Jon Darry died wearing Rhaegar's armor at Battle of the Trident

[WSmith84]

14 hours ago, Asshai Backwards said:

To any outside observer, everyone posting on this site sounds like they're in a cult. 

Its an entertaining book. That is the only thing I "firmly believe."  Cheerio!

I just want to make clear (since it really wasn't in my original post) that my intent was not to poke fun at the theories you believe in, merely your choice of wording. Whenever someone types something like 'I'm a believer in...' or 'I'm a follower of...' - and I've caught myself typing the first a couple of times - it sounds like something a cult member would say.

So, apologies if my post came across as mocking, because I sincerely didn't mean it that way.

[WSmith84]

3 hours ago, Viking said:

My assumption is htat he glamours himself while at the wall and south of it and unglamours himself while he's doing the nasty work of prophecy while ranging north of it. I don't understand why this concept is so complicated?

Jon never met Rhaegar, Stannis never met Rhaegar. Just compare 2008 Obama to 2016 Obama (or 2000 Bush to 2008 Bush if you are a republican) and try to tell me 15 years of harsh living north of the wall wouldn't pre-maturely age somebody. 

Ah, you can say Stannis never met Rhaegar based on what evidence, exactly? I mean, we can't say that they did meet, but we can't say that they didn't meet, either.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

One more question. How melisandre was able to change Mance Ryders identity with Ratleshirt if he was secretly Rhaegar in disguise? Or we're supposed to believe Melisandre let that pass?

[WSmith84]

6 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

One more question. How melisandre was able to change Mance Ryders identity with Ratleshirt if he was secretly Rhaegar in disguise? Or we're supposed to believe Melisandre let that pass?

Apparently, Mance is not glamoured when North of the Wall (read pages 5 and 6 to see our discussion about this). I think the physical discrepancies between Mance and Rhaegar are too great to not require a glamour to hide them.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

2 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

Apparently, Mance is not glamoured when North of the Wall (read pages 5 and 6 to see our discussion about this). I think the physical discrepancies between Mance and Rhaegar are too great to not require a glamour to hide them.

But he was glamoured by melisandre at the wall right? So anyone there would know how Rhaegar looked like? I doubt it. At least the height or the eyes were be enough to see he wasn't the same person.

[BricksAndSparrows]

If this theory turned out to be accurate, the reveal would be so contrived and strenuous that it would be a disappointment. I want A Song Of Ice And Fire, not Old Boy.

[WSmith84]

6 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

But he was glamoured by melisandre at the wall right? So anyone there would know how Rhaegar looked like? I doubt it. At least the height or the eyes were be enough to see he wasn't the same person.

Yes. And if he was already glamoured when Mel glamoured him, she should have noticed. Hence the idea that Mance takes off his glamour when North of the Wall. Again, I think that that's nonsense; the descriptions of Mance and Rhaegar are so different and I do not buy the explanations people have given. Purple eyes are similar to blue, and so could be mistaken. Brown eyes are nothing like purple, so cannot be hidden (imho, of course).

And of course, Mance's baby doesn't have silver hair or purple eyes, which is a huge stroke of luck for Rhaemance.

[Viking]

1 hour ago, WSmith84 said:

Ah, you can say Stannis never met Rhaegar based on what evidence, exactly? I mean, we can't say that they did meet, but we can't say that they didn't meet, either.

Why? Because he was raised by Maester Cressen the Maester at Storms End. Futhermore Stannis notes one visit to court where he specifically doesn't meet the king. He sees Tywin thinking Tywin is king and notes his noble bearing. There is no record of Stannis meeting any Targaryen, this is a record of him being raised at Storms End. 

[Viking]

39 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

Apparently, Mance is not glamoured when North of the Wall (read pages 5 and 6 to see our discussion about this). I think the physical discrepancies between Mance and Rhaegar are too great to not require a glamour to hide them.

Which discrepancies? There aren't any which require anything other than 15 years of hard living or an unreliable narrator. 

[Ser Loras The Gay]

5 minutes ago, Viking said:

Which discrepancies? There aren't any which require anything other than 15 years of hard living or an unreliable narrator. 

HIS HAIR, HIS EYES, HIS HEIGHT, HIS WEIGHT, HIS MANNERS, HIS POSTURE, HIS SWORD SKILLS, HIS EVERYTHING.

[WSmith84]

Just now, Viking said:

Which discrepancies? There aren't any which require anything other than 15 years of hard living or an unreliable narrator. 

15 years do not change your eye colour from purple to brown. You do not go from being tall to medium height. Silver hair dyed brown does not appear like brown hair gone to grey. It looks like dyed hair.

Out of curiousity, what was Mance's plan for hiding his baby's hair and eyes if they happened to be silver and purple?

5 minutes ago, Viking said:

Why? Because he was raised by Maester Cressen the Maester at Storms End. Futhermore Stannis notes one visit to court where he specifically doesn't meet the king. He sees Tywin thinking Tywin is king and notes his noble bearing. There is no record of Stannis meeting any Targaryen, this is a record of him being raised at Storms End. 

So no, you don't have any actual evidence. Is it likely that they met? No, not at all. In fact, I'd say that they almost certainly didn't meet. But we cannot say that they definitely didn't (unless you are asserting that Stannis never left Storm's End apart from the times specifically mentioned). It's a frustrating line of argument, I know.

Besides, Stannis should still have noticed if Mance's eyes were purple! He had a long conversation with the man and whatever one can say about Stannis, he is not an idiot. He would notice.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

13 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

HIS HAIR, HIS EYES, HIS HEIGHT, HIS WEIGHT, HIS MANNERS, HIS POSTURE, HIS SWORD SKILLS, HIS EVERYTHING.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Ygrain]

11 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Exactly. Eye colour doesn't fit, hair colour doesn't fit, height doesn't fit, facial features don't fit, manners don't fit (though these would be easiest to change), the word of the author doesn't fit. 

35 minutes ago, Viking said:

Which discrepancies? There aren't any which require anything other than 15 years of hard living or an unreliable narrator. 

Except the manners, none of the above is affected by hard living. As for unreliable narrator, the word doesn't mean what you think it does. Unreliable narrator is one who is not a first-hand witness or whose faculties are somehow affected (by drugs, emotional state, poor lighting conditions etc.) You cannot call someone an unreliable narrator just because their observation of brown eyes or middling height doesn't fit your theory.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

40 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

NOTHING!!!! 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

25 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

Exactly. Eye colour doesn't fit, hair colour doesn't fit, height doesn't fit, facial features don't fit, manners don't fit (though these would be easiest to change), the word of the author doesn't fit.

 

Oh, that's far from the complete list. There's also left the tiny detail of Mance's history with the Night's Watch dating back from when he was a little boy, for example, not from the Battle of the Trident.

But, really, what have the Romans ever done for us?

[Robert Baratheon's hammer]

JD must have looked remarkably similar to Rhaegar for Robert to mistake him at the trident then.

[Ser Loras The Gay]

Just now, Robert Baratheon's hammer said:

JD must have looked remarkably similar to Rhaegar for Robert to mistake him at the trident then.

 

[ravenous reader]

On 5/7/2017 at 11:49 PM, Aegon VII said:

Now I want to shift gears into examining the second incident we have at the trident, Nymeria attacking Joff and Lady’s subsequent execution. It was this examination that made me believe this theory actually has some legs.

Hi Aegon VII.  While I can't endorse this theory, a number of your observations certainly gave me food for thought!    I'd also like to advise caution when applying parallels; so, in demonstration of how fraught the application might be, I'll be offering a counter-interpretation of one of them here, giving my own imaginative reading, in which I happen to be quite expert .

For one, it's important to acknowledge that Nymeria, who should be understood as Arya's proxy in the equation, did not attack Joff without provocation.  This will be important to the analysis, since the one who called for the duel, rather than the one who cried foul after being 'wolf-bitten' in the encounter, is key here in order to understand the unfolding of events.

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“Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name.”

We are led to believe this is Rhaegar whispering Lyanna’s name as Robert kills him. Perhaps this is just happening in the vision though and is not what actually happened. Or Rhaegar told Jon Darry, “If you die whisper Lyanna’s name” knowing it’s a necessary part of the prophecy. Either way, saying a lady’s name right before death at the trident parallels Ned’s sacrifice of Lady, where guess what, he says her name right before executing her.

That's a great point and goes towards suggesting something I've noticed independently, namely that words uttered under someones breath may not necessarily constitute something benevolent, but rather a curse on both the one uttering it and the one named/targeted (as I've been arguing, somewhat controversially myself, on my thread 'The Killing Word,' in which I suggest that the 'whispered prayer' issued from the tree by Will was a demonic summoning of the Others, according to an allegorical reading of the Prologue).

The other thing you've picked up on is that 'Lady' is one of Lyanna's symbolic 'avatars', with which I agree.  However, whether that means Rhaegar or Ned is ultimately responsible for her death -- note they both say 'the lady's name' in the symbolism -- is difficult to say.  I tend to favour the latter interpretation.

Later you argue that 'the wrong wolf' was executed, interpreting this to suggest that 'the wrong dragon' died.  It's also conceivable, however, that you could simply take the analogy as stated, namely that one wolf was executed in place of, or as a result of the behavior of, another -- without bringing dragons into it at all!  This would imply that another Stark -- one of Lyanna's siblings -- inadvertently led to her death.  I think this was her 'wild wolf' brother Brandon, for the cardinal sin of taking up the offer and then beating Littlefinger in the duel (by the way, @PrettyPig has drawn a marvellous comparison, which you might want to take a look at, between Dany's vision of the fallen man, with the Brandon-Littlefinger duel in which similarly Littlefinger utters Cat's name as he falls into the river on the 'water stair,' blood streaming from his abdomen).  In retaliation, I believe Littlefinger spread rumors about Lyanna, which ultimately led to her death, maybe even implicating another duped Stark, her brother Ned, in that death.  So we may break down the symbolic character alignments, as follows:

Joffrey -- like lying Littlefinger, full of bravado and low on martial skill, first initiates, then loses but critically does not die in, a duel, despite sustaining a wound 'a token of esteem' which vexes him; then vindictively rages afterwards, brooding on ways to annihilate his rival. Brandon the 'wild wolf', his fierce opponent, is the one who gives Littlefinger the 'wolf's bite' in this equation! 

Arya/Nymeria -- 'wolf blooded', rash Brandon equivalent, bests her opponent without killing him (she draws a 'tooth', humiliating his sense of masculinity -- a tooth represents power; therefore pulling one represents powerlessness, which is a feeling a narcissist or psychopath can not tolerate).

Mycah -- Joffrey, a la Littlefinger, retaliates getting Mycah killed (although that's not his main object) --  'the butcher's boy' who could be a stand-in for Rhaegar.  As the son of savage Aerys, Rhaegar is a kind of 'butcher's' boy!  Is it coincidence that GRRM has given him a famously Targaryen name?  Surrounding the uproar over the beloved direwolf's death, readers tend to forget that the real scapegoat here was Mycah.  The way I see it, Littlefinger's primary target was Brandon and by extension the Starks.  Employing lies as a weapon, he scapegoated Rhaegar in order to bait Brandon -- the same way Joffrey raging at his defeat at Arya's hands employed lies, in order to get Arya in trouble, which involved scapegoating Mycah in the process.

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard III

There was something slung over the back of his destrier, a heavy shape wrapped in a bloody cloak. "No sign of your daughter, Hand," the Hound rasped down, "but the day was not wholly wasted. We got her little pet." He reached back and shoved the burden off, and it fell with a thump in front of Ned.

Bending, Ned pulled back the cloak, dreading the words he would have to find for Arya, but it was not Nymeria after all. It was the butcher's boy, Mycah, his body covered in dried blood. He had been cut almost in half from shoulder to waist by some terrible blow struck from above.

"You rode him down," Ned said.

Lady -- Lyanna is the collateral damage.

The real object was Arya -- Brandon

Basically, Rhaegar and Lyanna died because of Littlefinger's unchecked narcissism -- just as Mycah and Lady, their symbolic equivalents, died because of Joffrey's (and Cersei's) narcissism (similarly unchecked by Robert).

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“Lady,” he said, tasting the name…. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur.

Shortly, Jory brought him Ice.

When it was over, he said, "Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell."

 

"All that way?" Jory said, astonished.

 

"All that way," Ned affirmed. "The Lannister woman shall never have this skin."

Another scene which potentially offers a strong parallel with this one is the opening execution scene in AGOT, in which Ice is also used, which is linked to the finding of the direwolves born 'with the dead' from the impaled lady direwolf, who as @Voice has argued can be read not only as a Lyanna symbol, but also as her ghost literally operating beyond the grave in some 'old gods' fashion (probably via the weirwoods).  I recommend giving his excellent thread 'Lyanna Stark -- a Gift from Old Gods' a read.  It's one of the best, most thought-provoking threads I've read all year.  Apart from the direwolf as Lyanna, it has also succeeded in convincing me that Jon was born via impromptu C-section (and not at the hands of a maester) and moreover that Lyanna may have succumbed either to that or another sword wound, even possibly been murdered!

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Let’s note the parallels. Here it is Robert who orders Lady’s death. Ned wields the sword, but truly it is Robert that killed her.

The parallel here could be Robert and Aerys as the kings manipulated into escalating the aggression by the lies of the shifty player. 

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So the first time at the trident we have Robert killing a Dragon and this time we have him killing a wolf. Only it’s the wrong wolf. Likely the stories will remember it as Joff killing the wolf that bit him. There’s a line from the show that would work perfectly about how they’ll make songs about it, but it’s not in the books so that doesn’t do us much good. Robert not killing the correct wolf here supports the idea that he did not kill the correct Dragon the first time.

I prefer my alternative interpretation, as above!  

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Also, since Joff is a false Baratheon there are other parallels that could be made. Here a false Baratheon fights a wolf and a wolf dies. At the Battle of the trident, it would have been a Baratheon fighting a false dragon and the dragon dies.

According to my alternative paradigm, Joff as 'false Baratheon' might be analogous to Littlefinger as 'false Tully' -- i.e. as ward, he grew up as one of them, although he is not really of their blood.  Also, the man has enough names, and a shadowy-enough origin,  to suggest that he is neither authentic, nor sincere (Petyr, Baelish, Littlefinger, Mockingbird), and therefore 'false' in the extreme!

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Ned killing Lady while saying her name could be viewed as the sacrifice that allowed the starks to warg and/or Bran to wake up, as his chapter immediately follows, which we will dig into as well.  Would Rhaegar’s/ JD’s death with a woman’s name be a similar sacrifice that allowed Jon to be TWPTP.

Yes -- superb on-point realization of the shameful sacrifice lurking at the root of the saga!

As a Nissa Nissa embodiment, Lyanna is the sacrifice out which Lightbringer is forged.  Moreover, as LmL has shown, Nissa Nissa represents the weirwood and/or the initial sacrifice made to the weirwood in order to activate its powers, so it's both significant that Bran awakes, having opened his third eye for the first time, following Lady's execution; in addition to Bran having a visceral reaction to the blood he actually can 'taste' -- because it's the same blood flowing through his veins bearing the 'warg gift' -- on witnessing the ancient execution of his likely ancestor made to the heart tree, which probably consecrated both the tree and Winterfell to start with.

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Lady’s death is offscreen. Seems odd, as we’re in Ned’s POV and he skips over the execution itself. Reminds us of the BotT and Rhaegar’s death, which was offscreen as well.

Technique frequently used by GRRM in order to stoke the suspense.  He's a withholding guy!

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We also have the hound coming back with the butcher’s boy,

 

"No sign of your daughter, Hand," the Hound rasped down, "but the day was not wholly wasted. We got her little pet." He reached back and shoved the burden off, and it fell with a thump in front of Ned.

 

Bending, Ned pulled back the cloak, dreading the words he would have to find for Arya, but it was not Nymeria after all. It was the butcher's boy, Mycah, his body covered in dried blood.

Nymeria/Arya -- i.e. Brandon in my analogy -- was the primary target of the aggression.

Mycah and Lady -- i.e. Rhaegar and Lyanna -- died instead.

When you pull back the cloak on Littlefinger's psychopathy, that's what you'll eventually find.  

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

I failed you, Robert, Ned thought. He could not say the words. I lied to you, hid the truth. I let them kill you.

The king heard him. "You stiff-necked fool," he muttered, "too proud to listen. Can you eat pride, Stark? Will honor shield your children?" Cracks ran down his face, fissures opening in the flesh, and he reached up and ripped the mask away. It was not Robert at all; it was Littlefinger, grinning, mocking him. When he opened his mouth to speak, his lies turned to pale grey moths and took wing.

Ned was half-asleep when the footsteps came down the hall. At first he thought he dreamt them; it had been so long since he had heard anything but the sound of his own voice. Ned was feverish by then, his leg a dull agony, his lips parched and cracked. When the heavy wooden door creaked open, the sudden light was painful to his eyes.

Robert clearly shown here by Ned's subconscious to be the tool or puppet of Littlefinger.

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The hound introducing the body as “her little pet” leads ned and the reader to believe the corpse is a wolf. We are being purposely misled though and a wolf was not slain here, it was a lesser person (to be crude).

It was 'not a wolf', it was a dragon!  Hence, his Targ name 'Mycah.'  I wouldn't use the term 'lesser person', since the death of an innocent human being should never be dismissed; however, I see what you're getting at -- Mycah is neither the main target, nor a main character -- just like Rhaegar!

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Why would grrm mislead us in this way?

To show us we care more about the main character, the wolf, than the minor character, the human -- and thereby to maximise our discomfort!

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To show that at the BoT we are led to believe a Dragon was killed when in fact it was a lesser person. We also have the cloak concealing the identity of the corpse, in the same way Rhaegar’s cloak and armor would have concealed the identity of JD’s corpse.

 

Robert was slumped in Darry's high seat at the far end of the room, his face closed and sullen.

 

This is the point that I actually started to think this theory has support. So now to add another parallel, Robert is assuming the role of a Darry by sitting in the Darry high seat. So here we have Robert in the trappings of a Darry killing a wolf, whereas last time at the trident, Robert killed a Darry in the trappings of a dragon. This seems significant.

 

Ser Raymun Darry guarded his look well.

 

Fits with the idea of a Darry concealing his looks through armor.

 

Immediately following this chapter we go into Bran’s 3EC dream.

 

He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.

 

 

We often have characters described in dreams/visions as shadows and it is usually related to Rhaegar and/or R+L=J. Here I believe it’s obvious we have the hound and then Jaime, arguably the two characters with the biggest redemption/resurrection arcs. The third character is often thought of as the mountain or LF. Both don’t really fit that well as they have nothing to do with the trident.

As I hope I've shown, it's not necessarily true that Littlefinger had 'nothing to do with the Trident.'  Regarding the first showdown at the Trident, it's likely Littlefinger had manoeuvred the Targaryens and Starks (and by extension the Baratheons) into opposition against each other, based on a false premise, fed by rumor, innuendo and lies.  The second showdown at the Trident would definitely not have happened, had Littlefinger not organised the death of Jon Arryn, necessitating Robert's choice of a new Hand, which LF had correctly reasoned would be either LF himself or Ned; together additionally with the poisonous letter he had Lysa Arryn write implicating the Lannisters in Jon Arryn's death, thereby goading Ned and his entourage south.

I think Littlefinger is the giant with 'nothing behind the visor but black blood' -- it also mirrors Ned's fever dream in which Littlefinger hides behind Robert's mask, using Robert as his 'sock-puppet,' which I quoted above.  With each successful ploy, Littlefinger has only grown -- like a giant -- in stature, while reciprocally diminishing his enemies, on which the meteoric rise of his upward mobility has been built.  Currently, he finds himself on a mountain top named 'the Giant's Lance' up on high with the noble falcons, so his giant status is assured.  And there are certainly enough 'lies remaining to be slain' in that direction.

From a certain perspective, we may even include Lyanna among the wronged ladies who may have a bone to pick with Littlefinger, whom I believe to be the giant in the castle of snow of the Ghost's prophecy.  Since Lyanna can't bring about this poetic justice, the unfulfilled task remains to her descendants.

[PrettyPig]

4 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I think Littlefinger is the giant with 'nothing behind the visor but black blood' -- it also mirrors Ned's fever dream in which Littlefinger hides behind Robert's mask, using Robert as his 'sock-puppet,' which I quoted above.  With each successful ploy, Littlefinger has only grown -- like a giant -- in stature, while reciprocally diminishing his enemies, on which the meteoric rise of his upward mobility has been built.  Currently, he finds himself on a mountain top named 'the Giant's Lance' up on high with the noble falcons, so his giant status is assured.

RR, I'm not sure if you've ever followed (or are even aware of) my little side research project comparing ASOIAF characters and plots to those of Marvel comics in the 1960s-late '70s, but you may find this tidbit interesting.

HERE is an image of the sigil of House Baelish - the Titan of Braavos.

HERE is an image of Thanos the Mad Titan, one of the top baddies of the Marvelverse, a 'giant' of a demigod (he's almost 7 feet tall) who was shunned as a youth in favor of his more personable and handsome brother, a slight that led him to  set out on a lifelong pursuit of ever-increasing personal power.

Anyway, I won't go into long plot summary or origin story or anything, but I'm working (slowly) on ferreting out some other commonalities with Littlefinger.     Just thought you might find this amusing re: the giant association.  

[PrettyPig]

23 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

This is the type of response I was expecting from this thread. As I said before, not trying to convert anyone, just observing some nice parallels that hopefully one day lead to a better analysis than mine.

No worries - I have a permanent seat on the Tinfoil Train, so tend to be more open-minded about out-of-the-box theories such as this than those who seemingly live to do nothing but seagull on stuff that they "solved" ages ago, like it's funding their retirement or something.   Besides, MR=RT is still one of my all-time favorite crackpots, even though I have to admit that I believe it has a very slim chance of being true.    I would love it so much should it come to pass, but I just don't think it will.

That being said, this theory DOES bring up some unusual details that don't add up, and I think these glitches in the Matrix are GRRM's way of telling us to reexamine some of what we think we know.   For example, it might not be realistic (even for a fantasy series) for Rhaegar to live out a second life as some random wildling dude because the machinations to really make that work are a biiiiiggg stretch, but I do believe it would be an interesting exercise to think about what might have happened to Rhaegar *after* his death that doesn't necessarily involve him resurfacing as Mance.  

The cremation SSM is fascinating to me for this reason, as is the location of his corpse.     Those are good things to mull, IMO.