R+L=J v100

[Ser Duncan the Small]

I suspect that even after we have 7 books, people will still find fault.

Yeah, he's setting us up for the Time Travelling Jon story and secret 8th book where he finds out he's not really R&L lovechild. Typical GRRM

[RumHam]

I suspect that even after we have 7 books, people will still find fault.

Yeah. I personally hope it's eight books, the more the better. It's just the idea of people ignoring the author's explanations and still deciding that Rhaegaer and Lyanna can't be Jon's parents is amusing.

[Shinjuku Thief]

Just to be sure of my citation:

http://youtu.be/zFAGknnoRio?t=10m30s

I didn't realise that was the talk that that quote came from. I saw that live. I must have been in some kind of fanboi feverdream and missed it.

Happy 100th everyone, keep up the good work.

Advice to new people who come to these threads: start reading at 20 threads back, you questions most likely have been addressed.

[Jon_Samwell_Snow]

*brings the pizza and soda with the 100th thread party*

What about this Sansa being a Secret Targaryen?

She's mostly Tully in looks.

[RumHam]

Advice to new people who come to these threads: start reading at 20 threads back, you questions most likely have been addressed.

That's actually a lot to ask, especially given the repetitive nature of this discussion. I would say just ask the question, there a plenty of people here to answer.

[BearQueen87]

Yeah, he's setting us up for the Time Travelling Jon story and secret 8th book where he finds out he's not really R&L lovechild. Typical GRRM

Rhaegar is really the Doctor?

I didn't realise that was the talk that that quote came from. I saw that live. I must have been in some kind of fanboi feverdream and missed it.

Happy 100th everyone, keep up the good work.

Advice to new people who come to these threads: start reading at 20 threads back, you questions most likely have been addressed.

LOL. Or we'll just cover all of it again. You watch, thread 101 will be about L and R getting married.

[Ser Duncan the Small]

Rhaegar is really the Doctor?

LOL. Or we'll just cover all of it again. You watch, thread 101 will be about L and R getting married.

Rhaegar was the previous Doctor, in a non-hereditary way, Jon is the next.

[Ser Duncan the Small]

*brings the pizza and soda with the 100th thread party*

What about this Sansa being a Secret Targaryen?

She's mostly Tully in looks.

Right, She doesn't have purple eyes and white hair, can't be a Targ. Rats. Probably not even fireproof

[mambru]

Well, according to his fever dream (yes, fever dream) he hears Lyanna shouting his name as the Showdown begins at ToJ. We can speculate that this is a fever dream and he's hearing the shout in his head, but I like to think it was more of the physical hearing of it at the time.

I've heard the explanation that Ned definitely did not hear Lyanna scream at the ToJ fight scene nope no way, because in the dream she called out "Eddard" and Lyanna always called him Ned, and therefore Ned was only putting the voice of his servant who was trying to wake him by calling "Lord Eddard" into the dream - and therefore Lyanna definitely did not call out for Ned during the ToJ fight scene (and therefore, just btw, the ToJ KG were NOT brutally killing a dying woman's brother under her window while she screamed for him - she never screamed for him and therefore the ToJ KG could have NO idea that killing her beloved brother might bother her).

I don't think it's so cut and dried. Yes, sleeping Ned heard his servant call "Lord Eddard" and put it into his dream. But Ned's subconscious didn't put that male voice calling him "Lord Eddard!" into the mouth of ANY of the male figures in his dream (the KG, or his bannermen) - any of whom might logically be expected to call him "Lord Eddard."

Ned's subconscious insisted on transmogrifying that male voice into a female voice - specifically that of his deceased sister Lyanna. It also lopped off the "Lord" part of "Lord Eddard" (Lyanna would never call him "Lord").

Why did Ned's subconscious go to that trouble? Maybe because as it was in the dream, so it was in life. Maybe Ned really did hear Lyanna call to him around then, and it was such an integral part of the horror of that day that his dreaming mind insisted on including it...even if it had to do an editing job and a sex change on a male servant's voice to include it.

I think that also would explain one possible reason why Ned attacked the ToJ with six men instead of merely surrounding it and summoning reinforcements to take it more easily - a decision that ultimately got Ned's friends killed. Lyanna was in trouble, and Ned knew it - he couldn't wait another moment.

[BearQueen87]

I've heard the explanation that Ned definitely did not hear Lyanna scream at the ToJ fight scene nope no way, because in the dream she called out "Eddard" and Lyanna always called him Ned, and therefore Ned was only putting the voice of his servant who was trying to wake him by calling "Lord Eddard" into the dream - and therefore Lyanna definitely did not call out for Ned during the ToJ fight scene (and therefore, just btw, the ToJ KG were NOT brutally killing a dying woman's brother under her window while she screamed for him - she never screamed for him and therefore the ToJ KG could have NO idea that killing her beloved brother might bother her).

Oh heavens. Lyanna would absolutely care that her brother was killed. But she may not have been in physical condition to know what's going on and scream from her tower. If she's as sick as we think, she was probably in and out of it all. But of course she doesn't want Ned to die!

[Kingmonkey]

I think that also would explain one possible reason why Ned attacked the ToJ with six men instead of merely surrounding it and summoning reinforcements to take it more easily - a decision that ultimately got Ned's friends killed. Lyanna was in trouble, and Ned knew it - he couldn't wait another moment.

I don't get what you're saying here -- are you suggesting that Ned decided to search Westeros with 6 friends to try to find Lyanna and just happened to wander up to an abandoned tower where she was just at the moment she was in trouble? I can't really see any way Ned at the ToJ makes any sense unless he knew where he was going already, and that being the case took the men he thought he needed to to deal with the situation.

[sj4iy]

I didn't realise that was the talk that that quote came from. I saw that live. I must have been in some kind of fanboi feverdream and missed it.

Happy 100th everyone, keep up the good work.

Advice to new people who come to these threads: start reading at 20 threads back, you questions most likely have been addressed.

Cool that you were there :D

[BearQueen87]

I don't get what you're saying here -- are you suggesting that Ned decided to search Westeros with 6 friends to try to find Lyanna and just happened to wander up to an abandoned tower where she was just at the moment she was in trouble? I can't really see any way Ned at the ToJ makes any sense unless he knew where he was going already, and that being the case took the men he thought he needed to to deal with the situation.

I do think Ned knew quite a bit when he arrived at the TOJ. He seems to be testing the 3KG at the Tower. So it comes back to, "well why didn't they try to talk it out?" Because it's just not what the KG do. Ned has knowledge that he can't verify (Lyanna was not kidnapped and raped) and the KG have their sworn duty (protect the King). It's an impasse and sadly it has to come to blows.

[Blazfemur]

Wait, Rhaegar and Lyanna?

[BearQueen87]

Wait, Rhaegar and Lyanna?

I know, it changes everything, right.

[Blazfemur]

I know, it changes everything, right.

do you have any proof? :P

[BearQueen87]

do you have any proof? :P

Nope. I am totally flying by the seat of my pants on this one.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

...Rhaegar and Lyanna what?

[Kingmonkey]

I do think Ned knew quite a bit when he arrived at the TOJ. He seems to be testing the 3KG at the Tower.

So much this. Ned wasn't really looking for those particular 3 KGs at those places. He had other things on his mind, like the thousands of other people who actually were there to fight. Each step of what Ned asks them are all the same thing: justify your actions as King's Guards. Prove your honour. The unsaid part of the answer in every step is the because: we weren't at the trident because... we weren't at King's landing because... and it's the fact that it's never answered that should draw our attention to the question.

Personally I don't think that Ned actually asked those questions. Too ritualised, too symbolic. I'll cover this at some length when I finally finish the mini thesis on the ToJ I'm working on (working title: "Ned's Katabasis: the Tower of Joy as a Celtic Otherworld", nobody scream, now.) Doesn't matter -- it's all about what was important in Ned's subconscious interpretation, and that's that the 3KG answered his challenge with honour, and to his great regret he could find no response but bloodshed -- exactly what he hoped to avoid, or he'd have taken more men. Ned knew.

[UVA]

Yeah. I personally hope it's eight books, the more the better. It's just the idea of people ignoring the author's explanations and still deciding that Rhaegaer and Lyanna can't be Jon's parents is amusing.

I had a similar reaction to the Sopranos revelation that made me wonder if this stickie thread would become irrelevant after textual confirmation. Should GRRM give an ambiguous answer, then yea, the many aspects of RLJ, HH, Robert's Rebellion, etc will always be contested. But, unlike Tony fading ambiguously into black, the extent to which GRRM has painstakingly set this story up, it all but demands unequivocal answers.