accounts happen. We know Eddard arrives with Jon though from the Tower of Joy though so Ashara isn't Jon's kid. So Cersei's claim that Eddard stole a child from Ashara couldn't have been Jon. Barristan say's she had a daughter anyways, though he claims the child was stillborn. 

Now, was Ashara Dayne really at Starfall when Eddard arrived? I dont know. She may have been the hooded and cloaked woman who went to Dragonstone the morning after Rhaella had left at night with Viserys and Darry. Eddard doesn't pop up later with a female child though. Eddard also does something so note worthy for House Dayne, that the Oldest brother names his son after Eddard. The House also participates in the lie that Eddard fathered Jon on Wylla the Milk Maid. A tale they also tell Ned Dayne who repeats it to Arya. 

We dont know much from here other than Dany and Viserys are supposedly taken by Darry and 4 loyal guards who "break" in and take them supposedly to Braavos. Interesting note that 5 people kidnap Dany and Viserys and 5 people possibly went missing from the Tower of Joy. Could Dany's memories of Darry be wrong? Could they be a lie, or mis-remembered? Could she be confused the man she thinks was Willem Darry raising her, was actually William Dustin? Could this have been the deed Eddard did for the woman he once had a crush on and comforted one night in a tent? Did Eddard send his men to help save Ashara's children from the wrath of Robert Baratheon, the friend he left in rage over the killing of babies?

Maybe when the Northmen broke in and found a baby and Viserys, they just took the baby, not knowing that it was Ashara's baby born on Dragonstone. Not Rhaella's baby who had been born Stillborn on Dragonstone. Maybe it wasn't Northmen but Targaryen loyalist who were just confused, and maybe Viserys does think she's his sister. Either way, Viserys's real sister is dead and he has a fake with him. Well, half Targ, but not his sister, his niece by Rhaegar.

Which leads me to Dany and the things she sees. Aery's is mentioned 5 times by name and once not by name in all 5 books in Dany's chapters, yet Rhaegar is mentioned 44 times. With Dany seeing herself as Rhaegar. This i think is because Rhaegar is her true father. Quiathe wants her to know the truth about who she is, possibly because Quiathe is Ashara Dayne. Or maybe not. 

 

So there it is, these are the events i believe through the clues listed are what lead up to Dany and Jons births. Dany a Targ/Dayne mix, and Jon a Targ/Stark mix. One is Fire, the other is Ice. Either is Azor Ahai reborn or the Last Hero, or the Prince(ss) that was promised, and it doesn't matter. What matters is their child, the child of Ice and Fire. What is the importance of this child? Nope, not to lead the humans in war against the Others (That's what Dany and Jon think they're doing). Nope, the child is the End Game and the trick. For more on that check out my thread on magic and the End Game.  

end-game-telepathytelekinesis-the-myths-the-black-stone-and-the-trees-its-all-connected-p-oh-and-the-secret-to-dragon-steel/

Where i talk about the Others and what they want and whats going on. 

For more on Dany's life after Dragonstone and what maybe happening there with Dorne and Illyrio and Varys check out my thread 

braavos-tyrosh-and-dorne-lemons-trees-and-a-red-door-go

Where i go into known information regarding her time after Dragonstone.

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I'll give you credit for the effort you've put into this theory, but I am unconvinced.  I think Viserys would have known even as a child if Rhaella wasn't pregnant or never gave birth.  And this theory posits that Rhaegar believed that Rhaenys was worthless, because this theory would mean that there were 4 heads of the dragon.  I genuinely find all Ashara Dayne theories interesting though - everyone has a crazy idea about her, but her possibly being Quaithe is a first!

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39 minutes ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

I'll give you credit for the effort you've put into this theory, but I am unconvinced.  I think Viserys would have known even as a child if Rhaella wasn't pregnant or never gave birth.  And this theory posits that Rhaegar believed that Rhaenys was worthless, because this theory would mean that there were 4 heads of the dragon.  I genuinely find all Ashara Dayne theories interesting though - everyone has a crazy idea about her, but her possibly being Quaithe is a first!

I never said Rhaella wasn't pregnant and didn't give birth. The evidence suggest she was and did. All im suggesting is her child didn't survive, and that possibly when they grabbed Ashara's child who may have been there, thinking it was Rhaella's. The guards being unaware that Rhaella's child was still born. So the baby swap could've happened with out Viserys being aware of it. Thats all. :)

As far as 4 heads? Well i dont think this is so much to do about Rhaegar thinking Rhaenys was worthless, but merely full filling the original deal with Ashara. House Dayne may have their own interest for wanting that baby other than the Three Heads of the Dragon. House Dayne may just believe they need one child to full fill the prophecy, born of their line to wield Dawn.

Hahah there is definitely alot of Ashara theories, but then she's an interesting piece in the puzzle and hard to not include her :)

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On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

During this time, Rhaegar comes from the south to K.L. where he rallies Targaryen forces. In this time, after the defeat at Battle of the Bells, Aerys rapes Rhaella Targaryen behind closed doors after burning his hand. All we know is Aerys raped some one and Jamie hears rumors from her hand maids of bruises and bite marks. 

Sorry but this is incorrect. The memory goes,

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me,” they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. “You’re hurting me.” In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.”
Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon’s High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

If the rape took place in Aerys' own chambers, you might have a point that Jaime somehow mistook the identity of the woman because he might not have seen her enter. But at night at Rhaella's own chamber, there is no mistaking, and there is no way Ashara could have been inside the queen's bedroom. Both Jaime and Darry know whom Aerys is raping.

 

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

During this time back at K.L. Rhaegar possibly makes good with Ashara Dayne and gets her with child, fulfilling the original agreement. Ashara Dayne who was lady in waiting to Elia Martell, who was at K.L. at the time under Aery's control and threat to Lewyn Martell. GRRM has also stated that Ashara Dayne was not nailed down at Starfall like alot of fans assume. So we have proximity at the least. Rhaegar has one last talk with Jamie who he promises change to upon his return, then marches off to the Trident.

Except that the Starfall quote is tied to Ashara's absence from KL during the rebellion, i.e. she was no longer with Elia as her lady in waiting. She had no business being at KL at that point, and travelling to KL at a time of war, into the mad king's clutches, is highly implausible. 

Besides, such a scenario makes Barristan's account rather inconsistent - he is distressed by a dishonour at Harrenhal, which didn't result in pregnancy, instead of the moment when she was actually impregnated? I know that the part about "shortly after" the death of her baby is also suspicious but such a late timing of her pregnancy doesn't make sense, either. - Didn't you say you would cover why the guy who dishonoured her was not Brandon? Because he fits both by personality and by being at the right time and place for Barristan's account, and he is indeed dead.

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

Eddard from here is reported to have returned Dawn to Starfall. Where many conflicting accounts happen. We know Eddard arrives with Jon though from the Tower of Joy though so Ashara isn't Jon's kid. So Cersei's claim that Eddard stole a child from Ashara couldn't have been Jon. Barristan say's she had a daughter anyways, though he claims the child was stillborn. 

Strictly speaking, we don't.

Not to mention that Cersei was stashed at Casterly Rock the whole time, so she doesn't know a thing besides gossip.

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

Now, was Ashara Dayne really at Starfall when Eddard arrived? I dont know. She may have been the hooded and cloaked woman who went to Dragonstone the morning after Rhaella had left at night with Viserys and Darry.

The conflicting information about the timing aside, why would Ashara travel in a royal wheelhouse? Plus, being cloaked and hooded doesn't mean that Jaime was necessarily only assuming her identity.

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

Eddard doesn't pop up later with a female child though. Eddard also does something so note worthy for House Dayne, that the Oldest brother names his son after Eddard. The House also participates in the lie that Eddard fathered Jon on Wylla the Milk Maid. A tale they also tell Ned Dayne who repeats it to Arya. 

Eddard and Edric are two different names which can be nicknamed the same way as any Edmund, Edwin and the like.

Also, young Ned Dayne's source is his aunt Allyria, whose age or source of information are unknown. There is no telling what the rest of the Daynes might think or know.

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

We dont know much from here other than Dany and Viserys are supposedly taken by Darry and 4 loyal guards who "break" in and take them supposedly to Braavos. Interesting note that 5 people kidnap Dany and Viserys and 5 people possibly went missing from the Tower of Joy. Could Dany's memories of Darry be wrong? Could they be a lie, or mis-remembered? Could she be confused the man she thinks was Willem Darry raising her, was actually William Dustin? Could this have been the deed Eddard did for the woman he once had a crush on and comforted one night in a tent? Did Eddard send his men to help save Ashara's children from the wrath of Robert Baratheon, the friend he left in rage over the killing of babies?

From Eddard's thoughts, we know for sure that Martyn Cassel is dead and buried in Dorne, he refers to that when thinking about Jory's funeral, so no, it is four people missing from ToJ at best, not five.

Plus, Lord Dustin. Who had obligations as a Lord and husband, which he really shoudn't abandon to run such a strange errand for Eddard Stark

On 12. 9. 2017 at 1:27 PM, AlaskanSandman said:

Maybe when the Northmen broke in and found a baby and Viserys, they just took the baby, not knowing that it was Ashara's baby born on Dragonstone. Not Rhaella's baby who had been born Stillborn on Dragonstone. Maybe it wasn't Northmen but Targaryen loyalist who were just confused, and maybe Viserys does think she's his sister. Either way, Viserys's real sister is dead and he has a fake with him. Well, half Targ, but not his sister, his niece by Rhaegar.

Ashara's baby wouldn't be in a royal nursery, though.

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12 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

Sorry but this is incorrect. The memory goes,

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. The day he burned his mace-and-dagger Hand, Jaime and Jon Darry had stood at guard outside her bedchamber whilst the king took his pleasure. “You’re hurting me,” they had heard Rhaella cry through the oaken door. “You’re hurting me.” In some queer way, that had been worse than Lord Chelsted’s screaming. “We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.”
Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone. The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon’s High Hill to the waiting ship, but he heard her maids whispering after she was gone. They said the queen looked as if some beast had savaged her, clawing at her thighs and chewing on her breasts. A crowned beast, Jaime knew.

If the rape took place in Aerys' own chambers, you might have a point that Jaime somehow mistook the identity of the woman because he might not have seen her enter. But at night at Rhaella's own chamber, there is no mistaking, and there is no way Ashara could have been inside the queen's bedroom. Both Jaime and Darry know whom Aerys is raping.

 

Except that the Starfall quote is tied to Ashara's absence from KL during the rebellion, i.e. she was no longer with Elia as her lady in waiting. She had no business being at KL at that point, and travelling to KL at a time of war, into the mad king's clutches, is highly implausible. 

Besides, such a scenario makes Barristan's account rather inconsistent - he is distressed by a dishonour at Harrenhal, which didn't result in pregnancy, instead of the moment when she was actually impregnated? I know that the part about "shortly after" the death of her baby is also suspicious but such a late timing of her pregnancy doesn't make sense, either. - Didn't you say you would cover why the guy who dishonoured her was not Brandon? Because he fits both by personality and by being at the right time and place for Barristan's account, and he is indeed dead.

Strictly speaking, we don't.

Not to mention that Cersei was stashed at Casterly Rock the whole time, so she doesn't know a thing besides gossip.

The conflicting information about the timing aside, why would Ashara travel in a royal wheelhouse? Plus, being cloaked and hooded doesn't mean that Jaime was necessarily only assuming her identity.

Eddard and Edric are two different names which can be nicknamed the same way as any Edmund, Edwin and the like.

Also, young Ned Dayne's source is his aunt Allyria, whose age or source of information are unknown. There is no telling what the rest of the Daynes might think or know.

From Eddard's thoughts, we know for sure that Martyn Cassel is dead and buried in Dorne, he refers to that when thinking about Jory's funeral, so no, it is four people missing from ToJ at best, not five.

Plus, Lord Dustin. Who had obligations as a Lord and husband, which he really shoudn't abandon to run such a strange errand for Eddard Stark

Ashara's baby wouldn't be in a royal nursery, though.

The bit about Aerys i mention as an unlikely scenario, but still wanted to present the rare chance. 

What quote about Ashara proves she wasn't at K.L. at any time? 

And no strictly speaking we dont, if you believe Brandon ran off with Ashara to the Crypts of Winterfell or some other theory, you might assume they were else where. Every thing in the text leads me to believe Eddard got Jon at the Tower of Joy and thus would've had him at Starfall upon arriving. 

Again, what quote from Eddard proves Cassel was definitively buried there? Any quotes are greatly helpful, as im not out right disagreeing, but dont recall any quote stating such. 

As far as Lord Dustin. Quite possibly. Maybe there is no reason for Dustin to do such a thing. As to this, im not sure and structured as such that it was just an interesting note worthy point. May be nothing though :)

This is merely a construction of events as i understand them given the text. I purposely stopped at Dragon Stone and have another thread that picks up from there. The one after Dragonstone is a discussion assuming Dany is who she thinks she is and no baby swaps happening possibly. They seem two different discussions. 

Edit- Sorry, as far as Brandon, he died too soon to father Jon or Dany. (see notes on cats weddings) So even if he did have a still born child with Ashara, it would add up to nothing in the story. Ned would not go to Starfall at all, not even likely to return their sword. Given his brother would have slept with the girl he was crushing on. 

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1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Deep

Deep and not crackpot. Tough nut to crack with the OP. If we can start with any assumptions, that makes the WOIAF so much more engaging.

Dunk warged Sandor to stop Gregor from killing Loras who was to fly his mare into Ned's eye to end the southron ambition alliance. RIP Baelor

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1 minute ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Deep and not crackpot. Tough nut to crack with the OP. If we can start with any assumptions, that makes the WOIAF so much more engaging.

Dunk warged Sandor to stop Gregor from killing Loras who was to fly his mare into Ned's eye to end the southron ambition alliance. RIP Baelor

Well you stated nothing meaningful, then follow it up with more snarky comments. Im sorry. Is there some point your trying to get at?

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3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

The bit about Aerys i mention as an unlikely scenario, but still wanted to present the rare chance. 

I'm afraid the quote rules it out then.

3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

What quote about Ashara proves she wasn't at K.L. at any time? 

There was a SSM stating that Ashara was not in KL during the Rebellion. I'll ask around for the link.

3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

And no strictly speaking we dont, if you believe Brandon ran off with Ashara to the Crypts of Winterfell or some other theory, you might assume they were else where. Every thing in the text leads me to believe Eddard got Jon at the Tower of Joy and thus would've had him at Starfall upon arriving. 

Well... we do know that Ned got Jon at some point and we know that he managed to get him to the North without people putting together two and two of a kidnapped Lyanna and a newborn, so the connection must have been obscured somehow. IMHO, at some point, Ned carrying Lyanna's bones/ashes  and Jon separated - most likely, the detour to Starfall with Dawn was a coverup for getting a ship for Howland transport Jon elsewhere while Ned returned to KL to report to Robert, without any baby that might raise uncomfortable questions.

However, there is another possible scenario, of Ned going to Starfall to pick Jon who had been hidden there with Wylla poising as his mother while the KG stayed behind with the dying Lyanna so as not to put up a red flag by their presence. There might even be a precedent for such a solution, a king without the KG, when Aegon II was being smuggled out of KL without a single KG, because a KG presence on a fishing boat would be, well, rather suspicious.

3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Again, what quote from Eddard proves Cassel was definitively buried there? Any quotes are greatly helpful, as im not out right disagreeing, but dont recall any quote stating such. 

“Jory and the others …”
“I gave them over to the silent sisters, to be sent north to Winterfell. Jory would want to lie beside his grandfather.”
It would have to be his grandfather, for Jory’s father was buried far to the south. Martyn Cassel had perished with the rest. Ned had pulled the tower down afterward, and used its bloody stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory. They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away; Eddard Stark himself and the little crannogman, Howland Reed.

So here you go, Martyn Cassel died, along with everyone else, including Lord Dustin. - Oh, and I recall a report from a convention where GRRM was asked if Ned and Howland were the only two men leaving ToJ, and he said yes. The answer, of course, doesn't preclude any babies and females :-)

3 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Edit- Sorry, as far as Brandon, he died too soon to father Jon or Dany. (see notes on cats weddings) So even if he did have a still born child with Ashara, it would add up to nothing in the story. Ned would not go to Starfall at all, not even likely to return their sword. Given his brother would have slept with the girl he was crushing on. 

The bolded is definitely true but I'd be careful about zero significance to the story. Various Daynes keep reappearing throughout the story way too often to be of no importance at all; there is Dayne blood in the Targaryen lineage; there is a very special sword; there is a tie to the Starks (including that ambiguous "turned to Stark" which Barristan wishes he had prevented by crowning Ashara himself). If Ashara's child was stillborn and Jon was indeed hidden at Starfall, Ned taking him away could have exacerbated her trauma and lead to her suicide. If the information about stillbirth is incorrect (which may well be, as Barristan was definitely not a first-hand witness and his source of information is unknown), then her daughter actually might live and be important for Barristan story arc if he survives Meereen (it has been noted that Allyria has been betrothed to Berric for some time and sharing gossip with her nephew, which might suggest that she is quite young herself; there are even RL examples of parents claiming their daughter's offspring as their own, especially when breaking social norms was involved). It is also possible that the onset of cold weather after False Spring trapped Ashara at Dragonstone and she gave birth there to a healthy baby boy at about the same time when Elia had a stillborn girl, and the two agreed on a swap so that Elia could provide Rhaegar with his "PTWP". When Rhaegar found out about the swap, along with that Elia would bear no more children, he felt he had an excuse to pursue an affair with Lyanna. Ned's arrival at Starfall and confirmation that Ashara's baby poising as Aegon was indeed dead then drove the poor woman over the edge. - Now, these are, of course, just speculations with very little to none textual basis so far :-)

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10 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Deep and not crackpot. Tough nut to crack with the OP. If we can start with any assumptions, that makes the WOIAF so much more engaging.

Dunk warged Sandor to stop Gregor from killing Loras who was to fly his mare into Ned's eye to end the southron ambition alliance. RIP Baelor

Just posting my theories man.

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9 hours ago, Ygrain said:

I'm afraid the quote rules it out then.

There was a SSM stating that Ashara was not in KL during the Rebellion. I'll ask around for the link.

Well... we do know that Ned got Jon at some point and we know that he managed to get him to the North without people putting together two and two of a kidnapped Lyanna and a newborn, so the connection must have been obscured somehow. IMHO, at some point, Ned carrying Lyanna's bones/ashes  and Jon separated - most likely, the detour to Starfall with Dawn was a coverup for getting a ship for Howland transport Jon elsewhere while Ned returned to KL to report to Robert, without any baby that might raise uncomfortable questions.

However, there is another possible scenario, of Ned going to Starfall to pick Jon who had been hidden there with Wylla poising as his mother while the KG stayed behind with the dying Lyanna so as not to put up a red flag by their presence. There might even be a precedent for such a solution, a king without the KG, when Aegon II was being smuggled out of KL without a single KG, because a KG presence on a fishing boat would be, well, rather suspicious.

“Jory and the others …”
“I gave them over to the silent sisters, to be sent north to Winterfell. Jory would want to lie beside his grandfather.”
It would have to be his grandfather, for Jory’s father was buried far to the south. Martyn Cassel had perished with the rest. Ned had pulled the tower down afterward, and used its bloody stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory. They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away; Eddard Stark himself and the little crannogman, Howland Reed.

So here you go, Martyn Cassel died, along with everyone else, including Lord Dustin. - Oh, and I recall a report from a convention where GRRM was asked if Ned and Howland were the only two men leaving ToJ, and he said yes. The answer, of course, doesn't preclude any babies and females :-)

The bolded is definitely true but I'd be careful about zero significance to the story. Various Daynes keep reappearing throughout the story way too often to be of no importance at all; there is Dayne blood in the Targaryen lineage; there is a very special sword; there is a tie to the Starks (including that ambiguous "turned to Stark" which Barristan wishes he had prevented by crowning Ashara himself). If Ashara's child was stillborn and Jon was indeed hidden at Starfall, Ned taking him away could have exacerbated her trauma and lead to her suicide. If the information about stillbirth is incorrect (which may well be, as Barristan was definitely not a first-hand witness and his source of information is unknown), then her daughter actually might live and be important for Barristan story arc if he survives Meereen (it has been noted that Allyria has been betrothed to Berric for some time and sharing gossip with her nephew, which might suggest that she is quite young herself; there are even RL examples of parents claiming their daughter's offspring as their own, especially when breaking social norms was involved). It is also possible that the onset of cold weather after False Spring trapped Ashara at Dragonstone and she gave birth there to a healthy baby boy at about the same time when Elia had a stillborn girl, and the two agreed on a swap so that Elia could provide Rhaegar with his "PTWP". When Rhaegar found out about the swap, along with that Elia would bear no more children, he felt he had an excuse to pursue an affair with Lyanna. Ned's arrival at Starfall and confirmation that Ashara's baby poising as Aegon was indeed dead then drove the poor woman over the edge. - Now, these are, of course, just speculations with very little to none textual basis so far :-)

Well id disagree still. Though it mostly seems legit. There's still a window of chance. Unless Jamie actually saw them enter the room. Which the text doesn't state. In fact it states  that he never saw her after, except for the hooded woman. So he's going on accounts from her hand maidens. Long shot sure, but still a chance they purposefully fooled him. Slim though. When constructing things though, i like to give all possible angles with in the narrative ive laid out. As such, my narrative cant account for theories of Lyanna being in Winterfell and such and hard to give mention to such ideas that depend on their own drawn out thesis.

I think it's Rhaegar as Dany see's herself as Rhaegar even, but that's where the evidence takes me. 

Yes i know Ned thinks that to him self. He also says that he and Howland pulled the tower down to make the cairns. With what though? Have you ever tried demolition? Even if they had sledge hammers that would be hard. He get lucky and there was wild fire there? See all of that depends on coming up with scenarios not stated in the text either. All i can do is go off the text. I cant spend all my time looking for off handed comments George says at interviews that are semi-canon and not actually canon untill he puts it in the books. Meaning he can change it at any time or lie. Elio and Linda have brought this up before. I link is still nice and helpful, but hardly gold either. 

That whole last bit falls apart with the fact that Aegon was born before Harrenhal. After Harrenhal, Rhaegar runs off to kidnap Lyanna. There is literally next to no time for Rhaegar to go all the way back to Dragonstone then come all the way back to the Riverlands. Especially since Aegon was born in 281, and the Tourney happened in the Last Month or two of 281. Elia that close to birthing wouldnt have made the trip to Harrenhal and back to Dragonstone. Why even risk that on you wife and child? Aegon had to have been born before the Tourney. Which sets up Rhaegars motivations with Lyanna, and IMO Ashara before Lyanna. Any child born from Harrenhal would be born in sept of 282 at the latest. 

And that's ok haha :D When doing the same thing and expecting different results equals insanity. Thinking outside the box then looking for evidence can be refreshing. 

Maybe your right and Ashara was at Dragonstone most the time though. 

As far as Eddard and a boat, definitely. When Caitlyn arrived in Winterfell a year after she wed Ned, Jon was already installed at Winterfell with Wylla. 

Eddards thoughts are a pain though, as he never really thinks of Brandon or his father, never thinks of Jon really, and never thinks of Ashara Dayne. Literally the guy is as quiet as the crypts about everything, even in his thoughts. 

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10 hours ago, Ygrain said:

I'm afraid the quote rules it out then.

There was a SSM stating that Ashara was not in KL during the Rebellion. I'll ask around for the link.

Well... we do know that Ned got Jon at some point and we know that he managed to get him to the North without people putting together two and two of a kidnapped Lyanna and a newborn, so the connection must have been obscured somehow. IMHO, at some point, Ned carrying Lyanna's bones/ashes  and Jon separated - most likely, the detour to Starfall with Dawn was a coverup for getting a ship for Howland transport Jon elsewhere while Ned returned to KL to report to Robert, without any baby that might raise uncomfortable questions.

However, there is another possible scenario, of Ned going to Starfall to pick Jon who had been hidden there with Wylla poising as his mother while the KG stayed behind with the dying Lyanna so as not to put up a red flag by their presence. There might even be a precedent for such a solution, a king without the KG, when Aegon II was being smuggled out of KL without a single KG, because a KG presence on a fishing boat would be, well, rather suspicious.

“Jory and the others …”
“I gave them over to the silent sisters, to be sent north to Winterfell. Jory would want to lie beside his grandfather.”
It would have to be his grandfather, for Jory’s father was buried far to the south. Martyn Cassel had perished with the rest. Ned had pulled the tower down afterward, and used its bloody stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. It was said that Rhaegar had named that place the tower of joy, but for Ned it was a bitter memory. They had been seven against three, yet only two had lived to ride away; Eddard Stark himself and the little crannogman, Howland Reed.

So here you go, Martyn Cassel died, along with everyone else, including Lord Dustin. - Oh, and I recall a report from a convention where GRRM was asked if Ned and Howland were the only two men leaving ToJ, and he said yes. The answer, of course, doesn't preclude any babies and females :-)

The bolded is definitely true but I'd be careful about zero significance to the story. Various Daynes keep reappearing throughout the story way too often to be of no importance at all; there is Dayne blood in the Targaryen lineage; there is a very special sword; there is a tie to the Starks (including that ambiguous "turned to Stark" which Barristan wishes he had prevented by crowning Ashara himself). If Ashara's child was stillborn and Jon was indeed hidden at Starfall, Ned taking him away could have exacerbated her trauma and lead to her suicide. If the information about stillbirth is incorrect (which may well be, as Barristan was definitely not a first-hand witness and his source of information is unknown), then her daughter actually might live and be important for Barristan story arc if he survives Meereen (it has been noted that Allyria has been betrothed to Berric for some time and sharing gossip with her nephew, which might suggest that she is quite young herself; there are even RL examples of parents claiming their daughter's offspring as their own, especially when breaking social norms was involved). It is also possible that the onset of cold weather after False Spring trapped Ashara at Dragonstone and she gave birth there to a healthy baby boy at about the same time when Elia had a stillborn girl, and the two agreed on a swap so that Elia could provide Rhaegar with his "PTWP". When Rhaegar found out about the swap, along with that Elia would bear no more children, he felt he had an excuse to pursue an affair with Lyanna. Ned's arrival at Starfall and confirmation that Ashara's baby poising as Aegon was indeed dead then drove the poor woman over the edge. - Now, these are, of course, just speculations with very little to none textual basis so far :-)

To be clear, Dany and Jon's parentage and how it effects the stories end, i think may have only a small part to do with it. 

So far i ultimately think that the Others are seeking to break the curse against them to become human again. I think the Others were born of the Night's King and the Corpse Queen who may both be dead. The Others need to warg a human, to mate with a live woman, possibly of a specific bloodline. Through this his spirit with be bound to a mortal human form again. Which i think he gave his seed and soul to her, and got trapped in these Other bodies. 

So Jon and Dany's abilities may be all he needs of them. The whole prince that was promised bit is a lie, to get the die rolling. Which is why we the readers and the in world characters are so confused and can find meaning in almost any of it. Neither Jon or Dany is the prophesied prince. If any one is, it'll be their baby. 

Jon dies, is reanimated like the army of the Dead and Cold Hands, (By who? Who's controlling him with access to his memories?), then uses his body to mate with Dany. Allowing who ever is warging Jon, to put his seed and spirit into Dany and her child. Who will be "Never Born"

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4 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Well id disagree still. Though it mostly seems legit. There's still a window of chance. Unless Jamie actually saw them enter the room. Which the text doesn't state. In fact it states  that he never saw her after, except for the hooded woman. So he's going on accounts from her hand maidens. Long shot sure, but still a chance they purposefully fooled him. Slim though. When constructing things though, i like to give all possible angles with in the narrative ive laid out. As such, my narrative cant account for theories of Lyanna being in Winterfell and such and hard to give mention to such ideas that depend on their own drawn out thesis.

I think it's Rhaegar as Dany see's herself as Rhaegar even, but that's where the evidence takes me. 

Yes i know Ned thinks that to him self. He also says that he and Howland pulled the tower down to make the cairns. With what though? Have you ever tried demolition? Even if they had sledge hammers that would be hard. He get lucky and there was wild fire there? See all of that depends on coming up with scenarios not stated in the text either. All i can do is go off the text. I cant spend all my time looking for off handed comments George says at interviews that are semi-canon and not actually canon untill he puts it in the books. Meaning he can change it at any time or lie. Elio and Linda have brought this up before. I link is still nice and helpful, but hardly gold either. 

That whole last bit falls apart with the fact that Aegon was born before Harrenhal. After Harrenhal, Rhaegar runs off to kidnap Lyanna. There is literally next to no time for Rhaegar to go all the way back to Dragonstone then come all the way back to the Riverlands. Especially since Aegon was born in 281, and the Tourney happened in the Last Month or two of 281. Elia that close to birthing wouldnt have made the trip to Harrenhal and back to Dragonstone. Why even risk that on you wife and child? Aegon had to have been born before the Tourney. Which sets up Rhaegars motivations with Lyanna, and IMO Ashara before Lyanna. Any child born from Harrenhal would be born in sept of 282 at the latest. 

And that's ok haha :D When doing the same thing and expecting different results equals insanity. Thinking outside the box then looking for evidence can be refreshing. 

Maybe your right and Ashara was at Dragonstone most the time though. 

As far as Eddard and a boat, definitely. When Caitlyn arrived in Winterfell a year after she wed Ned, Jon was already installed at Winterfell with Wylla. 

Eddards thoughts are a pain though, as he never really thinks of Brandon or his father, never thinks of Jon really, and never thinks of Ashara Dayne. Literally the guy is as quiet as the crypts about everything, even in his thoughts. 

Jon dies, is reanimated like the army of the Dead and Cold Hands, (By who? Who's controlling him with access to his memories?),

Have you considered that Dany might visualize herself as Rhaegar because he's the only positive role model within her family that she can look up to? She can't idolize Viserys, Aerys II, or even Rhaella (who was a browbeaten, heartbroken victim for all of Viserys's life, and he is who tells her tales of her family), and even Viserys himself chose Rhaegar as his only positive role model from the family (for similar reasons, despite his evident love for his mother "I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed." and "Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her."). If either of them hope to be a ruler or conqueror, also, Aerys II is a poor role model, as is Rhaella (whose goal was probably just to survive the misery and agony of her daily life). There's also Elia, I suppose, who's a Martell, not a Targaryen by birth (despite a few drops of dragon blood), who even Rhaegar did not love (despite respecting her and being fond of her, another kind of love) but chose instead Lyanna Stark (the "wolf girl" or "Stark girl" in Viserys's telling--and also, a hated Stark, one of the Usurper's Dogs, so...). Rhaegar is the only one in that family (excluding children, Rhaenys and Aegon, who are children, of course) who could be a positive role model for anyone (with ambition or no, and both Targlings had ambition, with varying degrees of success). 

Aside from that, it's Rhaegar's failures that they hope to correct and Rhaegar's wars they hope to re-wage and win, and it's Rhaegar's losses they hope to avenge ("(Viserys) pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night, and Dany knew he was fighting the battle of the Trident once again." and "'I shall kill the Usurper myself,' he promised, who had never killed anyone, 'as he killed my brother Rhaegar. And Lannister too, the Kingslayer, for what he did to my father.'" and "Perhaps the dragon did remember, but she (Dany) did not," which indicates remembered wrongs done to their family, and how Viserys hoped to avenge them.). This is the basis of their ambitions. The Targs lost everything on the back of Rhaegar's loss and losses, not Aerys II or Rhaella's in particular. The way the war went, Rhaegar was the last hope for their family, and it's safe to say that they know it and have lamented it ever since. Rhaegar was quite capable of winning, having (severely) wounded Robert on the Trident, he just met his match (it's another question entirely why Martin made the narrative choice to have Rhaegar lead from the front at all--just so he could have this "heroic" archetypal battle between Robert and Rhaegar "for the woman they both claimed to love," etc.--when he sounds like the kind of (smart) guy who'd know enough to lead from the rear, even if he was a competent swordsman, his post as commander was of the greater import). 

 

You've got your dates mixed up.

Aegon was born after the Tourney of Harrenhal, either in late 281 or in the new year, after the False Spring had ended, early 282. Rhaegar left Dragonstone soon after Aegon's birth to fall upon Lyanna in the Riverlands ("Aegon. What better name for a king?" in the HotU, Dany's vision, happens close to the new year 282, right before Rhaegar leaves to meet up with Lyanna). Keep in mind, upon Aegon's birth, Rhaegar still believed Aegon was the PtwP ("He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire."), and we don't know if/when he ever changed his mind about that. Rhaegar's belief hinged upon "the dragon had three heads." ("There must be one more. The dragon has three heads.") That meant (to Rhaegar) Rhaenys, Aegon VI, and Lyanna's child (Jon Snow) compose the Three-Headed Dragon, and he was wrong about that (Dany, Aegon VI "Young Griff," and Jon Snow compose the Three-Headed Dragon with Tyrion as the threat amongst them, the Stinky Steward/Perfumed Seneschal. All of them are identified for us in the HotU--"A white lion ran through grass taller than a man."--and Tyrion is given a name by Quaithe "Beware the perfumed seneschal." and identified by Moqorro in another iteration of the prophecy: Dragons. Dragons old and young (Dany), true and false (Jon Snow), light and dark (Aegon VI "Young Griff"), and you, a small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all." whilst sailing on the Selaesori Qhoran (Fragrant Steward/Seneschal/King's Hand), which Tyrion himself dubs, "the Stinky Steward" because of the rank smell, again highlighting how something meant to be positive can quickly turn sour-- "Snarling? An amiable fellow like me?"). Also keep in mind, the Tourney of Harrenhal lasted merely a fortnight, which was normal, even for the tourney of the age, and travel to and from KL to Harrenhal would take about 1-2 weeks on the Kingsroad with sufficient mounts, even for the royal party traveling home (we're given two weeks for armies to travel from the Trident to King's Landing, which is the time between Rhaegar's death on the Trident and the Sack of King's Landing--and even Tywin beat Ned to the capital, albeit possibly within hours, coming from Casterly Rock upon learning of Rhaegar's death--so this is the source I'm basing my estimate on). Rhaegar left Dragonstone with a sufficiently small and efficient party after that, with only six noble companions (companions of note, that is, which does not include any servants traveling with them, of course), so there's no reason he should not have made excellent time in his travels (prior to the war breaking out, which Ned gives us the "true" start of the war: Jon Arryn sending Aerys II back "defiance" upon Aerys II calling for Ned and Robert's heads, and calling his banners instead; Rhaegar might have been in Dorne by then.). 

Quote

The False Spring of 281 AC lasted less than two turns. As the year drew to a close, winter returned to Westeros with a vengeance. On the last day of the year, snow began to fall upon King's Landing, and a crust of ice formed atop the Blackwater Rush. The snowfall continued off and on for the best part of a fortnight, by which time the Blackwater was hard frozen, and icicles draped the roofs and gutters of every tower in the city.

As cold winds hammered the city, King Aerys II turned to his pyromancers, charging them to drive the winter off with their magics. Huge green fires burned along the walls of the Red Keep for a moon's turn. Prince Rhaegar was not in the city to observe them, however. Nor could he be found in Dragonstone with Princess Elia and their young son, Aegon. With the coming of the new year, the crown prince had taken to the road with half a dozen of his closest friends and confidants, on a journey that would ultimately lead him back to the riverlands. Not ten leagues from Harrenhal, Rhaegar fell upon Lyanna Stark of Winterfell, and carried her off, lighting a fire that would consume his house and kin and all those he loved—and half the realm besides.

But that tale is too well-known to warrant repeating here.

 

The WIKI corroborates 281 or 282AC http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aegon_Targaryen_(son_of_Rhaegar)

The Tourney of Harrenhal was held during the "springish" part of the Year of the False Spring (so earlier than you've implied), lasting less than "two turns" (two months of "springish" weather, during which the tourney is held) and then winter returns with a vengeance before the year is out. Aegon is born sometime during this "wintry" part of the False Spring or during the new year. So it's possibly within a month of his birth that Rhaegar takes off from Dragonstone. (Snow falling on the last day of the year in King's Landing, lasting two weeks, with Aerys's pyromancers attempting to "drive the winter off" for "a moon's turn"--Aegon born in Dragonstone, and with the coming of the new year, slightly after Aegon's birth, Rhaegar takes off, so it was likely sometime within that two-week window of snow on King's Landing he was making his way north. This, oddly, leaves wiggle room for Aegon to be born either on the first day of the new year or within the first week or two of it, as Rhaegar witnessed Aegon's birth but did not take the time to present him to his royal sire, as befitting a royal heir; granted, after the way Aerys treated Rhaenys, "She smells Dornish," and the state Elia was in, let alone the failed tourney, I don't blame either of them for that.)

 

A note about Coldhands: IMO, he is himself a skinchanger who was killed and reanimated by the Others, but no one is controlling him. He controls himself. On your next re-read, check out what happens when the wights are attacked either in their eyes (the skinchanging connection--see the Sam the Slayer chapter again, with Small Paul and the ravens, which peck at his eyes) or their bones ("the bones remember" because the bones house the soul/consciousness; this is how Craster and Summer deal with them, breaking the bones to the marrow, in addition to fire itself, the surest way to kill wights, which are highly combustible, see Jon burning Othor again when he attacks the Old Bear.). Also see what happens to Varamyr when he fails to "steal" Thistle's body. Note the only body that is not reanimated is Varamyr's own, because his consciousness has already joined with One-Eye, his wolf, before the bodies were raised by the Others; he can probably skinchange back if he wants, but simply doesn't realize it--he might have, however, if his wolves were killed at that time, leaving him nowhere to go but back to his body or into the weirnet. This is why it's important that wights have memories. This is why it's important that Thistle sees and remembers Varamyr (recognizing him in his wolf) and holds a grudge (causing him to flee in terror, whereupon he eventually becomes part of Summer's makeshift "pack." "We have a pack. Remember Ghost?" Bran tells Summer, as if saying "Remember our alpha?" so Summer will cut that out.). So, when Coldhands says that "he" is "Your monster, Brandon Stark," he's not suggesting that someone is controlling him, he's still talking about Bloodraven, who Bran called "a monster" in response to Coldhands expounding upon what it meant to be the three-eyed crow ("A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer.") when Meera demanded to know who sent him and who was the three-eyed crow. 

 

Finally, when you want a quote, try: asearchoficeandfire.com It's a life-saver! :cheers:

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34 minutes ago, TheSeason said:

Have you considered that Dany might visualize herself as Rhaegar because he's the only positive role model within her family that she can look up to? She can't idolize Viserys, Aerys II, or even Rhaella (who was a browbeaten, heartbroken victim for all of Viserys's life, and he is who tells her tales of her family), and even Viserys himself chose Rhaegar as his only positive role model from the family (for similar reasons, despite his evident love for his mother "I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed." and "Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her."). If either of them hope to be a ruler or conqueror, also, Aerys II is a poor role model, as is Rhaella (whose goal was probably just to survive the misery and agony of her daily life). There's also Elia, I suppose, who's a Martell, not a Targaryen by birth (despite a few drops of dragon blood), who even Rhaegar did not love (despite respecting her and being fond of her, another kind of love) but chose instead Lyanna Stark (the "wolf girl" or "Stark girl" in Viserys's telling--and also, a hated Stark, one of the Usurper's Dogs, so...). Rhaegar is the only one in that family (excluding children, Rhaenys and Aegon, who are children, of course) who could be a positive role model for anyone (with ambition or no, and both Targlings had ambition, with varying degrees of success). 

Aside from that, it's Rhaegar's failures that they hope to correct and Rhaegar's wars they hope to re-wage and win, and it's Rhaegar's losses they hope to avenge ("(Viserys) pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night, and Dany knew he was fighting the battle of the Trident once again." and "'I shall kill the Usurper myself,' he promised, who had never killed anyone, 'as he killed my brother Rhaegar. And Lannister too, the Kingslayer, for what he did to my father.'" and "Perhaps the dragon did remember, but she (Dany) did not," which indicates remembered wrongs done to their family, and how Viserys hoped to avenge them.). This is the basis of their ambitions. The Targs lost everything on the back of Rhaegar's loss and losses, not Aerys II or Rhaella's in particular. The way the war went, Rhaegar was the last hope for their family, and it's safe to say that they know it and have lamented it ever since. Rhaegar was quite capable of winning, having (severely) wounded Robert on the Trident, he just met his match (it's another question entirely why Martin made the narrative choice to have Rhaegar lead from the front at all--just so he could have this "heroic" archetypal battle between Robert and Rhaegar "for the woman they both claimed to love," etc.--when he sounds like the kind of (smart) guy who'd know enough to lead from the rear, even if he was a competent swordsman, his post as commander was of the greater import). 

 

You've got your dates mixed up.

Aegon was born after the Tourney of Harrenhal, either in late 281 or in the new year, after the False Spring had ended, early 282. Rhaegar left Dragonstone soon after Aegon's birth to fall upon Lyanna in the Riverlands ("Aegon. What better name for a king?" in the HotU, Dany's vision, happens close to the new year 282, right before Rhaegar leaves to meet up with Lyanna). Keep in mind, upon Aegon's birth, Rhaegar still believed Aegon was the PtwP ("He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire."), and we don't know if/when he ever changed his mind about that. Rhaegar's belief hinged upon "the dragon had three heads." ("There must be one more. The dragon has three heads.") That meant (to Rhaegar) Rhaenys, Aegon VI, and Lyanna's child (Jon Snow) compose the Three-Headed Dragon, and he was wrong about that (Dany, Aegon VI "Young Griff," and Jon Snow compose the Three-Headed Dragon with Tyrion as the threat amongst them, the Stinky Steward/Perfumed Seneschal. All of them are identified for us in the HotU--"A white lion ran through grass taller than a man."--and Tyrion is given a name by Quaithe "Beware the perfumed seneschal." and identified by Moqorro in another iteration of the prophecy: Dragons. Dragons old and young (Dany), true and false (Jon Snow), light and dark (Aegon VI "Young Griff"), and you, a small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all." whilst sailing on the Selaesori Qhoran (Fragrant Steward/Seneschal/King's Hand), which Tyrion himself dubs, "the Stinky Steward" because of the rank smell, again highlighting how something meant to be positive can quickly turn sour-- "Snarling? An amiable fellow like me?"). Also keep in mind, the Tourney of Harrenhal lasted merely a fortnight, which was normal, even for the tourney of the age, and travel to and from KL to Harrenhal would take about 1-2 weeks on the Kingsroad with sufficient mounts, even for the royal party traveling home (we're given two weeks for armies to travel from the Trident to King's Landing, which is the time between Rhaegar's death on the Trident and the Sack of King's Landing--and even Tywin beat Ned to the capital, albeit possibly within hours, coming from Casterly Rock upon learning of Rhaegar's death--so this is the source I'm basing my estimate on). Rhaegar left Dragonstone with a sufficiently small and efficient party after that, with only six noble companions (companions of note, that is, which does not include any servants traveling with them, of course), so there's no reason he should not have made excellent time in his travels (prior to the war breaking out, which Ned gives us the "true" start of the war: Jon Arryn sending Aerys II back "defiance" upon Aerys II calling for Ned and Robert's heads, and calling his banners instead; Rhaegar might have been in Dorne by then.). 

The Tourney of Harrenhal was held during the "springish" part of the Year of the False Spring (so earlier than you've implied), lasting less than "two turns" (two months of "springish" weather, during which the tourney is held) and then winter returns with a vengeance before the year is out. Aegon is born sometime during this "wintry" part of the False Spring or during the new year. So it's possibly within a month of his birth that Rhaegar takes off from Dragonstone. (Snow falling on the last day of the year in King's Landing, lasting two weeks, with Aerys's pyromancers attempting to "drive the winter off" for "a moon's turn"--Aegon born in Dragonstone, and with the coming of the new year, slightly after Aegon's birth, Rhaegar takes off, so it was likely sometime within that two-week window of snow on King's Landing he was making his way north. This, oddly, leaves wiggle room for Aegon to be born either on the first day of the new year or within the first week or two of it, as Rhaegar witnessed Aegon's birth but did not take the time to present him to his royal sire, as befitting a royal heir; granted, after the way Aerys treated Rhaenys, "She smells Dornish," and the state Elia was in, let alone the failed tourney, I don't blame either of them for that.)

 

A note about Coldhands: IMO, he is himself a skinchanger who was killed and reanimated by the Others, but no one is controlling him. He controls himself. On your next re-read, check out what happens when the wights are attacked either in their eyes (the skinchanging connection--see the Sam the Slayer chapter again, with Small Paul and the ravens, which peck at his eyes) or their bones ("the bones remember" because the bones house the soul/consciousness; this is how Craster and Summer deal with them, breaking the bones to the marrow, in addition to fire itself, the surest way to kill wights, which are highly combustible, see Jon burning Othor again when he attacks the Old Bear.). Also see what happens to Varamyr when he fails to "steal" Thistle's body. Note the only body that is not reanimated is Varamyr's own, because his consciousness has already joined with One-Eye, his wolf, before the bodies were raised by the Others; he can probably skinchange back if he wants, but simply doesn't realize it--he might have, however, if his wolves were killed at that time, leaving him nowhere to go but back to his body or into the weirnet. This is why it's important that wights have memories. This is why it's important that Thistle sees and remembers Varamyr (recognizing him in his wolf) and holds a grudge (causing him to flee in terror, whereupon he eventually becomes part of Summer's makeshift "pack." "We have a pack. Remember Ghost?" Bran tells Summer, as if saying "Remember our alpha?" so Summer will cut that out.). So, when Coldhands says that "he" is "Your monster, Brandon Stark," he's not suggesting that someone is controlling him, he's still talking about Bloodraven, who Bran called "a monster" in response to Coldhands expounding upon what it meant to be the three-eyed crow ("A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer.") when Meera demanded to know who sent him and who was the three-eyed crow. 

 

Finally, when you want a quote, try: asearchoficeandfire.com It's a life-saver! :cheers:

Well aside from the rest speculation, No im pretty sure i have my dates right. 

Springish part of the year? Huh? Spring doesnt fall in westeros like normal, a year doesnt contain winter spring summer autumn. Hence 8 years of summer. 

That being said, it says the false spring lasted about 2 months, then the snows returned at the end of the year. So the false spring fell in nov and dec. With snows returning with the new year. Pretty sure nothing is wrong.

As far as Aegon's birth. Couldnt have likely happened after IMO. Firstly, Brandon stark dies just days before he was to wed cat, at the latest, in March. Due to Robbs birth. Brandon died in K.L. because he marched there from the Neck, where he was caught, then had to sit and wait for his father to get there so they can all die together. So Brandon left probably in Feb to retrieve Lyanna. That means Rhaegar after the Tourney would have to go back to Dragons stone with Elia who was at the Tourney, supposedly about to pop from pregnancy? To arrive on Dragonstone, have the child, then for Rhaegar to come back and ride out down to steal Lyanna? 

Why would you ever risk your wife and your child to have them travel by sea and then Horse to go attend some Tourney while she's in the last months of her Pregnancy, when her belly would be the biggest, and heaviest. Also when you know, most women take off work and stay home.

Elia had to have given birth before Harrenhal. Thus the motivations are already in place when Rhaegar meets Lyanna. 

As far as Tywin and your travel calculations. May wanna look again. If im not mistaken, Tywin, who left from further away, should have arrived after Eddard. This means only one thing, Tywin was coming to sack K.L. one of the other. He was never coming to help Aerys or he would have set off for the Trident, not K.L. Hence why when Eddard rode up to the city, Lannister banners were hanging every where.

And yea i know about that site, it's very helpful :)

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2 minutes ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Well aside from the rest speculation, No im pretty sure i have my dates right. 

Springish part of the year? Huh? Spring doesnt fall in westeros like normal, a year doesnt contain winter spring summer autumn. Hence 8 years of summer. 

That being said, it says the false spring lasted about 2 months, then the snows returned at the end of the year. So the false spring fell in nov and dec. With snows returning with the new year. Pretty sure nothing is wrong.

As far as Aegon's birth. Couldnt have likely happened after IMO. Firstly, Brandon stark dies just days before he was to wed cat, at the latest, in March. Due to Robbs birth. Brandon died in K.L. because he marched there from the Neck, where he was caught, then had to sit and wait for his father to get there so they can all die together. So Brandon left probably in Feb to retrieve Lyanna. That means Rhaegar after the Tourney would have to go back to Dragons stone with Elia who was at the Tourney, supposedly about to pop from pregnancy? To arrive on Dragonstone, have the child, then for Rhaegar to come back and ride out down to steal Lyanna? 

Why would you ever risk your wife and your child to have them travel by sea and then Horse to go attend some Tourney while she's in the last months of her Pregnancy, when her belly would be the biggest, and heaviest. Also when you know, most women take off work and stay home.

Elia had to have given birth before Harrenhal. Thus the motivations are already in place when Rhaegar meets Lyanna. 

As far as Tywin and your travel calculations. May wanna look again. If im not mistaken, Tywin, who left from further away, should have arrived after Eddard. This means only one thing, Tywin was coming to sack K.L. one of the other. He was never coming to help Aerys or he would have set off for the Trident, not K.L. Hence why when Eddard rode up to the city, Lannister banners were hanging every where.

And yea i know about that site, it's very helpful :)

It's not necessarily true that the year doesn't have a seasonal bent, what with a singular harvest every year and "late summer snows" in the North (it's not clear what Martin means by any of this, but if the summer lasted X years straight with no variation in weather, that should equate to X years straight of harvesting, and thus the ability to store up as much grain as needed to last Y years straight of autumn and Z years straight of winter... but that isn't what Martin wrote, so it's impossible to tell exactly what he means by "Summer" and "Winter" aside from a general trend in the weather that can encompass variation within, including more "minor" seasonal variations). Anyway, that's not what I wrote. 

The Year of the False Spring had a warm weather trend resulting in an "Indian Summer" during which the tourney was held. The official "Indian Summer" lasted two months. The tourney lasted ten days. It could have been earlier in this time span than you implied it was (if it's at the beginning of those two months, they have one and a half months to travel a distance that takes one-two weeks at most). We also do not know when the "Indian Summer" actually ended. Winter returned to Westeros at large with a vengeance, yes, but it was only on the new year itself that winter came to King's Landing, which is both around the time that Aegon was born (after the tourney, you do have your dates mixed up; the events go tourney--Aegon--abduction) and Rhaegar heads north. Keep in mind, the weather had been growing warmer, which is what gave the "False Spring" its name. We don't know how long the weather had been growing warmer (long enough to plan and arrange a tourney of this caliber, surely, because tourneys are not "depths of winter" events, and the tourney of Harrenhal would have been delayed if not for "spring's" arrival) for people to decide that "Spring" had arrived. It was the "False Spring" itself (not the warmer weather, which must have lasted longer) that lasted two moon turns before the winter set back in. We're given two conflicting dates for the announcement of the tourney, 280 and 281 (indicating it was not announced within the False Spring itself, at the least), which, despite the confusion, is also suggestive of an overall "warmer weather trend" leading up to the official dates of the False Spring (that two month period). Furthermore, people don't just decide that the season has changed. The Citadel tells them by sending out the white ravens to announce the new season. I think this is what happened, which is where the official "False Spring" moniker comes from. The Citadel does not announce a new season after a few mere weeks of variance in the weather (also indicating there might be "minor" seasonal variations in the official seasonal label), but takes weeks or months of trending data--from every location in Westeros--to determine that the season has shifted and to urge people to plan for the coming weather shift (planting, harvesting, storing in greater quantity). If it is a "true" False Spring instead of people's wishful thinking (like we get after a groundhog's shadow pronounces "Spring's here!" when it isn't), then this means the Citadel made a mistake after accounting for a general upward trend in temperature, sent out their ravens, and then had to (collect them and) send them back out with a note saying, sorry, no, it's still winter, sad-smiley, I hope you haven't prepared to plant your crops yet... 

The tourney lasted only ten days including seven days of competition and five days of jousting. I already explained that travel times are not as long as you make them out to be (From Winterfell itself, it takes a month for Ned to travel to King's Landing, half that time to get to the Ruby Ford of the Trident; for Robert, traveling at a sedate pace for his queen and children in their ponderous wheelhouse with forty horses and untold broken axels, it takes a month and a half to travel from King's Landing to Winterfell and little more than a month to travel back, apparently at a somewhat faster pace; for Ned's army, exhausted after the battle of the Trident, it takes a fortnight to travel from the Trident at the Ruby Ford to King's Landing, less that, if by hours, for Tywin to travel from Casterly Rock to King's Landing in order to Sack it, because Aerys II orders the gates opened... The travels times are consistent.). There is ample time for the tourney, and then Aegon's birth, and then Lyanna's abduction, and thus know Brandon's arrival in King's Landing was likely within a fortnight as well, but perhaps three weeks if he took time to gather his companions or meet them, were they not with him already, which means he could have seen the pyromancer's flames on the towers of the Red Keep. We don't know how much time Rhaegar spent with Elia and Aegon, but it wasn't much. 

Aegon is also never mentioned in the context of the tourney of Harrenhal. All other parties are accounted for. (Aerys II, Rhaegar, Elia, at the tourney; Rhaella and Viserys at King's Landing, per Jaime's account). Even if you want to argue that Rhaegar and Elia left Rhaenys behind at Dragonstone and could have left Aegon behind as well, you run up against a huge problem. Elia was bedridden for six months after the birth of Rhaenys; the birth of Aegon almost killed her, after which she could have no more children. She was forced to travel from Dragonstone to King's Landing on the order of King Aerys II, but please explain to me why she would willingly travel from Dragonstone to Harrenhal for a mere tourney after a birth that nearly killed her, leaving behind her infant son, when even Queen Rhaella herself did not attend, and therefore there was no requirement that Elia do so as well. It only makes any sense if Elia was pregnant but healthy at Harrenhal, and afterward suffered complications in her pregnancy, and then was forced to travel to King's Landing to answer a royal command or warrant. Aerys II may not have cared about Elia's health and welfare, but Rhaegar did, so why would he allow it? He has the power to command her as well. Also, nowhere does it say how pregnant Elia was at Harrenhal, which might have been noted if she were as cumbersomely pregnant as you presume. Anyway, women can travel (except by flight barring doctor's permission or horseback) well into their pregnancy with the comfort of a wheelhouse/car/train. Pregnant women walk as well. Unless a woman is bedridden, she's moving around, and the only pregnancy Elia was bedridden during was with Rhaenys. Please show me where Elia is ever described as heavy with child, too pregnant to travel, too sickly to travel during Aegon's gestation, or anything to back up your claim that she was. Please show me where any character expresses a similar sentiment that sickly Elia had no business traveling during pregnancies, or where they are surprised she attends the tourney after she nearly died birthing Aegon due to complications, or where they are disgusted since she clearly wasn't caring for herself properly or her infant son either, to attend tourneys in that condition. 

I'm sorry, what "motives" are you presuming drove Rhaegar upon meeting with Lyanna? If all he wants is a child, plenty of other women can give him one. Why Lyanna? Why not Cersei? Why not Cat or Lysa? Why not Ashara? Why not some other random hot noblewoman? Why not some random ugly noblewoman, whose papa might be relieved any man noticed her at all, let alone the crown prince himself (his best bet, find a noblewoman ugly as sin, with no suitors or prospects to speak of, but a fertile family history and a "good enough" personality, and boom, happy mistress, happy "good-father" too...)? Rhaegar is uniquely a man with options; there were guys he could get with if he were so inclined, so I'm not certain why you've zeroed in on Lyanna (a woman he'd never met until Harrenhal's tourney itself; a woman he might not have met, even, if the tourney went smoothly--no Knight of the Laughing Tree, no father with crazy voices in his head thinking a shield was laughing at him, no suspicion that Jaime Lannister was the Mystery Knight, no demand to find the Mystery Knight, no Lyanna Stark, no Jon Snow...) as uniquely able to provide him with an heir? Just because he chose Lyanna doesn't mean it was for children. Is that the only reason you think they got together? Then why Ashara at all? Either Rhaegar wanted a woman or he wanted a woman who could give him children or he wanted a specific woman to give him children, but mixing all three motives together with three different women doesn't really make sense. Are you arguing Rhaegar would have been happy with Elia alone if she could give him ten heirs instead of two? And what about poor Rhaenys? Does she not matter, even to her own father? Everyone forgets about her, but Rhaegar didn't. There must be one more he said (after Aegon's birth), not two. The dragon has three heads, not four.  It was Aerys II dissatisfied with Rhaenys's "Dornish" characteristics, not Rhaegar. As far as we know, he loved all his children and foresaw great things for them, too.

What does Brandon's death have to do with determining Aegon's birth date? He was alive, present, and defeated (by Rhaegar) during the Tourney of Harrenhal, he was at the Inn at the Crossroads when Lyanna was abducted, and raced immediately to King's Landing. His wedding date to Cat (we don't know when they were supposed to wed, so you cannot say he died days before his wedding. This is baseless speculation, unless you have substantive quotes to back it up. I'd like to see them, if so.) does not matter either in determining if Aegon was born before or after Harrenhal. Do you have any textual evidence to base your argument upon that he was born before Harrenhal? I'd like to see that too. Robb's birth date is also irrelevant in determining Aegon's. Robb's birth date gives a vague nine-month time marker for the Battle of the Bells and JonCon's later exile (Tully forces join the battle two weeks' after Ned and Jon Arryn's double wedding to Cat and Lysa Tully; Hoster would not give his aid without wedding his daughters to Lords Paramount first) in the early stages of the war (most battles took place up front, with a long lull before the Trident), but do nothing to place Aegon's birth before or after Harrenhal. Aegon was born near the new year. We do not know exactly how old he was on the new year 282, hence we use the estimates, which indicate only after Harrenhal. 

 

You're wrong in your calculations about Tywin also: 

Quote

Jaime V, Clash

"My Sworn Brothers were all away, you see, but Aerys liked to keep me close. I was my father's son, so he did not trust me. He wanted me where Varys could watch me, day and night. So I heard it all." He remembered how Rossart's eyes would shine when he unrolled his maps to show where the substance must be placed. Garigus and Belis were the same. "Rhaegar met Robert on the Trident, and you know what happened there. When the word reached court, Aerys packed the queen off to Dragonstone with Prince Viserys. Princess Elia would have gone as well, but he forbade it. Somehow he had gotten it in his head that Prince Lewyn must have betrayed Rhaegar on the Trident, but he thought he could keep Dorne loyal so long as he kept Elia and Aegon by his side. The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

"Ned Stark was racing south with Robert's van, but my father's forces reached the city first. Pycelle convinced the king that his Warden of the West had come to defend him, so he opened the gates. The one time he should have heeded Varys, and he ignored him. My father had held back from the war, brooding on all the wrongs Aerys had done him and determined that House Lannister should be on the winning side. The Trident decided him.

"It fell to me to hold the Red Keep, but I knew we were lost. I sent to Aerys asking his leave to make terms. My man came back with a royal command. 'Bring me your father's head, if you are no traitor.' Aerys would have no yielding. Lord Rossart was with him, my messenger said. I knew what that meant.

 

Eddard II, Game

Do you remember the Trident, Your Grace?”

"I won my crown there. How should I forget it?"

"You took a wound from Rhaegar," Ned reminded him. "So when the Targaryen host broke and ran, you gave the pursuit into my hands. The remnants of Rhaegar's army fled back to King's Landing. We followed. Aerys was in the Red Keep with several thousand loyalists. I expected to find the gates closed to us."

Robert gave an impatient shake of his head. "Instead you found that our men had already taken the city. What of it?"

"Not our men," Ned said patiently. "Lannister men. The lion of Lannister flew over the ramparts, not the crowned stag. And they had taken the city by treachery."

The war had raged for close to a year. Lords great and small had flocked to Robert's banners; others had remained loyal to Targaryen. The mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the Wardens of the West, had remained aloof from the struggle, ignoring calls to arms from both rebels and royalists. Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He had opened his city to the lions at the gate.

It is explicit in the text that you are incorrect in your calculations that Eddard should have beat Tywin to the capital. He didn't. His host was exhausted from battle in its pursuit. Tywin had fresh levies, and a desperation to prove himself to the new regime. These factors urged him to drive his men harder. The text makes this explicit again and again, but here are two quotes that show the order of the events. Or are you suggesting that the Lannisters themselves do not know when Tywin left Casterly Rock to proclaim his support for Robert or do not understand why he did it?

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2 hours ago, TheSeason said:

It's not necessarily true that the year doesn't have a seasonal bent, what with a singular harvest every year and "late summer snows" in the North (it's not clear what Martin means by any of this, but if the summer lasted X years straight with no variation in weather, that should equate to X years straight of harvesting, and thus the ability to store up as much grain as needed to last Y years straight of autumn and Z years straight of winter... but that isn't what Martin wrote, so it's impossible to tell exactly what he means by "Summer" and "Winter" aside from a general trend in the weather that can encompass variation within, including more "minor" seasonal variations). Anyway, that's not what I wrote. 

The Year of the False Spring had a warm weather trend resulting in an "Indian Summer" during which the tourney was held. The official "Indian Summer" lasted two months. The tourney lasted ten days. It could have been earlier in this time span than you implied it was (if it's at the beginning of those two months, they have one and a half months to travel a distance that takes one-two weeks at most). We also do not know when the "Indian Summer" actually ended. Winter returned to Westeros at large with a vengeance, yes, but it was only on the new year itself that winter came to King's Landing, which is both around the time that Aegon was born (after the tourney, you do have your dates mixed up; the events go tourney--Aegon--abduction) and Rhaegar heads north. Keep in mind, the weather had been growing warmer, which is what gave the "False Spring" its name. We don't know how long the weather had been growing warmer (long enough to plan and arrange a tourney of this caliber, surely, because tourneys are not "depths of winter" events, and the tourney of Harrenhal would have been delayed if not for "spring's" arrival) for people to decide that "Spring" had arrived. It was the "False Spring" itself (not the warmer weather, which must have lasted longer) that lasted two moon turns before the winter set back in. We're given two conflicting dates for the announcement of the tourney, 280 and 281 (indicating it was not announced within the False Spring itself, at the least), which, despite the confusion, is also suggestive of an overall "warmer weather trend" leading up to the official dates of the False Spring (that two month period). Furthermore, people don't just decide that the season has changed. The Citadel tells them by sending out the white ravens to announce the new season. I think this is what happened, which is where the official "False Spring" moniker comes from. The Citadel does not announce a new season after a few mere weeks of variance in the weather (also indicating there might be "minor" seasonal variations in the official seasonal label), but takes weeks or months of trending data--from every location in Westeros--to determine that the season has shifted and to urge people to plan for the coming weather shift (planting, harvesting, storing in greater quantity). If it is a "true" False Spring instead of people's wishful thinking (like we get after a groundhog's shadow pronounces "Spring's here!" when it isn't), then this means the Citadel made a mistake after accounting for a general upward trend in temperature, sent out their ravens, and then had to (collect them and) send them back out with a note saying, sorry, no, it's still winter, sad-smiley, I hope you haven't prepared to plant your crops yet... 

The tourney lasted only ten days including seven days of competition and five days of jousting. I already explained that travel times are not as long as you make them out to be (From Winterfell itself, it takes a month for Ned to travel to King's Landing, half that time to get to the Ruby Ford of the Trident; for Robert, traveling at a sedate pace for his queen and children in their ponderous wheelhouse with forty horses and untold broken axels, it takes a month and a half to travel from King's Landing to Winterfell and little more than a month to travel back, apparently at a somewhat faster pace; for Ned's army, exhausted after the battle of the Trident, it takes a fortnight to travel from the Trident at the Ruby Ford to King's Landing, less that, if by hours, for Tywin to travel from Casterly Rock to King's Landing in order to Sack it, because Aerys II orders the gates opened... The travels times are consistent.). There is ample time for the tourney, and then Aegon's birth, and then Lyanna's abduction, and thus know Brandon's arrival in King's Landing was likely within a fortnight as well, but perhaps three weeks if he took time to gather his companions or meet them, were they not with him already, which means he could have seen the pyromancer's flames on the towers of the Red Keep. We don't know how much time Rhaegar spent with Elia and Aegon, but it wasn't much. 

Aegon is also never mentioned in the context of the tourney of Harrenhal. All other parties are accounted for. (Aerys II, Rhaegar, Elia, at the tourney; Rhaella and Viserys at King's Landing, per Jaime's account). Even if you want to argue that Rhaegar and Elia left Rhaenys behind at Dragonstone and could have left Aegon behind as well, you run up against a huge problem. Elia was bedridden for six months after the birth of Rhaenys; the birth of Aegon almost killed her, after which she could have no more children. She was forced to travel from Dragonstone to King's Landing on the order of King Aerys II, but please explain to me why she would willingly travel from Dragonstone to Harrenhal for a mere tourney after a birth that nearly killed her, leaving behind her infant son, when even Queen Rhaella herself did not attend, and therefore there was no requirement that Elia do so as well. It only makes any sense if Elia was pregnant but healthy at Harrenhal, and afterward suffered complications in her pregnancy, and then was forced to travel to King's Landing to answer a royal command or warrant. Aerys II may not have cared about Elia's health and welfare, but Rhaegar did, so why would he allow it? He has the power to command her as well. Also, nowhere does it say how pregnant Elia was at Harrenhal, which might have been noted if she were as cumbersomely pregnant as you presume. Anyway, women can travel (except by flight barring doctor's permission or horseback) well into their pregnancy with the comfort of a wheelhouse/car/train. Pregnant women walk as well. Unless a woman is bedridden, she's moving around, and the only pregnancy Elia was bedridden during was with Rhaenys. Please show me where Elia is ever described as heavy with child, too pregnant to travel, too sickly to travel during Aegon's gestation, or anything to back up your claim that she was. Please show me where any character expresses a similar sentiment that sickly Elia had no business traveling during pregnancies, or where they are surprised she attends the tourney after she nearly died birthing Aegon due to complications, or where they are disgusted since she clearly wasn't caring for herself properly or her infant son either, to attend tourneys in that condition. 

I'm sorry, what "motives" are you presuming drove Rhaegar upon meeting with Lyanna? If all he wants is a child, plenty of other women can give him one. Why Lyanna? Why not Cersei? Why not Cat or Lysa? Why not Ashara? Why not some other random hot noblewoman? Why not some random ugly noblewoman, whose papa might be relieved any man noticed her at all, let alone the crown prince himself (his best bet, find a noblewoman ugly as sin, with no suitors or prospects to speak of, but a fertile family history and a "good enough" personality, and boom, happy mistress, happy "good-father" too...)? Rhaegar is uniquely a man with options; there were guys he could get with if he were so inclined, so I'm not certain why you've zeroed in on Lyanna (a woman he'd never met until Harrenhal's tourney itself; a woman he might not have met, even, if the tourney went smoothly--no Knight of the Laughing Tree, no father with crazy voices in his head thinking a shield was laughing at him, no suspicion that Jaime Lannister was the Mystery Knight, no demand to find the Mystery Knight, no Lyanna Stark, no Jon Snow...) as uniquely able to provide him with an heir? Just because he chose Lyanna doesn't mean it was for children. Is that the only reason you think they got together? Then why Ashara at all? Either Rhaegar wanted a woman or he wanted a woman who could give him children or he wanted a specific woman to give him children, but mixing all three motives together with three different women doesn't really make sense. Are you arguing Rhaegar would have been happy with Elia alone if she could give him ten heirs instead of two? And what about poor Rhaenys? Does she not matter, even to her own father? Everyone forgets about her, but Rhaegar didn't. There must be one more he said (after Aegon's birth), not two. The dragon has three heads, not four.  It was Aerys II dissatisfied with Rhaenys's "Dornish" characteristics, not Rhaegar. As far as we know, he loved all his children and foresaw great things for them, too.

What does Brandon's death have to do with determining Aegon's birth date? He was alive, present, and defeated (by Rhaegar) during the Tourney of Harrenhal, he was at the Inn at the Crossroads when Lyanna was abducted, and raced immediately to King's Landing. His wedding date to Cat (we don't know when they were supposed to wed, so you cannot say he died days before his wedding. This is baseless speculation, unless you have substantive quotes to back it up. I'd like to see them, if so.) does not matter either in determining if Aegon was born before or after Harrenhal. Do you have any textual evidence to base your argument upon that he was born before Harrenhal? I'd like to see that too. Robb's birth date is also irrelevant in determining Aegon's. Robb's birth date gives a vague nine-month time marker for the Battle of the Bells and JonCon's later exile (Tully forces join the battle two weeks' after Ned and Jon Arryn's double wedding to Cat and Lysa Tully; Hoster would not give his aid without wedding his daughters to Lords Paramount first) in the early stages of the war (most battles took place up front, with a long lull before the Trident), but do nothing to place Aegon's birth before or after Harrenhal. Aegon was born near the new year. We do not know exactly how old he was on the new year 282, hence we use the estimates, which indicate only after Harrenhal. 

 

You're wrong in your calculations about Tywin also: 

It is explicit in the text that you are incorrect in your calculations that Eddard should have beat Tywin to the capital. He didn't. His host was exhausted from battle in its pursuit. Tywin had fresh levies, and a desperation to prove himself to the new regime. These factors urged him to drive his men harder. The text makes this explicit again and again, but here are two quotes that show the order of the events. Or are you suggesting that the Lannisters themselves do not know when Tywin left Casterly Rock to proclaim his support for Robert or do not understand why he did it?

Well aside from wanting to boast your theory, before you rebuff mine, you mayyyyyy wanna actually read my post first all the way through. 

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2 hours ago, TheSeason said:

It's not necessarily true that the year doesn't have a seasonal bent, what with a singular harvest every year and "late summer snows" in the North (it's not clear what Martin means by any of this, but if the summer lasted X years straight with no variation in weather, that should equate to X years straight of harvesting, and thus the ability to store up as much grain as needed to last Y years straight of autumn and Z years straight of winter... but that isn't what Martin wrote, so it's impossible to tell exactly what he means by "Summer" and "Winter" aside from a general trend in the weather that can encompass variation within, including more "minor" seasonal variations). Anyway, that's not what I wrote. 

The Year of the False Spring had a warm weather trend resulting in an "Indian Summer" during which the tourney was held. The official "Indian Summer" lasted two months. The tourney lasted ten days. It could have been earlier in this time span than you implied it was (if it's at the beginning of those two months, they have one and a half months to travel a distance that takes one-two weeks at most). We also do not know when the "Indian Summer" actually ended. Winter returned to Westeros at large with a vengeance, yes, but it was only on the new year itself that winter came to King's Landing, which is both around the time that Aegon was born (after the tourney, you do have your dates mixed up; the events go tourney--Aegon--abduction) and Rhaegar heads north. Keep in mind, the weather had been growing warmer, which is what gave the "False Spring" its name. We don't know how long the weather had been growing warmer (long enough to plan and arrange a tourney of this caliber, surely, because tourneys are not "depths of winter" events, and the tourney of Harrenhal would have been delayed if not for "spring's" arrival) for people to decide that "Spring" had arrived. It was the "False Spring" itself (not the warmer weather, which must have lasted longer) that lasted two moon turns before the winter set back in. We're given two conflicting dates for the announcement of the tourney, 280 and 281 (indicating it was not announced within the False Spring itself, at the least), which, despite the confusion, is also suggestive of an overall "warmer weather trend" leading up to the official dates of the False Spring (that two month period). Furthermore, people don't just decide that the season has changed. The Citadel tells them by sending out the white ravens to announce the new season. I think this is what happened, which is where the official "False Spring" moniker comes from. The Citadel does not announce a new season after a few mere weeks of variance in the weather (also indicating there might be "minor" seasonal variations in the official seasonal label), but takes weeks or months of trending data--from every location in Westeros--to determine that the season has shifted and to urge people to plan for the coming weather shift (planting, harvesting, storing in greater quantity). If it is a "true" False Spring instead of people's wishful thinking (like we get after a groundhog's shadow pronounces "Spring's here!" when it isn't), then this means the Citadel made a mistake after accounting for a general upward trend in temperature, sent out their ravens, and then had to (collect them and) send them back out with a note saying, sorry, no, it's still winter, sad-smiley, I hope you haven't prepared to plant your crops yet... 

The tourney lasted only ten days including seven days of competition and five days of jousting. I already explained that travel times are not as long as you make them out to be (From Winterfell itself, it takes a month for Ned to travel to King's Landing, half that time to get to the Ruby Ford of the Trident; for Robert, traveling at a sedate pace for his queen and children in their ponderous wheelhouse with forty horses and untold broken axels, it takes a month and a half to travel from King's Landing to Winterfell and little more than a month to travel back, apparently at a somewhat faster pace; for Ned's army, exhausted after the battle of the Trident, it takes a fortnight to travel from the Trident at the Ruby Ford to King's Landing, less that, if by hours, for Tywin to travel from Casterly Rock to King's Landing in order to Sack it, because Aerys II orders the gates opened... The travels times are consistent.). There is ample time for the tourney, and then Aegon's birth, and then Lyanna's abduction, and thus know Brandon's arrival in King's Landing was likely within a fortnight as well, but perhaps three weeks if he took time to gather his companions or meet them, were they not with him already, which means he could have seen the pyromancer's flames on the towers of the Red Keep. We don't know how much time Rhaegar spent with Elia and Aegon, but it wasn't much. 

Aegon is also never mentioned in the context of the tourney of Harrenhal. All other parties are accounted for. (Aerys II, Rhaegar, Elia, at the tourney; Rhaella and Viserys at King's Landing, per Jaime's account). Even if you want to argue that Rhaegar and Elia left Rhaenys behind at Dragonstone and could have left Aegon behind as well, you run up against a huge problem. Elia was bedridden for six months after the birth of Rhaenys; the birth of Aegon almost killed her, after which she could have no more children. She was forced to travel from Dragonstone to King's Landing on the order of King Aerys II, but please explain to me why she would willingly travel from Dragonstone to Harrenhal for a mere tourney after a birth that nearly killed her, leaving behind her infant son, when even Queen Rhaella herself did not attend, and therefore there was no requirement that Elia do so as well. It only makes any sense if Elia was pregnant but healthy at Harrenhal, and afterward suffered complications in her pregnancy, and then was forced to travel to King's Landing to answer a royal command or warrant. Aerys II may not have cared about Elia's health and welfare, but Rhaegar did, so why would he allow it? He has the power to command her as well. Also, nowhere does it say how pregnant Elia was at Harrenhal, which might have been noted if she were as cumbersomely pregnant as you presume. Anyway, women can travel (except by flight barring doctor's permission or horseback) well into their pregnancy with the comfort of a wheelhouse/car/train. Pregnant women walk as well. Unless a woman is bedridden, she's moving around, and the only pregnancy Elia was bedridden during was with Rhaenys. Please show me where Elia is ever described as heavy with child, too pregnant to travel, too sickly to travel during Aegon's gestation, or anything to back up your claim that she was. Please show me where any character expresses a similar sentiment that sickly Elia had no business traveling during pregnancies, or where they are surprised she attends the tourney after she nearly died birthing Aegon due to complications, or where they are disgusted since she clearly wasn't caring for herself properly or her infant son either, to attend tourneys in that condition. 

I'm sorry, what "motives" are you presuming drove Rhaegar upon meeting with Lyanna? If all he wants is a child, plenty of other women can give him one. Why Lyanna? Why not Cersei? Why not Cat or Lysa? Why not Ashara? Why not some other random hot noblewoman? Why not some random ugly noblewoman, whose papa might be relieved any man noticed her at all, let alone the crown prince himself (his best bet, find a noblewoman ugly as sin, with no suitors or prospects to speak of, but a fertile family history and a "good enough" personality, and boom, happy mistress, happy "good-father" too...)? Rhaegar is uniquely a man with options; there were guys he could get with if he were so inclined, so I'm not certain why you've zeroed in on Lyanna (a woman he'd never met until Harrenhal's tourney itself; a woman he might not have met, even, if the tourney went smoothly--no Knight of the Laughing Tree, no father with crazy voices in his head thinking a shield was laughing at him, no suspicion that Jaime Lannister was the Mystery Knight, no demand to find the Mystery Knight, no Lyanna Stark, no Jon Snow...) as uniquely able to provide him with an heir? Just because he chose Lyanna doesn't mean it was for children. Is that the only reason you think they got together? Then why Ashara at all? Either Rhaegar wanted a woman or he wanted a woman who could give him children or he wanted a specific woman to give him children, but mixing all three motives together with three different women doesn't really make sense. Are you arguing Rhaegar would have been happy with Elia alone if she could give him ten heirs instead of two? And what about poor Rhaenys? Does she not matter, even to her own father? Everyone forgets about her, but Rhaegar didn't. There must be one more he said (after Aegon's birth), not two. The dragon has three heads, not four.  It was Aerys II dissatisfied with Rhaenys's "Dornish" characteristics, not Rhaegar. As far as we know, he loved all his children and foresaw great things for them, too.

What does Brandon's death have to do with determining Aegon's birth date? He was alive, present, and defeated (by Rhaegar) during the Tourney of Harrenhal, he was at the Inn at the Crossroads when Lyanna was abducted, and raced immediately to King's Landing. His wedding date to Cat (we don't know when they were supposed to wed, so you cannot say he died days before his wedding. This is baseless speculation, unless you have substantive quotes to back it up. I'd like to see them, if so.) does not matter either in determining if Aegon was born before or after Harrenhal. Do you have any textual evidence to base your argument upon that he was born before Harrenhal? I'd like to see that too. Robb's birth date is also irrelevant in determining Aegon's. Robb's birth date gives a vague nine-month time marker for the Battle of the Bells and JonCon's later exile (Tully forces join the battle two weeks' after Ned and Jon Arryn's double wedding to Cat and Lysa Tully; Hoster would not give his aid without wedding his daughters to Lords Paramount first) in the early stages of the war (most battles took place up front, with a long lull before the Trident), but do nothing to place Aegon's birth before or after Harrenhal. Aegon was born near the new year. We do not know exactly how old he was on the new year 282, hence we use the estimates, which indicate only after Harrenhal. 

 

You're wrong in your calculations about Tywin also: 

It is explicit in the text that you are incorrect in your calculations that Eddard should have beat Tywin to the capital. He didn't. His host was exhausted from battle in its pursuit. Tywin had fresh levies, and a desperation to prove himself to the new regime. These factors urged him to drive his men harder. The text makes this explicit again and again, but here are two quotes that show the order of the events. Or are you suggesting that the Lannisters themselves do not know when Tywin left Casterly Rock to proclaim his support for Robert or do not understand why he did it?

"Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by the order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. "

~ AGOT Eddard I

I mean, it's like you didn't even read it lol 

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1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Well aside from wanting to boast your theory, before you rebuff mine, you mayyyyyy wanna actually read my post

first all the way through. 

I did read your posts. They aren't making any sense to me and you aren't providing sufficient (or any) evidence to back your claims, nor answering criticism of your theory, especially when text evidence is provided that counters your claims. 

I'm not positing any theory here, I'm debating your claims, which is supposed to be the point of forum discussion, or why bother to put forth your theory at all, if you will not stand for it to be questioned or challenged?

 

1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

"Brandon had been twenty when he died, strangled by the order of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen only a few short days before he was to wed Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. "

~ AGOT Eddard I

I mean, it's like you didn't even read it lol 

I made a mistake here, a minor one. As I was editing before posting, I confused Brandon's arrival in King's Landing with the day he died. Brandon died days before his wedding to Cat. You are correct about that.

You are wrong about most else, and you failed to refute with textual evidence any of the points made against your theory, nor do you seem interested in maintaining meaningful discussion. You seem to think that by disagreeing with you or debating with you that I am picking on you. I'm not. I enjoy literary discussion and criticism, entertaining new ideas and theories, and challenging my own conclusions, so as to deepen my understanding of the text. This is the spirit I engaged you in discussion, not to upset you. 

Taking together your loss of interest to politely engage me, and your unwillingness or inability to refute any point I've made that stands against your theory, by engaging with the text, and your apparent unwillingness to even consider any point contrary to your own interpretations of the text, I'm going to bow out gracefully now. 

I had enjoyed our discussion, but your last comments have really soured this conversation for me. Your assumptions and mockery that I failed to read or am lacking in reading comprehension of the text or your commentary on it was rude and unnecessary. It is out-of-hand to comment on the person you are speaking to rather than respond to the points they have made in debate, and it is furthermore a logical fallacy that disqualifies an argument of a debate. I did not insult you, but I feel you have insulted me. That is no way to engage with anyone anywhere, let alone on a forum discussion. I don't know why you are so dismissive and defensive, but I'm not sticking around to be subjected to that attitude. 

 

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23 minutes ago, TheSeason said:

I did read your posts. They aren't making any sense to me and you aren't providing sufficient (or any) evidence to back your claims, nor answering criticism of your theory, especially when text evidence is provided that counters your claims. 

I'm not positing any theory here, I'm debating your claims, which is supposed to be the point of forum discussion, or why bother to put forth your theory at all, if you will not stand for it to be questioned or challenged?

 

I made a mistake here, a minor one. As I was editing before posting, I confused Brandon's arrival in King's Landing with the day he died. Brandon died days before his wedding to Cat. You are correct about that.

You are wrong about most else, and you failed to refute with textual evidence any of the points made against your theory, nor do you seem interested in maintaining meaningful discussion. You seem to think that by disagreeing with you or debating with you that I am picking on you. I'm not. I enjoy literary discussion and criticism, entertaining new ideas and theories, and challenging my own conclusions, so as to deepen my understanding of the text. This is the spirit I engaged you in discussion, not to upset you. 

Taking together your loss of interest to politely engage me, and your unwillingness or inability to refute any point I've made that stands against your theory, by engaging with the text, and your apparent unwillingness to even consider any point contrary to your own interpretations of the text, I'm going to bow out gracefully now. 

I had enjoyed our discussion, but your last comments have really soured this conversation for me. Your assumptions and mockery that I failed to read or am lacking in reading comprehension of the text or your commentary on it was rude and unnecessary. It is out-of-hand to comment on the person you are speaking to rather than respond to the points they have made in debate, and it is furthermore a logical fallacy that disqualifies an argument of a debate. I did not insult you, but I feel you have insulted me. That is no way to engage with anyone anywhere, let alone on a forum discussion. I don't know why you are so dismissive and defensive, but I'm not sticking around to be subjected to that attitude. 

 

I stopped reading what you had to say when you asked me why not Ashara Dayne. Like, i literally stopped there. 

Normally i read everything a person takes the time to write me, whether i agree with it or not. Whether i choose to respond can be dependent on a few things.

Ashara Dayne, and why she WAS chose, its literally part of my theory. It's literally the basis of my theory, how the meeting of Lyanna through the manipulations of Howland interfered with his plan with her, and the subsequent events that followed based on my theory. Not trying to be rude but when half of what your trying to counter me with seems based on not understanding or having read my post completely, it leaves me very little to logically retort with. Other than a long thesis of a response to re-explain my original post. 

I apologize if my post is hard for you to follow or understand though. Maybe im not getting my ideas across right. Time is precious some times and i must keep things short and condensed where i may. 

Edit- Other than that i fully enjoy discussing with you and have no issues with you disagreeing with me and expressing your ideas and thoughts :)

I will try to get to all your points on point tomorrow when i get off work, you can read if you choose. Forgive my shortness, it's late my time and must get to bed. 

Once again, not trying to shut you down and be rude and i apologize 

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