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R+L=J v.151


HexMachina

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At this point everyone who participates in or crashes this thread is aware that if they want Ran to answer something they need to ask him.

Can you give me his phone number? I want to ask him why he allows rude posters to proliferate on this site...

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I got myself Ice Dragon, and I find it interesting that the evil dragons are Targ colours. One ice dragon to fight three Targ. Targ dragons die, ice dragon turns into water.

 

Also, I came up with a little crackpot:

 

You need a horn to bind a dragon. You need a horn to bring down the Wall. Dragons increase magic. The Wall increases magic.

 

Is there an ice dragon in the Wall?

 

ETA: I guess someone has come up with the idea before,

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Avalatis, instead of quoting you back all of your own text let me try to shorten what is going to be a long post by attempting to deal with your points without the advantage of block quotes/response format. I hope I get to all of your arguments, but if I miss anything just point it out and I'll be happy to respond.

 

On some points I don't think we are far apart and on some we agree. We agree that it is likely the people at the tower have heard about the sack, including Aerys's death, the murder of Elia and her children, and, I think we agree on, knowledge of Ned commanding the rebel troops that enter the city. We also agree that some of the other facts of the sack may or may not have been heard at the tower including the exact relationship of the Lannisters to the rebel forces, and Robert's hatred for all Targaryens. It's this last point that seems to me to be a sticking point between us. Not that we disagree concerning how likely it is that the tower has heard of it, but rather what are the ramifications if Lyanna, Hightower, et al have not heard of Robert's hatred. So, let me start by concentrating on this point.

 

My understanding of your views are that if Jon is the legitimate son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, then it is understandable that Lyanna would fear for her son's life. The example of the murders of Elia's children would be enough to instill the fear in Lyanna's eyes Ned sees if Jon is a possible heir to the throne. If Jon is a bastard child of Rhaegar then Lyanna has less reason to fear for his life unless she knows of Robert's hatred - which, again, we both agree is less likely for her to know. I hope that reflects your views.

 

My own views I've tried to state, and I think fear by Lyanna for her child is justified whether or not he is legitimate. First, I think any mother would fear for her child given these circumstances. Robert is her former betrothed and there is a very good chance she was part of the "kidnapping" and the de facto termination of the betrothal by her and Rhaegar's actions. Robert has recently killed Rhaegar, and Ned led rebel troops into King's Landing and took command (seized the throne from Jaime and commanded the rebel forces there until Robert arrives and is crowned.) Whether or not the precise relationship of the Lannister forces prior to Robert's coronation are understood by the people of the tower or not, it doesn't change the fact of Ned's command during this time. During this sack all Targaryens within the city are killed. Just these things would make any mother, even if her child is only a bastard child of Rhaegar fear for their child's life. Or so I think.

 

However, let me take this one step further. What do you think would be the first thing Lyanna would ask Ned when he finds her? Let's, for the sake of this discussion, for the moment assume she has a child and that child is Jon, the bastard son of Rhaegar. My guess is something along the line of "are you going to harm my child, Ned?" To which I'd assume Ned would respond assuring her he would never do such a thing ("for a start, I don't kill children".) It doesn't matter if Lyanna loved Ned before the rebellion and knew that Ned would never hurt her child. It matters that results of the rebellion bring her a Ned she cannot assume is the same beloved brother. Especially since he likely comes to her fresh from killing her bodyguards. She has a child to protect, even if the only tools she has left to do so are her dying pleas and tears. She has to look her brother in the eye and know the truth, or lack thereof, of his words to her. Ok, so far?

 

What's next? It's got to be asking Ned if Robert will hurt her child. To such a question what does Ned do? Does he lie about Robert's obsession and hatred of Targaryens? I don't think so. Ned couldn't lie to her concerning Robert's fooling around before the betrothal. He could never lie to her about Robert's nature he saw reveled in his viewing of Elia and her children's dead bodies and his "dragonspawn" comments. It doesn't take an assumption of the tower already knowing about the degree of Robert's hatred. It is almost certain Ned would not lie to Lyanna about the danger to her child from Robert. Once Ned promises to hide the child as his own and protect him from Robert's wrath, if that is indeed the promise he makes to Lyanna, the fear would go out of her eyes. I don't expect to convince you on this topic, but for whatever you feel they are worth, those are my thoughts on it.

 

About my thoughts on whether Ned's actions would constitute treason if Jon is Rhaegar's bastard son, let me say treason is not just hiding a rival to Robert's throne. Certainly, we agree that constitutes treason. Treason also means failure to obey the orders of your king, lying to your king, and seeking to defy his will in things a king thinks are important. If we assume Robert found out Ned had hidden Rhaegar's bastard son from him. That Ned had lied to him about who Jon's mother was in order to not let Robert know he is the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar. Do you really think Robert wouldn't think Ned had betrayed him? I think his love for Ned turns into an anger that would chase Ned, as I said earlier, to the "back of beyond."

 

Lastly, let me say a few things about that tangent. I think there are many hints that Jon is the legitimate son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. We have things like Mormont's raven calling out "king, king" when Mormont speaks of the kingship. We have Mormont's own comments to Jon about Robb becoming a king and he having to live the life of brother of the Night's Watch. We have, very importantly, Maester Aemon's discussion of his own choices he had to make, and how Jon will have to make choices as well. All of these and more seem to me as foreshadowing of Jon's fate. He too will have to choose between a claim for the Iron Throne and his oath as a man of the Watch. Now, I know these clues and others can be read a different way, but there seems to me a lot of them pointing towards Jon having a claim to the monarchy. 

 

However, the two things that point most strongly to me that Rhaegar and Lyanna wed are what we are told of Lyanna's character, and what we know of Rhaegar's need to reproduce Aegon and his sisters in the persons of Rhaegar's own children.

 

Lyanna we are told has the "wolf blood" that led her to a "early grave." She is also a prime candidate for, and I think the best candidate for, the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Someone who is not afraid of fighting for what she thinks is right. She makes her reservations about the proposed marriage to Robert known to a least one member of her family, and I see no reason she stopped with Ned. She finds a way to go around her father's wishes and train in combat skills. All of which tells me, even if she loved Rhaegar, that she would not lightly accept her child to be born a bastard with all that entails to a child born out of wedlock. As I alluded to earlier, I think the kidnapping is more of a rescue from a impending marriage she wants no part of, as well as feelings she has for Rhaegar. The rose petals she holds as she dies tell me her feelings are likely ones of love for the Crown Prince. This woman seems to me as someone who is willing to fight, even with Rhaegar, for respect and just treatment for herself, and most certainly for any child she has.

 

Rhaegar is someone who believes in the truth of prophecy, and we know he believes "there must be one more" and that the "dragon has three heads."  We know Rhaegar has come to believe his first son is the Prince Who Was Promised and it seems that his belief is that he needs three children, the first two named after Aegon the Conqueror and his sister Rhaenys. He changes his mind about his own role in the prophecy upon the conception and birth of Aegon and it looks to be he has decided the prophecy needs him to recreate in his own children Aegon and his sisters. The dragon has three heads being the sigil of the royal house that is created after the conquest and specifically references these specific Targaryens. With Elia not being able to have anymore children after Aegon's birth, he believes he must have another wife to bring this about. Or so I read it. Note this isn't about recreating Aegon, one of his sisters, and a bastard brother such as the Conqueror had. This is about his belief in the three founders of his dynasty being the model he must follow.That means three legitimate Targaryens, brother and sisters, to fulfill the prophecy. He needs another marriage to bring this about. That he is wrong in his interpretation of the prophecy doesn't change these clues pointing to what his belief was.

Anyway, that is the "short answer" to why I think Jon is legitimate. Both Rhaegar and Lyanna have very good reasons to want it so.

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Yeah, Jons parents were only important so Jon and Arya could be together without too much of an "ick" factor as cousins, now its Jons parents who have become the "Marcia Brady" of fan lore, lol.

i wish jon and arya wont be taking down that route tho,... they have a wonderful relationship as bro and sis. 

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Can you give me his phone number? I want to ask him why he allows rude posters to proliferate on this site...


If you were really interested in asking him anything you might try PMing him, posting your question in the thread(s) others have posed question and received answers from him, Twitter. A number of options to contact Ran, and this thread isn't one of them. You guys might want to try asking him questions before coming in here to make post after post droning on and on about why you don't accept the information in the app.
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This whole question is just silly. We know that Rhaegar didn't love Elia, and the only other reasonable candidate for a woman he may have loved is Lyanna. You don't need the App to come to this remarkable conclusion, you can just read the books and think.

 

SFDanny,

 

while it may be possible that the guys at the tower had some news - that would greatly depend on their access to news spread via raven as well as how time passed between the Sack and Ned's arrival (and we actually have no real data on that) - it is entirely likely that Lyanna also feared for the well-being of her child simply because she knew she was dying, and that the father of the boy was dead. Any mother would fear for her child under such circumstances, not only a mother whose family was greatly involved in war against the family of her husband. And imagine for a moment Aerys had won the war but Rhaegar was still killed at the Trident - a son of Rhaegar's by Lyanna may have been as much in danger under King Aerys II as he would have been under Robert I.

 

We don't really have to assume Lyanna had the whole picture of events at KL nor do we have to assume that she knew of Robert's (alleged) Targaryen hatred for her to be concerned for her child's well-being and future. Perhaps she was even afraid what the Kingsguard would do with the child after she died. If we assume that Lyanna wanted for her son to live a long and happy life it is quite likely she had no intention of him becoming a pawn in a game for the throne. But then, considering what some people believe Serra (or only Illyrio) want for Aegon, it is quite likely that Lyanna may actually have wanted that her son become king.

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This whole question is just silly. We know that Rhaegar didn't love Elia, and the only other reasonable candidate for a woman he may have loved is Lyanna. You don't need the App to come to this remarkable conclusion, you can just read the books and think.


Do we know this for sure? And is Rhaegar only allowed to love women? The name on his dying lips may not have been for love.


I'm not saying I know better one way or another, I'm just trying to show that it's easy to point out flaws in the arguments, which makes it hard to accept any of this as truth.
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WRT Elia and Rhaegar, it is said that he was "fond" of his Dornish bride, by which Selmy seems to want to imply that it was not a great love affair between the two. But I don't think he didn't love her; I think their love was more of a friendship, partnership type. He loved and respected her as his wife and the mother of his two children, his heirs. I don't think it was a passionate, all consuming love by any means.

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I got myself Ice Dragon, and I find it interesting that the evil dragons are Targ colours. One ice dragon to fight three Targ. Targ dragons die, ice dragon turns into water.
 
Also, I came up with a little crackpot:
 
You need a horn to bind a dragon. You need a horn to bring down the Wall. Dragons increase magic. The Wall increases magic.
 
Is there an ice dragon in the Wall?
 
ETA: I guess someone has come up with the idea before,


LOVED that story, it made me cry, and I never cry, but my crackpot has always been maybe not something exactly like that concept, but similar.
(I also note that Adara seemed a bit Other-like).👀
I think good queen A's dragons egg left at The wall is a metaphor for Jon, BUT what is at WF with those fabulous hot springs and warm, moist environment around the castle.
Is Hodor taking care of something and what does Nan know and when did she know it? :)

Was Valarya the only place that had dragons.
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LOVED that story, it made me cry, and I never cry, but my crackpot has always been maybe not something exactly like that concept, but similar.
(I also note that Adara seemed a bit Other-like).
I think good queen A's dragons egg left at The wall is a metaphor for Jon, BUT what is at WF with those fabulous hot springs and warm, moist environment around the castle.
Is Hodor taking care of something and what does Nan know and when did she know it? :)

Was Valarya the only place that had dragons.

 

Not according to the world book.

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'Being fond' isn't the same as 'being in love'. If I tell my girlfriend 'I'm very fond of you' - like H.P. Lovecraft supposedly did to his wife, Sonia Greene - I'm essentially trying to make her my room mate, not my lover. Barristan is quite clear about the fact that Rhaegar did not love Elia in the romantic meaning of the word - you English speaking guys can tell pretty much everybody 'I love you', yet George made it very clear that there was no love in the romantic sense between Elia and Rhaegar on Rhaegar's side by having Barristan talk about Rhaegar 'being fond of her'.

 

This makes it clear to me that Rhaegar got reasonably well along with his wife, but not that he was in any way in love with her. Spouses being fond of each other - meaning that they can stomach each other's presence and can get along with each other reasonably well without being actually physically or emotionally attracted to each other - is the best you can get in an arranged marriage.

 

Aerys and Rhaella didn't get such a good deal, and Stannis and Selyse aren't even 'fond of each other'.

 

And despite the fact that we don't know much about Elia I'm not really expecting that she did love him, either.

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Do we know this for sure? And is Rhaegar only allowed to love women? The name on his dying lips may not have been for love.


I'm not saying I know better one way or another, I'm just trying to show that it's easy to point out flaws in the arguments, which makes it hard to accept any of this as truth.

 

Lyanna, damn, you should have warned me that your ex would be in such a foul mood.

 

Seriously: if Dany knows that it was a woman's name, she must have recognized it. And, since she never wonders what it was about, the name must make sense to her. She thinks that Rhaegar died for the woman he loved, hence that's the name that he murmured because, at the point of him dying from the wound of Lyanna's betrothed, no other name and no other reason would make sense. Now, of course Dany might be wrong, but the thing is that the information we keep getting in Dany's chapter is consistent with information from other PoV's, and that's pretty significant.

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Do we know this for sure? And is Rhaegar only allowed to love women? The name on his dying lips may not have been for love.


I'm not saying I know better one way or another, I'm just trying to show that it's easy to point out flaws in the arguments, which makes it hard to accept any of this as truth.

GRRM confirmed Rhaegars nature, but I the very deliberate way the author set up the scene with Dany pointedly asking Selmy if Rhaegar married for love, (remember she idolized her brother and willing to emulate him, so she may have been trying to get out of her own decision whether to marry a man she doesn't love for the sake of duty), and again, the hesitant way Selmy chooses to answer her question, coupled with JonCons memories, makes it pretty clear and rather painfully obvious he married for duty.
Now, I think he liked Elia and treated her well, and probably didn't want the marriage his parents had.
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Yup!  :thumbsup:
 

I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her I wasnt strong enough...


Yeah, and in the end I think he embraced his love for her, but regretted the circumstances that came about in getting her.

Mysticism aside, for very pragmatic reasons, Rhaegar was going to need another wife because of Elias unfortunate condition just due to the fact that it would create a succession crisis and potential civil war between himself and Viserys if something happened to Aegon.
But, if he could choose a woman he loved, he would this time.
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Yeah, and in the end I think he embraced his love for her, but regretted the circumstances that came about in getting her.

Mysticism aside, for very pragmatic reasons, Rhaegar was going to need another wife because of Elias unfortunate condition just due to the fact that it would create a succession crisis and potential civil war between himself and Viserys if something happened to Aegon.
But, if he could choose a woman he loved, he would this time.

What could happen to the Prince Who Was Promised if Rhaegar really believed Aegon was it?

 

Rhaegar didn't need another wife for political reasons. Preparing the setup for another Dance of Dragons between his sons just in case his son predeceased him - a thought that no normal father entertains - would be a terribly stupid move.

 

As to whether Rhaegar loved Elia, I don't believe he did. At the same time, I take everything Selmy said with a grain of salt. That's the man who presented Aerys' abuse of Rhaella as simple lack of fondness. What exactly did Rhaegar being fond of Elia entail? That he did not lock her in the Maidenvault? That he did not rape her? That he did not accuse her of adultery? Now, I don't believe any of those took place but the lack of them could be well taken by Selmy to mean "fondness".

 

If Selmy lived at court - and I believe he did since he met Ashara at court and not Dragonstone -  he'd have personal observations on Rhaegar and Elia only for limited periods of time and many of them would be after Harrenhall and after the Lyanna scandal broke out. It wouldn't be representative to their everyday interactions and feelings for most of their marriage. He was in no position to know and he recognizes that Rhaegar didn't confide him and no one truly knew Rhaegar, presumably Selmy himself included. And if Rhaegar did love Elia, GRRM couldn't say that without ruining part of the R+L appeal too early in the plot. Marrying for duty doesn't mean that love couldn't blossom later.

 

I don't believe it did. There's nothing pointing at that. But Selmy's testimony is not reliable. He never mentions a single case of Rhaegar confiding in him and he didn't have everyday observations on Rhaegar and Elia after ther wedding. He just makes his own conclusions based on what he sees in extreme moments and what he sees and hears - but not on Rhaegar's confidences.

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Ok, but I have to ask why? What is implausible? This is, of course, a "what if?" situation from the git, so we are asked to imagine along with Dany having Aegon alive. Perhaps it's easier for us because of Young Griff's claim, but Daenerys doesn't know that yet. She imagines him alive today, but in no way indicates she is thinking of him as the king in exile instead of Viserys. Or the king in exile after Viserys death. Perhaps, you are thinking like The Twinslayer and thinking of Aegon as the king instead of Robert for the last 17 years, but that is only a variant of the first option. So, I'm having problems seeing why any of these possibilities is something to be ruled out because of no reason other than you think it implausible for undisclosed reasons. It seems rather straight forward. Any of the possibilities works given the information, and we can't tell which she is thinking about.

 

I'd also like to point out one last time that it is clear from the quote I gave of Daenerys that she thinks of Viserys as a king-in-exile, so why would one think she wouldn't think of Aegon as the same if he were to succeed to the claim after Viserys's death? She views herself as doing just that, after all. A queen in exile after succeeding her brother the king in exile. She isn't stretching her imagination beyond her own experience very much to think of Aegon being in her position. That sounds extremely plausible to me.

Sorry I have been away from the boards for a few days, so hopefully you will see this response. I will try to lay out what I mean. Dany does not put any real conditions on Aegon becoming King (and I acknowledge she could have meant King-in-exile) if he had not been killed. I understand your argument that V would have been king for 14 years and then Aegon would become King. Let's go back to the actual quotes to see my point (reprinted from above):

 

 

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys V

"Which King Aegon?" Dany asked. "Five Aegons have ruled in Westeros." Her brother's son would have been the sixth, but the Usurper's men had dashed his head against a wall.

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys I

A crown should not sit easy on the head. One of her royal forebears had said that, once. Some Aegon, but which one? Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper's dogs had murdered her brother's son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.

 

 

 

Based on these quotes, Dany forms the unequivocal belief that Aegon would have become the sixth Aegon to "rule Westeros" (at least as King-in-exile -- she does not specify, but as noted above, I acknowledge she could mean it in this sense). When thinking about having married him, she thinks in the conditional -- she "might" have married him. There is no conditional in Aegon becoming King. Now I admit there is a difference in that Dany cannot know that such a marriage necessarily would have happened, while she knows at that point that Viserys died without having had any children, so presumably Aegon would be next in line. But a lot can happen in 14 years. Aegon could have died from other causes. Aegon could have remained on Westeros and been co-opted into the Baratheon rule and agreed to "bend the knee" to Robert.

 

Most people simply would not assume that Aegon would just have stuck by V and Dany and waited with them for 14 years for V to die. While theoretically possible, I would think that the natural way to think about such things would have either been to be more conditional in the thoughts (he likely would have become king or he might have become king) but she has no conditional thoughts. In addition, she has no thought about V. She does not think that Aegon would have been King on the death of V. She makes no mention or have any fleeting thought about V at all in those quotes above. To me, based on the unconditional way in which she expresses Aegon definitively becoming King if not killed and the lack of any thought about V as part of her thought process leads me to conclude that she is asserting that at that time -- at the time of his death -- if he had not died, he would have become King -- then and there (as Aerys died the same day and Rhaegar was already dead). 

 

While I see how you are reading the text to suggest that she means becoming King only after V's death, I consider that reading of these quotes quite strained. I suppose GRRM could retcon them to justify a change in his approach to the rightful heir question by making such an explanation. But it seems to me that when GRRM wrote those words, the only reasonable interpretation was that Aegon would have become King at that time. No question -- no waiting 14 years to see if he survives or continues to have interest in becoming King -- unconditional statement that Aegon would have been the sixth Aegon to be King. I just don't see your alternative as making much sense. I see the theoretical logic to it -- and on narrow technical grounds I see it as possible -- but it is such a strained reading of the quotes, I still maintain it is more or less implausible.

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