Heresy 209 Of Ice and of Fire

[Melifeather]

32 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Where did the three broken tines come from? The text only references "a foot of shattered antler, the tines broken off"

You're quite right with regards to the quote. I must have misremembered it and associated the three Baratheon brothers as being the broken tines, because House Baratheon is quite shattered like the antler. At the end of Dance Stannis was very much alive, while the mummer's version hints at his death, but of course this hasn't been confirmed in the books, at least not yet.

[Black Crow]

17 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

You're quite right with regards to the quote. I must have misremembered it and associated the three Baratheon brothers as being the broken tines, because House Baratheon is quite shattered like the antler. At the end of Dance Stannis was very much alive, while the mummer's version hints at his death, but of course this hasn't been confirmed in the books, at least not yet.

Given the tenuous relationship between the text and the mummers version I wouldn't be surprised to find Stannis alive and well at the end 

[alienarea]

With everything that has happened in the tv show, the parts of the books that got skipped, and the detailed way GRRM tells his story, it cannot be finished in seven books unless the red comet drops and kills them all or some unresolved ending like this. The story will not be finished by GRRM in written form.

[Black Crow]

Worse there seems to be a lack of desire to actually get down and do it

[alienarea]

I have a suspicion that it is connected to R+L=J being found out early on and maybe also the criticism of being lame he received for it.

[Tucu]

56 minutes ago, alienarea said:

I have a suspicion that it is connected to R+L=J being found out early on and maybe also the criticism of being lame he received for it.

I doubt it is related to R+L=J. While this is a popular "mystery" it pales in comparison with the multiple layers GRRM has added as hints to the nature of magic, the Others and other beings.

[Brad Stark]

21 hours ago, SirArthur said:

I've been puzzling for over half a decade over the three prologues (AGOT prologue, Bran I and Dany I). If anything reassembles a classic prologue, it is Dany I. Dany I may not have Dune level of prologue predictions, but it is the chapter, that predicts the most out of the three chapters. Bran I is a good starting scene, it is however not a prologue. It is more of a character introduction, while Dany I is the prologue. And the AGOT Prologue itself is just puzzling. If anything, it has to be the bigger pricture outside the series. 

Is there anything interesting in Dany I to talk about?  Lots of relevance to things already happened,  but not much unresolved. 

[SirArthur]

4 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Is there anything interesting in Dany I to talk about?  Lots of relevance to things already happened,  but not much unresolved. 

Wasn't Dany in an inner monologe about the things she got told. Where she lays out all the amazing locations in the 7 Kingdoms she want to see and the unanswered mysteries of the past ? Like the Isle of Faces or the (untold) woman, her brother (Rheagar) loved and died for ?

[Melifeather]

Examining Dunk's dream could and should be used in comparison to Ned's fever dream. Many elements in Dunk's dream are not true. 

Sometime after The Hedge Knight and before The Sworn Sword, Dunk and Egg make their way to Dorne, presumably to look for Tanselle-too-tall as hinted at the end of The Hedge Knight. Dunk thinks to himself:

Quote

His head was pounding, and he could not forget the dream he dreamed the night before. It never happened that way, he tried to tell himself. It wasn’t like that. Chestnut had died on the long dry ride to Vaith, that part was true. He and Egg rode double until Egg’s brother gave them Maester. The rest of it, though…

While awake Dunk confirms that the only part of the dream that was true was that Chestnut died on the way to Vaith in Dorne, and that he and Egg rode double on Thunder until Egg's brother gave them the mule, Maester. So, the grave digging was wasn't true. The three Dornish knights mocking him while he dug wasn't true. Dunk's weeping while he talked with the knights wasn't true. Ser Arlan certainly was not there. He was dead before Dunk even met Egg. Neither was Baelor Breakspear nor Prince Valarr there, much less alive. Baelor died at Dunk's trial by combat at Ashbury Meadow, and Valarr during the Great Spring Sickness which occurred while Dunk and Egg were in Dorne. Big Rob the simpleton was asleep downstairs while Dunk was having the dream, so he couldn't have been dead from the belly wound. Dunk hadn't even met Big Rob, Ser Bennis, Treb, Wet Wat, Wat, Lem, and Pate until he came to work for Ser Eustace Osgrey. If all of these people were never with Dunk and Egg in Dorne, then why should we believe that Ned and his men fought the three Kingsguard at the tower of joy, or be sure that all three died there? 

[Black Crow]

I might mention, though, that Ned's account, which you refer to, was in the context of a dream... and a fever dream at that. Our dreams are not always literal.

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I might mention, though, that Ned's account, which you refer to, was in the context of a dream... and a fever dream at that. Our dreams are not always literal.

Just so.

There are a lot of readers that use Ned's fever dream to support a number of theories with R+L=J being the biggest one. I suspect that the only thing that may be true is that Ned and Howland went to Starfall to return Arthur Dayne's sword. The rest is questionable.

[Brad Stark]

We can take a lot from the tone of the dream.  Ned seems sorry Arthur is dead, admired him, returned Dawn.   Completely different attitude than Robert had towards the Targaryens,  killing Rheagar's babies.

This bothers me,  as Robert's grandmother was a Targaryen, and Robert really doesn't even accuse them of anything unreasonable other than Aery's being crazy and Lyanna being kidnapped. 

Some of this is Ned and Robert having such different personalities.   But it seems Ned would have more cause to hate Arthur,  who killed his friends and may have been involved in his sister's kidnapping or death, than Robert, who had many girlfriends and was unlikely to be faithful, has cause to hate a whole family for carrying off his betrothed ge hardly knew in an arranged marriage. 

[Black Crow]

It rather depends on how the dream is interpreted and whether there is an agenda behind it. The R+L=J crowd do themselves a disservice in trying to pretend that it is a faithful recollection of actual events, because it can be interpreted that way - but not literally.

I think that there was indeed a fight at the tower and that it ended as it did, because the burying of the dead was a bitter memory after he was awakened. It is significant though that the dream was triggered by the pointlessness of the fight with Jaime's men, which suggests that the "old dream" was something that had been on Lord Eddard's conscience for a long time. 

What we don't know is whether the "old dream" was played out in its entirety, ie; did the dream always start off with the meeting and the conversation and then move on to the death of Lyanna, or was he accustomed to dreaming of them separately and the dream of the knights ending with their deaths?

The R+L=J theory rests, so far as the dream is concerned, on the proposition that for whatever reason the Kingsguard fought to the death outside the tower because Lyanna and her new-born son were inside the tower. There are a number of problems with this scenario which I won't rehearse again, but separating the fight and the death scene not only destroys that particular argument but underscores the pointlessness of the of both fights

[Brad Stark]

A literal interpretation of the dream can support R+L=J, but it is a logical fallacy to assume that implies a non literal interpretation is evidence against R+L=J.  

No interpretation of the dream I've seen so far is evidence of different parents for Jon.

[SirArthur]

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

If all of these people were never with Dunk and Egg in Dorne, then why should we believe that Ned and his men fought the three Kingsguard at the tower of joy, or be sure that all three died there? 

Or that 5 of his companions died ? Or that Reed is still alive ? The strange case of Lady Dustin comes to mind. Or why the bones of Lord Dustin were never brought back. Are there no bones left ? How so ? And then the two letters in ADwD. One with the sigil of Lord Dustin, one with Lady Dustin. GRRM want to tell us something concerning Dustin. And so far the case Dustin does not exist in the R+L theory. 

[Melifeather]

5 hours ago, SirArthur said:

Or that 5 of his companions died ? Or that Reed is still alive ? The strange case of Lady Dustin comes to mind. Or why the bones of Lord Dustin were never brought back. Are there no bones left ? How so ? And then the two letters in ADwD. One with the sigil of Lord Dustin, one with Lady Dustin. GRRM want to tell us something concerning Dustin. And so far the case Dustin does not exist in the R+L theory. 

Ned's men died, because in his dream his men were wraiths, and Lady Dustin believed her husband died in Dorne, because Ned told her he did. Furthermore, he told her he was unable to return his bones, but brought his horse back to her. Something is very fishy in Dorne! I guess It is entirely possible that his men died before he went to Dorne, and maybe it was a convenient backstory to say he died there? I guess we don't know for sure. I agree there's something there with Lady Dustin or her husband that has yet to be revealed.

[Frey family reunion]

9 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

A literal interpretation of the dream can support R+L=J, but it is a logical fallacy to assume that implies a non literal interpretation is evidence against R+L=J.  

No interpretation of the dream I've seen so far is evidence of different parents for Jon.

I think George happily wants the reader to follow the dream to this conclusion.  Of course that doesn’t mean the whole thing isn’t a devious will o’ wisp.  

ETA: use fevered dreams as evidence at your own peril.

[Frey family reunion]

5 hours ago, SirArthur said:

Or that 5 of his companions died ? Or that Reed is still alive ? The strange case of Lady Dustin comes to mind. Or why the bones of Lord Dustin were never brought back. Are there no bones left ? How so ? And then the two letters in ADwD. One with the sigil of Lord Dustin, one with Lady Dustin. GRRM want to tell us something concerning Dustin. And so far the case Dustin does not exist in the R+L theory. 

It always seemed a bit selfish to me for Ned to leave his faithful friends in the Dornish sands while he traipses around with his dead sister on the back of one of his dead friend’s horses.

[Tucu]

My crackpot idea for the outcome of the ToJ was that the bodies/bones of his companions were not in a condition to travel after the fight. HR using a bit of necromancy might explain this and why GRRM included "as blue as the eyes of the death" and "only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist" in the text.

 

[SirArthur]

5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Ned's men died, because in his dream his men were wraiths, 

ALL OF THEM were wraiths. ALL 6.

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. Ned had known their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man’s memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.