HugorHell

Why? At that time, Ned had no reason to think he'd be dying inside the year, or that Jon joining the Watch was a death sentence for Jon. The Watch at that time was full of seasoned men with many years' experience. And the Stark in Winterfell (never mind the Hand of the King) could communicate with a member of the Watch, such as Jon, at any point in the future suitable to his convenience. There are many instances of that in canon, beginning with First Ranger Benjen visiting Winterfell. So I think the first instant Ned knew to a near certainty that he'd be breaking that promise to Lyanna... if indeed it was ever made... was when he was outmaneuvered by Cersei and thrown into a dark cell, and his life expectancy took a dramatic turn for the worse. At which time, we also find him dreaming of broken promises, among other things. Which reminds me to point out something I'm not sure I've seen posted either here, or in any other discussion forum. Isn't it interesting that nowhere in canon does anyone think about, or personally recall, Lyanna being awarded a crown made of winter roses at Harrenhal... except in dreams? A crown she received, of that there is no doubt. We know this from eyewitness corroboration: But for the notion the crown was made of winter roses, we have only dreaming minds. Not conscious minds. Unless we count the World book as canon and factual, that is. But that would mean disregarding the explicit warnings Martin gave us not to make that very mistake.

I think so too, though I couldn't be as certain as you are. All through AGOT Ned is obsessed with promises made to Lyanna. It is possible that at the end of his life he suddenly dreams of promises Littlefinger made to him, but on balance, I doubt it. In terms of this particular hypothetical broken promise to Lyanna, we know this from earlier in the book: So at that time, I think he had always kept his promises. If he dreams later of a broken promise to Lyanna, it's because he has broken one since the above (which when he met Robert's bastard Barra). It's not too hard to guess what that might be, but of course it's only a guess. Forget Ned for a minute and turn your thinking to Bran... We later learn Rickon had the same dream, though Luwin is skeptical it means anything: But we know better than Luwin. We have excellent reason to believe the 3EC is a true and very powerful entity, and that in this dream where Bran and Rickon are both shown Ned is dead, Ned is really dead... as Luwin himself very soon learns. Well, if we accept the validity of the dream for these reasons, we should also consider that at the time he died, Ned may indeed have been "sad" because of "something to do with Jon." Is it possible Ned promised Lyanna something involving Jon, that he would never (thanks to developments) be able to fulfill? Such as telling Jon the truth about his parents? It seems both possible and plausible to me. But as to the truth, we will have to wait and see.

I think the SSMs are valid as direct statements from the series author. He can always change his mind, of course... and he is generally evasive and can be misleading... but I don't believe he ever lies. So when he says things like "Rhaegar was cremated" I believe him. I have no reason to doubt his supreme authority. Re the app... as I said before, that is a companion piece to the World book and the information Martin supplied for the app was part of the World book's larger framework. He supplied new information for the app based on the same logic. We also know from the 2014 interview that Martin went far out of his way to caution against taking that new information as gospel. He did this for a perfectly obvious reason that he himself explicitly pointed out: the World book was written from the POV of two maesters whose knowledge of their subject matter is always secondhand, never primary. Yandel is just repeating what other people think (often what other maesters think). The World book's companion app's new info, supplied by Martin at the same time, is no more authoritative than the World book itself. So for instance when the app says Rhaegar died with Lyanna's name on his lips, we should only interpret that to mean there are people who think that happened not that it is an objective fact. I'm sure we can all see how hard it would be for Rhaegar to say very much at all... given, per Ned, who was actually there, Furthermore, there is evidence right in the canon that secondhand stories, unlike Ned's account above, are unreliable and often wrong. Here is an obvious example from very early in AGOT: Here the source is Viserys... who was not there. Since he wasn't there, he doesn't know that the boldfaced is total bullshit. Ned Stark simply was not there and had no role to play in the Sack. But Dany has heard the false story that way, and she appears to believe it. We shouldn't -- Ned is a far superior authority here, just as he is on the circumstances of Rhaegar's death compared to the app. Are the other stories Viserys told also bullshit? For instance, did Rhaegar "die for the woman he loved?" We can analyze and speculate, but the larger lesson is that secondhand accounts should not be trusted.

"Official" also has a fairly specific meaning to Martin that we can figure out. The reader knows, and has known since AGOT, that Cersei's children are not Robert's. It's a fact, not subject to debate, because Cersei openly admitted it when accused by Ned. But that fact is only known to the reader and a select few characters in the books. It is not known to Westeros at large. So if four books later, the ADWD appendix still lists Joffrey and Myrcella and Tommen as Robert's children, what does that mean? It means that the appendices are not supposed to reflect either objective truth or the knowledge in the reader's mind. They only reflect the knowledge in the minds of the general public of Westeros (which isn't privvy to what the reader has learned). It seems very likely that that same rule also applies to the new information in the app. And what the general public "knows" is not always going to be correct. (Though it is an interesting area of investigation how the public came to "know" it in some cases.) So for instance the app says Jon has five siblings: Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon. That is what is known to the public. But of course, all five of those statements are false if R+L=J. The app and R+L=J thus contradict each other, and those among us who believe R+L=J are already dismissing what the app says, because there is no other logical choice if we are going to believe R+L=J. So we cannot then say that different information in the app is evidence in support of our fan theories. We have already, in dismissing Jon's sibling info, admitted that app information is only evidence in support of what people in Westeros "know." Which isn't the same thing as fan theories at all. Of course. And if the family tree had ever been meant solely for him, it would obviously have remained solely for him and would not have been shared with anyone at all. Does the family tree say that Jon is Ned's bastard? I bet it does.

I think the app was published in 2014. The show did not use the fan-favorite narrative you're talking about for another three years -- 2017. So I doubt the idea was just to mirror the show. The situation with the app is this: It was published as a companion to the World book. That's why the app has the same name (World of Ice and Fire). Now, Martin did a promotional interview in fall 2014 about the World book. In this interview, he went out of his way to call attention to the unreliable and in some cases incorrect nature of the World book's new information, that wasn't already in the canon. He compared it to information provided by questionable historians such as Suetonius and encouraged readers to take it all with a large grain of salt. There is no way, Martin said, to know if that new information is true or false. So whatever new information Martin supplied for the companion app is almost certainly the same sort of thing. It may be true... or it may be false... but readers would be foolish to assume that it must always be true. I agree Martin would not be likely to choose something like an app to spoil any mysteries not revealed in his canon, especially given his public position on the World book's accuracy.

That's true, but my larger point is that the phrase "bed of blood" doesn't have enough context in the series to prove it only means one thing. Imagine that in all five books the word "fruit" turned up two or three times. Imagine that in those two or three times, it's always used like this: "Pass me that fruit." And then someone at a table hands someone else a long yellow object which is then peeled and eaten. We would conclude "fruit" means a long yellow type of food which can easily be peeled with fingers and then eaten. We'd be right. It does mean that. But in book six we could easily get an instance of fruit that is red and round and can't so easily be peeled. And then we would realize that "fruit" is a larger concept, a set of things that, like bananas and apples, might really be very different from each other. "Bed of blood" could turn out to be such a concept. It can mean birthing bed, and it is only used to mean "birthing bed" in the books so far, but that's just two non-Lyanna cases. We will need many more examples to be sure, and if some male warrior dies in a bed of blood after a battle, in the next book, I'm not going to be too shocked.

I think I'm somewhere in the middle here. To me the phrase "bloody bed" definitely can mean "birthing bed" in Westeros. And it is used that way. But is that the only possible meaning? That's not clear at all. If we leave out the Lyanna references, there are only the other two you mention above. That's not much of a pattern. Similarly, in the first four books "ice dragon" nearly always means the constellation. But then in book five that situation changes. The exact same phrase suddenly takes on a new meaning: All of a sudden we find out about ancient myths we never heard of before. Whoops. We've seen Martin do this before. Early precedent gets overturned. Things fans thought could only mean X, turn out to mean something else. After five books, there was no sign that Aerys' heir after the Trident was anybody but Aegon. We would have said all the clues pointed to Aegon. We could have cited numerous passages making this case. Then the World book came along. It plainly said Aerys named Viserys his heir, not Aegon. Whoops. (This also killed the argument that the kingsguard fought Ned because Jon was the true Targ king.) So we know Martin can and does introduce new ideas or meanings, late in the game, that were never hinted at before. "Bed of blood" could easily be one more.