nicephorus_phocas Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 The entire Tower of Joy accounts is extremely problematic from start to finish, first of all is the location you would choose to hide Lyanna and the future heir of the Targaryen dynasty, if you are planning to keep her in a safe house in the hopes of evacuating her to Essos in secret, would not it be better to disguise her as a commoner and hide her in an inconspicuous safehouse with a few guards disguised as smallfolk somewhere, instead of a tower which attracts a lot of attention. Plus why have only 3 men guarding her? Since the tower is in Dorne they surely have the option of calling for more reinforcements to guard the place. Then there is the question of how Ned and his guard was able to enter the tower in the first place, since the people inside there have the option of just shooting at them with arrows to hold them off, and it will be criminally stupid for the KG to not have arrows so that they can shoot at intruders from a very defensible position, but then the entire idea that you only have 3 people to guard Lyanna and the heir of the Targaryen dynasty is in itself criminally stupid. Plus how did Ned and Howland manage to pull down the tower all by themselves? I mean the tower is made of stone, and must be as large as a pagoda, so 2 men without any equipment other than their bare hands will any be able to pull down that tower, wont it be just simply to dig graves beside the tower and then bury them? Plus what is the deal with Ned not finding a way to bring back Arthur's bones, and the remains of the others who went with him, even if it cannot be done at once, I am sure that he can find a way to talk to the Dornish about exhuming those bodies and bringing them back. Plus another matter the entire concept Kingsguard itself is extremely ill thought out, I mean the Preatorian Guard during the time of the Roman Empire is composed of 1 legion, that is around 6000 men, and the Varangian Guard during the time of the Byzantines was composed of hundreds of men, so why does the King of Westeros have only 7 people to guard him, plus what is the deal with them being required to serve for life and forced celibacy, that seems to be counterproductive if you want to hire people, more sensible will be the King having his own personal guard of about 1000 men that is funded out of his taxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonsmurf Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 The Kingsguard are seven knights because they are supposed to be with the royal family at all times. 1 000 men can hardly be present at once. And remember that the Kingsguard isn't the only ones who protect the king, just his closest body guards. The rest I agree with. The entire Tower of Joy thing is a bit odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost Time Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 That's a lot of complaints, lol. Remember that the entire Tower of Joy situation is still mostly unexplained as are Rhaegar's actions. Everything we know about it so far comes mostly from a fever dream or are rumors by characters that were never even there. And as for Dorne reinforcements, also remember that Dorne at the time were not too happy with the Rhaegar and Lyanna situation. So being called upon to protect his booty call while their own kin is kept far away as basically hostages in KL with his crazy father would make the entire situation worse. You never know what a couple of pissed off Dornishmean with poison daggers might do, especially once they hear Rhaegar is dead along with Elia and the children and here they have the sister of one of the leaders of the rebellion and partial cause for all of their troubles...So I can see why the Tower of Joy was need to know with a very, very, tight circle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springwatch Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 I've heard that square towers can be brought down by digging under the corners - sounds like a lot of work though, and stupidly dangerous. Burying the bodies and marking the graves is good sense - then return a few years later, collect the bones and return them to the family - much better than carrying a rotting corpse about on a long journey. The rest I agree with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoofu Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Believe the issues that rise the most flags is 1. Lyanna was basically bones when she was returned to Winterfell 2. Eddard Stark had time to return Dawn but not Ser Arthur Dayne body 3. His five companions bodies as they were all Lords or Knight, which seems odd to give a common burial 4, Tower of Joy is destroyed by Ned 5. Ashara Dayne supposed suicide but no body found 6. Mystery of Ashara Dayne pregnancy 7. Wylla since she is a wet nurse, so she had a ?unknown baby at least around when Edric Dayne was born, whois 2 years Jr then Snow 8, The only other witness Lord Reed has been quiet on the matter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieVIP Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 I agreed, but I'm positive about the R+L=J theory. We will know the truth when Howland Reed decide to enter the game of thrones or the game of survive against the WW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ygrain Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: The entire Tower of Joy accounts is extremely problematic from start to finish, first of all is the location you would choose to hide Lyanna and the future heir of the Targaryen dynasty, if you are planning to keep her in a safe house in the hopes of evacuating her to Essos in secret, The need to evacuate to Essos arose only after the Trident, and by that time, Lyanna was heavily pregnant which is not really the best condition for transport. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: would not it be better to disguise her as a commoner and hide her in an inconspicuous safehouse with a few guards disguised as smallfolk somewhere, Noble ladies usually don't make good commoners and commoners usually don't own safe houses outside cities. Also, smallfolk don't carry weapons around. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: instead of a tower which attracts a lot of attention. An abandoned watchtower somewhere above a mountain pass doesn't get much attention because virtually no-one has a reason to go there. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Plus why have only 3 men guarding her? Three badass swordsmen are enough to deal with a bunch of rascals, don't draw much attention and are easier to feed than thirty. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Since the tower is in Dorne they surely have the option of calling for more reinforcements to guard the place. Dorne wouldn't be all too happy about having Elia's potential replacement in their backyard, and even if they were, the more people know about a secret, the more likely it is to leak. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Then there is the question of how Ned and his guard was able to enter the tower in the first place, since the people inside there have the option of just shooting at them with arrows to hold them off, and it will be criminally stupid for the KG to not have arrows so that they can shoot at intruders from a very defensible position, but then the entire idea that you only have 3 people to guard Lyanna and the heir of the Targaryen dynasty is in itself criminally stupid. It seems they relied on secrecy as their main defence and that knights don't normally carry bows with them. Also, at the time when they were assigned to the tower, Lyanna's baby wouldn't be an heir. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Plus how did Ned and Howland manage to pull down the tower all by themselves? I mean the tower is made of stone, and must be as large as a pagoda, so 2 men without any equipment other than their bare hands will any be able to pull down that tower, Stone structures tend to have wooden infrastructures. If Ned put the tower to torch, the wood would burn and the structure would be weakened. Either it would collapse by itself, or horses could be used to pull it down. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: wont it be just simply to dig graves beside the tower and then bury them? It seems that ToJ equipment lacked in shovels. Digging eight holes in the ground is even more difficult than pulling down a tower. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Plus what is the deal with Ned not finding a way to bring back Arthur's bones, and the remains of the others who went with him, even if it cannot be done at once, I am sure that he can find a way to talk to the Dornish about exhuming those bodies and bringing them back. Perhaps there is a taboo against disturbing graves? I don't recall reading about any exhumation in the series. 8 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Plus another matter the entire concept Kingsguard itself is extremely ill thought out, I mean the Preatorian Guard during the time of the Roman Empire is composed of 1 legion, that is around 6000 men, and the Varangian Guard during the time of the Byzantines was composed of hundreds of men, so why does the King of Westeros have only 7 people to guard him, plus what is the deal with them being required to serve for life and forced celibacy, that seems to be counterproductive if you want to hire people, more sensible will be the King having his own personal guard of about 1000 men that is funded out of his taxes. They are meant to be personal bodyguards and ultimately loyal, which is easier to arrange in seven people who know their boss rather intimately than in a thousand who get paid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox of House McCloud Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Ygrain covered pretty much all of it, but just to elaborate: the reason the KG can't marry/own landsis so that they have nothing that could interfere with their duty to the King. Nobody who could sway them to act against the King - they have no personal interests besides serving the King. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorian Martell Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 13 hours ago, nicephorus_phocas said: Snip It is supposed to be a mystery. if it was spelled out in the beginning we would know who Jon's parentage is, what the Prince and Lyanna were doing, why the Kingsguard were there and why they fought. So deal with it. Grrm promised that we would get the answers we seek, so as long as he can write, and winds is published this year, we will know sometime around 2021 or 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Yorick Ampersand Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 The Kingsguard are 7 Knights because of the Faith of the Seven. Similar to Bloodriders of the Dothraki they will give their life every aspect of it to protect the King. The faith aspect is why they cant marry or have children. By the time of TOJ Rhaegar and Aerys were already dead and Tywin had taken Kingslanding so there was no army left. The Tower of Joy is a remote place far from unwanted eyes or people who cant be trusted. Lyanna might have been there for almost an year. So it was not a daft idea. The only thing hard to explain is the bringing down of the tower. They might have put it in on fire to hide evidence of what happened. About the bodies I think Ned had more important things to do. He had to protect the baby from Robert and seek help for a believable story about the origin of the baby. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finger Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Allow me to disagree. A watchtower build to guard a pass is not my idea of a hidden place. Some think that Jon wasn't born at ToJ, but in some Dornish castle, and the three KGs had gone to the ToJ to accomplish its function: keeping the pass shut, as much as they could. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ygrain Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 2 hours ago, Rupert Honeybun said: Jesus christ lady are you a lawyer? That's a lot of waffling. Really? Which part failed to get the message across? 20 minutes ago, finger said: Allow me to disagree. A watchtower build to guard a pass is not my idea of a hidden place. The thing with watchtowers is that, in order to see far and wide, they are not built next to a road but way above it. Meaning, people don't normally go there because it is off the road and you have to scramble uphill, just to see an old stone tower with absolutely nothing of interest or importance. All in all, absolutely no reason for anyone to go there when they are travelling along the road and minding their own business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TickTak7 Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Wouldn't taking a small group of men and hiding Lyanna in the middle of nowhere, be a better way of hiding Lyanna, than say.... Hundreds of men trying to hide her in a very public, obvious place? Plus - letting the Dornish know that they were hiding her nearby doesn't really seem like a smart idea if you are trying to hide someone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf's Bane Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 Gosh, Ned was high as a kite on Milk of the Poppy. It's easy to see why his memory is not accurate. We will now have Bran's pov but can you trust the memory of a spoilt and bitter crippled kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springwatch Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 12 hours ago, Ygrain said: The thing with watchtowers is that, in order to see far and wide, they are not built next to a road but way above it. Meaning, people don't normally go there because it is off the road and you have to scramble uphill, just to see an old stone tower with absolutely nothing of interest or importance. All in all, absolutely no reason for anyone to go there when they are travelling along the road and minding their own business. I'd expect watchtowers to be built to watch the road and other approaches, therefore always in plain view and no point in labouring to build it further from the road than need be. And in a remote location, travellers are likely to seek shelter there. No, the ToJ is not a good plan. It's too weak to defend (Ned pulled it down) and it's not secret (Ned found it). As well, the Kingsguard were too few, and too obvious - they're not undercover agents, they're used to solving problems with dazzling swordplay, wearing flashy uniforms. Sooner or later, a passing goat-herd will spot something at the tower and will talk to the gossips in the next town, who all will have heard the sensational news that Prince Rhaegar is hiding somewhere with a lord's daughter. The only decent explanation I can think of for the ToJ is that they were on their way somewhere else, when Lyanna became too ill to travel further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finger Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 9 hours ago, Springwatch said: I'd expect watchtowers to be built to watch the road and other approaches, therefore always in plain view and no point in labouring to build it further from the road than need be. And in a remote location, travellers are likely to seek shelter there. No, the ToJ is not a good plan. It's too weak to defend (Ned pulled it down) and it's not secret (Ned found it). As well, the Kingsguard were too few, and too obvious - they're not undercover agents, they're used to solving problems with dazzling swordplay, wearing flashy uniforms. Sooner or later, a passing goat-herd will spot something at the tower and will talk to the gossips in the next town, who all will have heard the sensational news that Prince Rhaegar is hiding somewhere with a lord's daughter. The only decent explanation I can think of for the ToJ is that they were on their way somewhere else, when Lyanna became too ill to travel further. Unless Lyanna wasn't there. I doubt Howland Reed outfought Arthur Dayne. I guess he said something about Lyanna and her brother Ned, so that Arthur tell her whereabouts, or something of the sort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tugela Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 The simplest answer is that the tower of joy does not exist and was made up by Ned as a cover story to explain Lyanna's fate. There is no way that Ned and Howland Reed could have pulled it down. The tower would have been a fortified keep, presumably with apartments suitable for nobles to stay in. Ned was one man, and Reed was a crannogman, who were small in stature, similar to the children of the forest. and the two of them pulled the tower down? Right. The "pulling the tower down" bit was added so that no one would go looking for it. An existing tower would be findable, a pile of rocks, not so much. Ned did not bring back the bones of the other knights because there were no bones to bring back. In all probability something else was going on, and Ned is helping to cover it up. Lyanna is probably not dead at all, and her "death" was essentially staged so that Robert would not go looking for her. The missing knights are probably still alive as well and protecting her. Why would they go to all of this trouble? Well, one possibility is that Rhaegar might not be dead at all. Perhaps the person wearing his armor at the Trident was really Arthur Dayne. Robert likely would not have known Rhaegar beyond passing, since he was not a member of court. He would have been dancing around with joy on killing Rhaegar, and knowing his character would have immediately begin celebrating and drinking ale. Perhaps a quick lift of the visor to see dead purple eyes and then on to drinking. The book doesn't really say what happened to the body. Targaryens traditionally were burned when they died, and Robert would not have afforded Rhaegar that honor. Perhaps the body was tossed into the Trident as happened with Lady Stark, and we all know what happened to her after that. My guess is that the tower is a fabrication, and that Lyanna (and Ashara) were at Starfall, perhaps with Rhaegar himself. And then they all went into hiding so they could continue to fulfill the prophecy. In Daenerys's visions, she sees Rhaegar talking to a woman about her baby, who is named Aegon. Everyone assumes that the woman is Elia, and the baby her son, but perhaps it is not. It may in fact be Lyanna, and the baby Jon (whose true name is Aegon). Daenerys is described as the "child of three", meaning that she has three parents. Rhaegar, Lyanna and Ashara, who act as Rhaegars sister wives (as well as the "cup of ice" and "cup of fire", respectively). The "Aegon" is the prince that was promised, presumably Daenerys is the first child (and daughter of Ashara). That would mean that the three of them were planning on having a third child as well, to make up the three headed dragon. And the identity of that child is buried even more deeply in the story line than the other two. Jon is the easiest to guess, Daenerys a bit harder, and the third very hard to figure out. The only people who would know all of this, outside of the folk in hiding, are Jon and Howland Reed. Jon is dead, and died without revealing his secret, so now Howland Reed is the only one. And he is floating around in a giant bog in his secret castle. And just coincidentally he was two children, who just coincidently are sent to Winterfell to "help out". Perhaps Meera is the third head of the dragon, and she has her own role to play in the epic battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErasmusF Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 Its a bit hard to swallow that Ned would out and out lie about the ToJ. He had at least 10 horses, and 10 horses can pull down a small tower, no problem, especially if it hasn't been well maintained or the beams have been torched. Presumably, there were vassals in the tower, in addition to Wylla. At least a stableboy, I can't imagine there wouldn't be a squire or two, a cook, and some other various attendants. Probably vassals of Starfall but who knows. They would have just taken orders from whomever held the biggest sword at the time. Who knows how their silence was bought. Or maybe Ned really is a bastard and he killed them all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YOVMO Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 On May 30, 2016 at 6:33 AM, Lost Time said: And as for Dorne reinforcements, also remember that Dorne at the time were not too happy with the Rhaegar and Lyanna situation. So being called upon to protect his booty call while their own kin is kept far away as basically hostages in KL with his crazy father would make the entire situation worse. You never know what a couple of pissed off Dornishmean with poison daggers might do, especially once they hear Rhaegar is dead along with Elia and the children and here they have the sister of one of the leaders of the rebellion and partial cause for all of their troubles...So I can see why the Tower of Joy was need to know with a very, very, tight circle. You would be right about Dorne if one of the guards wasn't the sword of the morning. He was revered in Dorne and I am sure house dayne would have totally surrounded the ToJ if he asked them to., Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tugela Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 1 hour ago, ErasmusF said: Its a bit hard to swallow that Ned would out and out lie about the ToJ. He had at least 10 horses, and 10 horses can pull down a small tower, no problem, especially if it hasn't been well maintained or the beams have been torched. Presumably, there were vassals in the tower, in addition to Wylla. At least a stableboy, I can't imagine there wouldn't be a squire or two, a cook, and some other various attendants. Probably vassals of Starfall but who knows. They would have just taken orders from whomever held the biggest sword at the time. Who knows how their silence was bought. Or maybe Ned really is a bastard and he killed them all. We only have Ned's say so on all of this. If he was lying to protect a greater truth, there would be no dishonor in that and it would be consistent with his character. Certainly he is reluctant to talk about it at all, and that suggests to me that he knows that it is a false story. He only supplies snippets to people to get them to stop talking about it. A tower in the context of what we are talking about (clearly Lyanna had been there for a while, and it had a special name, suggesting that it was a residence) would have been a small castle. Not just a tower, but walls, likely a moat or ditch and certainly supporting buildings with the enclosure. 10 horses or not, there is no way 2 men would be pulling something like that down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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