Let's talk about lemongate

[Alaynsa Starne]

Just now, StarkofWinterfell said:

There's a lot we don't know. But there is the supposed backstory of Ned and Ashara being in love and Ned travelling to visit Ashara after the Tower of Joy but not bringing with him Arthur's bones. It is complicated but it is precisely the reason that she remembers a lemon tree in a city that doesn't have lemon trees which raises all these questions. 

As a young girl raised in Dorne, she would have seen a lemon tree. And that therein lies the conundrum!

But that doesn't mean that Dany is Ned and Ashara's child, or that Ned and Ashara even had a child. If they did have a kid, it was most probably Jon or the stillborn daughter. 

And if the answer to lemon tree conundrum is more confusing or complicated than the conundrum itself, then it probably isn't the answer. 

[StarkofWinterfell]

9 minutes ago, Alaynsa Starne said:

But that doesn't mean that Dany is Ned and Ashara's child, or that Ned and Ashara even had a child. If they did have a kid, it was most probably Jon or the stillborn daughter. 

And if the answer to lemon tree conundrum is more confusing or complicated than the conundrum itself, then it probably isn't the answer. 

We do have one more example in-text that a baby's fate may not be what we originally thought and that is Aegon. The stillborn daughter may not have been stillborn after all and it's a cover story.

I like to think that there is enough smoke here to warrant further investigation.

[Alaynsa Starne]

18 minutes ago, StarkofWinterfell said:

We do have one more example in-text that a baby's fate may not be what we originally thought and that is Aegon. The stillborn daughter may not have been stillborn after all and it's a cover story.

I like to think that there is enough smoke here to warrant further investigation.

We don't know for sure that Young Griff is actually Aegon Targaryen, so no, a precedent has not yet been definitively established. And, again, one example does not a pattern make. Even if Young Griff is the real Aegon, that doesn't mean that Dany isn't the daughter of Rhaella and Aerys simply because one baby was swapped. Again, you could say that any kid isn't who we suppose they are and use Aegon as justification when there is no other evidence to support that supposition. "Robb is really the child of Lysa and Littlefinger!" "Jaime was switched at birth!" "Rickon is the son of a faceless man and a raccoon!" We have no evidence that the stillborn daughter wasn't stillborn, and even if she wasn't, why would you assume that the stillborn daughter was Dany instead of Allyria, who makes far more sense? Dany being the daughter of Ashara and Ned raises unanswerable questions and creates a slough of unnecessary plot holes. Question the meaning of the lemon tree all you like, but if you can't solve the many, many problems that Dany's supposed childhood in Starfall poses, then all you have is a hot mess of nothing. 

[Stannis in the middle]

1 hour ago, Alaynsa Starne said:

We don't know for sure that Young Griff is actually Aegon Targaryen, so no, a precedent has not yet been definitively established. And, again, one example does not a pattern make. Even if Young Griff is the real Aegon, that doesn't mean that Dany isn't the daughter of Rhaella and Aerys simply because one baby was swapped. Again, you could say that any kid isn't who we suppose they are and use Aegon as justification when there is no other evidence to support that supposition. "Robb is really the child of Lysa and Littlefinger!" "Jaime was switched at birth!" "Rickon is the son of a faceless man and a raccoon!" We have no evidence that the stillborn daughter wasn't stillborn, and even if she wasn't, why would you assume that the stillborn daughter was Dany instead of Allyria, who makes far more sense? Dany being the daughter of Ashara and Ned raises unanswerable questions and creates a slough of unnecessary plot holes. Question the meaning of the lemon tree all you like, but if you can't solve the many, many problems that Dany's supposed childhood in Starfall poses, then all you have is a hot mess of nothing. 

He's just saying Ashare + Ned is a worthy topic of discussion. jeeez

[Alaynsa Starne]

5 hours ago, Stannis in the middle said:

He's just saying Ashare + Ned is a worthy topic of discussion. jeeez

I never said it wasn't. 

[Rippounet]

6 hours ago, Alaynsa Starne said:

Even if Young Griff is the real Aegon, that doesn't mean that Dany isn't the daughter of Rhaella and Aerys simply because one baby was swapped.

Actually, I'd beg to differ on this minor point. Baby swap is definitely a theme in ASOAIF. We already have two (not one, don't forget Gilly and Mance's sons) ; it's not crazy to imagine that either there was another (Dany), or that one is more complicated than it seems (Aegon/(f)Aegon).
That's not to say that Dany is not the daughter of Rhaella (there is no actual evidence of that at this point), but the possibility of a swap somewhere is worth a thought.

And the timeline does not make it impossible for Lyanna to have two pregnancies. It's a tight fit, and quite a stretch, but it's not flat out impossible. There's a thread on that these days:

All this being said, this is one of the wildest explanations for lemongate. Fun to entertain, but a bit extreme.

[Alaynsa Starne]

1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

Actually, I'd beg to differ on this minor point. Baby swap is definitely a theme in ASOAIF. We already have two (not one, don't forget Gilly and Mance's sons) ; it's not crazy to imagine that either there was another (Dany), or that one is more complicated than it seems (Aegon/(f)Aegon).
That's not to say that Dany is not the daughter of Rhaella (there is no actual evidence of that at this point), but the possibility of a swap somewhere is worth a thought.

And the timeline does not make it impossible for Lyanna to have two pregnancies. It's a tight fit, and quite a stretch, but it's not flat out impossible. There's a thread on that these days:

All this being said, this is one of the wildest explanations for lemongate. Fun to entertain, but a bit extreme.

Oh, good point about Jon's baby swap at the Wall. I once heard someone say that Jon's own baby swap could make a compelling thematic point if it turns out he was swapped as a baby with Dany. And I see the beauty in that, and in the sense that Dany is Rhaegar's daughter rather than Jon being Rhaegar's son. But at the same time, it makes the narrative very confused, and there is still a timeline issue. It's possible that Dany is Rhaegar's daughter by a woman who wasn't Lyanna, but who? And why? And for what purpose? 

And for there to have been two pregnancies, it would have taken a bare minimum of 20-21 months. Was Lyanna missing for that long? The thread you posted wasn't clear in the OP as to how long she is supposed to have been gone, but I would think it wasn't that long. 

 

 

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Lyanna to have two pregnancies

quite a stretch

LOL, got me thinking about Lyanna having a LOT of stretch marks.

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

Rhaegar was actually a woman, but was raised as a prince because Aerys needed an heir (this is forehadowed  in the D&E books where Egg is told he will be turned into a girl by his brothers).  She had a bond with Lyanna because they were similar in that they were women who were strong fighters.  Daenerys is actually the child of Arthur Dayne and Rhaegar, and Lyanna pretended to be kidnapped by Rhaegar to provide a cover story for where the baby came from.  Jon Connington is not actually gay, but since he never knew Rhaegar was female he didn't understand why he felt attracted to "him" - like the episode of Blackadder where Blackadder thinks he is turning gay because he is attracted to the woman pretending to be a boy.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

1 hour ago, Alaynsa Starne said:

Oh, good point about Jon's baby swap at the Wall. I once heard someone say that Jon's own baby swap could make a compelling thematic point if it turns out he was swapped as a baby with Dany. And I see the beauty in that, and in the sense that Dany is Rhaegar's daughter rather than Jon being Rhaegar's son. But at the same time, it makes the narrative very confused, and there is still a timeline issue. It's possible that Dany is Rhaegar's daughter by a woman who wasn't Lyanna, but who? And why? And for what purpose? 

And for there to have been two pregnancies, it would have taken a bare minimum of 20-21 months. Was Lyanna missing for that long? The thread you posted wasn't clear in the OP as to how long she is supposed to have been gone, but I would think it wasn't that long. 

Well...

Quote

Daenerys has the same eyes. Sometimes when the queen looked at him, he felt as if he were looking at Ashara's daughter...

-ADwD Barristan

There's also the SSM in which the 8~9 months comment comes from. If you read it through to the end, It makes it clear that it's important Ashara was in King's Landing. And who else was in King's Landing when Dany was conceived? Rhaegar was there (which he know because he told Jaime "Changes will be made" just before riding out to the Trident.)

 

[Alaynsa Starne]

1 hour ago, Victarion Chainbreaker said:

Well...

-ADwD Barristan

There's also the SSM in which the 8~9 months comment comes from. If you read it through to the end, It makes it clear that it's important Ashara was in King's Landing. And who else was in King's Landing when Dany was conceived? Rhaegar was there (which he know because he told Jaime "Changes will be made" just before riding out to the Trident.)

 

Hang on. Here's what the SSM says verbatim: 
 

Quote

As to your speculations about Catelyn and Ashara Dayne... sigh... needless to say, All Will Be Revealed in Good Time. I will give you this much, however; Ashara Dayne was not nailed to the floor in Starfall, as some of the fans who write me seem to assume. They have horses in Dorne too, you know. And boats (though not many of their own). As a matter of fact (a tiny tidbit from SOS), she was one of Princess Elia's lady companions in King's Landing, in the first few years after Elia married Rhaegar.

That in no way establishes that Ashara was in KL when Dany was conceived. It establishes that Ashara has been places that are not the Tourney of Harrenhal and Starfall. Given that the SSM is about Jon and not Dany, and Catelyn's belief that Ashara is Jon's mother, it seems more likely that GRRM is referencing that it's possible for Ashara to have traveled to see Ned during the war and that it's possible that Jon was conceived as a result. 

And I think Barristan's reflection that Dany reminded him of Ashara is meant to tell us more about Barristan -- and reinforce men's reactions to Dany (see Jorah's sexual attraction to her due to her resemblance to his wife) -- rather than make us wonder if Dany is the daughter of Ashara. Though, yes, it did occur to me that Ashara may have been the mother of Dany by Rhaegar. But the why and for what purpose still remain, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that. 

 As a reminder, we have third hand accounts of Dany being on Dragonstone as an infant. Stannis recalls that Robert was furious with him for losing Viserys and the babe, and no one in AGOT suggests that the woman married to Khal Drogo isn't truly the sister of Viserys. So it was well known that Rhaella had a third child on Dragonstone and that the Targ kids fled to Essos together with Willem Darry. We can postulate that that infant wasn't "Dany" and that "Dany" was later substituted for the real Danaerys Targaryen for reasons unknown. But, again, that creates more questions than answers and seems a rather convoluted solution to "Why does Dany remember a lemon tree in a climate that seems hostile to citrus fruit?"