Jump to content

Why do book readers hate R+L=J?


manchester_babe

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, Ygrain said:

 

Er... guys, and where is it stated that Ned had the baby with him the whole time? I'd really have a hard time believing that no-one would ever put two and two together and figure out RLJ if he did.

The clever thing to do would be go to Starfall under the pretext of returning Dawn, send the baby North with Howland and switch the wetnurse a couple of times along the way. Meanwhile, return to KL with Lyanna's bones to report to Robert, pick up your army and return North, and either pick up Cat along the way or ravenmail her to go North.

As for Lyanna's bones: The easiest way would be cremation. Defleshing by bugs takes time, boiling the flesh requires equipment, and carrying the body somewhere means that 1) it starts decomposing if it takes too long, 2) people can see that she had been pregnant, and you don't want either.

I am feeling really lazy right now, but I swear there is a place in the book where it says Ned put Jon and Willa on a ship heading north while he returned to Kingslanding. This was written as an explanation of how Jon made it to Winterfell before Catelyn and Robb. Do you remember anything like this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, bent branch said:

I am feeling really lazy right now, but I swear there is a place in the book where it says Ned put Jon and Willa on a ship heading north while he returned to Kingslanding. This was written as an explanation of how Jon made it to Winterfell before Catelyn and Robb. Do you remember anything like this?

Sorry but no, there is no such passage. You must have picked it here on the forums - it happens to all of us from time to time :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, bent branch said:

Whether it makes sense to you or not, TWOIAF made mention of where Joanna Lannister was at various times. The times given make it extremely  unlikely that Aerys fathered Cersei and Jaime, but made it entirely possible that Tyrion was Aerys' since Joanna was at court at the time she would have gotten pregnant with Tyrion. This is why some people who hate the idea have let themselves be convinced. To confirm it for yourself you can go to A Search of Ice and Fire website and search "Joanna" in TWOIAF. There are also several threads that deal with this issue. Particularly from around the time AWOIAF was released. So, in a nutshell, Aerys and Joanna nowhere near each other when the twins were conceived. Aerys and Joanna in the same place when Tyrion was conceived.

Look how often Cat changed her position in a year and we don't have the exact time of jaime and cerseis fathering. it needs more to convince me they are no targs.

Tyrion as a targaryen is nonsense to me, so either cersei and Jaime are or noone, imo.

in the end only grrm knows.

Edit: most dates around her and aerys position are fro Woaiaf, written by maester Yandel, for a "baratheon" king with a Lannister family, he could simply change the dates to prevent rumores, maybe even tywin forced him to do this back when he was alive

Edit#2: sry, i thought you meant the Wiki of ice and fire at first, thats why i asked for the link

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Euron Lannister said:

Look how often Cat changed her position in a year and we don't have the exact time of jaime and cerseis fathering. it needs more to convince me they are no targs.

Tyrion as a targaryen is nonsense to me, so either cersei and Jaime are or noone, imo.

in the end only grrm knows.

Edit: most dates around her and aerys position are fro Woaiaf, written by maester Yandel, for a "baratheon" king with a Lannister family, he could simply change the dates to prevent rumores, maybe even tywin forced him to do this back when he was alive

Sure, no one can stop you from believing what you want to believe. I was just trying to explain why many people who hate the Tyrion Targ theory have given up the fight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Euron Lannister said:

Look how often Cat changed her position in a year and we don't have the exact time of jaime and cerseis fathering. it needs more to convince me they are no targs.

Tyrion as a targaryen is nonsense to me, so either cersei and Jaime are or noone, imo.

in the end only grrm knows.

Edit: most dates around her and aerys position are fro Woaiaf, written by maester Yandel, for a "baratheon" king with a Lannister family, he could simply change the dates to prevent rumores, maybe even tywin forced him to do this back when he was alive

Edit#2: sry, i thought you meant the Wiki of ice and fire at first, thats why i asked for the link

 

4 hours ago, bent branch said:

Sure, no one can stop you from believing what you want to believe. I was just trying to explain why many people who hate the Tyrion Targ theory have given up the fight.

I'm actually one of those people who, after reading AWOIAF, became part-way convinced that the Targ-Tyrion theory may be right, when I had rejected it out of hand before.

You could probably make a case that it is possible Jaime and Cersei were conceived by Aerys, given that we don't know Joanna's exact whereabouts 24/7. But the point is that in AWOIAF GRRM seemed to go out of his way to explicitly let readers know that there was a clear window for Tyrion to have been fathered by Aerys, and cast serious if not decisive doubts that Jaime and Cersei could have been. If that turns out to be an utter red herring, then that would be pretty mischievous on GRRM's part and for no good reason I can see. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

 

I'm actually one of those people who, after reading AWOIAF, became part-way convinced that the Targ-Tyrion theory may be right, when I had rejected it out of hand before.

You could probably make a case that it is possible Jaime and Cersei were conceived by Aerys, given that we don't know Joanna's exact whereabouts 24/7. But the point is that in AWOIAF GRRM seemed to go out of his way to explicitly let readers know that there was a clear window for Tyrion to have been fathered by Aerys, and cast serious if not decisive doubts that Jaime and Cersei could have been. If that turns out to be an utter red herring, then that would be pretty mischievous on GRRM's part and for no good reason I can see. 

For all we know for Tyrion, Tywin had sex with Joanna, then soon after, say a day or even a week later, Aerys raped her, making it impossible for Tywin to prove whether or not Tyrion is his.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

For all we know for Tyrion, Tywin had sex with Joanna, then later on Aerys raped her, making it impossible for Tywin to prove whether or not Tyrion is his.

That's a good point. Certainly, from the information we have, Tyrion's paternity is more questionable than Jaime or Cersei's. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

That's a good point. Certainly, from the information we have, Tyrion's paternity is more questionable than Jaime or Cersei's. 

And would tie in with Tywin’s putting down of Tyrion in ASOS. Doesn’t he say “Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine.” ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Doesn’t he say “Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are not mine.” ?

He does, which is often held up as further evidence by those who believe he's Aerys's bastard. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Hi Dorian the D.  'Unfocused'?  You mean 'equivocal'?

I believe in RLJ, because long time ago in a galaxy far far away before I ever stumbled upon westeros and fell into the bloody blue rabbit hole, upon my very first reading of AGOT, never suspecting where it would take me, my intuition told me that it was true -- and I always trust my intuition ;)

No unfocused. His inability to write on a schedule. Unlike say, David Brin, who when he announced his follow up to his uplift trilogy, he delivered a book once a year on the year, for three years. GRRM stated he only writes when he feel like it. He regularly takes more than a year off from the story, like say, after dance was published and he has numerous other projects going that require his attention. He writes without an outline, and sometimes his story goes to a place that is too tangled to resolve (the meereenese knot.) And yes, R+L=J is true. You have to have a cold heart with no hint of love, light or romance to believe that it is anything but a tragic love story wrapped in prophecy, lust, pain, duty and sadness 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/14/2018 at 0:35 PM, Dorian Martell's son said:

It isn't bad writing. It is literally the central mystery of the series and unfortunately, the author's desire to have his work on HBO conflicted with his unfocused writing style 

I don't see it that way.  I think HBO made a corporate decision to take the story in a certain direction and it is not the same direction as the novels.  It is bad writing in the sense that they have given up on plausibility, continuity, and nuance.  They basically changed the characters and made up their own.  The only thing remaining the same are the names and even that is inconsistent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

And yes, R+L=J is true. You have to have a cold heart with no hint of love, light or romance to believe that it is anything but a tragic love story wrapped in prophecy, lust, pain, duty and sadness 

Hey, I have one of those, and still I know that there's no consistent, logical solution other than R+L=J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

I don't see it that way.  I think HBO made a corporate decision to take the story in a certain direction and it is not the same direction as the novels. 

You are free to believe what you want. It does not alter the truth, and that truth is that Jon Snow is the son of the Prince of Dragonstone and the Daughter of the Warden and Lord Paramount of the North. To quote everyone else on this forum: "It is known" 

3 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

 It is bad writing in the sense that they have given up on plausibility, continuity, and nuance.  They basically changed the characters and made up their own.  The only thing remaining the same are the names and even that is inconsistent.

TV shows, with budgets, casts, crews, unions for both, schedules, seasons, special effects, costumes, locations and a host of other factors are inherently more limited than books. So they have to remove some minor characters, merge others and change how things operate to make the show work. It isn't bad writing, it is the price you pay for adapting source material

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/15/2018 at 0:54 AM, Ygrain said:

Er... guys, and where is it stated that Ned had the baby with him the whole time?

It’s not stated. Nor is it stated how baby Jon arrived at WF.

The assumption is Eddard was in some way responsible for getting baby to WF. There is as of yet no explanation. Perhaps is doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

@YgrainYou are a fav of mine and I respect your knowledge of the topic. I simply want to say why I think myself and perhaps other individuals may question R+L=J.

 

On 2/15/2018 at 0:54 AM, Ygrain said:

The clever thing to do would be go to Starfall under the pretext of returning Dawn, send the baby North with Howland and switch the wetnurse a couple of times along the way. Meanwhile, return to KL with Lyanna's bones to report to Robert, pick up your army and return North, and either pick up Cat along the way or ravenmail her to go North.

I can go along with that. Speculation is all I have at the moment.

The thing is, there is that pesky Brandon squire, Ethan Glover, who managed to survive the KL ordeal. I would assume Ethan was riding with Brandon when Brandon received word about his sister. I would assume that Ethan rode with Brandon to KL. Ethan seems to have ridden with Eddard to Rha's tower of joy and died there. There is an ssm that says Howland & Eddard were the sole survivors of the battle. There is another ssm about Eddard’s dream was a fever dream.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X     He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.   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./

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII      "He rode into the Red Keep with a few companions, shouting for Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. But Rhaegar wasn't there. Aerys sent his guards to arrest them all for plotting his son's murder. The others were lords' sons too, it seems to me."   "Ethan Glover was Brandon's squire," Catelyn said. "He was the only one to survive./

There is an ssm somewhere that talks about “careful readers” which I find insulting considering that I had to make a cheat sheet for the multiple characters & their nicknames. Martin’s writing style is in my opinion ambiguous to say the least. There is another ssm out there somewhere that suggests a reader cracked open Jon’s parentage early on.

Maybe I am just dense, but due to the way the story was written I can understand why people question R+L=J. Oh, and let me not forget the “they”. Who be they?

A Game of Thrones - Eddard I      They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it./

Which brings me to this tower of joy that Eddard tore down. He used the stones to make cairns --- a mound of stones built as a memorial.or landmark.

 

Folks, please do not ask me for the ssm links. I can’t provide them and I am unwilling to search for them. Other posters if they are inclined to do so may provide the supporting links or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

It’s not stated. Nor is it stated how baby Jon arrived at WF.

The assumption is Eddard was in some way responsible for getting baby to WF. There is as of yet no explanation. Perhaps is doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

That's my impression. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter all that much. And leaving a whole bunch of question marks helps w/ something else...

9 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

 

@YgrainYou are a fav of mine and I respect your knowledge of the topic. I simply want to say why I think myself and perhaps other individuals may question R+L=J.

 

I can go along with that. Speculation is all I have at the moment.

The thing is, there is that pesky Brandon squire, Ethan Glover, who managed to survive the KL ordeal. I would assume Ethan was riding with Brandon when Brandon received word about his sister. I would assume that Ethan rode with Brandon to KL. Ethan seems to have ridden with Eddard to Rha's tower of joy and died there. There is an ssm that says Howland & Eddard were the sole survivors of the battle. There is another ssm about Eddard’s dream was a fever dream.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard X     He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.   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./

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn VII      "He rode into the Red Keep with a few companions, shouting for Prince Rhaegar to come out and die. But Rhaegar wasn't there. Aerys sent his guards to arrest them all for plotting his son's murder. The others were lords' sons too, it seems to me."   "Ethan Glover was Brandon's squire," Catelyn said. "He was the only one to survive./

There is an ssm somewhere that talks about “careful readers” which I find insulting considering that I had to make a cheat sheet for the multiple characters & their nicknames. Martin’s writing style is in my opinion ambiguous to say the least. There is another ssm out there somewhere that suggests a reader cracked open Jon’s parentage early on..

<snip>

this. Leaving all the question marks and all the ambiguity keeps the mysteries alive so to speak. If not for all the unanswered questions, there'd be nothing to discuss! :D

And Martin is extremely crafty w/ the way he does it. There are a number of mysteries where we have two very distinct camps. Sometimes one of these camps is comprised of several smaller-than-the-opposing/mainstream camp, like we have w/ Jon's parentage. 

I accidentally deleted the bit below, and just wanted to say I agree. 

"due to the way the story was written I can understand why people question R+L=J."

9 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Folks, please do not ask me for the ssm links. I can’t provide them and I am unwilling to search for them. Other posters if they are inclined to do so may provide the supporting links or not.

Love the disclaimer! Har! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't speak for why some (not all) book readers hate the RLJ theory. I can only assume that it is like so many other topics regarding the books and it comes down to boredom between the wait from ADWD to Winds. Heck, maybe even boredom between the wait from A Game of Thrones to Winds of Winter (and beyond).

However, there seems to be a rising trend to try and re-write the story because the first five books we have so far (and it seems the ancillary novels?) are all lies. :dunno: I dunno, but that seems like a lot of wasted ink, in my opinion.

When I first read this series I at first started off at my normal pace as this series was recommended to me by a good friend and he loaned me the first book. After a few days of reading, I gave him back his book and went and bought my own copy because I could tell I was going to have to dig in to this story more than I was comfortable doing in a borrowed book. I had this feeling not only from the writing on AGOT, but also from being familiar with GRRM's other work.

My first reading of the series took place right as AFFC was released (or thereabouts), so I flew through the material quickly, and it was only on those invaluable re-reads that I was able to slow down and it was then that all of GRRM's usual themes started to pop out at me again. I read what ASOIAF books were out at the time, and then re-read the older GRRM stories, and read a few GRRM stories that I had for some reason always put off. Yes, the man loves his themes and the theme of Jon being who he is, linked to blue roses, linked to being a "mix" of two different 'whatevers', and even reusing the "promised prince" dialogue, and George says in interviews "we [people] need to be more mutts", all of this together is shown again in ASOIAF. I am going to have to trust the author in this case.

If I am surprised in the end, great!

If not, great!

I trust the author.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is like, at this point, what difference does it really make if he is Rheagar and Lyanna's kid? The books have Rheagar already married to someone else and had kids and heirs. Rheagar and his family were killed and deposed. Yes, the Lannisters are usurping along with their partners in crime, the Tyrells but Stannis and Shireen are still alive and are the lawful heirs to the throne, not Jon. There is Aegon/FAegon and their is Danny. Seriously, unless Jon wields some special lightsaber pennis that wipes out the Others/wyghts on contact, it really does not matter. It did but a terrible, unfair burden on Ned Stark for which I am pissed at Lyanna and Rheagar for that on top of everything else they caused by doing this. which leads me to.

It does somewhat make his parents look bad or at least without more information, if Lyanna ran away it makes her look like a homewrecker, family dooming wolf girl. Sort of like a cross between Sansa in Book 1 and Arya in her looks and martial skills. We need more info on what really  happened from her perspective.

As for Rheagar, he strikes me as an ignorant, high level functioning-mental case. Again, without more info, it appears he lost his mind, if it was really all there to begin with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

You are a fav of mine and I respect your knowledge of the topic. I simply want to say why I think myself and perhaps other individuals may question R+L=J.

Well... I am certainly complimented

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

The thing is, there is that pesky Brandon squire, Ethan Glover, who managed to survive the KL ordeal. I would assume Ethan was riding with Brandon when Brandon received word about his sister. I would assume that Ethan rode with Brandon to KL. Ethan seems to have ridden with Eddard to Rha's tower of joy and died there. There is an ssm that says Howland & Eddard were the sole survivors of the battle. There is another ssm about Eddard’s dream was a fever dream.

I hope I don't come across in some negative way but the bolded is incorrect - precisely, inaccurate. 

As for the sole survivors of the battle: no need for a SSM because that's what AGOT states black on white - that out of seven against three, only Ned and Howland lived to ride away. The SSM you mean, I suppose, is GRRM answering the question of someone who wanted a confirmation if Arthur Dayne or anyone else was really dead, and asked if Ned and HR were the only MEN to leave ToJ, which he confirmed. Neither information accounts for the presence of females or babies at the tower, so for all we know Ned and Howland could have tagged along a whole nursery :D (see all the theories about the various children stashed at ToJ).

As for the "fever dream": this often gets misinterpreted as completely undermining any significance the dream might have and waving it off as irrelevant. Yet, what GRRM says is that "our dreams are not always literal" - meaning, the dream does not describe the ToJ showdown exactly but relays it in a symbolic or metaphorical way or something like that. However, when you browse through AGOT, you get pieces of information what the substance of the dream is. It is described as an OLD dream about the three KG, a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood - i.e., regardless of the actual content of this particular dream, Ned had had dreams with these three items before. His memory of Lyanna's demise - blood, roses, the promise - is consistent with the imagery of the dream (blood-streaked sky, a storm of rose petals, his reponse "I promise"). He mulls over the outcome of the battle of seven agains three after he wakes up (and is lucid), he is reminded of the scene again as he encounters three KG on the way to Robert, he thinks about the contrast between Rhaegar's "tower of joy" and his own bitter memories of the place. Those are things that really happened - he went to ToJ with seven friends, fought the three KG which cost him six friends, gave Lyanna some promises as she lay dying and she was holding onto roses on her deathbed. The details of it - what exactly was said, or even the sequence of events (for all we know, the fight with the KG may have ensued after Lyanna's death, as a result of a promise which was incompatible with the KG's objectives) remain unknown.

Now, I am wondering: do you have any particular objections to what I have written above, or is there any information that you find yourself unfamiliar with?

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

There is an ssm somewhere that talks about “careful readers” which I find insulting considering that I had to make a cheat sheet for the multiple characters & their nicknames.

IRRC,the SSM about "careful readers" is about the culprit of the Purple Wedding, not RLJ.

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Martin’s writing style is in my opinion ambiguous to say the least.

I wouldn't call it ambiguous, but it is problematic because the relevant information is interspersed with pages and pages of other information and unless you purposefully sift through it all, you easily miss the connections. Plus, the internet myths or inaccurate quoting cause a lot of confusion.

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

There is another ssm out there somewhere that suggests a reader cracked open Jon’s parentage early on.

Not familiar with this one, but as most of the relevant information is contained in AGOT, there is little wonder. It took me one casual read and one careful sifting to figure it out when I got my hands on the book in 2001, and when I went on the internet to see if any other people did, it was already there.

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Oh, and let me not forget the “they”. Who be they?

A Game of Thrones - Eddard I      They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it./

Some non-male non-baby inhabitants of the tower. One Wylla, who claims to be Jon's mother, comes to mind as the hottest candidate.

7 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Which brings me to this tower of joy that Eddard tore down. He used the stones to make cairns --- a mound of stones built as a memorial.or landmark.

The number of cairns matches the number of the dead and Ned explicitely mentions Martyn Cassel being buried in the south.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...