ATaleofSalt&Onions

Wat? Tywin is reasonable, and I can see the argument for Randyll over threatening to murder his son, but not more evil than Doran and Arya is crazy. I know people want the Others to have super complex characterization and motivation but I’m not sure how that’s possible with Martin saying he doesn’t know if they even have a culture.

There isn’t really such a hero in LOTR, that’s a weird comment. Aragorn is an archetypical fantasy hero but he doesn’t defeat Sauron and Frodo succumbs to the ring at Mt. Doom. It’s only his fighting over it with Gollum that eventually brings about its destruction.

I apologized to Black Crow, on my phone the way the page loaded I got signatures mixed up and thought he was endorsing your theory. I missed your post in this thread where you talked about this, but needless to say I don't think it actually explains away any of the points I made. It's a lot of words built off of a lot of assumptions with very little underlying textual basis IMO. Jaime says all his brothers were away at the end of the war when Aerys was preparing the wildfire plot. Neither he nor Barristan nor anyone else ever suggests Arthur/Oswell/Gerold were supposed to be there with him but had abandoned their posts. Ned asks them why they weren't in any of the places he expected to them to be in his dream, and they answer that they are honoring a vow as they are obligated to as KG. These are not men who have forsaken their duty. Barbrey Dustin explicitly says Ned told her that her husband was buried in the Red Mountains of Dorne, exactly where Ned places the tower and the fight with the Kingsguard in his dream. And after he has woken up, Ned recalls pulling down the tower, building cairns for the 8 men who died in the fight, and notes that Rhaegar called the place the "tower of joy." The ToJ is in the Red Mountains of Dorne. That is where Ned and his companions fought the KG and where all of them died except for Ned and Howland. If they were not guarding Lyanna and her baby, what were they doing there? Where did Ned and Howland find Lyanna? Why is Lyanna a part of this dream (an "old dream" as Ned notes, she doesn't simply show up while he's fever stricken) if she had nothing to do with the KG fight?

I don't think these are remotely equivalent. Cersei was at Casterly Rock for the entire time between Tywin resigning as hand and her marrying Robert. Barristan was at Harrenhal and at court while Ashara was there. Cersei only throws the Ashara accusation after flinging two other wild accusations. Barristan's source(s) is/are unknown, but we don't know that it's mere rumor. Nobody else ever suggests Ashara had a stillborn child, a daughter, or that she was ever pregnant outside of the rumor that is specifically about Jon. Technically it does not. The story Ned Dayne believes, that Ned Stark fell in love with his aunt at Harrenhal but later conceived Jon with Wylla, is not self-contradictory. It is, however, wildly at odds with the Ned Stark we know and the second part is clearly untrue given how obvious it is that Jon's mother is not Wylla. IMO that means we should also treat the first claim with skepticism accordingly. We don't know why Brandon asked. A dance does not inherently include any further additional romance, after all we are explicitly told she danced with multiple other men that not. One possible reason Brandon asked, beyond getting his square little brother off his butt, is that it was a way to approach Ashara without drawing attention to himself as a betrothed man (at a tournament in the kingdom ruled by his future father-in-law no less) potentially pursuing one of the most desirable maidens in the realm. That's not entirely true: Also, as I said, I'm not convinced Ned actually had feelings for Ashara. Barristan doesn't necessarily know the details of how Ashara's affair came to be, and he's plainly wishcasting when he wonders whether she might have picked me if he had crowned her. Also, this wouldn't exactly be the first time in history that a woman pursued a taken man. And the truth could easily lie in the middle - perhaps Brandon made his interest known while leaving the ball in her court, and she took action and reciprocated because she found him attractive. Not a difficult scenario to imagine IMO. I really do not understand why people think Cersei saying this, in this context, followed by Ned not responding at all (internally or externally) to her bringing up Ashara's name adds to the credibility of the Ned/Ashara rumors rather than reducing it: Everyone immediately recognizes how absurd the first two accusations are, but because the third one repeats the rumor Catelyn tells us earlier people infer it must be credible, instead of considering that maybe GRRM includes it there to hint that it's actually not very credible at all. I agree with that, but that's all the more reason why I think he must be right about the baby's gender if there was in fact a baby. It only works as a R + L = J clue if Ashara really didn't have a son. In a vacuum, yeah, that's why you need to think about the meta aspect. If we lived in their world and were investigating this mystery, we couldn't assume Barristan was right she had a daughter. But in the context of this being a story, and that detail all-but-certainly being a clue to anyone who hasn't yet caught on that Ashara isn't Jon's mom, and I think there's very little chance he's wrong about the baby's gender. But we don't actually have any reason to believe this is the same rumor. The only similarity is that it involves Ashara being pregnant at some point. Cersei repeats the same rumor that Catelyn details earlier in AGOT: Does this sound at all like what Barristan is saying? Does Barristan think at all about Ned killing Arthur or his ensuing trip to Starfall? Do Catelyn or Cersei talk about Harrenhal? There really isn't a good reason to think this is just the same old rumor. I think he is being delusional, but there's at least an internally consistent thought process involved. While it's kinda weird to consider this sort of detail, he might very well believe he would have been responsible enough to not get Ashara pregnant as Brandon did. If Ashara's stillbirth happened after Brandon died, perhaps he thinks that was a contributing factor to it. But even then, there are explanations that don't require him to be wrong about when the baby was conceived or who its father was. It's possible Ashara never actually committed suicide. It's possible the deaths of Elia, her kids, and Arthur were the real final push. It's even possible she committed suicide out of guilt for playing a role in Arthur's death (many speculate that she told Ned about the location of the ToJ). But why would he think crowning her was the key to winning her trust with whatever problem she had? And any theory around him blaming Stark for her death but not the pregnancy has to reconcile with the fact that he explicitly believes she died as a result of grief for the stillborn daughter and the "man who dishonored her at Harrenhal." What possibly fits there if Stark is not the child's father? I don't disagree, I don't see it as the culmination either. There's still a lot to wrap up - clarifying what exactly happened at Harrenhal, confirming that Stark is the child's father, clarifying which Stark it is, revealing Ashara's involvement in any events leading up to the ToJ and Ned's visit to Starfall that may offer additional explanation for her suicide (assuming she didn't fake her death), explaining Ned's relationship with the Daynes and how the Starfall story (Ned + Ashara fell in love at Harrenhal but also Ned had Jon Snow with Wylla, who Ned also names as Jon's mother to Robert) came to be, etc.

Fair enough, I seem to have mixed you up with another poster. Nonetheless, the following is clear based on the text of Ned's POV outside of the dream or things within the dream that are noted to be the same as in life, as well as Barbrey's conversation with Theon: - Ned and his 6 companions fought the 3 KG - Ned and Howland were the only ones who lived to ride away - Ned (and Howland presumably) built cairns for the 8 men who died using the stones of the tower he pulled down after the fight - The battle took place in the Red Mountains of Dorne (confirmed by what Barbrey tells Theon) at a tower that Rhaegar called the "Tower of Joy." Furthermore, we know that this dream is an "old dream" that he has had before the fever dream that occurs during the book, and that the dream includes the Kingsguard, the tower, and Lyanna in her bed of blood. We also know from Ned's memories that Howland was with him when Lyanna died. If you want to argue that Lyanna being there is just Ned conflating two different events, then you need to explain a) what were the Kingsuard doing at the ToJ in the middle of the war if not guarding Lyanna and why did they fight Ned and his companions? b) when and where did Ned + Howland actually find Lyanna and who was she with? I think those questions are harder to answer satisfactorily than the doubts you have about the consensus view.

I think the "fever dream" framing is convenient for people who want to totally disregard the common interpretation in favor of alternatives that have much less textual support. I'm guessing based on your signature that you believe the TOJ = Maegor's Holdfast theory linked there? I see a lot more problems with that than with the consensus view. To start with, while the dream occurs in the books while Ned has a fever, a lot of information is conveyed after he wakes up or is said to reflect real life. Also, Ned describes it as an "old dream," meaning that he's not just dreaming this for the first time while stricken by fever. And this old dream includes the Kingsguards, a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her "bed of blood." There's also the question of why Ned would refer to this place by Rhaegar's nickname for it instead of its widely known name, why Rhaegar would name it that, or why Ned would be aware of what Rhaegar called it in the first place. Moving on to the text of the dream: Ned says the following: Does Maegor's Holdfast seem like a place where 7 guys would be riding horses? Ned then notes that one of the men with him was Ethan Glover, Brandon's squire. Who is noted as having ridden with Brandon to King's Landing, and being the only one to not be executed. While we are told he was the only one to survive, he is never said to have been released. So we either need to make that assumption without any evidence, or we conclude that Ned went to the Holdfast with Ethan after breaking him out of prison first. This theory then renders the entire dialogue about them being absent from the Trident and KL nonsensical and pointless. Then, after he's awake, Ned notes the following: Ned, outside of the confines of his fever dream, explicitly says he pulled the tower down after and used its stones to build eight cairns upon the ridge. Has Maegor's Holdfast been torn down? What "ridge" did he build the cairns upon? Why did he leave their remains there if he was in the capital city and had an entire army plus ships at his disposal to send them home? Information from other POVs also backs up the standard view and contradicts this theory. Here's Jaime talking about the time around the end of the war: His sworn brothers were "all" away. Not consistent with half of them being right there with him in the Red Keep. And here is Barbrey Dustin talking to Theon in ADWD: Barbrey Dustin explicitly says that Ned told her that her husband was buried beneath the red mountains of Dorne. Did she fever dream this too? Did Ned confuse his dream with real life when he spoke with her?

R + L = J was by far the most popular theory for Jon’s parentage before the world book was ever a thing. You don’t need to read the world book to get the impression that Rhaegar and Lyanna were together after her disappearance, we are explicitly told this in the text and have very good reasons to believe it’s true even if the exact nature of their relationship differs from some of the public tales.

Multiple characters say that Rhaegar raped Lyanna, which necessitates both being in physical proximity and having sexual intercourse. We hear from others that they were in love. We do have reason to doubt the rape story, but the evidence overwhelmingly points to their affair being consensual, not to them never being together at all.

But he is the only POV who has thought about Ashara at all and actually knew her. And the stories about her that are relayed to other POVs are largely second or third hand. I don’t think Barristan knows everything, but I think GRRM is most definitely using him to clue the reader in on what actually happened to Ashara after the rumors in the early books. Ned Dayne was born years later and can only tell Arya what he was told growing up. His source for this, Allyria, is very likely to be too young to have first hand knowledge and we do not know where she heard it from. We do know that a) the other Starfall story Ned tells Arya about her father (that he and Wylla are Jon’s parents) is false and b) when Arya asks Harwin about thisstory, just before he goes into the part you quoted, he explicitly says he doubts there’s any truth to the story I think his actions with Littlefinger reflect cockiness more than honor. He knew LF was no threat even with equal equipment. And deflowering virgins out of wedlock (as Brandon is known to have enjoyed) is itself not considered honorable. This might be my most controversial opinion about Ned and Ashara, but I don’t think we actually know this. Howland’s story says that Brandon asked Ashara to dance “on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.” A lot of people read that as confirming Ned had a crush on Ashara, but while I think that’s a plausible interpretation I don’t think it’s necessarily true. “Too shy to leave his bench” could IMO easily refer to Ned being too shy in general to dance and socialize, and so his more outgoing big brother asks a pretty girl to dance with him to get him off his ass. This also fits with the complete absence of Ashara from Ned’s POV, even when he recalls Harrenhal, and even when Cersei throws her name in his face. And even if he did, I do not think Brandon would necessarily be deterred from bedding perhaps the most desired maiden in the realm at the time by whatever feelings his brother had for a girl he had just met. I don’t think this is likely at all. Up to this point we’ve just had the unsubstantiated rumor that Jon is her son, which Catelyn is uncertain about and which Cersei flings along with two other wild accusations. Barristan is the first person in the books to talk about Ashara being pregnant as a matter of fact, and in doing so he offers details (stillborn girl) that are completely incompatible with the Jon rumor. He doesn’t know everything, and maybe it’s possible the baby wasn’t stillborn after all, but I think it’s very unlikely that Ashara was never pregnant, and I think it’s very likely any child was a girl (no good reason for GRRM to throw in that detail if it turns out she did have a son). And thus far none of them besides Arthur have had any confirmed or implied interaction with Ashara, with the possible exception of her dancing with an unnamed Kingsguard (who I think GRRM would have identified clearly if his identity was this important to her story). That’s not very promising for building a theory where one of them is central to causing her death. I don’t think Ned would promise this even if he wanted to because only his father has the right to make that decision and he’s a dutiful son. I think still being grief stricken a year after two traumatic deaths is entirely plausible. Lots of people who commit suicide carry on in a state of depression or trauma for a while before doing it. Beyond that, there are a few reasons why I don’t find this a convincing objection: 1) Barristan doesn’t actually know why Ashara committed suicide (or even if she did), his speculation on her state of mind is the least reliable part of his memories here. 2) There were other traumatic events for Ashara in the ensuing year that are curiously not mentioned by Barristan here 3) from a Doylist perspective the absence of those events and any potential issues with the timing make sense given the point of the passage IMO is introduce these new pieces of information to the reader (stillborn daughter + man who dishonored her at Harrenhal). I think this illustrates the problem with this take on the passage, because this all seems incoherent. Barristan thinks Ashara committed suicide over a stillbirth and a dead man who dishonored her, and he thinks Stark failed by not following through on marrying her, but he thinks he could saved the day by killing the guy himself? Before you were skeptical that he would ponder a relationship with Ashara because of his vows, now he’s going to leave the KG and raise the baby with her? And he thinks crowning her would have been a particularly effective way to win her trust (as opposed to e.g.simply striking up a good platonic rapport during their time at court)? That all seems much less likely to me than my interpretation. I think it’s a mistake to assume Barristan’s must be relying strictly on rumors here. He was actually at Harrenhal. He lived with her at court and as a KG would be privy to many of its secrets. He served with her brother. I’m not saying everything he says should be taken as Gospel, but it’s entirely plausible that he has some credible sources of information, and is not just relying on gossip that we have never heard about up to this point. I’ll elaborate on this below He’s not giving away all the answers in this passage, but I think we need to consider this passage in the broader context of the Ashara mystery in the books. Despite being a favorite subject of speculation in the fanbase, she only really comes up about 5 times across thousands of pages. In the first three books, we get a few instances of largely unsubstantiated gossip, with the most credible story confirming nothing beyond a dance after Brandon asked, and the next most credible source is at least secondhand and probably less credible than it initially seems when Allyria’s likely age is considered. After not coming up in AFFC, we then get Barristan’s POV in ADWD, the 5th book out of 7. While I’m not saying he has to 100% right about everything, I think Barristan’s credibility is bolstered by two things: 1) at some point Martin has to begin the process of unraveling the mystery around Ashara built up in the early books and 2) what options he has to do that. With two books remaining, it makes sense that Martin would use the only mention of Ashara since Storm to start giving readers more substantive information about what happened to Ashara, while still leaving things ambiguous. I think he definitely accomplished that here. Furthermore, we have to consider how Martin would go about revealing the truth about Ashara. If she faked her death, he could have her pop up and explain things herself. But if she really is dead, he needs to rely on other characters. Most POVs didn’t know Ashara or weren’t in a position to know what happened to her at Harrenhal or after. The only one of the younger POVs who might ask anyone about her is Arya, because of Ned’s story, but she’s nowhere near anyone who could tell her anything about her. That makes POVs who could realistically have firsthand knowledge as natural potential options for George to use to reveal the truth, or at least part of it. Barristan, JonCon, and Jaime are the only POVs who were around Ashara at all during the period where all this stuff happened, and we know Jaime was sent home from Harrenhal early, and JonCon was exiled after Battle of the Bells. That leaves Barristan as the best option of the 3, and lo and behold he just so happens to have had an infatuation with Ashara and ponders all these events in ADWD in a very cryptic manner that nonetheless conveys new information and hints to the reader.

We’re told in the text that they were physically together and had intercourse after they disappeared. Ned found her at a place that he explicitly says Rhaegar called the “Tower of Joy” guarded by 3 Kingsguards, including Rhaegar’s best friend as well as Hightower, who we are explicitly told was sent to retrieve Rhaegar (and then never returned to KL himself). You can argue we can’t know for sure if the rumors are true, but this is making my point about how anti-RLJ theorists approach the mystery. Attempt to poke holes in every piece of evidence, argue the lack of conclusiveness renders it meaningless, and then pretend like the overall picture isn’t painting in a clear direction compared to any of the alternatives. And thus the logistical information we do have that suggests it’s very plausible they conceived a child together around the time Jon was conceived is “zero” because we can’t know with 100% certainty that they were together. It says a lot that in attempting to rebut the part you quoted from my post, you didn’t even try to present an actual alternative father that has equal or greater evidence, instead solely focusing on downplaying the evidence for Rhaegar. And it’s also telling that you didn’t even acknowledge the quote from Martin that simply makes no sense if Jon’s parents were any combo besides R + L.

I think we can evaluate, in a relatively objective manner, the amount of evidence for Rhaegar having a child with Lyanna compared to any other alternative, and conclude that it dwarfs anyone else. I won't presume to know who you think the most viable alternatives are, but the most common ones I've seen are: a) The ToJ KG. None of whom have any set up with Lyanna besides being physically present with her at the ToJ b) Mance, who we have been given no reason to believe ever met Lyanna, a theory based almost entirely on the parallel to Bael the Bard (which also applies to Rhaegar, who as a bard) c) Starkcest. Which, beyond the lack of evidence for Stark incest in general, makes no sense with the timeline (by the time Jon was conceived Brandon was long dead and Ned was nowhere near Lyanna). IMO the problem with the logic of anti-RLJ theorizing is viewing every piece of evidence in a vacuum where nothing is 100% conclusive so therefore we can't make an overall assessment with any sort of confidence. So a common move is to highlight how D&D killed off Barristan in Season 5 or left out Tysha, and therefore they could be lying about their meeting with George or maybe George played a trick on them like a mischievous elf in a fairy tale. And then we move on to the next piece of evidence, whether textual or meta, and the same game is played, always zeroing in on one particular part of the painting and critiquing it without ever looking at the full painting and observing what it plainly tells us. There's an obvious reason why he did this. The books do not present a mystery to the reader of "who are Jon Snow's parents?" We are told in the first chapter of the series that Jon Snow's father is Ned Stark. We are presented with the mystery of "Who is Jon Snow's mother?" And only once that is figured out do you realize that his father is not who we've been told it is. The twist is built on the reader taking the half of the equation they're purportedly given for granted, which if you never reassess it blinds you to the real answer, since there's no reason to think Ned had a child with Lyanna. The hard part of figuring out who Jon's parents are is figuring out who his mother is; once you know that, it's trivial to guess who his real father is. As I posted earlier in this thread, Martin has talked about this twist in a context completely separate from the show or his discussion with D&D in a way that makes it very clear what the answer to this mystery is From his comments here it's clear that Jon's parents are not a combination explicitly proposed in the books (like Ned + Ashara or Ned + Wylla) and if the twist was any combination besides R + L, he has zero reason to feel this way. It would still shock 99 out of 100 readers, I would say even more so than if he had released all the books before the Internet became a thing and the fandom developed a nearly universal consensus.

Considering nobody can propose an alternative with any specificity I think he's clearly not being clear. I don't really find the lack of prior example of using the phrase in this specific context to be very meaningful. How often are POVs musing about this sort of thing while Martin deliberately tries to conceal or muddle the details? There are plenty of words you could plug in that make "looked to" work grammatically - romance, comfort, pleasure, etc. When the alternative is that he's instead referring to something that is not previously hinted at and does not fit at all with the context, I think this is a small thing to nitpick. In terms of the ultimate meaning of this passage, this scenario is basically the same thing just with extra steps. Theoretically, sure. But that then begs the question of what exactly the "dishonor" is and why she would grieve the man who did it to her enough to commit suicide, as Barristan thinks may be the case. Setting aside the lack of clarity around what the term means, there's a major lack of suspects here that check all three boxes of 1) plausible perpetrator 2) have any solid connection to Ashara and 3) Barristan could plausibly believe Ashara may have grieved their death enough to kill herself. Hypothetically, you could theorize (as I've seen some people do before) that she was raped by Arthur Dayne, who would check boxes 2 and 3, but I don't think anything in the text suggests he fits box 1. And any theory also needs to explain how Barristan helping her somehow could avoid a fate he ascribes to the stillbirth and this man. Which is what I think he'd want to do if he wanted to hint to the reader about what happened between Ashara and "Stark" (and who this Stark is) while leaving enough room for debate and speculation. I think that's what he's doing right here in this passage. It doesn't really make sense IMO otherwise. I never said anything about him leaving the KG, nor do I think he was pondering that. Barristan would not be the first nor the last KG to have a paramour. His fellow KG at the time, Lewyn Martell, is explicitly known to have had a paramour. I'm jumping back to the beginning of your paragraph because I wanted to address this part last. Yes, the fantasy scenario he wonders about involves him winning and crowning her queen of love and beauty. But that's exactly why I think the preceding line about how nothing good could have come from telling Ashara his feelings because of his vow chastity is so telling. If he was just thinking about chivalrously crowning her with no hope of it leading to anything romantic, only that she might turn to him instead of Stark for help with a problem that could have avoided her tragic fate, why is that at all relevant?

It could be, but pain over loss due to death is the most common usage of “grief” and clearly how it’s being used in that sentence in reference to the child. I am in agreement that either way the context suggests Ashara had positive feelings towards this man, which points against interpreting “dishonored” as rape or some sort of public humiliation as some speculate. As I said in my last post, I think this is where the meta purpose of this passage needs to be kept in mind. The point of Barristan reflecting on all this is to communicate these pieces of new information to the reader. In a vacuum, it makes no sense either way to not consider Arthur’s death, or that of Elia and her kids, as a possible motivation. We don’t even know if Ashara actually committed suicide. Given that GRRM likes to usually stay vague about timelines, I don’t find anything telling about using “soon” instead of a more precise descriptor. Also, as I said above I think it’s relevant that Barristan is an old guy. I’m half his age and a year feels like less and less time as life goes on. I disagree, if he was preoccupied by the war and possibly didn’t see Ashara at all (as she may have left court when she got pregnant and we don’t know if and when she returned), plus looking back 20 years I don’t think he’s gonna view that as a long period of time. The point is that her life was cut tragically short, surviving her child by a year isn’t much when she was probably just a teenager or early 20s at most. I don’t think the sentences are disconnected this way, one follows from the other; he explains why he kept silent and why nothing could come from telling her, and then as a result of that thought he considers that nothing good came from staying silent and wonders whether things could have turned out differently if he hadn’t. This is fair enough, I obviously can’t claim we definitively know. What I like about my interpretation is that it makes the passage cryptic but fully explicable if you read the clues carefully enough, while alternative theories generally rely on assuming much of it is unknowable at this time (e.g. what the dishonor was for people who reject the consensual sex theory, who the father is if it’s not the man who dishonored her, what sort of problem did she need help with if that’s how you interpret “looked to”). I’m not saying it’s implausible that GRRM would write that way by any means, but I prefer the former interpretation that renders it a very well designed and largely self contained mystery for the reader to solve.

The passage in question is deliberately written to be vague and opaque, that a phrase as generic as “looked to” doesn’t typically have a romantic or sexual connotation doesn’t rule it out here in context. It makes perfect sense if GRRM wants to first introduce the fact that (at least according to Barristan) Ashara was “dishonored” by a man at Harrenhal and later hint at who this man was without stating it explicitly. The entire passage is written to give the reader just enough info to stir the imagination without outright confirming almost any details of what happened. I agree fully with your next paragraph about what “dishonored” means. Sure, that’s exactly why he says the line about how no good could come from it, because he had a vow of chastity. But he then wonders about the alternative by first noting that no good came from silence. If Ashara had some problem Stark helped her with, why does Barristan think his vow of chastity was relevant? Why does he think confessing his love matters here? And most importantly, why does he think Ashara turning to him instead of Stark for help would have changed her fate, which I think is clearly implied by saying no good came from silence after referencing her suicide - which he explicitly ascribes to grief over a stillbirth and (possibly) the “man who dishonored her.” If he thinks her suicide was driven by those things, why would help over an unrelated matter at Harrenhal be so important? The romantic reading explains all these things. It explains why he references his vow of chastity, why he thinks confessing his feelings may have mattered (I don’t personally think it’s likely Ashara would have reciprocated, but for a guy in Barristan’s position I think it makes sense for him to wonder about it), and why he thinks it could have changed her fate - because she wouldn’t have conceived an ultimately stillborn child with a man who would soon be dead.

I also just think the language by itself implies he thinks she may have grieved the man himself, not the pain caused by something he did to her. That also suggests this man was dead by the time Ashara committed suicide, which aligns with the Brandon theory. I think this assumption people make is based on a way too narrow reading of what “soon after” could mean. Barristan doesn’t say she jumped the next day. An old man looking back on things from 20 years ago could easily consider a year to be “soon after” especially when you consider that he may have never seen Ashara during this period and was presumably preoccupied with the war going on. In general, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of this passage IMO is to introduce the new information (stillborn daughter, man who dishonored her at Harrenhal) to the reader rather than provide a clear timeline or a definitive answer of why Ashara committed suicide. After all, Barristan ultimately has no way of knowing that and if we don’t consider the meta purpose of the passage it then becomes weird how, regardless of when the stillbirth happened, he doesn’t consider other obvious possible motivations for suicide, such as the deaths of Arthur, Elia, and her children. It’s a vague phrase in a vacuum, which is why I think it’s important to consider the specific context. I don’t think it makes sense that Barristan, a 60 year old virgin looking back on apparently the only woman he ever had strong feelings for (who he really doesn’t have much to say about besides her physical beauty), spends all this time musing about what could have been if his vow of chastity didn’t hold him back if he’s just wondering if he could have provided Ashara with some platonic comfort after a traumatic experience. Along with the preceding reference to a child and a man who dishonored her at Harrenhal, I think my interpretation fits the best based on the text.