Heresy Project X+Y=J: Wrap up thread 3

[The Ned's Little Girl]

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Hun keep up with what i'm saying how did she "address" it ? By saying it won't change anything.It doesn't matter if she said cannot or wouldn't.Her mind the greatest power in the world is inconsequential.Ned had a different view...

Therefore,using the arguement that Lyanna was right about Robert is wrong because in the context of his relationship with Cersie love was not a factor when it should have been.Hence the arguements are nil.

Try keeping up yourself, sweetie pie.

4 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

I think you are looking at what Lyanna said absent the variable applied -Love.

I was responding to this. The "variable applied" was not absent. Love (the variable) wouldn't make a difference because love cannot change a man's nature (the constant).

Ned had a different view, yes. His view was that loving Lyanna would cause Robert to change his behavior. Lyanna squashed that notion pretty thoroughly. Robert's behavior was not the problem for her; Robert's nature was the problem.

Robert didn't cheat on Cersei solely because he didn't love her and she didn't love him. Sure they didn't love each other and he cheated on her - but he loved Lyanna and he cheated on her too. Love, either present or absent, doesn't make a difference because it's his nature to never keep to one bed.

 

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

The "whole thing with the brothel" is not a thing.It is a buisness angle.

See below look to Ned.Gendry very well after he found out about Lyanna.

Yeah it is just a story....Bella's own "account" "I might be a king's daughter,they say Robert fucked my mother when he stayed here .He fucked all the girls of course but he liked my mom best" 

Nothing but an angle for buisness.

And a reader would know this how? What reason would a reader have to disbelieve Bella's account? What are the indications from the text that her story should not be taken at face value? Is there any reason to dismiss it other than "because I said so"?

 

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Look to Ned.If such a thing had happened seeing as Ned was the one that basically rescued Robert from said brothel;he'd have something to say other than Robert loved Lyanna which is the point.

His own words dispute this notion that Robert wasn't true to Lyanna.You do see why don't you?

Okay, I'll look to Ned. Did Ned have something to say after he basically rescued Robert from said brothel? What exactly was it that he said?

And if by "his own words" do you mean when Ned, on the night of her betrothal, reassured Lyanna that Robert's behavior would change because of love? Didn't that reassurance (if that is what you meant) happen months - and possibly as long as a year or more - prior to the brothel incident, where Robert was decidedly not true to Lyanna? And didn't Gendry's conception - another instance of Robert not being true to Lyanna - happen around the same time as Robb Stark's conception, therefore months at least later than Ned's reassurance? So (if those are the words you mean by "his own words") are you saying that Ned was reassuring Lyanna about events that hadn't happened yet?

 

[nanother]

@wolfmaid7, @WeaselPie - it's clear that Martin's trying to obfuscate something with his False Spring account, it's frustratingly vague and jumbled. I just fail to see the sense in falsifying Aegon's birth for the sake of it on Martin/Yandel's part. Obviously, that doesn't mean he didn't do it, but ... *shrug* in any case, this is not what's ultimately going to convince me about Rheagar being framed or not.

On 2016. 09. 20. at 3:48 AM, wolfmaid7 said:

First, as to Yandel and the information he put in alot of which will be tailored to the sensitivites to the winning side .In this case the rebels.The information he put in;which is to say that Rhaegar couldn't be found anywhere.He wasn't at home on DS with his new son Aegon (did anyone check? And when did they check?) to confirm this or is he just saying so because Rhaegar didn't appear until the end of the war? Again what altering Aegon's birth ultimately does is put Rhaegar in a place he's less likely to be given Dany's vision.Now we can quibble about whether the author made a mistake or take his word for it concerning the information given by the Maesters.They are unreliable.

Thing is, it might make sense for Martin to go out of his way to cast doubt on Rhaegar's 'alibi'. Not a whole lot of sense, because very few people realise it's an alibi in the first place - I certainly didn't, and this is the first time I've seen this brought up at all. Most people seem to just assume that Martin made a mistake with Aegon's age. As for Yandel - no-one in Westeros even knows of Dany's vision. So from Yandel's PoV there's even less apparent need to mess with the time of Aegon's birth.

On 2016. 09. 20. at 3:48 AM, wolfmaid7 said:

Alot of hearsay is flying around with regard to who wrote what in the WB and under what circumstances info was given.Somebody said GRRM was the one who wrote the False spring section.To me it doesn't matter because what's important is he pointed out that the unreliable narrator is in play.One can look at that,and look at the fact that no one mentions Rhaegar dissing his heavily pregnant wife,or Elia being pregnant at all and say its nothing.Something like that isn't nothing to me.

Agreed on that, and I agree that it's evidence against Aegon being born when Yandel seems to suggest he was born.

On 2016. 09. 20. at 3:48 AM, wolfmaid7 said:

As to Aegon's birth being something that wouldn't go unoticed because its a Royal birth.We have to keep in mind something;people remember what is important for them to remember.What is important depends  on countless things one being peoples motives.No one present at Aegon's birth then,living today is going to remember exactly when Aegon was born.They are going to remember that he was and that was it. Does JonCon know the day? Is Tyrion's estimation of the boys age something subjective,is JonCon noticing anything at all or is internal motivations preventing him from thinking things through?

We have to consider this point when asserting that "people will remember when" the trust in the Maesters history and dates are what they say it is,but it is up to us to see even through their BS.

I'm sure no-one knows, or cares about the exact day. But they might remember when it happened relative to things like 'when that horrible winter returned'/'just before the war started'/'a few months into the war'. Even if it's a small risk, I don't see why Yandel would take it when he can just not mention Aegon at all.

On 2016. 09. 20. at 3:48 AM, wolfmaid7 said:

Was Rhaegar truly missing? If he was then how did his dad know where to find him and how did Jamie know he was in the South?Him missing was and is a matter of perception depending on who you ask no?

I don't know how his dad knew where to find him. Maybe someone told him. Someone always tells. It's not like it's impossible to acquire information about a missing person's location with some combination of effort and luck. And maybe he was seen arriving from the south. Or maybe he told Jaime. Again, I don't know, but there are several ways it could have happened. What I do know is that Jaime says this:

Quote

 

A Feast for Crows - Jaime III

"Cousin. Lord Jon had no brothers."

"No." It all came back to him. Jon Connington had been Prince Rhaegar's friend. When Merryweather failed so dismally to contain Robert's Rebellion and Prince Rhaegar could not be found, Aerys had turned to the next best thing, and raised Connington to the Handship. But the Mad King was always chopping off his Hands. He had chopped Lord Jon after the Battle of the Bells, stripping him of honors, lands, and wealth, and packing him off across the sea to die in exile, where he soon drank himself to death.

 

So yeah, sounds like around (or slightly after) the time of Robert's first victories Rhaegar was indeed missing.

[wolfmaid7]

2 hours ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

Try keeping up yourself, sweetie pie.

I was responding to this. The "variable applied" was not absent. Love (the variable) wouldn't make a difference because love cannot change a man's nature (the constant).

Ned had a different view, yes. His view was that loving Lyanna would cause Robert to change his behavior. Lyanna squashed that notion pretty thoroughly. Robert's behavior was not the problem for her; Robert's nature was the problem.

Robert didn't cheat on Cersei solely because he didn't love her and she didn't love him. Sure they didn't love each other and he cheated on her - but he loved Lyanna and he cheated on her too. Love, either present or absent, doesn't make a difference because it's his nature to never keep to one bed.

 

And a reader would know this how? What reason would a reader have to disbelieve Bella's account? What are the indications from the text that her story should not be taken at face value? Is there any reason to dismiss it other than "because I said so"?

 

Okay, I'll look to Ned. Did Ned have something to say after he basically rescued Robert from said brothel? What exactly was it that he said?

And if by "his own words" do you mean when Ned, on the night of her betrothal, reassured Lyanna that Robert's behavior would change because of love? Didn't that reassurance (if that is what you meant) happen months - and possibly as long as a year or more - prior to the brothel incident, where Robert was decidedly not true to Lyanna? And didn't Gendry's conception - another instance of Robert not being true to Lyanna - happen around the same time as Robb Stark's conception, therefore months at least later than Ned's reassurance? So (if those are the words you mean by "his own words") are you saying that Ned was reassuring Lyanna about events that hadn't happened yet?

 

Ned's Little girl...ummmm no.What ever that is ..No.

You are trying to  validate Bella's "may be" no?

If Robert fucked a brothel full of women or any number of women that lay within while he was hiding, then Ned who rescued him from said brothel would have known.This supposed fucking of brothel women isn't far removed from Ned's rescue where he would have heard about it and asked Robert.Had Robert been shagging women while he was hiding out,It wouldn't have been a secret.Even JonCon's report didn't give that impression.This was something thought up in the brothel.

On the night of the conversation with Lyanna, Ned's pitch was that Robert would love her and thus be true to her.That goes hand in hand for Ned;being true and love.

Lyanna at the point of Robert going to Winter fell had been dead over a decade,Ned wasn't.

What we hear from Ned years after Lyanna died and years after that convo with Lyanna and before the brothel scene was how much Robert loved Lyanna...More than Ned loved her with all his heart.

So no Robert didnt cheat on Lyanna.If he had been untrue at anytime to her Ned would not be thinking Robert loved his sister.His relationship would be way different had he done that.

What reason does the reader have  NOT to take Bella's words on face value? Seriously?

Umm "I might be a King's daughter myself...."They say Robert fucked my mother when he stayed here.He fucked all the girls of course,but he liked my mother best"

I don't think i need to say more.

NLG...Did Robert love Cersie,yes or no? 

Did she love him,yes or no?

No to both...That's all there is to that.My point stands.

Gendry could have been conceived after Robert got word of Lyanna's death you do know that do you?

[Sly Wren]

On September 20, 2016 at 4:20 PM, nanother said:

Well, the whole debate stemmed from Lyanna's 'steely' vs 'flowery' side, that is me making the assumption that 'love of flowers' points towards something soft in her character that perhaps makes her susceptible to romantic feelings, and less rational in general (I think it came from the blue rose=deception thing, whather she would allow herself to be deceived, or something like that).

Ah! Okay--now I get where you are going. My apologies for being hopelessly slow on the uptake.

And I agree that Lyanna must have had an emotional side--we see her be impulsive in Meera's story. And rather forceful in Bran's vision--she even calls Benjen "stupid."

She was obviously further along in her sexual maturity than her niece. And even Arya can be tricked.

Quote

To which, I got the answer that 'nope, because Arya'. Which is a fair point (and obviously, it was expressed in a more elaborate way), but I still think that some degree of duality along these lines will be there when more is revealed about Lyanna (see my answer to Voice).

My apologies for being overly strident and dismissive. That was not my intent. As I say above--Lyanna likely had a romantic and passionate side. And clearly, there's a lot we don't know about Lyanna.

But I do think, still, that Martin's been giving us info on Lyanna's actions and personality via Arya since book one.

• Ned tells us Lyanna's fond of flowers and that Arya is like Lyanna. And Martin also shows us Arya's fondness for flowers in the same book.
• Harwin tells Arya she rides like her Aunt Lyanna right after he stops her almost successful attempt at escaping the men keeping her from her family.
• Meera's tale shows Lyanna acting like Arya--defending friends, misbehaving at dinner--and then shows her sniffle at a song. But Martin's already showed us Arya getting emotional at a song earlier in the same novel.
• And then, in the last book, Bran has a vision of Lyanna (no more second-hand tales) acting a lot like Arya--she even calls Benjen "stupid."

Thus:  whatever Lyanna's romantic nature was, Martin seems to be telling via Arya how Lyanna felt about:

•  flowers
• sad songs,
• and being kept from her family.

No way on earth it's set in stone. But, he's been bringing us back to the subject repeatedly. Maybe the Bearded One is being benevolent and actually giving us information. This bird can only hope.

On September 20, 2016 at 5:15 PM, nanother said:

@VoiceGood point about the pause possibly undermining the substantive nature of the 'fondness'. In any case, it does not undermine the overall importance of that information. I very much doubt Ned was remembering an amusing adventure Lyanna had when he said that.

When you put it like that--I'm thinking it may go back to Ned's finding her dying. Perhaps, like Arya, Lyanna explored for flowers and came back muddy and happy with bouquets for those she loved.

But her dying with a hand full of rose petals--I could see that making such (hypothetical) memories of Lyanna's love of flowers and roses very, very painful. 

[The Ned's Little Girl]

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

If Robert fucked a brothel full of women or any number of women that lay within while he was hiding, then Ned who rescued him from said brothel would have known.This supposed fucking of brothel women isn't far removed from Ned's rescue where he would have heard about it and asked Robert.Had Robert been shagging women while he was hiding out,It wouldn't have been a secret.

You're saying Ned "would have known". You're saying Ned "would have heard about it and asked Robert". What I'm asking is: Did Ned, in fact, know this? Where's your proof that he did?

I don't give a flying fig about what Ned would have known; I only care about what Ned actually knew and what, if anything, he actually said. It's not enough that you simply assert this as a fact; there needs to be some evidence or indication or hint from the books that supports this idea.

 

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

On the night of the conversation with Lyanna, Ned's pitch was that Robert would love her and thus be true to her.That goes hand in hand for Ned;being true and love.

You're still missing the point by a mile. Sure, Ned said it, but that was then. It might have been true at that point in time. That's because the event at the brothel and Gendry's conception were still in the future. Robert may well have been true to Lyanna at that moment, but later on he wasn't.

There's two different things here: Thing 1 is "Ned says". Thing 2 is "Robert does". They are two very different things. Just because Ned said Robert would remain true to Lyanna doesn't mean that Robert did what Ned said. Because he didn't.

 

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

NLG...Did Robert love Cersie,yes or no? 

Did she love him,yes or no?

No to both...That's all there is to that.My point stands.

I already said that Robert and Cersei didn't love each other. What of it? The relationship between Robert and Cersei has zilch to do with the relationship between Robert and Lyanna. Again: they're two different things.

Really, the only thing those two women have in common is that Robert cheated on them both. One he loved, one he didn't love. Made no difference.

 

[The Ned's Little Girl]

Just one more thing:

1 hour ago, wolfmaid7 said:

What reason does the reader have  NOT to take Bella's words on face value? Seriously?

Umm "I might be a King's daughter myself...."They say Robert fucked my mother when he stayed here.He fucked all the girls of course,but he liked my mother best"

I don't think i need to say more.

That is exactly what I am asking. Please show me a reason to disbelieve Bella's story, from the text. A hint, a clue, anything.

Simply quoting what Bella said is hardly reason enough to dismiss her story, I'm afraid.

And, no, you don't need to say more. That is, unless you want your point to remain a baseless assertion that cannot be shown to have any support in the text, in which case it can be readily discarded.

 

[Wall Flower]

34 minutes ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

You're saying Ned "would have known". You're saying Ned "would have heard about it and asked Robert". What I'm asking is: Did Ned, in fact, know this? Where's your proof that he did?

I don't give a flying fig about what Ned would have known; I only care about what Ned actually knew and what, if anything, he actually said. It's not enough that you simply assert this as a fact; there needs to be some evidence or indication or hint from the books that supports this idea.

 

You're still missing the point by a mile. Sure, Ned said it, but that was then. It might have been true at that point in time. That's because the event at the brothel and Gendry's conception were still in the future. Robert may well have been true to Lyanna at that moment, but later on he wasn't.

There's two different things here: Thing 1 is "Ned says". Thing 2 is "Robert does". They are two very different things. Just because Ned said Robert would remain true to Lyanna doesn't mean that Robert did what Ned said. Because he didn't.

 

I already said that Robert and Cersei didn't love each other. What of it? The relationship between Robert and Cersei has zilch to do with the relationship between Robert and Lyanna. Again: they're two different things.

Really, the only thing those two women have in common is that Robert cheated on them both. One he loved, one he didn't love. Made no difference.

 

I think that Lyanna just wasn't buying into the romantic myth that the love for a good woman would somehow change Robert's essential nature (or that of any man).

Having just watched the 'White Queen', a good historical example might be King Edward 1V of England - on whom Robert is probably loosely based. Edward married his beautiful wife for love and historical sources suggest that he continued to love her for the remainder of their marriage. The couple had ten children, indicating an active sex life.  Despite this, Edward was consistently unfaithful because that was his nature. This was the middle ages and the onus was on the wife to accept her husband's infidelity, not on the husband to change his behaviour.

In any case, the conversation with Ned always strikes me as a bit one-sided. Robert will love her, Robert will change, etc, but little about Lyanna's own feelings. Lyanna is no Cersei but there's also no guarantee of her being the always smiling, always loving, always sexual willing wife of Robert's imagining.

 

[Ygrain]

14 hours ago, The Ned's Little Girl said:

And a reader would know this how? What reason would a reader have to disbelieve Bella's account? What are the indications from the text that her story should not be taken at face value? Is there any reason to dismiss it other than "because I said so"?

And especially: why did GRRM include Bella's account in the first place? Why did he include a piece of information that confirms Lyanna's misgivings about Robert - instead of, say, Robert and Lyanna going hunting together, doing some funny mischief in the Vale together, anything?

[wolfmaid7]

On 9/22/2016 at 3:37 PM, nanother said:

@wolfmaid7, @WeaselPie - it's clear that Martin's trying to obfuscate something with his False Spring account, it's frustratingly vague and jumbled. I just fail to see the sense in falsifying Aegon's birth for the sake of it on Martin/Yandel's part. Obviously, that doesn't mean he didn't do it, but ... *shrug* in any case, this is not what's ultimately going to convince me about Rheagar being framed or not.

Thing is, it might make sense for Martin to go out of his way to cast doubt on Rhaegar's 'alibi'. Not a whole lot of sense, because very few people realise it's an alibi in the first place - I certainly didn't, and this is the first time I've seen this brought up at all. Most people seem to just assume that Martin made a mistake with Aegon's age. As for Yandel - no-one in Westeros even knows of Dany's vision. So from Yandel's PoV there's even less apparent need to mess with the time of Aegon's birth.

Agreed on that, and I agree that it's evidence against Aegon being born when Yandel seems to suggest he was born.

I'm sure no-one knows, or cares about the exact day. But they might remember when it happened relative to things like 'when that horrible winter returned'/'just before the war started'/'a few months into the war'. Even if it's a small risk, I don't see why Yandel would take it when he can just not mention Aegon at all.

I don't know how his dad knew where to find him. Maybe someone told him. Someone always tells. It's not like it's impossible to acquire information about a missing person's location with some combination of effort and luck. And maybe he was seen arriving from the south. Or maybe he told Jaime. Again, I don't know, but there are several ways it could have happened. What I do know is that Jaime says this:

So yeah, sounds like around (or slightly after) the time of Robert's first victories Rhaegar was indeed missing.

Its either,GRRM's wrong,the WB is wrong and GRRM is correct in ssm,or GRRM is re-enforcing what he said about the WB.It is unreliable because the info is faulty on account of simple human error of not knowing the fact.Faulty because it was intentionally skiewed.That's pretty much what i was saying.I was asked why Yandel would fabricate Aegon's age.I answered.He may not have even known Aegon's age,or as i said changing Aegon's age makes it possible to lie about him being somewhere else and not home.

I think the vision is a clue that we the readers could identify and one that is for Dany's benefit regarding who she is.She is the daughter of the Dragon and Rhaegar was the Dragon.The thing is "Rhegar couldn't be found on DS" and the issue i have with this is that language like this creates the impression that all someone needed to do was call Dragonstone and ask if Rhaegar is there.

The next problem is which came first? "Rhaegar couldn;t be found on DS with his young son Aegon"Okay,who was looking for him and why? You had to be looking for him to determine he wasn't there,so why were they looking for him.Maybe they weren't and that was BS.

Yeah but what regular person is going to make note of that.As i said is the Mid-wife helping the Maester going to make note of the day?No all anyone is going to say is "he was born in winter"

Rhaegar ,could have been gatheing men to fight.He could have gotten word that the Stark girl's missing and he was suspect numero uno.

On 9/22/2016 at 5:30 PM, The Ned's Little Girl said:

You're saying Ned "would have known". You're saying Ned "would have heard about it and asked Robert". What I'm asking is: Did Ned, in fact, know this? Where's your proof that he did?

I don't give a flying fig about what Ned would have known; I only care about what Ned actually knew and what, if anything, he actually said. It's not enough that you simply assert this as a fact; there needs to be some evidence or indication or hint from the books that supports this idea.

 

You're still missing the point by a mile. Sure, Ned said it, but that was then. It might have been true at that point in time. That's because the event at the brothel and Gendry's conception were still in the future. Robert may well have been true to Lyanna at that moment, but later on he wasn't.

There's two different things here: Thing 1 is "Ned says". Thing 2 is "Robert does". They are two very different things. Just because Ned said Robert would remain true to Lyanna doesn't mean that Robert did what Ned said. Because he didn't.

 

I already said that Robert and Cersei didn't love each other. What of it? The relationship between Robert and Cersei has zilch to do with the relationship between Robert and Lyanna. Again: they're two different things.

Really, the only thing those two women have in common is that Robert cheated on them both. One he loved, one he didn't love. Made no difference.

 

@The Ned's Little Girl ofcourse Ned would have known. He didn't arrive 3 months after.He rescued Robert's ass.Who was injured by the way the likelihood of tounges wagging about him fucking a brothel filled with women while in hiding not being talked about that day.Shite that would be stuff of legends.So indication is how amazing that feat would have been for Robert and the time of Ned's arrival in relation to this amazing gusto.

Sigh you are still 'in the sleep of Kongo" that is to say severaly missing it.You are giving weight to 

On 9/22/2016 at 5:57 PM, The Ned's Little Girl said:

Just one more thing:

That is exactly what I am asking. Please show me a reason to disbelieve Bella's story, from the text. A hint, a clue, anything.

Simply quoting what Bella said is hardly reason enough to dismiss her story, I'm afraid.

And, no, you don't need to say more. That is, unless you want your point to remain a baseless assertion that cannot be shown to have any support in the text, in which case it can be readily discarded.

 

Are you SERIOUS?

The girl is saying that she doesn't know if what was said about Robert back then and her being his daughter is the truth.It is Hearsay a rumour.She is repeating a rumour and achknowledging that it is something people are just saying. She's "Trumping it" 

The purpose of utilizing narrative hearsay in this instance is to indicate how characters think about the subject.In this case Robert. Indicated by the story

"Who's a highborn lady? The little skinny one?" She looked at Arya and laughed. "I'm a king's daughter myself."
Arya knew she was being mocked. "You are not."
"Well, I might be." When the girl shrugged, her gown slipped off one shoulder. "They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle. Not that he didn't have all the other girls too, but Leslyn says he liked my ma the best."

Come one now,@The Ned's Little girl,The peach produced a girl with black hair form some dude who visited the brothel before the battle and they thought "chi ching" ."

Let's say she's Robert's everybody know he likes the brothels so it won't be a hard sell."

Robert's reputation later on spawned this rumour,and Gendry...Again concieved after Robert got the news that Lyanna was dead.

[JNR]

4 hours ago, Ygrain said:

why did GRRM include Bella's account in the first place? Why did he include a piece of information that confirms Lyanna's misgivings about Robert - instead of, say, Robert and Lyanna going hunting together, doing some funny mischief in the Vale together, anything?

In my opinion, to confirm Lyanna's extrapolation of Robert's nature as a probable cheat.

But that's all it was, on the night Lyanna became betrothed to Robert -- long before Bella would have been conceived -- an extrapolation.

Look at her case. It was: "I think Robert will cheat.  As evidence, I cite his bastard in the Vale."

But she doesn't mention a thing about brothels, sixteen bastards, or Robert being a man-whore who will sleep with anything that moves.  Why not?  ...since that would support her case?  Almost certainly because Lyanna simply did not have any such information on the night she became betrothed.

And if she was like Catelyn, and she could just shrug off a bastard as irrelevant, why would she cite Robert's bastard as her sole piece of evidence about Robert's problematic nature?  

Almost certainly because Lyanna did not shrug off the bastard, did not consider her irrelevant.  Lyanna saw the bastard as a red flag.

But it takes real mental gymnastics to think she would have looked at married Rhaegar, with his responsibilities as father... Rhaegar, saying "Let's elope and get married, you can be my second wife, and I'll just abandon my wife and my children for months and months in a row, and we'll have lots of sex... and hey, if my wife objects, or my dad the king objects, or Dorne objects... well, fuck 'em."

...and she would have seen that guy as some sort of morally superior alternative to Robert.  Give me a break, folks.  She wasn't retarded; she had a good head on her shoulders. 

If she could extrapolate good odds that Robert-as-husband would be problematic down the road, she could surely have seen the far larger problems associated with Rhaegar.

The best answer to this I've seen is simply: "Rhaegar and Lyanna lost their minds because they were in love."  But the same folks who believe that also seem to believe Rhaegar and Lyanna carefully planned an elopement with a wedding ceremony on the Isle of Faces... where a septon was prearranged to be present... they then went to a prepared love nest, etc, etc.   Seems an unapologetic contradiction of the whole they-lost-their-minds angle, and makes me wonder if it's the fans who have lost their minds.

[SFDanny]

On September 21, 2016 at 4:47 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

Nooooo.It is canon some characters "believe" Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna.Just as its canon some believe Rhaegar kidnapped and raped her.

Let's not get too cute by half here. You are arguing the "kidnapping" or "running off together" did not happen. That Rhaegar was framed. We are not just discussing which view of the event - Robert's or the Targaryen's is more accurate - or even that there might be a different view altogether. You are saying it is not "canon" that Rhaegar and Lyanna went away together, by force or by consent, and that is just wrong. The books tell us clearly they did go off together. That is canon. If you want to argue that is not the truth, that is, of course, fine. But you have to provide more to back up the assertion than the assertion itself. So far, all I see are tortured readings of the text and assertions made up out of thin air.

[Kingmonkey]

On 22/09/2016 at 4:31 PM, wolfmaid7 said:

Okay barring what i think about Lyanna and Robert...Kingmonkey Lyanna wasn't right though.I think you are looking at what Lyanna said absent the variable applied -Love.

Of course you're absolutely right that we cannot say that love would not have changed Robert's nature. What might have happened had the marriage between the two gone ahead can only ever be speculation. 

However, there are two claims implied by Lyanna's dialogue.

1. Robert's nature is to never keep to one bed.

2. Love will not change Robert's nature.

Absent that "love", I agree we cannot say that Lyanna was right about number 2. However 16 bastards say she was indeed right about number 1. The context of Ned remembering this conversation is his visit to a brothel to see one of Robert's many bastards. Clearly in Ned's mind, he thinks that Lyanna's judgement of Robert was correct. 

Robert's nature WAS to never stick to one bed, and that is what Lyanna objected to.

We can also say that whether Lyanna was correct or not in her assertion that love would not change Robert, it is what she believed, and she said it for a reason. That assertion, right or wrong, tells us something important. If Lyanna did believe that love could change a man's nature, then she could accept the idea that Robert would change and start to keep to one bed. Believing that love could not change a man's nature, coupled with the belief that Robert would not stick to one bed, tells us that she believes Robert would have cheated on her.

That was her problem with Robert. She was convinced that he would cheat on her. So to apply this to the Rhaegar situation, we must assume that Lyanna would be convinced that Rhaegar would cheat on her. That she believed Rhaegar's nature was to never stick to one bed, regardless of whether or not he fell in love.

Therein lies the problem. Why on earth would Lyanna be of the opinion that Rhaegar would never stick to one bed? There is nothing that we've heard about Rhaegar that would suggest this.

Never is a judgement about the future. It indicates a continuity of the negation. The fact that someone has done something once hardly demonstrates that they will continue to do it forever. That Rhaegar would have had to cheat on (or leave) Elia to be with Lyanna does not imply that he would in future cheat on Lyanna. It does not imply it was in Rhaegar's nature to hop from bed to bed. 

 

[LynnS]

Where in the books does it say 'the dish ran away with the spoon?'  All I've got is hearsay, rumor and speculation by those repeating a story they heard.  Where are the witnesses?  I get no joy from the towering World Book:

 

So, unless you want to be as oblivious as Cersei, it might be worth taking the very deep dive, so long as you keep in mind that The World shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel. The book is written from the viewpoint of a maester at the Citadel, one who hopes to pass its knowledge on to someone sitting on the Iron Throne. As such, the author may have ... rearranged events to suit the interests of a particular royal family. “So who knows if it’s really true or not!” Martin chuckled. Furthermore, the maester’s knowledge comes from other scrolls that, in turn, may be unreliable. The narrative unreliability is reminiscent of Westeros’s first tell-all author, the court jester Mushroom, who claims intimate knowledge of various Targaryen bedroom secrets. “And he may be making up a lot of this shit,” Martin said. “That possibility is there, because he’s an old guy telling tales, and embroidering them, making them more sexual, suggestive, and violent.” Martin likens Mushroom to Suetonius, “the great gossip of ancient Rome,”  GRRM 

 

[SFDanny]

1 hour ago, Kingmonkey said:

Of course you're absolutely right that we cannot say that love would not have changed Robert's nature. What might have happened had the marriage between the two gone ahead can only ever be speculation. 

However, there are two claims implied by Lyanna's dialogue.

1. Robert's nature is to never keep to one bed.

2. Love will not change Robert's nature.

Absent that "love", I agree we cannot say that Lyanna was right about number 2. However 16 bastards say she was indeed right about number 1. The context of Ned remembering this conversation is his visit to a brothel to see one of Robert's many bastards. Clearly in Ned's mind, he thinks that Lyanna's judgement of Robert was correct. 

Robert's nature WAS to never stick to one bed, and that is what Lyanna objected to.

We can also say that whether Lyanna was correct or not in her assertion that love would not change Robert, it is what she believed, and she said it for a reason. That assertion, right or wrong, tells us something important. If Lyanna did believe that love could change a man's nature, then she could accept the idea that Robert would change and start to keep to one bed. Believing that love could not change a man's nature, coupled with the belief that Robert would not stick to one bed, tells us that she believes Robert would have cheated on her.

That was her problem with Robert. She was convinced that he would cheat on her. So to apply this to the Rhaegar situation, we must assume that Lyanna would be convinced that Rhaegar would cheat on her. That she believed Rhaegar's nature was to never stick to one bed, regardless of whether or not he fell in love.

Therein lies the problem. Why on earth would Lyanna be of the opinion that Rhaegar would never stick to one bed? There is nothing that we've heard about Rhaegar that would suggest this.

Never is a judgement about the future. It indicates a continuity of the negation. The fact that someone has done something once hardly demonstrates that they will continue to do it forever. That Rhaegar would have had to cheat on (or leave) Elia to be with Lyanna does not imply that he would in future cheat on Lyanna. It does not imply it was in Rhaegar's nature to hop from bed to bed. 

 

There is something else going on here as well. Ned is trying to convince his sister that Robert's love for her is what matters, not what he did before. And her response is that love won't change his nature. Not that her love for Robert is incapable of changing his nature. Because she doesn't even consider that possibility. Why? Because she exhibits no love for Robert. There is no sadness for her love not being able to change the man, only about Robert's love for her not being able to change himself. He will continue to sleep with others, no matter how much he professes love for her. Bella and Gendry prove her right.

[Kingmonkey]

22 hours ago, Voice said:

These long quotes don't want to behave for me.

It was so much nicer when we could edit the source for replies and insert a "[/quote]" where needed. The updated board software is a big step backwards, unfortunately. 

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And yet, Rhaegar's research led him to conclude that it was Aegon.

He never changed his mind about that in my copy of the books.

All true. However GRRM presents us with a mystery as to what Rhaegar was doing after the birth of Aegon. That mystery invites speculation.

Did Rhaegar believe that Aegon was the promised Saviour, and then abandon him to shack up with a northern floozy, just for kicks? This seems out of character for the man as he has been presented, a man convinced of the importance of prophecy and burdened by a sense of duty. Thus we are lead to speculate that there might have been some other reason for Rhaegar's absence, something more compatible with what we believe we know about his character.

Yet, as you say, there is nothing there in black and white in the books to elucidate the situation. Of course, if there was, then there wouldn't be a mystery. As GRRM has given us a mystery, by necessity he cannot have told us what was going on.

 

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= A messiah.

I do not want to turn this into a theological debate, but I think it is safe to say that our author is skeptical of that brand of duty.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have his characters go that route. It is that very path we see Stannis going down. We can even say that it appears to be something of a family weakness for Targs. Egg's actions at Summerhall, the great tragedy that almost wrecked House Targaryen, appears to have been caused by Egg's sense of duty getting the better of him in a rather similar fashion. There are also pretty clear hints of the dangers of a messiah complex in Dany's story.

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But then, absence of emotion is not the only quandary that nags at me. There is also the absence of thought.

Jon Snow is very much alive, and would be a living reminder that Rhaegar had abducted/raped/loved Lyanna.

Surely that would apply in the case of ANY parentage issue? We simply don't get anything from Ned's thoughts about Jon Snow's parents. Obviously it would be rather awkward if we did, as that would make it hard for GRRM to keep it a mystery.

There is the oddity of Ned's "for the first time in years", but as I showed in the essay, that's simply not true. It may have been the first time that Ned had given serious thought to Rhaegar's nature as a man, but it's not the first time in years that Ned had thought of Rhaegar, it's only the first time in that chapter.

We see Ned thinking of Rhaegar in Eddard 1, Eddard 2, Eddard 7 and Eddard 8 before that "for the first time in years he found himself remembering Rhaegar" line in Eddard 9. That's just the times we get to see. Clearly Rhaegar is not nearly that absent from Eddard's thoughts. However Eddard seems extraordinarily circumspect even in his own head. Robert lives in the past. Eddard tries to avoid it.

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Ned's forgettable, blasé regard for Rhaegar Targaryen is difficult to reconcile with the notion that he raised the man's son. 

I'd say Ned's forgettable, blasé regard for Aerys Targaryen is equally difficult to reconcile with the notion that the man killed his brother and father, and thus caused him to end up as Lord of Winterfell and husband to Catelyn. Just as much a constant reminder.

Ned regrets his OWN mistakes. He thinks again and again of the promises he's made, the lies he's had to tell to keep them, and of promises broken. The faces of the 3KG burn brightly in his memory. The mistakes and sins of others, he seems to leave rather easily in the past. 

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But you will of course understand if I am hesitant to hang my Niners cap on possibilities, when there is a canonical hat rack.

Possibility:  the prince that was promised is a warrior

Canon:  Aegon was Rhaegar's prince that was promised

It is canon that azor ahai is a warrior. It is canon that it is often understood that azor ahai and tptwp are the same thing. It is canon that tptwp is a hero that is supposed to arise to rescue the world during the "war for the dawn", and generally wars need warriors. It is canon that Rhaegar at one time believed himself to be tptwp. It is canon that Rhaegar read something in the scrolls that made him believe he must be a warrior.

It's not exactly huge leaps, is it? 

It is canon that Aegon was Rhaegar's prince that was promised at one time.

It is also canon that Rhaegar was Rhaegar's prince that was promised at one time.

It is canon that Rhaegar abandoned Aegon shortly after Aegon's birth to go and do other things. 

We must wonder why, if Rhaegar was convinced that the world would fall if Aegon fell, he thought there were other more important things to be doing than looking after Aegon.

We do not have a canon explanation for Rhaegar's actions, post the claim that Aegon was tptwp. In that there is no canon hat rack to deposit your cap on, so we have no choice but speculation. That Rhaegar appears to have been focused on the tptwp prophecies, and that he seems to behaved as if Aegon was not that important after all makes the speculation that he changed his mind a second time very reasonable speculation. If you're going to hang your cap somewhere, and have only speculation as to where the hat rack might stand, reasonable speculation is the best you can expect.

 

 

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Of course, as a dutiful husband, he would already be low on my list of possibilities, because we know that Lyanna was betrothed and less than fond of the idea of becoming one more girl in the Vale with a bastard in her belly.

Sure. And that could point to Lyanna not being enthusiastic about the idea. Which might lead us to believe the rape story. Could Rhaegar, who everyone believes to be the shining beacon of nobility, have been driven to tragic and horrible action by an obsession with prophecy? Might his death be mirrored by his birth in that very respect? I'd say that's a distinct possibility, though I'm unhappy with how that fits in with Rhaegar's "tower of joy".

Alternatively, maybe it points to Lyanna not seeing herself in the role of the "girl in the vale", but rather sees Elia being in that role. That only leaves us with having to believe that Lyanna did not think that Rheagar shared Robert's nature. As everything we have know about Rhaegar paints him as being a very different person to Robert, that's hardly a big ask.

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Rhaegar died a fool. It is up to us to decide if he was a fool for love, or a fool for stories. Considering his fondness for books and songs, I'm leaning toward the latter.

I tend to agree, though I certainly wouldn't exclude the possibility of either, or indeed both.

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So yeah, I'm going to double down on this one, and proclaim for all here to see that it was just as likely that the owner of the song of ice and fire is a harpist, as it is that the owner of the song of ice and fire is a warrior.

I would say that's a real possibility. However we do know that Rhaegar's martial interests were something he considered a necessity that he pursued reluctantly after finding something in the scrolls. That's canon. We have no such canon regarding his decision to learn the harp. On the contrary, we are given the impression that the harp was Rhaegar's passion, not something he took up reluctantly because he felt that he must.

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But if MMD's tent provides the answer, then truly Aemon is correct and Dany is tptwp.

I'd say that's quite likely. Aemon believed that they had been in error all these years, that the prince could be a princess. Thus he came to believe that for all his study, Rhaegar was wrong about the identity of tptwp.

My Puppets of Fire and Ice essay shows that the events of MMD's tent are echoed repeatedly throughout the books (and in the Dunc & Egg books). Some echoes are strong, some weak. The ToJ appears to have been one of the strongest of the echoes. There is a fundamental theme to this pattern, which is the hatching of dragons from an egg. This certainly reaches its magical ultimate in Dany's story, but is mirrored elsewhere. Given the strength of the associations between the ToJ and MMD's tent I think it's a quite reasonable theory that ToJ included one more attempt to hatch a dragon. 

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But still, rather than be from a house escaping the oppression of a higher lord (House Lannister > House Westerling), and finding sanctuary with a rebel that would end that oppression, Lyanna would have been sleeping with the very enemy that was at that very moment oppressing her house (the roast of Brandon, Rickard's tight collar, and Ned's war).

That's not really what happened in the case of the Westerlings. They were fighting on the side of the Lannisters, as they had for years. Gawen Westerling was captured by the Starks at the Whispering Wood. Robb's men attacked and laid siege to the Crag, seat of house Westerling. After victory over the Westerlings, Robb was injured and Jayne Westerling tended to his wounds. At this time they fell in love. 

Jayne Westerling was sleeping with the very enemy that was at that very moment oppressing her house (by having conquered it). 

So those Verona moments can happen.

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Unless Lyanna did not mind slights made upon the honor of the north, then I find it hard to believe she would have ran away with the heir of the house that was the cause of them.

What slights on the honour of the North are you referring to? At this stage, the only theoretical slight is that Rhaegar wanted to run away with Lyanna. I don't think it makes much sense to propose that Lyanna would consider the fact that someone wanted to elope with her as an insult that would make it impossible for her to elope with him even if she wanted to. Would she only be prepared to elope with someone who didn't want to elope with her? That's very Grouch Marx.

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But I also read these essays and can't help but marvel at the amount of time explaining the validity of the male's response to Lyanna (regardless of who it is), and the lack of time spent explaining how Lyanna's actions fit with the character, beliefs, opinions, and ambitions we actually do know were her own.

We would all like more information (not to mention another book), so then why neglect the precious few passages we actually have? Why rationalize them to fit our rationale? Why not take her at her word, and begin from there?

As I said before, if there's more concentration on what we know of Rhaegar (or other potential fathers) then it's largely because we have far more information about Rhaegar. However that doesn't mean that those precious few passages are neglected. If you read the RLJ essay I wrote for this series, you'll note that I approach the parenthood question by starting with Lyanna and then going on to see who best fits her story. If there is anything in there where you feel I have rationalised what she said rather than taking her at her word, then please point it out and I will be happy to try to explain it.

However this is a good angle for a bit of exploration. Here's something we know about Lyanna, which needs surely to be taken into consideration:

How did Lyanna's "wolf blood" bring her to an early grave? We've been told how Brandon's did, but for this to apply to Lyanna as well, there must have been some action of Lyanna's that helped lead to her death. 

To my mind, this is evidence against the rape hypothesis. Lyanna as victim could still work if there was something she'd done prior to her abduction that placed her in danger, but it seems to imply some agency in what took place. Perhaps it harks back to her becoming the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and attracting Targ attention in her direction. Perhaps it indicates that she went willingly with Rhaegar. 

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No, not at all. But if Lyanna of all people was Rhaegar's choice to be the surrogate for tptwp, it was one that raised those risks greatly. Not only before and during pregnancy, but afterwards.

Afterwards, sure. During, not really. She's 15. That's young by our standards, but common practice in Westeros. 

As to the afterwards, that would suggest that Rhaegar had some good reason for picking Lyanna. If Rhaegar believed it was necessary, then he may have believed the risks worth taking.

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I didn't say forbidden. Only queer.

Well within the range of normal. That a 12 or 13 year old girl might have been considered a little young but acceptable makes it all the more likely that a 15 year old girl would not be considered untoward. 

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But in my copy of the books, Rhaegar was quite certain.

...that he himself was tptpwp. Yes, mine too. 

 

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What's to stop him from rising from Lyanna's bed of blood, and saying to the window, "There must be one more..." ?

Absolutely nothing, but let's consider the alternative. If he is convinced that the world can only be saved by him doing a particular thing, is he going to say to himself "Nah, I changed my mind before, I might change my mind again. Better not bother doing that thing that I think is the only way the world can be saved, just in case it turns out I was wrong" ?

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I am merely pointing out that it requires a somewhat biased interpretation of Lyanna's "keep to one bed" statement. If we take Lyanna at her word, it is difficult to see how she would approve of distracting Rhaegar from his wife and children at the age of 14.

Until you notice the "never" that keeps being omitted from that statement, you'll go on having trouble understanding this. Lyanna did not object to someone who doesn't keep to one bed. She objected to someone who she believed would NEVER keep to one bed. 

No biased interpretation is necessary. Only one that includes all the words that Lyanna said, rather than omitting one very important one that fundamentally changes the meaning of what she said if you exclude it.

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But of course, at least Elia & Ashara's background gives us reason to see it as a possibility, unlike Robert & Lyanna's.

You know for someone who's been complaining about a lack of regard for the female view and the necessity of canon reinforcement, you're basing an awful lot on a relationship that has literally zero canon reinforcement and is essentially "Ashara would be a more likely partner for Rhaegar 'cos she was hotter, and besides, all Dornish women are up for it."

 

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Indeed. But isn't that what Robert did?

"leave one bed, and then keep to the next"? No. He never kept to one bed. He would swear undying love and then forget them by nightfall. He has 16 bastards by possibly as many as 15 different mothers, and no doubt many, many sexual encounters that did not produce offspring.

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She may have been fine with serial monogamy, but again, that isn't what she said.

No, she didn't outright specify that serial monogamy was fine, but then nor did she say anything to contradict it. Remember the word "never"? So that leaves us with no opinion from Lyanna on the subject of serial monogamy. However as it's pretty much standard in Westeros that noble men would sleep around a bit before marriage, it is the more reasonable assumption that Lyanna was not objecting to that. Without evidence to the contrary we should assume that Lyanna's opinions were not radically different to the norms of the society she lived in. 

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To make a child-woman break a marriage pact is not an act of kindness in Westerosi society. While Rhaegar himself might have been in love, the act itself is not loving.

Sure, but that still does not make it misogyny. Misogyny is about motivations driven by a hatred of women. It's not about an unkind or thoughtless act towards a woman motivated by a love for that woman. 

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And no, Lyanna is not getting younger and younger. She was 13-14 at the time of the tourney/abduction/runaway.

Yet 15 by the time she became pregnant. Maybe Rhaegar wasn't so irresponsible after all, then?

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And again, this reasoning fails to account for Lyanna's own character and convictions, as well as her betrothal to Robert Baratheon and the sanctity of betrothal in Westerosi culture (see the maneuvering and posturing required in order for the small council to annul Joffrey's betrothal to Sansa, and replace it with a betrothal to Margaery . . . no such precautions were made to annul Lyanna's betrothal to Robert).

On the contrary. The one single opinion of Lyanna's that we have is that she did not want to marry Robert. Perhaps the wolf-blooded young woman acted on her convictions?

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Perhaps in your essay, but you seem to have forgotten that you've repeatedly justified Rhaegar's abandonment of Elia and his sequestering/bedding of Lyanna by proposing that he may have fallen in true love for the first time in his life.

To clarify, I never attempted to justify Rhaegar's actions. I am only discussing how he may have justified them to himself. Nor have I used true love as anything other than a possibility that should not be excluded, as other people brought it up here. I studiously avoided the question of love in the actual essay.

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It's a great debate to have, and, as ever, I appreciate you actually having it. That demonstrates strength in my book. Too often disbelief or skepticism on certain points of R+L=J is mocked, and you do not do that. And if you do poke fun, it is good humored. 

Absolutely. The banter is half the fun, and I appreciate both the fascinating debates we have and the fact that you give as good as you get in the same good-humoured manner.

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But yes, I fear we have not made much progress on the "keep to one bed" issue. And if George publishes R+L=J for true in our lifetimes, I will buy any bridges you still have for sale.

I better start stocking up on bridges...

[Sly Wren]

3 hours ago, SFDanny said:

 You are saying it is not "canon" that Rhaegar and Lyanna went away together, by force or by consent, and that is just wrong. The books tell us clearly they did go off together. That is canon.

Perhaps the question isn't "canon" or not, but "what characters in-world believe."

The majority of characters in-world (whose perspectives we get) believe that Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna, one way or another. But the author has not confirmed that the characters (including the World Book's maester) are right. 

Would that be a fair assessment?

3 hours ago, SFDanny said:

If you want to argue that is not the truth, that is, of course, fine. But you have to provide more to back up the assertion than the assertion itself. So far, all I see are tortured readings of the text and assertions made up out of thin air.

We're all making assertions based on some speculation.

But so far, it's not "thin air" that we have no account of Lyanna's disappearance, right? Or that Martin's given us loads of reason and precedent to doubt unconfirmed events--especially when it comes to what started a rebellion.

Or that Martin's taken a lot of time showing us that Tywin (and Rhaegar) had motive to start that Rebellion to de-throne Aerys. And show us that Tywin has a history of using others' rebellions to rid himself of enemies. And that in the current books, Tywin does use others' grievances to get rid of enemies. And that he had people at the time of Robert's Rebellion with a grudge against the Starks that he could use for such a thing.

One way or another--there's reason to be at least a bit skeptical until we get a confirmation. . . . as we only got confirmation on who actually killed Jon Arryn at the Moon Door. And most characters in world are completely unaware of that "truth."

[Sly Wren]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Where in the books does it say 'the dish ran away with the spoon?'  All I've got is hearsay, rumor and speculation by those repeating a story they heard.  Where are the witnesses?  I get no joy from the towering World Book:

 

So, unless you want to be as oblivious as Cersei, it might be worth taking the very deep dive, so long as you keep in mind that The World shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel. The book is written from the viewpoint of a maester at the Citadel, one who hopes to pass its knowledge on to someone sitting on the Iron Throne. As such, the author may have ... rearranged events to suit the interests of a particular royal family. “So who knows if it’s really true or not!” Martin chuckled. Furthermore, the maester’s knowledge comes from other scrolls that, in turn, may be unreliable. The narrative unreliability is reminiscent of Westeros’s first tell-all author, the court jester Mushroom, who claims intimate knowledge of various Targaryen bedroom secrets. “And he may be making up a lot of this shit,” Martin said. “That possibility is there, because he’s an old guy telling tales, and embroidering them, making them more sexual, suggestive, and violent.” Martin likens Mushroom to Suetonius, “the great gossip of ancient Rome,”  GRRM 

 

He really does like messing with us at times (grumble, grumble.)

[Sly Wren]

2 hours ago, SFDanny said:

There is something else going on here as well. Ned is trying to convince his sister that Robert's love for her is what matters, not what he did before. And her response is that love won't change his nature.

Agreed. Or "a man's" nature--any given man, in her mind, can't be changed by love.

2 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Not that her love for Robert is incapable of changing his nature. Because she doesn't even consider that possibility. Why? Because she exhibits no love for Robert.

Maybe--but if that were so, why extrapolate to all men? Or are you assuming that Robert's failure via fathering a child has left her so disappointed and jaded that she's done with men?

Or do you think she's assuming Robert won't change his ways based on what she's already seen of other men?

[wolfmaid7]

9 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Let's not get too cute by half here. You are arguing the "kidnapping" or "running off together" did not happen. That Rhaegar was framed. We are not just discussing which view of the event - Robert's or the Targaryen's is more accurate - or even that there might be a different view altogether. You are saying it is not "canon" that Rhaegar and Lyanna went away together, by force or by consent, and that is just wrong. The books tell us clearly they did go off together. That is canon. If you want to argue that is not the truth, that is, of course, fine. But you have to provide more to back up the assertion than the assertion itself. So far, all I see are tortured readings of the text and assertions made up out of thin air.

SFDanny your wrong about this my dear...There are characters in the story that tell us Rhaegar kidnapped and raped Lyanna. NO character said,not one said "they" ran off together.Between the lines there may be some characters believing that yes. But you are confusing what the books say to what characters in the story believe. It is canon that Ned called Jon his son,it is canon that characters in the story believe Ned to be Jon Snow's father....There are hints in the books that lead us to believe what was stated by Ned and what people believe isn't true.Or are you saying that Ned is in fact Jon's dad?

Likewise people believe Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna,people may believe they ran off together there are hints that say neither view is correct.

9 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

Of course you're absolutely right that we cannot say that love would not have changed Robert's nature. What might have happened had the marriage between the two gone ahead can only ever be speculation. 

However, there are two claims implied by Lyanna's dialogue.

1. Robert's nature is to never keep to one bed.

2. Love will not change Robert's nature.

Absent that "love", I agree we cannot say that Lyanna was right about number 2. However 16 bastards say she was indeed right about number 1. The context of Ned remembering this conversation is his visit to a brothel to see one of Robert's many bastards. Clearly in Ned's mind, he thinks that Lyanna's judgement of Robert was correct. 

Robert's nature WAS to never stick to one bed, and that is what Lyanna objected to.

We can also say that whether Lyanna was correct or not in her assertion that love would not change Robert, it is what she believed, and she said it for a reason. That assertion, right or wrong, tells us something important. If Lyanna did believe that love could change a man's nature, then she could accept the idea that Robert would change and start to keep to one bed. Believing that love could not change a man's nature, coupled with the belief that Robert would not stick to one bed, tells us that she believes Robert would have cheated on her.

That was her problem with Robert. She was convinced that he would cheat on her. So to apply this to the Rhaegar situation, we must assume that Lyanna would be convinced that Rhaegar would cheat on her. That she believed Rhaegar's nature was to never stick to one bed, regardless of whether or not he fell in love.

Therein lies the problem. Why on earth would Lyanna be of the opinion that Rhaegar would never stick to one bed? There is nothing that we've heard about Rhaegar that would suggest this.

Never is a judgement about the future. It indicates a continuity of the negation. The fact that someone has done something once hardly demonstrates that they will continue to do it forever. That Rhaegar would have had to cheat on (or leave) Elia to be with Lyanna does not imply that he would in future cheat on Lyanna. It does not imply it was in Rhaegar's nature to hop from bed to bed. 

 

One cannot separate love from number 1.It is contingent upon love, for it is the variable Ned introduced and the variable to which Lyanna is responding not directly about him by the way but in general.I agree with Slywren Lyanna at that moment was making a general statement about men with respect to love.

I lean toward a different interpretation of Ned's recollection of his conversation with Lyanna.The introduction of love is what changes that particular scene in the brothel. The author extends the context when that conversation doesn't end at " I hear he fathered a child on some girl in the Vale." 

Ned has an inside into Robert and Cersie state because Lyanna isn't in the picture at that moment.Cersie is Robert's wife and Ned knows that Robert doesn't love her,he knows that Cersie doesn't love Robert.

Kingmonkey "we" can't apply anything to Rhaegar's situation. She doesn't know Rhaegar.She has no refererence by which to draw from except the obvious if i were to buy this arguement.

He is married,with a child.She has to be all kinds of stupid to think "He's going to do this only to his wife and he's going to stay oyal to me. That is every movie with a mistress or woman on the side who believes "he will leave his wife for me and be faithful."

[Voice]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

Where in the books does it say 'the dish ran away with the spoon?'  All I've got is hearsay, rumor and speculation by those repeating a story they heard.  Where are the witnesses?  I get no joy from the towering World Book:

 

So, unless you want to be as oblivious as Cersei, it might be worth taking the very deep dive, so long as you keep in mind that The World shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel. The book is written from the viewpoint of a maester at the Citadel, one who hopes to pass its knowledge on to someone sitting on the Iron Throne. As such, the author may have ... rearranged events to suit the interests of a particular royal family. “So who knows if it’s really true or not!” Martin chuckled. Furthermore, the maester’s knowledge comes from other scrolls that, in turn, may be unreliable. The narrative unreliability is reminiscent of Westeros’s first tell-all author, the court jester Mushroom, who claims intimate knowledge of various Targaryen bedroom secrets. “And he may be making up a lot of this shit,” Martin said. “That possibility is there, because he’s an old guy telling tales, and embroidering them, making them more sexual, suggestive, and violent.” Martin likens Mushroom to Suetonius, “the great gossip of ancient Rome,”  GRRM 

 

 

Yup. Just want to agree. When Catelyn abducted Tyrion, it attracted quite a bit of attention. When Brienne escorted Jaime (yawn), it attracted quite a bit of attention. It is hard for nobles to traverse the realm unnoticed. Like TMZ, Westerosi citizens seem to know how to spot celebrities doing things they shouldn't be. In the case of Rhaegar's abduction of Lyanna, it does all seem to be hearsay rather than firsthand accounts.

Tawdry rumors fuel speculations people want to believe. Targaryen loyalist wanted to believe that Rhaegar fell in love when they heard the rumors. Rebels, predictably, preferred a different narrative.

And the latter should be given special attention in my opinion, when considering the political climate in which the rumor spread.

Rickard Stark and Jon Arryn had been consolidating alliances through marriage pacts that would provide political resistance to the Mad King.

Those with southron ambitions, like Jon Arryn, would have benefited most from a salacious story like the rape of Lyanna. And I name Jon Arryn rather than Rickard Stark, because Rickard did not call his banners to rescue Lyanna. He didn't even call them after it was rumored that the royal house had confiscated not only his daughter, but his heir. Rather than ride to war, he answered the summons of the king.

That should be suspicious. I think it is a clue that Rickard knew Lyanna was not with Rhaegar, and that Brandon had been sorely mistaken when he rode around the Red Keep calling for Rhaegar's death. But, it could also have been that Rickard liked the idea of Rhaegar thwarting his political alliance with House Baratheon and bedding his young daughter.

Anyway, we know how Rickard and Brandon ended up, so this is why I think Jon Arryn benefited from the rumors the most. The rumor of Lyanna's rape (I use the term in the classical sense, "stealing a woman") provided the perfect means by which Jon Arryn might force his ward, Eddard Stark, to finally call the banners that Rickard had not.

I do not think it is a coincidence that the two lordling-wards of Jon Arryn called their banners only after Rickard and Brandon had been executed. And, I do not think it is an coincidence that Rhaegar had never bestirred himself to do anything until Robert marched to the Trident.

Either side could have reached out, but didn't. (I do think that Rhaegar and Tywin Lannister were likely in direct communication, but that is another discussion.)

And, on that other side, the side of the loyalists, the narrative was far less convenient. It was a bad story breaking right in the middle of election season:

"When this battle's done I mean to call a council. Changes will be made."

The rape narrative provided the perfect propaganda the rebels needed to make Rhaegar's changes very, very difficult to make. The loyalists tried very hard to put a positive spin on the story, and we see the results of their handywork in both the books and on these very forums, so we know it was somewhat successful:

• They blame Elia's homeliness and health for Rhaegar's infidelity.
• They say Rhaegar loved his lady Lyanna.
• They say he died for the woman he loved.
• They allow that the northern girl had a brand of wild beauty.

But on a practical level, the damage was done.

Robert's Rebellion was justified and validated. Whether in love or in lust, it mattered not. Rhaegar had stolen Robert's betrothed, and broken a sacred pact of marriage. Thus regardless of which narrative Westerosi preferred (and which narrative fans prefer on the forums), it proved to be a fatal blow to Targaryen influence. Their heir became a beggar in the Free Cities. His sister was sold to savages. Their spawn were murdered.

Rhaegar was already at a disadvantage, somewhat, simply because of his father's personality. That he would compound that political baggage by abducting/raping/loving Lyanna Stark when also hoping to call a council and make changes is hard to imagine.

It doesn't fit with his character, nor his actions and goals at the time. And becoming a willing surrogate for a married man's prophetic bastard certainly doesn't fit Lyanna's character.

Wow, anyway, that was a bit more of a ramble than I intended. I just wanted to agree @LynnS and say that the lack of witnesses is glaring, and has continuously allowed each side to perpetuate their own version of the narrative even 17 years later. And I might add, it is very interesting that while Rhaegar's supporters have rationalized the rumors to paint them in a positive light, not a single one of them bears an account of Lyanna in Rhaegar's presence (let alone custody) after the Tourney of Harrenhall... not even Jon Connington... which is very odd.