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Why did they have to fight at the ToJ?


Lyanna<3Rhaegar

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It was probably for the honor and KG didn't see any other purpose but to die. They also might be ordered to die to be berried with a secret they had to keep (like who is Lyanna's child). If they actually wanted to defend her they would stay in tower and no-one could get in. 

I think they were meant to die that day order by Rhaegar.

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1 hour ago, Stormking902 said:

Ned and company were REBELS and played a key roll in the Targaryan Dynasty being destroyed and replaced by Robert who btw killed there silver prince on the Trident, they were enemies of the KG plain and simple and for the KG to not try and kill these traitors would be treason. 

So, Barristan and Jaime were little shits?

Had a different set of values?

Had more than two grey cells to rub together?

But you could be on the money with the "silver prince" thingy - they could be a bunch of catamites and were upset over their lover being killed.

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31 minutes ago, TMIFairy said:

So, Barristan and Jaime were little shits?

Had a different set of values?

Had more than two grey cells to rub together?

But you could be on the money with the "silver prince" thingy - they could be a bunch of catamites and were upset over their lover being killed.

This doesn't make much sense. Selmy, Darry, and Lannister were unaware of child's existence, so of course they kneeled when a new king took the throne. All but Jaime followed their KG vows to the letter.

Why would any loyal KG surrender to Ned?  

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4 minutes ago, cgrav said:

Why would any loyal KG surrender to Ned?  

Well, this is it. There are men who would of said, "ah, it's pointless, go on then." But the KG are (or ought to be) cut from a different cloth, so to speak. 

 

1 hour ago, Tygett Greenshield said:

I think they were meant to die that day order by Rhaegar.

I think this is beautiful. As far as the realm was concerned, the Targaryen dynasty was finished. And so too were they. Their lives betrayed the existence of another, the one they were sworn to protect. And so they needed to die along with the rest. The only honorable decision left to them. 

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1 hour ago, TMIFairy said:

So, Barristan and Jaime were little shits?

Had a different set of values?

Had more than two grey cells to rub together?

But you could be on the money with the "silver prince" thingy - they could be a bunch of catamites and were upset over their lover being killed.

I don't get what your talking about?? 

 

Barristan almost lost his life fighting for house Targaryan at the Trident, it wasnt untill the Targ Dynasty was OVER he bent the knee to Robert and only because he didn't know about Jon if he did he would have continued the fight or take the black as he should have done to begin with. Jamie wasn't present at TOJ either and only killed Aerys after he gave the order to burn the city which I agree with Jamies decision. 

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3 minutes ago, TheThreeEyedCow said:

I think this is beautiful. As far as the realm was concerned, the Targaryen dynasty was finished. And so too were they. Their lives betrayed the existence of another, the one they were sworn to protect. And so they needed to die along with the rest. The only honorable decision left to them. 

That would be very sad, almost like "Suicide by police". Fighting Ned and his six good men might have seemed like a more honourable death than being captured and taken by Robert.

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10 minutes ago, Faera said:

That would be very sad, almost like "Suicide by police". Fighting Ned and his six good men might have seemed like a more honourable death than being captured and taken by Robert.

This was also the only choice left to Ned once they refused to surrender. He could not have served his new king loyally and let baby Jon live if there remained any way for Robert to find out that an heir still lived. The survival of any ToJ KG would have been a sword hanging over his head the rest of his life. 

And of course Ashara would have known about the new heir as soon as Ned walked in with Dawn and the child it was guarding, so she had to go, too. Perhaps Ned Dayne is named for him because he allowed Ashara to flee instead of delivering "justice".

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16 minutes ago, Faera said:

Headcanon accepted!

The suicide explanation is just too clean, considering that she might be the only person in the whole series supposed to have taken their own life out of grief (feel free to contradict, but I can't even think of any actual suicides). They also found Balon's body despite the rough seas.

edit: not that I'd have a problem with a clean, explainable death for once.

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10 minutes ago, cgrav said:

The suicide explanation is just too clean, considering that she might be the only person in the whole series supposed to have taken their own life out of grief (feel free to contradict, but I can't even think of any actual suicides). They also found Balon's body despite the rough seas.

edit: not that I'd have a problem with a clean, explainable death for once.

Honestly, I like your explanation better than any other I have seen so far.

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13 hours ago, cgrav said:

@40 Thousand Skeletons
I suspect there was a sort of political motive, beyond just being Kingsguard. I think Rhaegar was trying to start a new succession for reasons of both politics and prophecy. Had Rhaegar survived, it would have been a new set of alliances ready to go: an heir and queen that tied the crown to the North and thereby also the Riverlands and Vale through marriages. But as we know that plan did quite work.
 

Before anyone objects that Rhaegar wouldn't have been so dumb as to risk upsetting the Baratheons, let's consider an inner thought from one of our best windows on Rhaegar, Ned Stark:

Here we have Ned foolishly deciding he's okay with bringing the kingdoms to war if he can satisfy his blood feud with the Lannisters. Certainly Rhaegar wasn't as naive as Ned, but if Ned was willing to risk war to avenge Bran's spinal injury, what would Rhaegar risk to save the realm and fulfill an end-of-world prophecy?

I'm sure Rhaegar was mindful of the political situation. My point was just that it wasn't his priority. He was probably only concerned with politics as far as it affected his mission to combat the Long Night 2.0. And Rhaegar couldn't have necessarily planned for a Stark-Tully-Arryn alliance as the Arryn marriage was done hastily in the middle of the war specifically to defeat the Targaryens.

But as far as his political thinking goes, I do actually think Rhaegar may have been trying to force Rickard into an alliance by marrying Lyanna in secret and getting her pregnant. Rickard would never agree to break her betrothal to Robert, so Rhaegar broke the betrothal for him. Then Rhaegar would name Lyanna's child his new heir and claim she died in childbirth. But then some nefarious person told Brandon that Lyanna had been kidnapped and taken to KL and the whole plan was ruined. I would bet on the maesters betting the culprit, since the WF maester may have known what was going on after Lyanna left and they traditional are anti-dragon, anti-prophecy type people.

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22 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Barristan almost lost his life fighting for house Targaryan at the Trident,

So? his life belonged to House Targaryen, Barristan was supposed to die for them. Yet, at the Trident, Rhaegar was killed, his children were butchered in Robert's name, and Robert was more than happy to reward those who killed them. After all this, and Barristan agreed to become the Lord Commander of Robert's Kingsguard.

Do you sincerely want someone like that protecting you? that Daenerys found it in herself to pardon someone she should never pardon shows she is strong at the very least. I would never pardon Barristan.

 

Those three at the Tower of Joy made it clear: "we swore a vow".

 

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Because they swore a vow, and the vow they swore was to defend the king and die for him, if need be.  That's why Ned holds them in such high esteem: they died as true Kingsguard. And Ned was the right hand of the man who accepted the bodies of Rhaegar's murdered children as a gift of loyalty. Even though Ned himself wouldn't harm the baby, Robert would, or rather, would let others do the dirty work for him and turn away. Ned wouldn't allow the KG to take the child away and raise him as a figurehead of another civil war, and his honour and loyalty would compel him to reveal Jon's existence to Robert. And even if Ned himself could be convinced to remain silent - which he was, by Lyanna's deathbed wish which she had been afraid he wouldn't grant - there were still six more men whose willingness or ability to keep the secret could not be relied on. The Kingsguard couldn't take any such risks and had no choice: they had to fight to prevent the reveal of Jon's existence which would put his life in danger.

 

3 hours ago, cgrav said:

The suicide explanation is just too clean, considering that she might be the only person in the whole series supposed to have taken their own life out of grief (feel free to contradict, but I can't even think of any actual suicides). They also found Balon's body despite the rough seas.

edit: not that I'd have a problem with a clean, explainable death for once.

The unnamed Stark daughter whose son by Bael killed his father. Outside the series, Helaena Targaryen.

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33 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

 

The unnamed Stark daughter whose son by Bael killed his father. Outside the series, Helaena Targaryen.

Exactly - it's vanishingly rare, and just hasn't happened to any of the characters connected to the main story... except Ashara.

We also know that Ned has more than one lie, so I suspect that Ashara Dayne's fate is among them.

You know I have to wonder how Wylla's silence was bought, since she apparently made it back to Starfall alive.

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23 hours ago, Widow's Watch said:

The Kingsguard were going to protect Jon (and Lyanna) no matter what. But I do wonder if there would have been a fight if Ned had arrived on his own. 

Yes I wonder this as well. 

21 hours ago, Makk said:

Because they swore a vow. The Kingsguard were there not only to guard the king but guard his right. They fully intended to crown Jon. Ned would never physically hurt Jon, but they were pretty sure that he wouldn't go along with their plan either.

True. He most definitely would not have went along with their plan. 

21 hours ago, cgrav said:

Maybe not, but that setting also acts to push the filter of Ned away and give us a memory that might be free of Ned's biases. This sort of magical/drugged dream setting is often used to convey a truth that the dreamer doesn't want to think about consciously, just as we saw with Jaime's weirwood stump dream

I agree. I think his fever dream has the truth of it. He blocks it out any other time. 

19 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

@Lyanna<3Rhaegar

Not a stupid question at all. In fact I think it is one of the more important questions we can ask about asoiaf, because as you and many others have pointed out, the entire situation just seems silly at face value. Why die for honor's sake? It's not like if they actually killed Ned they would have been able to easily crown Lyanna's child. In fact it seems that the most sensible thing for them to do would be to hand over Lyanna's child to Ned for safe keeping and then join up with Viserys and Dany. But instead they fought to the death.

Here's my take, and I am definitely in the minority here. Rhaegar was obsessed with fulfilling prophecy and gave orders to those 3 KG (the 3 who also bought into the whole prophecy thing) to work toward fulfilling prophecy even in the event of Rhaegar's death. It seems that Rhaegar (and Aemon) thought the Long Night 2.0 was coming, and so defeating the forces of darkness would take priority over everything else, including normal politics. I think Rhaegar ordered the 3 KG to burn Lyanna alive as a sacrifice (after giving birth) in the belief that the result would be Lyanna's child being magically transformed into some sort of prophecy-fulfilling AAR baby. Ned showed up right before this took place, and obviously would not have been OK with Lyanna being killed, so they fought.

So in my view, it wasn't for honor. They actually had a legit reason for fighting to the death. The 3 KG weren't going to let Ned prevent them from fulfilling prophecy to stop the Long Night 2.0, and Ned wasn't going to let them kill Lyanna. Then Lyanna ironically died anyways, and Ned used the cache of wildfire they had prepared in the ToJ to burn down the tower, similar to when Cersei burned down the Tower of the Hand (and this explains how Ned was able to bring down the tower without a bunch of men and construction equipment).

I've always been of the mind that it wasn't just for honor. I've also played around with the idea that maybe Rhaegar was going to sacrifice someone; one of his children? To fulfill the prophecy so your idea is not farfetched at all to me. 

I think that bothers me so much about it is that the KG clearly know the war is lost. They know Rhaegar & Aerys are either dead or captive. They presumably know that Lyanna is dying & that even if they win this fight they will not be able to crown the baby. We have examples of other Targaryen loyalists bending the knee after the war & even being taken into the Baratheon's service. This all makes me feel like it couldn't have been just for honor. There had to be more to it. I believe the prophecy played a major role in the decision of the KG to fight to the death - the absolute only thing they can hope to fulfill if they win the fight is fulfilling the prophecy. 

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5 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

'm sure Rhaegar was mindful of the political situation. My point was just that it wasn't his priority. He was probably only concerned with politics as far as it affected his mission to combat the Long Night 2.0. And Rhaegar couldn't have necessarily planned for a Stark-Tully-Arryn alliance as the Arryn marriage was done hastily in the middle of the war specifically to defeat the Targaryens.

Yes. I agree. While he is not opposed to making political alliances his priority is the Long Night & attempting to stop it.

3 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Because they swore a vow, and the vow they swore was to defend the king and die for him, if need be.  That's why Ned holds them in such high esteem: they died as true Kingsguard. And Ned was the right hand of the man who accepted the bodies of Rhaegar's murdered children as a gift of loyalty. Even though Ned himself wouldn't harm the baby, Robert would, or rather, would let others do the dirty work for him and turn away. Ned wouldn't allow the KG to take the child away and raise him as a figurehead of another civil war, and his honour and loyalty would compel him to reveal Jon's existence to Robert. And even if Ned himself could be convinced to remain silent - which he was, by Lyanna's deathbed wish which she had been afraid he wouldn't grant - there were still six more men whose willingness or ability to keep the secret could not be relied on. The Kingsguard couldn't take any such risks and had no choice: they had to fight to prevent the reveal of Jon's existence which would put his life in danger.

Right but all the KG swore a vow to protect their King. Barristan is said to be very honorable even by Ned but he is still alive. Their King is dead. There is no law I'm aware of that says the KG has to die when the King does - reminds me of the Dothraki. Maybe they were Rhaegar's blood riders :)

I understand why they couldn't just hand over the baby to Ned no matter how honorable & just he is but if they intended to run off with the babe & raise him in secret until they could return & over throw the Baratheon's & crown him why were they still hanging out there? Why not take the baby somewhere else & hide him until they could travel far away to raise him? 

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4 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Yes. I agree. While he is not opposed to making political alliances his priority is the Long Night & attempting to stop it.

Right but all the KG swore a vow to protect their King. Barristan is said to be very honorable even by Ned but he is still alive. Their King is dead. There is no law I'm aware of that says the KG has to die when the King does - reminds me of the Dothraki. Maybe they were Rhaegar's blood riders :)

I understand why they couldn't just hand over the baby to Ned no matter how honorable & just he is but if they intended to run off with the babe & raise him in secret until they could return & over throw the Baratheon's & crown him why were they still hanging out there? Why not take the baby somewhere else & hide him until they could travel far away to raise him? 

Just to play devil's advocate, it may be that they were waiting for Lyanna to give birth before traveling, and she was in labor or had very recently given birth when Ned arrived.

But yeah I don't see any good reason for the fight if you take the story at face value.

And just to add to my original thought, it may be that they weren't just trying to vaguely fulfill prophecy by sacrificing Lyanna. They could have been trying to hatch dragons. After all, the Tragedy at Summerhall (where Rhaegar was born) was an attempt to hatch dragons, and Aemon was convinced by Dany's dragons that she was the PtwP. Lyanna certainly qualifies as having kingsblood in at least one sense (descended from the Kings of Winter), and Mel was always going on about hatching dragons from stone with a kingsblood sacrifice.

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6 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Right but all the KG swore a vow to protect their King. Barristan is said to be very honorable even by Ned but he is still alive. Their King is dead. There is no law I'm aware of that says the KG has to die when the King does - reminds me of the Dothraki. Maybe they were Rhaegar's blood riders :)

I said die for the King, not with him :-) Meaning, they should be willing to defend the King even at the cost of their own lives, but if they are elsewhere and the King dies, they live and serve his successor.

6 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I understand why they couldn't just hand over the baby to Ned no matter how honorable & just he is but if they intended to run off with the babe & raise him in secret until they could return & over throw the Baratheon's & crown him why were they still hanging out there? Why not take the baby somewhere else & hide him until they could travel far away to raise him? 

Perhaps Ned turned up while arrangements were still under way? Grab the baby and be gone is actually not as easy as it sounds if you are Kingsguard - not only you have to arrange someone reliable to take care of the newborn, but you also have to make sure that your rather famous face won't be recognized anywhere near the baby because it would be like a red flag leading to an investigation what the hell you are doing there (which allows for the theory of Jon being already moved from ToJ to Starfall - the KG are taking care to maintain the secret at Lyanna's end while Jon is safer apart from them, under the completely mundane identity of Wylla's baby. Returning Dawn is then used as a convenient coverup for the trip to Starfall to pick Jon)

Besides, there is Lyanna, who, in her condition, probably couldn't be moved; she had to be kept secret, as well, because if people found out that she had given birth, there would be a search for the baby.

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15 hours ago, theMADdestScientist_ said:

So? his life belonged to House Targaryen, Barristan was supposed to die for them. Yet, at the Trident, Rhaegar was killed, his children were butchered in Robert's name, and Robert was more than happy to reward those who killed them. After all this, and Barristan agreed to become the Lord Commander of Robert's Kingsguard.

Do you sincerely want someone like that potecting you? that Daenerys found it in herself to pardon someone she should never pardon shows she is strong at the very least. I would never pardon Barristan.

 

Those three at the Tower of Joy made it clear: "we swore a vow".

 

I agree with you lol I also said I believe he should have taken the black from the start but he did fight untill unconscious and Robert is his liege lord since Selmy is from the SL so I do understand his choice to serve robert but I sure as hell dont respect it. 

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