Jon, Mance’s Blue Rose, and the Dayne Heiress. (Updated 1/15)

[KingMance]

22 minutes ago, LynnS said:

We weren't specifically told about Mance at Robert's feast in GoT either.  I'm just waiting for Martin to drop the other shoe since he is so good at subverting expectations.  Yah, I don't get the Mance=Rhaegar or Blackfyre speculation either.  It boils down to the black cloak with red silk.  That's not enough for me.   I don't subscribe to the notion that Mance is Jon's daddy. But I won't dismiss his presence at the tourney just yet.

I guess it can't be dismissed, but I'm not sure how it's even speculation. We are told "a" black brother from the wall was there recruiting. Not several. Mance was a ranger, not a recruiter. It's not a stretch to think Benjen wouldn't recognize a brother he served with briefly years later at a welcoming feast when he's disguised as a singer. It IS a stretch to think Mance recruited Benjen and traveled to the wall with him and he wouldn't be able to identify him. Add in the ridiculous notion (Not yours, I know) that the Mance also had time to bang benjens sister before embarking north with him is just absurd.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

10 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

I don't think it is impossible that he was at the tourney, but I think very good reasons have been laid out in this thread for us not having any reason to think he was, and certainly not having any reason to think he was TKOTLT.

Yes. 

I believe George only mentions the black brother in the story to plant a seed in the reader's mind that this could have influenced Benjen to join the NW. George knows the reader wonders why Benjen joins the NW. Benjen is there, the black brother is there recruiting. This could be a seed George is planting. 

To be clear, I'm not saying this is why Benjen joins. I believe it is a seed planted by George which he could use later, or not. 

There is no reason for the reader to believe this brother is Mance.

[LynnS]

4 minutes ago, KingMance said:

I guess it can't be dismissed, but I'm not sure how it's even speculation. We are told "a" black brother from the wall was there recruiting. Not several. Mance was a ranger, not a recruiter. It's not a stretch to think Benjen wouldn't recognize a brother he served with briefly years later at a welcoming feast when he's disguised as a singer. It IS a stretch to think Mance recruited Benjen and traveled to the wall with him and he wouldn't be able to identify him. Add in the ridiculous notion (Not yours, I know) that the Mance also had time to bang benjens sister before embarking north with him is just absurd.

Meera only says that a black brother gave a speech, not whether he was only brother there. Howland is only giving us a snapshot in time not the whole picture.  I didn't say that Benjen was recruited at the tourney.  Only that he was exposed to men of the watch and like Jon heard stories about the Watch.  Hence we get Benjen telling Jon they could use a man like Jon and in the same breath backtracking about joining the watch until Jon knew more about life.  It must have been pretty impressive when the LC showed up with dozen men to confer with Richard Stark.  

[Ygrain]

19 minutes ago, KingMance said:

It's not a stretch to think Benjen wouldn't recognize a brother he served with briefly years later at a welcoming feast when he's disguised as a singer.

Especially when Mance was stationed at Shadow Tower and Benjen at Castle Black. Is it ever mentioned that they ranged together on some occasion?

Besides, there were tons of strangers at the feast at the lower tables. There was absolutely no reason for Benjen to scan each and every one's face closely, as he had no reason to expect anyone of importance there.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

@Ygrain

Benjen says as much to Jon.

Quote

"It was. When your father learned the king was coming, he sent word to his brother Benjen on the Wall, so he might come down for the feast. There is more commerce between the black brothers and the free folk than you know, and soon enough word came to my ears as well. It was too choice a chance to resist. Your uncle did not know me by sight, so I had no fear from that quarter, and I did not think your father was like to remember a young crow he'd met briefly years before. I wanted to see this Robert with my own eyes, king to king, and get the measure of your uncle Benjen as well. He was First Ranger by then, and the bane of all my people. So I saddled my fleetest horse, and rode."

Mance specifically says Benjen doesn't know him.

@KingMance

[Tagganaro]

25 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

There is no reason for the reader to believe this brother is Mance.

Precisely.  There is no reason to believe any of these theories about Mance, yet we as readers constantly come up with them.  It speaks to how interesting of a character Mance is that readers can't just take his backstory at face value.  I'm not saying any of these theories are impossible or even that they're irrational, it's just interesting to see all the speculation on where Mance has been and what he has been doing, especially if it just turns out that we already know everything we need to know about his past (which I think is likely).  He really was born a wildling, grew up at the Wall, and then tired of all the restrictions on his life and deserted.  He really did sneak south of the Wall just a couple times, and Winterfell is the most south he has ever been.  There doesn't need to be some crazy backstory behind his love of Bael the Bard and the Dornishman's Wife, which at their heart are about thumbing one's nose at authority and living and dying freely, ethos that Mance lives by.

[Bael's Bastard]

40 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Height is a matter of perception.  If you have a smaller man or youth of midling size stacked up against three knights in full battle armor; the one with the worst kit would probably look smaller.  The same trick is used with Aegon to make him appear bigger when he is kitted out in his armor.  Mance is someone who lives out the songs he sings and he never learned to obey.  He also claims to know all the songs north and south of the Wall.  He would have to come into contact with other bards for that to be true.

TKOTLT is described as inherently short of stature, not short in comparison or relative to someone else. And again, the perception of TKOTLT being short of stature is coming to us from a full grown crannogman who was smaller than fifteen-years-old-or-less squires, via his woman grown crannogman daughter that stands no higher than her brother Jojen, who at thirteen is described as being no more than two maybe three inches taller than nine year old Bran. Mance, like Ned, is easily disqualified, and while Howland might meet the size requirements, it requires sensational or convoluted explanations for how his horse riding skills and jousting materialized out of nowhere.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

2 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

There doesn't need to be some crazy backstory behind his love of Bael the Bard and the Dornishman's Wife, which at their heart are about thumbing one's nose at authority and living and dying freely, ethos that Mance lives by.

Good point.

[Bael's Bastard]

43 minutes ago, KingMance said:

I guess it can't be dismissed, but I'm not sure how it's even speculation. We are told "a" black brother from the wall was there recruiting. Not several. Mance was a ranger, not a recruiter. It's not a stretch to think Benjen wouldn't recognize a brother he served with briefly years later at a welcoming feast when he's disguised as a singer. It IS a stretch to think Mance recruited Benjen and traveled to the wall with him and he wouldn't be able to identify him. Add in the ridiculous notion (Not yours, I know) that the Mance also had time to bang benjens sister before embarking north with him is just absurd.

[Ygrain]

46 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Mance specifically says Benjen doesn't know him.

Ah. So the great mystery of Benjen not recognising the man he never knew is solved

 

[LynnS]

33 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

TKOTLT is described as inherently short of stature, not short in comparison or relative to someone else. And again, the perception of TKOTLT being short of stature is coming to us from a full grown crannogman who was smaller than fifteen-years-old-or-less squires, via his woman grown crannogman daughter that stands no higher than her brother Jojen, who at thirteen is described as being no more than two maybe three inches taller than nine year old Bran. Mance, like Ned, is easily disqualified, and while Howland might meet the size requirements, it requires sensational or convoluted explanations for how his horse riding skills and jousting materialized out of nowhere.

I'm going to agree to disgaree with you on Howland's perceptions.  But if we must have a small man; then I think it's entirely possible that a hedge knight showed up at the tournament.  Someone like the Mad Mouse.  I'd even consider the High Septon who's previous identity we don't know anything about either.  Simply because it tickles my fancy to think that the KotLT can still show up in the story as another character.

[Bael's Bastard]

1 hour ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

@Ygrain

Benjen says as much to Jon.

Mance specifically says Benjen doesn't know him.

@KingMance

@OtherFromAnotherMother

Excellent! That settles it, pretty cut and dry.

[Ygrain]

37 minutes ago, LynnS said:

But if we must have a small man; then I think it's entirely possible that a hedge knight showed up at the tournament

And this complete stranger took up Howland's cause because...?

[Bael's Bastard]

6 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

And this complete stranger took up Howland's cause because...?

Because he was actually Howland Reed's long lost father. Dundundun.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

Ah. So the great mystery of Benjen not recognising the man he never knew is solved

 

 

27 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

@OtherFromAnotherMother

Excellent! That settles it, pretty cut and dry.

Only if you believe what is written in the books. 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

27 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

@OtherFromAnotherMother

Excellent! That settles it, pretty cut and dry.

Yep, for some reason I thought Benjen would have visited Winterfell with the Lord Commander, but I think that was a poor assumption/bad memory.

cheers

[Ygrain]

34 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Because he was actually Howland Reed's long lost father. Dundundun.

And here I thought he was his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

[wolfmaid7]

@LynnS This is what Mance had to say re knowing Benjen:

“It was. When your father learned the king was coming, he sent word to his brother Benjen on the Wall, so he might come down for the feast. There is more commerce between the black brothers and the free folk than you know, and soon enough word came to my ears as well. It was too choice a chance to resist. Your uncle did not know me by sight, so I had no fear from that quarter, and I did not think your father was like to remember a young crow he’d met briefly years before. I wanted to see this Robert with my own eyes, king to king, and get the measure of your uncle Benjen as well. He was First Ranger by then, and the bane of all my people. So I saddled my fleetest horse, and rode.”

Also, Mance does see himself as a king. I think we was just trying to school Jon on the particulars of achieving kingship and being a king beyond the Wall.He could be differentiating between Jon's concept of a king and his own in a subtle,or he's just playing coy.

But yeah according to Mance Benjen didn't know him by sight and Ned wouldn't have remembered him.

 

More than anything i think the mention of a black brother could have been a hint as to why Benjen may have joined the NW.

[wolfmaid7]

8 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

And here I thought he was his father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.

Nahhh, he was actually Rhaegar's lover.Didn't you know Mance taught Rhaegar to properly finger his strings

[Bael's Bastard]

32 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Yep, for some reason I thought Benjen would have visited Winterfell with the Lord Commander, but I think that was a poor assumption/bad memory.

cheers

Yeah, I would agree that it would seem likely if Mance didn't explicitly say he knew he wouldn't recognize him. Maybe Benjen was still getting the "you're not inherently better" treatment, sort of like Benjen gives Jon when he first arrives.