R+L=J v.165

[Lord Varys]

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

There is nothing incoherent about what we know about the Tourney of Harrenhal, and no reason to doubt any of what we are told.

There were 5 "champions" initially, and you got to be a "champion" be defeating and replacing another "champion".

That means there would be five champions in the end, not just one. And if those champions were then forced to fight each other then one champion would lack another champion to fight.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

There may have been other jousting, but there is no indication there was. I think its reasonable to assume that any 'side' jousting, if there was any, is irrelevant to the story.

Harrenhal was a very large tourney. A very large tourney. George has told us he could write a novel about what happened there. If that many things happened there we know pretty much nothing about what happened there at this point.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

The number of Champions is 5 because that matches Lord Whent's sons and brother defending the honour of his daughter - its his Tourney to set the rules for after all, his prizes on offer (at least officially).

Yeah, and that means there will always be five champions and no clear how to get from five to a single champion.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

When there were no more challengers the champions fight each other, assuming they cannot agree to name the same Queen of Love and Beauty. Hence we end with one. If the original 5 had beaten all challengers they might have been named joint champions or fought each other, we don't know. I think its reasonable to assume that the Champions 'challenge' each other once there are no more challengers (possibly even before I guess, though that would surely be somewhat rude in lessening the fun for everyone else) in the same way that non-champions can challenge champions.

You can try to figure out how it may have worked. I'd like to know how it actually worked, and at this point we don't know.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

Pretty easy. That Champion's shield are hanging in a row, the Mystery Knight rides up to give challenge and taps three shields one after another, rather than just one.
(s)He then rides the three bouts one after another.

That sounds like a very strange and nonsensical setup. Yeah, I see that this can happen. What I don't see is that a mystery knight - or any knight riding in tourney should be allowed to do stuff like that. For one, if that were the case then a single knight could dominate an entire tourney by simply challenging all the knights there are with the others having no right to do that.

There are administrators to tourneys, and people setting up things. You do not arbitrarily decide by virtue of yourself being there when you ride against whom. Thus I find that element in the story - and it is just a tale told Bran, not something we should take at face value. If George wanted to give us facts he would have given us people's memories or a report not told in the form of a tale.

Also, if you defeat a champion you become champion (in the Ashford setting at least), meaning that fairness and chivalry should dictate that a champion could be challenged before he himself challenges another. Else one could rig a tourney simply by challenging one champion and then a hundred greybeards and green boys and known bad jousters and postpone any challenges you received later until after the tourney is long over because you first have to ride against all the men you challenged.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

Its not that difficult to imagine. He only fights at all if someone challenges him, probably most if not all the challenges on teh second day were on other champions. Perhaps the other champions were less skilled, or more interesting for new challengers.

The tourney was huge. It is difficult to believe that only one joust took place at the same time, and rather insignificant men could last as champions as long as they supposedly lasted. That could be an element that crept in with the events becoming a tale. Just as Ser Arlan increased the number of lances he broke against Baelor Breakspear.

Perhaps our mystery knight merely rode ride against three men rather than three champions.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

Sure, but there is no reason whatsoever to discount the tale. It works.

We have every reason to not swallow the tale whole - because it is a tale. And there is a narrative reason why this is presented as a tale rather than a report.

I'm pretty confident that *the truth* about the mystery knight is going turn out not only be more complex but also significantly different from the tale Meera told Bran.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

Perhaps yes. He, or a relation at least, is good enough to be named to the KG later...
OTOH its also possible that the Mystery Knight was his first challenger all day.

If this were a backwater tourney, yes. But a tourney of such size? Very hard to believe. There were thousands of knights there, and if you can only challenge champions there would be only five shields approach. How likely is it that the Blount fellow was ignored for an entire day? Or that the other two were not challenged while Lya was dressing up? Thousands of men were there wanting to shine in front of cheering crowd.

30 minutes ago, corbon said:

What resemblance? He uses a spear, thats it. No mention of size, no mention of nets, no mention of crannog background.
I guess the Ser could have come later, but it seems as though he was a knight.

The guy also has a pretty humble background despite the fact that chances are very low he ever had great training. The idea that Howland must have had some super abilities to defeat Arthur Dayne can be easily dismissed if he read stuff like that.

[JNR]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

Unfortunately for Howland those skills don’t include horse riding

Actually, I'm not so sure... the KotLT text only says, very generically about crannogmen in general, that

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We sit a boat more often than a horse, and our hands are made for oars, not lances.

But this says nothing about Howland in particular.  And of course as we all know:

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In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory’s father; faithful Theo Wull; Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon’s squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Howland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion.

Also worth considering:

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"There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one."

This belief on Meera's part makes no sense if she knew her father Howland could not ride a horse. 

I think the text is clear that she and Jojen have heard this tale many, many times -- hence having memorized it down to fine detail -- exactly like we have.  And exactly like we have, they have arrived at different theories as to the mystery knight's identity. 

As we see above, Meera seems to believe it was Howland.  Jojen has a different idea:

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"Or not."

This is quite possibly why he keeps quizzing Bran about whether Ned ever told him the story; Jojen is apparently seeking support for his own unstated theory.

Meera also tells us:

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The wolf maid saw them too, and pointed them out to her brothers. 'I could find you a horse, and some armor that might fit,' the pup offered. The little crannogman thanked him, but gave no answer. His heart was torn.

The boldfaced is a phrase of ambivalence and means Howland wasn't sure what to do.   Which is why he gave no answer.

If he had known factually that he could not even ride a horse, his heart would not have been torn.  The text would say something more like "He knew for sure he would get mauled three times in a row."

Now, it's perfectly clear that Howland had no more experience wearing armor and jousting in tournaments against trained knights than Lyanna (which is to say: both had exactly zero).  So if it was Howland, then yes, I think he cheated in some way, though I don't think he would have had to be a greenseer to cheat. 

Finally, while we are directly told the mystery knight was small, and that Howland was small... we are nowhere in the canon told that Lyanna was small.  People assume she was because she was young, but the world is full of girls who get growth spurts in the first half of their teen years.

[Frey family reunion]

16 minutes ago, JNR said:

This belief on Meera's part makes no sense if she knew her father Howland could not ride a horse. 

I think the text is clear that she and Jojen have heard this tale many, many times -- hence having memorized it down to fine detail -- exactly like we have.  And exactly like we have, they have arrived at different theories as to the mystery knight's identity. 

 As we see above, Meera seems to believe it was Howland.  Jojen has a different idea:

I’m not saying that Howland couldn’t ride a horse.  I assume that most denizens back then could ride a horse to some extent.  I’m saying that the text seems to infer fairly clearly that horse riding wasn’t something that Howland was very skillful at.  On the other hand we are given a lot of clues that Lyanna was very skillful at riding a horse.

Of course as you stated there is no indication that either knew how to joust.  Which certainly leads me to believe that whoever was riding either they cheated or there is an unknown third party who arrived on Howland’s behalf.  I’m not completely discounting that, perhaps Howland’s prayer to the Old Gods sent an agent of the Green Men to his aid.  But the fact that Benjen indicated he could scrape together some armor, makes me think that either Howland or Lyanna played the role.  And I think of the two, Lyanna could have played the part more convincingly.  

As for the size of the Mystery Knight, once again, that could probably fit either Lyanna or Howland.  We don’t have any reason to believe that Lyanna was tall for her age, and a 15 year old girl would most probably appear fairly small next to grown men.

Of course the booming voice is a bit of a strange addition.  I suppose if a young girl was trying to sound mannish, she might affect a booming voice.  Or perhaps it is one more indication of one of Howland’s “skills”.

[corbon]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That means there would be five champions in the end, not just one. And if those champions were then forced to fight each other then one champion would lack another champion to fight.

Harrenhal was a very large tourney. A very large tourney. George has told us he could write a novel about what happened there. If that many things happened there we know pretty much nothing about what happened there at this point.

Sure, or at least, sure-ish. Logistics is by far GRRM's weakness. But such additional jousts, if there were any, are not germaine to Meera's story, nor to ASoIaF, so we don't need to care about them.

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Yeah, and that means there will always be five champions and no clear how to get from five to a single champion.

You can try to figure out how it may have worked. I'd like to know how it actually worked, and at this point we don't know.

Well, I've used what data we have to understand possibilities. You seem to be just complaining about what you don't know and ignoring what can reasonably be inferred for whatever reason. 
I think its quite reasonable to have an understanding that works until it needs revising due to conflicting data, as opposed to having to define a set bunch of rules with little foundations then dismissing any data which doesn't easily fit within those rules.

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That sounds like a very strange and nonsensical setup. Yeah, I see that this can happen. What I don't see is that a mystery knight - or any knight riding in tourney should be allowed to do stuff like that. For one, if that were the case then a single knight could dominate an entire tourney by simply challenging all the knights there are with the others having no right to do that.

Thats a long standing setup for tourneys, not just in Martin's world.

You make unwarranted assumptions about what can and can't work. 

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There are administrators to tourneys, and people setting up things. You do not arbitrarily decide by virtue of yourself being there when you ride against whom. 

True. There is a form and function for deciding who gets to challenge when and there are administrators who organise such things. However that does not mean that there are hard and fast rules restricting what happens that cannot be bent or broken.
I would not be at all surprised if the KotLT arranged his/her 'turn' to challenge (perhaps through HR or Benjen acting as pages/squires). I would also not be at all surprised if (s)he just rode out between bouts and the organisers let it stand due to the dramatic potential of a Mystery Knight.
I would also not be surprised if her challenging 3 at once was against the 'standard protocol' (though maybe not against any 'rules') but again, the organisers let it slide due to the potential for drama. And that they may or may not have known it was going to happen ahead of the fact. Or had a quick debate about it on the spot, and were maybe swayed by the support from the commons.
And I do recall from Dunk's deliberations that he did have a choice in who he challenged in the 'champion' type tourney he fought. 

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Thus I find that element in the story - and it is just a tale told Bran, not something we should take at face value. If George wanted to give us facts he would have given us people's memories or a report not told in the form of a tale.

Sure. I just see no reason to substitute anything else for the facts of the story we have. If the 'facts' change through other sources, then I'll assess the differences accordingly, including the fact that this is a somewhat stylised story rather than a historical recounting. But until we have something to change them, beyond the vaguely dissatisfied wingeing of a reader, I see no good reason to pick and choose random things to 'challenge.

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Also, if you defeat a champion you become champion (in the Ashford setting at least), meaning that fairness and chivalry should dictate that a champion could be challenged before he himself challenges another.

Only according to you.

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Else one could rig a tourney simply by challenging one champion and then a hundred greybeards and green boys and known bad jousters and postpone any challenges you received later until after the tourney is long over because you first have to ride against all the men you challenged.

First, that assumes that you can challenge non-champions, something you have just decided based on some rather simplistic, but not necessarily unfair, logistics.
Second, it assumes that non-relevant bouts have priority over actual tournament bouts.
Third, it assumes that the very organisers that you reasonably posit (not to mention Lord Whent), have no sway at all over what happens.

Basically this is a straw man argument. You've made up a set of rules and pointed out they fail. Not relevant.

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The tourney was huge. It is difficult to believe that only one joust took place at the same time, and rather insignificant men could last as champions as long as they supposedly lasted. That could be an element that crept in with the events becoming a tale. Just as Ser Arlan increased the number of lances he broke against Baelor Breakspear.

Up to 5 jousts at a time. Sometimes only one. Sometimes three, or two, or four. Lets give each bout 5 mins on the first day, 10 the second, 15 the third, 20 the fourth and 30 the 5th, averaging them out (some last merely a minute or two for a single pass, some last longer with many passes, with more passes being more likely the deeper things go and the more evenly skilled the participants are.
Lets give them 10 hrs per day and average 2 bouts at a time (could be higher, but assume the more interesting bouts and towards the end of the tourney tend to be solo for the spectacle). Each bout has a loser so effectively we can roughly count number of bouts as number of participants.
12*10*2 = 240 on day one. 120 on day 2. less on the later days due to fewer champions. Thats 360 knights participating just on the first 2 days. Given that they don't all compete in the joust, but also the Melee and other competitions, not to mention just the feasting and socialising, that seems quite reasonable to me.

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Perhaps our mystery knight merely rode ride against three men rather than three champions.

The WoIaF also calls the KotLT a "challenger" who defeated three knights in a row.

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The first was the appearance of a mystery knight, a slight young man in ill-fitting armor whose device was a carved white weirwood tree, its features twisted in mirth. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, as this challenger was called, unhorsed three men in successive tilts, to the delight of the commons.

So we have independent corroboration of important elements of the "story". You can't dismiss these elements because they don't fit your internal narrative. You need to fix your internal narrative to match the facts.

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I'm pretty confident that *the truth* about the mystery knight is going turn out not only be more complex but also significantly different from the tale Meera told Bran.

If this were a backwater tourney, yes. But a tourney of such size? Very hard to believe. There were thousands of knights there, and if you can only challenge champions there would be only five shields approach. How likely is it that the Blount fellow was ignored for an entire day? Or that the other two were not challenged while Lya was dressing up? Thousands of men were there wanting to shine in front of cheering crowd.

Given that many were there for other reasons than the jousting alone (Ned for example, didn't joust, only Brandon, nor did Robert as far as we know) I don't think we need thousands of competitors for the jousting. Three or four hundred would still make it huge and 5 days of jousting would fit around 500 competitors easily in normal conditions.

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The guy also has a pretty humble background despite the fact that chances are very low he ever had great training. The idea that Howland must have had some super abilities to defeat Arthur Dayne can be easily dismissed if he read stuff like that.

Humble origins, assuming they are, are not the same as crannog-born. 

I agree though, that any warrior can beat another in any one bout, through luck or opportunity. I think it was Barristan that mused on the same idea, though I cannot find it.

3 hours ago, JNR said:

As we see above, Meera seems to believe it was Howland.  Jojen has a different idea:

I don't think there is any indication she does. She is merely telling the story, adding to the setup, IMO, not putting her personal spin on it.

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This is quite possibly why he keeps quizzing Bran about whether Ned ever told him the story; Jojen is apparently seeking support for his own unstated theory.

IMO its very clear that the Reed's believe the KotLT was a Stark, and that is why they so strongly expect Brandon to have heard it. They possibly know it was Lyanna, and expect him to have heard it because its practically the only story-telling worthy deed she did, so its natural in their eyes for Ned to have told it to his kids about their lost aunt.
I don't see any disagreement evident between them or there would have been more pushing back on the story between them. All I see is one embellished story-comment (setting up the mystery/deception) by Meera which Jojen adds a note to in fairness for Bran.

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Meera also tells us:

The boldfaced is a phrase of ambivalence and means Howland wasn't sure what to do.   Which is why he gave no answer.

If he had known factually that he could not even ride a horse, his heart would not have been torn.  The text would say something more like "He knew for sure he would get mauled three times in a row."

He clearly could ride, just not very well. At all. And probably much better a year or two later after 12 months on campaign with an Andal/First Men army.
However my reading of this is not that he is unsure, its that he knows (that he can't win), its just not what his heart wants. Hence his heart being torn. It wants to say yes, knows it must say know, not 'is still truly debating the options'. 

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Now, it's perfectly clear that Howland had no more experience wearing armor and jousting in tournaments against trained knights than Lyanna (which is to say: both had exactly zero).  So if it was Howland, then yes, I think he cheated in some way, though I don't think he would have had to be a greenseer to cheat. 

Finally, while we are directly told the mystery knight was small, and that Howland was small... we are nowhere in the canon told that Lyanna was small.  People assume she was because she was young, but the world is full of girls who get growth spurts in the first half of their teen years.

She was 14 and not freakishly huge enough for it to ever be noted. By comparison to fully grown knights, she was small.

[Lord Varys]

On 1/7/2019 at 3:11 AM, corbon said:

Sure, or at least, sure-ish. Logistics is by far GRRM's weakness. But such additional jousts, if there were any, are not germaine to Meera's story, nor to ASoIaF, so we don't need to care about them.

We cannot pretend we can learn everything there is to know about the logistics of the tourney - or even the logistics of the jousts - from the little tidbits on the tourney we got from a tale about a tourney from a person who never was there.

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Well, I've used what data we have to understand possibilities. You seem to be just complaining about what you don't know and ignoring what can reasonably be inferred for whatever reason.

It is not reasonable to pretend a story like Meera's gets all the details right. Not when we have recently learned that a lot of the stories we thought were pretty accurate contained a lot of nonsense. Did Jaehaerys ever bring six dragons to Winterfell? No. Did Alysanne grew bored while Jaehaerys had stuff to discuss with Lord Stark? No. Did Jaehaerys himself fly to the Wall to join Alysanne there during her first visit? No.

I don't doubt the gist of Meera's story but I don't see a reason to buy the background details.

And just to clarify:

I commented on that because you gave the impression we actually could figure things such as the tourney rules and the likes using what we know. And that we cannot. We don't know the rules of the Harrenhal jousts aside from the fact that people could challenge others.

Why had Rhaegar to ride in many jousts? After his first joust he would have been a champion if it were Ashford rules but we hear he had to challenge a lot of people to win the thing. How many men would challenge the Prince of Dragonstone when he was champion? How is it that Rhaegar had to face both Selmy and Arthur Dayne? Couldn't he have commanded them to not challenge him/lose after he challenged them?

For me all that implies the Harrenhal jousts followed rules we do not, at this point, know. There are parallels to Ashford but there may also be parallels to the K.O. system of the Tourney of the Hand. Perhaps they started with an Ashford-like setting and changed the rules later on.

After all, there is only one champion in the end, not five.

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Thats a long standing setup for tourneys, not just in Martin's world.

You make unwarranted assumptions about what can and can't work. 

I show where the problem in such a setting is. It doesn't make sense to me that a challenger can dictate that he'll ride against a number of knights/champions in advance. What if he is defeated? What if he is challenged in turn? Can he truly insist he first deal with all the people he challenged rather than answering a challenge when it is made? Such things have to be clarified. As of yet they are not.

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True. There is a form and function for deciding who gets to challenge when and there are administrators who organise such things. However that does not mean that there are hard and fast rules restricting what happens that cannot be bent or broken.
I would not be at all surprised if the KotLT arranged his/her 'turn' to challenge (perhaps through HR or Benjen acting as pages/squires). I would also not be at all surprised if (s)he just rode out between bouts and the organisers let it stand due to the dramatic potential of a Mystery Knight.
I would also not be surprised if her challenging 3 at once was against the 'standard protocol' (though maybe not against any 'rules') but again, the organisers let it slide due to the potential for drama. And that they may or may not have known it was going to happen ahead of the fact. Or had a quick debate about it on the spot, and were maybe swayed by the support from the commons.
And I do recall from Dunk's deliberations that he did have a choice in who he challenged in the 'champion' type tourney he fought. 

Things could certainly be arranged and manipulated, but the likes of Reed and Benjen are bad candidates for that. What kind of leeway could they have over Lord Whent's steward or Lord Whent himself? Rhaegar could perhaps have arranged something like that as 'shadow host', but that would then mean or imply that he was involved in things long before we thought he was.

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Sure. I just see no reason to substitute anything else for the facts of the story we have. If the 'facts' change through other sources, then I'll assess the differences accordingly, including the fact that this is a somewhat stylised story rather than a historical recounting. But until we have something to change them, beyond the vaguely dissatisfied wingeing of a reader, I see no good reason to pick and choose random things to 'challenge.

I gave examples for unreliable details in tales above. Could also give example for faulty memories. If you deal with a work of fiction where such techniques are used repeatedly as a narrative device it is not stupid to take that into account when you assess certain details in similar tales.

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Only according to you.

Sure, who else? I'm not giving your understanding of events here.

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First, that assumes that you can challenge non-champions, something you have just decided based on some rather simplistic, but not necessarily unfair, logistics.
Second, it assumes that non-relevant bouts have priority over actual tournament bouts.
Third, it assumes that the very organisers that you reasonably posit (not to mention Lord Whent), have no sway at all over what happens.

At this point we have no information what influence the organizers have over challenges. They certainly would organize the time and location of a jousts - after all, they are using their tourney ground - but we don't know whether they can assess or rule on the validity of a challenge.

On the other hand, Dunk has to do a lot to be admitted to a tourney - since mystery knights clearly don't subject themselves to that kind of thing (one assumes at least) you might be able to get away with all kind of shenanigans. After all, Selmy would have never entered the lists as a ten-year-old if he had first to subject himself to the bureaucrats.

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Basically this is a straw man argument. You've made up a set of rules and pointed out they fail. Not relevant.

I used a reductio ad absurdum to illustrate that the notion that the mystery knight can challenge and ride against three champions in three successive jousts is problematic - and basically as such an element for a tale for a young boy, not something one would expect to happen in real life.

If it truly happened, there should be a good explanation for that.

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Up to 5 jousts at a time. Sometimes only one. Sometimes three, or two, or four. Lets give each bout 5 mins on the first day, 10 the second, 15 the third, 20 the fourth and 30 the 5th, averaging them out (some last merely a minute or two for a single pass, some last longer with many passes, with more passes being more likely the deeper things go and the more evenly skilled the participants are.
Lets give them 10 hrs per day and average 2 bouts at a time (could be higher, but assume the more interesting bouts and towards the end of the tourney tend to be solo for the spectacle). Each bout has a loser so effectively we can roughly count number of bouts as number of participants.
12*10*2 = 240 on day one. 120 on day 2. less on the later days due to fewer champions. Thats 360 knights participating just on the first 2 days. Given that they don't all compete in the joust, but also the Melee and other competitions, not to mention just the feasting and socialising, that seems quite reasonable to me.

Ten hours seem to be too much time. They would want to eat as well (spectators, jousters, and attending lords/royals), and it was still winter, so there are not necessarily even ten hours of sunlight (if winter somehow shortens days as ADwD seems to indicate in Bran's last chapter).

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The WoIaF also calls the KotLT a "challenger" who defeated three knights in a row.

So we have independent corroboration of important elements of the "story". You can't dismiss these elements because they don't fit your internal narrative. You need to fix your internal narrative to match the facts.

I double-checked on that - Yandel doesn't talk about challenged champions. I did not doubt that the mystery knight challenged the men he defeated. That's what the tale is about, so that was always very likely to be true.

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Given that many were there for other reasons than the jousting alone (Ned for example, didn't joust, only Brandon, nor did Robert as far as we know) I don't think we need thousands of competitors for the jousting. Three or four hundred would still make it huge and 5 days of jousting would fit around 500 competitors easily in normal conditions.

We know that essentially all of Westeros was there. There would be thousands of proper knights and perhaps even tens of thousands of would-be Dunks.

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Humble origins, assuming they are, are not the same as crannog-born.

Sure, but that's not what I implied. I was talking about humble origins and the spear. And the fact that humble origins could also point towards the Neck. Doesn't have to, though.

[JNR]

On 1/6/2019 at 8:11 PM, corbon said:

She is merely telling the story, adding to the setup, IMO, not putting her personal spin on it.

Her remark that the knight might have been a crannogman doesn't appear to be part of the story at all, to me. 

Exactly like Jojen's response "Or not."

On 1/6/2019 at 8:11 PM, corbon said:

IMO its very clear that the Reed's believe the KotLT was a Stark, and that is why they so strongly expect Brandon to have heard it.

OK, let's check the text:

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"Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure."

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"You never heard this tale from your father?" asked Jojen.

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"Are you certain you never heard this tale before, Bran?" asked Jojen. "Your lord father never told it to you?"

There's simply no "they" about this. 

It's Jojen's position and only Jojen's; there's no indication Meera wonders the same thing at all.

On 1/6/2019 at 8:11 PM, corbon said:

He clearly could ride, just not very well. At all.

Once again, there's no canonical support for this position.  We have no statement from anyone, at any time in canon, about Howland's riding skills.  And we can't extrapolate what they were from a vague generalization about "crannogmen" sitting a boat "more often than a horse."  

On 1/6/2019 at 8:11 PM, corbon said:

She was 14 and not freakishly huge enough for it to ever be noted. By comparison to fully grown knights, she was small.

The mystery knight was.  Lyanna's height is never specified, just like Ned's.

[Lord Varys]

Just a short addendum to the things above:

It doesn't make much sense to assume that organizers of a tourney schedule jousts involving one and the same challenger in advance, since they cannot know said challenger is going win his first challenge, be able to ride in another joust, ransom back his armor, horse, and weapons should he lose, survive his first joust, etc.

In that sense, the master of the tourney should only schedule one joust for a particular challenge at a time, and not three in advance. Meaning that the decision to allow the mystery knight to ride against another knight after his first victory would have been made after his first victory, and not before.

[corbon]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Her remark that the knight might have been a crannogman doesn't appear to be part of the story at all, to me. 

Exactly like Jojen's response "Or not."

I agree. What I perhaps explained poorly was that I thought her addition was that of a storyteller building into the deception and mystery, not necessarily that of her personal opinion.
And Jojen's is the response of someone thinking thats a bit unfair on Bran.

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OK, let's check the text:

There's simply no "they" about this. 

It's Jojen's position and only Jojen's; there's no indication Meera wonders the same thing at all.

Fair enough, my error.
I see your position, and agree its reasonable. I don't see it as necessary, but certainly possible and a very fair interpretation of the narrower context of the text.
I do wonder why Meera chose that story for Bran (perhaps its the only one she knows of Knights?), and why the two of them would be in disagreement over it, but these are small and ultimately unimportant questions that have many reasonable explanations. 

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Once again, there's no canonical support for this position.  We have no statement from anyone, at any time in canon, about Howland's riding skills.  And we can't extrapolate what they were from a vague generalization about "crannogmen" sitting a boat "more often than a horse."  

Well, he rode a whorse well enough, later, to the ToJ. And he doesn't say to himself he couldn't sit a horse, just that it wasn't a skill of his people. I'm prepared to concede he may have been able to ride, if not well, to people pushing that argument, since we can't say definitively he could not and there is evidence later he had at least some capability.
I did point out that its likely he increased his skill through the year long campaign before the 'later'.

If your position is that HR could not be the KotLT on account of his lack of horse-riding abilities, exactly as he himself believes, I am in full agreement with you.

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The mystery knight was.  Lyanna's height is never specified, just like Ned's.

And my point is that this does not need specifying. As a 14 year old girl, compared to normal fully grown men she is short - unless she is so freakishly large for her sex and age, that she is remarkable (like Brienne, for example). Yet no one ever remarks on such. Like Ned, she appears to be relatively 'normal' and thus 'small', for a knight.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Just a short addendum to the things above:

It doesn't make much sense to assume that organizers of a tourney schedule jousts involving one and the same challenger in advance, since they cannot know said challenger is going win his first challenge, be able to ride in another joust, ransom back his armor, horse, and weapons should he lose, survive his first joust, etc.

In that sense, the master of the tourney should only schedule one joust for a particular challenge at a time, and not three in advance. Meaning that the decision to allow the mystery knight to ride against another knight after his first victory would have been made after his first victory, and not before.

My point is that these are the facts we are given, they match common particulars in tourney folklore (such as striking the shield of someone you choose to challenge), there is plenty of leeway within the realms of possibility of the organisers allowing such things -especially given the crowd (commons) is stated as disliking the three knights and so supporting the KotLT enthusiastically, so we have no good reason to discount the story.

I think you are focusing too much on rules and logistics, and ignoring the story that GRRM is telling. The GRRM who admits logistics is not just a weakness, but something he sometimes ignores entirely in favour of the story, and  who shows rules being broken and bent constantly.

[JNR]

2 hours ago, corbon said:

I do wonder why Meera chose that story for Bran (perhaps its the only one she knows of Knights?), and why the two of them would be in disagreement over it

Well, I may have explained myself poorly on that point.

I think the story Meera tells Bran is -- literally, almost word for word -- the same story she and Jojen grew up hearing, over and over and over.  I think that's why she can rattle it off so perfectly and easily, even in fine detail.

If so, then they were simply never told the mystery knight's identity.  Just as Bran wasn't told. 

And it doesn't surprise me if they arrived at different ideas, because that's certainly what ASOIAF fans have done when confronted with this very ambiguous story in which there is no clear and obvious answer.

I could also extrapolate that their interpretations (if I'm right) reflect their personalities.  Meera strikes me as more action-oriented and believes in trying to do things to improve a bad situation.  Jojen, greendream-equipped as he is, seems much more doleful and helpless (even though recent experience shows how easily he can be fooled by his dreams -- Bran and Rickon are not in fact dead).

I think this line reflects them both pretty well:

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"He wants to go home," Meera told Bran. "He will not even try and fight his fate. He says the greendreams do not lie."

So if Meera thinks her father Howland responded to a challenge directly and personally -- "Fuck yeah, I'm gonna do this, even if it means cheating" -- that would fit her nature as I understand it. 

And if Jojen thinks Howland decided he was helpless and hence, literally did nothing but pray, that would more or less fit Jojen's nature too, I think.

I also wonder, if it was Howland who told them this story repeatedly, what his motive was. 

I imagine Meera would guess this: "Dad wanted to teach us that while we are small, crannogmen are not weak.  We can still fight, and sometimes with a little thought and preparation, we can find a way to win."   Whereas Jojen might say this: "Dad wanted to teach us that we should admit the truth about our limitations, and not delude ourselves into taking on needless risk.  Someone else better suited might come along and save us."

Bran clearly thinks more like option #1 -- and I bet Meera knew he would feel inspired by this story, unable to walk and very unhappy with that as he is.  And the ending suggests that is how he responded -- optimistically:

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 All the tales agreed that the green men had strange magic powers. Maybe they could help him walk again, even turn him into a knight. They turned the little crannogman into a knight, even if it was only for a day, he thought. A day would be enough.

But whether he was right or wrong about the mystery knight, we'll have to wait and see -- and we may never see. 

This strikes me as the kind of mystery GRRM might never resolve, having painstakingly concocted it exactly to spur the kind of analysis you and I are demonstrating in this thread, and fans have been demonstrating ever since ASOS was published.

[Frey family reunion]

On 1/8/2019 at 11:14 PM, JNR said:

So if Meera thinks her father Howland responded to a challenge directly and personally -- "Fuck yeah, I'm gonna do this, even if it means cheating" -- that would fit her nature as I understand it. 

And if Jojen thinks Howland decided he was helpless and hence, literally did nothing but pray, that would more or less fit Jojen's nature too, I think.

 I also wonder, if it was Howland who told them this story repeatedly, what his motive was. 

 I imagine Meera would guess this: "Dad wanted to teach us that while we are small, crannogmen are not weak.  We can still fight, and sometimes with a little thought and preparation, we can find a way to win."   Whereas Jojen might say this: "Dad wanted to teach us that we should admit the truth about our limitations, and not delude ourselves into taking on needless risk.  Someone else better suited might come along and save us."

 Bran clearly thinks more like option #1 -- and I bet Meera knew he would feel inspired by this story, unable to walk and very unhappy with that as he is.  And the ending suggests that is how he responded -- optimistically:

I like this analysis quite a bit actually.  It sets up the dichotomy between Meera and Jojen quite nicely.  

But it does tend to reinforce my belief that the truth lies somewhere between the assumptions by both characters.

Just because Howland may not have donned armor and lance, doesnt’ mean that he was a passive participant in his wish for vengeance.  And just because Lyanna probably doesn’t possess the skill to defeat seasoned jousters, without assistance, doesn’t diminish her traits of boldness and loyalty to her friends.  Howland had his skills and Lyanna had hers.  Perhaps a combination of the two was necessary to create the Mystery Knight.

[JNR]

11 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Howland had his skills and Lyanna had hers.  Perhaps a combination of the two was necessary to create the Mystery Knight.

It's conceivable, but would of course involve Howland explaining that magic is real (because it doesn't seem like any Stark of Ned's generation had a clue about that, nor any of the next generation until the direwolf dreams began).

[Frey family reunion]

8 hours ago, JNR said:

It's conceivable, but would of course involve Howland explaining that magic is real (because it doesn't seem like any Stark of Ned's generation had a clue about that, nor any of the next generation until the direwolf dreams began).

I would suspect that if he used magic to help ensure victory, it would have been a very subtle manipulation.  Or as suggested it could have been a poison or a more mundane trick:

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A man will win one tourney, and fall quickly in the next. A slick spot in the grass may mean defeat, or what you ate for supper the night before. A change in the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

The change in the wind is most eye raising to me, because as Osha tells us:

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“No, stay,” Bran commanded her. “Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods.”

Osha studied him. “You asked them and they’re answering. Open your ears, listen, you’ll hear.” Bran listened. “It’s only the wind,” he said after a moment, uncertain. “The leaves are rustling.”

“Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?”

And of course as Howland tells the story:

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“Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm.”

And while the Maesters minimize magic as much as they can, even they don’t deny that magic ever existed.  Maester Luwin just suggest that it was nearly extinguished through the Doom of Valyria.  

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“Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone.”

And while Lyanna wasn’t a child anymore, she wasn’t far off.  I doubt she was too old to have completely abandoned a belief in magic, especially being from the north, and especially having Old Nan as a nanny.

If we need to take a real world example, as late as the early 20th century England and Scotland, there existed pockets where people still steadfastly believed in the existence of fairies and changelings.  

So if Howland could help summon the wind, or make the grass slick with water, I think don’t think it would have completely damaged Lyanna’s worldview, I think instead she probably would have thought it pretty cool.

ETA: and remember, we can’t exactly compare Lyanna with Eddard.  Eddard basically grew up the Eyrie, a decidedly unmagical place, at least with respect to the Old Gods.  Lyanna grew up in Winterfell, however.

[JNR]

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I would suspect that if he used magic to help ensure victory, it would have been a very subtle manipulation.

On that we agree.

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

ETA: and remember, we can’t exactly compare Lyanna with Eddard.

But we also can't forget Lyanna and Eddard would likely have talked on many occasions since Harrenhal (given the large time interval between Harrenhal and her disappearance, and then of course their ultimate reunion, which also featured Howland). 

So if she were confronted with irrefutable proof of magic, an astounding thing, presumably she would have told him. 

But his down-to-earth attitude in AGOT seems instead to suggest he has never had reason to think magic has any basis.

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His lord father smiled. "Old Nan has been telling you stories again."

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"There are darker things beyond the Wall." She glanced behind her at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening, thinking its long slow thoughts.

His smile was gentle. "You listen to too many of Old Nan's stories. The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all."

 

I suppose you could make the case, though, that Lyanna knew Ned's skepticism would be immune to her more informed position, so she never bothered to try.  Though she might have winked at Howland on that last occasion. 

(If she read this site, I can only imagine how much laughter and how many comments Lyanna would have to stifle, every day and in many threads.)

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

So if she were confronted with irrefutable proof of magic, an astounding thing, presumably she would have told him

And if Lyanna were to tell Eddard that Howland prayed to the Old Gods and caused a gust of wind to blow, what would his reaction be?  That’s the problem with the magic of the Old Gods, it’s not something that you can really have irrefutable proof of.

ETA: (With the possible exception of magical ice soldiers)

[JNR]

12 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

And if Lyanna were to tell Eddard that Howland prayed to the Old Gods and caused a gust of wind to blow, what would his reaction be?

Well, this is the same thing I said at the end of my previous post. 

However, it still seems simpler and logically safer to me to assume both Ned and Lyanna died without ever having learned magic was real, than to assume that (1) Lyanna learned it was real, (2) used it to beat three knights in jousts, and (3) decided never to tell Ned. 

The other thing is: there's Lyanna, at fourteen, never having jousted against anyone in her life, who has no armor tailored for her and no training in the joust.  She sure isn't a Brienne, who was trained for years by a master at arms.

Tourney lances are about twelve feet long and awkward to manage if you're not used to them and you're not particularly tall (as is constantly assumed to be true for Lyanna).

Now if you're Howland, feeling like this:

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he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later

...what do you do?  Do you ask this eighth-grade person, who has zero training or experience, to risk getting mauled in jousts by riding against trained knights while wearing bits and pieces of armor, by persuading her of your magic powers?  All so you can achieve your personal vengeance?

I'm not sure.  And if you do, I doubt you brag about it.  Howland obviously doesn't appear in canon, but this doesn't really seem like something I'd repeatedly brag about to my kids, in his shoes.

[J. Stargaryen]

I can't recall offhand what the advantages of weirwood over regular wood are. Is it lighter, by chance?

[Ser Leftwich]

Any new clues or information about the title and duties of "Protector of the Realm" in Fire & Blood, that might lead us to immagine that Aerys named Rhaegar the Protector of the Realm?

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

Any new clues or information about the title and duties of "Protector of the Realm" in Fire & Blood, that might lead us to immagine that Aerys named Rhaegar the Protector of the Realm?

There is no new information given. Rogar Baratheon, Prince Daemon, Leowyn Corbray, and Unwin Peake are all styled 'Protector of the Realm' but we never learn what exactly their duties are in that capacity, and those men who happened to be both Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King are most often referred to as Hand, not Protector.

The fact that Daemon was Protector of the Realm rather than Rhaenyra also does not give any indication he was a co-ruler or something like that, despite the Protector of the Realm being her consort he was never more than one of her advisers.

Intuitively I'd say that the Protector of the Realm - with it being a title that is usually part of the king's string of titles - is more part of the royal sphere than any of the others and thus a Protector of the Realm who is not the king and not the Hand would have more authority than the Hand or any of the other courtiers, but one would have to actually enforce/seize that authority. Leowyn Corbray failed to do that during the early years of Aegon III's regency considering that Ser Tyland Lannister, the Hand, quickly became the guy in charge at court.

Aerys II may have still granted Rhaegar that title, but in light of the practice in most other cases it is very odd that he did not also dismiss Chested to name Rhaegar both Hand and Protector - that's what Jaehaerys I and Daeron II with Lord Rogar and Prince Baelor. That Daemon never became Rhaenyra's Hand apparently is due to the fact that she didn't have a Hand around the time of her coronation on Dragonstone - Daemon was already in Harrenhal for quite some time when Jacaerys Velaryon made peace between his mother and grandfather by making the latter the Hand of the Queen.

[Ser Leftwich]

12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is no new information given. Rogar Baratheon, Prince Daemon, Leowyn Corbray, and Unwin Peake are all styled 'Protector of the Realm' but we never learn what exactly their duties are in that capacity, and those men who happened to be both Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King are most often referred to as Hand, not Protector.

The fact that Daemon was Protector of the Realm rather than Rhaenyra also does not give any indication he was a co-ruler or something like that, despite the Protector of the Realm being her consort he was never more than one of her advisers.

Intuitively I'd say that the Protector of the Realm - with it being a title that is usually part of the king's string of titles - is more part of the royal sphere than any of the others and thus a Protector of the Realm who is not the king and not the Hand would have more authority than the Hand or any of the other courtiers, but one would have to actually enforce/seize that authority. Leowyn Corbray failed to do that during the early years of Aegon III's regency considering that Ser Tyland Lannister, the Hand, quickly became the guy in charge at court.

Aerys II may have still granted Rhaegar that title, but in light of the practice in most other cases it is very odd that he did not also dismiss Chested to name Rhaegar both Hand and Protector - that's what Jaehaerys I and Daeron II with Lord Rogar and Prince Baelor. That Daemon never became Rhaenyra's Hand apparently is due to the fact that she didn't have a Hand around the time of her coronation on Dragonstone - Daemon was already in Harrenhal for quite some time when Jacaerys Velaryon made peace between his mother and grandfather by making the latter the Hand of the Queen.

From the information, it seems like Protector of the Realm is the leader of the royal armed forces. No reason it has to go along with the Regency or Handship, and in some cases, it makes sense to divide the titles between two or more people, so no one has all that power. Given Aerys's paranoid, real or imagined, it makes perfect sense for him to not have one person be both Hand and PotR. We know by his actions that he wouldn't be going out leading any armies.

Aerys could have dangled PotR only as the boon, but kept back the Handship. In fact, it makes sense for Aerys to not give Rhaegar both titles. Lastly, if Rhaegar won, he would have the armed forces to force his will on the council he planned to call after the battle.

Since we never see any of Aerys's Hands referred to as PotR, so they may not have had the title. Rhaegar could have had the title at an earlier point, lost it, and Aerys gave it back. A regent is not an issue, since Aerys was of age.

Point being: the Protector of the Realm can likely give orders to the KG.

[Lord Varys]

37 minutes ago, Ser Leftwich said:

From the information, it seems like Protector of the Realm is the leader of the royal armed forces. No reason it has to go along with the Regency or Handship, and in some cases, it makes sense to divide the titles between two or more people, so no one has all that power. Given Aerys's paranoid, real or imagined, it makes perfect sense for him to not have one person be both Hand and PotR. We know by his actions that he wouldn't be going out leading any armies.

Usually the king himself is the Protector of the Realm. The only exception are minor kings, the single female monarch the Seven Kingdoms had, and old Daeron II, for some reason. There is actually little to no reason to assume that Aerys II would ever grant said title to Rhaegar. He is not the kind of guy to do stuff like that.

37 minutes ago, Ser Leftwich said:

Point being: the Protector of the Realm can likely give orders to the KG.

I know and I suggested that some time ago, but FaB makes it pretty clear that pretty much anyone at court can boss around the Kingsguard, so there is really no reason to assume Rhaegar needed any special authority to issue orders to the KG. Or rather: He did not need some special authority to convince the three knights he addressed to do as he bid - either because he was the Prince of Dragonstone, their friend, the only hope for the future of House Targaryen, making great suggestions, asking them to do something they wanted to do, anyway, giving them an opportunity to not return to the crowned lunatic in KL without dishonoring themselves, etc.

The idea that the Kingsguard are special guys with special privileges or a special super allegiance to the king is pretty much dead after FaB.

Internal plot logic makes it also very unlikely that Aerys II would grant his son any special rights, privileges, honors, offices, etc. before they actually talked. A man as paranoid as he was is not going to hand the kingdom to the son he suspected was plotting against him until such a time as he was convinced that this was not the case. And I really can't see Aerys reaching this conclusion before he actually talked to Rhaegar in person.

So perhaps Rhaegar was made Protector of the Realm after his return to KL when he commanded and trained the Targaryen army, but if that was the case - and we have really no reason to assume that he needed such a title to actually train and command the army - then we don't know anything about that at this point.