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R+L=J v.166


SFDanny

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26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

The reveal of the Rhaegar's crown? We learn in our very first chapter that Rhaegar was connected to Lyanna, through kidnapping. The connection is made, but the reason is not at all clear (multiple theories over the years have worked on this concept and it's still not clear),

This is not just mere Rhaegar connection, this is Rhaegar AND the blue roses connection - the very blue roses that Ned repeatedly thinks about, and whose smell Lyanna loved. It's as if every time Ned thinks about blue roses, he thinks about Lyanna AND Rhaegar. Because we have no other connection between Lyanna herself and blue roses - no mention of her often visiting the glasshouses or bringing the flowers to her bedroom, nothing like that. Just that crown from Rhaegar.

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

and Ned's feverish one-time memory of a rose crown don't change that.

That is a misconception on your part:

Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood. (Ned's dream before Robert is brought back from the hunt).

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. (Theon's dream in ACOK)

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Well, Jon is a young man, possibly not even considered a true man, while Ned is twenty years his senior, a man who has fought in two wars, lead the north for 14-15 years, has probably learned to control such outbursts to some extent. We see these same flares with Robb's temper, except never from Robb's POV. Are we going to call this "waking the dragon" in Robb Stark, too?

 

Can you remind me where Robb exhibited greater strength than usually or completely lost himself in  an adrenaline rush? This is an honest question, I really don't recall.

 

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

My point is that Lyanna might have the features, the long face of the Stark's, but she might not have the coloring. Arya could look like Lyanna to an extent. Ned never says that Arya is Lyanna's carbon copy, only that "you look like her, too". Where as the comparison between Ned, Jon and Arya is noted in the text. And Arya is a bit of an outlier in the Stark clan. Sansa hints that a grumkin stole her "real" sister. Maybe Sansa is right, and then what does that mean for Arya?

She apparently does have the right colouring, or else Bran wouldn't confuse her with Arya in his weirwood vision:

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn’t be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him.

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

None of those colors has anything to do with ice. I understand the concept of combining House Stark's "ice" with the Targaryen colors, but ice doesn't fit the Targaryen's at all.

But Jon is half Stark, half Targaryen - ice and fire, so I don't really see why this should be a problem. Were it Dany, you'd have a point, but here...

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

And more than one houses have black and red as colors. House Blackwood comes to mind and we know that Bloodraven plays an important role. Perhaps the importance of his role has nothing to do with House Targaryen but House Blackwood. House Cole, also interesting because of their lofty interference with the Dance with the Dragons.  Euron Greyjoy's personal sigil is red and black. Black and ice don't connect much in the story, except in this dream of Jon's, and in references to the Stark sword Ice, which is referred to as black or nearly black on a couple occasions. And the Night's Watch tents in Craster's Keep are noted to be black with a sheen of ice, so perhaps the black ice of Jon's dreams is him armored in his Night's Watch vows. I think there could be multiple interpretations for this not just Targaryen's are red and black and the Stark's are ice. :dunno:

We yet have to see a house featuring a black armour and a red sword, though, not to mention, a member of such a house thinking himself or his son to be a saviour destined to wield such a sword.

- Look, I realize that this symbolic stuff is highly speculative, but really: a Targaryen prophecy speaks about a Targaryen who should be wielding a red sword, and, lo! none other than a suspected Targaryen has a dream about wielding such a sword, even though he knows next to nothing about the prophecy and doesn't care about such stuff in the least. Peculiar.

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

We don't ever get the idea that Ned knew that Jon was troubled by not knowing who his mother was. That's as big a speculation as tying the shame to incest. 

.We do know that Ned felt an urgent need to sit down with Jon and talk to him, so he apparently knew there was something that needed to be told. And I don't think it is a big speculation what it was or that it troubled Jon - on the contrary, I think it would be a huge stretch to assume that it might never occur to Ned that not knowing one's mother's name could be troubling for a child.

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Being "sick" can mean multiple things that don't include being "disgusted". Ill, unwell, ailing, bad, nauseous, vomit, mentally or emotionally unsound or disordered. There is no doubt this reaction of Ned's seems very visceral but we have no idea what he really means by this.

Oh, come on. In this context, it is apparently not a physical reaction to bad food or infection but an emotional reaction to something grossly at odds with his worldview, something entirely unpalatable for him. 

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

If he is disgusted by Cersei or her actions, he doesn't act very disgusted. He is gentle with her, talks softly to her, touches her face. He is trying to save the lives of her children, even her own life. He doesn't strike me as terribly disgusted.

He is a compassionate, gentle man. Cersei's children are innocent, and she as a mother and an abused wife gets way more human sympathy from him than she deserves. Had Robert not hit her, had she not had children, he wouldn't have felt compelled to display such mercy to her. It is black on white in his PoV, he does it for the children.

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19 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Drogon actually blasts her with dragon fire, and she loses her hair and clothing, but still manages to mount and fly away. No matter what caused the burns on her hands, she does't seem to bothered and tells us that he hands seem to be secreting some sort of fluid that is helping her heal.

This is entirely incorrect. Drogon never blasted her, she ducked under the flame. It is unclear at which point her hair caught on fire - either its tips got licked by the flame as she ducked, or it caught from the arrow shafts stuck in Drogon which ignited from his inner heat, Her clothing didn't burn, either - she had dropped the veils and tokar, and in Drogon's nest, she is still wearing the undertunic that is torn and stained but not burnt. 

As for her hands: the most likely source of her burns was the spear that she tore from Drogon's neck - as its tip was melting, there is no way the shaft was not too hot to touch. And while she does not comment on the blisters much, it is not correct that she wasn't bothered by them at all, as she comments that even after scraping her hands raw after climbing down the rock, her hands were better off than they had been. And this is after an unspecified amount of days spent at "Dragonstone".

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20 hours ago, St Daga said:

there nothing in Jon's arc ties him to a rose crown

True.  Even in the conventional idea that Jon was born at the TOJ to Lyanna. 

Some have pictured the rose petals that fell from her palm when she died as the petals from her crown... but this is a ludicrous idea.  The room, Ned recalled, smelled of roses, so she had fresh roses.

There was even a fan video done as a recreation of the supposed TOJ "Promise me, Ned" scene that featured Lyanna wearing such a crown of blue roses as she addressed Ned from her deathbed. 

I got quite a good laugh out of that; the creators didn't appear to have realized those roses would have been cut about two years before.

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Why silly? Of all the married guys in Westeros, Lyanna happens to get involved with the one whose family tradition involves polygamy and who think themselves above the laws of gods and men. A coincidence?

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On 6/6/2019 at 4:45 AM, Ygrain said:

That is a misconception on your part:

Promise me, Ned,” Lyanna’s statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood. (Ned's dream before Robert is brought back from the hunt).

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. (Theon's dream in ACOK)

You forgot one:

Quote

Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.

 

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4 hours ago, Lady of Mercia said:

You forgot one:

Not really, this was the obvious one which the poster I responded to claimed was the single reference :-)

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Anyone ever brought up the point that the offspring of nobility on both sides are not considered bastards therefore Jon Snow of the Tower being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna should have a true born name Aemon Targaryeon maybe. from the concordance bastards

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8 hours ago, Gerg Sknab said:

Anyone ever brought up the point that the offspring of nobility on both sides are not considered bastards therefore Jon Snow of the Tower being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna should have a true born name Aemon Targaryeon maybe. from the concordance bastards

Children born out of wedlock are considered bastards regardless of their parents' standing. See Edric Storm or Brynden Rivers.

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15 hours ago, Gerg Sknab said:

Anyone ever brought up the point that the offspring of nobility on both sides are not considered bastards therefore Jon Snow of the Tower being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna should have a true born name Aemon Targaryeon maybe. from the concordance bastards

I'm not sure what you mean by the "concordance bastards". The whole point of the naming system used in Westeros is to distinguish between true-born children, who can inherit, and bastards who don't. Thus [without getting into arguments] Lord Eddard Stark's true-born son is Robb Stark, while his bastard is called Jon Snow. The first bears his name and succeeds him as Lord of Winterfell while the second doesn't bear his name and cannot succeed his elder brother. 

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On 6/7/2019 at 2:34 PM, Gerg Sknab said:

Anyone ever brought up the point that the offspring of nobility on both sides are not considered bastards therefore Jon Snow of the Tower being the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna should have a true born name Aemon Targaryeon maybe. from the concordance bastards

I think you are confusing the term "baseborn" with "bastards." In the R+L=J example, Jon is not base born, but if his parents did not marry he is  born a bastard.

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His family tradition doesn't involve polygamy. The last person to try was three centuries ago, was named Maegor the Cruel, and got run out of the country for it. That's not a tradition. 
"think themselves above the laws"—he rode Balerion, and got run out of the country. Even Aegon the Unworthy didn't try it.

Even the show

Spoiler

has Rhaegar's previous marriage "set aside"—well, we know in the books that's only a possibility if the marriage is unconsummated. When you consider that it also has Rhaegar with two sons named Aegon Targaryen, I think it's more likely that it was invented to vaguely adapt the Young Griff plotline of a more popular Targaryen with arguably a better claim than because it's part of Jon's story. Annnyway my actual point was that if the book version was supposed to involve polygamy wouldn't they have been told that and used it?

Also, like, Westeros doesn't have actual rule of law. If you say "Actually Rhaegar married both Elia and Lyanna" and the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms laugh at you and their septons frown and mutter and their maesters cite the precedent that Maegor was driven into exile and no following Targaryen married polygamously, then it doesn't even matter if they said pretty words in Gods Eye or whatever—it's not a marriage. That's not what legitimacy means.

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2 hours ago, Saer said:

His family tradition doesn't involve polygamy. The last person to try was three centuries ago, was named Maegor the Cruel, and got run out of the country for it. That's not a tradition. 
"think themselves above the laws"—he rode Balerion, and got run out of the country. Even Aegon the Unworthy didn't try it.

<snip>

Also, like, Westeros doesn't have actual rule of law. If you say "Actually Rhaegar married both Elia and Lyanna" and the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms laugh at you and their septons frown and mutter and their maesters cite the precedent that Maegor was driven into exile and no following Targaryen married polygamously, then it doesn't even matter if they said pretty words in Gods Eye or whatever—it's not a marriage. That's not what legitimacy means.

The family tradition starts its rule over Westeros with a polygamous marriage. What Maegor's example shows is that polygamy is subservient to the King's wishes and the power of the king to enforce his will, not that Westeros will not or can not be forced to accept polygamy. It obviously can and does with Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys.

The rule of law is clear after Maegor's wars and Jaehaerys's imposing Targaryen exceptionalism. The law is that the King makes the law, and only the king can decide this question when it comes to his heirs or himself. There is nothing up to the rebellion that challenges the king's power on this question. So when Daemon Blackfyre wants to revive  polygamy, it is still up to Aegon the Unworthy to make the decision to do so. He decides not to in Daemon's case. But if he had decided otherwise there is nothing in the law that would have stopped him from allowing it.

What is more important than the rule of law, is whether or not in any specific circumstance there was political forces that would have tried to stop a Targaryen king from marrying a second wife, or allowing one of his heirs to do so? And if so would they be successful.

In Rhaegar and Lyanna's case it isn't the question of polygamy that stops them from having a marriage recognized. It is simply the combined forces of the rebellion and the will of Aerys. So, I agree that the power balance after the Trident swings strongly against the already difficult path to recognition. But the point being that the power balance could have swung just as strongly Rhaegar's way at the Ruby Ford, and it would have been Rhaegar himself who sits the Iron Crown and makes the decision whether or not to recognize his polygamous marriage. That seems to have been his plan.

We have this from two critical sources. Maester Aemon tells us Rhaegar thought Aegon would be the prince who was promised. And the vision we have of the royal couple shortly after Aegon's birth in which we are told there must be "one more" because the dragon "has three heads" strongly suggests Rhaegar sees his children as the three heads of the dragon. The question then becomes did Rhaegar believe, assuming R+L=J, that his child with Lyanna would be the third head of the dragon, and if so would he want that child born a bastard? Would Lyanna want her child born a bastard? If not the only way to prevent that fate would be to marry. The only way to prevent that fate and not set aside his other children with Elia, who we have no reason to think Rhaegar has changed his mind about their role in fulfilling prophecy is for him to be married to both Elia and Lyanna. That the Crown Prince doesn't really have the power yet to force this on anyone doesn't make it unlikely as part of his plans for Westeros once he does have the power when he sits the Iron Throne. That Rhaegar doesn't  succeed in his plans, doesn't undermine the evidence we have of what he was trying to do.

 

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2 hours ago, Saer said:

His family tradition doesn't involve polygamy. The last person to try was three centuries ago, was named Maegor the Cruel, and got run out of the country for it. That's not a tradition. 

GRRM begs to disagree, saying there was and IS precedent. Not to mention that little fact that the whole house Targaryen comes down from a polygamous marriage. So, yes, a tradition. One rarely applied even before their coming to Westeros, but never banned. 

 

2 hours ago, Saer said:


"think themselves above the laws"—he rode Balerion, and got run out of the country.

And when he became king, he married a couple more wives. Might makes right. And since he did have dragons, as you pointed out yourself, he got his way. His dragonless descendant might have had a harder task to get everyone comply, but if his  motivation was strong enough, he could have at least tried and relied on his general popularity and charisma.

2 hours ago, Saer said:

Even Aegon the Unworthy didn't try it.

Who was a shining example of a guy who would go into great length to try and preserve someone's honour... oh, wait. Let's try again. A guy who was dutiful and changed his whole life because he considered it to be his duty to become the saviour figure from a prophecy... nope.

Seems like our boy Aegon IV had no motivation to attempt a move that would have had quite a couple of people screaming bloody hell, no. He had a heir, and he could make his other children legit even without bothering to marry their mothers, so why would he?

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@Saer

F&B: "The Targaryens were of pure Valyrian blood, dragonlords of ancient lineage. Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer, and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone, a bleak island citadel beneath a smoking mountain in the narrow sea."

All over Essos polygamy was and still is a norm.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Polygamy

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Some kings thought it right and proper to dispatch Kingsguard to serve and defend their wives and children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins of greater and lesser degree, and occasionally even their lovers, mistresses, and bastards.  

Hmm, no reason.

1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

but if his  motivation was strong enough, he could have at least tried and relied on his general popularity and charisma.

And none of them did. Aegon IV is a shining example of a man who hated his wife.

@Megorova Westeros isn't Essos, and what you want is an example less than two hundred years ago.

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2 hours ago, Saer said:

Some kings thought it right and proper to dispatch Kingsguard to serve and defend their wives and children, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins of greater and lesser degree, and occasionally even their lovers, mistresses, and bastards.  

Hmm, no reason.

No idea what you mean here.

2 hours ago, Saer said:

And none of them did. Aegon IV is a shining example of a man who hated his wife.

Hating your wife doesn't mean that you love your mistresses enough to give them the status of a queen, especially if you'd have to go into some lengths to achieve that.

2 hours ago, Saer said:

 

@Megorova Westeros isn't Essos, and what you want is an example less than two hundred years ago.

If we're talking about establishing family tradition, it doesn't matter where it came from or how old it was. For instance, the tradition of the King in the North was abandoned for 300 years, yet when there was a convenient situation, the Northmen decided to revive it. Similarly, when Jorah is trying to get into Dany's pants, he suggests that she might follow her family tradition and take more spouses.

 

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There is no hint that Aegon IV had any desire to wed multiple wives. He had all the sex he wanted with no commitment. Perhaps he would have been more inclined to want to take more wives if it was easier to get rid of them. But then, he is more likely to have gotten rid of wives and taken new ones than to wed multiple at a time. As it is, he knew he couldn't get rid of the wife and heir he hated, while he could get rid of his mistresses and their bastards with a word. And in the end, he legitimized all his bastards without ever having to wed their mothers.

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On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

As I mentioned above, there is a tie to rage and the Stark's. We hear about it with Brandon, we see it in Ned's arc, we see it happen to Robb, although this is from Jon's POV so we can't be sure what was going on in Robb's head or how quickly he calmed. He had to  be physically drug away from Joffrey by more than one adult. Adrenaline can flare for several reasons, anger is one, excitement is another, near death is thought of as the most common, but all three are possible. And yes, it could explain what happens to Jon.

We don't have the full story for Brandon at Kings Landing, what we do know shows him yelling and talking so he may have been angry and stupid, but also appears to be fully in control and wanting duel. With Littlefinger he was calm enough to seriously wound him, but not kill him. He's an impulsive hot head to be sure, but I see no sign of him losing control.

Ned gets angry, and grabs Littlefinger by the throat for what he perceives as a slight on his wife's honor. But as soon as Cat calls out he stops. He can be intimidating when angry as his eyes and face go cold, but he was never out of control that we're shown.

Jon was tired. We are in his head, he got a good thumping and was tired and about to call it when he was hit, he thinks of something from his past, then when he returns to the present he is so angry that he says it's never enough. Then he realizes what he said and is ashamed and has no recollection of what happened. How does adrenaline explain losing all awareness of what he's doing? Why would a hit on his helmet while sparring, hardly an uncommon thing if I had to guess, result in an adrenaline surge of that magnitude in a guy who was tired, not near death, not excited, not angry?(confused and conflicted about the Stannis offer, to be sure, but he wasn't upset in that moment.) Adrenaline surges often come with increased mental focus and clarity not complete lack of it, it increases senses, Jon blacked out, doesn't fit. The effects when severe take up to an hour to wear off, Jon took about 30 seconds. I know it can increase strength, but what about the rest? You can't take one symptom in isolation and go yep, he's got that so this must be it, despite the rest of the symptoms being absent. 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

For the most part we see a calm Jon, I agree, so these incidents are outlier's. But for the most part we see a calm Ned, even when facing Jaime's men in the street's, but he's not always calm. And we see a calm and thoughtful Robb Stark, but we also see the rage and strength and anger. Are we going to say what happened between Robb and Joff was part of waking Robb's "dragon"?

Since Robb just stood there and did nothing but talk, that would be odd... It was Grey Wind who attacked Great Jon, he always had men around him in battle to support him. We never hear stories of his famed battle skills, just his brilliant tactical plans. So I'm not seeing it. Ned, too, has only shown normal anger. Show me an example of him going into a rage where he's unaware of his surroundings? Everyone gets angry, everyone does impulsive things on occasion, but that isn't what happened with Jon.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

We actually have no idea what many of Ned's dreams are about. Period. As to Jon, he doesn't dream of a dragon. After a dragon is mentioned again in discussion, he thinks he "can almost see them". Almost picturing something in your head isn't the same as unconsciously dreaming it. As to the dreams in the hot pools, those pools are linked to the hot water the is the lifeblood if Winterfell and the Stark, it has nothing to do with fire burning Ygritte's skin away to the bones. As to the dream and the "feed them flame", Jon has already experienced fighting both wildlings and wight's with flame, so this doesn't stand out as something pure knowledge that only he has. However, these were experiences he learned through his service to the Night's Watch and those vow she took to serve, which include him being a "fire that burns against the cold". Neither Stark nor Targaryen blood is needed to fight as a member of the Night's Watch.

I said he got flashes while awake, I never said unconsciously dreaming. The interesting thing was that he saw something similar to the other two, and after made a comment about a dragon or three, that's oddly specific. As for the hot pools Jon has never thought of them that way, that was Cat and they didn't exactly talk. And the thought was that the heat stripped the flesh from her bones turning her to bubbling pool of blood. There was no link to her becoming part of the life blood of Winterfell, this wasn't a happy dream about her belonging because the wildlings and first men were kin, he felt judged by his father, then he refused her affection and she died. The connection I saw wasn't fire, the connection was the flesh being stripped away by heat, and neither woman seeming distressed by it. But, that dream is strange to say the least so I'm not saying it means anything specific, just that there was a similarity. 

No one said it was needed to be a member of the nights watch, but I doubt most of the members of the nights watch are dreaming about screaming feed them fire while wielding a burning red sword. We're in Sams head, and he knows more about this than Jon, and he isn't thinking any of this stuff. And how can you say the part about them climbing the wall like ice spiders isn't potentially prophetic? No one else has linked wights to ice spiders in the story, only the Others riding them, but that isn't even close to what he dreamed. In the dream he killed his brother over the claim to Winterfell, and also his lover to light the sword, the stories he's told only mention a wife. But, we've seen the Azor Ahi candidates be linked to the death of their brothers. So how would he know this when no one else seems to? Stannis isn't even aware and he's one of the people that killed a brother. I'm not saying this is Targaryen, just so we're clear, I've already said that dreams like this can be either. I'm just addressing your comment about pure knowledge that he has. This has elements he knows and elements that he doesn't, but we as readers have enough hints to suspect there is something more than a straight up dream based on knowledge he has with some filler, especially when he has been shown to have prophetic dreams at other times, like with Sam drowning. 

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

Adrenaline can do a lot for a person.  My Dad was in a house fire when I was 6 and he reached through flames to attempt to pull a door open. A door that would not open because of the pressure in the room, but he sure as hell tried. And he talks about it as if it was in a dream. I think regular people are capable of quite amazing things in certain situations. And yes, he did get out, with significant burns to his face and hands, and while he had no pain initially because all the nerve endings were burned away, when they grew back, there was terrible pain. And skin grafts and physical therapy, a difficult recovery. Perhaps GRRM doesn't have my personal experience with burns, and I might look at these two situations differently but from my view, Jon and Dany are vastly different when burned.

I've never known someone burned like that, so can't say to the pain part. But, if adrenaline is a factor for Jon, it would be for Dany too. And I disagree that she wasn't impacted. Why would she have weeping blisters that she wrapped and tended too if she wasn't bothered? When Dany gets exposed to fire of one arm up the elbow, with no blood magic going on and doesn't burn, then I'll see her as different. But a hot spear doesn't compare to reaching into a fire, picking it up and throwing it. The spear is equivalent to touching a hot pan. They aren't the same.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

What makes you think that Jon is not a greenseer? Jon and Rickon are blessed with the wolves with red and green eyes, obvious signs of greensight in the CotF. Even though several sources are telling Bran he is a greenseer, are they correct? Or are they manipulating him? 

Or maybe their wolves are special in some way. Or he could have the potential but doesn't get wed to a tree. It's the link to a tree that makes a greenseer until then, he's a warg with prophetic dreams. We don't know enough for me to have an opinion on it one way of the other.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

 I have always wondered if Jon could not sense Ghost because Ghost would not allow the connection. It's not immediately when Jon walks through the wall that he senses Ghost. It takes some time. Perhaps when Ghost was ready, he opened the connection with Jon. I think this applies to when Robb and Jon first found the pups too. I think Ghost did not open the connection until it could be established that he would and could only belong to Jon because the other pups had been claimed for Ned's five trueborn children.

Jon was also very emotional and distracted, and it's not the first time he's not noticed. It seems so natural to him that he seems to note the absence more than the presence of Ghost. So that makes it difficult to say. As for the first meeting, that was before they bonded so a different situation, it was almost like Ghost called out because he realized he was being left behind.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

And the wall might be the barrier you think it is, but I think it's left open to interpretation.

Just pointing out that it was Stark related issues that caused him to have these moments of black outs. And we call it berserker rage, but I don't know that is what Jon would call it. Or GRRM!

No, but we need to call it something shorter than, when Jon blacks out and/or demonstrates abnormal strength and/or rage

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

Insult's to Ned, the memory of Robb (via Catelyn) saying that Jon could never have Winterfell. And yes, Jon would bond with his Starkness, as it's all he knows. My point is that the rage and blackout might be a Stark trait and not another trait. All Viserys did when he "woke the dragon" was get mean. We don't hear of any specific strength or power in him. And in Dany it also seems to indicate rage! Not strength at all. But we do see Robb attacking Joffrey and several grown men are needed to pull Robb away from the golden prince. What happened to Robb seems more like what happened to Jon than anything else I can compare it to in the text. Certainly,

I don't think we've seen either side do what Jon does. It's just that the Targaryens seem to have heard of something that seems similar. Visery's talks about it but has never experienced it, I don't think it's common. Dany as well, she woke dragons, and draws power from that, but that doesn't mean she has ever woke the dragon in the sense that Visery's told her about. That Starks have the wolf blood, that seems more linked to wild reckless behavior, or acting on instinct. When I think wolf blood, I think Rickon.  But, what we see in Jon may be a combination, the reckless animal instinct, combined with the power and rage. That's why I'm curious.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

GRRM has written a very ambiguous text and laid out a complicated puzzle for us to try to solve. It's no wonder people can't agree!

Yep!

On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, St Daga said:

I do like this idea that Jon's "berserker" qualities could be a specific gift he is given to wield, not unlike Longclaw. What is interesting is when we first meet Jon and Robb, it's Robb who is noted for his strength, not Jon. Jon is "graceful and quick" where Robb is "strong and fast". But perhaps something in Jon can awaken and become the strength and fastness that is needed in a certain situation, combined with his own quickness and grace? Maybe these two incidents we have seen with Jon are sort of trail or practice runs, just warming up for the big act?

That's what I suspect. I'm just not sure what this ability would allow him to do, that others can't. It's not like the Others are going to be defeated by a trial by combat or something like that, as that's just to simple.

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