R+L=J v.165

[Bael's Bastard]

3 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

I don't want to get into a long back and forth about this because I agree that it is likely Lyanna died at the toj shortly after Ned fought the 3 KGs.  I do think, however, that this is a good example of the way GRRM writes things sufficiently vaguely that they are open to more than one reasonable interpretation.  

When Ned says that Robert avenged Lyanna, they are not talking about rape.  That discussion was 7 pages earlier (in my version).  Here is what Robert says right before Ned says Robert avenged her:  "Go down to into your crypt and ask Lyanna about the dragon's honor!"

To me, that implies that Ned and Robert believe that Rhaegar is responsible for her death and that Robert killed Rhaegar after Lyanna died.  

Also, we are not told that the fight between Robert and Ned over the deaths of Rhaegar's children happens before Lyanna dies.  We are told that Ned and Robert reconciled when they grieved over Lyanna's death.  That would be true if the sequence played out like this:

• Rhaegar does something that makes Lyanna sick (she has a fever when she dies)
• Ned locates Lyanna, is with her when she dies.  Howland Reed and other friends of Ned find him holding her body and Howland takes her hand from Ned's. 
• Ned goes from that location to the Trident, sees Robert the morning of the battle, and tells him that Lyanna is dead and it's Rhaegar's fault.
• There's no time to mourn, because there is a battle to fight.  Robert goes into a berserker rage and kills Rhaegar, avenging Lyanna's death.
• Ned rushes immediately to King's Landing and gets there in time for the Sack. 
• Robert arrives later, is crowned, is given the dead Targaryen children by Tywin, and Ned and Robert have their fight. 
• Ned leaves that same day in a cold rage to fight the last battles of the war alone.  Presumably, this is Jon Arryn's idea to get Ned out of the city and to make sure someone competent leads the Barratheon forces into the final battles. 
• Ned and friends kill the 3KG, Ned goes to Starfall to return Dawn, and then goes to King's Landing.
• Ned and Robert are still angry with each other, but finally have a chance to mourn Lyanna's death together, and they are reconciled as a result. 

So while I share your interpretation of this particular issue, I believe it is possible that we are wrong and I won't be surprised if GRRM tells us Lyanna died before Rhaegar did.  He has certainly laid enough groundwork that he can do that credibly without having to retcon anything. 

@Twinslayer

That's an extremely tortured interpretation of the not-at-all-vague sequence of events laid out in AOGT: Eddard II:

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: Eddard II

This clearly implies that Tywin presented Robert the corpses of Rhaegar's wife and children after the Battle of the Trident and Sack of King's Landing, and that Lyanna's death occurred after Ned rode out to fight the last battles of the war alone in the south. There is no hint of a pre-Trident death of Lyanna, or a months delayed reaction to her death by Ned and Robert.

When do you think Ned had time to find Lyanna before the Battle of the Trident, and where do you think Ned found Lyanna before the Battle of the Trident?

[Lord Varys]

What we can say is that the fever dream does not 'confirm' that Lyanna's bed of blood was in that tower, because dreams don't have to conform to natural laws of the waking world - not even its chronology.

The bed of blood thus could have been somewhere else. Don't think it was, but it is possible.

But it does indeed make little sense to assume that Ned promised Lyanna some stuff before he went down south. And we have more than ample evidence from non-dream Ned that he did make those promise(s).

As for the dragon's honor:

One can interpret this as Robert knowing that Rhaegar killed Lyanna with his cock - putting a child into her belly which killed her as a result of a miscarriage or stillbirth.

In fact, the idea that Robert would actually blame Rhaegar for Lyanna's death if this was not what he believed would be rather odd. Because people should die of fevers all the time in this world and Rhaegar certainly wasn't with Lyanna when she died.

If we don't assume this then Robert basically has no reason to blame Rhaegar for Lyanna's death. And the other thing, the claim about Rhaegar raping Lyanna, is at best the way to justify his petty jealousy. But this would have to do nothing with her death.

[SFDanny]

6 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

I don't want to get into a long back and forth about this because I agree that it is likely Lyanna died at the toj shortly after Ned fought the 3 KGs.

That is quite ok. I don't want to get into a long back and forth on this either. But this is not even close to a reasonable theory based on the evidence. 

• The word "avenge" is not limited to acts done in response to a death. I gave you an example of other things Robert could avenge with his killing of Rhaegar, but the important point is that if you limit the word to just vengeance in response to deaths you are using the word in the wrong way. There is nothing to show the author uses the word in the same wrong way you propose.
• The evidence in the series is quite clear about the sequence of events. Lyanna's death takes place after Ned leaves King's Landing to go to Storm's End and lift the siege there, not before the Trident. The app tells us point blank that Lyanna died at the Tower of Joy. In the same place Ned fights his battle with Hightower, Dayne, and Whent. In Dorne, where the author tells us Ned brought no troops. This isn't a complicated logic puzzle.

[corbon]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

What we can say is that the fever dream does not 'confirm' that Lyanna's bed of blood was in that tower, because dreams don't have to conform to natural laws of the waking world - not even its chronology.

The bed of blood thus could have been somewhere else. Don't think it was, but it is possible.

I don't see how any reasonable person could argue that the bed of blood was not at the tower in the dream, given that the very description of this dream (not this series of dreams), by the dreamer, who has dreamed this dream before and knows and recognises it instantly, and knows the truth, is that it is about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

The technical details of what are in the dream, and how dreams work compared to reality or not, are not actually relevant to this fact. The dreamer knows this dream and describes it as being about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, corbon said:

I don't see how any reasonable person could argue that the bed of blood was not at the tower in the dream, given that the very description of this dream (not this series of dreams), by the dreamer, who has dreamed this dream before and knows and recognises it instantly, and knows the truth, is that it is about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

The technical details of what are in the dream, and how dreams work compared to reality or not, are not actually relevant to this fact. The dreamer knows this dream and describes it as being about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

You cannot treat a dream like something that occurred in the real world. Dreams can arbitrarily connect things that have nothing to do with each other, and they can also create such connections completely ignoring time and space. The idea that a dream has to take place always at the same place roughly at the same time and cannot move from place to place is about doesn't make any sense. It is like saying a play has to take place always at the same place, never mind the change of scenery that takes place when the curtain falls between the acts - or worse still, claiming it all took place at the same place - on stage, in the theater - rather playing along and pretend it happened wherever it was supposed to happen according to the story.

I mean, surely you remember some of your own dreams and when awake call them 'the dream about this and that' while not exactly thus confirming, claiming, or implying that 'this and that' all took place at the same place at the same time within your 'dream world', right?

Since the author uses this dream - as most of the others in the books - as a literary device to transport and create meaning we can be reasonably certain that the unconscious mind of the dreamer connects - for some reason - Lyanna in her bed of blood with that tower and the knights outside, but this doesn't have to mean that Lyanna's bed of blood was in that tower. Or rather: It makes no sense to pretend the dream confirms this when it does not.

This is a dream, not a memory. And while it is inspired by memory it is still not memory, especially not conscious memory. It is a dream. And as such it is not reliable section of text for us to jump to far-fetching and rather silly conclusions about the political opinions of long dead Kingsguard who were not dream-images.

One can draw some things from that dream, but we can completely ignore it when we actually want to discuss Jon's Snow parentage. Ned thinks of his promise to Lya in other chapters, too, most notably his last chapter when he languishes in the black cell, and that is more than enough to put that entire theory on pretty solid feet. We don't have to interpret dreams to get there.

That dream is just played up and has to serve as a reservoir to draw 'arguments' for weirdo ideas about 'Jon Snow the rightfully born king'. But those ideas have little to nothing to do with the mere question who Jon Snow's parents are. That is part of an agenda to put Jon Snow the infant on a pedestal nobody in the series actually put him.

We have known that for a long time, but it was never clearer than it is since November last year.

[The Twinslayer]

4 hours ago, SFDanny said:

That is quite ok. I don't want to get into a long back and forth on this either. But this is not even close to a reasonable theory based on the evidence. 

• The word "avenge" is not limited to acts done in response to a death. I gave you an example of other things Robert could avenge with his killing of Rhaegar, but the important point is that if you limit the word to just vengeance in response to deaths you are using the word in the wrong way. There is nothing to show the author uses the word in the same wrong way you propose.
• The evidence in the series is quite clear about the sequence of events. Lyanna's death takes place after Ned leaves King's Landing to go to Storm's End and lift the siege there, not before the Trident. The app tells us point blank that Lyanna died at the Tower of Joy. In the same place Ned fights his battle with Hightower, Dayne, and Whent. In Dorne, where the author tells us Ned brought no troops. This isn't a complicated logic puzzle.

Regarding the bolded part of your post, we are fortunate to have ASEARCHOFICEANDFIRE.COM.  I have used it, and I was not able to find an example where GRRM used the word "avenge" to mean anything other than a response to a death.  I'd suggest that this is some evidence that "the author uses the word in the same [not wrong] way propose."  For example:

AGOT:

Viserys says the Dornish yearn to avenge Elia and her children.

Dany says that after a khal dies, the khal's bloodriders may only live long enough to avenge their dead khal.

At Tyrion's trial in the Vale, both Lord Hunter and Lysa Arryn say the point is to avenge the murder of Jon Arryn.

Jon deserts the NW to avenge his father's death.

ASOS:

Cresson advises Stannis to help Robb Stark avenge Ned.

Catelyn says, when Bran and Rickon "die," that Robb will avenge them.

Catelyn ridicules Jaime for suggesting that he slew Aerys to avenge Brandon Stark.

Theon tells his father he will avenge his dead brothers. 

ASOS:

Dany thinks Pyat Pree send a Sorrowful Man to avenge the Undying (whom she killed).

Thoros says every fallen man from the Brotherhood must be avenged 10 times over.

Grenn tells Jon that Ramsay Snow has avenged Bran and Rickon.

Varys says he is a target for assassination because he has no brothers to avenge him.

Cersei asks Jaime to avenge Joffrey by killing Tyrion.

The White Book says that Ser Barristan avenged the murder of Ser Gwayne Gaunt.

Jaime thinks about whether he should avenge Joffrey's death.

That takes us through ASOS, and it leads me to conclude that when GRRM uses the word "avenge," he means to avenge someone's death.  Perhaps Ned's reference to Robert's having avenged Lyanna is the one exception.  Or perhaps it is some deliberate misdirection on GRRM's part.  But if you want to know what GRRM means by the word "avenged," the best way to figure that out is to look at how he uses it consistently across several books -- as you yourself suggested. 

Where does that leave us?  We have one passage (Robert avenged Lyanna on the Trident) that implies that Lyanna died before Rhaegar.   You have others that imply that Lyanna may have died after Rhaegar (Lady Dustin implies that Lord Dustin died at the same place as Lyanna and we know Lord Dustin died after the Trident).  Those have to be reconciled, and when we do that, we are not talking about which version is definitely right and which is definitely wrong.  We are talking about information that the author fed to us in a deliberately ambiguous way and we have to decide for ourselves which we believe to be more likely. 

[SFDanny]

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You cannot treat a dream like something that occurred in the real world. Dreams can arbitrarily connect things that have nothing to do with each other, and they can also create such connections completely ignoring time and space. The idea that a dream has to take place always at the same place roughly at the same time and cannot move from place to place is about doesn't make any sense. It is like saying a play has to take place always at the same place, never mind the change of scenery that takes place when the curtain falls between the acts - or worse still, claiming it all took place at the same place - on stage, in the theater - rather playing along and pretend it happened wherever it was supposed to happen according to the story.

I mean, surely you remember some of your own dreams and when awake call them 'the dream about this and that' while not exactly thus confirming, claiming, or implying that 'this and that' all took place at the same place at the same time within your 'dream world', right?

Since the author uses this dream - as most of the others in the books - as a literary device to transport and create meaning we can be reasonably certain that the unconscious mind of the dreamer connects - for some reason - Lyanna in her bed of blood with that tower and the knights outside, but this doesn't have to mean that Lyanna's bed of blood was in that tower. Or rather: It makes no sense to pretend the dream confirms this when it does not.

This is a dream, not a memory. And while it is inspired by memory it is still not memory, especially not conscious memory. It is a dream. And as such it is not reliable section of text for us to jump to far-fetching and rather silly conclusions about the political opinions of long dead Kingsguard who were not dream-images.

One can draw some things from that dream, but we can completely ignore it when we actually want to discuss Jon's Snow parentage. Ned thinks of his promise to Lya in other chapters, too, most notably his last chapter when he languishes in the black cell, and that is more than enough to put that entire theory on pretty solid feet. We don't have to interpret dreams to get there.

That dream is just played up and has to serve as a reservoir to draw 'arguments' for weirdo ideas about 'Jon Snow the rightfully born king'. But those ideas have little to nothing to do with the mere question who Jon Snow's parents are. That is part of an agenda to put Jon Snow the infant on a pedestal nobody in the series actually put him.

We have known that for a long time, but it was never clearer than it is since November last year.

I'm assuming that all of this means you reject the clear statement of the app that places Lyanna's death at the Tower of Joy?

I must say LV this looks like a very strange interpretation of Ned's dream and ignores basic evidence in the books.

When I read this sequence I see its purpose as totally different than you do. There are clearly elements of the dream that are fantastical. Ned's companions were not wraiths, the sky was almost certainly not filled with blue  rose petals the color of death, etc. But in noticing the fantastical parts of Ned's dream we miss the most important part of his dream - it reflects the knowledge of the dreamer. Ned knows the sequence of events in real life, not just in his dream. Most of this is confirmed in the waking world of the book, not just in the dream. So, when Ned talks to the Kingsguard about the events of the war from the time of the Trident to the events at the tower, his dream reflects the reality he knows in waking life.

Whether the dialogue actually takes place is almost irrelevant, because it reflects the reason for the recurring nature of Ned's dream. Fourteen years after the tragic events at the Tower of Joy, Ned still struggles with the question of why the Kingsguard stand between he and his sister and why they insist on a duel to the death? That is Ned's continuing question that haunts his dreams and which Martin wants us to struggle with as readers of the scene. It is why Ned repeatedly asks the Kingsguard why they are not someplace else he expected them to be. Knowing that, readers have tried to reach a conclusion as to why Hightower, Dayne, and Whent do what they do. Which is why their oaths and motives play such an important role in this series. 

Jon may or may not be the rightful heir to the Targaryen throne, or the motives of the Kingsguard  may be something else entirely, but the reasons they give their lives is central to the backstory. What makes this into a recurring nightmare for Ned lies not in his dream, but in the waking world in which he sees the fear in his sister's eyes until he gives his promise. In that fear, and in the promise, Ned knows that the fear of what he would do with Lyanna, and maybe with her child is what is at the tragic core of the battle. Fear he would make a choice for Robert and honor, rather than for Lyanna, Jon, and love.

The entirety of Ned's character, it seems to me, is embodied in that choice. He lives his life based on it, and hides it through a false mask of unbending honor.

[SFDanny]

3 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Regarding the bolded part of your post, we are fortunate to have ASEARCHOFICEANDFIRE.COM.  I have used it, and I was not able to find an example where GRRM used the word "avenge" to mean anything other than a response to a death.  I'd suggest that this is some evidence that "the author uses the word in the same [not wrong] way propose."  For example: <snip>

None of which means anything. Because the word "avenge" is used in other examples to speak of actions taken after deaths, does not in anyway change the meaning of the word or limit its usage in other instances, or a single instance, in which it refers to an action taken for other reasons than a death. That is clearly the case here. Lyanna is clearly alive until Ned finds her after he lifts the siege of Storm's End. Robert's "avenging" of Lyanna is because of his perceived crimes by Rhaegar by his kidnapping and supposedly raping of Robert's pledged bride-to-be. In reality, I would argue it has more to do with the "crime" of stealing Robert's property. Lyanna was supposed to be his and Rhaegar took her from him. A crime that has nothing to do with if Lyanna is alive when Robert kills her lover.

[Bael's Bastard]

9 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

Regarding the bolded part of your post, we are fortunate to have ASEARCHOFICEANDFIRE.COM.  I have used it, and I was not able to find an example where GRRM used the word "avenge" to mean anything other than a response to a death. 

@The Twinslayer

In ADWD: Bran III, Bran sees a vision of a young Ned post-Robert's Rebellion praying that, presumably, Robb and Jon grow up close as brothers, followed by a vision of a young Lyanna and Benjen dueling with broken branches, followed by a vision of a very much alive woman heavy with child begging the old gods for a son who would avenge her.

Watching the flames, Bran decided he would stay awake till Meera came back. Jojen would be unhappy, he knew, but Meera would be glad for him, He did not remember closing his eyes.

… but then somehow he was back at Winterfell again, in the godswood looking down upon his father. Lord Eddard seemed much younger this time. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed. "… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them," he prayed, "and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive …"

"Father." Bran's voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. "Father, it's me. It's Bran. Brandon.

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.

Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?

The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows. The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished, only to be replaced by other trees that would dwindle and vanish in their turn. And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them.

- ADWD: Bran III

And in TWOIAF: Viserys I, the word is used to describe how Aemond eventually avenged the loss of his eye at the hands of Lucerys.

The third tragedy was the ugly squabble between the sons of Alicent and the sons of Rhaenyra, caused when the dragonless Aemond Targaryen attempted to claim the late Laena's dragon, Vhagar, for himself. Pushes and shoves were followed by fists after Aemond mocked Rhaenyra's boys as the "Strongs"—until young Prince Lucerys took a knife and plunged it into Aemond's eye. Afterward, Aemond was known as Aemond One-eye—though he did manage to win Vhagar. (He had opportunity to avenge the loss of his eye in the years to come, though the realm would bleed because of it.)

- TWOIAF: Viserys I

But we don't need these examples to tell us what the word "avenged" means and the ways it can be accurately used, or to see that making assumptions about what it means in this case based on how it is used in other cases in the series leads to conclusions that are at odds with Ned's recollection of events.

[Ygrain]

Ah. I had meant to supply the quote about the pregnant woman praying for a son to avenge her as she didn't seem dead at all, but you have managed before I had the time to do the search :-)

[The Twinslayer]

10 hours ago, SFDanny said:

None of which means anything. Because the word "avenge" is used in other examples to speak of actions taken after deaths, does not in anyway change the meaning of the word or limit its usage in other instances, or a single instance, in which it refers to an action taken for other reasons than a death. That is clearly the case here. Lyanna is clearly alive until Ned finds her after he lifts the siege of Storm's End. Robert's "avenging" of Lyanna is because of his perceived crimes by Rhaegar by his kidnapping and supposedly raping of Robert's pledged bride-to-be. In reality, I would argue it has more to do with the "crime" of stealing Robert's property. Lyanna was supposed to be his and Rhaegar took her from him. A crime that has nothing to do with if Lyanna is alive when Robert kills her lover.

Well, you have moved the goal posts a long way.  You raised the question of how GRRM uses the word "avenge."  I showed you examples from the first three books where GRRM used the word consistently in the way it is usually used in the English language -- to describe an action triggered by a death. 

I think you were right the first time because that is the normal way people analyze GRRM's use of language.  This is a normal way of analyzing GRRM's work.  For example, AGOT refers to Lyanna's "bed of blood."  In normal English usage, there are a variety of ways a woman could find herself in a bed of blood.  Robert died in a bed that was covered in blood from a wound he suffered from a boar's tusk.  So how do we figure out what Lyanna's bed of blood means.  Most posters on this thread use the method I just used to figure out what GRRM means by "avenge."  They look for other instances where the same words are used.

There is no other reference to a bed of blood in the books.  However, Mirri Maaz Duur refers to the "secrets of the bloody bed' around the time Dany delivered Rhaego.  So the inference is that "the bloody bed" and a "bed of blood" are both references to the same thing and that thing is a birthing bed.

If that method of figuring out GRRM means by "bed of blood," it is equally valid to determine what he means by "avenge."  

4 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

@The Twinslayer

In ADWD: Bran III, Bran sees a vision of a young Ned post-Robert's Rebellion praying that, presumably, Robb and Jon grow up close as brothers, followed by a vision of a young Lyanna and Benjen dueling with broken branches, followed by a vision of a very much alive woman heavy with child begging the old gods for a son who would avenge her.

Watching the flames, Bran decided he would stay awake till Meera came back. Jojen would be unhappy, he knew, but Meera would be glad for him, He did not remember closing his eyes.

… but then somehow he was back at Winterfell again, in the godswood looking down upon his father. Lord Eddard seemed much younger this time. His hair was brown, with no hint of grey in it, his head bowed. "… let them grow up close as brothers, with only love between them," he prayed, "and let my lady wife find it in her heart to forgive …"

"Father." Bran's voice was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in the leaves. "Father, it's me. It's Bran. Brandon.

Eddard Stark lifted his head and looked long at the weirwood, frowning, but he did not speak. He cannot see me, Bran realized, despairing. He wanted to reach out and touch him, but all that he could do was watch and listen. I am in the tree. I am inside the heart tree, looking out of its red eyes, but the weirwood cannot talk, so I can't.

Eddard Stark resumed his prayer. Bran felt his eyes fill up with tears. But were they his own tears, or the weirwood's? If I cry, will the tree begin to weep?

The rest of his father's words were drowned out by a sudden clatter of wood on wood. Eddard Stark dissolved, like mist in a morning sun. Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone.

After that the glimpses came faster and faster, till Bran was feeling lost and dizzy. He saw no more of his father, nor the girl who looked like Arya, but a woman heavy with child emerged naked and dripping from the black pool, knelt before the tree, and begged the old gods for a son who would avenge her. Then there came a brown-haired girl slender as a spear who stood on the tips of her toes to kiss the lips of a young knight as tall as Hodor. A dark-eyed youth, pale and fierce, sliced three branches off the weirwood and shaped them into arrows. The tree itself was shrinking, growing smaller with each vision, whilst the lesser trees dwindled into saplings and vanished, only to be replaced by other trees that would dwindle and vanish in their turn. And now the lords Bran glimpsed were tall and hard, stern men in fur and chain mail. Some wore faces he remembered from the statues in the crypts, but they were gone before he could put a name to them.

- ADWD: Bran III

And in TWOIAF: Viserys I, the word is used to describe how Aemond eventually avenged the loss of his eye at the hands of Lucerys.

The third tragedy was the ugly squabble between the sons of Alicent and the sons of Rhaenyra, caused when the dragonless Aemond Targaryen attempted to claim the late Laena's dragon, Vhagar, for himself. Pushes and shoves were followed by fists after Aemond mocked Rhaenyra's boys as the "Strongs"—until young Prince Lucerys took a knife and plunged it into Aemond's eye. Afterward, Aemond was known as Aemond One-eye—though he did manage to win Vhagar. (He had opportunity to avenge the loss of his eye in the years to come, though the realm would bleed because of it.)

- TWOIAF: Viserys I

But we don't need these examples to tell us what the word "avenged" means and the ways it can be accurately used, or to see that making assumptions about what it means in this case based on how it is used in other cases in the series leads to conclusions that are at odds with Ned's recollection of events.

The word "avenge" or some variation of it appears 38 times in the five books and three novellas written by GRRM.  You have identified one instance in ADWD where a living woman talks about being avenged in the future.  It is possible she is talking about some wrong that happened to her in the past that did not involve her death.  It could be that she had a green dream showing that she would die and need to be avenged in the future.  Indeed, it could be that she knows she is going to die in childbirth and wants the child to avenge that death.  The point is, we don't know what that vision means and so we can't use it to extrapolate what GRRM means when he uses the word "avenge."

Your other example comes from TWOIAF.  I don't believe that was written by GRRM.  It is not his writing style at all.  So I don't infer anything from the way the author of TWOIAF uses the word.  Even if we knew that that was GRRM's writing, I don't think that one or two examples out of 38+ uses of the word changes the analysis, which is this:  the word is used ambiguously to talk about Lyanna and about 40 times in other situations.  Of the ones we can clearly define, 38 (or whatever the number is) refer to avenging a death and one refers to avenging something else.  It is more likely than not that the ambiguous (Lyanna) example means the same as the 38 "death"examples, not the one "something else" example.  Especially since the sentence before Ned uses the word is a reference to Lyanna being in her tomb.  

[corbon]

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You cannot treat a dream like something that occurred in the real world. ...

I believe the memory part can be, but thats not the point here,
Its an old dream, a repeated dream, and things are in the dream as they had been in life. You don;t just ignore that, you argue we cannot accept it. I do not accept your rejection of the text in favour of ...'we can't take anything true because its a dream', which is what your position comes down to.

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I mean, surely you remember some of your own dreams and when awake call them 'the dream about this and that' while not exactly thus confirming, claiming, or implying that 'this and that' all took place at the same place at the same time within your 'dream world', right?

No. May work for some people that way, not for me.

I don't think that argument remotely works for an old dream, a repeated dream, a dream where things in the dream are as they were in life. This is a 'dream' that Ned knows well, that Ned recognises, that Ned's semi-conscious mind connects directly to memories when he thinks 'in the dream as it was in life'. He knows what this dream is about and he knows its relevance and continuum. And he recognises right from the start, that this was about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Since the author uses this dream - as most of the others in the books - as a literary device to transport and create meaning we can be reasonably certain that the unconscious mind of the dreamer connects - for some reason - Lyanna in her bed of blood with that tower and the knights outside, but this doesn't have to mean that Lyanna's bed of blood was in that tower. Or rather: It makes no sense to pretend the dream confirms this when it does not.

The dream doesn't confirm it. Ned's recognition and understanding of the dream's meaning does.

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This is a dream, not a memory. And while it is inspired by memory it is still not memory, especially not conscious memory. It is a dream. And as such it is not reliable section of text for us to jump to far-fetching and rather silly conclusions about the political opinions of long dead Kingsguard who were not dream-images.

Yep, you go on ignoring the text.

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

One can draw some things from that dream, but we can completely ignore it when we actually want to discuss Jon's Snow parentage. Ned thinks of his promise to Lya in other chapters, too, most notably his last chapter when he languishes in the black cell, and that is more than enough to put that entire theory on pretty solid feet. We don't have to interpret dreams to get there.

I agree to disagree.   

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That dream is just played up and has to serve as a reservoir to draw 'arguments' for weirdo ideas about 'Jon Snow the rightfully born king'. But those ideas have little to nothing to do with the mere question who Jon Snow's parents are. That is part of an agenda to put Jon Snow the infant on a pedestal nobody in the series actually put him.

I reject your assertions that everything you do not agree with is weirdo, far fetching, or rather silly. Its cleverly done though. Constant, and consistent, but never directly enough to constitute something worth flagging to moderators. And interspersed with analysis that I often don't find rational or reasonable, but has enough grounding to be not worth the energy to fight. 

I also reject your assertions about the agenda. While there are always some who have agendas, I go where the evidence leads me. Which changes when new evidence comes to light, or changes if someone presents a stronger argument (IMO) for a different direction than I had seen.  I think you do too, you just have a different analysis pathway than I do. In fact, I think we are very much alike in many ways, just slightly different enough in the analysis side to end up honestly disagreeing with each other and thinking the other is slightly mad! 
Except you have vastly more time and energy to spend here.

FWIW if I can be bothered to think about what I'd like or want from ASoIaF in meta terms, rather than just what I actually get out of it from the author, I think I'd prefer a Jon Snow the genuine bastard, to a Jon Snow legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Preferably not even Targaryen, though thats really near impossible to reconcile with the data we have. Its a bit of a struggle for me to force myself to think about the story this way though, and I don't genuinely know if I can trust this self analysis or not. Working hard here... I think a Stark Dayne heritage gives me a bit of a buzz actually, if GRRM could work that out sensibly.
In fact, when I think about it, thats why I don't think I even have any agendas in ASoIaF. I don't have a story I 'prefer', I'm following, with great interest, GRRM's story. From which many details are still hidden, and its interesting to discuss, but my thoughts lean more to what makes sense to me, not what I might 'prefer'. I'll argue what makes sense, or not, to me, but don't really think in terms of 'preferences' (other than it make sense).

Or to put it another way, I feel strongly about things in the world making sense (to me), not about how (or what?) GRRM makes it make sense.

Well, that got a bit philosophical!

[SFDanny]

1 hour ago, The Twinslayer said:

Well, you have moved the goal posts a long way.  You raised the question of how GRRM uses the word "avenge."  I showed you examples from the first three books where GRRM used the word consistently in the way it is usually used in the English language -- to describe an action triggered by a death.

We have reached an end of this discussion. When you learn what the meaning of the word "avenge" is and different ways it can be used get back to me and let me know when you don't want to waste my time on silliness.

[Bael's Bastard]

59 minutes ago, The Twinslayer said:

Well, you have moved the goal posts a long way.  You raised the question of how GRRM uses the word "avenge."  I showed you examples from the first three books where GRRM used the word consistently in the way it is usually used in the English language -- to describe an action triggered by a death. 

I think you were right the first time because that is the normal way people analyze GRRM's use of language.  This is a normal way of analyzing GRRM's work.  For example, AGOT refers to Lyanna's "bed of blood."  In normal English usage, there are a variety of ways a woman could find herself in a bed of blood.  Robert died in a bed that was covered in blood from a wound he suffered from a boar's tusk.  So how do we figure out what Lyanna's bed of blood means.  Most posters on this thread use the method I just used to figure out what GRRM means by "avenge."  They look for other instances where the same words are used.

There is no other reference to a bed of blood in the books.  However, Mirri Maaz Duur refers to the "secrets of the bloody bed' around the time Dany delivered Rhaego.  So the inference is that "the bloody bed" and a "bed of blood" are both references to the same thing and that thing is a birthing bed.

If that method of figuring out GRRM means by "bed of blood," it is equally valid to determine what he means by "avenge." 

@The Twinslayer

You are making poor arguments and poor comparisons.

1. "Avenge(d)" is a common word with established definitions, which are not dependent on how GRRM uses the word, or how often he uses the word in one way or another. The results of a study of how often GRRM uses the word, and how he uses it in a majority of instances, gives no special insight into how the word is being used in this particular instance. To build a theory that Ned witnessed Lyanna's death before the Battle of the Trident based on his use of "avenged" is completely asinine, and contrary to the chronology that is clearly established in Ned's POV chapters.

2. "Bed of blood" is not a common phrase with established definitions. Nevertheless, for anyone that might have had any doubts as to its meaning, GRRM explicitly confirmed its meaning in AFFC:

That was the way of this cold world, where men fished the sea and dug in the ground and died, whilst women brought forth short-lived children from beds of blood and pain. 

- AFFC: The Prophet

1 hour ago, The Twinslayer said:

The word "avenge" or some variation of it appears 38 times in the five books and three novellas written by GRRM.  You have identified one instance in ADWD where a living woman talks about being avenged in the future.  It is possible she is talking about some wrong that happened to her in the past that did not involve her death.  It could be that she had a green dream showing that she would die and need to be avenged in the future.  Indeed, it could be that she knows she is going to die in childbirth and wants the child to avenge that death.  The point is, we don't know what that vision means and so we can't use it to extrapolate what GRRM means when he uses the word "avenge."

Your other example comes from TWOIAF.  I don't believe that was written by GRRM.  It is not his writing style at all.  So I don't infer anything from the way the author of TWOIAF uses the word.  Even if we knew that that was GRRM's writing, I don't think that one or two examples out of 38+ uses of the word changes the analysis, which is this:  the word is used ambiguously to talk about Lyanna and about 40 times in other situations.  Of the ones we can clearly define, 38 (or whatever the number is) refer to avenging a death and one refers to avenging something else.  It is more likely than not that the ambiguous (Lyanna) example means the same as the 38 "death"examples, not the one "something else" example.  Especially since the sentence before Ned uses the word is a reference to Lyanna being in her tomb.  

It is irrelevant how many times "avenge(d)' is used in the books, and how it is used in a majority of those instance. Even if every other example in the books was used in the context of a death or a murder, we would still know that the word is not inherently limited to a context of death or murder.

But, of course, we do have an explicit example where GRRM puts it in the mouth of a very much alive, heavily pregnant woman, who begs the gods to provide her a son to avenge her. We don't need to know anything else about her, nor come up with absurd explanations for why she uses it, to know that there is nothing unusual about how she uses it.

I frankly don't care about your beliefs about TWOIAF. The simple fact is that a person need not be dead or murdered to be avenged. How GRRM uses it elsewhere does not change the fact that everything we know about the chronology from Ned's POV indicates he was with Lyanna when she died after the Battle of the Trident and the Sack of King's Landing.

[Lord Varys]

17 hours ago, SFDanny said:

I'm assuming that all of this means you reject the clear statement of the app that places Lyanna's death at the Tower of Joy?

I'd reject the App as a primary source, since George really didn't write that thing. I don't doubt that Lyanna was at the tower when she died, I merely point out that you cannot use the dream as a source for that. It is a dream, and thus not reliable. Especially not while the dream doesn't even give us Ned entering the tower and seeing Lyanna in there. Without that, we cannot really pretend she was in there.

17 hours ago, SFDanny said:

I must say LV this looks like a very strange interpretation of Ned's dream and ignores basic evidence in the books.

When I read this sequence I see its purpose as totally different than you do. There are clearly elements of the dream that are fantastical. Ned's companions were not wraiths, the sky was almost certainly not filled with blue  rose petals the color of death, etc. But in noticing the fantastical parts of Ned's dream we miss the most important part of his dream - it reflects the knowledge of the dreamer. Ned knows the sequence of events in real life, not just in his dream. Most of this is confirmed in the waking world of the book, not just in the dream. So, when Ned talks to the Kingsguard about the events of the war from the time of the Trident to the events at the tower, his dream reflects the reality he knows in waking life.

We only know that the men who were there were there in real life. We have no reason to believe the dream conversation took place as it did, and George himself actually casts doubt about that when he dismisses the accuracy of this dream as a fever dream.

People who take this thing as 'the truth' precisely because it is a dream, and George knows that dreams are not memories.

17 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Whether the dialogue actually takes place is almost irrelevant, because it reflects the reason for the recurring nature of Ned's dream. Fourteen years after the tragic events at the Tower of Joy, Ned still struggles with the question of why the Kingsguard stand between he and his sister and why they insist on a duel to the death? That is Ned's continuing question that haunts his dreams and which Martin wants us to struggle with as readers of the scene. It is why Ned repeatedly asks the Kingsguard why they are not someplace else he expected them to be. Knowing that, readers have tried to reach a conclusion as to why Hightower, Dayne, and Whent do what they do. Which is why their oaths and motives play such an important role in this series. 

Well, that seems to be a pretty limited view of this. Ned is no KG fan boy - he liked Arthur Dayne personally, for some reason, and he bought into Targaryen propaganda that the KG were 'a shining example to the world' when FaB makes it pretty clear that a lot of bad and average apples were in that order throughout the century. Robert's Kingsguard doesn't seem to be better or worse than Maegor's, for instance.

The reason why Ned may ask those men why they were not somewhere else may simply have to do with the fact that he had to fight and kill them all - and lose a lot of good friends in the process of it - which wouldn't have been the case had they been someplace else.

Why they may have insisted on duel on the death is also made clear by another Kingsguard talking to another Lord Stark:

Quote

Ser Gyles Belgrave was also put down for death; if he had not put the poison in the king’s wine himself, he had allowed it to happen through carelessness or willful blindness. “No knight of the Kingsguard should outlive his king when that king dies by violence,” Stark declared. Three of Belgrave’s Sworn Brothers had been present at King Aegon’s death and were similarly condemned, though their complicity in the plot could not be proved (the three Kingsguard who were not in the city were judged innocent).

[...]

Only two men died that day. One was Ser Gyles Belgrave, of the Kingsguard. Unlike his Sworn Brothers, Ser Gyles refused the chance to exchange his white cloak for black. “You were not wrong, Lord Stark,” he said when his turn came. “A knight of the Kingsguard should not outlive his king.” Lord Cregan took his head off with a single swift swing of Ice.

Dayne, Whent, and Hightower outlived their king and failed to save him from the treason of their sworn brother. They couldn't save their prince, either, nor their prince's innocent wife and children (assuming they know that they are dead).

It isn't far-fetched to assume they realized that they had failed their king and prince as much as Ser Gyles had failed Aegon II (assuming he was not complicit in the murder) and were thus rather happy to get a last chance to die with swords in hand rather than with their heads on the block.

The idea that they had 'a new king' is ridiculous in light of how kings are made in this world - even lords do not just take over their lordships whenever their fathers die, as this example vividly confirms:

Quote

The Lord of Storm’s End died in the mud along the kingsroad, his sword still in his hand. As the gods would have it, seven days later at Storm’s End his lady wife gave birth to the son and heir that Lord Borros had so long desired. His lordship had left instructions that the babe was to be named Aegon if a boy, in honor of the king. But upon learning of her lord’s death in battle, Lady Baratheon named the child Royce, after her own father.

Lord Borros had four daughters before his , yet his eldest daughter Cassandra was not Lady of Storm's End for a week.

17 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Jon may or may not be the rightful heir to the Targaryen throne, or the motives of the Kingsguard  may be something else entirely, but the reasons they give their lives is central to the backstory. What makes this into a recurring nightmare for Ned lies not in his dream, but in the waking world in which he sees the fear in his sister's eyes until he gives his promise. In that fear, and in the promise, Ned knows that the fear of what he would do with Lyanna, and maybe with her child is what is at the tragic core of the battle. Fear he would make a choice for Robert and honor, rather than for Lyanna, Jon, and love.

Oh, don't play that up so much. It could just be a more abstract fear that if Ned were not to agree to hide the boy somebody else might rat him out to Robert or may end up using him as a pawn to raise the fallen dragon banner again. The idea that Lyanna ever believed that Ned would side with Robert against his own blood is very far out there. The Starks protect their own. That is their core family trait (Robb abandoning Sansa is the exception that proves the rule). She did not want to die before she knew/could believe her son was safe. But she didn't really fear Ned.

We don't have to assume, either, that Lyanna asked Ned to make her child his bastard. She could have just asked him to take care of him and protect him without having a plan. In fact, that's much more likely considering that she didn't seem to have had a lot of time to talk to him when he found her. Ned's honor wouldn't have been targeted in the slightest had he protected Lyanna's child by finding a decent commoner family to raise him to be a peasant, smith, or inn keep. He could also have sent him to some place in Essos, far, far away from the troubles back at home.

In fact, it is a testament of his deep love for his sister that he made her child his own son rather than finding some other way to keep him safe. He wanted to be close to him. He wanted him to have the family he would have had, too, if Lyanna had lived - at least the family on his mother's side.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

I believe the memory part can be, but thats not the point here,
Its an old dream, a repeated dream, and things are in the dream as they had been in life. You don;t just ignore that, you argue we cannot accept it. I do not accept your rejection of the text in favour of ...'we can't take anything true because its a dream', which is what your position comes down to.

It is called an old dream, but never a recurring dream; and its current version is called by the author 'a fever dream' in a rather dismissive manner insofar as readers taking it at face value. If you do that, you risk to build theories on sand.

I never ignored that their are bits and pieces in the dream that accurately reflect reality as conscious Ned remembers it - but that applies only to the things Ned identifies as such. Not other stuff like the later conversation.

I mean, Jaime's dream of Rhaegar and the Kingsguard in the bowels of Casterly Rock apparently also accurately represented the bowels of Casterly Rock, Cersei, Brienne, Rhaegar, and the KG - yet that doesn't mean things did or will ever happen the way they happened in that dream.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

I don't think that argument remotely works for an old dream, a repeated dream, a dream where things in the dream are as they were in life. This is a 'dream' that Ned knows well, that Ned recognises, that Ned's semi-conscious mind connects directly to memories when he thinks 'in the dream as it was in life'. He knows what this dream is about and he knows its relevance and continuum. And he recognises right from the start, that this was about Lyanna in her bed of blood.

Well, I have recurring dreams of things as they happened - more or less, at least - in real life, too. But this doesn't mean they don't condense or move things around or connect things that were not there in real life. Trying to pin real world physics on dreams doesn't work. And you know that. You are a smart guy.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

The dream doesn't confirm it. Ned's recognition and understanding of the dream's meaning does.

Can you point me to a quote where Ned actually confirms that the bed of blood was in the tower? I buy that it was, but I'm not aware of any text passage confirming that. I'm not being obnoxious here - and I'm very confused by @The Twinslayer's rather weird attempt to prove that you can only avenge dead people in the English language - I just wanted to stress the fact that dreams simply are not memories.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

Yep, you go on ignoring the text.

You are not only ignoring the text, you apparently are also not really taking into account other knowledge we have about issues like kingship and Kingsguard issues. I'm not making this stuff up. It is a fact that this political sphere in this series is more complex than was evident when we only had the first couple of books.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

I reject your assertions that everything you do not agree with is weirdo, far fetching, or rather silly. Its cleverly done though. Constant, and consistent, but never directly enough to constitute something worth flagging to moderators. And interspersed with analysis that I often don't find rational or reasonable, but has enough grounding to be not worth the energy to fight. 

Not everything is like that, only reasoning that is, in my opinion, flawed. Should I say your treatment of a dream as, more or less, a real memory is a great idea when I think it is not? There is a reason why this is presented as a dream, and this reason to is obscure things and obfuscate people while also giving some tantalizing hints, not to send a clear message that can be deciphered if you understand the secret underlying meaning in the text.

And I must say your ways to insult my intelligence, or my willingness to understand 'George's story' are not exactly very nice, either. I mean, you did point me to the trope of the hidden prince the other day, apparently being of the opinion that this resolves everything and only works in one interpretation - namely, that *Jon Snow* was born as a king - didn't you?

When George conceived of this series he basically ripped off Tad Williams's Osten Ard series. He used that world as a template, and he used the peoples and characters there as his inspiration for his series. Now, there is a hero in there who also fits the 'hidden prince' trope, but he is not really a prince, nor was he born a king. He grows into that role, just as Jon is likely to do if - and that's a big if - he is supposed to sit on the throne in the end.

Undercutting this kind of development by shoehorning 'the crown' into the scene of his birth undercuts the entire purpose of the novel as a 'coming of age' series - which is clearly is for all of the children who grow up.

1 hour ago, corbon said:

I also reject your assertions about the agenda. While there are always some who have agendas, I go where the evidence leads me. Which changes when new evidence comes to light, or changes if someone presents a stronger argument (IMO) for a different direction than I had seen.  I think you do too, you just have a different analysis pathway than I do. In fact, I think we are very much alike in many ways, just slightly different enough in the analysis side to end up honestly disagreeing with each other and thinking the other is slightly mad! 
Except you have vastly more time and energy to spend here.

I didn't say you, specifically, have an agenda. I just said that there were/are such people. There was a time when people were nearly ripping each other to pieces over this rather silly discussion, and the agenda part can be felt best when people who agree in principle on the Jon Snow thing suddenly clash with people who can only suffer a single interpretation of how things must be.

And, I mean, I was at that point, too. I read those books first in 2005, shortly before AFfC came out, and of course I thought that there was a clear line of succession and that it was always primogeniture, with Aerys II immediate heir being Rhaegar, then Aegon, and then (after he was born) Jon Snow. Viserys and Dany only came after them. But a lot of stuff happened since then - and I must say I never bought the idea that the Kingsguard were doing homage to their king at that tower.

Things simply are not that easy, and they never were. The last message George wanted to send with the dream is that there is an easy answer to those legal conundrums. And kingship is a legal and not a magical issue.

This is also why I don't buy that the lies about Stannis and Aegon in Dany's vision are about kingship. Fate and destiny and magic do not care about mundane legal things like thrones and crowns in this world. The prophecy is about this promised prince/savior stuff - there will be false saviors who may also be false king, but the crucial thing is that they will be false saviors not false kings.

You should really consider the question why George decided to present this particular thing as a dream. It could just as well have been a memory. Imagine for a moment it had been one - we wouldn't know more than we do know now if, say, Ned's musings about the tower had been interrupted by, say, Vayon Poole knocking at the door. But we would have a completely different evidence basis. We would have the kind of thing we have in other memories - Cat's from the Littlefinger duel, Jaime's from Aerys' murder, Tyrion's of Tysha, etc.

A proper interpretation of this scene has to ask the question why this was a dream and not a memory. And the answer to that is not that a dream is clearer than a memory - it is the other way around. That doesn't mean we don't get meaning in dreams, it just means we get different meaning that way. And compare this dream to all the others in the series who have meaning - do they make things more clear or do they obscure things?

1 hour ago, corbon said:

FWIW if I can be bothered to think about what I'd like or want from ASoIaF in meta terms, rather than just what I actually get out of it from the author, I think I'd prefer a Jon Snow the genuine bastard, to a Jon Snow legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen. Preferably not even Targaryen, though thats really near impossible to reconcile with the data we have. Its a bit of a struggle for me to force myself to think about the story this way though, and I don't genuinely know if I can trust this self analysis or not. Working hard here... I think a Stark Dayne heritage gives me a bit of a buzz actually, if GRRM could work that out sensibly.

That is fine. I never thought about what I want Jon to be. Although if I think about him I'd actually like it more if he was actually Ned's son. Both because he sees the man as his father - and is likely not going to like the fact that he is not his son - and because it would likely mean that Ned did have his affair with Ashara Dayne after all. Not personally happy with the idea that Brandon had an affair with Ashara.

[The Twinslayer]

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Can you point me to a quote where Ned actually confirms that the bed of blood was in the tower? I buy that it was, but I'm not aware of any text passage confirming that. I'm not being obnoxious here - and I'm very confused by @The Twinslayer's rather weird attempt to prove that you can only avenge dead people in the English language - I just wanted to stress the fact that dreams simply are not memories.

To be very clear, I am not suggesting that you can only avenge a death in the English language.  I am saying that GRRM has a stylized way of writing and you can see patterns in the way he uses certain words and phrases (like "bed of blood" and "bloody bed.").  And I am suggesting that in ASOIAF, GRRM's characters always, or almost always, use the word "avenge" to refer to avenging a death.  Thus, I am suggesting that when when Robert refers to Lyanna in her crypt and then Ned says "you avenged Lyanna at the Trident," a reasonable person could infer that Lyanna was already dead when Robert killed Rhaegar at the Trident.  

As I noted above, I think that is probably a bit of misdirection on GRRM's part and that Lyanna actually died after Rhaegar died.  But we can't discount entirely the possibility that Lyanna died before Rhaegar died.  

It would be good if someone who is convinced that Lyanna died after Rhaegar would lay out that case supporting that proposition, as you have invited @Corbon to do.  Clearly, @SFDanny is not willing to do that.  But if someone would do that then we could compare the arguments pro and con. 

[Lord Varys]

@The Twinslayer

For what it is worth, at the time we first hear about Lyanna and stuff it is really not clear what happened, meaning that we don't know whether she was avenged before or after her death - or how she actually died. In fact, we still don't know what exactly caused her death. The fever she had could have been an infection unrelated to childbirth, but it could also have been an infection caused by the childbirth, it could even be directly be related to Rhaegar raping her brutally in a number of ways - like his royal father raped his royal mother.

But your entire line of argument in relation to how the word 'avenged' is used by George seems to be fallacious to me. Even if George used the word exclusively for avenging dead people in all other cases the word is mentioned, he could still use it in this particular case in the other sense the English language allows him to use it.

The main reason why I'm pretty convinced Lyanna died only after Rhaegar is simply the fact that we have, at this point, no reason to assume that Ned went down south find his sister prior to the Trident and Sack. And we also do know that Ned and Robert only reconciled after they mourned Lyanna together, which means if Lyanna had died before Rhaegar Ned couldn't have been possibly been there. For such an idea we would have the bed of blood memory reinterpret as a scene were Lyanna was very bad but eventually recovered, and that causes a lot of other problems.

On the basis of the dream we cannot really deduce that Lyanna was in the tower where Ned met the knights. She - and the baby - could have been someplace else. I don't think they were but while we don't know - and have no textual confirmation that they were - we cannot proclaim they were there with sincerity.

This is part of the problem when we base information on a dream. Just as it would be if we were to use Dunk's dream of his Dornish exploits as 'confirmation' what had happened there before we actually learned from awake Dunk that his dream combined actual memories and fantasy stuff.

I daresay the chances are pretty high that a similar thing also happened with the scene at the tower in Ned's mind, even more so in light that the author himself dismissed this dream as 'a fever dream', and thus also, in a sense, the theories and approaches of people who think they can use this dream to figure out 'hidden truths'.

If George declared that text passages I have built great theories on where 'fever dreams' or otherwise compromised sources then I'd listen to him.

He even dealt memory a huge blow with FaB when he revealed via Gyldayn that Old Nan's story about Jaehaerys and Alysanne's visit to Winterfell and later the Wall - which was only visited by the queen - didn't exactly take place the way she told Bran - or rather: that Bran didn't remember it the way it happened if Old Nan told it correctly. Here a historian like Gyldayn has much better sources than an old woman who just tells stories to entertain people - and who has good reason to make the stories more about the Starks than it actually was.

[Bael's Bastard]

8 hours ago, The Twinslayer said:

I must admit that I am kind of surprised by this post.  In the past, you have been more graceful when admitting defeat in a debate.  

In this case it is a shame because I think there are other reasons to believe that Lyanna may have died after Rhaegar died.  But this is a good example of GRRM’s habit of choosing to make that unclear.

Incidentally, of course, the precise timing and location of Lyaana’s death make no difference to whether R+L=J.  He can just as easily be the child of Lyanna and Rhaegar if he was born at Harrenhall a week before the Battle of the Trident as he can be of he was born at the toj or Starfall up to nine months after the Sack.

1 hour ago, The Twinslayer said:

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.  

But that really is a childish response to being confronted with the author’s pattern of using a common English word in a common way.   A more mature response would be to acknowledge that I am right about this or to try to disagree in an intellectually honest way.  Consider yourself reported for calling me a troll when all I am doing is quoting the author in support of a valid theory.

@The Twinslayer

You presented an argument and theory, and it was your argument and theory that were argued. When someone expressed that they saw no point in discussing the matter with you any further, you resorted to what can only be called blatant trolling. I am not familiar with you, and so took for granted that you were presenting and discussing your argument and theory in good faith. But as the discussion has unfolded, it has become clear that is not the case. 

[Bael's Bastard]

@The Twinslayer

There is no case for the idea that Ned witnessed Lyanna's death prior to the Battle of the Trident.

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: Eddard II

"Robert was betrothed to marry her, but Prince Rhaegar carried her off and raped her," Bran explained. "Robert fought a war to win her back. He killed Rhaegar on the Trident with his hammer, but Lyanna died and he never got her back at all."

- AGOT: Bran VII

Your entire argument is built on Ned's use of the word "avenged," which, as has been pointed out by a number of people, has nothing inherently to do with death or murder.

Put another way, "You avenged Lyanna at the Trident" (AGOT: Eddard II) would still be correct and appropriate even if Lyanna had survived Robert's Rebellion and was alive in AGOT.

[The Twinslayer]

49 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

@The Twinslayer

For what it is worth, at the time we first hear about Lyanna and stuff it is really not clear what happened, meaning that we don't know whether she was avenged before or after her death - or how she actually died. In fact, we still don't know what exactly caused her death. The fever she had could have been an infection unrelated to childbirth, but it could also have been an infection caused by the childbirth, it could even be directly be related to Rhaegar raping her brutally in a number of ways - like his royal father raped his royal mother.

But your entire line of argument in relation to how the word 'avenged' is used by George seems to be fallacious to me. Even if George used the word exclusively for avenging dead people in all other cases the word is mentioned, he could still use it in this particular case in the other sense the English language allows him to use it.

The main reason why I'm pretty convinced Lyanna died only after Rhaegar is simply the fact that we have, at this point, no reason to assume that Ned went down south find his sister prior to the Trident and Sack. And we also do know that Ned and Robert only reconciled after they mourned Lyanna together, which means if Lyanna had died before Rhaegar Ned couldn't have been possibly been there. For such an idea we would have the bed of blood memory reinterpret as a scene were Lyanna was very bad but eventually recovered, and that causes a lot of other problems.

On the basis of the dream we cannot really deduce that Lyanna was in the tower where Ned met the knights. She - and the baby - could have been someplace else. I don't think they were but while we don't know - and have no textual confirmation that they were - we cannot proclaim they were there with sincerity.

This is part of the problem when we base information on a dream. Just as it would be if we were to use Dunk's dream of his Dornish exploits as 'confirmation' what had happened there before we actually learned from awake Dunk that his dream combined actual memories and fantasy stuff.

I daresay the chances are pretty high that a similar thing also happened with the scene at the tower in Ned's mind, even more so in light that the author himself dismissed this dream as 'a fever dream', and thus also, in a sense, the theories and approaches of people who think they can use this dream to figure out 'hidden truths'.

If George declared that text passages I have built great theories on where 'fever dreams' or otherwise compromised sources then I'd listen to him.

He even dealt memory a huge blow with FaB when he revealed via Gyldayn that Old Nan's story about Jaehaerys and Alysanne's visit to Winterfell and later the Wall - which was only visited by the queen - didn't exactly take place the way she told Bran - or rather: that Bran didn't remember it the way it happened if Old Nan told it correctly. Here a historian like Gyldayn has much better sources than an old woman who just tells stories to entertain people - and who has good reason to make the stories more about the Starks than it actually was.

You make some good points here.  I'll just respond to the parts I have bolded.  

Unless I have forgotten something, we have no reason to think that Ned went south of King's Landing after the Sack to look for Lyanna.  Ned tells us that he left King's Landing the day of Robert's coronation in a cold rage and that his purpose was to fight the last battles of the war alone. We don't know how many battles he fought after the Sack or where they took place, other than the fact there was more than one battle and that one of them took place at the toj.  I get that from Ned's use of the word "battles" and from his dream, which makes clear that he fought the 3 KG, that it happened after the Sack, and that it took place in or around Dorne. I think the dream is probably reliable on that point. 

So if we are looking for clues as to when and where Lyanna died, we have to look elsewhere.  To the best of my recollection, here is what we know to be fact:

• She was alive during the tournament at Harrenhal and for some time after that, at least until Rhaegar abducted her. 
• Ned was with her when she died.  He says that to Robert. 
• Howland Reed and at least one other living person were nearby, since Ned remembers that "they" found him holding Lyanna's body and Howland took Lyanna's hand out of Ned's.
• The immediate cause of Lyanna's death was a fever and she was holding some dead flowers when she died.
• She made Ned promise her something as she was dying.  Fear went out of her when he gave his promise.
• At some point she had a "bed of blood," whatever that means.  
• Ned's dream connects the bed of blood to a tower long fallen.  
• At some point, she told Ned that she wanted to be buried in Winterfell with her father and Brandon.  
• Ned arranged for her bones to be placed in the Winterfell crypts. 
• She was a "Stark of Winterfell" and Ned believed that she should therefore be buried in the crypts. 
• She spent enough time with Rhaegar after her abduction and prior to her death for Robert to believe Rhaegar had raped her hundreds of times.  We are not told where that supposedly happened, except that Rhaegar was not in the Red Keep when Brandon challenged him to a duel.   
• Ned believes that Robert avenged some wrong done to Lyanna when Robert killed Rhaegar, and GRRM uses the word "avenge" exclusively or almost exclusively to refer to avenging a death.
• Ned and Robert argued after the Sack and were reconciled when they mourned Lyanna's death together.  

I think the best argument for Lyanna dying after the Sack is this.  We know that Rhaegar spent enough time at the toj to name it the "tower of joy."  Three Kingsguard knights were at the toj when Ned arrived there, and that was after the Sack. The toj could be the "tower long fallen" because we know Ned tore it down, meaning that could be the location of Lyanna's bed of blood.  Finally, the fact that Ned and Robert mourned Lyanna's death together could mean that Robert only learned about it after the Sack.  Personally, I find this argument pretty persuasive.

The counterargument is that all of the facts we know are also consistent with the possibility that Lyanna died before the battle of the Trident.  Very early on we are told that Robert avenged Lyanna at the Trident.  GRRM habitually uses that term to mean the act of avenging a death.  So there is a good chance that Ned is saying that killing Rhaegar avenged Lyanna's death rather than avenging some other unspecified crime.  To that I would add that if Lyanna was still alive after the Sack, Ned probably would have wanted to go look for her and have Jon Arryn or Hoster Tully go fight the last battles of the war alone in the south so he could go hunt for his sister. 

Then the question is whether we can reconcile the other facts we know with Lyanna's having died prior to the battle of the Trident.  We can.  There are two big ones.  The first is the fact that Robert and Ned mourned Lyanna's death some time after the Sack.  That is easy to explain by the scenario I offered before.  Lyanna dies just before the Trident, Ned tells Robert the morning of the battle, and there is no time to mourn because he needs to go kill Rhaegar.  The next time they see each other is the coronation, and Ned leaves in a rage that same day -- so no mutual mourning of Lyanna.  Then, the next time they see each other, Ned has finished fighting the last battles of the war and they have time to mourn properly -- and reconcile.  

The second is, how do we explain the "tower long fallen."  That is the one that convinces me that Lyanna was probably at the toj.  But that is not the only explanation, and as you have pointed out, it is all tied up with a fever dream that cannot be taken literally.  

6 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

@The Twinslayer

You presented an argument and theory, and it was your argument and theory that were argued. When someone expressed that they saw no point in discussing the matter with you any further, you resorted to what can only be called blatant trolling. I am not familiar with you, and so took for granted that you were presenting and discussing your argument and theory in good faith. But as the discussion has unfolded, it has become clear that is not the case. 

I really don't understand this.  I am presenting a theory in good faith.  It is one that has been presented by other posters before.  I actually don't agree with the theory, but I think I made clear that I am presenting it to make a larger point.  

The larger point is that there is a long history on this thread of trying to shut down any theory that is not consistent with the basic R+L=J narrative.  If you go back to version 1 of this thread, you will see that the discussion was about whether R+L=J is true.  Go to around version 15 and you will  see that anyone suggesting that the theory may not be true, or anyone even debating some of the details (like whether Jon was born at the toj or somewhere else) is eventually mocked and ridiculed.  

I find that very unsatisfactory because GRRM has deliberately made all of this ambiguous.  If he eventually reveals that R+L=J is true, that will be a satisfactory revelation that is consistent with various clues.  But if he eventually reveals that Jon's parents are Ned and Ashara, or Ned and Wylla, or Ned and someone else, that will also be satisfactory and consistent with the various clues. So my point was just to illustrate that ambiguity:  we can say what we think is likely based on the clues, but we can't say that there is 100% certainty on most of these issues.

What happened here fit a classic pattern.  I put forward a reasonable theory that is held by a number of thoughtful people (that Lyanna died before Rhaegar and that the use of the word "avenge" provides some support for that theory).  I tied it to the way most people here construe the term "bed of blood," which is a sensible way of interpreting the words GRRM uses.  One poster didn't like that because it is inconsistent with his theory.  Rather than engage that analysis on the merits, or just saying that we could agree to disagree, that poster created a straw man (pretending that I was saying no one who speaks English would think that avenge is used exclusively to refer to death, when what I was saying was that GRRM uses it exclusively or almost exclusively to refer to death) and then insulted me.  When that happens, I think it is fair to conclude that the other poster has implicitly acknowledged that he or she has no good response to the argument.  

Anyway, I don't appreciate being called a troll by him or by you.  It isn't justified, particularly when I spent a lot of time going through the various times GRRM uses the word avenge and then demonstrated that he has a consistent pattern.  And because I acknowledged that this is a decent theory but that it might not be correct.  Trolling would be making a blanket assertion that something is true without offering any support in an effort just to annoy people, which is not something I do.