Heresy 202 and still going

[LynnS]

8 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I don't think Dany was born on Dragonstone,  nor is she Rhaella's daughter. 

I think she is Rhaegar's and Ashera's, conceived and born on Dragonstone after Aegon's birth.  Rhaegar's third child and the third head of the dragon. 

[SirArthur]

22 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I think she is Rhaegar's and Ashera's, conceived and born on Dragonstone after Aegon's birth.  Rhaegar's third child and the third head of the dragon. 

Does this include Viserys being a fake ? 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, SirArthur said:

Does this include Viserys being a fake ? 

Fake in what way? 

Some random thoughts about the prince who is promised:

- prince (princess) of Dragonstone is a title given to the heir and Dragonstone is their seat

- Davos muses that Dragonstone is a place of sorcery; that the dragons are carved by wizards and sorcerers

- Dragonstone is a sea dragon, a sea mount risen from the sea

- volcanos, volcanic sea mounts are wellsprings of fire magic

- Melisandre is interested in Dragonstone because it is a place of magic and believes she can wake a stone dragon

- Does this imply that the prince/princess of dragonstone returns to their place of birth upon their death? In other words, are the stone dragons of Dragonstone equivalent to the stone sarcophagus in the crypts of Winterfell?

- Dany dreams of Rhaegar in black armor and when she lifts the visor sees her own face.  Does this imply that she is Rhaegar's heir and daughter?

- Is being encased in black armor equivalent to riding the dragon, the black dread?

- Is Rhaegar the black dragon of Dany's dream, the dragon that she wakes?

- Sleeping is a euphamism for death.

- When Dany dreams of the Black Dragon, the dragon sings to her.  Rhaegar was a singer in life.

- Is it only females of the line who can wake dragons from stone and become the mother of dragons?

[JNR]

23 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Oh indeed and its worth emphasising that in an oft-quoted conversation with one Tyrion Lannister, the dreams which the former has of being a dragon and immolating his kin are day-dreams, not the nocturnal kind, and Jon Snow's agreement that he too has such day-dreams

And really, Jon never does agree to any such thing. Here's the passage:

Quote

"I used to start fires in the bowels of Casterly Rock and stare at the flames for hours, pretending they were dragonfire. Sometimes I'd imagine my father burning. At other times, my sister." Jon Snow was staring at him, a look equal parts horror and fascination. Tyrion guffawed. "Don't look at me that way, bastard. I know your secret. You've dreamt the same kind of dreams."

"No," Jon Snow said, horrified. "I wouldn't …"

This looks like a literal statement to me.  It's not about resenting Catelyn -- of course he does -- it's about this concept that he fantasized about dragons burning her.

Very unlike Tyrion, Jon has no unusual interest in or knowledge of dragons.  Unlike Tyrion, he did not ask for a dragon for a birthday present, or memorize information about dragons drawn from various sources.  

If Haldon Half-Maester quizzed Jon on how Urrax died (as he quizzes Tyrion in ADWD), I think Jon would flunk.

And of course we have literally read Jon's thoughts in dozens of chapters.  Nowhere, ever, does he picture dragons burning and killing family members in any waking or sleeping dream.

So I think he was just being honest above.  Though I'm sure he had many resentful thoughts about Catelyn in a broad sense.  If he did imagine her death, my guess is he'd choose something closer to home... like a pack of wolves.

[Black Crow]

I wouldn't even go that far. Jon's denials are unconvincing but he's denying resentful fantasies about Catelyn and probably a couple of his siblings as well, but there's no reason to suppose given the real context that they are specifically daydreams about dragons. I suspect that Jon's imagination isn't restricted in his choice of revenge.

[LynnS]

On 10/3/2017 at 11:08 AM, LynnS said:

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IV

"Why did they wed if they did not love each other?"

"Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line."

"A woods witch?" Dany was astonished.

To go back to this again. The heir apparent is named the prince or princess of Dragonstone.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Prince_of_Dragonstone

"that the prince was promised (Dragonstone)/(the princess) would be born of their line."

 

[Brad Stark]

10 hours ago, SirArthur said:

Does this include Viserys being a fake ? 

No, Viserys and Rheagar are the children of Rhaella by Aerys and nobody else ever pretended to be them.  Rhaella really was pregnant and fled to Dragonstone and really died giving birth to another stillborn child.   

Ashara Dayne died giving birth to Rheagar's daughter, who she really named Daenerys after the Targaryen princess who lived in Dorne, Ashara's ancestor.  Viserys ended up in Dorne, as Rheagar's closest friends and allies were there, so all 3 Targaryen's were together briefly as kids, in a secluded house with a red door with lemon trees.  Jon Snow was able to go back with Ned, as he lacked Targaryens features, but Daenerys and Viserys looked very Targaryen.  House Martell intended to marry Arianne to Viserys and put him on the throne, so they made sure to keep the Targaryens secret from as many people as possible until they grew up.  But Varys is good at finding secrets, and found out, and successfully moved the kids to Bravos.  Some people, likely Doran Martell, know the truth, but still have an interest keeping it secret.

I am not sure what Varys's plan was, and maybe he didn't know at the time, but it changed to putting Illyrio's son Griff on the iron throne after Viserys died.  He and Illyrio are Blackfyres, and working to put a Blackfyre on the throne.  At very least, that gives them reason to remove the Targaryens from the Dornish who would put the Targaryens back on the throne.

[Brad Stark]

There really do need to be 3 heads of the dragon, and with Viserys dead, we only have 2 Targaryens.  This is why the 3rd head won't be a Targaryen, it will be Tyrion and why GRRM suddenly came up with the DragonBinder and sent it to Meereene at the same time as Tyrion.  I can't wait to find out how the battle ends with Tyrion and not Victarion bound to Viserion, the dragon with the Lannister coloration.

[Brad Stark]

This also gives us 3 women who died giving birth to the 3 heads of the dragons.  Obviously we have the example of Jesus's virgin birth and Moses being drawn from the water, but special people always have special births, and GRRM is using this in his story.

[SirArthur]

9 hours ago, LynnS said:

Fake in what way?

Fake in the way that he doesn't speak High Valyrian, Roberts isn't considering him a thread and fake in the way that he isn't looking for marriage options or persuing the pact with Dorne he may have known of. He is just ... waiting for an uprising in his name. And could marry into Valyrian descended houses in Essos.

If there is really some conspiracy going on Viserys and Dany would have been seperated. I mean even Rickon may be more safe wherever he is now.

51 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I am not sure what Varys's plan was, and maybe he didn't know at the time, but it changed to putting Illyrio's son Griff on the iron throne after Viserys died.  He and Illyrio are Blackfyres, and working to put a Blackfyre on the throne.  At very least, that gives them reason to remove the Targaryens from the Dornish who would put the Targaryens back on the throne.

In all of this I always miss the plan to take back the throne. The actual plan. Dorne + Golden Company against all the other Kingdoms ? I don't buy it that every unlikely situation like not Renly has been forseen. Without Renly the thing would have been over before it even started. I don't buy that the Lannister - Stark war was the big plan.

[JNR]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I wouldn't even go that far. Jon's denials are unconvincing

Well, there's really quite a difference between being resentful and literally fantasizing about murdering people.

Tyrion finds Jon's denial unconvincing, that's true... but that's because everyone in Tyrion's life has treated him horribly, the sole apparent exceptions being Jaime and his favorite uncle.  (And Jaime has a secret.)

So of course Tyrion is a creature of extremely deep resentment and we can't be too surprised that he craves vengeance against his father most of all -- and gets it in a supremely devastating way.

In contrast, Jon appears to have been quite well liked and well treated by his siblings and by the man he considers his father; only Catelyn apparently made a habit of slighting him.  And I really can't picture Jon shooting even Catelyn in the groin with a crossbow as Tyrion did Tywin -- I just can't.  I don't believe he would ever even conceive of it, let alone do it.  When he denies he would, I believe him.

(What I find unconvincing is that he would ever have joined the Watch, when he had such superior options open to him.  But GRRM had a story to tell and it couldn't be told if Jon was, you know... sensible.)

[SirArthur]

47 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

There really do need to be 3 heads of the dragon, and with Viserys dead, we only have 2 Targaryens. 

who ? Dany and ?

[Brad Stark]

7 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

who ? Dany and ?

Dany, Jon and Tyrion.  Of course, Jon's death and resurrection prevents this from working the way it should.  

[SirArthur]

38 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Dany, Jon and Tyrion.  Of course, Jon's death and resurrection prevents this from working the way it should.  

Someone once has made the important distinction that Tyrion has no dragon dreams but dreams of dragons. Because they give him power as a dwarf. Like the office of hand of the king gives him power.

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, SirArthur said:

Fake in the way that he doesn't speak High Valyrian, 

Since when?

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

 

In contrast, Jon appears to have been quite well liked and well treated by his siblings and by the man he considers his father; only Catelyn apparently made a habit of slighting him.  And I really can't picture Jon shooting even Catelyn in the groin with a crossbow as Tyrion did Tywin -- I just can't.  I don't believe he would ever even conceive of it, let alone do it.  When he denies he would, I believe him.

 

Not so. the only one to unreservedly give him affection is Arya. Sansa, as ever, takes her cue from Catelyn. Bran, although not hostile, is very aware that Jon is his bastard brother, and even Robb, supposedly his best friend, snubs him in that game by telling him he can't ever be lord of Winterfell. Most of its low level, unthinking stuff, but there's no doubt of the perceived slights. As to horrible fates befalling them, the whole point of daydreams is that they are just that; imaginings which will never become reality.

In the end Tyrion used a crossbow, not a dragon

[JNR]

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

even Robb, supposedly his best friend, snubs him in that game by telling him he can't ever be lord of Winterfell

Do you mean the same Robb who, in ASOS, openly opposes Catelyn and literally nominates Jon to succeed him as Lord of Winterfell?

I think that event pretty much spells things out.  Catelyn doesn't want to see the title go to any child who wasn't hers... whereas Robb perceives Jon as his brother, and thus, proposes legitimizing Jon.

Now, we can picture circumstances that, in an alternate reality, might have led Jon to daydream about murdering family, as Tyrion has. 

For instance, if Jon had married a girl, and Ned had had that girl gang-raped by all the Stark family soldiers such as Jory, and then forced Jon to rape her too... an event that happened to Tyrion at his father's command... then we could make some sort of comparison between the two.  But family squabbles don't exactly fall in this class.

8 hours ago, Black Crow said:

In the end Tyrion used a crossbow, not a dragon

Well, a crossbow was what he had handy.

But certainly the main point, and one where we agree, is that Jon has never had anything resembling a dragondream.

[Matthew.]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Do you mean the same Robb who, in ASOS, openly opposes Catelyn and literally nominates Jon to succeed him as Lord of Winterfell?

I think that event pretty much spells things out.  Catelyn doesn't want to see the title go to any child who wasn't hers... whereas Robb perceives Jon as his brother, and thus, proposes legitimizing Jon.

I have to agree with BC's assessment here--just because Robb, forced into a position of leadership, recognized Jon's merit as an heir does not mean that Robb was always so considerate in childhood.

An important aspect of Jon's arc in the latter parts of ASOS is his internal struggle after Stannis has offered him the opportunity to become Lord of Winterfell, which reveals a lot of lingering resentment on Jon's part.

A lot of that is coming from Jon's own distorted self-perceptions, rather than any overt ill treatment he received - his experience, as you said earlier, was far better than Tyrions - but ASOS does seem to hint that some of Jon's opinions of himself (and bastards in general) weren't just fed by Catelyn, but by the fact that his own siblings would not entirely allow him to forget his own heritage, and his place in House Stark.

Scattered throughout ASOS:

Quote

Bastard children were born from lust and lies, men said; their nature was wanton and treacherous. Once Jon had meant to prove them wrong, to show his lord father that he could be as good and true a son as Robb. I made a botch of that. Robb had become a hero king; if Jon was remembered at all, it would be as a turncloak, an oathbreaker, and a murderer. He was glad that Lord Eddard was not alive to see his shame.

...

When Jon had been very young, too young to understand what it meant to be a bastard, he used to dream that one day Winterfell might be his. Later, when he was older, he had been ashamed of those dreams. Winterfell would go to Robb and then his sons, or to Bran or Rickon should Robb die childless. And after them came Sansa and Arya. Even to dream otherwise seemed disloyal, as if he were betraying them in his heart, wishing for their deaths. 

...

(when they're training, and play-fighting as knights and heroes)

That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell."

I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken.

...

He sat on the bench and buried his head in his hands. Why am I so angry? he asked himself, but it was a stupid question. Lord of Winterfell. I could be the Lord of Winterfell. My father's heir.

...

Winterfell, he thought. Theon left it burned and broken, but I could restore it. Surely his father would have wanted that, and Robb as well. They would never have wanted the castle left in ruins.

You can't be the Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born, he heard Robb say again.

...

(on the prospect of being Lord of Winterfell)

He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. It was a hunger inside him, sharp as a dragonglass blade. A hunger . . . he could feel it. It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought.

To reiterate, while this is not purely about Robb - Jon's desire to be Lord of Winterfell makes it inevitable that he would have some resentment toward Robb - it seems clear enough that Stannis re-opened a wound that had not truly healed.

This theme is revisited in Jon's dream in ADWD:

 

Quote

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. "I am the Lord of Winterfell," Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled …

Incidentally, that second portion of the dream is not included in the Citadel on this website, perhaps reflecting a disproportionate interest in the armor of ice/blade of fire portion, but I feel that the latter paragraph contains more foreshadowing about Jon's post-resurrection arc.

[SirArthur]

on a side note: Three POVs as heads of the dragon seem ... wasted. The way the story was told until now it is higly likely that a head and his dragon dreams are already in the story but not revealed. We never hear of Robert's, Renly's or Stannis' dreams. Never about Varys or Aegon VI. Patchface comes to mind as having prophetic dreams.

And I would connect Jaime's dreams with Jon's. Dreams about dark things/doom underground.

 

11 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Since when?

I have read different theories on it based on the idea that Dany has High Valyrian as mother's language and Viserys the common tongue. I'm investigating it.

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

I have to agree with BC's assessment here--just because Robb, forced into a position of leadership, recognized Jon's merit as an heir does not mean that Robb was always so considerate in childhood.

An important aspect of Jon's arc in the latter parts of ASOS is his internal struggle after Stannis has offered him the opportunity to become Lord of Winterfell, which reveals a lot of lingering resentment on Jon's part.

A lot of that is coming from Jon's own distorted self-perceptions, rather than any overt ill treatment he received - his experience, as you said earlier, was far better than Tyrions - but ASOS does seem to hint that some of Jon's opinions of himself (and bastards in general) weren't just fed by Catelyn, but by the fact that his own siblings would not entirely allow him to forget his own heritage, and his place in House Stark.

Scattered throughout ASOS:

To reiterate, while this is not purely about Robb - Jon's desire to be Lord of Winterfell makes it inevitable that he would have some resentment toward Robb - it seems clear enough that Stannis re-opened a wound that had not truly healed.

This theme is revisited in Jon's dream in ADWD:

 

Incidentally, that second portion of the dream is not included in the Citadel on this website, perhaps reflecting a disproportionate interest in the armor of ice/blade of fire portion, but I feel that the latter paragraph contains more foreshadowing about Jon's post-resurrection arc.

Thank you, this is exactly what I was getting at - Jon's perception of how he is treated and how, no matter what he is not truly a Stark - hence as well those dreams of the crypt and the old lords telling him that it is not his place; something which is not to be taken literally but rather is a reflection of all those other passages.