Heresy Project X+Y=J: Wrap up thread 4

[Kingmonkey]

3 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

The questions were not a problem in themselves.The amount was a problem to a very busy person.Plus,it took me like three days to reply because the thread wouldn't let me.

I wasn't implying anything else, just trying to keep the thread going without it all being on your shoulders. 

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We know that Lyanna knew Brandon and Rickard are dead.We do not know that Lyanna knew that Rhaegar's children are dead.So i don't think that's a solid argument to make.

You're forgetting one important detail -- the last person Lyanna spoke to was Ned. Ned knew. 

We don't KNOW that Lyanna knew, but it's a fair bet she did. Certain? No. However that's not an argument against the theory. Showing that there is a possibility of something else having occurred merely shows that the theory isn't 100% certain. I think we can all agree on that.

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Next,this is another nail in the coffin of Lyanna and Robert not knowing each other. She would have to know Robert to believe he was capable of killing children.

Of course she wouldn't. Would she have had to know Aerys to believe he was capable of killing her father? 

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Lastly,for Lyanna to illicit such a promise from Ned,says a lot about her belief of Ned in that he would just tell Robert about Jon.Such a promise need not have been enacted against Ned unless she believed that without it Ned would tell Robert.

Agreed. So maybe she believed that he was rather blind to his best friend's behaviour, and always tried to think the best of him? Remember "Dearest Ned..."?

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So to sum...Ned was the one who chose how to interpret what protecting Jon looked like.It was at his own discretion.It so has it Cersie and Joff were killing off Robert's bastards and they are still in danger from her..and Red Priestesses come to think of it.And culturally,Ned knows the troubles that would have faced Jon at court had Robert known about him. 

You make a strong argument for the dangers Jon might have faced, but the problem with your conclusion is right there in that first line: "Ned was the one who chose how to interpret what protecting Jon looked like".

Would NED have seen things the way you lay them out here? Would he believe that Robert's bastard would be in danger? As you say, Ned was the one who chose, so it's his beliefs that are important, not the reality of the situation.

Luckily, Ned told us just what his beliefs on this matter are:

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Cersei could not have been pleased by her lord husband's by-blows, yet in the end it mattered little whether the king had one bastard or a hundred. Law and custom gave the baseborn few rights. Gendry, the girl in the Vale, the boy at Storm's End, none of them could threaten Robert's trueborn children …

AGoT ch.30

So whatever dangers a bastard of Roberts might ACTUALLY have faced, Ned -- who was "the one who chose how to interpret what protecting Jon looked like" -- did not think that acknowledging a bastard as Roberts would cause a problem.

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Note: Posted my reply to you @Kingmonkey and @SFDanny .Sorry it took so long.Busy major problems posting on thread.

Happy harvest everyone.

 

Life trumps board postings! Don't let us eat up all your time with these pesky responses.   And indeed, a happy harvest festival of whatever shade to all who celebrate one. (Wasn't yours at the start of the month though? Or is there a new moon esbat coming up? If so, enjoy that too!)

[Melifeather]

12 hours ago, kimim said:

Bolded bit: In Eddard II, Ned mentions that Lannisters took KL by treachery, Jaime betrayed Aerys, and Tywin murdered Rhaegar's children, and Robert doesn't give a fuck. The connection is Ned's discovery that Robert has not changed, and that for him only good dragonspawn is dead dragonspawn. Ned naturally thinks about his promise in the middle of this, as it was Robert's hatred of Targaryens that led to his having to lie for fourteen years about the existence of his nephew, who happened to be another dragonspawn.

Meanwhile, Tywin supports Ned's account of how the Lannisters got involved in the rebellion:

Pycelle tells a similar story to Tyrion:

Pycelle, a Lannister faithful, acts only after Rhaegar's death as the remaining Targs are either too mad or too young, and "the realm needed a king." So he opens the gates to Tywin, hoping that he would claim the throne, but it's too late: Robert is too strong at this point, and Ned arrives too quickly. This is not long-term planning by Tywin; it's the opposite. Tywin's left it till the last moment, knows he must burn his Targ bridges and prove his loyalty to Robert, so kills the kids.

When Ned, Tywin, and Pycelle agree on a point, and when there is literally no evidence in the text of the reverse, then I think that the point stands: Lannisters waited. They were not involved from the very beginning. They had nothing to do with Lyanna's disappearance.

 

 

Wolfmaid brought up a good point: Lyanna could not have known that Tywin's men killed Rhaegar's children, and the promise she extracted from Ned was also prior to that. Therefore the lies that Ned has kept for 14 years have nothing to do with the slaughter of Rhaegar's children. At that particular moment in the narrative, neither one could know that was going to happen. 

The passage about the discussion between Tywin and Tyrion...it's not surprising that Tywin would now confess the truth to Tyrion. Why would he? He despises Tyrion and he's only using him as a tool at this point. It would be expected that he would repeat and promote the "official" story.

Pycelle was always a Lannister man. He's the one that convinced Aerys to open the gate. IMO the Citadel was part of the conspiracy to unseat the Targaryens and place a godly Andal on the iron throne, and Robert symbolized their Smith of the Seven while Tywin symbolized the Warrior.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

46 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

 

Wolfmaid brought up a good point: Lyanna could not have known that Tywin's men killed Rhaegar's children, and the promise she extracted from Ned was also prior to that. Therefore the lies that Ned has kept for 14 years have nothing to do with the slaughter of Rhaegar's children.

Again, you are incorrect. Ned's promise to her happened after the slaughter of Rhaegar's children. The Lannisters sacked the city and killed the kids, then Ned arrived, then Robert arrived and said his "only dragonspawn" line, whereupon he and Ned had a huge fight and Ned stormed out of the city in a cold fury. He proceeded to relieve Stannis who was under siege, and sometime after that he found Lyanna and she died once she had made him promise her something.

 

[SFDanny]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Wolfmaid brought up a good point: Lyanna could not have known that Tywin's men killed Rhaegar's children, and the promise she extracted from Ned was also prior to that. Therefore the lies that Ned has kept for 14 years have nothing to do with the slaughter of Rhaegar's children. At that particular moment in the narrative, neither one could know that was going to happen.

Please don't mistake timelines created out of thin air with what is well established in the books and by the author. After the coronation in which Ned and Robert argue about Tywin's presentation of the bodies of Elia and her children, an event that likely takes place some days to a week after the sack, Ned leaves King's Landing to take an army in relief of the rebels at Storm's End. Armies that don't move as fast as messengers or Ravens. It is only after the events at Storm's End that Ned and his select six travel to the Tower of Joy. What takes Ned a month plus to travel can be shortened by quite a bit by messenger and/or Raven. If the Kingsguard know of the events at the Trident, of the sack, of the flight to Dragonstone, and at Storm's End, then it is quite likely they know some of the more important events that take place during those actions. It is very likely Lyanna knows of the deaths of Elia and her children. She may even know that her brother was in charge of the rebel troops who took the city while this was being done.

edit: The Ned's Little Girl beat me to a response, but not only do we agree, but there are no timeline constraints that would make it impossible for Lyanna to know of the deaths of Elia and her children by the time Ned arrives at the Tower of Joy.

[Melifeather]

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

Again, you are incorrect. Ned's promise to her happened after the slaughter of Rhaegar's children. The Lannisters sacked the city and killed the kids, then Ned arrived, then Robert arrived and said his "only dragonspawn" line, whereupon he and Ned had a huge fight and Ned stormed out of the city in a cold fury. He proceeded to relieve Stannis who was under siege, and sometime after that he found Lyanna and she died once she had made him promise her something.

 

 

14 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

Please don't mistake timelines created out of thin air with what is well established in the books and by the author. After the coronation in which Ned and Robert argue about Tywin's presentation of the bodies of Elia and her children, an event that likely takes place some days to a week after the sack, Ned leaves King's Landing to take an army in relief of the rebels at Storm's End. Armies that don't move as fast as messengers or Ravens. It is only after the events at Storm's End that Ned and his select six travel to the Tower of Joy. What takes Ned a month plus to travel can be shortened by quite a bit by messenger and/or Raven. If the Kingsguard know of the events at the Trident, of the sack, of the flight to Dragonstone, and at Storm's End, then it is quite likely they know some of the more important events that take place during those actions. It is very likely Lyanna knows of the deaths of Elia and her children. She may even know that her brother was in charge of the rebel troops who took the city while this was being done.

edit: The Ned's Little Girl beat me to a response, but not only do we agree, but there are no timeline constraints that would make it impossible for Lyanna to know of the deaths of Elia and her children by the time Ned arrives at the Tower of Joy.

The only thing tying Lyanna to the tower of joy is a fever dream and GRRM said it is not literal. I have asserted many times that the three Kingsguard were not the three men at the tower...only ordinary men. Ned could have found Lyanna at any time during the rebellion. There is nothing to confirm when or where he found her, and I don't believe she was found at the tower of joy.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

43 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

The only thing tying Lyanna to the tower of joy is a fever dream and GRRM said it is not literal. I have asserted many times that the three Kingsguard were not the three men at the tower...only ordinary men. Ned could have found Lyanna at any time during the rebellion. There is nothing to confirm when or where he found her, and I don't believe she was found at the tower of joy.

Lyanna being at the tower of joy or not wasn't what I was objecting to, though. You said that Lyanna got her promise from Ned before the murder of Rhaegar's children occurred. That is not correct, as the sequence of events in the books makes clear.

One more thing about the fever dream and your statement "GRRM said it is not literal." That is not strictly correct, either. What GRRM said was, "Our dreams are not always literal." Your interpretation of his statement seems to invert the words "not" and "always", making it "Our dreams are always not literal". The way Martin actually said it does leave room for dreams to sometimes be literal.

[Ygrain]

54 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

The only thing tying Lyanna to the tower of joy is a fever dream and GRRM said it is not literal.

Please, show us some textual support tying Lyanna to any other place then. Got any? No? Then on what basis are you completely ruling out a place which has at least some textual support?

Besides, a dream not being literal =/= totally false.

54 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I have asserted many times that the three Kingsguard were not the three men at the tower...only ordinary men. Ned could have found Lyanna at any time during the rebellion. There is nothing to confirm when or where he found her, and I don't believe she was found at the tower of joy.

Well, your solitary assertions are kinda your problem... but the identity of the men who fought Ned at ToJ is clear, I hope? Ethan Glover, Lord Dustin and the like, OK? So, no, it couldn't have been any time in the Rebellion because Ned was first in the Vale (no Lyanna there), then travelling North, gathering his banners, marching South, yadda yadda, and definitely not traipsing the countryside looking for his sister. How do we know for sure? After Nedbert have the falling out over the murder of Rhaegar's children, it takes Lyanna's death to reconcile them, i.e. it happened afterwards. Lady Dustin complains that Ned brought his sister's bones with him but not her husband', so again, Lyanna's death Lyanna's death must have occured at about the same time as Lord Dustin's (and around the same place), or else Lady Dustin wouldn't perceive these events as connected.

A little question: if a man has a waking memory where the location is not specified, and then we have a dream as a literary device which contains the very same memory but this time tied to a specific location, what are we as readers supposed to make out of this? What was the writer's intention here?

[Kingmonkey]

3 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

 After Nedbert have the falling out over the murder of Rhaegar's children, it takes Lyanna's death to reconcile them, i.e. it happened afterwards. Lady Dustin complains that Ned brought his sister's bones with him but not her husband', so again, Lyanna's death Lyanna's death must have occured at about the same time as Lord Dustin's (and around the same place), or else Lady Dustin wouldn't perceive these events as connected.

Well put. For the sake of clarity, here's the relevant quote:

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Ned did not feign surprise; Robert's hatred of the Targaryens was a madness in him. He remembered the angry words they had exchanged when Tywin Lannister had presented Robert with the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children as a token of fealty. Ned had named that murder; Robert called it war. When he had protested that the young prince and princess were no more than babes, his new-made king had replied, "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Not even Jon Arryn had been able to calm that storm. Eddard Stark had ridden out that very day in a cold rage, to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south. It had taken another death to reconcile them; Lyanna's death, and the grief they had shared over her passing.

AGoT ch 12

 

There's scope (though I'd find it very odd given the way GRRM constructed the dream and wove it into the text) for Lyanna being at say Starfall, but there can be little doubt that Lyanna's death occurred when Ned was off fighting "the last battles of the war alone in the south" -- and after the deaths of Rhaegar's children. 

 

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

 I have asserted many times that the three Kingsguard were not the three men at the tower...only ordinary men. 

I really don't think this argument works:

Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now.

Consider the bolded: That these were "no ordinary three" is not a contrast with "as it had been in life", because the actual contrast being drawn is clear in the difference between the men Ned remembers as shadows and those who's faces burned clear in memory. Even though his own companions are vague memories to him, the three hold such an extraordinary position in Ned's memory that their faces remain clear. 

[Melifeather]

I have a recurring dream, an old dream if you prefer, about a lion chasing me through the halls of a deserted hospital. Does this mean that this happened to me in real life? Hell no!

Ned's familiarity with an old dream of knights in white capes, a tower long fallen, and of Lyanna's pleading is meant to trick the reader and lead them to a false conclusion so that the author can surprise his readers down the road in one of his later books. Having a majority of readers believe R+L=J does not mean it is true. It just means a lot of readers took the bait.

[kimim]

13 hours ago, wolfmaid7 said:

Or the connection is Ned being disappointed by Robert trying to behave the way Tywin would.Really? Robert's hatred of Targs is the reason Ned lied? Then why?

Totally contradicts Ned's thoughts in the dungeon.

"Why?"

Think about the text, think about the entirety of Ned's experiences at KL. There's no mystery here. Ned's feverish, in pain, and miserable in the dungeon. He's realized what an idiot he was, and he's beating himself up: "I failed you, Robert, Ned thought. He could not say the words. I lied to you, hid the truth. I let them kill you.”

Ned DID fail Robert, on a grand scale. Of course he can barely say the words. He did not trust Robert, so hid his investigation into Arryn's death, then warned Cersei, forcing her to assassinate Robert earlier than she had planned. That makes Ned partly responsible for his friend's death. He wanted to spare Robert on his deathbed, so kept lying to him about the twincest, changing Robert's will on the sly, leaving himself vulnerable.

Ned's failure goes beyond that. He failed as a father when he left his daughters at the mercy of the Lannisters. He failed as a lord when he got all of his men killed. He failed as a Stark when he left his wife and young son in charge of a civil war against Tywin.

Ned failed. And failed and failed and failed some more.

[SFDanny]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I have a recurring dream, an old dream if you prefer, about a lion chasing me through the halls of a deserted hospital. Does this mean that this happened to me in real life? Hell no!

When awake do you refer to parts of the dream "as they had in life" or "as it had been in life"? Do you speak of the dead who appear in your dream and talk about their deaths in ways that confirm it occurs as it does in the dream? Ned does with Martyn Cassel. He speaks of the "tower of joy" named so by Rhaegar, and how he pulled it down after the battle he sees in his dream, and how he builds eight cairns out of the tower for the eight who died. No, this is not just any dream. It is a dream about a real occurrence that haunts Ned. It is a dream that incorporates the fantastical (wraiths of the living men who came with him, and blue rose petals across a blood streaked sky) with the sharp reality of the men he confronts.

The idea you can pick and choose what is real and what is not based on what you would prefer to be real and what you would prefer not to be so, is nothing more than ignoring facts we are given in order to better a theory you like. The irony is that the attempts to deny the Kingsguard were at the tower of joy, or that Lyanna didn't die there has nothing to do with whether or not R+L=J is true. These well supported facts change nothing about the bare bones of the R+L=J theory. By denying this evidence, all it shows is that one is prepared to ignore any evidence that gets in the way of a good crackpot idea.

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Ned's familiarity with an old dream of knights in white capes, a tower long fallen, and of Lyanna's pleading is meant to trick the reader and lead them to a false conclusion so that the author can surprise his readers down the road in one of his later books. Having a majority of readers believe R+L=J does not mean it is true. It just means a lot of readers took the bait.

Once again, don't mistake what many, many readers of forums like this one have come to believe over what the "majority of readers" believes. People who post here read, and reread the books, searching for clues. That is not your average reader. Many, many readers first hear of R+L=J through reading these types of discussions. That was my case, and I know it was among many others who post here and sites like the Tower of the Hand. Martin isn't writing for a fan who spends decades trying to unravel his mysteries. He's writing for the fan who is reading the books for the first time. Little did he know how much his story would "grow in the telling" and how long it would take for him to tell it, but he is writing for the same first time reader today that he was when A Game of Thrones was first published.

What this dream sequence is meant for, in my opinion, is to tell the reader that this history is important. That the questions Ned places to the Kingsguard are questions we as readers should ask ourselves, and that Lyanna's fears and Ned's promises are critical to the story, not just a meaningless back story telling us where she wanted to be buried.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, SFDanny said:

When awake do you refer to parts of the dream "as they had in life" or "as it had been in life"? Do you speak of the dead who appear in your dream and talk about their deaths in ways that confirm it occurs as it does in the dream? Ned does with Martyn Cassel. He speaks of the "tower of joy" named so by Rhaegar, and how he pulled it down after the battle he sees in his dream, and how he builds eight cairns out of the tower for the eight who died. No, this is not just any dream. It is a dream about a real occurrence that haunts Ned. It is a dream that incorporates the fantastical (wraiths of the living men who came with him, and blue rose petals across a blood streaked sky) with the sharp reality of the men he confronts.

The idea you can pick and choose what is real and what is not based on what you would prefer to be real and what you would prefer not to be so, is nothing more than ignoring facts we are given in order to better a theory you like. The irony is that the attempts to deny the Kingsguard were at the tower of joy, or that Lyanna didn't die there has nothing to do with whether or not R+L=J is true. These well supported facts change nothing about the bare bones of the R+L=J theory. By denying this evidence, all it shows is that one is prepared to ignore any evidence that gets in the way of a good crackpot idea.

Once again, don't mistake what many, many readers of forums like this one have come to believe over what the "majority of readers" believes. People who post here read, and reread the books, searching for clues. That is not your average reader. Many, many readers first hear of R+L=J through reading these types of discussions. That was my case, and I know it was among many others who post here and sites like the Tower of the Hand. Martin isn't writing for a fan who spends decades trying to unravel his mysteries. He's writing for the fan who is reading the books for the first time. Little did he know how much his story would "grow in the telling" and how long it would take for him to tell it, but he is writing for the same first time reader today that he was when A Game of Thrones was first published.

What this dream sequence is meant for, in my opinion, is to tell the reader that this history is important. That the questions Ned places to the Kingsguard are questions we as readers should ask ourselves, and that Lyanna's fears and Ned's promises are critical to the story, not just a meaningless back story telling us where she wanted to be buried.

I agree that Ned compared the dream to real life and when he gets to the word "yet" the following words "these were no ordinary men" indicates that the men in real life were ordinary men while the men in the dream were kingsguard. I don't doubt Ned's men died nor that he didn't bring their bones home, I just doubt that the Kingsguard or Lyanna were at the tower of joy. 

I've noticed an alternate narrative that is also supported in the books, and am following what I believe is a new discovery. I've read these books many times over and like you have discussed the various theories on this site and others, and through these discussions have developed a new theory based on the inversions in the titled chapters. What you call well supported "facts" are merely an accepted group-think that has been reinforced over the years.

IMO the dream sequence is a red herring meant to divert attention away from the truth and mislead the reader to draw a false conclusion. The only way to prove if I am right and you are wrong is if GRRM ever finishes his story. In the meantime we debate and try to keep the discussions civil. 

 

[kimim]

7 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The passage about the discussion between Tywin and Tyrion...it's not surprising that Tywin would now confess the truth to Tyrion. Why would he? He despises Tyrion and he's only using him as a tool at this point. It would be expected that he would repeat and promote the "official" story.

Pycelle was always a Lannister man. He's the one that convinced Aerys to open the gate. IMO the Citadel was part of the conspiracy to unseat the Targaryens and place a godly Andal on the iron throne, and Robert symbolized their Smith of the Seven while Tywin symbolized the Warrior.

OK, everyone is lying.

Why does Tywin sit out the entire rebellion? Why doesn't he at least show up at the Trident, just to make sure that Robert wins it and Rhaegar perishes? Why does he wait until after the Trident to make a move?

 

[JNR]

6 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Martin isn't writing for a fan who spends decades trying to unravel his mysteries. He's writing for the fan who is reading the books for the first time.

Oh... he's definitely writing for both.

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My mother would always predict where the plots were going, whether it was I Love Lucy or something like that. "Well, this is going to happen," she would say. And, sure enough, it would happen! And nothing was more delightful, when something different happened, when it suddenly took a twist. As long as the twist was justified. You can’t just arbitrarily throw in twists and turns that make no sense. Things have to follow. You want the thing in the end where you say, "Oh my God, I didn’t see that coming, but there was foreshadowing; there was a hint of it here, there was a hint of it there. I should have seen it coming." And that, to me, is very satisfying.

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What they are in truth... well, that's for each reader to determine for himself. I don't intend to make it easy.

Don't kid yourself that he isn't taking tremendous pains with some of these mysteries (of which the mystery of Jon Snow's parents is just one, and not the most difficult).  He is, he's proud of it, and he should be. 

Whatever his faults, particularly re his work ethic, GRRM has certainly not come up shy of excellence in the conception and execution of his mysteries.  Nobody's done as good a job in the history of F/SF, in my strong opinion at least, and I'm not sure he has a peer in the history of English lit.

[Ygrain]

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I have a recurring dream, an old dream if you prefer, about a lion chasing me through the halls of a deserted hospital. Does this mean that this happened to me in real life? Hell no!

In case it somehow escaped your attention, your dreams are not written by an omniscient being planning the course of your life.

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Ned's familiarity with an old dream of knights in white capes, a tower long fallen, and of Lyanna's pleading is meant to trick the reader and lead them to a false conclusion so that the author can surprise his readers down the road in one of his later books. Having a majority of readers believe R+L=J does not mean it is true. It just means a lot of readers took the bait.

And his waking memory of the same elements that the dream contained is apparently yet another part of a grand conspiracy, right? Especially when some of them are hundreds of pages apart.

[Melifeather]

13 hours ago, kimim said:

OK, everyone is lying.

Why does Tywin sit out the entire rebellion? Why doesn't he at least show up at the Trident, just to make sure that Robert wins it and Rhaegar perishes? Why does he wait until after the Trident to make a move?

 

 

It was a deliberate (and classic) military tactic. You separate your forces in order to exploit a gap in their defenses. While Robert and Ned's forces engaged their Targaryen opponent, Tywin's forces drove quickly and immediately for the Targaryen command base (blitzkrieg). 

 

2 hours ago, Ygrain said:

In case it somehow escaped your attention, your dreams are not written by an omniscient being planning the course of your life.

And his waking memory of the same elements that the dream contained is apparently yet another part of a grand conspiracy, right? Especially when some of them are hundreds of pages apart.

 

Ned's dream was written by an omniscient being? Are you referring to Bloodraven or GRRM? 

In the beginning Ned was comparing real life to the dream, but after taking note of the initial differences the whole of the dream followed. 

Ned created an official story that he repeated as necessary to keep Lyanna's promises. Lucky for him the only other person that knows the truth is Howland Reed. According to Catelyn's memories Ned's soldiers were told a story about how he returned Arthur's sword and gave it to Ashara Dayne and how she later jumped from a tower. That official story is the one that got propagated. 

[Ygrain]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Ned's dream was written by an omniscient being? Are you referring to Bloodraven or GRRM? 

Must you needs ask? GRRM. As in, writer.

 

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

Lucky for him the only other person that knows the truth is Howland Reed.

That is a bold claim, and unsupported. They found Ned holding Lyanna's body, and there is one Wylla participating in the coverup of Jon's identity.

[Melifeather]

1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

Must you needs ask? GRRM. As in, writer.

 

That is a bold claim, and unsupported. They found Ned holding Lyanna's body, and there is one Wylla participating in the coverup of Jon's identity.

I was referring to the tower of joy. Only two rode away afterwards, so only two know what happened there. As for the "they" that found Ned with Lyanna...that suggests a whole different location than the tower of joy, doesn't it?

[SFDanny]

19 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I agree that Ned compared the dream to real life and when he gets to the word "yet" the following words "these were no ordinary men" indicates that the men in real life were ordinary men while the men in the dream were kingsguard. I don't doubt Ned's men died nor that he didn't bring their bones home, I just doubt that the Kingsguard or Lyanna were at the tower of joy. 

I've noticed an alternate narrative that is also supported in the books, and am following what I believe is a new discovery. I've read these books many times over and like you have discussed the various theories on this site and others, and through these discussions have developed a new theory based on the inversions in the titled chapters. What you call well supported "facts" are merely an accepted group-think that has been reinforced over the years.

IMO the dream sequence is a red herring meant to divert attention away from the truth and mislead the reader to draw a false conclusion. The only way to prove if I am right and you are wrong is if GRRM ever finishes his story. In the meantime we debate and try to keep the discussions civil. 

 

The "yet" in the sentence compares the men who come before - Ned's company - with the three Kingsguard who are named after, not some random three soldiers that end up killing all but Ned and Howland. This is an unbelievable and strained reading of the sentence. Of course, one has to do much the same to not connect Lyanna to the tower. One has to discount Ned's introduction to the dream in which all are tied together. Then one has to ignore how other aspects of the dream are tied to the tower (the building of the eight cairns out of the stones of the tower) and Lyanna's scream, the presence of the rose petals in both, the note in Lyanna's AGoT appendix entry, and the clear, unambiguous app entry. It takes some work to ignore it all and come up with something that has no evidence whatsoever and convince yourself this is somehow sound reasoning. I will wait until I read all of the "inversion" material, but this doesn't bode well for that argument.

May I just push back slightly against the idea of "groupthink" in regards to these theories. I don't accept 100% of what anyone has said on this subject. I've argued with Ran and others over the years about their interpretations, and I've changed closely held positions over that time when confronted with new evidence. I don't do group think very well. On the other hand, I see a group of people who spend and incredible amount of time in an echo chamber of the same anti-R+L=J views and spin out some of the most outlandish theories all based on what seems to be the desperate need to disprove R+L=J. That kind of operation seems to me to define "groupthink."

[LynnS]

16 hours ago, JNR said:

of which the mystery of Jon Snow's parents is just one, and not the most difficult)

\UFO Beer