B + A = J, R + L = J, R + L = D, N + A = J

[Nevets]

GRRM has laid down so many clues for R+L=J that for it to be anything else would be ridiculous.  If this were real-life, or even a real-life historical novel, I would entertain other solutions.  But it isn't; it is entirely GRRM's creation, so R+L=J is the only solution that makes any sense.  Once you look , the clues are pretty obvious.  And the other suggestions are pretty clear red herrings designed to distract the reader from the true solution.

On Daenerys, I am a little more conflicted.  There are certainly indications that something is off about her back-story.  And there is too much mention of lemons coming from Dorne (as late as the preview chapters) that I can't dismiss it.  I don't think it involves false parentage, though.  Largely because I have yet to see a convincing explanation as to how and why such a switch would be done.  It would be difficult to pull off, and I can't see any benefit to anybody, certainly not enough to be worth the effort.

[LordImp]

Are there still people who doubt R+L=J? 

[TMIFairy]

9 minutes ago, LordImp said:

Are there still people who doubt R+L=J? 

Yes!

[kissdbyfire]

9 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Jon is too old to have been born at the TOJ, at the same time as Ned's arrival.  That's a good reason for doubt right there.  

You can salvage the theory by having various persons move at implausibly fast speeds in the final months of the war.

Or else you can salvage the theory by having Jon born to Lyanna some time before the sack, and having another child born to Lyanna many months after the sack, at the time of Ned's arrival.  But that would not be the standard version of the theory.

Also all the moving parts.  The sword of the morning.  The Dayne connection.  How does it all fit in?   If I don't have all the answers, why should I be certain of anything?

 

And the younger baby is Dany?

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

56 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Jon is too old to have been born at the TOJ, at the same time as Ned's arrival.  That's a good reason for doubt right there. 

[...]

Or else you can salvage the theory by having Jon born to Lyanna some time before the sack,

It doesn't add up. People born earlier are older. Usually.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

4 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

What doesn't add up?  If Jon was born earlier, he would be older.

Oh, OK. I read it as if you needed to make Jon younger.

(Why is he too old, anyway?)

[kissdbyfire]

Just now, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Oh, OK. I read it as if you needed to make Jon younger.

(Why is he too old, anyway?)

You took the question right out of my mouth. 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

36 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Because, per GRRM, he's not as much as a year older than Dany, but "closer to" 8 or 9 months older.

Oh, that. I remember, it was the same SSM where he confessed that the chronology of the books "gave him fits", and that while he intends to publish a timeline some day, he's wary of doing it with year-and-day precision. Although it was a different SSM from the one where he specifically advised against the very kind of calculations you did below.

The reason I am never specific about dates and distances is precisely so that people won't sit down and do this sort of thing.

My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch, and just enjoy the story.

So I don't accept arguments stemming from math that the writer himself likely didn't do (just like real-world genetics has no place in discussing whether Joffrey was really truly a bastard).

 

36 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Dany was born 9 "moons" after Rhaella fled KL, which occurred shortly after Arys heard (presumably via raven) of Rhaegar's defeat at the Trident.  To give people as much time as possible, let's assume "moons" means full months (and not, say, 9 new moons later).

Which means that, after Rhaella flees, the following needs to happen in one month, in order for Jon to be 8 months older than Dany:  Robert must recover from his injuries at the Trident sufficiently to travel and then must travel 450 miles to KL; Ned must fight with Robert at KL over dead babies; then Ned must take an army and bring it 450 miles to Storm's End, where he breaks the siege; then after breaking the siege and taking care of whatever business a war leader must handle, he must somehow find out that something's going on at the Tower of Joy; and then travel 600+ miles by land (or 300+ miles by land and 600+ by sea) to reach the Tower of Joy in time for Lyanna to die in a bed of blood giving birth to Jon.

The usual approach is to adjust "8 or 9" months older to 7 months older, and then allow 2 months to accomplish all this.  But it is still a stretch.

 

[Ygrain]

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

 Robert must recover from his injuries at the Trident sufficiently to travel and then must travel 450 miles to KL; Ned must fight with Robert at KL over dead babies;

It's not stated that Robert was completely unable to travel due to his injuries and the time between the Sack and Robert's arrival is very short because the corpses of Elia and her children presented to him are not rotting.

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

then Ned must take an army and bring it 450 miles to Storm's End, where he breaks the siege;

Which he managed by getting the loyalist bend the knee to Robert. No reason to present this as taking awfully long.

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

then after breaking the siege and taking care of whatever business a war leader must handle,

which, again, is not stated anywhere at all, nor is it stated that Ned didn't have a second-in-command who might see to the business

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

he must somehow find out that something's going on at the Tower of Joy

That's a pure assumption on your part that he had to spend some time investigating; in fact, there is nothing contradicting he may have known prior

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

and then travel 600+ miles by land (or 300+ miles by land and 600+ by sea) to reach the Tower of Joy in time for Lyanna to die in a bed of blood giving birth to Jon.

Except that it is not stated that he arrived right at the moment of Jon's birth; Lyanna could have given birth a fortnight before his arrival and still die in a bed of blood of puerperal fever.

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

The usual approach is to adjust "8 or 9" months older to 7 months older, and then allow 2 months to accomplish all this.  But it is still a stretch.

The usual approach is not to take things for granted or come up with obstacles not stated in the text. 

BTW, the quote is about 8-9 months continues "or thereabouts", which does allow for some leeway on both the readers' and GRRM's part.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

9 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

This is not an argument.  It is your admission that the standard R+L=J timeline is a stretch at best.

If GRRM considers time and distance when writing his stories (and he clearly does, otherwise it could hardly give him fits, for one thing), then the fan can reasonably consider it as well, when considering the plausibility of different scenarios (Daario = Euron, R+L=J, or whatever).  I may have found a mistake; or I may have found a clue.   GRRM can "suggest" we ignore his mistakes.  He can also "suggest" we ignore his clues (after all, he likes to fool the reader, no?).  The reader is not bound by such "suggestions".  

So SSMs are gospel ("closer to 8-9 months probably") and SSMs are to be ignored ("My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch"). Sorry, you're inconsistent.

[Wayward Sand Star]

2 hours ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

So SSMs are gospel ("closer to 8-9 months probably") and SSMs are to be ignored ("My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch"). Sorry, you're inconsistent.

Actually, you're rather inconsistent. GRRM's point in those SSMs is that, in the context of Robert's Rebellion, no timelines are to be considered precise enough to use to work out an accurate timeline. It may well be that GRRM slipped up, or that his sense of realism acknowledges the inaccuracy of dating events of a war (which are reasonably far apart geographically, yet temporally close) based on witness accounts (as is demonstrated by the contradictory information we have been given about certain events as witnessed by different POV characters). 

If you're calling the standard R+L=J theory a 'taxicab argument' (where one uses a preposition to support a certain part of one's argument, yet dismiss it when it does not support the rest of the argument) -- it isn't one. All witness accounts are murky; all so-called historic accounts are inherently inaccurate (if not wilfully inaccurate, so as to support a certain narrative). Those last months of Robert's Rebellion are still a mystery.  

[norwaywolf123]

What i think is the cannon paternity/maternity of characters:

Tywin Lannister + Joanna Lannister = Jaime & Cersei Lannister

Tywin Lannister or Aerys Targaryen + Joanna Lannister = Tyrion Lannister

Rhaegar Targaryen + Lyanna Stark = Jon Snow

Brandon Stark + Allyria Dayne = Stillborn or Allyria Dayne

[Frey family reunion]

14 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

Because, per GRRM, he's not as much as a year older than Dany, but "closer to" 8 or 9 months older.

Dany was born 9 "moons" after Rhaella fled KL, which occurred shortly after Arys heard (presumably via raven) of Rhaegar's defeat at the Trident.  To give people as much time as possible, let's assume "moons" means full months (and not, say, 9 new moons later).

Which means that, after Rhaella flees, the following needs to happen in one month, in order for Jon to be 8 months older than Dany:  Robert must recover from his injuries at the Trident sufficiently to travel and then must travel 450 miles to KL; Ned must fight with Robert at KL over dead babies; then Ned must take an army and bring it 450 miles to Storm's End, where he breaks the siege; then after breaking the siege and taking care of whatever business a war leader must handle, he must somehow find out that something's going on at the Tower of Joy; and then travel 600+ miles by land (or 300+ miles by land and 600+ by sea) to reach the Tower of Joy in time for Lyanna to die in a bed of blood giving birth to Jon.

The usual approach is to adjust "8 or 9" months older to 7 months older, and then allow 2 months to accomplish all this.  But it is still a stretch.

Of course this all assumes that Viserys account of Dany's birth isn't complete bullshit.  I think the safer timeline is to look at the probable time of her conception, which is when Jaime and Darry stood outside of Aerys door as he raped Rahella (or whomever).  If GRRM is lining up Jon's birth with Dany's conception, then Jon was born at some time prior to the Battle at the Trident.  Because Darry died at the Trident, he couldn't have been listening to the joyous sounds of Dany's conception.  

So this moves Jon's possible birth date up even more.

Then there is the often overlooked fact that the rumor mill in Winterfell is that Jon was conceived during the Harrenhal tourney.  Which means that the washerwomen and cooks, and horse masters took one look at baby Jon and assumed that he was a good bit older than his half brother Robb.  Cat assumes the reverse, but of course she would because it is in her interest to believe and make everyone else believe that Robb is the older of the two, in case there is ever a succession debate.

[Ygrain]

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Robert either rested due to his injuries, till he could travel, or traveled while injured, or both.  Either way it must have slowed him down.  Otherwise, Ned would not have left him behind.  Robert's injuries were relevant, and I mentioned them because they were relevant.  Since I did not assign a precise number to the resulting delay, you have no cause for complaint.

That the corpses of Elia & kids were not rotting (or at least not rotting much) is not relevant to this argument, since Rhaella did not leave KL (in response to news of Rhaegar's death) at the same time that Elia & kids were killed at KL.  Obviously they were killed much later.  When exactly?  Unknown.

So go and re-read your own argument.  You listed Robert's injury and delayed arrival in KL, as if they poised a considerable delay for Ned's departure. They didn't - the non-existent decay of the corpses shows that Robert arrived pretty soon after Ned and the amount of time that Ned spent in KL is negligible.

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

You are accusing me of making "pure assumptions" I never made.  I never made any specific conclusions about how much time it took him to manage things at Storm's End.

Oh? You didn't type with your own keyboard that Ned had to handle things at Storms' End, even though the books say none of the kind? You didn't create a list of things, book-based as well as imaginary, that seemed awfully long and indicating that Ned must have been busy for months before he could even set out for ToJ?

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

 My position is flexible, whereas standard R+L=J supporters are in the position of being forced to assume this took hardly any time at all.

Wow, I didn't know you were a mind reader to know what every single person on the boards assumes. And just FYI, distances and travel times were indeed taken into account. You may peruse the search function and browse through the old threads.

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

We do have an indication that Ned did not know prior to arriving at Storm's End.  When he arrived at Storm's End, he did not know where 3 members of the Kingsguard had gone.  He thought he might find them at Storm's End, or that they might have accompanied Rhaella to Dragonstone.  Obviously, his interest in finding them was spurred by his interest in finding Lyanna.

That is a false conclusion. Receiving information about Lyanna's whereabouts =/= receiving information about the KG's whereabouts (not to mention that the ToJ convo may not be what actually happened)

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

 Nonetheless, I made no specific assumptions about how much time he had to spend investigating.

Still the same blatant alibism... No, you didn't state the amount of time. You just made sure you could come up with and "impressive" number of tasks that Ned had to do.

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

You now seek to separate the "bed of blood" from any childbirth by a whole fortnight.   Did no-one change the sheets?  If you do that, there is no particularly good reason to associate the "bed of blood" with childbirth at all.  But hey, maybe she gave birth a fortnight earlier, and then someone stabbed her with a knife, in bed, as Ned was arriving.  Or something.  But then, one of the alleged clues for R+L=J goes up in smoke.  

"Bed of blood" means birthing bed, not a bed permanently soaked in blood. And in case you are unfamiliar with certain facts of life, women continue bleeding for a good couple of weeks after the delivery itself. With puerperal fever, the bleeding is even abnormally strong. Lyanna was feverish, and had been for quite some time for the fever to make her voice mere whisper, remember? Fever is not normally associated with childbirth, but with the postpartum period.

 

[AlaskanSandman]

On 7/5/2017 at 3:44 AM, Consigliere said:

R+L = J

A+R = D

It's a no-brainer.

This is what i believe but incredibly not alot of people seem to be on board with it. To me Ashara Dayne and Rhaegar being Dany's parents makes soooo much sense and explains the dishonoring of Harrenhal.

Rhaegar looks up in Dany's Vision and doesn't see Dany but rather Elia Martells Lady in Waiting, Ashara Dayne who he plans to have his 3rd kid with. He later dishonors her though by crowning Lyanna Queen of Love and Beauty and running off with her. 

Rhaegar makes good on his deal with Ashara though when he returns to K.L. from the Tower of Joy. Arthur did still die for Rhaegar. This also fits with the birth times too. 

[Ygrain]

1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

This is what i believe but incredibly not alot of people seem to be on board with it. To me Ashara Dayne and Rhaegar being Dany's parents makes soooo much sense and explains the dishonoring of Harrenhal.

Didn't he mean Aerys + Rhaella?

The problem with Ashara + Rhaegar as Dany's parents unfortunately make very little sense in why Stannis and everyone else believe Dany was born on Dragonstone 9 months after the Sack (and after Rhaegar's death)

1 hour ago, AlaskanSandman said:

This also fits with the birth times too. 

See above.

[TMIFairy]

48 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

The problem with Ashara + Rhaegar as Dany's parents unfortunately make very little sense in why Stannis and everyone else believe Dany was born on Dragonstone 9 months after the Sack (and after Rhaegar's death)

Not to mention Danaerys' birth killing Rhealla. If not the "bed of blood", then what - or who - killed the Dowager Queen?

 

[TMIFairy]

Baby swapping - Westerosi no.1 sport ...

[Nevets]

19 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

Childbirth.  But 90+% of Rhaella's children were sickly or dying.  Just because Rhaella died, does not mean the baby lived very long.

And if the child died, Viserys would need a replacement.  Otherwise, how could he pursue his scheme of trading a princess for an army.

What scheme?  Varys was 8 years old.  I doubt he was scheming at all.  Anyway, going to the trouble to find and transport a replacement and saddling yourself with an infant you have to take care of seems a lot of immediate trouble for a highly speculative gain many years down the road.  

Sorry, but I have yet to see any good case for Daenerys's parents to be anyone but Aerys and Rhaelle.

[Damon_Tor]

On 7/4/2017 at 8:23 PM, Lord Wraith said:

Most people (especially on this forum) will say R+L=J.

My favorite alternative is N+A=J.

I had been on the fence, maybe leaning toward N+A=J (or B+A=J because GRRM loves his characters being cuckolded for deeply personal reasons) but while I was decoding the HotU prophecy so much of it happened to fit much better if R+L=J.