Can you answer these questions about TOJ?

[OwloftheRainwood]

2 hours ago, purple-eyes said:

I am talking about they used watchtower to facilitate the fighting. Such as using arrows from the windows, guard the entrance so that they only need to face one person at one time, etc. either way, tower is an advantage, just like nobody will go out to fight in the open field if they have an castle to use. 

They send jon away, then jon has a much higher chance to escape since robert and Ned only looked for lyanna. I guess lyanna can understand this, just like Elia would agree to smuggle aegon out from her. It is not about some wish of dying mother. It is for safety. 

And one female servant for four people does not sound enough. Somebody needs to help with their horses and armors, etc. they would need some men. 

It sounds quite silly that they know rebellion will try their best to find lyanna and they worried rebellion will kill jon but they still keep them together. They are basically telling the rebellion that lyanna got a baby from rhaegar and the baby is right here. It does not make sense at all. 

Instead they can, for example, let dayne bring jon to starfall, then even rebellion found lyanna, they had no idea where jon is. 

I know what you're saying, and I'm saying your argument is based on an assumption that is false. Maybe they did "facilitate the fighting" with the tower and GRRM just left out the details. More likely they did not. This is because that is not how it is written - and they had no reasonable expectation of long term success. ATII was dead and his issue fled, RT was dead and his "known children" were dead, the royalist armies were scattered or surrendered. Ned and his men's arrival confirmed this, but the KG probably knew this already, being supplied and informed by Starfall or its allied houses. In sum, the Targaryen Dynasty was broken and they would rather die honorably, quickly in the open fulfilling their duty than prolong the inevitable. Maybe they thought they could kill Ned and his men and get Jon to safety, they were badasses after all...digging in would only end with Ned calling in reinforcements and everyone, including Jon dying in Robert's wrath. This is also why Jon wasn't born or directly sheltered at Starfall - it could've meant the end for House Dayne. Even if Jon was blood of the dragon, he was issue of RT outside his legal marriage to Elia (whose family was Dayne's liege lord) and thus I don't think the Daynes would risk existential destruction for Jon or Arthur's loyalty to RT.

Re Sending Jon away. There was not enough time, and/or fog of war. You have asserted Jon was born during the sack of KL via GRRM's own words but you can't produce a link to back it up. Given my interpretation of Lyanna's bed being bloody in the literal sense because of recurrent use of the phrase in Ned's POV (beyond general euphemism - the room "smells" of blood), there is no way Jon could be months or weeks old at TOJ. Lyanna was also pretty rash - she may have insisted staying with her son and since she couldn't move, neither could Jon. There were only 3 left and guarding two locations is harder than 1.

Re servants. I allowed for the possibility of multiple servants including Wylla. Maybe there were some Dayne squires, but the text explicitly states only two men survived the raid. But who cares? Servants' tales or lowborn rumors, in the eyes of people in power, are not going to override the word of the noble, honorable Eddard Stark. Who writes history? The victor. Varys uses the commons effectively for intelligence but most high lords and maesters dismiss them.

I can't wait until we meet Howland Reed and the last survivor of TOJ gives us his account

[purple-eyes]

3 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

I know what you're saying, and I'm saying your argument is based on an assumption that is false. Maybe they did "facilitate the fighting" with the tower and GRRM just left out the details. More likely they did not. This is because that is not how it is written - and they had no reasonable expectation of long term success. ATII was dead and his issue fled, RT was dead and his "known children" were dead, the royalist armies were scattered or surrendered. Ned and his men's arrival confirmed this, but the KG probably knew this already, being supplied and informed by Starfall or its allied houses. In sum, the Targaryen Dynasty was broken and they would rather die honorably, quickly in the open fulfilling their duty than prolong the inevitable. Maybe they thought they could kill Ned and his men and get Jon to safety, they were badasses after all...digging in would only end with Ned calling in reinforcements and everyone, including Jon dying in Robert's wrath. This is also why Jon wasn't born or directly sheltered at Starfall - it could've meant the end for House Dayne. Even if Jon was blood of the dragon, he was issue of RT outside his legal marriage to Elia (whose family was Dayne's lige lord) and thus I don't think the Daynes would risk existential destruction for him.

Re Sending Jon away. There was not enough time, and/or fog of war. You have asserted Jon was born during the sack of KL via GRRM's own words but you can't produce a link to back it up. Given my interpretation of Lyanna's bed being bloody in the literal sense because of recurrent use of the phrase in Ned's POV (beyond general euphemism - the room "smells" of blood), there is no way Jon could be months or weeks old at TOJ. Lyanna was also pretty rash - she may have insisted staying with her son and since she couldn't move, neither could Jon.

Re servants. I allowed for the possibility of multiple servants including Wylla. Maybe there were some Dayne squires, but the text explicitly states only two men survived the raid. But who cares? Servants' tales or lowborn rumors, in the eyes of people in power, are not going to override the word of the noble, honorable Eddard Stark. Who writes history? The victor. Varys uses the commons effectively for intelligence but most high lords and maesters dismiss them.

I can't wait until we meet Howland Reed and the last survivor of TOJ gives us his account

Unfortunately Howland may not know much more than us. 

Per Grrm, he was not there to hear the talk of lyanna. He only knew jon is son of rhaegar and lyanna. Just like us. 

Those interesting things like rhaegar's motivations, lyanna's thoughts, elia's response, contents of promises and prophecy, details of abduction, howland know nothing( unless Ned told him in private later) . 

Even Ned only knew part of them since lyanna may not have much time to confess this much. 

It will likely remain vague forever. 

Nobody can tell. Not even bran can know their thoughts. 

[OwloftheRainwood]

12 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

Unfortunately Howland may not know much more than us. 

True, but he clearly has a better idea than anyone alive in the text so I'll take that over nothing. I find it highly unlikely none of what transpired was related to HR, that seems to violate common sense. Will he have all the unbiased answers? Of course not. Given your last "citation" of GRRM re Jon's birth I'm skeptical. I found GRRM making only the foggiest references re HR and TOJ.

 

13 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

It will likely remain vague forever.

Also very likely, for some reason I doubt GRRM will neatly wrap up the answers to all the questions.

[Sydney Mae]

20 hours ago, purple-eyes said:

TOJ is likely the most mysterious and weird place in westeros. 

So many confusing things happened here. 

I have a few of them which I have no idea why, maybe we can have a systematic analysis here. 

1. TOJ is a watch tower made of stone. Why did three KG stand in front of tower to openly meet ned, in stead of using the tower as a shelter and defense? (Except GRRM wanted them to have an epic talk) 

2. Jon was a couple of months old by then. He can be sent to somewhere else since Ned did so soon after.  Dany also can be carried away immediately after birth. So this is not a big problem. I understand lyanna is sick so she can not travel, so why did not KG send baby jon with wet nurse to somewhere else like starfall or dragonstone so that they do not need to fight with ned until death? Jon is much safer without lyanna since the rebellion is only looking for lyanna. And rebellion people would certainly not harm lyanna. 

3. What happened to the servants in TOJ? There must be a few of them to cook and clean. They all know Jon's parentage. In fact, they know much more than howland reed. (Unless they have no idea who are rhaegar, lyanna, arthur dayne and white bull for one year, And they all use fake names and rhaegar dyed his hair and KG hid their white cloak for one year) Were they all killed by ned? 

4. Lyanna is sick, but she can talk. KG fought with ned, either ned was killed( actually he was almost killed), or KG were killed. Why did not she stop them from killing each other? So she is ok with that KG tried to kill ned? I think she had power over KG since she is supposed to be rhaegar's lover/wife/crown princess/mother of king/princess regent of king jon targaryen. Even she is nothing but a mistress, she can still threaten KG by saying: if you fight with him, I will kill myself! Then they will agree because rhaegar asked them to guard her. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1)  Some say happenstance.  Ned caught them right before they were to leave for the coast to join the Queen in Dragonstone.  I'm thinking they were sent on a mission by Aerys to hide the remaining Targaryen treasures, such as dragon eggs, jewels, and items made out of valyrian steel.  The important question is why go through the hassle of demolishing the tower unless Ned wanted to hide evidence.  Perhaps he wanted to bury the dragon eggs to keep others from foolishly trying to hatch dragons. 

2)  You ask a few important questions.  Ned was high on milk of the poppy when he had his dream; therefore, his delirium is not reliable.  That out of the way, it just doesn't seem they were protecting anybody.  Hightower's words indicate to me he was resigned to die.  All that talk and not once did Lyanna ask about his sister.  He never once asked to let her leave.  Ned's words seem to me, he was trying to talk them down.  He was trying to convince them to lay down their swords and bend their knees to Robert.  Sure he was there for Lyanna but it was also his duty to bring the remaining loyalists to recognize Robert's rule.  Hightower was saying, "we will die before we bend the knee to the Usurper." 

3)  I have a feeling George will surprise us with the answers.  It's not out of the question for Lyanna to run off looking for Rhaegar.  They later come to realize they needed a child born from the union of Dayne and Stark, to go along with the children from the Targaryen and Martell union already.  Ned respected Arthur Dayne and felt obligated to protect his secret.  You see, if Arthur slept with Lyanna, he broke his vows. 

4)  We don't really know what Lyanna died from.  Bed of blood usually means death during childbirth.  However, it doesn't mean every time someone bleeds to death it's because of childbirth.  Lyanna was not delicate.  She was healthy and robust.  Maybe she slit her wrist rather than return to Robert.  Perhaps Lyanna was dying already, from greyscale, the Pale Mare, the grey plague, etc. 

 

[Jon Fossoway]

I've always understood that Lyanna had just recently given birth and Ned arrived in that time. Wether Lyanna died of his wounds by giving birth or by a shock that was produced by giving birth and becoming aware that Rhaegar was dead + the impression of feeling the Tower under attack... If she was pregnant and was sicly, I don't think anyone told her that his lover was dead and enemies were closing in. So whatever the aftermath of that fight, Lyanna was in shock. Maybe was Ned was a responsible of her death. His dream about it and the words GRRM uses in that chapter (like the weeping blood part) feels to me like a guilt ridden dream.

[purple-eyes]

6 minutes ago, King Merrett I Frey said:

I've always understood that Lyanna had just recently given birth and Ned arrived in that time. Wether Lyanna died of his wounds by giving birth or by a shock that was produced by giving birth and becoming aware that Rhaegar was dead + the impression of feeling the Tower under attack. If she was pregnant and was sicly, I don't think anyone told her that his lover was dead and enemies were closing in. Maybe was Ned was a responsible of her death. His dream about it and the words GRRM uses in that chapter (like the weeping blood part) feels to me like a guilt ridden dream.

True. Actually I even doubt if she knew about deaths of Rickard and brandon and bloody war. She was pregnant at that time when rhaegar returned, maybe rhaegar hide everything and only said he needed to visit baby aegon and rhaenys because he did not want her to feel upset. 

Only Ned told her everything. 

[A spoon of knife and fork]

5 hours ago, purple-eyes said:

I am talking about they used watchtower to facilitate the fighting. Such as using arrows from the windows, guard the entrance so that they only need to face one person at one time, etc. either way, tower is an advantage, just like nobody will go out to fight in the open field if they have an castle to use. 

They send jon away, then jon has a much higher chance to escape since robert and Ned only looked for lyanna. I guess lyanna can understand this, just like Elia would agree to smuggle aegon out from her. It is not about some wish of dying mother. It is for safety. 

And one female servant for four people does not sound enough. Somebody needs to help with their horses and armors, etc. they would need some men. 

It sounds quite silly that they know rebellion will try their best to find lyanna and they worried rebellion will kill jon but they still keep them together. They are basically telling the rebellion that lyanna got a baby from rhaegar and the baby is right here. It does not make sense at all. 

Instead they can, for example, let dayne bring jon to starfall, then even rebellion found lyanna, they had no idea where jon is. 

If they fight from within the watch tower then they have no guarentee that Ned or one of the companions does not send off for Robert.  Which is the main threat here.  They can't have Robert coming.

Again they may have decided not to send off Jon right away because they knew Lyanna was dying or at least too sick to move, and likely they think they won't be discovered in so short a time.  So when Lyanna dies they will move Jon.  

But when they are indeed discovered there is no chance to get Jon out.  They are surrounded by rebels who as far as they know will kill Jon at sight.  

[purple-eyes]

9 minutes ago, A spoon of knife and fork said:

If they fight from within the watch tower then they have no guarentee that Ned or one of the companions does not send off for Robert.  Which is the main threat here.  They can't have Robert coming.

Again they may have decided not to send off Jon right away because they knew Lyanna was dying or at least too sick to move, and likely they think they won't be discovered in so short a time.  So when Lyanna dies they will move Jon.  

But when they are indeed discovered there is no chance to get Jon out.  They are surrounded by rebels who as far as they know will kill Jon at sight.  

Maybe this is hindsight, but it would be much better to leave lyanna and all her servants in TOJ, let KG take a newborn jon to starfall. In this case, jon is safe from rebellion and three KG do not need to die. They can not take care of lyanna anyway. If they worried her safety, they can leave two KG there. 

[OwloftheRainwood]

8 minutes ago, purple-eyes said:

Maybe this is hindsight, but it would be much better to leave lyanna and all her servants in TOJ, let KG take a newborn jon to starfall. In this case, jon is safe from rebellion and three KG do not need to die. They can not take care of lyanna anyway. If they worried her safety, they can leave two KG there. 

It is hindsight, we as readers underestimate the fog of war but I don't think you're unreasonable to point out there were other options. I don't think the Daynes wanted Jon and that's why he wasn't at Starfall. But for the sake of argument, assume they were open to it, it wasn't carried out...it doesn't seem like any secondary plans were made and this was somewhat a rushed scheme not well thought-out on RT's part. RT is great, would've been a better king than Robert or Joffrey with a decent small council, but his plans usually fail due to political miscalculation...he is very dreamy and caught up in prophecy instead of making solid plans...it seems like he put a lot of stock into "fate" or "destiny" instead of thinking through his political moves. As I pointed out previously, he started out with great KG warriors and big army plus Targaryen legacy supporting him so he was not as careful as someone like LF or Doran.

[The Dragon has three heads]

The more we all go around in circles on it. The better the actual answer better be :/

[sciteacher]

There is just so much unknown. We need to apply "common sense" to some of our thinking until we know more.

For instance, after the de facto end of the war, Ned engaged in some mop-up work. No matter where Ned found Lyanna, I don't see that it means we need to imagine that Ned trotted around the south carting a baby, wetnurse, and Howland Reed along with him. Most likely he sent them to Winterfell, perhaps by ship. They were certainly settled in there when Catelyn arrived with Robb and her retinue.

I know many of us think Wylla came from Starfell, but that isn't explicitly stated. We do know Robert thought Jon's mother was named Wylla and Catelyn thought she was Ashara Dayne. If Wylla was rumored to be Jon's mother at Winterfell, there is no way Catelyn would have allowed her to stay there. Honoring your husband of not, that would have been too much for Cat. I think Wylla was the wetnurse, and when the Starks had no more need of her, they helped her gain employment with the Daynes. We do know she was in their household before Edric Dayne was born.

I'm also surprised by the notion of the tower of joy being a tiny, crumbling stone hut. It was located on one of the major pathways in and out of a thriving kingdom. Maybe I've played too many RPG games in my lifetime, but guard towers are often significant features. Think about what it was built to do. If you're going to guard something like the Wide Way-Prince's Path, you'd need multiple guards. At a minimum, two for each watch. More likely you'd have additional guards to patrol, some to run messages and get supplies, etc. You'd have a food/supplies storage area. There would be sleeping quarters for all those men, a kitchen, an eating area which may have also served as a place to meet/drink/gamble/relax by a fire. The commander would have his own private sleeping quarters and office; he might even have a secretary who also had his own sleeping area. You'd also have to have room to store weapons and do minor repairs/maintenance... Even something like this could be dismantled by a man with horses. With a stone building, if you break the mortar in a few strategic places and the rest falls easily, much like stone walls fail if some of the bottom stones are removed, or tile walls.

I'd also add that IF the Dayne household knew all about Jon, that is a lot of people to keep a secret. What's the saying? Three people can keep a secret if two are dead. If all those people had known about Jon, there is no reason for Ned to keep it secret from Cat, especially many years later.

Real world: Some of the old watchtowers have been renovated and are splendid B&Bs.

[A spoon of knife and fork]

9 hours ago, purple-eyes said:

Maybe this is hindsight, but it would be much better to leave lyanna and all her servants in TOJ, let KG take a newborn jon to starfall. In this case, jon is safe from rebellion and three KG do not need to die. They can not take care of lyanna anyway. If they worried her safety, they can leave two KG there. 

I think that if you are right and it was a month or more (or even weeks) that the KG were at ToJ after Jons birth then it would make little sense that they don't move him.  But if Jon was as I think born only hours or a few days ago, then it makes a lot of sense.  It's just a couple of days.  They have no reason to think that a few more days will make a difference.

And I'm sure that those hours/days were full of the KG mulling over the options, now that they finally knew that they had the heir in their hands (before that, they thought it could be a girl, and Viserys the heir).  

Ive speculated before that there was probably a plan in the works whether he was a girl or a boy to get Jon and Lyanna reunited with his remaining family either in Dragonstone or in Essos.  It's likely that they still would want to pursue that plan if possible, since it would be safer than trying to come up with a new last-minute plan.

[Jak Scaletongue]

17 hours ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

This is well-established. "Bloody bed"/"bed of blood" (BB) are euphemisms generally. However, that in no way precludes Lyanna's "bed of blood" (child-birth bed) from literally being a bloody bed. Where else does the euphemism come from if there are no literal cases of this occurring? Whereas BB is used in passing many times, GRRM does not beat us over the head with it, but Ned's POV uses the BB imagery over and over, making me think that this was a bloody scene. For a room to "smell" like blood, there's got to be a lot of it. It is impossible, in my view, that Jon was born "months" before the raid at TOJ. purple-eyes claimed that GRRM said Jon was born during the sack of KL, months before TOJ, but hasn't provided a source.

The euphemism is still appropriate even if Lyanna's bed is literally bloody.  It IS literal - whether one, both or none involved die there's always blood involved in birth.  That is exactly *why* it's an appropriate euphemism for childbirth.  I just noticed that, even after someone else had pointed out it was also a euphemism, people were assuming her bed was *covered* in blood.  I was merely pointing out that unless she was hemorrhaging, the bed would NOT literally be *covered.*  There would be blood, of course, she's giving birth.  Even a (relatively) little bit of blood can make the room smell of it. But since we're told she died of a fever, she wasn't hemorrhaging so the bed was not covered or soaked with blood.  If she was bleeding so badly to cover the bed in blood, she wouldn't have lived long enough to get a fever.  There doesn't have to be a lot of it - waking up to your period does make a room smell like blood*.  That's not *a lot* of blood. 

(*I am a cis-female who always sleeps with her bedroom door closed - it smells bloody, from 19 years of experience [I do get rather heavy periods, so mileage may vary])

I'm not sure why this part is here - I'm certainly not agreeing with p_e.  I'm just saying, regardless of where Lyanna gave birth (for the purposes of my point, it really doesn't matter), if she had time to die of fever like Ned says, then her "bloody bed" couldn't have *literally* been covered in blood.  If it was, she hemorrhaged and didn't die of fever like Ned says.  I'm not saying there was no blood - of course there was, childbirth is bloody which is why "bloody bed" became a euphemism in the first place.  But if the bed is soaked or covered in blood, she hemorrhaged and didn't have time to die of a fever.

 

ETA: So if it turns out Ned's lying about the fever, what else about the whole scenario could he be lying about?  If he's not lying about the fever, the bed could not be *covered* in blood and he's using "bloody bed" and "bed of blood" euphemistically (which does not rule out *some* blood, but certainly not a bed *covered* in blood).

[OwloftheRainwood]

21 minutes ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

The euphemism is still appropriate even if Lyanna's bed is literally bloody.  It IS literal - whether one, both or none involved die there's always blood involved in birth.  That is exactly *why* it's an appropriate euphemism for childbirth.  I just noticed that, even after someone else had pointed out it was also a euphemism, people were assuming her bed was *covered* in blood.  I was merely pointing out that unless she was hemorrhaging, the bed would NOT literally be *covered.*  There would be blood, of course, she's giving birth.  Even a (relatively) little bit of blood can make the room smell of it. But since we're told she died of a fever, she wasn't hemorrhaging so the bed was not covered or soaked with blood.  If she was bleeding so badly to cover the bed in blood, she wouldn't have lived long enough to get a fever.  There doesn't have to be a lot of it - waking up to your period does make a room smell like blood*.  That's not *a lot* of blood. 

(*I am a cis-female who always sleeps with her bedroom door closed - it smells bloody, from 19 years of experience [I do get rather heavy periods, so mileage may vary])

I'm not sure why this part is here - I'm certainly not agreeing with p_e.  I'm just saying, regardless of where Lyanna gave birth (for the purposes of my point, it really doesn't matter), if she had time to die of fever like Ned says, then her "bloody bed" couldn't have *literally* been covered in blood.  If it was, she hemorrhaged and didn't die of fever like Ned says.  I'm not saying there was no blood - of course there was, childbirth is bloody which is why "bloody bed" became a euphemism in the first place.  But if the bed is soaked or covered in blood, she hemorrhaged and didn't have time to die of a fever.

I don't know much about periods, but my wife's menstruation does not make the room "smell bloody" and I have an excellent sense of smell. I think that's the key hint GRRM is giving to us - the metallic smell of blood is thick in the air, meaning there is a lot of blood. This is not just a euphemism used in passing like the rest of the book, GRRM beats us over the head with the blood imagery. Maybe he does this just dropping hints that she was giving birth, but he uses the imagery a lot, so much that I don't think we can ignore at least the possibility there is a lot of blood. Is the bed totally soaked through in blood? Obviously not, she wouldn't have had time to die of a fever if she was hemorrhaging to such an extent. However, just because her ultimate cause death was fever does not preclude a lot of blood loss, in fact that would've made her more vulnerable to fever, normally Lyanna is strong and healthy. 

[Jak Scaletongue]

6 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

I don't know much about periods, but my wife's menstruation does not make the room "smell bloody" and I have an excellent sense of smell. I think that's the key hint GRRM is giving to us - the metallic smell of blood is thick in the air, meaning there is a lot of blood. This is not just a euphemism used in passing like the rest of the book, GRRM beats us over the head with the blood imagery. Maybe he does this just dropping hints that she was giving birth, but he uses the imagery a lot, so much that I don't think we can ignore at least the possibility there is a lot of blood. Is the bed totally soaked through in blood? Obviously not, she wouldn't have had time to die of a fever if she was hemorrhaging to such an extent. However, just because her ultimate cause death was fever does not preclude a lot of blood loss, in fact that would've made her more vulnerable to fever, normally Lyanna is strong and healthy. 

I have a horrible sense of smell, but my period makes my bedroom smell bloody until it's aired out (by the time I take the dogs out and come back - not long, 10-15 mins).  Maybe my periods are heavier than your wife's.  I'm just speaking from my own personal experience.

 

Also keep in mind that Ned and Howland are likely covered in blood themselves, from the fight.  That's probably not helping the smell, either.

[OwloftheRainwood]

13 minutes ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

I have a horrible sense of smell, but my period makes my bedroom smell bloody until it's aired out (by the time I take the dogs out and come back - not long, 10-15 mins).  Maybe my periods are heavier than your wife's.  I'm just speaking from my own personal experience.

 

Also keep in mind that Ned and Howland are likely covered in blood themselves, from the fight.  That's probably not helping the smell, either.

I suffered from frequent nosebleeds as a kid growing up in very cold, dry winters so I am familiar with the smell of blood. I don't think most women produce such a strong metallic-blood odor, so generalizing from that to the fiction writing of GRRM is probably not the most useful. I like to go with what the text says, and it says the room smells of blood. Certainly Ned and HR were covered in blood from the battle (and would've been used to this, after winning a war), so the fact that GRRM uses the blood imagery over and over despite this, from my perspective, just adds more evidence that there is literally a lot of blood. We can agree to disagree, I don't like going in circles. I think we both agree R+L=J, there was some blood, and this scene strongly affected Ned. I'm excited to hear HR's side of the story.

[OwloftheRainwood]

2 hours ago, sciteacher said:

I'm also surprised by the notion of the tower of joy being a tiny, crumbling stone hut. It was located on one of the major pathways in and out of a thriving kingdom.

Well, the text explicitly states that HR and Ned were able to pull the tower down by hand to make 8 cairns. This does not mean it was crumbling and small, but it was likely one or the other. I think a lot of people want to place Jon at Starfall so they exaggerate how crappy TOJ was to support that argument: 

 

2 hours ago, sciteacher said:

I know many of us think Wylla came from Starfell, but that isn't explicitly stated. We do know Robert thought Jon's mother was named Wylla and Catelyn thought she was Ashara Dayne.

This is wrong. Edric Dayne told Arya that Wylla was a servant at Starfall.

[Jak Scaletongue]

16 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

I suffered from frequent nosebleeds as a kid growing up in very cold, dry winters so I am familiar with the smell of blood. I don't think most women produce such a strong metallic-blood odor, so generalizing from that to the fiction writing of GRRM is probably not the most useful. I like to go with what the text says, and it says the room smells of blood. Certainly Ned and HR were covered in blood from the battle (and would've been used to this, after winning a war), so the fact that GRRM uses the blood imagery over and over despite this, from my perspective, just adds more evidence that there is literally a lot of blood. We can agree to disagree, I don't like going in circles. I think we both agree R+L=J, there was some blood, and this scene strongly affected Ned. I'm excited to hear HR's side of the story.

Birth blood would smell like period blood - they are both coming from the same place...not like a nose-bleed.

You don't *think* women produce a strong metallic blood-odour?  As a woman, who actually bleeds once a month, I disagree.  I don't have to guess - from *my* personal experience, it smells like blood.  Metallic, coppery, etc.  There's an added "vagina and sweat" smell as well, but it's still a very "coppery" scent.  I've already said "mileage may vary" depending on how heavy a woman's period is, and I've made clear it's my *own* personal experience.  But you have no personal experience - except nosebleeds, which smell nothing like childbirth or periods.  Childbirth would have that same "vagina and sweat" smell mixed in with the metallic, as well.  I'm not disagreeing with the text - I agree the room smelled of blood.  What I've been disagreeing with is the amount of blood needed to make the room smell like blood.  In a guard tower with arrow slits for windows in a hot environment, I don't think she needs to be bleeding heavily.  And depending which way the wind is blowing, the dead KG outside could be contributing to the smell!

2 hours ago, sciteacher said:

I know many of us think Wylla came from Starfell, but that isn't explicitly stated. We do know Robert thought Jon's mother was named Wylla and Catelyn thought she was Ashara Dayne.

 

3 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

This is wrong. Edric Dayne told Arya that Wylla was a servant at Starfall.

But Edric Dayne is a good 5 or more years younger than Jon, right?  So Wylla could have gone to Winterfell, nursed Jon, been sent back to Starfall and was a servant at Starfall when she nursed Edric.  Edric didn't actually tell us that Wylla was a servant of Starfall *before* she nursed Jon, just that she was a servant of Starfall when she nursed Edric, right?

[sciteacher]

5 minutes ago, OwloftheRainwood said:

Well, the text explicitly states that HR and Ned were able to pull the tower down by hand to make 8 cairns. This does not mean it was crumbling and small, but it was likely one or the other. I think a lot of people want to place Jon at Starfall so they exaggerate how crappy TOJ was to support that argument.

This is wrong. Edric Dayne told Arya that Wylla was a servant at Starfall.

Edric Dayne says: "Jon Snow's mother. He never told you? She's served us for years and years. Since before I was born."

Remember Edric was telling Arya about things that happened before he was born. Edric was born 287; Jon was born in 282-283. Edric (Ned) was talking to Ayra in about 301. So by then, Wylla would have been with the Daynes for 'years and years, since before Edric was born'.  Now could Wylla have been employed by the Daynes before Jon was born? ~ She could have, but nowhere are we told specifically that she was.

[OwloftheRainwood]

7 minutes ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

Birth blood would smell like period blood - they are both coming from the same place...not like a nose-bleed.

You don't *think* women produce a strong metallic blood-odour?  As a woman, who actually bleeds once a month, I disagree.  I don't have to guess - from *my* personal experience, it smells like blood.  Metallic, coppery, etc.  There's an added "vagina and sweat" smell as well, but it's still a very "coppery" scent.  I've already said "mileage may vary" depending on how heavy a woman's period is, and I've made clear it's my *own* personal experience.  But you have no personal experience - except nosebleeds, which smell nothing like childbirth or periods.  Childbirth would have that same "vagina and sweat" smell mixed in with the metallic, as well.  I'm not disagreeing with the text - I agree the room smelled of blood.  What I've been disagreeing with is the amount of blood needed to make the room smell like blood.  In a guard tower with arrow slits for windows in a hot environment, I don't think she needs to be bleeding heavily.  And depending which way the wind is blowing, the dead KG outside could be contributing to the smell!

 

But Edric Dayne is a good 5 or more years younger than Jon, right?  So Wylla could have gone to Winterfell, nursed Jon, been sent back to Starfall and was a servant at Starfall when she nursed Edric.  Edric didn't actually tell us that Wylla was a servant of Starfall *before* she nursed Jon, just that she was a servant of Starfall when she nursed Edric, right?

I'm not going to engage you on blood anymore, I hope we can agree to disagree. Because you're a woman does not give you a monopoly on truth relating to the bloody scene in TOJ, just like being a man doesn't give men a monopoly on truth re father-son relationships in the series. It's grossly unfair to say that someone's gender somehow makes an interpretation better or worse. That's all I'll say about it.

Re Edric/Wylla. I'm not sure what you're saying. She wasn't a servant at Starfall during RR but was for Edric? She was a servant at Starfall. End of story. The poster I quoted indicated that we don't know that contrary to facts in the text, I was pointing out their inaccuracy. Edric calls Jon a milkbrother.