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On 6/4/2019 at 9:42 AM, oggy1324 said:

yes it is if they didn't plan the names together when she was pregnant. I mean I would like him to be named Daeron rather than Aegon :))

I've always figured it would be Aegon, the whole symbolism around the number seven and if he were Aegon, and fAegon takes the throne as Aegon VI that would make Jon Aegon VII, seven kingdoms, seven gods, seven Aegons; especially when paired with the quote about Aegon V in the world book:

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..the blood of the dragon gathered in one... ...seven eggs, to honor the seven gods, though the king's own septon had warned... ...pyromancers... ...wild fire... ...flames grew out of control...towering...burned so hot that... ...died, but for the valor of the Lord Comman....

Egg being the nickname for Aegon, so seven Aegons, and a link to the title of Lord Commander, seemed like a possible clue to me.

Then we have GRRM putting the brothers Pate and Pate, and Dunk wondering if the mother didn't know any other names, bit in the Dunk and Egg novella's. And all the Walders and Walda's of house Frey, where every time he takes a new wife they name their kids either Walder, Walda or some variant. So kids with one parent the same and one different being given the same name is something GRRM has established, no matter how odd it seems to us. 

We have the hints hidden in how non main characters of the current generation are named too: Robert Arryn, Rhaegar and Aegon Frey, Wylla Manderly, Lyanna Mormont and Ned Dayne. No Ellia or Rhaenys so I take that to mean Aegon is linked to Robert, Rhaegar, Wylla, Lyanna and Ned. hmm that list sounds familiar... And of course the scene where Aegon Frey died involved two throats being slit, and someone being stabbed multiple times in a mutiny, that sounds familiar too, if we wind up with some cross bows being fired off in the aftermath at the wall, even better. If only there was a clear link, like the birth and death of one particular person... oh well.

But, if there was a different name, I think it would be Balerion, or Bael, or Baelor, first because Bael names are linked to both the Targaryens and the First Men, so it seems fitting for a child of Stark and Targaryen heritage. Rheagar and Lyanna are similar to the Bael the Bard tale, so them having a son with a Bael name would be poetic. And the cat that belonged to Rhaenys, that Arya chased and gets the line about that black bastard is the true king of this castle is named Balerion and Jon is a black bastard on the wall, so that could be a possible clue too. But as much as I love the Bael names, or how nice it would be for him to have the name of someone he admired like Daeron or Aemon but, I'm still betting on Aegon.

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On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, 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)

It's not, actually. I said Ned's recollection of a rose crown, specifically a crown. Only the thoughts in the black cells fit this for Ned. One of your references is from Theon, who is certainly not Ned, and the other is a garland. Now, a garland could be a crown, but it doesn't have to be. It can be  chain of flowers that is worn as a necklace like a lei or even draped across a person's shoulders like a shawl. I do understand that peoples interpretations of "garland" could vary, so this one will probably remain arguable forever.

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:

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.

Well, in the Ser Alliser case, it can be argued that Jon did have greater strength than normal. Strong is debatable but he was certainly quick, which is something we learn in Bran's first POV. That he lost his temper is obvious, and the fact that he surprised those people around him enough that they took some time to react to his actions. I think is very similar to what happened with Robb and Joffrey at Winterfell. I guess you don't see that Robb exhibited so much anger that he nearly laid hands on the crown prince, surely a punishable offense, apparently to traditionally cut of the hand of the offender, and enough strength that Theon had to lock him in an "iron grip" to keep him contained and hold him for more than a few moments. Theon, an adult of 19 against a 14 year old Robb Stark. I was mistaken when I thought that Rodrik Cassel also held Robb back. It was only Theon. I also think Theon was prepared for Robb's temper and action and that was why he was so quick to act. Neither Jon nor Arya, who are our witnesses to this, are at all surprised by Robb's temper or actions, so this leads me to think this is not a new occurrence for Robb, although the stupidity of laying hands on the crown prince seems like Robb has lost all his good sense. I suppose his level of strength is questionable, 

The situation with Iron Emmett might be a bit different, although Jon was loosing the training session that morning, Jon feels like the majority of the time, he gave as good as he got, so they were close to equal. Jon is hit on the head and doesn't remember the battle, so we don't really know either. It's possible that Emmett conceded and stopped fighting, which was when Jon made such huge strides against him, beating his shield to pieces and knocking him to the ground. How much strength was really exhibited here? Maybe a great deal, maybe a normal amount against a foe who isn't fighting.

Regardless of who Jon's father might be, assuming Lyanna is Jon's mother, I think these surges of strength and temper are from his Stark blood, his "wolf blood" and not from whomever his father is. If Rhaegar is Jon's father, do we ever hear of one time when Rhaegar exhibited greater than average strength? 

Perhaps it comes down to how we interpret "wake the dragon" because I interpret that not to be great strength, but a wild temper and hints of cruelty. That is what I see in Viserys when Dany thinks of him saying "wake the dragon". Meanness and cruelty towards her, and which is something that she also later shows in regards to MMD (even if she is probably justified in her feelings) and other's who cross her path in Slaver's Bay. Wake the dragon doesn't ever seem to indicate great strength or an adrenaline rush. 

But with the Stark's, we see some of this with Robb and Jon, we hear about some of this temper in regards to Brandon. So, regardless of Jon's father, I think Jon comes by this because of his Stark blood via Lyanna.

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:
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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:

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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.

 

Confirmation bias says that this must be Lyanna and Benjen that Bran sees in his vision, but we have no real confirmation of that. Only that it's a girl who Bran mistakes for Arya, who is older than the boy she is fighting, and children that are worried about Old Nan's reaction. If Bran is so confused by who he see's that he thinks it's a long haired version of himself, then that would mean that IF it is Benjen, then Benjen has red-brown hair like the Tully's are noted to have, red-brown hair that Bran himself has, and nothing indicates that Benjen Stark has reddish-brown hair (although he might). Bran also mistakes Leaf, a Child of the Forest, for being Arya as well, so I don't know how much we want to trust him in these initial glimpses. After all, the Children of the Forest are clearly not human, with their small bodies, brown skin dappled with paler spots,  large golden eyes, and three-fingered hands with claw like nails. Although, if it is Benjen and Lyanna, then Lyanna's coloring would fit Arya's, and then the odd part is Benjen's coloring being more Tully like than Stark like. And no, I am not saying Benjen is a Tully, I am saying that would be a hint that there is some reddish hair in the Stark gene pool before Catelyn introduced her Tully genes, which could exlain why she and Ned produced so many red haired children. I actually think that these children fighting in Bran's vision are Rickard and Lyarra, but that's speculation on my part. 

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:

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.

Does a Targaryen prophecy talk about a red sword? I am asking in a serious manner. The Prince that was Promised seems to be directly linked to Targaryen's or perhaps Valyrian's. The prophecy of Azor Ahai talks about the "red sword of heros" but that doesn't necessarily mean that the PtwP and Azor Ahai are interchangeable, although the fandom does tend to tie them together. The PtwP prophecy does talk about a "bleeding star" and the red comet is referred to as a "red sword" but that is by Gendry and so that is how Arya thinks about it, but I don't think the Targaryen's ever call the comet a "red sword". We are told that Rhaegar felt like a red comet tied his son to being "the Prince that was Promised" but he also thinks this son is Aegon, whom he had with Elia Martell, if Dany's vision is correct. So, if you believe that Rhaegar is Jon's father, this leads to Jon, a son of Rhaegar, being the Prince that was Promised, but the PtwP is not directly tied to a red sword. Azor Ahai is, but there is no confirmation that Azor Ahai and the PtwP are the same thing. 

If there is some other nod to a Targaryen wielding a "red sword", could you point it out to me. I think one could argue that a dragon could be considered a "red sword" although we don't currently have a red dragon in our story. We do have Targaryen's who have rode red dragons (I find them to be very interesting) and the red dragon seems very important to the Targaryen's, just based on the sigil that Aegon the Conqueror chose for his families sigil. In my head, it seems like Aegon should have chose a black dragon (for Balerion) on a field of red (representing fire and blood), but he didn't, and I find that curious. Perhaps the red dragon represents fire and blood and the black background could represent night or darkness?

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:

.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.

Ned knows he is going south for who knows how long, and that Jon is going north for who knows how long, and still he doesn't feel like he needs to talk to Jon about his mother before they part ways at Winterfell. We don't know if they talked at all, although it sounds like Ned wanted to talk to Jon in person about the plan for Jon to join the Night's Watch. We have no idea if this happened or what was said, but if a conversation did happen, it clearly didn't reveal Jon's mother to Jon, since it's a huge part of Jon's arc. When Ned goes south, he knows he might not return for years, or ever, and still that doesn't prompt these thoughts about Jon. But something in the black cells does. Now, perhaps it is the the dream/memories of Harrenhal, or perhaps it's that Varys brings up Jon to Ned right before Ned has this thought, perhaps it does have to do with Rhaegar, but why didn't Ned feel this way before he parted with Jon for what might have been the last time months and months before? If it does have to do with the promise he made to Lyanna, then this isn't a new thought for Ned. Ned has been thinking about Lyanna's promise since his very first POV, when he still had an opportunity to say something to Jon. If it was about Jon's mother, then Ned let that opportunity slide by. And I suppose Ned might have understood that Jon was troubled by not knowing who his mother was, but he still never told Jon, even the very last time they talked. I guess it could be argued that Ned thought he would see Jon again, but in life, nothing like that is certain, and they were traveling thousands of leagues away from each other. Still, no talk with Jon! I think the promise is about something else, although something in this discussion with Varys does prompt Ned into wanting to talk to Jon about something.

I just hope we get an answer some day!

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:

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. 

Oh, come on? There is still several possibilities for "sick" that do not include disgust or a puking stomach flu! Obviously, we will not agree on this, and that is perfectly fine, so let's just move on. 

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:45 PM, Ygrain said:

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.

I agree that Ned is compassionate and gentle (when he can be) but that doesn't include the fact that he tells Cersei to get her who family away from Robert's wroth, including Tywin, whom Ned doesn't like or trust at all, and her brothers, and I am certain that Ned's compassion and gentleness goes right out the window with Tywin, Jaime and Tyrion. It's not that he is willing to let them all walk away, it is that he is pretty darn understanding with Cersei over this pretty awful revelation of incest, the love she has for her brother and their children!

 

On 6/5/2019 at 12:59 PM, Ygrain said:
On 6/5/2019 at 12:26 PM, 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".

From Dany's POV, Drogon, "with a hisssssss, he spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames". Even if she ducks, he directs flames at her. Later,  on "Dragonstone" she thinks, "The fire burned away my hair, but elsewise it did not touch me. It had been the same in Daznak's Pit. That much she could recall, though much of what followed was a haze." This is in comparison to her walking into Drogo's pyre, where she was completely engulfed in flame. So, later she is thinking that fire had again burned away her hair but not any other flesh. Dany does have some clothing remaining after her fight with Drogon, but not very much. Hardly more than rags, she thinks. We also have eye witnesses who think she was on fire as she rode away. Was she, although she doesn't remember or interpret things in this way? Hair can be singed away from intense heat and nearness to flames, but I don't think that's exactly what happened. Even Barristan remembers her with her hair aflame, yet she has no burns on her face or scalp, at least that she reports.

Yes, the hand burns might have come from the spear, although the shaft would be wood, not iron, so I don't know how hot it would be, The iron tip of the spear is molten, so that is no doubt hot, but she doesn't touch the spear head, only the shaft. Still, it could very well be hot enough to burn her hands. And no, we don't know how long she was healing on Dragonstone, but her hands are healing, and weeping some kind of lubricating fluid that she thinks is helping her hands heal. That's a pretty neat trick!

As to her undertunic, what was it made of? Some natural materials are fire-retardant (not proof, of course, but can act as a barrier), one of which is wool or wool products, based on the moisture of the material and the weave of the fabric. Another is down feathers, which I learned because my father was in a house fire and his down coat acted like a natural barrier which helped him not have burns on his arms and torso like he did on his face, neck and hands. However, Dany reports her undertunic is linen, which will burn although not as quickly as cotton or silk, but I still think her hair was flaming and she shows no damage from that.

Sorry for the delay in posting. I don't check this board every day, or even once a week, depending on my work schedule. I understand we won't agree on many of these points, and that's fine, because how boring would discussion be if we didn't disagree about things now and then. I appreciate the time you took to respond. :cheers:

 

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22 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

It's possible that for all we know, Brandon tried to kill Littlefinger and failed, which is too bad for the Starks. I am just saying that Brandon, Ned and Robb have displayed some impulse control with what we know of them in the story. That could also be what happens with Jon, especially in the situation with Ser Alliser. The situation with Iron Emmett could be all related to the head injury. A knock on the head can make people act funny! It does seem like Jon showed much greater strength than Emmett but we don't know is how that fight played out while Jon was thinking of other things. We know that when Jon became aware, Emmett was on the ground and his shield was broken into bit's. How long ago did Emmett stop fighting? Did Jon gain most of this while still swinging when Emmett was not fighting back? Was Iron Emmett fighting Jon the whole time and still was beat down to the ground? :dunno: I sometimes drive home 15 miles from work and don't remember miles and miles of that drive, although I am perfectly in control (at least I don't wreck myself or anyone else), not angry or head injured, just focused on other thoughts. Jon is a trained fighter, so if his mind wanders, his body might still fight, just like mine still manages to drive. :dunno:

My point was that regardless of who Jon's father his, I think Lyanna is his mother, and that these impulses come from his Stark "wolf blood". Lyanna is noted to have some wolf blood in her, at least according to Ned. The "wake the dragon" talk that you mention from Viserys seems to waken his anger, his meanness, his cruelty, and I really see none of those things in Jon Snow. As a matter of fact, after he realizes what happens with Iron Emmett, the first thing Jon does is apologize. We never hear about Viserys apologizing after his dragon wakes, and we don't really see it in Dany, either. She doesn't admit she is wrong often or with any type of ease or genuineness, which Jon immediately displays.

 

22 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

I agree this is an interesting thing that Jon says.  But at the same time he is thinking about twenty trebuchet's on turntables and a thousand extra men. Is he dreaming of them, too?  At some point, rumors are starting to reach Westeros about Dany's dragons and so perhaps Jon has heard rumors, although I admit we are not told that he has heard any such thing. My response was more to the idea of Jon thinking "he could almost see them" dragon comment, which is neither a vision (because he hasn't seen them) nor from a dream, as far as we know. I am more interested in Jon' Ice Dragon imagery than fire dragon. Bran also has some Ice Dragon imagery, which I think is odd.

 

22 hours ago, Azarial said:

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. 

The description of "sloughing" is what stands out to me in this dream. This connects to Dany's own dragon dreams, which is from fire, although she also thinks of boiling flesh. But we also hear of this in relation to rotting from time or water, as well as fire. I thought Aeron Greyjoy

Spoiler

had a dream about skin sloughing off bone from his Winds chapters

but I can't find that right now. The idea of the warm pools and Jon thinking of his father disapproving, which must be Ned in Jon's thoughts, is odd, because why would Ned disapprove of Jon getting busy with a lover, when Ned himself has proclaimed that he has a bastard son for all the north to see. However, I relate the warm pools, and what ever happens in them, as something tied to Winterfell, therefore to Jon's Starkness, but I can see how it's vague and open to interpretation.

 

22 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

Did i say that dream wasn't prophetic? In this story every dream could be prophetic. I am saying that not all dreams that are prophetic are tied to Targaryen blood. Bran has prophetic dreams and is not a Targaryen, as far as we know. Ned has dreams of the crypts, and so does Jon, and these are very well prophetic. As far as we know, Ned is not a Targaryen, and there is no confirmation of Targaryen blood for Jon. Jon's dreams do not necessarily tie to Targaryen blood any more than Bran or Ned's dreams do. Or the Ghost of High Heart's!

As to Ice Spiders, Jon grew up on stories that Old Nan told, and Other's riding ice spiders the size of hounds come up in her stories to Bran. It stands to reason that she has told all the Stark children the same stories, implanted the concept into their heads, and this includes Jon. He thinks of her stories a couple times, although it's Bran's POV that we hear about the ice spiders.

 

23 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

Dany's hair is burned away from her scalp. She even thinks of what happened in Daznek's Pit is what happened to her in Drogo's Pyre. She lost her hair but was elsewise unharmed by the fire. Yes, she does have burns on her hands, but if your hair burns off, you should have some damage to your scalp and face, just from the heat. But she reports none of that. Barristan even remembers her hair as on fire! Something went on there that Dany doesn't fully visualize because she was seeing if from a perspective that is different. She is looking out while they are looking in. As I mentioned up thread, Dany doesn't touch the molten spear head, she grabs the shaft, which is probably made of wood.

 

23 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

This all comes down to interpretation. Initially, Jon says that Robb found the direwolf pups. So, does that mean that Robb found them because he and Grey Wind connected first? I think it might. Those wolves were down a pretty steep embankment from the road, so steep that Ned won't let Bran ride down it, but makes the most of the party walk. So, the mother and pups was probably not easy to see, but somehow Robb found them.  I guess it's possible that he saw from the road, but then why doesn't anyone else see the pups until they are down next to them. I think Ghost connected last because he wanted to make sure he was claimed by Jon, and if all the pups were found/claimed at the same time, what is to stop the white pup being claimed for another Stark child. The pretty white pup for one of the of the girls, or even Robb or Bran might have wanted the albino. Jon needed Ghost, so Ghost's link turned on only when Jon could claim him, or that is how I have come to interpret how it worked with finding and claiming the pups. I have no doubt people will disagree with that interpretation.

 

23 hours ago, Azarial said:

I don't think we've seen either side do what Jon does.

We will just have to agree to disagree about that! :cheers:

 

23 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

Dany seems to recall pushing Viserys until his dragon woke, and that she is left with pinches and bruises. She thinks of his dragon waking multiple times. So, he did experience what he thought was "waking the dragon". Or at least Dany perceives Viserys has woken his dragon on multiple times, and she remembers in involving anger and rage and pain. Dany also thinks of her own self as a dragon waking, and threatens the Harpy's Son's with her own dragon waking. I don't think that is about strength for her or Viserys. It's about anger, rage, punishment!

It all comes down to how we interpret what is meant by "wake the dragon". You and I clearly interpret that phrase differently, and that's fine. This fan base is never going to agree entirely, and how boring this all would be if we did.

 

23 hours ago, Azarial said:

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.

Could his "berserker" strength or rage be enough to damage or destroy the wall, or something important about what holds the wall together?

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Outside, Jon looked up at the Wall shining in the sun, the melting ice creeping down its side in a hundred thin fingers. Jon's rage was such that he would have smashed it all in an instant, and the world be damned. AGOT-Jon VI

 

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16 hours ago, St Daga said:

It's possible that for all we know, Brandon tried to kill Littlefinger and failed, which is too bad for the Starks.

To bad for the realm as whole that Littlefinger lived, be it an accident or restraint as Cat believes.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

I am just saying that Brandon, Ned and Robb have displayed some impulse control with what we know of them in the story. That could also be what happens with Jon, especially in the situation with Ser Alliser.

I believe that the Starks do have some wolf like behavior, and that is what you describe as impulse control, but I think that is only part of what we see in Jon.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

The situation with Iron Emmett could be all related to the head injury. A knock on the head can make people act funny! It does seem like Jon showed much greater strength than Emmett but we don't know is how that fight played out while Jon was thinking of other things. We know that when Jon became aware, Emmett was on the ground and his shield was broken into bit's. How long ago did Emmett stop fighting? Did Jon gain most of this while still swinging when Emmett was not fighting back? Was Iron Emmett fighting Jon the whole time and still was beat down to the ground? :dunno: I sometimes drive home 15 miles from work and don't remember miles and miles of that drive, although I am perfectly in control (at least I don't wreck myself or anyone else), not angry or head injured, just focused on other thoughts. Jon is a trained fighter, so if his mind wanders, his body might still fight, just like mine still manages to drive. :dunno:

I agree we don't know how much damage was done when, but Emmett surrendered so this implies that Jon beat him, then didn't stop after the surrender. And Jon's thoughts on how tired he was prior hint at something more going on for me. Based on what little we know of Emmett, I think he would fight back until Jon stopped, or he was unable. But, he may have surrendered and taken a few blows before he realized Jon wasn't going to stop? If at the end of the fight, Jon still felt tired, but had just zoned out I'd agree. I zone out with the best of them! But, it's the anger paired with blacking out, paired with Emmetts state at the end when they were closely matched, but Jon felt beat prior and was going to call it. Him having the strength and energy to do that to Emmett, even if he wasn't fight back the whole time, just doesn't fit him zoning out from a bump on the head. I don't know, there is enough to make me question, but not enough to say for sure what happened.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

My point was that regardless of who Jon's father his, I think Lyanna is his mother, and that these impulses come from his Stark "wolf blood". Lyanna is noted to have some wolf blood in her, at least according to Ned. The "wake the dragon" talk that you mention from Viserys seems to waken his anger, his meanness, his cruelty, and I really see none of those things in Jon Snow. As a matter of fact, after he realizes what happens with Iron Emmett, the first thing Jon does is apologize. We never hear about Viserys apologizing after his dragon wakes, and we don't really see it in Dany, either. She doesn't admit she is wrong often or with any type of ease or genuineness, which Jon immediately displays.

I think wolf blood, is wild wolf like behavior. Protecting the pack, that is the impulse we see from Lyanna. Or fighting off another man for a woman, Brandon. Or challenging another alpha to a fight to find out who's the real alpha, Brandon. Jon's instinct to attack Alliser, does fit this. What doesn't is the increased strength, and the anger, anger that in Emmetts case remains even after the fight. By contrast we are shown how a wolf acts in this situation when Bran is in Summer and challenges the alpha wolf so he can feed. There is dominance, there is challenge, but when it's over he is calm. 

I see where the difference with the wake the dragon interpretation comes from, so I'll try and clarify why I think this is a factor. First, as I stated up thread, I think Visery's has heard the term and doesn't understand it correctly. I don't think meanness and cruelty are a part of it. I think he wants so badly to be special, to have something that makes him a dragon that he's twisted the meaning in his mind. Just think of what he's been through and his age when he lost everything. This would be a very natural thing for him to do, he doesn't have a dragon, so him being a dragon is all he has to cling to. Then Dany learned the term from him. Yes, she also had the dream about waking literal dragons, but she then had a dream where she interprets waking the dragon not as something scary, it's being strong and fierce. Two words that describe Jon's berserker mode pretty well. He gets extra strength and ferocity. There are no shortage of tales of legendary Targaryen warriors, and many of those are considered true dragons in world, so... why trust the delusions of a scared isolated boy who was all of eight the last time he had a parent to teach him their family lore, over all the other information we have? He could have been told that waking the dragon was a form of battle rage, and associated that with anger and vengeance, or punishment. It's not much of leap, given the reasons people fight or go to war.

Do we hear of anything just like Jon, nope, but what if we took the predatory/pack animal instinct of the Starks and combined it with the terms associated with waking the dragon in Dany's vision, increased strength and ferocity. Now we have reached something resembling what we see in Jon. The only thing not explained is the lack of awareness, but if that one piece was do to the knock on the head, possibly allowing these traits he suppresses for the most part to emerge unchecked then everything is explained.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

I agree this is an interesting thing that Jon says.  But at the same time he is thinking about twenty trebuchet's on turntables and a thousand extra men. Is he dreaming of them, too?  At some point, rumors are starting to reach Westeros about Dany's dragons and so perhaps Jon has heard rumors, although I admit we are not told that he has heard any such thing. My response was more to the idea of Jon thinking "he could almost see them" dragon comment, which is neither a vision (because he hasn't seen them) nor from a dream, as far as we know. I am more interested in Jon' Ice Dragon imagery than fire dragon. Bran also has some Ice Dragon imagery, which I think is odd.

He thinks almost, then describes them in detail implying that he actually does see them. Jon loves to deny things like this, just like the flash about Benjen that he can't explain, but feels guilty for and assumes it was him wishing it because of Tyrion, even though all his other thoughts contradict this. The way he thinks about the other things you mention is practical, and functional. He's making note of how neglected the defenses are, how he thinks they should be. Picturing a dragon, has no practical reason, so they aren't really comparable in my opinion. 

Well, if Dany only links to fire dragons, Bran only links to ice dragons, Jon linking a bit to both doesn't seem that odd to me. And we know in World lore about Targaryens being the only ones who can ride fire dragons, but we don't really know anything about ice dragons, so it may not be as odd as it seems.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

The description of "sloughing" is what stands out to me in this dream. This connects to Dany's own dragon dreams, which is from fire, although she also thinks of boiling flesh. But we also hear of this in relation to rotting from time or water, as well as fire. I thought Aeron Greyjoy

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had a dream about skin sloughing off bone from his Winds chapters

but I can't find that right now. The idea of the warm pools and Jon thinking of his father disapproving, which must be Ned in Jon's thoughts, is odd, because why would Ned disapprove of Jon getting busy with a lover, when Ned himself has proclaimed that he has a bastard son for all the north to see. However, I relate the warm pools, and what ever happens in them, as something tied to Winterfell, therefore to Jon's Starkness, but I can see how it's vague and open to interpretation.

Yeah, for me it's the common links that I find interesting. If these elements that overlap are more Targ, then the tree parts would be more Stark related. It's such a crazy dream, and like everything with him it seems to have elements of both, at least to me. 

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

Did i say that dream wasn't prophetic?

You said,

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"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."

A dream based on pure knowledge isn't prophetic, it's just a normal dream internalizing the information he has learned in real life. That is how I interpreted what you said anyway. Could just be a miscommunication. 

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

In this story every dream could be prophetic. I am saying that not all dreams that are prophetic are tied to Targaryen blood. Bran has prophetic dreams and is not a Targaryen, as far as we know. Ned has dreams of the crypts, and so does Jon, and these are very well prophetic. As far as we know, Ned is not a Targaryen, and there is no confirmation of Targaryen blood for Jon. Jon's dreams do not necessarily tie to Targaryen blood any more than Bran or Ned's dreams do. Or the Ghost of High Heart's!

On this we agree. I don't think either should be excluded, and as I said above, I find that there is imagery in his dreams that relate to both houses. But with Jon people tend to only acknowledge the Stark side. I think this is a mistake. The way imagery is presented in Bran and Jojens dreams, and how to interpret it seems different from how imagery is presented in Dany's dreams, or Mel's visions. So figuring out what each part relates to might help figure out what Jon's dreams really mean.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

As to Ice Spiders, Jon grew up on stories that Old Nan told, and Other's riding ice spiders the size of hounds come up in her stories to Bran. It stands to reason that she has told all the Stark children the same stories, implanted the concept into their heads, and this includes Jon. He thinks of her stories a couple times, although it's Bran's POV that we hear about the ice spiders.

Yes, that is my point. He grew up hearing stories of the Others riding literal giant ice spiders. What he saw, and related to spiders in this dream was nothing like the stories, thus wasn't from what you coined 'true knowledge.' This imagery was something new, that we've only seen in this dream.

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

Dany's hair is burned away from her scalp. She even thinks of what happened in Daznek's Pit is what happened to her in Drogo's Pyre. She lost her hair but was elsewise unharmed by the fire. Yes, she does have burns on her hands, but if your hair burns off, you should have some damage to your scalp and face, just from the heat. But she reports none of that. Barristan even remembers her hair as on fire! Something went on there that Dany doesn't fully visualize because she was seeing if from a perspective that is different. She is looking out while they are looking in. As I mentioned up thread, Dany doesn't touch the molten spear head, she grabs the shaft, which is probably made of wood.

Yes, but there are several issues with Dany's thoughts on the matter. Her view can't be trusted, as she says it's the same and we know it's not because her hands are burned. We have no idea if her scalp was also tender, or peeling, or anything. She has convinced herself of this, but we have proof that her beliefs on what happened aren't accurate. She never thinks of the damage or pain in hands other than to note their improvement, but if they are blistered and weeping they were badly burned. And if her hair burned off as she flew, as per Barristan's observations, her face would be fine, as the wind would blow the fire behind her. So the fire would mainly be at the back of her head, so she could look at her reflection and seem fine, but have there be damage to the back of her head that she doesn't acknowledge, like her hands. 

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

This all comes down to interpretation. Initially, Jon says that Robb found the direwolf pups. So, does that mean that Robb found them because he and Grey Wind connected first? I think it might. Those wolves were down a pretty steep embankment from the road, so steep that Ned won't let Bran ride down it, but makes the most of the party walk. So, the mother and pups was probably not easy to see, but somehow Robb found them.  I guess it's possible that he saw from the road, but then why doesn't anyone else see the pups until they are down next to them. I think Ghost connected last because he wanted to make sure he was claimed by Jon, and if all the pups were found/claimed at the same time, what is to stop the white pup being claimed for another Stark child. The pretty white pup for one of the of the girls, or even Robb or Bran might have wanted the albino. Jon needed Ghost, so Ghost's link turned on only when Jon could claim him, or that is how I have come to interpret how it worked with finding and claiming the pups. I have no doubt people will disagree with that interpretation.

Well, they raced to the bridge, and the wolf is said to be on the shore of the river the bridge spans, and Jon is on his horse still while next to Robb and is clearly visible, so the issue could have been space, not steepness. Bran can't see as he's on a pony and arrived behind everyone else. I think the mother was visible from the bridge, prior to Jon and Robb blocking the view. But, can see how it could be interpreted differently.

 

16 hours ago, St Daga said:

Could his "berserker" strength or rage be enough to damage or destroy the wall, or something important about what holds the wall together?

 

That quote of him picturing smashing it always makes me wonder. But, given the size of the wall, it seems unlikely he could damage the wall its self. I suspect that his death, and the magic used to resurrect him may be what damages the walls magical defenses, more so than him literally smashing it. Or if he goes berserk after being resurrected and kills a bunch of Nights Watch members, making it a figurative smashing of the wall, I could see that. A combination of the two perhaps?

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21 hours ago, St Daga said:

It's not, actually. I said Ned's recollection of a rose crown, specifically a crown. Only the thoughts in the black cells fit this for Ned. One of your references is from Theon, who is certainly not Ned, and the other is a garland. Now, a garland could be a crown, but it doesn't have to be. It can be  chain of flowers that is worn as a necklace like a lei or even draped across a person's shoulders like a shawl. I do understand that peoples interpretations of "garland" could vary, so this one will probably remain arguable forever.

Context again - these references do not exist in a vacuum but relate to each other. It's the same trick that GRRM uses e.g. in the HotU vision - a general term, like "blue flower", is later specified as a "blue rose". Here, we have an object made from blue roses, later specified as the QoLaB crown from HH, and this is further confirmed by Theon's dream. Really, why insert Lyanna with her rose crown into his dream if it means nothing?

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 Theon, an adult of 19 against a 14 year old Robb Stark.

Theon is slender, Robb is muscular, that might account for something.

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Perhaps it comes down to how we interpret "wake the dragon" because I interpret that not to be great strength, but a wild temper and hints of cruelty. That is what I see in Viserys when Dany thinks of him saying "wake the dragon". Meanness and cruelty towards her, and which is something that she also later shows in regards to MMD (even if she is probably justified in her feelings) and other's who cross her path in Slaver's Bay. Wake the dragon doesn't ever seem to indicate great strength or an adrenaline rush. 

There is certainly space for interpretation but the fact is we don't really get to see Viserys' "waking the dragon" moment, he mostly just threatens with it. It seems to be referring to moments when his already weak self-control snaps and he really takes it out on poor Dany. So, lack of control, sort of unleashing an inner beast, could manifest differently in different people.

Not that this point is particularly important, though. It merely shows that there is something in Jon that we don't see in Ned.

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But with the Stark's, we see some of this with Robb and Jon, we hear about some of this temper in regards to Brandon. So, regardless of Jon's father, I think Jon comes by this because of his Stark blood via Lyanna.

True, it might actually be "wolf blood". Which, however, brings back the original point: it is definitely not a trait inherited from Ned.

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Confirmation bias says that this must be Lyanna and Benjen that Bran sees in his vision, but we have no real confirmation of that.

How many Arya-looking, sword-wielding girls do we have in ASOIAF? Only Lyanna.

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Only that it's a girl who Bran mistakes for Arya, who is older than the boy she is fighting, and children that are worried about Old Nan's reaction. If Bran is so confused by who he see's that he thinks it's a long haired version of himself, then that would mean that IF it is Benjen, then Benjen has red-brown hair like the Tully's are noted to have, red-brown hair that Bran himself has, and nothing indicates that Benjen Stark has reddish-brown hair (although he might). Bran also mistakes Leaf, a Child of the Forest, for being Arya as well, so I don't know how much we want to trust him in these initial glimpses. After all, the Children of the Forest are clearly not human, with their small bodies, brown skin dappled with paler spots,  large golden eyes, and three-fingered hands with claw like nails. Although, if it is Benjen and Lyanna, then Lyanna's coloring would fit Arya's, and then the odd part is Benjen's coloring being more Tully like than Stark like. And no, I am not saying Benjen is a Tully, I am saying that would be a hint that there is some reddish hair in the Stark gene pool before Catelyn introduced her Tully genes, which could exlain why she and Ned produced so many red haired children. I actually think that these children fighting in Bran's vision are Rickard and Lyarra, but that's speculation on my part. 

The point with hair colour rules out Rickard, as well.

Either the hair colour is not really prominent (tree shade or something), or it may not be Benjen, or, the worst option, GRRM "kinda forgot". But if Bran thinks the girl to be Arya, there must be a profound similarity.

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Does a Targaryen prophecy talk about a red sword? I am asking in a serious manner. The Prince that was Promised seems to be directly linked to Targaryen's or perhaps Valyrian's. The prophecy of Azor Ahai talks about the "red sword of heros" but that doesn't necessarily mean that the PtwP and Azor Ahai are interchangeable, although the fandom does tend to tie them together. The PtwP prophecy does talk about a "bleeding star" and the red comet is referred to as a "red sword" but that is by Gendry and so that is how Arya thinks about it, but I don't think the Targaryen's ever call the comet a "red sword". We are told that Rhaegar felt like a red comet tied his son to being "the Prince that was Promised" but he also thinks this son is Aegon, whom he had with Elia Martell, if Dany's vision is correct. So, if you believe that Rhaegar is Jon's father, this leads to Jon, a son of Rhaegar, being the Prince that was Promised, but the PtwP is not directly tied to a red sword. Azor Ahai is, but there is no confirmation that Azor Ahai and the PtwP are the same thing. 

The fandom thinks AA and PTWP are the same because Melisandre and Maester Aemon seem to think so. Maester Aemon figures out immediately that Stannis' sword is most likely fake but he doesn't question the very relevance of the sword to the PTWP business. Also, when Rhaegar thinks that he is PTWP, he comes to the conclusion that he needs to be a warrior, which again ties to the image of a sword-wielding hero.

Besides, both PTWP and AA seem to be destined to fight the darkness, which further suggests that they are the same thing. Unless, there is more than just one party going to fight the darkness and each chooses its own candidate. Alternately, there is just one "chosen one" but the relevant parties are vying to take control of him/her, and that's why old gods send his a direwolf with their likeness and Red Ralloo sends dreams about a red sword.- Which gets us to the question who and why sends the visions, which is a whole new can of worms.

As for Rhaegar thinking that Aegon was PTWP: we know that Rhaegar had already been wrong in this respect once, so he could have been wrong again.

 

 

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If there is some other nod to a Targaryen wielding a "red sword", could you point it out to me. I think one could argue that a dragon could be considered a "red sword" although we don't currently have a red dragon in our story. We do have Targaryen's who have rode red dragons (I find them to be very interesting) and the red dragon seems very important to the Targaryen's, just based on the sigil that Aegon the Conqueror chose for his families sigil. In my head, it seems like Aegon should have chose a black dragon (for Balerion) on a field of red (representing fire and blood), but he didn't, and I find that curious. Perhaps the red dragon represents fire and blood and the black background could represent night or darkness?

A red dragon might indeed stand for a red sword, or perhaps, a red sword stands for a red dragon, as the sword from the prophecy may not be an actual sword (just like salt and smoke may not be the literal stuff)

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Ned knows he is going south for who knows how long, and that Jon is going north for who knows how long, and still he doesn't feel like he needs to talk to Jon about his mother before they part ways at Winterfell. We don't know if they talked at all, although it sounds like Ned wanted to talk to Jon in person about the plan for Jon to join the Night's Watch. We have no idea if this happened or what was said, but if a conversation did happen, it clearly didn't reveal Jon's mother to Jon, since it's a huge part of Jon's arc. When Ned goes south, he knows he might not return for years, or ever, and still that doesn't prompt these thoughts about Jon. But something in the black cells does. Now, perhaps it is the the dream/memories of Harrenhal, or perhaps it's that Varys brings up Jon to Ned right before Ned has this thought, perhaps it does have to do with Rhaegar, but why didn't Ned feel this way before he parted with Jon for what might have been the last time months and months before? If it does have to do with the promise he made to Lyanna, then this isn't a new thought for Ned. Ned has been thinking about Lyanna's promise since his very first POV, when he still had an opportunity to say something to Jon. If it was about Jon's mother, then Ned let that opportunity slide by. And I suppose Ned might have understood that Jon was troubled by not knowing who his mother was, but he still never told Jon, even the very last time they talked. I guess it could be argued that Ned thought he would see Jon again, but in life, nothing like that is certain, and they were traveling thousands of leagues away from each other. Still, no talk with Jon! I think the promise is about something else, although something in this discussion with Varys does prompt Ned into wanting to talk to Jon about something.

The one new thing when Ned was thrown into the Black Cells is his imminent death. That was not on the table when he parted with Jon: he was a man in his prime, the king's BF and Hand, as safe as he could be, while Jon was just an immature boy who couldn't have been trusted with a secret too dangerous to share. Even when things started to go south in the South, Ned still didn't fully grasp the gravity of the situation and the threat to himself. 

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I agree that Ned is compassionate and gentle (when he can be) but that doesn't include the fact that he tells Cersei to get her who family away from Robert's wroth, including Tywin, whom Ned doesn't like or trust at all, and her brothers, and I am certain that Ned's compassion and gentleness goes right out the window with Tywin, Jaime and Tyrion. It's not that he is willing to let them all walk away, it is that he is pretty darn understanding with Cersei over this pretty awful revelation of incest, the love she has for her brother and their children!

I don't think there is an ounce of compassion for Tywin, but here's another aspect coming into play: avoiding a new civil war, and slaughter. If Tywin stays behind, Robert will want to take his wrath on him, and Tywin will not go meekly. 

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From Dany's POV, Drogon, "with a hisssssss, he spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames". Even if she ducks, he directs flames at her.

He directs the flame at her but due to her evasive action, he misses. If he didn't miss, there would have been a whole arena of people seeing Dany hit by flames and not taking any damage, which would be a sight hard to miss. We have two PoVs, Quentyn's and Barristan's, that were present, yet neither reports such an extraordinary thing.

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Later,  on "Dragonstone" she thinks, "The fire burned away my hair, but elsewise it did not touch me. It had been the same in Daznak's Pit. That much she could recall, though much of what followed was a haze." This is in comparison to her walking into Drogo's pyre, where she was completely engulfed in flame. So, later she is thinking that fire had again burned away her hair but not any other flesh.

And that's where Dany is wrong. When she walked into the pyre, clothes burnt  right on her body and her bare feet were in contact with hot embers, yet she had no blisters. She does have blisters after the Daznak's Pit, so something was different.

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Dany does have some clothing remaining after her fight with Drogon, but not very much. Hardly more than rags, she thinks.

Yes, the tunic is damaged. It doesn't fall into pieces, though, she is still wearing in. Most importantly, she never mentions the tunic as burnt - meaning, fire never touched her back and shoulders.

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We also have eye witnesses who think she was on fire as she rode away. Was she, although she doesn't remember or interpret things in this way? Hair can be singed away from intense heat and nearness to flames, but I don't think that's exactly what happened. Even Barristan remembers her with her hair aflame, yet she has no burns on her face or scalp, at least that she reports.

Her hair definitely burned, her own account is confirmed here by Barristan's sighting.

Thing is.... burning hair itself does no damage until it comes into contact with skin. Years ago, this was hotly debated on the forums. Some people claimed that there is no way you wouldn't sustain burns when your hair burns to the scalp. Others claimed that a portion of their hair burned yet nothing happened to them. I don't have such an experience and am definitely not going to test my theory but I think there is a way Dany's hair might have burnt without touching her skin - if it was flowing behind her. Which, due to Drogon's flopping wings and speed of the flight, it would, so it wouldn't be touching her back and shoulders. The tricky part would be when the fire reached her scalp, but again: when you move a candle or a burning stick, the flame tails behind. Do it quickly, and it gets practically horizontal, with no flame on the front part of the stick. If you move it fast enough, you can even douse the fire, depending on how much flammable material there is. Hair burns quickly, so the fire runs of material and the flame is directed away from the scalp by the airstream... I think it is possible, though perhaps not entirely plausible, that the fire died out before actually coming into a sufficiently long contact with Dany's skin.

 

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Yes, the hand burns might have come from the spear, although the shaft would be wood, not iron, so I don't know how hot it would be, The iron tip of the spear is molten, so that is no doubt hot, but she doesn't touch the spear head, only the shaft. Still, it could very well be hot enough to burn her hands

Spearheads usually had a hollow "handle" (can't find the English term) into which the shaft was inserted, of various lengths (in Roman times, almost half a metre), so Dany could have touched the metal. However, even if she touched wood, it would still be too hot, given the temperature at which iron melts (over 1500 °C, which is way more than normal fire, and even with normal fire, wood can be too hot to touch when you want to rearrange it)

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her hands are healing, and weeping some kind of lubricating fluid that she thinks is helping her hands heal. That's a pretty neat trick!

I believe you are misinterpreting the meaning of that fluid - blisters oozing white or yellow fluid means they have become infected, and this corresponds to the fact that Dany is feeling slightly feverish as she is leaving Dragonstone. Which, in turn, points to her mind not being entirely clear.

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Sorry for the delay in posting. I don't check this board every day, or even once a week, depending on my work schedule. I understand we won't agree on many of these points, and that's fine, because how boring would discussion be if we didn't disagree about things now and then. I appreciate the time you took to respond. :cheers:

 

Never mind the delays, I wouldn't have the time for prolonged responses, anyway.

But, it seems we're getting bogged down in minutiae. So, what do you have pointing towards Ned-Lyanna incest, and what is Rhaegar's role in that all? Because we have a continuous infodump on Rhaegar (curious for a guy almost a decade dead if he has zero impact on the current story), and his relationship with Lyanna is referenced every now and then, throughout all five books, becoming more and more explicit until we get Barristan's "Rhaegar loved his lady Lyanna" (and GRRM's "lovestruck prince" in my sig). Is there anything you can claim to be a hint at something improper going on between Ned and Lyanna outside GoT?

 

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19 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

 

Spearheads usually had a hollow "handle" (can't find the English term) into which the shaft was inserted, of various lengths (in Roman times, almost half a metre), s

 

socket

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On 6/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, Azarial said:

I see where the difference with the wake the dragon interpretation comes from, so I'll try and clarify why I think this is a factor. First, as I stated up thread, I think Visery's has heard the term and doesn't understand it correctly. I don't think meanness and cruelty are a part of it. I think he wants so badly to be special, to have something that makes him a dragon that he's twisted the meaning in his mind. Just think of what he's been through and his age when he lost everything. This would be a very natural thing for him to do, he doesn't have a dragon, so him being a dragon is all he has to cling to. Then Dany learned the term from him. Yes, she also had the dream about waking literal dragons, but she then had a dream where she interprets waking the dragon not as something scary, it's being strong and fierce. Two words that describe Jon's berserker mode pretty well. He gets extra strength and ferocity. There are no shortage of tales of legendary Targaryen warriors, and many of those are considered true dragons in world, so... why trust the delusions of a scared isolated boy who was all of eight the last time he had a parent to teach him their family lore, over all the other information we have? He could have been told that waking the dragon was a form of battle rage, and associated that with anger and vengeance, or punishment. It's not much of leap, given the reasons people fight or go to war.

Do we hear of anything just like Jon, nope, but what if we took the predatory/pack animal instinct of the Starks and combined it with the terms associated with waking the dragon in Dany's vision, increased strength and ferocity. Now we have reached something resembling what we see in Jon. The only thing not explained is the lack of awareness, but if that one piece was do to the knock on the head, possibly allowing these traits he suppresses for the most part to emerge unchecked then everything is explained.

I guess I see what you are saying as far as both Viserys and Daenerys using the "wake the dragon" to mean something that it doesn't really mean. But gosh, Dany should look at herself, who actually managed to hatch 3 dragons from stone and understand that perhaps Viserys meaning was incorrect. But she never seems to think of it that way. Actually the bouts of rage and temper sound a bit like what Aegon did when he decided to roast Harrenhal, or what he and Visenya did to Dorne after Rhaenys' death. but perhaps that isn't truly "waking the dragon" either. If it's not temper and vengeance, and it's not waking actual dragon's from stone, what exactly is it? I am not sure that I think it's massive feats of strength or quickness, although it certainly could be.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, Azarial said:

You said,

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"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."

A dream based on pure knowledge isn't prophetic, it's just a normal dream internalizing the information he has learned in real life. That is how I interpreted what you said anyway. Could just be a miscommunication. 

I certainly didn't intend for it to seem unprophetic (is that a word?) but Jon's dream is also flavored with history, or people that he knows from history (I don't have the time to relook at the dream passage before posting). Several of these people which are already dead, and that Jon feels some guilt about I think. He feels guilt for Ygritte's death certainly, and I think some part of Jon might wonder if he had deserted and rode south to Robb, perhaps he could have changed events in a way that would have saved Robb's life.  That is speculation on my part, of course! Jon also kills Donal Noye in that dream, when clearly Jon didn't kill the armorer. Several elements of this dream actually remind me of Ned's toj/ever dream, which mixes symbolism (not all of which we understand) and the past. That is how Jon's Longclaw burning in his hand (never described as red although it's often interpreted as red) and people who have died. It's a bit like Dawn "alive with light" in Ned's dreams, surrounded by many people who have died. Granted, most of this will come down to interpretation and we know that this varies widely within the fandom.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, Azarial said:

On this we agree. I don't think either should be excluded, and as I said above, I find that there is imagery in his dreams that relate to both houses. But with Jon people tend to only acknowledge the Stark side. I think this is a mistake. The way imagery is presented in Bran and Jojens dreams, and how to interpret it seems different from how imagery is presented in Dany's dreams, or Mel's visions. So figuring out what each part relates to might help figure out what Jon's dreams really mean.

Sure, both houses matter, but currently in the story, Jon only has confirmation of House Stark. As much as people consider RLJ to be "confirmed" it is not, so any speculation that leads to other houses for Jon, such as Targaryen or Dayne or even Baratheon, are still speculation, even if you have some text to back up your ideas. Personally, I see more Dayne imagery for Jon than I do Targareyen, but again, that comes down to interpretation, and nothing is confirmed. So, I guess I try to look at Jon for what we know, and not what we think we know, Although it would be a lie if I haven't speculated on all sorts of parentage possibilities for Jonno! But what we know is House Stark! So that is how I try look at his dreams and actions.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, Azarial said:

Yes, that is my point. He grew up hearing stories of the Others riding literal giant ice spiders. What he saw, and related to spiders in this dream was nothing like the stories, thus wasn't from what you coined 'true knowledge.' This imagery was something new, that we've only seen in this dream.

Regardless of whether people actually rode ice spiders in Jon's dream, Jon himself has climbed the wall and watched people climb the wall, scuttling might be how he describes that. People climbed the wall when he did, and he watched them go up, and later climbed by ladder, the same way he did, and they climbed the wall when they attacked Castle Black from the north. This could also be memory for Jon. Jon has also been burned with a 'red hot blade" when his leg wounds need to be cauterized. Fire arrows were also employed by the Night's Watch when defending Castle Black from the wildling attack. I just think more could come from Jon's jumbled memories than it initially appears.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 10:13 AM, Azarial said:

Yes, but there are several issues with Dany's thoughts on the matter. Her view can't be trusted, as she says it's the same and we know it's not because her hands are burned. We have no idea if her scalp was also tender, or peeling, or anything. She has convinced herself of this, but we have proof that her beliefs on what happened aren't accurate. She never thinks of the damage or pain in hands other than to note their improvement, but if they are blistered and weeping they were badly burned. And if her hair burned off as she flew, as per Barristan's observations, her face would be fine, as the wind would blow the fire behind her. So the fire would mainly be at the back of her head, so she could look at her reflection and seem fine, but have there be damage to the back of her head that she doesn't acknowledge, like her hands. 

We disagree on how Dany should be burned and really isn't, which is fine, of course. But when Dany thinks she ducks under the flame, she is stills standing on the ground. If her hair is on fire at this time, there is no breeze from flying on dragon back to push her hair behind her. Even after she get's on Drogon, she still takes the time to pull the spear out and to get him into the air. If her hair is on fire, there should be damage to her scalp and her shoulders and back, but we are never told there is. However, the burns on her hands are interesting, and now I am looking at the iron content of the spear head. Iron is a somewhat flammable metal based on oxidization, although one imagines that spearhead wasn't to rusty. Still, if she grabbed the molten iron, this might be why she was burned. Not the fire, but the iron.  I am glad this was brought to my attention, because no I am relooking at the iron and fire references in the story. I am short of time so I am not rereading that Dany/Drogon/pit scene at this time, so I am perhaps remembering the events out of order.

 

i wish I had a bit more time to discuss with you, but not right now. Hopefully in a few more days, I can look over your post again. Thanks for the polite discussion. I always appreciate that! 

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On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:

Thing is.... burning hair itself does no damage until it comes into contact with skin.

Intense heat can do damage to skin, regardless of contact with flames. Sorry I missed the debate from years ago. Did it include how hot dragon flame could burn? I am curious about this. It seems like large dragons have hotter flames than smaller dragons, but that might not perhaps be the complete truth. I do wonder about the flames color, just like in real life, certain colored flames will be hotter than other flames. Dragon's flame is black, much like Balerion's, which melted Harrenhal's stone. So, perhaps black flame is hotter than red flame or orange flame? :dunno:

 

On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:

a general term, like "blue flower", is later specified as a "blue rose"

I have always wondered if "blue flower" as reported from Dany is misinterpreted by Jorah as "blue rose". Why Dany would not correct him, I don't know, but I think it's possible that she actually saw flower that wasn't a rose! Yes, interpretation, I know. And why is that "blue flower" growing from a chink in the wall? So many possible interpretations!

 

On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:

True, it might actually be "wolf blood". Which, however, brings back the original point: it is definitely not a trait inherited from Ned.

Ah, see I think Ned does have a bit of the "wolf blood", I just think that his time in the Eyrie taught him how to control it a bit more than we see in Brandon and Lyanna. Speculation, I suppose, but Ned does have flairs of anger, rage and questionable actions, like placing a knife to Littlefinger's chin. Littlefinger isn't just a brothel owner and minor lord, he is the Master of Coin, a representation if the King's power. This Ned and "wolf blood" is just another thing we disagree on, which is certainly fine.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:

A red dragon might indeed stand for a red sword, or perhaps, a red sword stands for a red dragon, as the sword from the prophecy may not be an actual sword (just like salt and smoke may not be the literal stuff)

Yes, I think this is certainly possible, especially considering how GRRM likes to play with symbolism in the story.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:
Quote

Only that it's a girl who Bran mistakes for Arya, who is older than the boy she is fighting, and children that are worried about Old Nan's reaction. If Bran is so confused by who he see's that he thinks it's a long haired version of himself, then that would mean that IF it is Benjen, then Benjen has red-brown hair like the Tully's are noted to have, red-brown hair that Bran himself has, and nothing indicates that Benjen Stark has reddish-brown hair (although he might). Bran also mistakes Leaf, a Child of the Forest, for being Arya as well, so I don't know how much we want to trust him in these initial glimpses. After all, the Children of the Forest are clearly not human, with their small bodies, brown skin dappled with paler spots,  large golden eyes, and three-fingered hands with claw like nails. Although, if it is Benjen and Lyanna, then Lyanna's coloring would fit Arya's, and then the odd part is Benjen's coloring being more Tully like than Stark like. And no, I am not saying Benjen is a Tully, I am saying that would be a hint that there is some reddish hair in the Stark gene pool before Catelyn introduced her Tully genes, which could exlain why she and Ned produced so many red haired children. I actually think that these children fighting in Bran's vision are Rickard and Lyarra, but that's speculation on my part. 

The point with hair colour rules out Rickard, as well.

Either the hair colour is not really prominent (tree shade or something), or it may not be Benjen, or, the worst option, GRRM "kinda forgot". But if Bran thinks the girl to be Arya, there must be a profound similarity.

No it doesn't. We are never told in the text that Rickard Stark had brown hair and I don't think we are told his eye color, either. Just that he has a long face, which seems to be tied to certain Stark's. And I doubt that GRRM "kinda forgot"  that Bran's hair is the red-brown of the Tully's and not the brown of the Stark's. I hope not, anyway, or that makes him as poor a historian of his own canon as d&d, and I hate to consider that! Renly's eye color thing is sloppy enough, but with Bran, a major character? That would be really sloppy.

 

On 6/12/2019 at 11:49 AM, Ygrain said:

Never mind the delays, I wouldn't have the time for prolonged responses, anyway.

But, it seems we're getting bogged down in minutiae. So, what do you have pointing towards Ned-Lyanna incest, and what is Rhaegar's role in that all? Because we have a continuous infodump on Rhaegar (curious for a guy almost a decade dead if he has zero impact on the current story), and his relationship with Lyanna is referenced every now and then, throughout all five books, becoming more and more explicit until we get Barristan's "Rhaegar loved his lady Lyanna" (and GRRM's "lovestruck prince" in my sig). Is there anything you can claim to be a hint at something improper going on between Ned and Lyanna outside GoT?

A continuous info dump? That seems a bit much, but I certainly don't read hints about Rhaegar in every chapter of this story. We don't get a continuous info dump on Lyanna, either.

I see all sorts of possibilities for Jon's father (if Lyanna is the mother, which it seems like she is). I actually see so many possible options it spins my head at times. For Starkcest theories, I think Ned is the most likely, although depending on the timeline, Brandon and Rickard are possible, too, and there is something tempting about a past generation parallel to Craster and his daughters. Still, I do think Ned is most likely, but I don't really like the concept. I don't enjoy it, I see the potential for it.  I don't want to bog this thread down with  hints. You are not going to buy them anyway, and this thread is not about Starkcest. It's about RLJ (and proving it or disproving it, I guess). Still, just a few are Ned's love of his sister, which is compared to Robert's love for her, which seems to be an entirely adult like love, a physical love, a passionate love, at least on Robert's part. There is Ned's sorrow and shame when he thinks of Jon, there is the connection of Ned thinking about "lust" when he thinks of Jon's Snow's face while riding in a rain that is warm as blood and as relentless as old guilt. There is the fact that Ned felt like he needed to keep the secret from anyone, even the wife he trusted with Winterfell. There is the almost calm and understanding way that Ned deals with Cersei's admission of sibling incest, and I do think the parallel of Lannister sibling incest could be neatly shadowed  within the Stark's. There is certainly more that I see, but it's not going to matter, so I will leave it at that. My intention has never been to change anyone's mind, just for me to explore possibilities in discussion, which is one of the reasons I do appreciate fan boards like this. Many different ideas and interpretations, even though most people have their minds made up about things and are not going to change them.

Honestly, if there is a R+L child, it seems to me that child would be Daenerys (although I don't love this concept, either). So much of what we know about Rhaegar comes from her story line and she has some unusual imagery for a dragon child, such as wolves howling, giant wolves and wolf headed people appearing in visions/dreams, there are grey or white (silver) horses, manes of blue flame, she speaks with ice and coldness in her voice. Her vision of kings and swords lined up seem rather like the Stark crypts to me! 

I will say I see potential for Rhaegar to be Jon's father, but I don't see the hints as deeply as many people do. On my very first read, it stood out to me, but when I looked back into it (and with every reread since that time), I was shocked at how much seemed to fall away when you took away the implication aspect. And those hints seem just as full of implication and interpretation as any other theory. I think Arthur Dayne is more likely than Rhaegar, and makes sense of Jon's star and sword imagery. I think Mance is possible, but less likely than Rhaegar. I think there are some interesting hints that point to Robert Baratheon. I even wonder about Qhorin, if he is truly who he claims to be! 

But mostly, I like the idea of Jon being the bastard of someone who is a nobody, (which is probably not going to happen), which might be the case if Ned is the father. Of course, since GRRM seems to have confirmed in all but words on his blog that Lyanna is Jon's mother, this option of a nobody for at least one parent isn't very likely. And that is too bad, because I like the concept of a person of relative low birth (even if one parent comes from a great family) who is rising above the crutch of a bastard birth to become a great leader and a strong warrior. I think RLJ and the hidden prince concept negates that, and I question GRRM's intentions. I hope we get more books someday that will hopefully explain many of his thoughts and intentions.

 

I would love to discuss your other points, but I have limited time, and I didn't want to leave the main question you posed to me unanswered, and I am not sure when I will have time to get back on the board. 

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19 hours ago, St Daga said:

Intense heat can do damage to skin, regardless of contact with flames. Sorry I missed the debate from years ago. Did it include how hot dragon flame could burn? I am curious about this. It seems like large dragons have hotter flames than smaller dragons, but that might not perhaps be the complete truth. I do wonder about the flames color, just like in real life, certain colored flames will be hotter than other flames. Dragon's flame is black, much like Balerion's, which melted Harrenhal's stone. So, perhaps black flame is hotter than red flame or orange flame? :dunno:

An interesting idea, I don't recall anyone suggesting that. However, we didn't really discuss the dragon fire as such as a burning hair would burn at its own temperature, regardless of the igniting temperature (plus, it cannot be ruled out that Dany's hair caught fire from one of the arrow shafts that ignited due to Drogon's heat).

 

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

I have always wondered if "blue flower" as reported from Dany is misinterpreted by Jorah as "blue rose". Why Dany would not correct him, I don't know, but I think it's possible that she actually saw flower that wasn't a rose! Yes, interpretation, I know. And why is that "blue flower" growing from a chink in the wall? So many possible interpretations!

It cannot be Jorah's misinterpretation because all he knows about the visions came from Dany. Hence, if he says rose, Dany must have said it was a rose. In fact, she has a way more precise idea about the content of the vision because she must have identified the name Rhaegar whispered (or else she wouldn't know it's a female name), and she knows if the stone beast was a dragon or griffon or a winged wolf or whatever. It's just us poor readers that are intentionally kept in the dark, by intentionally vague wording, because we would figure out too soon.

As for why growing from a chink in the wall: plants thriving at such places are usually a symbol of tenacity and perseverance (I hope this is a correct word choice). Life is not supposed to exist in such a place, yet the blue rose not only grows but even spreads sweetness.

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

A continuous info dump? That seems a bit much, but I certainly don't read hints about Rhaegar in every chapter of this story. We don't get a continuous info dump on Lyanna, either.

We're getting way more on Rhaegar than on Lyanna, in multiple PoVs (understandably, as we don't have a single PoV who really knew Lyanna, though Barristan might yet yield some details about HH). But if you actually do a word search for Rhaegar, he does pop up pretty often.

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

I see all sorts of possibilities for Jon's father (if Lyanna is the mother, which it seems like she is). I actually see so many possible options it spins my head at times. For Starkcest theories, I think Ned is the most likely, although depending on the timeline, Brandon and Rickard are possible, too, and there is something tempting about a past generation parallel to Craster and his daughters. Still, I do think Ned is most likely, but I don't really like the concept. I don't enjoy it, I see the potential for it.  I don't want to bog this thread down with  hints. You are not going to buy them anyway, and this thread is not about Starkcest. It's about RLJ (and proving it or disproving it, I guess). Still, just a few are Ned's love of his sister, which is compared to Robert's love for her, which seems to be an entirely adult like love, a physical love, a passionate love, at least on Robert's part. There is Ned's sorrow and shame when he thinks of Jon, there is the connection of Ned thinking about "lust" when he thinks of Jon's Snow's face while riding in a rain that is warm as blood and as relentless as old guilt. There is the fact that Ned felt like he needed to keep the secret from anyone, even the wife he trusted with Winterfell. There is the almost calm and understanding way that Ned deals with Cersei's admission of sibling incest, and I do think the parallel of Lannister sibling incest could be neatly shadowed  within the Stark's. There is certainly more that I see, but it's not going to matter, so I will leave it at that. My intention has never been to change anyone's mind, just for me to explore possibilities in discussion, which is one of the reasons I do appreciate fan boards like this. Many different ideas and interpretations, even though most people have their minds made up about things and are not going to change them.

You're right, I wouldn't buy into those, mostly because it seems to me that they are taken out of context (e.g. the comparison between Ned and Robert's love for Lyanna is not based on the type of feeling but its intensity). Some are not even incest-specific - thoughts of lust and old guilts would work just fine for a normal extramarital affair. Plus, since Ned asks about Robert's bastards in the next sentence, it is entirely possible that the lust does not pertain to himself, which would be in line with his thought in his very first PoV when he contrasts himself with Robert as a man not indulging in carnal affairs. 

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

Honestly, if there is a R+L child, it seems to me that child would be Daenerys (although I don't love this concept, either). So much of what we know about Rhaegar comes from her story line and she has some unusual imagery for a dragon child, such as wolves howling, giant wolves and wolf headed people appearing in visions/dreams, there are grey or white (silver) horses, manes of blue flame, she speaks with ice and coldness in her voice. Her vision of kings and swords lined up seem rather like the Stark crypts to me! 

I entirely hate the concept (and I think it's built of thin air), so let's not go there.

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

I will say I see potential for Rhaegar to be Jon's father, but I don't see the hints as deeply as many people do. On my very first read, it stood out to me, but when I looked back into it (and with every reread since that time), I was shocked at how much seemed to fall away when you took away the implication aspect. And those hints seem just as full of implication and interpretation as any other theory. I think Arthur Dayne is more likely than Rhaegar, and makes sense of Jon's star and sword imagery. I think Mance is possible, but less likely than Rhaegar. I think there are some interesting hints that point to Robert Baratheon. I even wonder about Qhorin, if he is truly who he claims to be! 

Imagery is a nice thing but it should never override the dots in the form of actual pieces of information about what happened, when and where, an characters' behaviour and motivation. Arthur Dayne is the only other option that fits time- and place-wise, but it would require Ned not knowing and thinking it was Rhaegar instead, or else he wouldn't be thinking about Lyanna in connection with Rhaegar's roses.

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

But mostly, I like the idea of Jon being the bastard of someone who is a nobody, (which is probably not going to happen), which might be the case if Ned is the father. Of course, since GRRM seems to have confirmed in all but words on his blog that Lyanna is Jon's mother, this option of a nobody for at least one parent isn't very likely.

Personally, I would prefer Jon to be just that, Ned's son on some woman he briefly fell for. However, it makes no sense for Ned not to tell Jon (or Cat) if that were the case, and he only thinks about two women, Cat and Lyanna, so there is not really a love affair to tie him to.

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

And that is too bad, because I like the concept of a person of relative low birth (even if one parent comes from a great family) who is rising above the crutch of a bastard birth to become a great leader and a strong warrior. I think RLJ and the hidden prince concept negates that, and I question GRRM's intentions. I hope we get more books someday that will hopefully explain many of his thoughts and intentions.

We have a saying "don't pull off your pants when the ford is still far away". Being a hidden prince doesn't mean that Jon will sit the IT, marry the lady of his heart and live happily ever after. His heritage may never become general knowledge, or he might be forced to take the throne for the good of the realm and hate every second of this life, he might sacrifice himself for the realm, he might end up a disgraced usurper... There are a lot of ways how to deconstruct the trope. One has definitely been foreshadowed - "Ned Stark will always be my father, no matter how many swords they give me." Hidden princes are usually overjoyed at being someone so awesome and important, but I am quite sure that Jon will not be happy with the way his dreams about a higborn mother and not being a bastard came true.

 

20 hours ago, St Daga said:

I would love to discuss your other points, but I have limited time, and I didn't want to leave the main question you posed to me unanswered, and I am not sure when I will have time to get back on the board. 

Nvm, take your time. 

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23 hours ago, St Daga said:

Intense heat can do damage to skin, regardless of contact with flames. Sorry I missed the debate from years ago. Did it include how hot dragon flame could burn? I am curious about this. It seems like large dragons have hotter flames than smaller dragons, but that might not perhaps be the complete truth. I do wonder about the flames color, just like in real life, certain colored flames will be hotter than other flames. Dragon's flame is black, much like Balerion's, which melted Harrenhal's stone. So, perhaps black flame is hotter than red flame or orange flame? :dunno:

 

3 hours ago, Ygrain said:

An interesting idea, I don't recall anyone suggesting that. However, we didn't really discuss the dragon fire as such as a burning hair would burn at its own temperature, regardless of the igniting temperature (plus, it cannot be ruled out that Dany's hair caught fire from one of the arrow shafts that ignited due to Drogon's heat).

 

The color of the dragon flame has little to nothing to do with how hot a dragon's flame is, as far as the text suggests. The heat of the dragon's flame is connected to the dragon's age. 

As a dragon ages, its scales thicken and grow harder, affording even more protection, even as its flames burn hotter and fiercer (where the flames of a hatchling can set straw aflame, the flames of Balerion or Vhagar in the fullness of their power could and did melt steel and stone)

The color of the dragon's flame, however, appears connected to the coloring of the dragon:

  • Drogon, who has black scales, and blood red horns, spinal plates and eyes, has a black flame shot with red 
  • Viserion, whose scales are cream-colored, and whose horns, wing bones, spinal crest and eyes are gold, breathes flames the color of pale gold shot through with red and orange.
  • Rhaegal, with his green scales, jade-green wings, and bronze eyes, has his flames described as being yellow (ADWD chapter 12), yellow and red (ADWD Chapter 50) and orange-and-yellow fire shot through with veins of green (ADWD Chapter 68).
  • Balerion, entirely black, had a black flame with swirls of red
  • Tesarion, with dark cobalt wings and scales of bright beaten copper breathes cobalt blue flames
  • Sunfyre, with golden scales and pale pink membranes, had golden flames.
  • And although the color of the body is, IIRC, not confirmed, if Quicksilver is indeed, as the name suggests, silver of color, her coloring matches her flames as well, as her flames were "pale white fireballs"

 

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On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:
Quote

I have always wondered if "blue flower" as reported from Dany is misinterpreted by Jorah as "blue rose". Why Dany would not correct him, I don't know, but I think it's possible that she actually saw flower that wasn't a rose! Yes, interpretation, I know. And why is that "blue flower" growing from a chink in the wall? So many possible interpretations!

It cannot be Jorah's misinterpretation because all he knows about the visions came from Dany. Hence, if he says rose, Dany must have said it was a rose. In fact, she has a way more precise idea about the content of the vision because she must have identified the name Rhaegar whispered (or else she wouldn't know it's a female name), and she knows if the stone beast was a dragon or griffon or a winged wolf or whatever. It's just us poor readers that are intentionally kept in the dark, by intentionally vague wording, because we would figure out too soon.

As for why growing from a chink in the wall: plants thriving at such places are usually a symbol of tenacity and perseverance (I hope this is a correct word choice). Life is not supposed to exist in such a place, yet the blue rose not only grows but even spreads sweetness.

"A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"-Jorah Mormont

Blue rose versus blue flower. Dany never in her thoughts calls that flower she seen a rose, although I did say I do think it's odd that she didn't correct Jorah's words. So perhaps she did tell him more than what she told us when she actually had the vision. I am not sold, however. The other things that Jorah says seem to connect to a dead man on a prow while Dany's vision reported a corpse. Now, a corpse and a dead man might be the same thing, but this is again not what Dany tells us. Jorah has shifted the details, even if it's in a small, subtle way.

And Jorah talks of a banquet of blood. Now, in Dany's vision she does mention blood, but never calls it a banquet. It's a feast and the slaughted are called feasters. It might seem unimportant, but I think the subtle shift in what Dany see's and what Jorah interprets and then repeats back to her are important. Also, one would think that the idea of a king with a wolf's head would stand out to Jorah based on his animosity toward Ned Stark, and perhaps all of the Stark's, but he doesn't even mention the wolf concept. Again, I find this odd, so either Dany didn't mention this detail or Jorah thinks it's not worth even mentioning. 

And then there is the whole idea of the "mummer dragon" which Jorah has to ask what that even means, and then Dany gives her idea. It's either that she seen a cloth dragon on a pole, or something reminded her of seeing a cloth dragon on a pole at a mummer show. 

Vision repetition and interpretation is like looking through broken glass. It seems distorted, and perhaps in a very important way.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:

We're getting way more on Rhaegar than on Lyanna, in multiple PoVs (understandably, as we don't have a single PoV who really knew Lyanna, though Barristan might yet yield some details about HH). But if you actually do a word search for Rhaegar, he does pop up pretty often.

Agreed. Way more on Rhaegar than on Lyanna. But in comparison to Dany and Jon, Jon only get's one Rhaegar mention in his storyline, and that is in regards to Donal Noye making the hammer that Robert killed Rhaegar with. Dany get's 44 mentions of Rhaegar in her storyline. A significant difference.  I think it seems odd that so many people tie Jon to Rhaegar, but there is very little in Jon's story line to make that connection.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:

You're right, I wouldn't buy into those, mostly because it seems to me that they are taken out of context (e.g. the comparison between Ned and Robert's love for Lyanna is not based on the type of feeling but its intensity). Some are not even incest-specific - thoughts of lust and old guilts would work just fine for a normal extramarital affair. Plus, since Ned asks about Robert's bastards in the next sentence, it is entirely possible that the lust does not pertain to himself, which would be in line with his thought in his very first PoV when he contrasts himself with Robert as a man not indulging in carnal affairs. 

Ned never thinks of himself as someone who doesn't indulge in carnal affairs. Carnal affairs is interpretation. What the text says is "pleasures" and "huge appetites". A man who knew how to take his pleasures, a charge that no one could lay at the door of Eddard Stark. But before this, Robert is not only talking about women, but he is talking about food and and wine, which seems to be a trifecta of vices for Robert. But we see Ned eat and drink wine, although not to access. Perhaps Ned takes carnal pleasure as well, just not to excess? And I am not talking about that dutiful seed sowing with Cat, where he climbs out of bed and opens a window as soon as he can! It could mean that Ned could do all of these things, but never felt comfortable with it, in regards to "a man who knew how to take his pleasure".

Here is Ned's odd "knew" reference again. Just like he talks of children he "knew" and them names his children born of his marriage of Cat. Except he "know's" Jon Snow! So perhaps he "know's" some lust and pleasure, too!

 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:

Imagery is a nice thing but it should never override the dots in the form of actual pieces of information about what happened, when and where, an characters' behaviour and motivation. Arthur Dayne is the only other option that fits time- and place-wise, but it would require Ned not knowing and thinking it was Rhaegar instead, or else he wouldn't be thinking about Lyanna in connection with Rhaegar's roses.

I guess I just have a hard time buying the idea that Rhaegar took Lyanna and had her to himself for an undisclosed amount of time, from when he "kidnapped" her to when some one apparently found her dying in the toj. I am not even sold that Lyanna was at the toj, despite the rose petal imagery. I think Ned's fever dream is a conflation of several things that have happened in his past, and several locations. And if Ashara Dayne is able to roam around during the rebellion, (not tied to the floor in Dorne) then why can't Lyanna have a little leeway. Honestly, we know very little of Lyanna's actual whereabouts. We do have confirmation she was at Harrenhal. And then Ned seems to give us confirmation that her bones are laid to rest in the crypts. I think that's it. The rest is stories and implied whereabouts. Harrenhal seems legit because have several people reporting she was there, so that words for confirmation for me. The rest, I doubt!

 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:

Personally, I would prefer Jon to be just that, Ned's son on some woman he briefly fell for. However, it makes no sense for Ned not to tell Jon (or Cat) if that were the case, and he only thinks about two women, Cat and Lyanna, so there is not really a love affair to tie him to.

Well ... unless your love affair was with your sister? That would not be something he probably would want to tell Cat about! Also, even if that is not the case, I am not sure that Catelyn is that trustworthy. She makes a lot of poor choices, and even if RLJ turns out to be true, then Ned was probably very smart not to tell her. She would have easily thrown Jon under the bus to save her own children, or just get him away from Winterfell. 

As to Ned's thoughts on some important details, his mind seems a bit like Swiss cheese. His narrative could fill in very important details for us, but GRRM has written him to purposefully be vague. Hence the Swiss cheese sized holes in the details of Ned's past.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, Ygrain said:

We have a saying "don't pull off your pants when the ford is still far away". Being a hidden prince doesn't mean that Jon will sit the IT, marry the lady of his heart and live happily ever after. His heritage may never become general knowledge, or he might be forced to take the throne for the good of the realm and hate every second of this life, he might sacrifice himself for the realm, he might end up a disgraced usurper... There are a lot of ways how to deconstruct the trope. One has definitely been foreshadowed - "Ned Stark will always be my father, no matter how many swords they give me." Hidden princes are usually overjoyed at being someone so awesome and important, but I am quite sure that Jon will not be happy with the way his dreams about a higborn mother and not being a bastard came true.

Sure. There are many ways to pull down the "hidden prince" trope. And I do see that one needs to build the trope to pull it down, but I am just not sold that this "trope" is in Jon's story line. I did, years ago, but the more I reread and think, the more I have come to realize it's all built on a very shaky house of implication. No offense, but even the blue rose path you mention that ties Rhaegar to Lyanna to Jon is heavy on implied thought. Just like I am sure you think my Ned, Lyanna, Jon theory has only implication and little concrete evidence in the text to support it. So many similarities between Ned and Jon, though. It's like getting hit over the head with a hammer. So obvious it's hard not to see it., even down to leg wounds and quiet wolf imagery, although it might turn out to be nothing more than a distraction.

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On 6/15/2019 at 1:07 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

The color of the dragon flame has little to nothing to do with how hot a dragon's flame is, as far as the text suggests. The heat of the dragon's flame is connected to the dragon's age. 

As a dragon ages, its scales thicken and grow harder, affording even more protection, even as its flames burn hotter and fiercer (where the flames of a hatchling can set straw aflame, the flames of Balerion or Vhagar in the fullness of their power could and did melt steel and stone)

I am just trying to think with some real world science in regards to the text. In our world, white flames burn the hottest, blue flames are hotter than red oragne or yellow. Although there no actual black flame in our world (there might be but we can't see it because of light reflection). GRRM is writing fantasy, but he tempers it with science and science fiction, things he is interested in.  I don't dispute that everything about a dragon will intensify as it ages, but what if a black flame is always hotter than a red flame? And yes, Drogon's fire is black shot with red, to mimic his coloring, but perhaps there is more to a dragon's color and fire than meets the eye? Just like Drogon has always been larger than Rhaegal and Viserion.

Vhagar is interesting because it's noted that it's breath was so hot it could melt armor and it was large enough that a horse could ride down it's gullet. Almost as large as Balerion, and Balerion probably lived more years than Vhagar. Had Vhagar not died in battle, then perhaps it would have become bigger than Balerion grew. But would it's flame been as hot? 

We are told that Balerion was black and had black flame shot with red. Balerion's flame was noted to melt Harrenhal's tower like candles made of wax. We are not ever told what color Vhagar was, or the color of Vhagar's flame. Perhaps Vhagar was a black dragon, too? It seems a guess to refer to the dragon as a she, but they do in the wiki. At the time of the conquest, Vhagar was smaller and younger than Balerion, but Meraxes was also larger than Vhagar, although we don't know that dragon's age. We do know that Meraxes has silver and gold coloring, but we are never told what that dragon's flame was colored. I would guess silver and gold, and I agree that the flame color mimic's the dragons coloring to some extent. But we are never told that Meraxes flame did anything extraordinary. But Vhagar and Balerion can melt stuff. I am just questioning the possibility that the color of the flame also alters the color of the heat put off.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 1:07 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

The color of the dragon's flame, however, appears connected to the coloring of the dragon:

  • Drogon, who has black scales, and blood red horns, spinal plates and eyes, has a black flame shot with red 
  • Viserion, whose scales are cream-colored, and whose horns, wing bones, spinal crest and eyes are gold, breathes flames the color of pale gold shot through with red and orange.
  • Rhaegal, with his green scales, jade-green wings, and bronze eyes, has his flames described as being yellow (ADWD chapter 12), yellow and red (ADWD Chapter 50) and orange-and-yellow fire shot through with veins of green (ADWD Chapter 68).
  • Balerion, entirely black, had a black flame with swirls of red
  • Tesarion, with dark cobalt wings and scales of bright beaten copper breathes cobalt blue flames
  • Sunfyre, with golden scales and pale pink membranes, had golden flames.
  • And although the color of the body is, IIRC, not confirmed, if Quicksilver is indeed, as the name suggests, silver of color, her coloring matches her flames as well, as her flames were "pale white fireballs"

I agree that the dragon's color and it's flame seem to be tied together, but I still think a certain colored flame could burn hotter than another flame, just based on color. Balerion is an interesting example. Balerion was noted to be entirely black, so why does he have some red in his flame. Perhaps because the red is a cooler flame than the black, and all flames seem to burn with different heat intensity, just depending on closeness to the heat source. Just playing with a Bunson burner can give us all sorts of heat intensity and flame colors. 

Rhaegal is a green with bronze dragon, although his fire isn't bronze. It's green with red and yellow. If flame color only mattered to the dragon's color, his flame should be green and bronze, but no one ever says that it is. 

Same thing for Viserion. His color is cream and gold, but his flame is gold and red and orange. Why isn't his flame cream in color?

Sunfyre is noted to have gold flame, but his color was gold and pink. Why doesn't he have pink in his flames?

I find myself very curious about Tessarion, a blue dragon with blue flame. Blue flame in our world is very hot, much hotter than red or orange or yellow. But it's not as hot as a white flame, which makes me wonder just how hot Quicksilver's flame might have been. Now, we assume that Quicksilver was a silver or drey dragon, but it might have been nearly white. Then it's flame would match it's color, but if its a silver dragon, why doesn't it have silver fire?

I would say that GRRM doesn't use colors like pink and cream for his dragons because those colors don't seem to exist in real world flame, but we don't have black flame in our world (okay, there is the Hocus Pocus black flame candle) but he certainly uses black flame in his world. So, why not have cream and pink flames to fit his dragons? But he doesn't.

 

And I do speculate that there is some genetic component between dragons and riders that cause them to bond. We have Aegon the Conqueror riding a black dragon. His sister-wife Visenya rode a dragon that was never noted by it's color (but might have been black), but their son Maegor also claimed a black dragon, which was Balerion. Now, Rhaenys rode Meraxes, which was silver and had gold eyes, and her son Aenys also claimed a dragon that was probably silver in color, hence the name Quicksilver, as you speculated the dragons name and color are tied. Aenys eldest son Aegon also claimed a silver dragon, his father's dragon Quicksilver. Daenerys also claims a black dragon and her imagery is very like Aegon the Conqueror except she is Daenerys the Conqueror, and I speculate there is something similar in Dany and Aegon I's genetics. I have a ton more thoughts on dragons and colors and genetics and bonding, but I don't want to bog down this thread with them. Anyway, I find the Targaryen's and their dragon's very interesting!

 

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On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

"A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"-Jorah Mormont

Blue rose versus blue flower. Dany never in her thoughts calls that flower she seen a rose, although I did say I do think it's odd that she didn't correct Jorah's words. So perhaps she did tell him more than what she told us when she actually had the vision. I am not sold, however. The other things that Jorah says seem to connect to a dead man on a prow while Dany's vision reported a corpse. Now, a corpse and a dead man might be the same thing, but this is again not what Dany tells us. Jorah has shifted the details, even if it's in a small, subtle way.

And Jorah talks of a banquet of blood. Now, in Dany's vision she does mention blood, but never calls it a banquet. It's a feast and the slaughted are called feasters. It might seem unimportant, but I think the subtle shift in what Dany see's and what Jorah interprets and then repeats back to her are important. Also, one would think that the idea of a king with a wolf's head would stand out to Jorah based on his animosity toward Ned Stark, and perhaps all of the Stark's, but he doesn't even mention the wolf concept. Again, I find this odd, so either Dany didn't mention this detail or Jorah thinks it's not worth even mentioning. 

And then there is the whole idea of the "mummer dragon" which Jorah has to ask what that even means, and then Dany gives her idea. It's either that she seen a cloth dragon on a pole, or something reminded her of seeing a cloth dragon on a pole at a mummer show. 

Vision repetition and interpretation is like looking through broken glass. It seems distorted, and perhaps in a very important way.

I guess we can both agree that at some point between her visit to HotU and the current dialogue, Dany must have told Jorah about her experience, or else he would have had no idea. We don't get to see this conversation, we don't know how detailed her account was and what Jorah might have misremembered. However, there are certain ways a language works, and certain rules that cannot be broken. 

The rose: the vision states a flower, Jorah says a rose. No flowers naturally grow in ice, not even winter roses, no further context was presented in the vision. Therefore, Jorah couldn't have assumed on his own that the flower was a rose, and couldn't have replaced a generic term with a specific one. This is a process that works only the other way round - if Dany said a rose and Jorah said a flower, detracting from the importanceof the species. -  If I told you that I saw a black dog in the street and you referred back to it, you would never say a poodle or a newfoundlander, unless I provided that information to you.

The dead man/corpse and banquet/feast: those are not generic versus specific terms (hyperonyms and hyponyms, if you will), but synonymous expressions. They neither add nor detract from the amount of information that we have from the vision. Jorah most likely just repeats Dany's exact wording, but it is also possible that he slaps his own terms on scenes that she described to him, with next to no difference.

The mummer's dragon: no, Dany does not give her idea, she explains Jorah what it means, or what she means by it. She saw a cloth dragon on poles in the vision. In her conversation with Jorah, she referred to it as a mummer's dragon.  He doesn't get the reference, so she explains it means a dragon puppet.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Agreed. Way more on Rhaegar than on Lyanna. But in comparison to Dany and Jon, Jon only get's one Rhaegar mention in his storyline, and that is in regards to Donal Noye making the hammer that Robert killed Rhaegar with. Dany get's 44 mentions of Rhaegar in her storyline. A significant difference.  I think it seems odd that so many people tie Jon to Rhaegar, but there is very little in Jon's story line to make that connection.

And why should it be odd? Dany is Rhaegar's sister, her famed and tragically deceased brother is a very natural subject of conversation. In Jon's surroundings, there is only Aemon who knew Rhaegar, and Aemon has zero reason to talk about him with Ned Stark's son.

Plus, those infodumps are not for the sake of characters but the readers.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Ned never thinks of himself as someone who doesn't indulge in carnal affairs. Carnal affairs is interpretation. What the text says is "pleasures" and "huge appetites". A man who knew how to take his pleasures, a charge that no one could lay at the door of Eddard Stark. But before this, Robert is not only talking about women, but he is talking about food and and wine, which seems to be a trifecta of vices for Robert. But we see Ned eat and drink wine, although not to access. Perhaps Ned takes carnal pleasure as well, just not to excess?

Eh... sorry but this just... everybody needs to eat, right? And wine consumption with food in GRRMth is just a drink with food, just like over here, people have a beer with their lunch. Something to wash the dry stuff down with. But while you cannot survive without food and drink, the same does not apply for sex (at least with some people). Combine it with Robert's remark on how rare Jon's mother must have been to make Ned forget about his honour, and you're back at what I said - that Ned is a man exercising strict control over himself and not indulging in pleasures. All kinds of them. He certainly enjoyed sex with Cat just fine but either didn't feel the drive, or wouldn't allow himself to, have casual sex. And this consistently throughout all his PoVs. Never overindulge, never shag anyone, not a single thought, he just misses Cat.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

And I am not talking about that dutiful seed sowing with Cat, where he climbs out of bed and opens a window as soon as he can! It could mean that Ned could do all of these things, but never felt comfortable with it, in regards to "a man who knew how to take his pleasure".

That was definitely not what happened... For one, he is uncomfortably hot in her chambers, she says that much. Second, the sex really didn't help to get his mind off the issue of his Handship.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Here is Ned's odd "knew" reference again. Just like he talks of children he "knew" and them names his children born of his marriage of Cat. Except he "know's" Jon Snow! So perhaps he "know's" some lust and pleasure, too!

We have already discussed this, and I cannot help but say again that you are misreading that part.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

I guess I just have a hard time buying the idea that Rhaegar took Lyanna and had her to himself for an undisclosed amount of time, from when he "kidnapped" her to when some one apparently found her dying in the toj.

They may not have been there the whole time, only long enough for Rhaegar to give him a reason for joy. Which was quite exceptional for someone so melancholic, and if it wasn't Lyanna and/or her pregnancy, I don't know what else might qualify (yeah, Arthur was his secret pleasure, it is known).

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

I am not even sold that Lyanna was at the toj, despite the rose petal imagery.

But it's not just the imagery, Ned himself places her there, to the extent that mere utterance of his name brings forth "I promise, Lya", because the promise, to Lyanna, belongs to that scene.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

I think Ned's fever dream is a conflation of several things that have happened in his past, and several locations.

That might  be a valid argument if the dream was a first-time occurence. It is not, though - it is an OLD dream. As in, Ned had had a dream about the tower, the KG and Lyanna in her bed of blood before. This is his own description of the dream, not the dreaming itself.

Also, narratively: if Lyanna didn't die there, so when? If GRRM didn't intend to reveal the location at that point, why write the dream at all and not just keep it for a later reveal?

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

And if Ashara Dayne is able to roam around during the rebellion, (not tied to the floor in Dorne) then why can't Lyanna have a little leeway.

Ashara is hardly a most looked-for person in all of Westeros, though. The Rebels would have wanted to "save" Lyanna, the loyalists would have grabbed her as a hostage. 

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Honestly, we know very little of Lyanna's actual whereabouts. We do have confirmation she was at Harrenhal. And then Ned seems to give us confirmation that her bones are laid to rest in the crypts. I think that's it. The rest is stories and implied whereabouts. Harrenhal seems legit because have several people reporting she was there, so that words for confirmation for me. The rest, I doubt!

Ran's word that he saw ToJ as the place of Lyanna's death in GRRM's manuscript is good enough for me.

Besides, there is nothing in the whole ASOIAF that would contradict the information.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Well ... unless your love affair was with your sister? That would not be something he probably would want to tell Cat about! Also, even if that is not the case, I am not sure that Catelyn is that trustworthy. She makes a lot of poor choices,

That would indeed be the only good option, which, however, gets us back to the missing clues towards the incest, and the timeline issues.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

and even if RLJ turns out to be true, then Ned was probably very smart not to tell her. She would have easily thrown Jon under the bus to save her own children, or just get him away from Winterfell. 

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree that if RLJ, he absolutely cannot tell! He's committing treason and putting all of his family in danger by harboring Rhaegar's son, legitimate or not! It makes perfect sense for him to think that some secrets are too dangerous to share, even with those he loves and trusts.

 

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

No offense, but even the blue rose path you mention that ties Rhaegar to Lyanna to Jon is heavy on implied thought.

Beg your pardon, but the Rhaegar-Lyanna tie is as explicit as it gets - he gave her the dratted flowers, and to our knowledge, he's the only one to have ever done so. The implied part comes with that tip of the lance placing the roses in Lyanna's lap, which, in combination with Lyanna's bed of blood, gets you to a baby of those two.

On 6/18/2019 at 9:54 PM, St Daga said:

Just like I am sure you think my Ned, Lyanna, Jon theory has only implication and little concrete evidence in the text to support it. So many similarities between Ned and Jon, though. It's like getting hit over the head with a hammer. So obvious it's hard not to see it., even down to leg wounds and quiet wolf imagery, although it might turn out to be nothing more than a distraction.

I'm really scratching my head over this - why do you make so much of their similarity? Cat's brood, minus Arya, look 100% Tully, yet they are not Edmure's. 

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This seems like the right place to mention this, but in a discussion a few weeks ago someone was adamant that Lyanna had to have be 'kidnapped' after the duel between Brandon and Petyr and I still think that they are absolutely wrong.

Just because Brandon learned about it on his way back to Riverrun doesn't mean that it happened after the duel, only that HE learned about it after the duel.

Does that sound correct?

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3 hours ago, Ser Leftwich said:

This seems like the right place to mention this, but in a discussion a few weeks ago someone was adamant that Lyanna had to have be 'kidnapped' after the duel between Brandon and Petyr and I still think that they are absolutely wrong.

Just because Brandon learned about it on his way back to Riverrun doesn't mean that it happened after the duel, only that HE learned about it after the duel.

Does that sound correct?

Sounds correct to me. I'm not real familiar with the time lines but there has been nothing that indicated to me Lyanna went MIA after the duel. 

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On 6/25/2019 at 11:36 PM, Ser Leftwich said:

This seems like the right place to mention this, but in a discussion a few weeks ago someone was adamant that Lyanna had to have be 'kidnapped' after the duel between Brandon and Petyr and I still think that they are absolutely wrong.

Just because Brandon learned about it on his way back to Riverrun doesn't mean that it happened after the duel, only that HE learned about it after the duel.

Does that sound correct?

It is possible, but, at least in my opinion, less likely. I think it is more likely that Brandon learned about Lyanna relatively quickly after it happened, and not only weeks or months later.

But of course, it depends on how long it took for the news to reach Brandon, and on how long he had been gone from Riverrun when the news reached him. And that we do not know. If it took longer for the news to reach him that he had been gone from Riverrun, that would place Lyanna's disappearance before the duel.

How did the news spread? Did Lyanna have companions who spread the news? Did they alert high lords nearby? Were people aware of where Brandon and his father were? Were messages send to Riverrun by raven (which would not take long to arrive), after which a messenger was sent forth? So many questions to which the answer can influence the timeline.

In my opinion, it is  more likely for Lyanna to have disappeared after the duel than before, merely because news from castle to castle can travel fast by raven. But if she disappeared before, I'm guessing it would not have been that long before.

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On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

The rose: the vision states a flower, Jorah says a rose. No flowers naturally grow in ice, not even winter roses, no further context was presented in the vision. Therefore, Jorah couldn't have assumed on his own that the flower was a rose, and couldn't have replaced a generic term with a specific one. This is a process that works only the other way round - if Dany said a rose and Jorah said a flower, detracting from the importanceof the species. -  If I told you that I saw a black dog in the street and you referred back to it, you would never say a poodle or a newfoundlander, unless I provided that information to you.

He could have actually. If, in Jorah's mind, growing up in the north with stories of Stark blue roses, he might interpret any blue flower as a rose. Just like I grew up on a cattle farm with herding dogs. Someone might say to me they seen a black and white dog, which I would interpret as a border collie, which is what is very familiar to me in white and black dogs, but the truth is, the black and white dog that someone else is talking about might actually turn out to be a great dane or a french bulldog, which are also black and white dogs, just not ones I am as familiar with. I think it's a leap to think that Dany describes this blue flower as a rose to Jorah since we never see her do that. All we ever get is her vision of a "blue flower". Why would she describe something in more detail to Jorah than what she actually seen in her vision? Why wouldn't her vision image be the most detailed?

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

The dead man/corpse and banquet/feast: those are not generic versus specific terms (hyperonyms and hyponyms, if you will), but synonymous expressions. They neither add nor detract from the amount of information that we have from the vision. Jorah most likely just repeats Dany's exact wording, but it is also possible that he slaps his own terms on scenes that she described to him, with next to no difference.

The fact is that Jorah does not repeat Dany's vision word for word when it comes to "dead man/corpse and banquet/feast". So then, he is slapping his own terms on things. So Jorah can take his own descriptive license when it comes to describing dead men and banquets, but not blue roses?

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

The mummer's dragon: no, Dany does not give her idea, she explains Jorah what it means, or what she means by it. She saw a cloth dragon on poles in the vision. In her conversation with Jorah, she referred to it as a mummer's dragon.  He doesn't get the reference, so she explains it means a dragon puppet.

But is it a dragon puppet or is it a sigil? A sigil is also a cloth dragon on a pole, and might look like something used in a play. But are two different things. She calls it as a mummer's dragon, then explains it as a cloth dragon on poles, and if that is the case, then that is all it can be. A cloth dragon on poles, used by actors. What does that have to do with her story that is so important she would be given a vision of it?

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

And why should it be odd? Dany is Rhaegar's sister, her famed and tragically deceased brother is a very natural subject of conversation. In Jon's surroundings, there is only Aemon who knew Rhaegar, and Aemon has zero reason to talk about him with Ned Stark's son.

Plus, those infodumps are not for the sake of characters but the readers.

Is that the case? Information dumps are for the readers. So, when Old Nan tells stories to the Stark kids, it's not for their information and knowledge, only for ours? I think it's important who's POV those information dumps come in, just like it's important who else might hear that information when it's revealed. If Rhaegar is Jon's father, shouldn't Jon have some ideas that Rhaegar keeps flaring in his story for a reason? Again, I guess this can come down to personal interpretation, but for me, the knowledge is placed in the story for both the characters AND the reader, and there is really nothing in Jon's story that revolves around Rhaegar, except in Donal Noye's storyline of forging the hammer that Robert used to kill Rhaegar. That information is as much about Robert as it is Rhaegar. Robert, and the Baratheon's, actually pop up in Jon's thoughts and story quite often. 

 You say "there is only Aemon who knew Rhaegar, and Aemon has zero reason to talk about him with Ned Stark's son", and I wonder then why Aemon, who has zero reason to talk about Rhaegar to Samwell, does this very thing. Even when Aemon is talking about Azor Ahai and Stannis' sword, and how it might connect to the PtwP theory that seems to be important for the Targaryen's, he never mentions Rhaegar at this time to Jon? Perhaps because Aemon recognizes that the PtwP and Azor Ahai are not the same thing?

One of the most important things that Aemon, a wise man, says to Jon is that it's important that Jon is a "son of Winterfell". That is how Aemon see's Jon's role on the wall as being important. I guess it could be argued that this will come down to Aemon's blindness, and not in the physical sense, but his own musings about not looking for a female when looking for the PtwP, a blindness that perhaps Rhaegar also shared. Perhaps Aemon's blindness can be interpreted to why look for a Targaryen in Stark's clothing? If we ever get another book, perhaps we will get an answer.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

Combine it with Robert's remark on how rare Jon's mother must have been to make Ned forget about his honour, and you're back at what I said - that Ned is a man exercising strict control over himself and not indulging in pleasures. All kinds of them. He certainly enjoyed sex with Cat just fine but either didn't feel the drive, or wouldn't allow himself to, have casual sex. And this consistently throughout all his PoVs. Never overindulge, never shag anyone, not a single thought, he just misses Cat.

I am not saying that Ned has casual sex and begat Jon Snow because of that. Far from it! Whom ever Jon's mother was might well have been a rare woman. That doesn't lead to the idea in some people's minds that Ned only ever has sex with Catelyn.  It just means he is well more picky with himself than Robert is. Nor does it mean that Ned never experienced pleasure outside of his marriage, only that he did it with a special and rare woman.

He does think about Catelyn, but when he had the chance to shag (using your words here) her in Littlefinger's brothel, he does not. He treats her almost in a oddly formal way. Odd considering they have been married for years and produced 5 children together. But, even after not seeing her or shagging anyone for months, he still doesn't seem interested enough to shag Cat at this time. He does think about going home and creating another son with her, which is what dynastic marriages are about. He doesn't think of going home and wrapping himself in her passionate embrace. Perhaps because it's more about duty than love or passion. Again, a person can not be tied to casual sex, but still have sex with more than just his wife. One does not mean the other!

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

That was definitely not what happened... For one, he is uncomfortably hot in her chambers, she says that much. Second, the sex really didn't help to get his mind off the issue of his Handship.

It says "Ned could never abide the heat". Now, this could just mean Cat's chambers, or it could mean heat in general. We see a Ned in Kings Landing who isn't enjoying the warmth at all. Sweating and sticky and uncomfortable. And I doubt the sex was intended to take his mind off of Robert's offer, but more of a dynastic responsibility. Even Cat, at this time, is really thinking of his seed and providing him with another child.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:
Quote

Here is Ned's odd "knew" reference again. Just like he talks of children he "knew" and them names his children born of his marriage of Cat. Except he "know's" Jon Snow! So perhaps he "know's" some lust and pleasure, too!

We have already discussed this, and I cannot help but say again that you are misreading that part.

I can agree that we differ on interpretation, but just because it differs with your thoughts, doesn't mean I am "misreading" anything. The wording is odd! Children he "knew"? Why do you think that "knew" means children of his seed? That's not the definition of "knew" as far as I have ever seen.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

They may not have been there the whole time, only long enough for Rhaegar to give him a reason for joy. Which was quite exceptional for someone so melancholic, and if it wasn't Lyanna and/or her pregnancy, I don't know what else might qualify (yeah, Arthur was his secret pleasure, it is known).

Well, it's possible that Rhaegar was perhaps being sarcastic and doesn't mean joy at all? And even if it's a "joyful" place for him, why does that have to tie to Lyanna? Might it not have been joyful for a million other reasons? I'm sorry by I can't assume that "joy" is tied to Lyanna. It might be, but it might not be, either.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

But it's not just the imagery, Ned himself places her there, to the extent that mere utterance of his name brings forth "I promise, Lya", because the promise, to Lyanna, belongs to that scene.

It's a twisted up fever dream. That dream is when Lyanna is tied to a "tower long fallen" and "rose petals". That could be a combination of several memories, not just one. But in his waking, alert thoughts, she isn't tied to that place at all. In his waking, remembering thoughts, that place is tied to cairns, a showdown between three and seven. Although those numbers fit his fever dream, it doesn't mean that's the whole story. 

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

That might  be a valid argument if the dream was a first-time occurence. It is not, though - it is an OLD dream. As in, Ned had had a dream about the tower, the KG and Lyanna in her bed of blood before. This is his own description of the dream, not the dreaming itself.

Also, narratively: if Lyanna didn't die there, so when? If GRRM didn't intend to reveal the location at that point, why write the dream at all and not just keep it for a later reveal?

Just because it's an "old dream" doesn't mean its a direct repeat of what happened in the past. Dreams are not memories, although they can contain memories. And dreams can contain false hoods as well, or things we wished we had done that we didn't. Don't you think it's worth noting that GRRM cautions his readers to understand this is a "fever dream" and not a memory? "Our dreams are not always literal"-GRRM

At what point are Jon's crypt dreams considered "an old dream". He has been having them for at least two years now, And they seem to change just a bit with each dream. And I doubt that Jon has ever walked in the crypts in real life when the KoW actually stood up and stumbled about after their vaults opened up. So, a dream can feel old and repeated while not being a repeat of a complete actual memory at all!

As to GRRM's narrative plan for his reader, he's not trying to make this mystery easy for us to solve. If he want to tell us where Lyanna died, then why not just say it. Why twist it in dreams and mystery? Because he is trying to lead us to think one thing, while the truth is perhaps something very different.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

Ashara is hardly a most looked-for person in all of Westeros, though. The Rebels would have wanted to "save" Lyanna, the loyalists would have grabbed her as a hostage. 

Is Lyanna the most looked for person in Westeros? Does the text really ever tell us that people were looking for her at all? It tells us that Brandon heard something and went to confront Rhaegar at the Red Keep, but it never tells us he was demanding Lyanna's location or looking for her at that time. The story tells us that Robert thinks she was raped and that he sought vengeance for her, but not that he looked for her. The war is a series of events, but would the whole north go to war over a kidnapped girl? Probably not. The whole north doesn't even seem to care that Alys Karstark has been held captive by her family, nor did she think anyone else but Jon Snow might do something about it. The north went to war after Ned called the banners after Aerys killed Rickard and Brandon and attempted to claim Ned's life as well. The war is a chain of events, of which Lyanna's disappearance was just one of many acts.  We have no way to know that anyone was looking for Lyanna at all.

Howerver, Lyanna and Ashara are tied in some way, and so if Ashara was free to move about, then perhaps Lyanna was as well. I just cannot imagine that she was in the same location for the whole part of her disappearance. We have some precedent with Arya, who isn't even close to in just one location, nor is Sansa, not even after she get's out of Kings Landing. She is on a ship, then at the Fingers, then finally at the Eyrie under a false identity. The only crappy old tower she is in is Littlefinger's keep, and she isn't there for very long.  I think we are to learn something important abut Lyanna's story through Arya and Sansa, and neither of them are static in this story, unless we count Sansa's time in the Red Keep. Was Lyanna held in the Red Keep? I don't think so, but I know of people who do.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

Ran's word that he saw ToJ as the place of Lyanna's death in GRRM's manuscript is good enough for me.

Besides, there is nothing in the whole ASOIAF that would contradict the information.

Did GRRM write a manuscript that didn't get published? That only Ran has read? I am not sure what you are looking for in contradictory information, but the text itself is a mixture of implication and misleading information  as well as truth that we need to sift through. Our author doesn't want this to be easy to solve or to piece together.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

Beg your pardon, but the Rhaegar-Lyanna tie is as explicit as it gets - he gave her the dratted flowers, and to our knowledge, he's the only one to have ever done so. The implied part comes with that tip of the lance placing the roses in Lyanna's lap, which, in combination with Lyanna's bed of blood, gets you to a baby of those two.

They are dratted flowers, aren't they! Here is something we don't know about the Harrenhal Tourney. Was the laurel that the winner always meant to give the Queen of Love and Beauty made of blue roses? If so, why? What if someone else would have won in that case? Would Barristan have given a blue rose crown to Ashara and what might that have meant? If Rhaegar produced a special crown that only he had the ability to present, then we are certainly not given that information in the text. Why does a son of House Targaryen, who is never associated with blue roses outside of this incident at Harrenhal, use Stark roses for a Stark maid? What was he really trying to say? I certainly don't think he was saying "I'm madly in love with you and I want to make a fire and ice baby with you"! I know many people think that, but I am not sold. Again, it all comes down to interpretation of the text and what direction we see the story going in. I know Barristan seems to think that Rhaegar loved Lyanna, but Barristan also admits much was going on at Harrenhal that Rhaegar didn't trust him to know.  Barristan also see's no taint of madness or cruelty in Daenerys, and that is after she has burned a man alive, destroyed multiple cities and crucified 167 people. If he is wrong about her cruelty, he can be wrong about her madness, and he can be wrong about Rhaegar loving Lyanna.

 

On 6/21/2019 at 11:07 AM, Ygrain said:

I'm really scratching my head over this - why do you make so much of their similarity? Cat's brood, minus Arya, look 100% Tully, yet they are not Edmure's. 

You don't think it's interesting that Jon is noted to look very like Eddard on multiple occasions?  Sometimes by people who should only know Ned in a very limited way? Ned himself even thinks about how much Jon Snow looks like him. Catelyn is upset that Jon Snow looks more like Ned than child she bore him.  But it's not just hair color or eye color, it's face shape, too. "Ned saw Jon Snow's face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own". I don't know how more blunt GRRM can be about Jon Snow and Eddard Stark looking remarkably like one another. Now, that might not mean that Jon is Ned's bio-son, but it sure as heck means he looks like a Stark. Looks like Eddard Stark.

As far as behavior, that can come down to interpretation, but I personally see a lot of Ned in Jon's thoughts and behaviors and decisions. Of course, Ned did raise Jon, and that's all that might mean.

As to this idea that Robb, Sansa, Bran, Rickon, look like the Tully's, that is a bit of a stretch. To say 100% Tully is hard for me to even swallow! What we are told is that they have the brownish red hair and the blue eyes of the Tully's. It seems this is related to coloring more than features. Robb is noted to be tall and broad, something that is noted about Hoster and Edmure, so his body type might very well fit the Tully's. We are really never told if Ned is tall or short of slim or well muscled. He is tall enough that Cat can lay her head on him and whisper against his chest, which seems to make him around head taller than her, the same height as Edmure Tully.  Sansa in particular is much more lovely than Catelyn, but that doesn't mean Sansa and Cat are doppelgangers. Those hair and eye color details don't describe facial features at all. But Jon and Arya seem to look like Ned. This includes the long Stark face, as well as the eye and hair color.  And I am not claiming that Cat's children having red hair or blue eyes has anything to do with Edmure (you keep saying that), although I do think that we might find some red hair in some of our past Starks. I do think it's interesting that Arya seems to so strongly look like Jon and Ned, and while I have some tinfoil on that, it's not something you are going to buy, so why even try to sell it. As early as Cat's 3rd POV, she is telling us that she is seeing Eddard Stark in Robb's face. Again, I interpret her other thoughts on the fact that she thinks her children look like her due to their hair and eye color. Which is interesting, because she tells us that her own father, Hoster Tully, had brown hair. All three of his children that we meet have the "red hair of the Tully's". so what is that about? No doubt, Hoster carries a red hair gene but doesn't express it himself, but it does muddy the situation a bit. 

 

Some differences come down to interpretation, some are how we read the text and some come down to what direction we see the story going in. Which ever it is with us, we certainly see things differently. Interesting discussion, but I am not really seeing anything differently than I did before, and I doubt you are either. At some point, I feel like we are just repeating ourselves. Maybe it's time to say :cheers: and move on. 

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On 6/25/2019 at 2:36 PM, Ser Leftwich said:

This seems like the right place to mention this, but in a discussion a few weeks ago someone was adamant that Lyanna had to have be 'kidnapped' after the duel between Brandon and Petyr and I still think that they are absolutely wrong.

Just because Brandon learned about it on his way back to Riverrun doesn't mean that it happened after the duel, only that HE learned about it after the duel.

Does that sound correct?

 

On 6/26/2019 at 3:39 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

It is possible, but, at least in my opinion, less likely. I think it is more likely that Brandon learned about Lyanna relatively quickly after it happened, and not only weeks or months later.

But of course, it depends on how long it took for the news to reach Brandon, and on how long he had been gone from Riverrun when the news reached him. And that we do not know. If it took longer for the news to reach him that he had been gone from Riverrun, that would place Lyanna's disappearance before the duel.

How did the news spread? Did Lyanna have companions who spread the news? Did they alert high lords nearby? Were people aware of where Brandon and his father were? Were messages send to Riverrun by raven (which would not take long to arrive), after which a messenger was sent forth? So many questions to which the answer can influence the timeline.

In my opinion, it is  more likely for Lyanna to have disappeared after the duel than before, merely because news from castle to castle can travel fast by raven. But if she disappeared before, I'm guessing it would not have been that long before.

We are talking about a "kidnapping" that takes place only about 30 miles from Harrenhal in a very populated area of Westeros. The news of Lyanna's kidnapping would have likely spread like wildfire. Think of Tyrion's kidnapping by Catelyn and how fast the word spreads. It makes it unlikely that Brandon rides to Riverrun and fights the duel and after the kidnapping and then he rides out to hear news of a much distant past. Could it be the duel takes place after Lyanna is taken away by Rhaegar? Yes, but it seems the two events have to be close together. I think we have to guess on a matter of a couple of days at most for Brandon to learn of Lyanna having gone missing. He does so on the road after he leaves Catelyn and after the duel. So, it is certainly possible the duel takes place after the kidnapping, but I think it unlikely.

I would again point that is unlikely that Lyanna is traveling without a Winterfell escort and among the first things they would have done after seeing Lyanna disappear with Rhaegar and Dayne and Whent is to send someone to tell Brandon of the event. That it seems Brandon hears of this while he is on the road and it sounds like this is before the Tullys know of the kidnapping, makes me believe it is not done via a raven, but by a personal messenger of the Stark's escorting company. That still is likely to be only a matter of a day or two at most before Brandon hears the news.

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A better question is why anyone thinks itd matter at all if rl=j. He looks absolutely nothing like Rhaegar, everybody in the realm who knows he exists just think hes Neds boy, there is no dna testing, and even if there were, it wouldnt matter, as after Maegor, the precedent of multiple marriages was ended. Not a single soul would raise a spear to put him on the throne or respect anyone who would.

 

It would literally be the most meaningless thing in the world if hes Rhaegar and Lyanna's child. It can't affect anything. Its somewhere between Old Man Yells At Clouds and Bum On The Street Claiming The End Is Nigh.

 

Meanwhile, NA=J has some possibly enormous ramifications, especially if they were married under a Weirwood Heart Tree and there were witnesses. It also provides additional explanation as to why the Blackfish was so absolutely disgusted with Hoster.

 

Ned wouldn't have one bastard, but five.

 

And it would have been even longer since there was no trueborn Stark in Winterfell.

And more importantly, it could be vouched for, and would be believed if vouched for. And there would be strong political reasons to do so, one of which would be to avoid little Rickon being forced into that situation. And Jon Stark would have ample reason and drive to rally the North and reinforce the Wall and hope to salvage something.

Its firmly in the Alex Jones tier, especially since it relies and shifting the miscarriage to either Lyanna(what the promise for?) Or Rhaela and playing baby swap with a boy, a girl and a corpse, but even AJ smacks something solid once in a while. Mostly frog related. And the best thing? It works from a narrative perspective as well. Especially if part of the public, vocal big reveal of N+A=J is the thoughts of Howland Reed confirming RLJ in his mind. Or otherwise.

 

Tldr; Jon will never sit the throne, nobody will acknowledge him for anything beyond a Stark.

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On 6/29/2019 at 5:57 PM, SFDanny said:

 

We are talking about a "kidnapping" that takes place only about 30 miles from Harrenhal in a very populated area of Westeros. The news of Lyanna's kidnapping would have likely spread like wildfire. Think of Tyrion's kidnapping by Catelyn and how fast the word spreads. It makes it unlikely that Brandon rides to Riverrun and fights the duel and after the kidnapping and then he rides out to hear news of a much distant past. Could it be the duel takes place after Lyanna is taken away by Rhaegar? Yes, but it seems the two events have to be close together. I think we have to guess on a matter of a couple of days at most for Brandon to learn of Lyanna having gone missing. He does so on the road after he leaves Catelyn and after the duel. So, it is certainly possible the duel takes place after the kidnapping, but I think it unlikely.

I would again point that is unlikely that Lyanna is traveling without a Winterfell escort and among the first things they would have done after seeing Lyanna disappear with Rhaegar and Dayne and Whent is to send someone to tell Brandon of the event. That it seems Brandon hears of this while he is on the road and it sounds like this is before the Tullys know of the kidnapping, makes me believe it is not done via a raven, but by a personal messenger of the Stark's escorting company. That still is likely to be only a matter of a day or two at most before Brandon hears the news.

All good points, though Cat's taking of Tyrion occurs in public in one of the best known inns in all of Westeros. Without any details of the Rhaegar/Lyanna event we can't say that it wasn't clandestine in some way. Unless it was done in a similarly public way it could have been kept secret for at least some time.

I agree that it is unlikely, but it is still possible, given that we have so little information on the timeline of events.

The question of "what was Brandon up to?" comes up, as always.

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