How Jayne Westerling Saved House Stark

[Jorah]

1 more reason against Jeyne pregnancy.

Sybell has reason to give anti-pregnancy drugs because negotiating with Tywin.

Also, if, IF Rob somehow wins his war and secures Westerlings from Tywin, she can start giving drugs which increase chances of pregnancy.

For her, giving anti-pregnancy drugs now is a win-win situation.

Agreed, also with Robb gone then Tywin and the Lannisters would be thrilled that Jeyne WAS pregnant so why lie about it? With the Westerlings under their control they'd effectively have influence over the heir to the North.

So there is no logical reason for them to lie and hide a baby away.

I think Jeyne ran from the room in tears because she is so upset and angry at what her mother did.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Agreed, also with Robb gone then Tywin and the Lannisters would be thrilled that Jeyne WAS pregnant so why lie about it? With the Westerlings under their control they'd effectively have influence over the heir to the North.

So there is no logical reason for them to lie and hide a baby away.

I think Jeyne ran from the room in tears because she is so upset and angry at what her mother did.

Incorrect. A child of Rob is a rallying point to the North and a reason to fight on. If the child is in Laninster hands the child would need to be liberated. Which would happen if the north should win against the Lanister's. Yeah it's a bit more problematic for the Rebel North, but its not the end of the everything. The Lanister's already have legitimate control of the North through the Bolton's and fake Arya.

[Andhaira]

I like this theory quite a bit and hope its true. It does seem that GRRM foreshadowed it when he switched JEYNE Poole for Arya Stark.

[Jon Targaryen]

My personal pet thoery is that Jeyne is not pregant but fled with the Blackfish. I think she may soon be pregnat by someone else and claim the child is Rob's.

When the Westerlings first come to Riverun Jenyne's younger sister was present. Yet she is not mentioned when Jamie takes Riverun. which also explains why she was so upset, having just learnt what Mum did to her big sister with the moontea.

That is an interesting theory. There is a four year age difference between the sisters but I suppose it could work. Interesting either way.

[Knight o' Pansies]

That is an interesting theory. There is a four year age difference between the sisters but I suppose it could work. Interesting either way.

If there's a 4 year difference and the older is about Robb's age(16-ish) then the younger has barely flowered by that point, and Jaime would've noticed if she was just 12 y-o.

[Jorah]

Incorrect. A child of Rob is a rallying point to the North and a reason to fight on. If the child is in Laninster hands the child would need to be liberated. Which would happen if the north should win against the Lanister's. Yeah it's a bit more problematic for the Rebel North, but its not the end of the everything. The Lanister's already have legitimate control of the North through the Bolton's and fake Arya.

Who in the North would raise? The Bolton's? The Karstark's? The war is over. It died the moment Robb did. To have the heir under Lannister control would be a great coup. The North didn't exactly rush south to save Sansa.....

[Jon Targaryen]

But then you have to raise the boy, convert him to the dark side throughout his youth, and hope he doesn't rebel when he gets older. It's simpler to have a female heir with the necessary bloodline and marry her to someone loyal who can really rule. Get a boy off that couple and the kid likely won't want to rebel against his daddy's family.

[oxmix]

I like this theory quite a bit and hope its true. It does seem that GRRM foreshadowed it when he switched JEYNE Poole for Arya Stark.

Good point. With all the imposters, we now have a pool of Jeynes.

[The Boar of Gore]

Call me a hopeless romantic but another reason it would be nice to see a child born out of Jeyne and Robb's love was that it was *love*, not calculation, that brought them together. People seem to be under the impression that Robb and Jeyne could have stopped themselves doing this most natural of things called falling in love, or perhaps that Robb should just have cast aside the girl he loved for the sake of winning the war. (Clearly, what he should have done was kept Jeyne waiting in the wings until *after* the war was won, and then broken it off with the odious Freys. Machiavelli would have been proud). I wonder how many threads there would have been criticizing Robb for being an unfeeling bastard if he'd actually done that?

Anyway, children of doomed romance are interesting. Hence the J=L+R threads. ;)

[The Boar of Gore]

Agreed, also with Robb gone then Tywin and the Lannisters would be thrilled that Jeyne WAS pregnant so why lie about it? With the Westerlings under their control they'd effectively have influence over the heir to the North.

I don't think it works that way. A female heir could be controlled since she could be married to a Lannister ally or, preferably, a Lannister, bringing the whole of the North under Lannister rule at a stroke (rebellions notwithstanding). A male heir is more problematic. Just look at Theon. A male heir is a focal point for the Stark, not the Lannister, cause whether he wants to be or not, because that's how Westeros society is. Even in the unlikely event that you get a male heir who is so docile he meekly does what the Lannisters say he is still going to be the focal point of plots - or he'll be so disrespected for being such a sheep, he won't keep the rambunctious northerners in line anyway, which defeats the purpose.

I think Jeyne ran from the room in tears because she is so upset and angry at what her mother did.

I think so too and the fact that this would be a natural reaction from the real Jeyne makes it less likely she's an impostor. (Even so, it's still possible she is an impostor just one who is a good actor: Sybil Spicer would have known the question was coming and had the impostor Jeyne rehearse running off in tears to her cold reply.)

[oxmix]

Call me a hopeless romantic but another reason it would be nice to see a child born out of Jeyne and Robb's love was that it was *love*, not calculation, that brought them together.

Alas, Beowulf, it was calculation - Sybel's calculation. She slipped Rob one of those love potions that her grandmother the Maegi was famous for. Its a twist on the Tristan and Isolde story.

[Crow's Eye]

First, I agree with those who say she's not pregnant with Robb's heir. No need for any more Starks at this point. On the other hand, I admit it's hard to square the "narrow hips" comment with anything other than (i) a mistake by GRRM, or (ii) there being another Jeyne out there.

So try this one on:

The Crag comes under siege and/or Sybil knows Robb's army is descending on them. Sybil arranges for someone to pose as her daughter, Jeyne. Maybe she's just shrewd and wants to protect Jeyne from any harm or being used as a hostage, or (for those that think the Maggy the Frog connection matters) she foresaw the marraige and ruin it could bring on her house, so she tries to prevent it by substituting a look-alike that wouldn't fall in love with him. This person looks enough like Jeyne to fool all but those who know Jeyne well. The stunt double ends up in bed with Robb (maybe she's some serving girl and gets all google-eyed herself about bedding the wolf king, or maybe Sybil ends up fulfilling her own prophetic vision by trying to stop it, which would be very GRRM-like), and Robb declares his intent to marry her.

Oops! Tywin might not like that, but she also can't simply declare that she's been deceiving the King of the North when he's camped in her backyard. Kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. She sees an opportunity - tell Tywin that she pushed her daughter to seduce Robb to break his alliance with the Freys, but didn't have the time or ability to tell Tywin about the plan first. And not to worry, she'll make sure "Jeyne" doesn't get pregnant and Robb will have no heirs to trouble the Lannisters. She doesn't tell Tywin that "Jeyne" isn't Jeyne, because, well, it's Tywin, and no telling what he might decide to do, and if someone has to die as a result of the marraige, it will be "Jeyne" and not Jeyne.

Sybil makes it clear to "Jeyne" that her only chance of making it out of that situation alive is to play the part to perfection. Once she becomes pregnant and Robb wins the war, she can reveal herself for who she is, but by then Robb will be in love with her and would never order his pregnant wife (or mother of his child, by then) to be executed, he will forgive her, and they will live happily ever after. "Jeyne", being young and stupid, actually believes it. It's not hard for "Jeyne" to play the part, becuase (i) she's really in love with him, and (ii) doesn't want to end up as food for Grey Wind when Robb realizes that he broke his vows for some crofter's daughter.

So the plan gets carried out and "Jeyne" plays her part to perfection. The real Jeyne is probably brought along somehow in the Westerling entorage, disguised as a maid or the like. So Sybil is telling "Jeyne" that she's getting fertility potions, while she's actually drinking some contraceptive like moon tea. Once Robb is dead and the siege on Riverrun is lifted, Sybil has "Jeyne" quietly executed, either because (i) she doesn't want her to spill the beans, or (ii) because maybe she really did get pregnant despite the potions.

Why not just come clean at that point? Well, would you want to tell Tywin or his progeny that you were actually deceiving him as well so that if the plan didn't work, he wouldn't kill your daughter? No, Sybil knows the only chance for her family to make it out without a musical requiem being written about them was to appear as if she was "all in" with Tywin from the start. Those Westerlings and associates that know that "Jeyne" is not Jeyne also have a great incentive to go along with the entire thing, as (i) they're loyal Westerlings to begin with, and (ii) don't want their own verse in the song.

"Jeyne" is fish food by the time of the meeting with Jaime and the real Jeyne is distraught for all kinds of reasons. Now the world knows her as a noble whore who couldn't keep her pants on, her own marraige prospects are probably uncertain at best (because who's going to want the whore who then later betrayed Robb Stark). Her mom had her stunt double killed, and they might have been friends or something similar. Or maybe Jeyne disagreed with all the deception and the slander of her name, so she played her part as a maid to perfection and ended up pregnant by some random soldier. So now she's facing the dilemma of either having her pregnancy aborted or having herself and her family extinguished because everyone will assume it's Robb's kid.

So there you have it: A plausible (ha!) explanation for the "narrow hips" comment without there having to be a potential Stark heir running around somewhere.

Edited for clarity and to add: Of course, I haven't figured out how this fits into the story as a whole, because that's an awful lot of backstory if there's no reason for it going forward.

[jurble]

In a world with a high infant mortality rate, and no foreseeable time-skip between any upcoming books, what would it matter if Jeyne were pregnant? She gives birth to an infant, by the time it's an adult (if it lives that long), the other still-clearly-living Stark Brothers would probably be publicly known once more, and since the kid is so young, evil avaricious Rickon will be made Lord of Winterfell or at least regent, and then afterward, steal power.

[Sandor's Lady]

So, I just discovered this (excellent, time-killing) thread, and rather than try and respond to everyone I want to, I'm just going to add some points and hope the original group discussing it reads them :thumbsup:

1. There's too many heirs in this tub!

Someone (probably several of you) have brought up the point that there are too many potential Stark heirs running around, and that there is no need for Jeyne to have another one to throw into the mix. Yes, that may be true, but wouldn't that gum up LF's plans delightfully? :devil: LF holds Sansa, the eldest sister, and who he believes to be the heiress of the North. He's also in on the Arya/Jeyne Poole switch and could come forward if the Boltons try and present "Arya" as the heiress and say, "Now, wait a minute..." But he doesn't know Bran and Rickon are alive, and he (probably) doesn't know who Robb proclaimed as his heir before he rode off. We technically don't know either - my money's on Jon, though it's possible he could have taken his mother's advice and named his "distant relative" (presumable Harry the Heir), or his cousin Robert, Blackfish or Edmure, or even some random person we haven't considered... Point being, that's already 3 heirs to the North that LF hasn't taken into consideration, and if Jeyne is pregnant and she and the child survive, that's an heir that trumps all of them. As someone who'd personally love to see LF's schemes fall flat, I'd be all for Jeyne showing up with a kid she claims is Robb's (even if it isn't). In my mind, I see some great meeting of all the potential heirs to duke it out, each "knowing" they've got the better claim - Sansa all set to be queen, then finding out her brothers are alive; Jon (for sake of argument) showing up because Robb proclaimed him the heir and finding out all that temptation he went through was for naught because Bran and Rickon are both alright; then out comes Queen Jeyne holding Robb's son and everyone's jaws hit the floor :thumbsup:

2. Symbolism and coincidences.

I don't think the fact that Jeyne's mother's name is Sybel and that she's Maggy the Frog's granddaughter is a coincidence. That's gonna end up meaning something. Does it mean that Sybel, like her mytholgical counter part Sybil, has some kind of prophetic powers? If we knew nothing of her family's history, we could probably write it off as a coincidence, but given that we have the set up of having a maegi in the family, I'd say it's unlikely she doesn't have powers of some kind. Now whether she used her powers to trick the North and ally herself better with the Lannisters, or if it's the other way around we will just have to wait and see.

3. Paralellism and the old switcheroo

Aside from the differing descriptions from other characters, and the fact that we have another Jeyne posing as someone else to furthur the Game, we really don't have any evidence that there's some kind of conspiracy going on here. What do we know for sure about Jeyne? We know that Jeyne is described differently by 2 different characters. We know that she claimed to be getting fertility potions from her mother, and her mother later claimed they were moon tea. We know the girl we see later is visibly upset. We know that Queen Jeyne Westerling-Stark also shares the same name as a girl formerly of the Stark household who is now posing as Arya Stark. Now, is it possible that Martin simply gave both girls the same, presumably common name (if you're going on it's real-world counterpart) simply to imply that both are "plain Janes" - average looking girls with average sounding names. But you already know what I think about coincidences... ;) Now, we also know that the Blackfish has dissappeared - fled the castle as the enemies came to occupy it. The Blackfish is old enough to remember a certain Sack and how a certain pregnant queen was snuck out of a certain city just before said Sack. Would he do the same thing - sneak Robb's pregnant widow out to safety in a nice paralell of Dany and her mother? It's possible, though I think that would be a stretch for a plot thread that, as someone else so nicely put it, was rather well tied off at the Red Wedding.

4. Jeyne's hips and Renly's eyes

If anyone remembers, Martin described Renly as having green eyes, but in all the other books he is said to have the same blue eyes as his brothers. So, maybe Martin just forgot what he'd said Jeyne looked like - he is human, after all - he is allowed to make mistakes. :D

Bottom line - do I think Jeyne is pregnant and she's gonna show up with Robb's child somewhere else down the line? No. Do I think there's something else going on here that we've just scratched the surface of? Yes. Do I think that we're all really, really bored and desperately looking for some way to pass the time while we wait for DwD to come out? Hell yeah.

[Braindamage351]

Robb was really more of a Tully anyway. He was redheaded and big. It is possible that his kid survived, though. Rickon is the only one left who can leave a Stark heir, and who knows what he'll turn out like.

[Dreadwolf]

I had been following this threat since prior getting full membership rights then somehow I forgot about it.

I am not sure if I can still recollect all the good points already exchanged on top.

So please forgive me if it has already been above mentioned or even if I am cribbing right now (deluding even my self for originality)

It's not a big stuff anyway but speaking lately of foreshadowing, hidden signs, omens or certain subtle details on the one hand and Brynden/Jeyne speculations on the other it has just crossed my mind by this small idea (which I can't remember me reading up somewhere + I am too lazy too read all this again.)

After the Red Wedding and the siege of Riverrun the Lannisters and their allies were sincerely stricken by the Black Fish insolance and madness in flying proudly the Direwolf (Kings Robb) flag over the towers of doomed stronghold.

Well its just a symbol and may easily be explaned otherwise but still...

IMO judging from the rationality point of view shifts the the balance of probabilities to that there wouldn't be any new heir (or a pretender) given his rise from Jeyne. However counting numerous symbols and subtle signs and the writing style so far - well it may be quite another story there.

[dolorous_edd]

It would be quite a plot twist if Bran, Rickon, Sansa, Arya, and Jon all turned up claim Winterfell in the belief that they were the last Stark, only for Jeyne Westerling to appear with Robb's son. However as a reader, I would find it deeply unsatisfying. I care about the Stark kids and I don't care about a baby that might not even exist. I also don't want to see the Westerlings rewarded for their treachery. I hate the Westerlings just as much as I hate the Freys.

[the silent speaker]

Dolorous Edd, Sybell and Rolph Spicer deserve what they get, but Jeyne loved Robb enough to don widowhood over him (and implied over her mother's objections), Raynald Westerling died trying to free Grey Wind, and it was suggested that Gawen Westerling actually didn't know what his wife was up to. They're a far cry from the Freys.

[Aryadne]

I'm absolutely certain the Jeyne Jaime met was an imposter and that Sybell Spicer is a genius, though not necessarily loyal to the Starks. On the narrow-hips/wide-hips debate, I'm sorry but I really don't think it was written to show off how Jaime and Catelyn have different points of views. I think that would be way too vague a characterization bit. So either A) GRRM made an error, or B) GRRM is providing clues that something is amiss. I think it's B.

When I read this part of the book I remember being fascinated by "Jeyne's" showing of her widowhood, I can't remember the exact description but I believe it involved her ripping her clothes and generally not caring for her appearance. She basically looks like a peasant. Then it dawned on me, I mean how delicious is it that Sybell would claim that the reason the peasant girl pretending to be Jeyne looks so haggard is because she's in grieving for her lost husband when in fact she just didn't bother to dress the girl up as Jeyne and ruin perfectly good clothes. I also don't remember the Jeyne Jaime met ever speaking, which may imply that the girl is a mute which would make her a perfect candidate to keep the charade a secret.

On Sybell's loyalties: I don't think her priorities are to help the Stark cause, but are more centered on hurting the Lannisters. I believe it's mentioned or atleast implied that Sybell is the daughter (or granddaughter?) of Maggie the Frog. Maggie notoriously gave Cersei a cryptic reading of her future as a child that haunted her for life. I'm not sure if Maggie actually had prophetic talents but I think she was definitely trying to mentally hurt Cersei.

In any case, I think Sybell is also power hungry so she may just be waiting to see which side will win. Though it may seem that the Stark cause is lost, there are still plenty of his followers about the land and it would be smart to secret away Robb's unborn heir, just in case.

But yeah, I'm sure most of these points have already been made but that's just my 2 cents.

[3idcrow]

I also don't remember the Jeyne Jaime met ever speaking, which may imply that the girl is a mute which would make her a perfect candidate to keep the charade a secret.

She spoke. She said that the crown was made for her by Robb's order and that she loved him.

I also think that Jeyne's discrepancies might be used by GRRM as a hook for the future plot. If he needs another Stark heir he can produce him as Jeyne's child, otherwise this little difference might be explained by Jaime's and Cat's understanding of "good hips" vs "narrow hips".