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A look at the Comparison between Sansa,Arya and Lyanna (and the Wolf's Blood)


William MK Stark

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Hello, guys, this is my first post, so there may be some mistakes:



OK, a while back I read a post about the similarities between the Stark Sisters and their aunt Lyanna (I can't seem to find that post), and the OP concluded that Lyanna is somewhat an intersection between the Wild Arya and the Ladylike Sansa. In this post, I'll try to take a different look at these comparison with a different conclusion:


First, let's talk about the comparison between Sansa and Lyanna. It's obvious that they look nothing alike as Sansa takes after her mother's Tully look so people usually base their similarities on instances they are placed in similar situations. But in my opinion, to compare two people, it's important to base it on their actions in a situation, not the situation itself. In detail:


1 The Betrothal: one of the first thing we learnt about Lyanna is that she was betrothed to Robert B. In the same chapter Sansa is proposed to be betrothed to Joffrey, Robert's "son". It's clearly not a mere coincidence( Robert himself viewed it a second chance to join the families). The important point here is the reaction of the two girls to the news. This is where they differ greatly: Sansa was beyond thrilled by the news and, obsessed by the love songs she had been raised to believe in, almost instantly fell for Joffrey without truly questioning who he really was. She went on to hold an unrealistic image of him as her handsome, brave prince despite his actions saying otherwise, and only realized him for the monster he was when he decided to take her father's head off. In contrast, Lyanna did research about the man she was to wed, and when she heard of the bastard he fathered in the Vale, she was no longer thrilled by the betrothal, going as far as saying to Ned " Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature"


when he tried to insure her about Robert. So, while both were betrothed to young handsome men of high status, only Lyanna actually took note in the character of the man she was to marry, while Sansa cared only for his appearance.


2 The Tourney: the next clear instance where Sansa was placed in a similar situation as Lyanna is during the Tourney of the Hand, when she was given a rose by Ser Loras Tyrell. Many people take this moment as a nod to their similarities, but in my view, it in fact speaks of the contradiction. So, first the Rose itself, Sansa was given a single red rose, while Lyanna was gifted by Rhaegar with a crown of blue roses. The two contrast colors are used as a subtle way of hinting of their difference not similarity. Red represents the summer, the gracefulness and lady beauty of Sansa, while blue is used numerous times to describe a harsh, wild beauty as of Lyanna (and of Arya). Secondly, the ones who gave them the roses, Ser Loras, who gave Sansa the flower, did it as a courtesy and wouldn't remember it two books later, he's also not into women; in contrast, Prince Rhaegar, who gave Lyanna the crown, would go on to show her real affection, taking her away, giving her a son, and even whispering her name while he was dying on the Trident (because I'm a believer of R+L=J), so one rose was with great consequence and the other without any. One further point is during the feast in the evening, Sansa devoted the entire time to Joffrey and his falseness, while Lyanna spent it with her family and a friend she's just made: Howland Reed.


3 The Runaway: ok, this one is not so clear, but I think it's worth mentioning nevertheless, at the end of the battle of Blackwater Bay, the Hound dropped by Sansa's chambers and offered to take her away. This bears a resemblance to Rhaegar taking Lyanna away to the Tower of Joy. Ok, you may say that the Hound was no beautiful prince as Rhaegar, and that Ser Dontos proposed to help her , but clearly her need to escape was much greater than Lyanna's : whatever he was, Robert was no monster as Joffrey. So in this quite alike circumstances, Sansa chose to stay while Lyanna ran away.


Those are the bigger, more noteworthy moments when Sansa's actions were the opposite of her aunt's. But there are also less notable ones as well spearding out throughout the novels.



Next, about Arya and Lyanna, the similarities run to the extreme, first of all, the look: Arya was compared to look like her aunt by the person who knew them both best, her father Ned, and Bran, her own little brother couldn't tell Lyanna apart from her in a vision he had of the past, so they must be really really similar in appearance. Next the personality, Ned told Arya that she had a touch of the wolf's blood, like Lyanna, Harwin told her that she rode well just like her aunt, and in the vision Bran had, Lyanna was sword-fighting with Benjen and calling him "stupid" just like Arya does to people. So they are almost a mirror image of each other, let's see some more detailed situations and their actions:


1 The Escapes: during the course of the series, Arya has escaped from some place or someone multiple times, from King's Landing, from Harrenhall, and she also tried to escape from the Brotherhood without Banner and the Hound, this is similar to Lyanna escaping from Robert and her betrothal (because I disagree with rape and stockholm syndrome). It's a clear indication of their wild nature of not yielding to anyone and living as they like.


2 The Flowers and the Songs: Arya is often viewed as a tomboy who doesn't want to be a lady, this is not entirely true however. In the her first chapter in AGOT, she was doing the needlework with Sansa, her friends and Myrcella, and burst into tears when her work was turned down by septa Mordane and laughed at by the others, showing her sadness at being rejected in a group of girls her age. On other occasions, she was shown to have very girly interests including picking flowers for her father, which again connects her to Lyanna, who loved flowers, especially blue winter roses . You may ask then why didn't Arya show the same love for blue winter roses, but that may be because she never saw one. Remember that Arya was 9 at the start of AGOT, and the summer was stated to have lasted a decade or so. Moving on, songs can be more problematic than flowers when it comes to Arya, as she stated on several occasions that singing is " stupid ", yet she clearly demonstrated interest in songs and music: during the walk with the BWB members, despite speaking out against singing, she felt that the singing helped the trip feel shorter, and she even commented on the music at the Red Weddng. So when observed carefully, it's actually closer to Lyanna's reaction to Rhaegar's song at the Tourney at Harrenhall than Sansa's straight out love: Lyanna felt moved so much by the song she cried, yet she poured win over Benjen's head when he teased her about it, just like Arya always saying that singing is "stupid", yet moved by it anyway.


3 The Friend of the People: a further point of the seemingly endless similarities between Arya and her aunt is the way they treat people lower than themselves, specifically, Mycah and Howland. Arya stroke Joffrey to protect Joffrey, risking her own life, similarly, at the Harrenhall, Lyanna defended Howland (who at the time she was unlikely to know was a highborn lord and her father's bannerman) against three squires, and possibly went on to champion for his honor later on. Sansa did try to protect Ser Dontos from Joffrey, but her action was more unintentional as she continuously questioned herself why she did that throughout the conversation with Joffrey>


So, Arya more or less resembles her aunt in everything she does, the way she acts and the friends she chooses.


All in all, this comparison is by no means complete, as there are still many things we don't know about Lyanna, but I think it's safe in light of what we've seen so far of her.


In the end, what do all these similarities imply ? It may be used to subtly describe the relationship between the Stark girls and the wolf's blood (which Lyanna was said to have): Sansa doesn't hold much of it, that is not to say she isn't a Stark (she showed great love for her family during her time captive at King's Landing), but her Starkness is like that of her mother's - one that is created by time, interaction and love for those with the true wolf's blood (and it has somewhat faded as she hasn't been with her family for a long time). Arya, on the other hand, is a bearer of the truest of wolf's blood, untamed and unbroken. This may even further be a hint to their further roles in ASOIAF: Sansa will most likely take on a more traditional and political role, rooted in the theme of "game of thrones", while Arya the "wolf's child, blood child" will be more prominent to the "ice and fire" part of the story (that deeply connects to my endgame theory, which is perhaps for another day)



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  • 6 months later...

I've been thinking a lot about Sansa, Arya, and Lyanna lately, and thought I'd bump this post.

While I agree with much of the above, I do think that if we learn R+L=J is true and was consensual on Lyanna's part (insofar as much as Lya could consent in this universe), it's a much more Sansalike thing to do. Even if there'd been no war, it's difficult to believe that Arya would have run off with some Targaryen prince.

It would be more GRRM-like to have Arya look like Lyanna, and have a similar personality, but to have Sansa act like Lyanna. After all, she was Lya's niece too. And I say that as someone who love Sansa, but who adores Arya.

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Op, you should include those quotes about iron/steel beneath silk. Arya when she is escaping the Red Keep finds Needle under neath a silk skirt. Ned says Robert never knew the iron beneath Lyanna's beauty. Sansa has that "to steel" quote. 

Regarding the Sansa-Lyanna similarities, there is no proof that Lyanna "acted like Sansa would" at all. Lyanna's reaction to Robert's ways proves that she wasn't idealistic and romantic in the same way that Sansa is. She's pragmatic. The only connections between Sansa and Lyanna are the betrothal to a Baratheon, the steel/iron under silk thing, and the "Promise me" reminder that Ned gets in AGOT.  All else is imaginary. 

From all the info given to us about Lyanna it's quite obvious that Arya is Lyanna's "clone". They look and act the same. They even say "stupid" in the same way and like sword fighting and flowers. The only difference at this point is that Arya is prepubescent and Lyanna was 14. This what trips up a lot of people. They think that if a 10yr old says that they hate songs and romance, then they would never cry at a song or fall in love in their entire life ever. Lyanna was obviously a tomboy and she "sniffled" to hear Rhaegar's song. And dumped wine on her brother's head afterwards, which really doesn't sound like anything Sansa would ever do, especially in public. And plus Ygritte, who is compared to Arya multiple times by Jon, cried after hearing the song of the winter rose, iirc. So two characters compared to Arya multiple times have cried while hearing songs. And Outline!Arya was going to be the center of a love triangle between two major characters, Tyrion and Jon. The author has also mentioned while discussing the five year gap that Arya hitting puberty was something that needed to happen. I honestly doubt that Arya's story has been entirely stripped of all romance. She will fall in love, mark my words. 

And, yeah, I definitely agree that once Arya sees a blue rose she will take a liking to them immediately.  She sort of is one afterall, if you want to consider the symbolism of the blue bard story. 

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First of all I need to say that I am not in awe of Lyanna and I do not think she's a benchmark, to which all Stark women should be measured. Not that I dislike her either; there are some very likeable traits about her, after all. It's just that we don't know enough about her, and that her story is doubious, depending on which of all speculated scenarios is closer to the truth (and then it's also possible that the truth will be something that has evaded the readers' imagination).

So, IMO, parts of the OP are based in speculation instead of knowledge (for examble the escape comparaison) and that can lead to wrong conclusions. Also, other parts are missing, eg the wording of her famous quote about love and men's nature:

"Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."

This is not something I can imagine Arya mouthing. That's clearly parroting old women's wisedom, content and form alike. Simply, that's not Arya. (It's more like her own son, only he had the priviledge to be given some lessons about perspective, and to have an Ygritte to call him out when he knows nothing.)

I also disagree that we need the comparaison to measure the "wolf blood" of the Stark girls. We have more than enough POV chapters for each of them, to understand very well their motives, way of thinking, wants and emotions, as well as assess the quantity and nature of their "wolf blood", without needing any reference to a  largely unknown character. On the contrary, the Stark girls characters may be the source to understand -or, better said, speculate- about Lyanna's character and motives. In that sense I wouldn't rule out Sansa, because the related comparaisons could perhaps give us some answers about some of Lyanna's actions.

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Op, you should include those quotes about iron/steel beneath silk. Arya when she is escaping the Red Keep finds Needle under neath a silk skirt. Ned says Robert never knew the iron beneath Lyanna's beauty. Sansa has that "to steel" quote. 

Regarding the Sansa-Lyanna similarities, there is no proof that Lyanna "acted like Sansa would" at all. Lyanna's reaction to Robert's ways proves that she wasn't idealistic and romantic in the same way that Sansa is. She's pragmatic. The only connections between Sansa and Lyanna are the betrothal to a Baratheon, the steel/iron under silk thing, and the "Promise me" reminder that Ned gets in AGOT.  All else is imaginary. 

From all the info given to us about Lyanna it's quite obvious that Arya is Lyanna's "clone". They look and act the same. They even say "stupid" in the same way and like sword fighting and flowers. The only difference at this point is that Arya is prepubescent and Lyanna was 14. This what trips up a lot of people. They think that if a 10yr old says that they hate songs and romance, then they would never cry at a song or fall in love in their entire life ever. Lyanna was obviously a tomboy and she "sniffled" to hear Rhaegar's song. And dumped wine on her brother's head afterwards, which really doesn't sound like anything Sansa would ever do, especially in public. And plus Ygritte, who is compared to Arya multiple times by Jon, cried after hearing the song of the winter rose, iirc. So two characters compared to Arya multiple times have cried while hearing songs. And Outline!Arya was going to be the center of a love triangle between two major characters, Tyrion and Jon. The author has also mentioned while discussing the five year gap that Arya hitting puberty was something that needed to happen. I honestly doubt that Arya's story has been entirely stripped of all romance. She will fall in love, mark my words. 

And, yeah, I definitely agree that once Arya sees a blue rose she will take a liking to them immediately.  She sort of is one afterall, if you want to consider the symbolism of the blue bard story. 

I agree. Arya is too young to be considered for any romantic situations. Those who try to ship her and Gendry and those who think she will never find love are both making a mistake.

We need to let her grow up first. Although her life has taken her to some very strange places and she will likely never be a normal noble woman. She may find some degree of normality at some stage and likely this will include love.

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Ned says Arya reminds him of Lyanna, in appearance and personality. I think this worries Ned, so he tries to work with her to turn her into someone who could be useful to her family. He doesn't fight her, the way Cat does. Instead, he gives her a "dancing master" who can teach her a fighting method that she can use, given her size.

Arya returns the favor: She does not run away by choice. Her choices do not rebound on her family. She is obsessed by returning to her family until she is forced to leave Westeros by circumstances beyond her control. This is obv different from Lyanna, assuming she eloped with Rhaegar (I know that's a huge assumption).

I agree it's too early to know how Arya would behave if in love, but my feeling is that she would not stay away after the deaths of her father/brother, Rhaegar and pregnancy be damned. She'd return. 

Re the Micah-Reed contrast in the op: I disagree. Reed is not a commoner, but the head of a noble house, no matter how despised. Micah is a butcher's boy. Arya's later confederates are all commoners. This is due to circumstances, but still, it's not a good parallel with Lyanna.

Sansa reminds me a bit more of Lyanna, early on, despite her red hair and needlework. She refuses to return to Winterfell, choosing a beautiful, golden crown prince over her father's decision for her. That, in turn, works into the many-pronged disaster that eventually kills her father and brother.

 

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Ned says Arya reminds him of Lyanna, in appearance and personality. I think this worries Ned, so he tries to work with her to turn her into someone who could be useful to her family. He doesn't fight her, the way Cat does. Instead, he gives her a "dancing master" who can teach her a fighting method that she can use, given her size.

Arya returns the favor: She does not run away by choice. Her choices do not rebound on her family. She is obsessed by returning to her family until she is forced to leave Westeros by circumstances beyond her control. This is obv different from Lyanna, assuming she eloped with Rhaegar (I know that's a huge assumption).

I agree it's too early to know how Arya would behave if in love, but my feeling is that she would not stay away after the deaths of her father/brother, Rhaegar and pregnancy be damned. She'd return. 

Re the Micah-Reed contrast in the op: I disagree. Reed is not a commoner, but the head of a noble house, no matter how despised. Micah is a butcher's boy. Arya's later confederates are all commoners. This is due to circumstances, but still, it's not a good parallel with Lyanna.

Sansa reminds me a bit more of Lyanna, early on, despite her red hair and needlework. She refuses to return to Winterfell, choosing a beautiful, golden crown prince over her father's decision for her. That, in turn, works into the many-pronged disaster that eventually kills her father and brother.

Agree with all of the above. I don't think that Arya in adulthood will eschew romance entirely at all. I do think she'll be much more like Catelyn than Lyanna about it. Perhaps she would have been a Lyanna clone had she been allowed to grow up under the exact same set of circumstances (although I doubt it), but she wasn't. Her life changed forever at a very formative age, when she was just nine years old. Arya's all about "family, duty, honor" although she approaches her mother's House words from a more wolfish perspective -- family becomes pack. 

Instead of running away from family, I think Arya's story is all about trying to get back to family. I do think that Nymeria is an apt metaphor -- Arya is an alpha wolf, but just as Nym will eventually have a mate, so will Arya. The difference is that unlike a normal highborn girl, who would have to leave her family/pack in order to attain womanhood (which in this culture, is through marriage/children), she will likely integrate her mate into her pack somehow. This is how she operates as a prepubescent child. Even in Braavos, training to be a coldblooded assassin, she is still interacting with people. Arya meets no strangers, and she's incredibly loyal. I don't think she'll have any problem figuring out how to have romantic love while maintaining ties to her pack, too.

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I also disagree that we need the comparaison to measure the "wolf blood" of the Stark girls. We have more than enough POV chapters for each of them, to understand very well their motives, way of thinking, wants and emotions, as well as assess the quantity and nature of their "wolf blood", without needing any reference to a  largely unknown character. On the contrary, the Stark girls characters may be the source to understand -or, better said, speculate- about Lyanna's character and motives. In that sense I wouldn't rule out Sansa, because the related comparaisons could perhaps give us some answers about some of Lyanna's actions.

Exactly. We should not compare the girls to Lyanna in order to find something more about them, since we know enough, but actually to fully grasp Lyanna's story.

The way I see it is that everything is connected. The way Sansa and Arya complement each other in their opposites, mimicking different things we know about Lyanna. For example, the story of Bael the bard is quintessential in mystery surrounding Lyanna. The same thing happened with Sansa and her Baelish. Then of course there is entire shieldmaiden thing about Lyanna. In one way, Arya's development and her wild nature is paralleling that, but if we look it through the political prism, Sansa becoming the image of Elizabeth I (if nothing, the entire Elizabeth/Seymour relationship is as wild as Sansa/Baelish, with Lysa being their Catherine Parr), who in many ways represent the medieval queenly version of shieldmaiden. 

Ultimately, we should never forget how Martin writes his characters. While with Arya some parallels are so open and actually "shouting" at you (same goes for parallels with Brandon and Catelyn), with Sansa, we see much quieter approach. Nothing is explicit, nothing so obvious. That is why Sansa is sometimes so difficult to analyze, because Martin writes her through the prism of her own character - silent, subtle and delicate.

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Op, you should include those quotes about iron/steel beneath silk. Arya when she is escaping the Red Keep finds Needle under neath a silk skirt. Ned says Robert never knew the iron beneath Lyanna's beauty. Sansa has that "to steel" quote. 

Regarding the Sansa-Lyanna similarities, there is no proof that Lyanna "acted like Sansa would" at all. Lyanna's reaction to Robert's ways proves that she wasn't idealistic and romantic in the same way that Sansa is. She's pragmatic.

Really? She ran away with the married crown prince when she was 15 against the wishes of her father, the king and her bethrothed who was Lord Paramount. How was that in any way pragmatic?

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Really? She ran away with the married crown prince when she was 15 against the wishes of her father, the king and her bethrothed who was Lord Paramount. How was that in any way pragmatic?

That's not true. It's not stated in the books. You assume that Lyanna did all that. Like I said, imaginary

However, Lyanna's reaction to Robert's ways was mentioned in the books.  And she was pragmatic. She was not hopeful that Robert would change even if he did love her. Very different from Sansa with Joffrey.

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The Runaway: ok, this one is not so clear, but I think it's worth mentioning nevertheless, at the end of the battle of Blackwater Bay, the Hound dropped by Sansa's chambers and offered to take her away. This bears a resemblance to Rhaegar taking Lyanna away to the Tower of Joy. Ok, you may say that the Hound was no beautiful prince as Rhaegar, and that Ser Dontos proposed to help her , but clearly her need to escape was much greater than Lyanna's : whatever he was, Robert was no monster as Joffrey. So in this quite alike circumstances, Sansa chose to stay while Lyanna ran away.

I think Sansa's escape from the wedding would count as a parallel. After all she is leaving her husband behind with no one knowing where he went after.

I've been thinking a lot about Sansa, Arya, and Lyanna lately, and thought I'd bump this post.

While I agree with much of the above, I do think that if we learn R+L=J is true and was consensual on Lyanna's part (insofar as much as Lya could consent in this universe), it's a much more Sansalike thing to do. Even if there'd been no war, it's difficult to believe that Arya would have run off with some Targaryen prince.

It would be more GRRM-like to have Arya look like Lyanna, and have a similar personality, but to have Sansa act like Lyanna. After all, she was Lya's niece too. And I say that as someone who love Sansa, but who adores Arya.

I do think we can't rule out Sansa/Lyanna similarities because we don't have enough info. I also do think that the thematic need for the Arya/Lyanna parallelism is more RLJ plot driven than anything and I think that's why it is decreasing in the later books. It might increase again in the new books as he makes the RR events clearer or he might create more Sansa/Lyanna parallels. I think it was a good plot device and nice jumping off point for who Arya is but George clearly deviated a lot from what he originally thought for Arya.

 

I would say that running away with a guy is something early Game Arya would do as an older girl if things hadn't gone so brutally bad. I think the Mycah incident is the equivalent of the defending the crannogman against squires and cross-dressing at HH in terms of real world negative reactions to their "wolf blood". Before both incidents, they are stubborn, break rules and mostly get away with everything. Then Arya defends Mycah, it leads to his death and Lady's. Lyanna beats the squires and most likely goes as the KotLT, gets chased for treason, found out by Rhaegar and he crowns her because of it which is bad (smiles died and Brandon is pissed). After the bad consequences, Arya stays out of the people's way and only has altercations with her family and household, and stops even that after Ned tells her how dangerous conflict is in their position.

So if nothing that bad had happened and later in life she got it in her head to run away with a guy because she thinks it's no big deal, it wouldn't be surprising to me. Because being reckless and impulsive never had the terrible consequences the incident brought about. In Winterfell, it was annoying to Cat and Septa Mordane and funny to everyone else. An Arya that was never taught that such actions can have terrible repercussions would just think of it as doing what she wants as per usual.  

On her part, Lyanna should have definitely gotten the memo that anything linking her to the prince would be at least bad for her and her family. After all, someone would have talked Brandon down from kicking Rhaegar's ass and pointed out that going after him would be treason. So they both had their "wolf blood" have bad consequences for the first time outside of home and Arya got more cautious after that...Did Lyanna?

Basically, I agree that Lyanna running away with Rhaegar is a very un-Arya thing to do, knowing what she did.

First of all I need to say that I am not in awe of Lyanna and I do not think she's a benchmark, to which all Stark women should be measured. 

So, IMO, parts of the OP are based in speculation instead of knowledge (for examble the escape comparaison) and that can lead to wrong conclusions. Also, other parts are missing, eg the wording of her famous quote about love and men's nature:

"Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."

This is not something I can imagine Arya mouthing. That's clearly parroting old women's wisedom, content and form alike. Simply, that's not Arya. (It's more like her own son, only he had the priviledge to be given some lessons about perspective, and to have an Ygritte to call him out when he knows nothing.)

I also disagree that we need the comparaison to measure the "wolf blood" of the Stark girls. We have more than enough POV chapters for each of them, to understand very well their motives, way of thinking, wants and emotions, as well as assess the quantity and nature of their "wolf blood", without needing any reference to a  largely unknown character. On the contrary, the Stark girls characters may be the source to understand -or, better said, speculate- about Lyanna's character and motives. In that sense I wouldn't rule out Sansa, because the related comparaisons could perhaps give us some answers about some of Lyanna's actions.

I agree with the bolded part, wholeheartedly. I do understand why people might try to because we don't have any other female Stark to work with but still... Maybe in 2020, when the She-Wolves of Winterfell is released we will have more bases of comparison, lol.

As for parroting words of a mentor, actually it's something that Arya does often. She repeats Syrio's, she bases some of her ideals on what Ned taught her brothers... I think she remembers something Old Nan said once. So I don't think she would not say something like that, especially if she felt like it was clever and made her point. Frankly I think the only woman she wouldn't parrot is Septa Mordane and I doubt that's who Lyanna had around. Actually do we know anyone who could have been around except Old Nan? It might have been Old Nan who said that to Lyanna. But good point that it is a very Jon Snow thing to do, I wouldn't have thought of it. I tend to associate a lot of his behaviour with Rhaegar but it's true that in his more insolent/rebellious moments he certainly is channelling her.

I definitely agree that what we might learn more about Lyanna through the girls as opposed to her informing more on either character. I actually think that depending on whom Lyanna strongly parallels to, it will point either towards willingly (Sansa) or unwillingly (Arya) leaving with Rhaegar.

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That's not true. It's not stated in the books. You assume that Lyanna did all that. Like I said, imaginary

However, Lyanna's reaction to Robert's ways was mentioned in the books.  And she was pragmatic. She was not hopeful that Robert would change even if he did love her. Very different from Sansa with Joffrey.

How Lyanna reacted to Robert is the same way how Alayne reacted to Harry. How Lyanna reacted to Rhaegar is the same way to how Sansa reacted to Joffrey.

BTW, no one ever compared Sansa/Joffrey to Lyanna/Robert, but Lyanna/Rhaegar. Lyanna was anything but pragmatic.

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When did George RR Martin tell you this? It's certainly not in the books. 

Well, I don't need to hold my hand for 5 minutes on the hot stove to know it will burn my hand. In literature, authors don't need to tell the reader everything. Most of good writers say things while not banging readers' head with it. It is like the old debate whether some characters are constipated, because GRRM didn't say they go to the bathroom. Or, do we need statement that sun rises on the east in every chapter?

All and all, if people are waiting for GRRM to spell them everything, this is not the series for them. 

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I would say although Lyanna complained about Robert, she probably is still willing to marry him if Rhaegar did not give her an excuse to run away. 

Yes, she is very wild and headstrong, but she is still a highborn woman in that society. I can not believe herself would just simply run away, forsake everything of her life: honor, duty and also great benefits of noble life. 

Look at how every other woman in the book reacted to their husbands' affairs and bastards, everyone accepts it. including Sansa towards Harry. Lyanna just complained about it, nothing else. It is Rhaegar who gave her a chance as well as an excuse to run away, thanks to his effort in fulfilling prophecy. 

 

 

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