R+L=J v.146

[Mithras]

Not to mention that there are only scarce references connecting the Starks to ice in a deeper sense. They are wargs, not riders of ice-dragons. And the wolf-blooded Starks - Brandon, Lyanna, Arya - are generally passionate and hot-headed rather than icy insofar as their characters are concerned. The ancient Targaryens rode dragons and practiced fire magic back in the Freehold but nothing suggests something like that for any ancient Stark in the 'ice field'.

:rolleyes:

[Sly Wren]

Prophecy stuff:

I don't think that the Ghost's prophecy is a mystery there - we know for a certainty she can foresee stuff, so why should she make stuff. Presumably Jaehaerys had ample evidence that she wasn't a fraud before he based his decision to marry Aerys to Rhaella on her words.

The promised prince was already known as a concept to the Targaryens when the Ghost made her prophecy. She gave additional information - that the promised prince will be born from the union of Aerys and Rhaella - but she didn't introduce the concept.

Agree that the Ghost sees things and that the Prince that was Promised idea seems to have been known the Targs. I think the speculation that the prophecy may have been part of why the Targs finally came to Westeros holds merit--at least for now.

That said, we don't really know Jaehaerys' motives--he might have taken a measured approach, or might jumped at the prophecy without much evidence--willing to try for it, just in case. We don't know.

If there is an actual true prophecy about the coming of a savior called the promised prince then it can only be true if that savior actually comes - messing with the prophecy or the coming savior would be a futile attempt. I don't think the Children are stupid enough to do this kind of thing - the morons doing that are Melisandre and Cersei/Qyburn.

Agree that we'll only know if it's true if/when the savior shows--though I have no trouble thinking that years after the last book comes out, people might still be debating who the "real" AA or PtwP were. But I can't see why the Children innately wouldn't want to manipulate--they've manipulated/guided Bran into the cave of skulls--and that place does NOT look good. I want that kid out of there.

But your statement seems to assume that the Ghost is a Child of the Forest--if I'm reading you wrong, feel free to mock me. But if I'm right--can't see how she's necessarily a Child. There's speculation, but she seems rather unlike Leaf. And prophetic abilities are not limited to Children in Martin's world. She could just be an odd human. And, thus fallible or even deceptive re: prophecy. We don't know much about it yet at all. Just that people believed her.

We have no textual evidence that the promised prince is supposed to have non-Targaryen blood of any specific sort. And Rhaegar believed that Aegon's song is the Song of Ice and Fire, not that the savior embodied this song - that's something people try to read in the text which is simply not there. This does not mean that the savior can't have Stark blood, but there are no hints that this is a requirement any prophecy ever made.

:agree:

Not to mention that there are only scarce references connecting the Starks to ice in a deeper sense. They are wargs, not riders of ice-dragons. And the wolf-blooded Starks - Brandon, Lyanna, Arya - are generally passionate and hot-headed rather than icy insofar as their characters are concerned. The ancient Targaryens rode dragons and practiced fire magic back in the Freehold but nothing suggests something like that for any ancient Stark in the 'ice field'.

Wargs, yes. Ice-dragons--I'm not on board for that, but some are. But ties to ice and cold? Well, "Winter is Coming."

[Ygrain]

And their ancestral blade is called Ice because...?

[Kingmonkey]

And, whether Cat knows about Jon or not, she's a threat to Jon. Not knowing Jon's parentage, she's just insisted he be sent away. She's also just snapped and taken Tyrion--Ned has reason to fear her impulsiveness and temper per se, not just tied to Jon's probably secret.

But I agree that the scene is suggestive, and that Cat could be dangerous if she knew the secret. But I still struggle to see how or why she'd act against Jon because of the secret. It's only a threat if Robert or someone close to him discovers the secret. So keeping it is in her best interest. She may be impulsive, but she's not suicidal. But I admit that's my interpretation, not fact.

Ned knows that from Cat's viewpoint, Jon is a potential threat to her kids' futures. When she thinks about Robb's idea of legitimising Jon, we see her thoughts directly.

I don't think Ned would consider there to be any great risk of Cat not keeping the secret of Jon's parentage if she was told. However, she'd inevitably come to see Jon as a far bigger threat to her children. Rather than simply being another son of Ned who isn't her child, he'd represent a massive risk to the Stark family as a whole, because if someone else tells, it would set Ned against the king.

The question in my mind about this passage is: why would Ned think specifically of Jon in this context, unless he could see how Jon represented an existential threat to Cat's children?

[Ygrain]

The only character I'm completely invested, emotionally, is Arya Stark :wub: , followed to a lesser degree by Tyrion. That's it.

You have a much better choice of favourites than me - mine are dead, dead, dead.

I find it very fascinating that Jaehaerys II forced Aerys and Rhaella to marry based on the word of what might have been a COTF. We know what the woods witch told Jaehaerys of such a match, but if she is a COTF I imagine there is much she wasn't telling them. Perhaps she even has a completely different motivation for seeing this line and the offspring it could produce? Whatever the case, we have two possible COTF in the story over the last twenty years, and they both seem to have been/be involved influencing things in significant ways.

Add to it an enclave of CotF on the Isle of Faces, right next to the place where things took place.

[Takyon]

Because I'm too much of a lazy shit to search through 146 threads, does anyone know what the best arguments against R+L=J are? I'm beginning to believe that Martin might pull a fast one on us and somehow have some different in mind in regards to Jon's parentage and I'm sure that there's some textual evidence to support this hypothesis.

[stateofdissipation]

Because I'm too much of a lazy shit to search through 146 threads, does anyone know what the best arguments against R+L=J are? I'm beginning to believe that Martin might pull a fast one on us and somehow have some different in mind in regards to Jon's parentage and I'm sure that there's some textual evidence to support this hypothesis.

Start with "bed of blood" is a synecdoche for childbirth... Lyanna died in childbirth.

Then figure out where that baby is...

[Lord Varys]

I talked about a 'icy' in deeper sense. The Targaryens are descendants of dragonlords who rode dragons and practiced fire magic. The Starks have gray eyes and a sword that is named Ice. Those are two completely different categories. There is the occasional icy/ruthless Stark - Brandon Ice-Eyes, for instance - but that's a political coldness of the Tywin-sort not something magical. There have been icy Targaryens, too, in that sense. Viserys II in his later years was cold and calculating, Bloodraven, too. Maekar doesn't strike me as particularly fiery, either.

The 'Winter is coming' line isn't a positive saying. It reminds people that death is coming, because winter is death in Martin's world. No mortal man rules over winter in this world, not even the Starks. The power of the Starks supposedly is that they know about that - they are supposed to know what's important - that winter/death (i.e. the Others) are coming, but they forgot and paid the price for that. Winterfell makes it clear that the Starks don't rule the winter. If they had power over the cold/thrived in winter they wouldn't have built their castle over a hot spring like people who can suffer the cold... In that sense, the whole 'Kings of Winter' title is either just talk - or it refers to the fact that in ancient times the Starks became the kings of many/all Northmen in winter because pretty much everybody could seek shelter at Winterfell where it was still warm, and thus all those people took the Starks as their kings while winter reigned.

I'm not saying the Ghost is a Child of the Forest although she could be - or the child of a union between a human and Child of the Forest (Bloodraven and Leaf, perhaps?) - I was generally trying to address this manipulation thing.

Ned, Robert, and Jon Snow:

I'm really wondering about this 'Robert would kill Jon if he would find out' thing. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

1. There is the fact that Robert Baratheon loved Lyanna Stark more than Ned ever loved his sister (according to Ned himself). That is strong statement. Does this make it very likely that Robert would actually slay a child born by that woman, the only thing of her that survived? I'm not convinced that this is the case. Condoning the murder of Elia's children is another thing - Robert hated Rhaegar and had no emotional connection to Elia or her children.

2. Ned still considers Robert his friend in the beginning of AGoT. Could you be friends with a man who might murder your nephew if he found out about him? That would be a very strange friendship indeed, and Ned claims that Robert would never harm him or his - which should include Jon Snow either as his bastard or as his nephew.

3. Robert apparently didn't send any (professional) assassins after Viserys and Daenerys for closely to fifteen years - if he didn't take out those real threats to his reign why should be believe he would be determined to kill Lyanna's son by Rhaegar - the son of a man who never sat the Iron Throne? A child that was raised as a bastard and hidden away from the world without friends or supporters. Not to mention that pretty much nobody would have believed that Jon Snow was Rhaegar's son anyway, considering his looks. The boy looks way too much like his father to win the allegiance of any Targaryen loyalist.

I'm rather inclined to believe that Ned himself did not want Lyanna's child to be Rhaegar's son. He wanted him to be with his family, the Starks, but cut out all this Targaryen crap and the connections to court that would inevitably come with all that. This would be also the reason why Ned never told Jon Snow who he actually was. He did not want him to know who he was - else he would have told him. Once the decision was made to effectively force Jon Snow to take the black there was no need to keep the truth from he - Aemon was at the Wall, too, and nobody threatened to kill him.

The whole issue between Catelyn and Jon is that Cat despises Jon because he is the living reminder of her husband's infidelity. There is no reason why she would not accept the child into her heart if she knew he was actual her husband's nephew. It was Ned's decision to lie to Catelyn about Jon which poisoned the atmosphere in Winterfell in regards to Jon Snow.

[Adaneth]

You have a much better choice of favourites than me - mine are dead, dead, dead.

:P :D

Arya is going dark, dark, dark though. I'm afraid. :frown5:

Tyrion and Varys I love also. From the dead characters, not counting those who were already dead when the story begins, I liked Ned and Cat also. I know she gets hate but whatever. :-D

[Sly Wren]

Because I'm too much of a lazy shit to search through 146 threads, does anyone know what the best arguments against R+L=J are? I'm beginning to believe that Martin might pull a fast one on us and somehow have some different in mind in regards to Jon's parentage and I'm sure that there's some textual evidence to support this hypothesis.

Arguments against? Off the top of my head:

Jon looks like Ned. Ned and Ashara knew each other at least a bit. Ned reacts intensely to speculation re: Ashara at Winterfell, Ashara committed suicide, speculated by Selmy that is was for a Stark--the evidence works to stick simply to the official story: Ned is Jon's father and Ashara probably the mother.

Other issues: Jon doesn't look at all Targ-ish

He's not only a warg, but his direwolf is so Northern it looks like a weirwood.

Ned thinks of Lyanna often, but not with Jon.

Ned never thinks of "Lyanna's baby," despite a bed of blood.

Mentions Rhaegar a bit, thinks of him only rarely, but not with Lyanna or Jon.

We've no idea how or why Lyanna "disappeared" with Rhaegar. Only guessing.

No idea on the nature (or lack thereof) of their relationship.

Jon dreams of himself in the Winterfell crypts--afraid to go, but know he must.

Even outsiders notice Jon has more North in him than his brothers.

I'm sure there's more--but that's at least a start.

That said, though I acknowledge all of the above, it can all be true and Jon still be R and L's son. Given Ned's dreams re: Lyanna--promises, the bed of blood, the violence around her (via gore) in dreams, his guilt--I think the standard, clear interp of Ned and Ashara is the red herring. It's clear and sensible. But the hints that something is off re: Lyanna are also clearly there. Something's up.

But this is at least one reason RLJ is a theory, not yet proven. Too many gaps in the text as yet. I've only listed a few above.

[Sly Wren]

Ned knows that from Cat's viewpoint, Jon is a potential threat to her kids' futures. When she thinks about Robb's idea of legitimising Jon, we see her thoughts directly.

I don't think Ned would consider there to be any great risk of Cat not keeping the secret of Jon's parentage if she was told. However, she'd inevitably come to see Jon as a far bigger threat to her children. Rather than simply being another son of Ned who isn't her child, he'd represent a massive risk to the Stark family as a whole, because if someone else tells, it would set Ned against the king.

The question in my mind about this passage is: why would Ned think specifically of Jon in this context, unless he could see how Jon represented an existential threat to Cat's children?

I can agree that Cat could see Jon as a bigger threat if the secret got out. But she's a threat to Jon per se, too.

So, in the context of the scene, I grant you that Ned's thinking of Cat and Jon in this moment could be suggestive of Jon's parentage. But still can't see that it's determinative. Really think could also be Ned's realizing Cat's impulsiveness--especially now that she's snatched Tyrion.

[LmL]

Because I'm too much of a lazy shit to search through 146 threads, does anyone know what the best arguments against R+L=J are? I'm beginning to believe that Martin might pull a fast one on us and somehow have some different in mind in regards to Jon's parentage and I'm sure that there's some textual evidence to support this hypothesis.

Oddly, nobody has been able to produce any, and R+L=J has been around for 15 years.

If there was any sort of credible alternative that Martin intended for us to consider, he would have indeed left clues about it. I haven't seen even one scrap of mildly compelling evidence against R+L=J as of yet. There is even a hardened little enclave of people who are (for some reason) quite invested in R+L not equaling J, and even THEY have yet to produce anything resembling a credible alternative. Oddly, they consider it rude or something when you ask them for one. Go figure!

So if you can find it, you'll be the very first person to do so.

[Ygrain]

:P :D

Arya is going dark, dark, dark though. I'm afraid. :frown5:

Tyrion and Varys I love also. From the dead characters, not counting those who were already dead when the story begins, I liked Ned and Cat also. I know she gets hate but whatever. :-D

...Ned and Cat are the ones I meant :-)

[IceFire125]

SSM: Martin at STOCKHOLM AND ARCHIPELACON REPORT, June 28, 2015 - by Elio

10) Asked if he reads academic works or fan discussions about his work. George says he does about the academic ones, that to some extant he does. He repeated how he started visiting Dragonstone early on, very flattered that a whole website was dedicated to his novel, but he swore off it eventually because it took too much time, and he saw dangers in fans coming up with theories that were right and it did create a desire to change things but he said "that way lies disaster" because you're going to mess it all up because those mysteries are things you planned from the first, laid the groundwork, etc., and you can't just change it midstream. He compared it to a mystery novel where the writer changed his mind part way through, and all the clues that came before were simply wrong and went nowhere. And then George added that sometimes fans were coming up with ideas there he thought were interesting, but he couldn't be helping himself to fan ideas because "fans could like sue me and shit." Laughs there. So he backed away after that. He knows there's many other websites that have gone far beyond Dragonstone, citing Westeros as the leading one. He's also familiar with Sean T. Collins' Boiled Leather.

[Sly Wren]

SSM: Martin at STOCKHOLM AND ARCHIPELACON REPORT, June 28, 2015 - by Elio

10) Asked if he reads academic works or fan discussions about his work. George says he does about the academic ones, that to some extant he does. He repeated how he started visiting Dragonstone early on, very flattered that a whole website was dedicated to his novel, but he swore off it eventually because it took too much time, and he saw dangers in fans coming up with theories that were right and it did create a desire to change things but he said "that way lies disaster" because you're going to mess it all up because those mysteries are things you planned from the first, laid the groundwork, etc., and you can't just change it midstream. He compared it to a mystery novel where the writer changed his mind part way through, and all the clues that came before were simply wrong and went nowhere. And then George added that sometimes fans were coming up with ideas there he thought were interesting, but he couldn't be helping himself to fan ideas because "fans could like sue me and shit." Laughs there. So he backed away after that. He knows there's many other websites that have gone far beyond Dragonstone, citing Westeros as the leading one. He's also familiar with Sean T. Collins' Boiled Leather.

A fair point, but it seems important to note that we do not know what theories or ideas Martin may have been referencing here. We don't know if it has anything to do with RLJ or not. We really don't.

[LmL]

^^^ we are participating in a totally unique phenomena. Never has such a high profile fictional series been so thoroughly scrutinized in real time on a global level BEFORE the work is even finished. I sometimes wonder about things like this, the position Martin is in. The hardcore fandom here has been staring at RLJ for over a decade or whatever, so there's a temptation to think it's too obvious, and it must be a red herring. But no, RLJ is only thinly disguised because I think we are supposed to figure it out before the book is over. I think it represents Martin's opening mystery, to clue us in to the way that he hides mysteries:

"Here, see the blue rose? Now follow the blue rose. When you see that, it's called a symbol, and you should compare every appearance of a given symbol to see just what I am saying about it."

Everyone who took that lesson gained insight on how to analyze ASOIAF. Dont believe the narrator, and don't obsess about logistics - the symbols tell the truth. If you take the the same methodology and apply it to every significant symbol - black blood, let's say, or sickle moons - you will begin to see what Martin is saying about it.

That's why I shake my head at the people who deny RLJ - I just feel like they simply aren't getting it. I could be totally wrong, of course, I'm human - but from my perspective, if you're still waiting for empirical proof, some sort of Rhagaer -Lyanna sextape, you really just don't understand what game we are playing here.

[Bael's Bastard]

Prophecy stuff:

I don't think that the Ghost's prophecy is a mystery there - we know for a certainty she can foresee stuff, so why should she makeup stuff? Presumably Jaehaerys had ample evidence that she wasn't a fraud before he based his decision to marry Aerys to Rhaella on her words.

The promised prince was already known as a concept to the Targaryens when the Ghost made her prophecy. She gave additional information - that the promised prince will be born from the union of Aerys and Rhaella - but she didn't introduce the concept.

If there is an actual true prophecy about the coming of a savior called the promised prince then it can only be true if that savior actually comes - messing with the prophecy or the coming savior would be a futile attempt. I don't think the Children are stupid enough to do this kind of thing - the morons doing that are Melisandre and Cersei/Qyburn.

We don't know nearly enough about Jenny's woods witch to know what she would or wouldn't make up, or why. We don't know if she is really a COTF or not, whether she is "working" alone or with others, or anything about her purpose. We don't know what the COTF are really up to, or whether there are factions that are up to conflicting things.

Just because Jenny's woods witch told Jaehaerys that TPTWP would come from the line of Aerys and Rhaella, doesn't mean that TPTWP is who or what she is actually expecting to come from that union. It could be that she expects the union to produce a particular someone or something, but that TPTWP was just an already available prophecy that was near and dear to the Targ heart, and so used it to try to manipulate Jaehaerys into making the needed match.

I am completely open to the idea that Jenny's woods witch was being completely honest, and what she said was all really straight forward. I am just suggesting the possibility that she could have had other motives for seeing the union and fruit of that union than what we see at face value. For all we know, COTF could anticipate TPTWP as more of an antichrist figure to doom them and their remnant, than a savior.

[Sly Wren]

I talked about a 'icy' in deeper sense. The Targaryens are descendants of dragonlords who rode dragons and practiced fire magic. The Starks have gray eyes and a sword that is named Ice. Those are two completely different categories. There is the occasional icy/ruthless Stark - Brandon Ice-Eyes, for instance - but that's a political coldness of the Tywin-sort not something magical. There have been icy Targaryens, too, in that sense. Viserys II in his later years was cold and calculating, Bloodraven, too. Maekar doesn't strike me as particularly fiery, either.

The 'Winter is coming' line isn't a positive saying. It reminds people that death is coming, because winter is death in Martin's world. No mortal man rules over winter in this world, not even the Starks. The power of the Starks supposedly is that they know about that - they are supposed to know what's important - that winter/death (i.e. the Others) are coming, but they forgot and paid the price for that. Winterfell makes it clear that the Starks don't rule the winter. If they had power over the cold/thrived in winter they wouldn't have built their castle over a hot spring like people who can suffer the cold... In that sense, the whole 'Kings of Winter' title is either just talk - or it refers to the fact that in ancient times the Starks became the kings of many/all Northmen in winter because pretty much everybody could seek shelter at Winterfell where it was still warm, and thus all those people took the Starks as their kings while winter reigned.

All fair. But the Starks' relationship to winter still seems not yet fully explained. Like you said--the words seem to be a warning. And they need to remember it themselves. But they also had the title Kings of Winter--does this imply something more, or not? We've got Bran's lovely vision of someone apparently being sacrificed in front of a heart tree, the oddness of those crypts, "there must always be a Stark in Winterfell," "The Starks have manned the Wall for thousands of years," The Night's King was supposedly a Stark, Bran the Builder is supposed to have built the Wall--all of this could be tradition. But It also seems to hint that we may not know the full extent of their ties to Winter yet.

What that means to Jon re: RLJ? Don't yet know. Don't think he's "ice and fire"--that's the song. But he is clearly a Stark.

I'm not saying the Ghost is a Child of the Forest although she could be - or the child of a union between a human and Child of the Forest (Bloodraven and Leaf, perhaps?) - I was generally trying to address this manipulation thing.

Ah--sorry. My apologies for misreading you.

Ned, Robert, and Jon Snow:

I'm really wondering about this 'Robert would kill Jon if he would find out' thing. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

1. There is the fact that Robert Baratheon loved Lyanna Stark more than Ned ever loved his sister (according to Ned himself). That is strong statement. Does this make it very likely that Robert would actually slay a child born by that woman, the only thing of her that survived? I'm not convinced that this is the case. Condoning the murder of Elia's children is another thing - Robert hated Rhaegar and had no emotional connection to Elia or her children.

2. Ned still considers Robert his friend in the beginning of AGoT. Could you be friends with a man who might murder your nephew if he found out about him? That would be a very strange friendship indeed, and Ned claims that Robert would never harm him or his - which should include Jon Snow either as his bastard or as his nephew.

3. Robert apparently didn't send any (professional) assassins after Viserys and Daenerys for closely to fifteen years - if he didn't take out those real threats to his reign why should be believe he would be determined to kill Lyanna's son by Rhaegar - the son of a man who never sat the Iron Throne? A child that was raised as a bastard and hidden away from the world without friends or supporters. Not to mention that pretty much nobody would have believed that Jon Snow was Rhaegar's son anyway, considering his looks. The boy looks way too much like his father to win the allegiance of any Targaryen loyalist.

I'm rather inclined to believe that Ned himself did not want Lyanna's child to be Rhaegar's son. He wanted him to be with his family, the Starks, but cut out all this Targaryen crap and the connections to court that would inevitably come with all that. This would be also the reason why Ned never told Jon Snow who he actually was. He did not want him to know who he was - else he would have told him. Once the decision was made to effectively force Jon Snow to take the black there was no need to keep the truth from he - Aemon was at the Wall, too, and nobody threatened to kill him.

The whole issue between Catelyn and Jon is that Cat despises Jon because he is the living reminder of her husband's infidelity. There is no reason why she would not accept the child into her heart if she knew he was actual her husband's nephew. It was Ned's decision to lie to Catelyn about Jon which poisoned the atmosphere in Winterfell in regards to Jon Snow.

I have to agree with a lot of this, though that's partly because I think Ned would keep a secret Lyanna asked on her deathbed, or really try to keep it, no matter what.

And I agree that there's reason to doubt that we know Robert's reaction would have been only one thing. Or Cat's. Lots of variables to mess with.

[The Twinslayer]

Arguments against? Off the top of my head:

Jon looks like Ned. Ned and Ashara knew each other at least a bit. Ned reacts intensely to speculation re: Ashara at Winterfell, Ashara committed suicide, speculated by Selmy that is was for a Stark--the evidence works to stick simply to the official story: Ned is Jon's father and Ashara probably the mother.

Other issues: Jon doesn't look at all Targ-ish

He's not only a warg, but his direwolf is so Northern it looks like a weirwood.

Ned thinks of Lyanna often, but not with Jon.

Ned never thinks of "Lyanna's baby," despite a bed of blood.

Mentions Rhaegar a bit, thinks of him only rarely, but not with Lyanna or Jon.

We've no idea how or why Lyanna "disappeared" with Rhaegar. Only guessing.

No idea on the nature (or lack thereof) of their relationship.

Jon dreams of himself in the Winterfell crypts--afraid to go, but know he must.

Even outsiders notice Jon has more North in him than his brothers.

I'm sure there's more--but that's at least a start.

That said, though I acknowledge all of the above, it can all be true and Jon still be R and L's son. Given Ned's dreams re: Lyanna--promises, the bed of blood, the violence around her (via gore) in dreams, his guilt--I think the standard, clear interp of Ned and Ashara is the red herring. It's clear and sensible. But the hints that something is off re: Lyanna are also clearly there. Something's up.

But this is at least one reason RLJ is a theory, not yet proven. Too many gaps in the text as yet. I've only listed a few above.

I would start with the fact that Ned repeatedly tells people that Jon is his son, starting in Chapter 1. He says this to his king, to his wife, and to the whole world. The first hurdle to R+L=J is that you have to believe that Ned was lying about this.

Then go to the fact that he tells Catelyn that he never wanted to married to her or to be Lord of Winterfell in the first place ("I never asked for this cup to pass to me"), suggesting that he was in love with someone else.

[LmL]

^^^ the above are all logistical reasons that can be easily explained (and have been). What I was saying is that if you want to solve Martin's mysteries, you need to rely on symbolism first and foremost.

The blue rose in the Wall means he is Lyanna's son. There is no explanation for the blue rose other than RLJ - I've seen someone try one time, it was really bad. The section where Ygritte tells Jon about Bael the Bard makes it even clearer, again from a symbolism point of view.