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Elia Martell: Yes, another Septa Lemore speculation


Alexis-something-Rose

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I know exactly how this is going to sound. But as far as things go, Elia Martell being Septa Lemore is the thing that makes the most sense to me. 

This actually crept up on my while reading replies from the Ashara, post Harrenhal possibilities and The Illyrio/Aegon thing. This is obviously a speculation, but there are some things that do fit, I think This speculation assumes that Young Griff is Aegon Targaryen, the son of Elia and Rhaegar. 

 

 

What if Elia Martell didn't die in King's Landing as we have been told? What if she is still alive and was living on a poleboat until recently? 

There is only one person in the world who can vouch for Young Griff's true identity and convince Jon Connington that the boy is the real deal, and that's the woman who gave birth to him. 

Going through the test, there are two things that the alleged baby Aegon, Elia and Oberyn have in common and that's the way they died and by whose hand they died. They had their heads bashed in by Gregor Clegane.

Aegon's appearance after Gregor was through with him; 

Yes Last night he had dreamed of Rhaegar's children. Lord Tywin had laid the bodies beneath the Iron Throne, wrapped in the crimson cloaks of his house guard. That was clever of him; the blood did not show so badly against the red cloth. The little princess had been barefoot, still dressed in her bed gown, and the boy . . . the boy . . . (Eddard XII, AGOT 45)

While we do not get a description of what the boy looks like, we know that it was nothing pretty to look at. 

Kevan Lannister is the one who gives us a description.

"A feigned boy is what he has," said Randyll Tarly.

"That may be. Or not." Kevan Lannister had been here, in this very hall when Tywin had laid the bodies of Prince Rhaegar's children at the foot of the Iron Throne, wrapped up in crimson cloaks. The girl had been recognizably the Princess Rhaenys, but the boy... a faceless horror of bone and brain and gore, a few hanks of fair hair. None of us looked long. Tywin said it was Prince Aegon, and we took him at his word. (Epilogue, ADWD)

We have Ned's own thoughts on Elia;

Some said it had been Gregor who'd dashed the skull of the infant prince Aegon Targaryen against a wall, and whispered that afterward he had raped her mother, the Dornish princess Elia, before putting her to the sword. (Eddard VII, AGOT 30)

Ned is is going on what he heard. Elia was raped and killed by Gregor Clegane, but he doesn't tell us how he killed her, only that he killed her. Later in ASOS, Gregor Clegane confirms the manner of her death. 

"Elia of Dorne," they all heard Ser Gregor say, when they were close enough to kiss. His deep voice boomed within the helm. "I killed her screaming whelp." He thrust his free hand into Oberyn's unprotected face, pushing steel fingers into his eyes. "Then I raped her." Clegane slammed his fist into the Dornishman's mouth, making splinters of his teeth. "Then I smashed her fucking head in. Like this." As he drew back his huge fist, the blood on his gauntlet seemed to smoke in the cold dawn air. There was a sickening crunch. (Tyrion X, ASOS 70)

In Tyrion I, ADWD 1, Tyrion tells us that Oberyn's head was smashed to bloody ruin after Gregor was done. 

If Oberyn's head was smashed to bloody ruin as we are told, then could we possibly draw a parallen between that and the state of Elia's head and even body (since she was also raped) after Gregor Clegane was through with her? Would she have been recognizable?

The reason everyone knows Oberyn was the one who had been killed was because the combat happened before witnesses. As far as we know Aegon and Elia's murders were not witnessed. It was Elia, the child and Gregor. And would Gregor have recognized Elia or simply raped and killed some woman who may have passed for her because of her hair, eye color, skin tone, who had an infant in her arms?

This brings me to Rhaenys and what Tywin had to say about her.

"It is justice. It was Ser Amory Lorch who brought the girl's body, if you must know. He found her hiding under her father's bed, as if she believed Rhaegar could still protect her. Princess Elia and the babe were in the nursery a floor below." (Tyrion VI, ASOS 53)

Why is Rhaenys not with her mother and her brother in the nursery? She must have been there at some point as Ned tells us that when her body was presented, she was barefoot, still dressed in her bed gown. There must have been a point at which she left the nursery. But why would she leave the nursery if she was there with her mother? She's a little girl, and children are unpredictable and slippery for sure.

Tywin gives us his own explanation on this. He implies that she was looking for her father's protection. We can go off on that, Rhaenys slipped out of the nursery and went looking for her father when her mother had her back turned. It's definitely possible. 

But what if she went looking for her mother instead? It's possible that Rhaegar and Rhaenys had a close relationship, but he was gone a year and the constant in Rhaenys's life would have been her mother, not her father and her mother was supposedly in the nursery. I know, it's very tenuous.

Septa Lemore and the Shy Maid

The identities of Griff and Young Griff were revealed to us in ADWD as Jon Connington and Aegon Targaryen. This is what I have personally always believed (and hope does spring eternal), and I am well aware of the Blackfyre Conspiracy and Quaithe's mummer's dragon. I think the idea is that we are supposed to question and even believe that Aegon is a fake. And why wouldn't we? We are told of this absolutely gruesome death. And the way Elia and Aegon and Rhaenys died is gutting. There is so much savagery in the way they were killed.

Going off with the idea that Aegon is the real deal, there is one person in the world who can vouch for his true identity and that is his mother, the woman who gave birth to him. Varys and Illyrio would have had to produce some kind of evidence for Jon Connington to buy what they were selling. Jon Connington was in King's Landing, he knows what Varys is. He has no reason to trust his word at all. The evidence had to have been very convincing for Jon Connington to accept to sully his honor and live the next twelve years of his life on a poleboat.

What if it's Elia they produced? As far as someone Jon Connington would believe at her word, she is it, imo.

Tyrion gives us a physical description of Septa Lemore.

  • She is more handsome than pretty but still easy on the eye;
  • She has brown hair, though interestingly enough, Tyrion never mentions that there's greys in it. Either Septa Lemore has no grey hairs, or the hair is dyed;
  • She is past forty;
  • She has stretch marks that could have only come from childbirth;

We don't have much on Elia Martell. Some of it comes from Cersei and Cersei has a penchant for putting other women down.

  • She has black eyes (and a flat chest :rolleyes:)
  • Her hair color is not commented on, so Elia having brown hair is certainly possible, though the general assumption seems to be that she has black hair like Oberyn. 
  • We know from her year of birth that she would be about 43 years old, which would put her right into that age bracket Tyrion thinks Septa Lemore is in;
  • We know she has had two pregnancies, which would have left their mark on her body;

As far as the speculation that Ashara Dayne is Septa Lemore goes, Tyrion never comments on our septa's eye color, even though we have Catelyn (Catelyn II, AGOT 6) and Meera in her tale of the tourney at Harrenhal (Bran II, ASOS 24) making mention of her eye color. Barristan compares Ashara's eyes to Dany's (The Kingbreaker, ADWD 67).

Tyrion spends a bit of time looking at Young Griff's eyes and how they look in this light and what they look like in that light. He also mentions Jon Connington's eyes, but says absolutely nothing about Septa Lemore's eyes. Perhaps it's because her eyes don't hold his attention in the way that Young Griff and Griff held in. Septa Lemore's eyes are not purple, they're not blue, they're not green, they're not grey. So what if they are black?

Barristan gives us a little something about Elia's personality (Dany IV, ADWD 23);

  • Good woman;
  • Kind and clever;
  • Gentle heart and a sweet wit;

These are all traits that Septa Lemore seems to embody. I know, weak argument. The woman is a septa. 

Septa Lemore was very kind to Tyrion before and after she finds out he is a Lannister. After he saves Young Griff from the stoneman, she is the one who pushes the water from Tyrion's lungs after he is fished out from the river. Elia could have easily picked up the technic during her time at the Water Gardens. We know the Water Gardens are populated with children and I imagine the maester as well as other people would have to be prepared should one of the children drown in the pools.

If this is Elia Martell in disguise, then she doesn't seem to blame the son for his father's sins, which falls in line with the way Doran sees things compared to the Sand Snakes and Arianne.

To sum up;

If Young Griff is truly Aegon Targaryen, then Septa Lemore may very well be Elia Martell. She escaped King's Landing with her baby with Varys's assistance. Both would have been replaced by other people. In Elia's case, possibly a Dornish handmaid. It's always interesting to see the lengths to which people are willing to go for their lords and ladies.

Elia we are told died the same way as the infant boy believed to be Aegon and her brother, Oberyn. All three had their brains smashed in. We are told the baby was not recognizable, we know that Oberyn's head was reduced to bloody ruin (which may have made it difficult to identify him had he not died so publicly). It may have been the same thing with Elia in the nursery. She may have been difficult to identify after Gregor Clegane was through with her.

In the meantime, Varys helps Elia escape with her son. As a mother, she would have been faced with the very difficult and heartbreaking choice of leaving her daughter behind to an uncertain or a very certain faith. She would have sacrificed one child to save the other. And Aegon is the one who won out because of who he is, Rhaegar's heir and in line for the Iron Throne.

They sail away to Essos and remain in Pentos for five years until Jon Connington enters the story and then it's on to the Shy Maid.

Who is she, really? Why is she here? Not for gold, I'd judge. What is this prince to her? Was she ever a true septa? (Tyrion VI, ADWD 22)

I'd say that if Septa Lemore is Elia Martell, then most of these questions can be answered and there is a lot at stake for her.

 

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It has the same issue:

Why on earth doesn't Elia of House Martell not write a letter to Prince Doran, her brother? Why has Arianne to go to Griffin's Roost to talk to Connington and take the size of this prince who claims to be her cousin?

Within the framework of the story that tidbit alone makes it very unlikely that Lemore was either Elia Martell or Ashara Dayne.

Although I've to admit that Elia would be a better fit for Lemore than Ashara - although I think Tyrion would then see some similarity in Yandry and Ysilla and Lemore, no?

Aside from that, it would make for a huge surprise if Lemore turned out to be Elia, so one could understand why George would not want to spoil that. Still, he usually writes better plots than having people behaving like morons and lackwits (which Lemore/Connington would do, if this was were true) so I can't buy the idea.

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11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Why on earth doesn't Elia of House Martell not write a letter to Prince Doran, her brother? Why has Arianne to go to Griffin's Roost to talk to Connington and take the size of this prince who claims to be his cousin?

This question comes back for a lot of things in the books, though, doesn't it? It's possible that she let's them believe what they believe to give them deniability. If they don't know she and Aegon are alive, then they don't get themselves in trouble. That's the easiest answer I can come up with.

And maybe GRRM wants the reveal to come through an Arianne chapter. 

16 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Although I've to admit that Elia would be a better fit for Lemore than Ashara - although I think Tyrion would then see some similarity in Yandry and Ysilla and Lemore, no?

That's the thing. We have no physical description of Elia. We know her eye color because Cersei tells us her eye color. But we don't know her hair color or if her skin has an olive tone to it like Oberyn's does. We are told she's beautiful, through Meera's story about the tourney at Harrenhal, and we know she was slender, from the World Book. 

Tyrion tells us that Lemore's skin glows golden in the morning light, whatever that means. 

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4 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

My way of thinking on this is simple. If he's dead, she's dead. If he's alive, she's alive and with him.

She'd be a shit tier mom for leaving Rhaenys to die during the Sacking. 

I can sort of buy the idea that only Aegon could be swapped but if Elia could escape then why not her daughter too?

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4 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

This question comes back for a lot of things in the books, though, doesn't it? It's possible that she let's them believe what they believe to give them deniability. If they don't know she and Aegon are alive, then they don't get themselves in trouble. That's the easiest answer I can come up with.

And maybe GRRM wants the reveal to come through an Arianne chapter. 

The issue is that speed is truly everything there. Aegon needs those Dornishmen as quickly as possible or he is done for. Without Dorne he cannot hope to win anything. Which is why they would have no reason whatsoever to delay anything in the winning Dorne to their side plot.

In fact, if Elia was with Aegon then George would likely not set up Arianne the way he has - it is a very special decision on his part to have her think so often about Viserys and develop the idea that Dany may have pushed Drogo to kill so she could rule in Viserys' place, etc. That seems to be George making way for the Arianne-Aegon marriage plot - which wouldn't really be necessary if Elia was with Aegon.

Arianne's desire to marry a Targaryen prince might actually convince her that Aegon is real even if she has doubts. Not to mention it also lays the ground for Dany not being able to marry Aegon and Arianne/Aegon not being fond of Dany (due to both Viserys and Quentyn).

Finally, Connington would not only know Elia by sight, he would also think of Lemore as her. He thinks very contemptuously of Elia Martell but not Lady Lemore.

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1 hour ago, Ylath's Snout said:

She'd be a shit tier mom for leaving Rhaenys to die during the Sacking. 

I can sort of buy the idea that only Aegon could be swapped but if Elia could escape then why not her daughter too?

I don't think she's was being a shitty mother as much as someone who would have had a very difficult thing to do. The decision may not even have been left between her hands. 

I think Rhaenys had better odds at surviving than Aegon did. She would have been a good hostage for Dorne's good behavior, if anything. It's obviously debatable. 

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Finally, Connington would not only know Elia by sight, he would also think of Lemore as her. He thinks very contemptuously of Elia Martell but not Lady Lemore.

I didn't say that Jon Conn wouldn't know who Elia was. I think she would have been key in him being convinced by Aegon's identity. And yes, he shows Elia contempt, but he also says he grew fond of Lemore as they are both showing frustration toward each other over how to handle the Aegon situation before the meeting with the GC. If they are one and the same person, then his feelings toward Elia may have changed some and he uses the "fond" to describe his feelings toward Lemore, the same word Barristan uses to describe Rhaegar's feelings for Elia. It may mean absolutely nothing in the end anyway. 

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One of the arguments that is being put forward is that Jon Connington would need to be convinced by someone about Aegon's identity. I believe that this has already been covered. 

Connington spend several years with the Golden Company becoming Myles Toyne's second in command. Connington himself remembers Toyne as someone would a lover and more than that it seems he held Toyne in high esteem as a person and a commander. We also know that it was Toyne who signed the pact with Illyrio.

There are several indications that Toyne and the GC as a whole are closely associated with Illyrio. Their contract in blood, for which they uncharacteristically broke another contract, their awareness of Aegon and their knowledge of Illyrio's plots all indicate that they as a whole have a closer association with Illyrio than Connington does. The "blood" contract indicates that their liaison was Toyne. 

Connington himself was both disgraced and suffered great personal loss as he was in love with Rhaegar for which he claims personal responsibility. Spending a lot of time with a man who he comes to trust, love and respect he is susceptible to any chance that man gives him for redemption. 

The conclusion is that Toyne was among the conspirators, grooming and developing Connington for the role they needed him for the conspiracy. 

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In my opinion this theory is possible, more possible than Ashara, yes. But there is one pretty big hole that needs to be explained. Why did Elia let her first born, her daughter, just die. If there is the possibility to arrange for a body double for both her and Aegon, why not one for Rhaenys, who IIRC looked a lot more Dornish than as a Targ (from a SSM I think). She is the easiest to get a body double for, a young Martell looking girl can easily be found in Dorne. And in a matter of life and death I don’t think a mother cares more for an heir than another child. 

 

If  the body double is not that convincing, they had to be in collusion with Gregor to get the body’s mutilated enough to be beyond recognition. If the body double of both Aegon and Elia is that convincing that the mutilation was not necessary, they arranged that spectacularly quick. One could say that the Trident was where the war for the Loyalist was lost, so that is the first moment realistically Elia and Varys suspect that KL might fall and they need to arrange the body doubles. Before the sack, it is also still uncertain KL will fall that day. Varys cautions against opening the gates to Tywin, but it is also a  short time between Tywin entering KL and Lorch and Gregor climbing Maegor’s. This all would make the replacement plot difficult to put in place, more difficult when also replacing a grown women. 

Also, Elia became physically frail after her pregnancies while Lenore is quite physically active on the boat, right? 

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@Davjos, shooting in the dark here because that's what this whole thread is anyway. 

Elia and Aegon were in the nursery, a floor below where Rhaenys was in Rhaegar's chambers. She was dressed in her night clothes and she was barefoot, which might indicate that she was probably asleep, woke up and left the nursery. 

We don't know why she would have left the nursery where her mother and brother allegedly are, but maybe she left because her kitten had taken off and she went searching for it? Elia realizes her daughter is gone, she is told to take herself and her son to safety, that (Varys?) will go and find Rhaenys. Either he doesn't or he is too late arriving.

3 hours ago, Davjos said:

Also, Elia became physically frail after her pregnancies while Lenore is quite physically active on the boat, right? 

Elia was always physically frail because she was born prematurely. Rhaenys's birth put her out of commission for half a year and Aegon's birth almost killed her and made her barren. That said, I am personally not sure what they mean by delicate health. Is she of delicate health because she gets sick easier? Are we looking at Sweetrobin levels of delicate? He is the other character in the story who is sickly.

I don't know how exhausting it is to live on a poleboat. She has her own cabin, she gives Young Griff his lessons in the Faith which I'm not sure is all that exhausting, she bathes in the river every morning and we know she sews. She doesn't stir the boat, that's the men who take care of that and the tasks like cooking are Ysilla's. So it's not like Lemore has been stretching herself thin.

One more thing. Doran sends Tyene to King's Landing disguised as a septa because of her knowledge of the Seven-Pointed Star. We know why Tyene is well-versed in doctrine, her mother is a septa. But I think it's still something of note.

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15 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Why is Rhaenys not with her mother and her brother in the nursery?

How old was she? At what age do Targ kids normally get their own room and servants? It may well be Rhaenys was last in the nursery more than a year before  :dunno:

15 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

We don't have much on Elia Martell.

'She was a kitchen drab, compared to Ashara' was something that went through Barristan's thoughts.... so, not a stunner, we can guess ;)

 

15 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

I'd say that if Septa Lemore is Elia Martell, then most of these questions can be answered and there is a lot at stake for her.

:cheers: This all makes a lot of sense, far more so than Septa Ashara-with-the-eyes-that-didn't-bark ever did :cheers:

 

Also, this might go a long way towards explaining why Lemore is so comfortable flashing all her bits to Tyrion, as well. Not the least being that the Dornish are notably less inhibited than other Westerosi, Elia would have spent her childhood at the Watergardens, and also - she saw Tyrion naked a good 25 years ago. THIS IS NOT THEIR FIRST MEETING, IF LEMORE IS ELIA. We should study thier history. When Tyrion and Oberyn spoke about their first meeting, this came up:

Quote

"Cersei even undid your swaddling clothes to give us a better look," the Dornish prince continued. "You did have one evil eye, and some black fuzz on your scalp. Perhaps your head was larger than most . . . but there was no tail, no beard, neither teeth nor claws, and nothing between your legs but a tiny pink cock. After all the wonderful whispers, Lord Tywin's Doom turned out to be just a hideous red infant with stunted legs. Elia even made the noise that young girls make at the sight of infants, I'm sure you've heard it. The same noise they make over cute kittens and playful puppies. I believe she wanted to nurse you herself, ugly as you were. When I commented that you seemed a poor sort of monster, your sister said, 'He killed my mother,' and twisted your little cock so hard I thought she was like to pull it off. You shrieked, but it was only when your brother Jaime said, 'Leave him be, you're hurting him,' that Cersei let go of you. 'It doesn't matter,' she told us. 'Everyone says he's like to die soon. He shouldn't even have lived this long.'"

So, could that 'shouldn't even have lived' be a fore-shadowing? And also take in the fact that Cersei dismisses Tyrion's wetnurse - does this give us a clue that maybe the 'Elia' killed at KL might have been Aegon's wetnurse instead?

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9 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

How old was she? At what age do Targ kids normally get their own room and servants? It may well be Rhaenys was last in the nursery more than a year before  :dunno:

I'm just going on assumption here. Even if she has her own room, she's not in it when she's killed. Rhaenys moved from wherever she originally was to Rhaegar's rooms, unless it's the place she was sleeping in. 

12 minutes ago, Rufus Snow said:

Also, this might go a long way towards explaining why Lemore is so comfortable flashing all her bits to Tyrion, as well. Not the least being that the Dornish are notably less inhibited than other Westerosi, Elia would have spent her childhood at the Watergardens, and also - she saw Tyrion naked a good 25 years ago. THIS IS NOT THEIR FIRST MEETING, IF LEMORE IS ELIA. We should study thier history. When Tyrion and Oberyn spoke about their first meeting, this came up:

Well, I had completely forgotten about that. And thank you for bringing it up. 

Things do become even more interesting, don't they? If Lemore is Elia, it gives Oberyn and Tyrion another layer to their interaction.

When you start looking at the list of candidates for Lemore, Elia imo is the only one who really fits the bill. Septa Lemore has her secrets and she says that Aegon is not the only one who must needs hide. None of the proposed women who have been suggested need to go into hiding. Not Ashara (whose eye color would have been completely ignored), not Tyene's mother (yes, a septa, but one who must be blonde and blue-eyed, like her daughter), not Melora Hightower (and this one doesn't even fit within the timeline when we put AFFC and ADWD chronologically).

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13 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Things do become even more interesting, don't they? If Lemore is Elia, it gives Oberyn and Tyrion another layer to their interaction.

I haven't thought it through yet, or looked for any clues, but we have to wonder - if Lemore is Elia - what her reaction would be to Tyrion's role in getting him killed? Yes, on one hand, Tyrion got him killed, on the other, he also provided the platform to accuse Gregor and seek vengeance....

Yep, that whole river journey needs re-reading now ;)

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14 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

This cracks why Rhaegar knighted Gregor. Gregor was the ultimate Rhaegar loyalist. Gregor was acting on Rhaegar's orders to make sure that both Aegon and Elia were unrecognizable. Too bad for the body doubles.

 

4 hours ago, Davjos said:

In my opinion this theory is possible, more possible than Ashara, yes. But there is one pretty big hole that needs to be explained. Why did Elia let her first born, her daughter, just die. If there is the possibility to arrange for a body double for both her and Aegon, why not one for Rhaenys, who IIRC looked a lot more Dornish than as a Targ (from a SSM I think). She is the easiest to get a body double for, a young Martell looking girl can easily be found in Dorne. And in a matter of life and death I don’t think a mother cares more for an heir than another child.

If  the body double is not that convincing, they had to be in collusion with Gregor to get the body’s mutilated enough to be beyond recognition. If the body double of both Aegon and Elia is that convincing that the mutilation was not necessary, they arranged that spectacularly quick. One could say that the Trident was where the war for the Loyalist was lost, so that is the first moment realistically Elia and Varys suspect that KL might fall and they need to arrange the body doubles. Before the sack, it is also still uncertain KL will fall that day. Varys cautions against opening the gates to Tywin, but it is also a  short time between Tywin entering KL and Lorch and Gregor climbing Maegor’s. This all would make the replacement plot difficult to put in place, more difficult when also replacing a grown women. 

Also, Elia became physically frail after her pregnancies while Lenore is quite physically active on the boat, right? 

I think Rhaegar knighting Gregor is significant. As far as I can recall, Ser Gregor is the only knight made by Rhaegar. Knights don't forget who knighted them and there is a strong bond.

I agree with the theory that Gregor was in on the plan to get Elia and the children out safely. (Which means Tywin was probably in on it, too.) When Gregor is fighting Oberyn, he confesses to killing Elia and the children, but then he "wins" the fight, killing Oberyn. This was a trial by combat. Gregor winning is supposedly proof of his innocence. I think he was sworn to secrecy about the escape of Elia and Aegon and he remained true to his promise, even though it meant suffering a slow, painful death (of sorts) from whatever poison Oberyn had on his weapon.

Unfortunately for Elia and her supporters, I think Amory Lorch was not in on the plan. When Rhaenys ran off, Lorch killed her before Ser Gregor could get her back to her mother.

There is another weird clue about Ser Gregor's relationship to the Targaryen heir: his nickname is The Mountain that Rides. The nickname for Dany's expected baby is The Stallion that Mounts the World. So we have a land mass that rides a horse vs. a horse that gets on top of a land mass. You can also compare these two descriptive passages about the dead "Aegon" and then Dany's stillborn baby:

17 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

"That may be. Or not." Kevan Lannister had been here, in this very hall when Tywin had laid the bodies of Prince Rhaegar's children at the foot of the Iron Throne, wrapped up in crimson cloaks. The girl had been recognizably the Princess Rhaenys, but the boy... a faceless horror of bone and brain and gore, a few hanks of fair hair. None of us looked long. Tywin said it was Prince Aegon, and we took him at his word. (Epilogue, ADWD)

He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted "They say the child was . . . "

"Monstrous, Mirri Maz Duur finished for him.  . . . "Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years."

(AGoT, Daenerys IX, Chap. 68)

So there's a weird parallel between "dead baby Aegon" and "stillborn Rhaego". As Gregor claimed to be the agent of Aegon's death, and there is the parallel in the nicknames for Gregor and Rhaego, the comparison becomes even more mysterious and intriguing. Kevan is the POV who tells us about the condition of dead baby Aegon and he is also the POV who tells us in the same chapter about undead Gregor - the new Ser Robert Strong who has become part of the king's guard. In my opinion, Ser Gregor's rebirth as Ser Robert Strong is a good hint that baby Aegon never really died or that he is reborn in a new way.

This could all be good support for the primary theory of this thread, that Elia is still alive and disguised as Septa Lemore. Based on everything we know about Dornish women, it has always struck me as unlikely that Elia was an entirely passive, meek person. It's possible that childbirth was super difficult for her, but I believe she would have been wily and strategic about protecting herself and her children, even if she was not physically strong. Because of the Nymeria story and the importance of the Green Blood river in Dorne, as well as the regular swimming enjoyed by Dornish children at the water garden, Lemore does seem like a likely candidate for a disguised Elia. I believe she would gain strength from daily swims in the Rhoyne.

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