Tin Foil: Jeyne Westerling

[Dorian Martell's son]

1 minute ago, Seams said:

I think a pregnancy for Jeyne is worth considering.

Why? The author literally said the mismatched description was a mistake 

[kissdbyfire]

@Seams, while I don't think Jeyne is pregnant, I don't think it's an impossible scenario. But basing the possibility on something we have already been told by the author was a mistake is pretty pointless IMO. Just saying, not claiming you did that.

 

[Lady Barbrey]

1 hour ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Why? The author literally said the mismatched description was a mistake 

Hmm, I think it's a possibility too but not based on the mismatched description. Her mother says she made sure she was not pregnant, which likely means a dose of tansy, but somewhere we are told it or moon tea doesn't always take.  Tansy and moon tea are not full-proof, or Westeros would have had a sexual revolution like we did in the 70's with the Pill.  And there's always the possibility her mother is lying.

I actually don't think she is still pregnant, I think Jeyne's shamed reaction is indicative that a miscarriage was induced against her will, but I don't rule it out.  But if she's pregnant, and it's a huge if, there are so many possible scenarios on how that might play out that speculating about it without more confirmation seems a bit futile.  No disrespect to you, Lady Rhodes!  I am speaking for myself and why I don't engage. I have imagined scenarios from little evidence much more crackpot than yours and there might be some truth there, who knows?

[Dorian Martell's son]

 

1 hour ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Hmm, I think it's a possibility too but not based on the mismatched description. Her mother says she made sure she was not pregnant, which likely means a dose of tansy, but somewhere we are told it or moon tea doesn't always take.  Tansy and moon tea are not full-proof, or Westeros would have had a sexual revolution like we did in the 70's with the Pill.  And there's always the possibility her mother is lying.

I actually don't think she is still pregnant, I think Jeyne's shamed reaction is indicative that a miscarriage was induced against her will, but I don't rule it out.  But if she's pregnant, and it's a huge if, there are so many possible scenarios on how that might play out that speculating about it without more confirmation seems a bit futile.  No disrespect to you, Lady Rhodes!  I am speaking for myself and why I don't engage. I have imagined scenarios from little evidence much more crackpot than yours and there might be some truth there, who knows?

When has tansy failed in the books?

 

[Rufus Snow]

6 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

When has tansy failed in the books?

I don't recall it failing, and certainly expect full efficacy in the hands of Sybell (Spicer) Westerling, grand-daughter of Maggi the Frog...

[U. B. Cool]

6 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

An interesting theory has popped into my head regarding Jeyne Westerling.  While there is not yet any indicative textual support, I have a theory that plays well into GRRM's textual pattern of inversions, parallels, and history repeating itself.  It also plays well into what we know regarding prologues: the narrator always dies.  While we don't know if she is the narrator of the forthcoming WoW prologue, we do know she is a character per GRRM himself.

Jeyne is going to die giving birth to Robb Stark's child.  In particular, I think she is going to give birth a Greywater Watch, in the care of Howland Reed.  She cannot go to the North (Boltons) and she cannot go to the Crag in Lannister territory.

When Jon finds out his true parentage (I am on the R+L=J boat, folks) I think Jon will be heartbroken at learning Ned wasn't his father, only for Howland to put Jon in the same position - if Robb's child was an orphan, what would he do? I think we all know what Jon would do. "My child by a Mole's town whore" etc.

Thoughts?

I don't understand what good can come from this.  Jon should do the child and everybody a favor.  He should stay as far away from the child as he can and help keep it a secret.  

[Lady Barbrey]

1 hour ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

 

When has tansy failed in the books?

 

Well as an abortifactant we've only got Lysa for sure and possibly Cersei, so that doesn't seem definitive.  Its other form, moon tea, (which now I think of it was actually what her mother was likely dosing unsuspecting Jeyne with) seems to be used more regularly as birth control and does seem highly effective, too effective really, for a society of many large families and a plethora of bastards. So take of this what you will, the few cases that we know it works, or the many where we know, if they used it, it didn't.  I know, that's a rather specious argument, but I'm not keen on this all-powerful drug George has introduced, based on real life herbs that were somewhat effective but not always and were dangerous to boot. That's way too modern for this medieval-like world.  It should be shown to fail somewhere and maybe that's Jeyne.  Even the Pill is only 98% effective.

Besides, I'm sure I read that moon tea didn't agree with or work for all women, or something to that effect, but my memory's a sieve. 

[Dorian Martell's son]

21 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Well as an abortifactant we've only got Lysa for sure and possibly Cersei, so that doesn't seem definitive.  Its other form, moon tea, (which now I think of it was actually what her mother was likely dosing unsuspecting Jeyne with) seems to be used more regularly as birth control and does seem highly effective, too effective really, for a society of many large families and a plethora of bastards. So take of this what you will, the few cases that we know it works, or the many where we know, if they used it, it didn't.  I know, that's a rather specious argument, but I'm not keen on this all-powerful drug George has introduced, based on real life herbs that were somewhat effective but not always and were dangerous to boot. That's way too modern for this medieval-like world.  It should be shown to fail somewhere and maybe that's Jeyne.  Even the Pill is only 98% effective.

Besides, I'm sure I read that moon tea didn't agree with or work for all women, or something to that effect, but my memory's a sieve. 

I would argue that moon tea is 100% effective, but it is not easy for the average small folk to acquire 

[Lady Barbrey]

6 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

I would argue that moon tea is 100% effective, but it is not easy for the average small folk to acquire 

Lots of Great House bastards though.  Why didn't they give it to Lollys?

I'm trying to do a search on search Westeros for that quote I mentioned but it's not working.  Anyone know if the site doesn't work with tablets?

[Dorian Martell's son]

8 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Lots of Great House bastards though.  Why didn't they give it to Lollys?

access for some, not giving two shits for others and side effects 

[Lady Barbrey]

3 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

access for some, not giving two shits for others and side effects 

Okay, but I stand by my contention that we can't know it works in every case, and we have two books to go.  So the possibility is still there.

[Rufus Snow]

13 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Why didn't they give it to Lollys?

In my own mind I put that down to avoiding the risk of aggravating the trauma of the rape - risk of haemorrhage etc.

The general rule seems to be that such concoctions are only used when they don't clash with the plot

[Dorian Martell's son]

6 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Okay, but I stand by my contention that we can't know it works in every case, and we have two books to go.  So the possibility is still there.

Yes, technically anything can happen in a work of fiction 

[Lady Rhodes]

16 hours ago, Seams said:

I think a pregnancy for Jeyne is worth considering. It's also a good bet that a royal baby of any usurper or claimant or even of a legitimized king would be vulnerable at this time of upheaval, especially if it were born outside of a major castle surrounded by a substantial army. So there would have to be some kind of secrecy or deception around the baby's true identity. Jon Snow doesn't have to be present at Greywater Watch for some of the major points of your idea to be true. My own guess is that Jeyne will join up with the Brotherhood without Banners, or that her brother, Raynald, survived the Red Wedding and that he will liberate her before she reaches the Crag. Perhaps in coordination with the Blackfish.

Details of Jaime's meeting with Jeyne are provocative:

Jeyne Westerling had been Robb Stark's queen, the girl who cost him everything. With a wolf in her belly, she could have proved more dangerous than the Blackfish.

She did not look dangerous. Jeyne was a willowy girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, more awkward than graceful. She had narrow hips, breast the size of apples, a mop of chestnut curls, and the soft brown eyes of a doe. Pretty enough for a child, Jaime decided, but not a girl to lose a kingdom for. Her face was puffy, and there was a scab on her forehead, half-hidden by a lock of brown hair. "What happened there?" he asked her.

The girl turned her head away. "It is nothing," insisted her mother, a stern-faced woman in a gown of green velvet. A necklace of golden seashells looped about her long, thin neck. "She would not give up the little crown the rebel gave her, and when I tried to take it from her head the willful child fought me."

...

". . . There is a question I must ask you. Are you carrying his child, my lady?"

Jeyne burst from her chair and would have fled the room if the guard at the door had not seized her by the arm. "She is not," said Lady Sybell, as her daughter struggled to escape. "I made certain of that, as your lord father bid me."

...

"You'll have your marriages," said Jaime, "but Jeyne must wait two full years before she weds again." If the girl took another husband too soon and had a child by him, inevitably there would come whispers that the Young Wolf was the father.

(Feast, Chap. 44, Jaime VII)

Anytime someone like Jaime thinks, "She did not look dangerous," you have to wonder whether GRRM is chuckling with glee about the irony of the assessment. It's like Jon Snow thinking Tormund is Mance when he is first brought into the presence of the King Beyond the Wall. To me, Jaime's first impression is almost a sure sign that Jeyne Westerling is dangerous.

Jeyne is described here as willowy. Jeyne and Willow are also the names of the Heddle nieces who take over the running of the inn at the crossroads after Masha Heddle and then her nephew are killed. Jeyne and Willow resemble Sansa and Arya, in some ways. The two Heddle girls ally with the Brotherhood Without Banners in their effort to provide for war orphans and to maintain the inn as a business. To me, the comparison of Jeyne Westerling to the Heddle girls is a sign that she is going to become a leader and a combatant. Jeyne's dangerousness may not be limited to her possible pregnancy.

Being more awkward than graceful is an interesting combination. Anything with the word "ward" in it is a loaded word, with what we know of wards and stewards and wardens in the books. "Grace" is a word associated with a ruler in Westeros. So Jaime doesn't say Jeyne is completely ungraceful, just that she is more awkward the graceful.

Apples are often associated with emerging kings. (See the Fossoway history for some of the symbolism.) The fact that it is Jeyne's breasts that are like apples tell me that she very likely could be preparing to breast feed a baby king.

The chestnut curls is a tree reference, and chestnut is a kind of reddish brown color. Can't think of any significance for red trees in the books, but let me get back to you on that.

I don't know if the comparison between Jeyne's brown eyes and a doe's eyes goes toward a Baratheon stag allusion, or something else. We know that the mother direwolf died with an antler in its throat. I'm trying to collect brown references, and I think they might be associated with ancient kings although it could be more complex than that. I assume Tristifer Mudd is in the brown category, but there are a lot of other brown characters I would have to examine in greater detail. Probable symbolic meaning here, but I'm not sure what it means.

"Pretty enough for a child." This line seems like a broad hint that Jeyne might be carrying a child. It's one of those phrases that seems to mean one thing on the surface but could mean something else if you slowed down and read it a few more times. Robb wouldn't want to lose his kingdom for a girl (daughter) maybe, but it would be less problematic to lose a kingdom for a boy (son).

I've written elsewhere that the scab on the forehead may be a sign of Jeyne opening her third eye, so to speak. I don't mean she is now a greenseer on the same wavelength as Bran, but we see other characters pecked on the head or otherwise injured on the head who then gain insight into what is going on around them. So Lady Sybell taking Jeyne's crown caused Jeyne to open her eyes to what was going on around her. At the beginning of Chap. 45 in ASoS, Lame Lothar Frey compares Jeyne to Roslin as he rides with Catelyn and Robb toward the Red Wedding. So Jeyne and Roslin both have their eyes opened to the hidden plots against their husbands. Maybe Jeyne and Roslin are both pregnant.

It is Lady Sybell who tells Jaime that Jeyne is not pregnant, not Jeyne herself. In fact, Jeyne is described as bursting in response to Jaime's question. Kind of like some of GRRM's images around childbirth or the opening of a pigeon pie or the hatching of an egg. It's possible that Jeyne figured out that her mother's potions were not helping her to conceive, and that she stopped drinking them. Or maybe she had a last conjugal encounter with Robb of which her mother was not aware.

I stopped watching the abomination a couple of years ago, so I am looking only at the books for hints about Jeyne.

Thank you for tidbits that offer support. Of particular note is that Jeyne is not the one who answers Jaime. 

Re the abomination- I think it’s possible to enjoy both while realizing they are two separate beasts. To do otherwise only begots frustration. 

[Lady Rhodes]

15 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Hmm, I think it's a possibility too but not based on the mismatched description. Her mother says she made sure she was not pregnant, which likely means a dose of tansy, but somewhere we are told it or moon tea doesn't always take.  Tansy and moon tea are not full-proof, or Westeros would have had a sexual revolution like we did in the 70's with the Pill.  And there's always the possibility her mother is lying.

I actually don't think she is still pregnant, I think Jeyne's shamed reaction is indicative that a miscarriage was induced against her will, but I don't rule it out.  But if she's pregnant, and it's a huge if, there are so many possible scenarios on how that might play out that speculating about it without more confirmation seems a bit futile.  No disrespect to you, Lady Rhodes!  I am speaking for myself and why I don't engage. I have imagined scenarios from little evidence much more crackpot than yours and there might be some truth there, who knows?

No disrespect taken! I don’t frequent here often, so I don’t know what’s been discussed before, etc. it is nice to toss thoughts out there and see what comes of it!

[zandru]

Fwiw, there is no "Jeyne Westerling" in That Which Must Not Be Named. There was some "Talisa" woman who wasn't even a Westerosi. Just passing through, to Do Good. (yeah)

Sybell Westerling has worked tirelessly to (1) get Jeyne and Robb together in bed, and (2) assure that nothing can ever come of it. Now Robb's gone, but Sybell remains. So Jeyne will never have a little Stark baby.

The Stokeworths are historically infertile. Even though Lollys is bearing a low-born bastard of rape, it's better than her sister and most other Stokes have been able to do. A bastard can always be legitimated. If Lord Bronn doesn't get a child of his own body off Lollys, at least he'll have Little Tyrion.

Tinfoil might be better written up as fanfic, and will probably be better received. Just sayin'...