Heresy 219 and a whisper of Winter

[Melifeather]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

It puzzles me why you would ask that.  Here's how it works.

If someone -- say, David Benioff, or any typical RLJ believer -- thinks she was at the TOJ because of the dream, which is the nearly universal belief among ASOIAF fans, then they also think she was healthy enough to scream when Ned found her there. 

Because her screaming is right in the dream.

But we know factually she wasn't healthy enough to scream when she died.  Because Ned's waking memory is of her voice being faint as a whisper because "the fever had robbed her strength."

So Benioff, or the RLJ believer, cannot logically imagine she died immediately at the TOJ.  It's a flat contradiction. That person should have to realize one of these alternatives is true:

1) Considerable time passed at the TOJ after Ned found her, in which she became so ill she could barely even speak... and then she died, per Ned's memory, at the TOJ; or

2) She was found at the TOJ healthy enough to scream, and moved somewhere else, and in that time she became so ill she could barely even speak, and died, and that death did not happen at the TOJ.  It happened somewhere fresh roses were available, hence that room smelling of roses.

I think option 2), assuming Ned found her at an isolated tower in Dorne, is more likely for various reasons.  For one thing, if I were Ned and I found her in such a place, and she was healthy enough to be screaming, I would probably not assume my beloved sister was going to die, even if she were in bad shape somehow (a thing the dream, btw, never even implies).  I would try to move her somewhere with better medical care.

Now, as I recall you don't think the TOJ was even in Dorne, or that Ned found her in Dorne, so none of the above is going to matter to you.  But it is a significant issue for 95% of the fans to have to deal with.

You were proposing Ned found her in the tower and later moved her to Starfall, correct? 

I think I’m probably the sole believer that Rhaegar called Maegor’s Holdfast the tower of joy - in a sarcastic way, because really horrible terrible things occurred in that tower over the hundreds of years it’s existed. I also believe Ned fought each of the three Kingsguard in single combat, one at a time. One was at the stairs leading to the drawbridge, one at the drawbridge, and the last guarding the door to the royal apartments. I believe Ned found Lyanna in the black cells after “tearing down” the tower searching for her and “built cairns” with the bloody stones, because most of his men died while searching during the Sack. I’m not quite sure how to interpret “pulled” down the tower, but I think there is an alternate explanation that I haven’t quite puzzled out yet. When Jaime searched for Tyrion in the Tower of the Hand, GRRM described the search as “tearing down” the tower, plus Cersei instructed the pyromancers to burn it down, because she couldn’t stand to look at it. This is a parallel to how Ned felt about the circumstances of Lyanna’s death.

i think a careful examination of the map should be enough evidence to debunk the theory that Ned was ever at the tower of joy, much less use the Prince’s Pass to get to Starfall. I think the only way to get to Starfall is by boat.

[LynnS]

18 hours ago, redriver said:

My point is that there is already a long running thread dedicated to this subject where,whether yay or nay,you can discuss the nuances of this subject ad fucking nauseam.

So why has it taken over here?

Because it's unresolved in the minds of people here; but a fact in the minds of people on the other thread. Which I personally find hostile and boring.   Lord Varys had some interesting things to say about the motivations of the KG at the ToJ from his reading of Fire and Blood.  There seems to be some new information which causes him to think that the KG were there to fulfill their duty to dead Aerys.  A viewpoint that is very much in line with Black Crow's thinking on the matter.  I'll leave you to search that one out if it interests you.  

And yes, I agree, RLJ is fucking boring and I don't care if someone else wants to talk about it.  I usually just skip that stuff.

 

[SirArthur]

7 hours ago, JNR said:

Both, IMO.

That he would bother returning the horse 1200+ miles shows his true character, which aligns well with virtutally everything else we know of him.  His thinking there seems to be that if something belongs to someone else, and you have good reason to believe they want it, you return it, even if it requires extraordinary effort.

After thinking about the horse, I don't think it was at the ToJ in the first place. A normal horse would have been switched a couple of times during the war. The best bet for a horse change would be after Ned rushed for 2 weeks towards King's Landing. 

[redriver]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Because it's unresolved in the minds of people here; but a fact in the minds of people on the other thread. Which I personally find hostile and boring.   Lord Varys had some interesting things to say about the motivations of the KG at the ToJ from his reading of Fire and Blood.  There seems to be some new information which causes him to think that the KG were there to fulfill their duty to dead Aerys.  A viewpoint that is very much in line with Black Crow's thinking on the matter.  I'll leave you to search that one out if it interests you.  

And yes, I agree, RLJ is fucking boring and I don't care if someone else wants to talk about it.  I usually just skip that stuff.

 

Ok.I'll have a look at the ToJ/Dustin link,see if I can add anything.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

2 hours ago, SirArthur said:

After thinking about the horse, I don't think it was at the ToJ in the first place. A normal horse would have been switched a couple of times during the war. The best bet for a horse change would be after Ned rushed for 2 weeks towards King's Landing. 

Good thought. Interesting.

[Janneyc1]

17 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Hightower was not looking for Rhaegar after he died on the Trident. Timing matters. 

So knew about the rebellion, chose to avoid it, and these 3 show up and say or do something to convince him to go fight on the trident.  The 3 stay for some reason while Rhaegar goes off to die.  Ned shows up a lot later, so what were they doing in the mean while? 

I should have been a touch clearer. It is the fandoms belief that Hightower was dispatched to look for Rhaeghar after the war started, but before Rhaeghar reappeared in KL. 

Like I said, we can only speculate, as we barely have any info on the subject. However, we need to ask why these three weren't in Kings Landing. One theory that fits with what others have posted is that they were acting on orders from Aerys. We know that Aerys held Elia captive, perhaps he ordered his sons mistress held captive as well? All in all, this timeline and subject matter is a mess. 

[Melifeather]

16 minutes ago, Janneyc1 said:

However, we need to ask why these three weren't in Kings Landing.

How do we know they weren't in Kings Landing? If you're going off Ned's fever dream he only wonders where they were when Jaime slew the king. The throne room in the Great Hall is a long way from Maegor's Holdfast or any other tower within the Red Keep. All Ned wondered about was why they weren't in close physical proximity to Aerys.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, redriver said:

Ok.I'll have a look at the ToJ/Dustin link,see if I can add anything.

It was a few weeks back and don't recall which thread it was.  You might have more luck looking at his comment history.  I just recall reading it and thinking that it was very close to what Black Crow had been saying.  His comments convinced me that I should buy the book. 

[Matthew.]

12 hours ago, JNR said:

And there really can't be any doubt that Lady Dustin wanted her husband's remains. I can't persuade myself Ned would ever have been confused on that point.  (She sure doesn't seem to think he was confused.)

I'm not so certain how broadly applicable Lady Dustin's sentiments are, not so certain that she represents what would have been the viewpoint of, say, the Whents--that honor obligated Eddard to return remains under those circumstances.

It may be that that was the case, but it may also be that Lady Dustin - whose comments were broadly negative about House Stark, touching upon Brandon, Rickard's southron ambitions, Eddard and Robb calling their banners - feels aggrieved toward Eddard in a way that is not typical, but a part of a larger resentment.

Moreover, the conversations both Lady Dustin and Roose Bolton have with Theon are to be viewed in the context that Theon, as Reek, is believed to be Ramsay's creature--so while they may make a show of asking him to keep these conversations private, they might be telling Theon the things that they want Ramsay to believe (eg, that Roose has given up on the hope of having any heir other than Ramsay).

How this is relevant to Lady Dustin comes down to whether or not her words are actually sincere, or whether or not she is engaging in performative Stark hatred, while secretly being a part of any Northern conspiracy that might be fomenting. Both the Ryswells and the Dustins took losses at the Red Wedding, and Lady Dustin is one of the characters (along with Manderly) to vocalize "the north remembers."
 

12 hours ago, JNR said:

The anomaly gets even more obvious in Dayne's case.  From the TOJ to Starfall was a distance of perhaps 10-15% the distance to Winterfell, and Ned's admiration for Dayne was personal and deep. 

This remains true whether Lyanna died at the ToJ or died at Starfall. Either way, moving Sir Arthur - even under circumstances of decomposition - should not have been too great a burden, if it were truly Eddard's honor-bound duty.

Again, I'm inclined to look at this as a case where GRRM gave preference to what he liked more as an image, as a narrative, which would have made moving Arthur alone inelegant; tearing down a tower to prepare cairns for the combatants is a melodramatic image, but clearly one that GRRM found more interesting than returning the bodies, or a more simple burial.

While Lyanna dying at Starfall is the narrative that I think the author will craft, I'm not seeing any particularly strong reason that it would be implausible for him to craft a narrative in which Lyanna died at the ToJ, if that's where his preferences lay: to sum up, it's not a given in the first place that Eddard's actions were dishonorable, nor would it be contradictory for Eddard to act with insufficient honor at a moment of great emotional distress.

[alienarea]

I have posted this in the other thread a time or two and gained many new friends

I guess I posted it in a previous heresy as well.

It goes like this:

If there would have been other people (servants, silent sisters, ...) at the ToJ someone would have told what happened by now because 'someone always tells'.

Following the books Ned and Howland lived to ride away ( it does not say Ned, Howland and a baby lived to ride away).

Assuming Lyanna died shortly after the fight, her body would start to decompose while Ned tears down the tower and builds the cairns (and her baby would starve unless Howland can give milk).

The logical thing would have been to tie the dead to the horses and ride to whatever village or city is nearest (Starfall).

Continuing the tale of Ned's dream he must have ridden into Starfall with Howland Reed, carrying Lyanna's corpse, a nearly starving thus probably screaming baby, and Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn. I'm confident someone would remember and tell this.

 

[Matthew.]

51 minutes ago, alienarea said:

If there would have been other people (servants, silent sisters, ...) at the ToJ someone would have told what happened by now because 'someone always tells'.

Perhaps, though implicit in any scenario where Wylla is not Jon Snow's mother is the idea that certain members of House Dayne, elder staff of Starfall, and Wylla herself are already successfully keeping a secret, including from members of their own House; Edric Dayne believes that Wylla is Jon Snow's mother, either because this is what he has been told, or because, like Eddard, Starfall has refused to elaborate about events relating to Ashara, Eddard, Lyanna, and Jon Snow, allowing people to draw their own conclusions based on rumor. Though, none of that applies if Wylla really is Jon's mother (an answer that I would actually prefer, since I think the whole "secret parentage" mystery is gimmicky soap opera bullshit anyway ).

In any case, this does raise what I consider to be the more pertinent logistical issues with the ToJ scenario, which is where GRRM's vagueness here is frustrating--not frustrating in relation to occluding a potential mystery, but just frustratingly vague in terms of envisioning even the broad strokes of what was happening.

If the tower was small enough to be pulled down by Eddard and Howland, could it even accommodate 3 - 4 people, or be dwelled in at all? Was it a tower designed to be manned and issue warning to some nearby facility for housing guards, or just to be manned by a single rider, or someone who could send a raven? Did the KG set up a tent encampment, making it hard to accurately assess how many non-combatants were present? How long were the KG there? If they were there for months, were they being supplied and provisioned by Starfall? 

 

[alienarea]

57 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

Perhaps, though implicit in any scenario where Wylla is not Jon Snow's mother is the idea that certain members of House Dayne, elder staff of Starfall, and Wylla herself are already successfully keeping a secret, including from members of their own House; Edric Dayne believes that Wylla is Jon Snow's mother, either because this is what he has been told, or because, like Eddard, Starfall has refused to elaborate about events relating to Ashara, Eddard, Lyanna, and Jon Snow, allowing people to draw their own conclusions based on rumor. Though, none of that applies if Wylla really is Jon's mother (an answer that I would actually prefer, since I think the whole "secret parentage" mystery is gimmicky soap opera bullshit anyway ).

In any case, this does raise what I consider to be the more pertinent logistical issues with the ToJ scenario, which is where GRRM's vagueness here is frustrating--not frustrating in relation to occluding a potential mystery, but just frustratingly vague in terms of envisioning even the broad strokes of what was happening.

If the tower was small enough to be pulled down by Eddard and Howland, could it even accommodate 3 - 4 people, or be dwelled in at all? Was it a tower designed to be manned and issue warning to some nearby facility for housing guards, or just to be manned by a single rider, or someone who could send a raven? Did the KG set up a tent encampment, making it hard to accurately assess how many non-combatants were present? How long were the KG there? If they were there for months, were they being supplied and provisioned by Starfall? 

 

In short: what we seem to know doesn't add up.

Conclusions:

- what we seem to know isn't the truth (or the truth from a certain point of view  )

- GRRM has been sloppy

- both

[Melifeather]

2 hours ago, alienarea said:

I have posted this in the other thread a time or two and gained many new friends

I guess I posted it in a previous heresy as well.

It goes like this:

If there would have been other people (servants, silent sisters, ...) at the ToJ someone would have told what happened by now because 'someone always tells'.

Following the books Ned and Howland lived to ride away ( it does not say Ned, Howland and a baby lived to ride away).

Assuming Lyanna died shortly after the fight, her body would start to decompose while Ned tears down the tower and builds the cairns (and her baby would starve unless Howland can give milk).

The logical thing would have been to tie the dead to the horses and ride to whatever village or city is nearest (Starfall).

Continuing the tale of Ned's dream he must have ridden into Starfall with Howland Reed, carrying Lyanna's corpse, a nearly starving thus probably screaming baby, and Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn. I'm confident someone would remember and tell this.

 

The people left alive that might know the truth and have been keeping it secret are not POV characters nor even characters on any of the pages.

I was rethinking who GRRM wished he hadn't killed off yet and wondered if it was Kevan Lannister. GRRM needs someone from that era who would know the truth of Lyanna's abduction, although Kevan would have no idea regarding the tower of joy - but Howland would. As readers, we are expecting Howland to answer a lot of the unsolved mysteries that have kept us occupied for years on this forum. 

1 hour ago, Matthew. said:

Edric Dayne believes that Wylla is Jon Snow's mother

I think you are misremembering this or misinterpreting, because Edric does not believe that Wylla is Jon's mother. Harwin clarifies for Arya that Edric believes Ashara is Jon's mother, and that he and Jon shared the same wetnurse named Wylla, who has worked for the Daynes "for years".

 

[Black Crow]

The simple way out of this unnecessary hole is to listen to what GRRM said. Dreams are not literal, especially when the dreamer is delirious. We know the fight occurred as he describes it because he corroborated details when he woke. The deathbed scene seems plausible as well, but the mistake is in insisting that they both happened at the same time and in the same place.

[Brad Stark]

2 hours ago, alienarea said:

I have posted this in the other thread a time or two and gained many new friends

I guess I posted it in a previous heresy as well.

It goes like this:

If there would have been other people (servants, silent sisters, ...) at the ToJ someone would have told what happened by now because 'someone always tells'.

Following the books Ned and Howland lived to ride away ( it does not say Ned, Howland and a baby lived to ride away).

Assuming Lyanna died shortly after the fight, her body would start to decompose while Ned tears down the tower and builds the cairns (and her baby would starve unless Howland can give milk).

The logical thing would have been to tie the dead to the horses and ride to whatever village or city is nearest (Starfall).

Continuing the tale of Ned's dream he must have ridden into Starfall with Howland Reed, carrying Lyanna's corpse, a nearly starving thus probably screaming baby, and Arthur Dayne's legendary sword Dawn. I'm confident someone would remember and tell this.

The problem with this is it assumes a conspiracy from everyone and assumes they care.  The general public in the area certainly may know a good deal more about what happened than GRRM shared with the reader, and commoners and really anyone who can't use the information for personal benefit likely doesn't care.  Swordsmen died fighting, a woman died in childbirth, these things happen all the time. 

[Frey family reunion]

On 3/19/2019 at 2:37 AM, Black Crow said:

That's because there was nothing in the tower to protect or defend. It was just an agreed meeting place for their formal rencounter. Compare the atmosphere with the first duel in The Three Musketeers

 

On 3/19/2019 at 4:41 PM, Black Crow said:

As to your first point that's precisely why I'm arguing that it was a formal, pre-arranged rencounter rather than the culmination of a military expedition.

As to the rest JNR and I are in agreement that Lyanna was't lying inside receiving a running commentary on the fight from whatever passed for the domestic staff, and that instead Lord Eddard went elsewhere [probably Starfall] to pick her up.

There does appear to be an air of inevibility to their encounter.  Both sides seemed prepared to encounter each other and both sides seemed fairly resigned to the fact that this was to be a battle to the death.

But if the tower was merely a meeting place for a duel, why was it said that Rhaegar named it the tower of joy?  

I agree Lyanna was not inside the tower, but I disagree that this meeting was merely the last battle of the rebellion.  The presence of the three kingsguards, at least two of who are close confidants of Rhaegar, at a place specifically named by Rhaegar implies to me that this was to be the culmination of Rhaegar’s story arc.  The three kingsguards having taken an oath to finish what Rhaegar had started.

[Frey family reunion]

19 hours ago, JNR said:

That could be the case!  We can easily conjure scenarios that involve that too, because that would have been quite a bit earlier than when Ned found her.

 However, if she was there, perhaps she was moved north after the war, going up the Prince's Pass.

 

As Feather point out, the Prince’s Pass isn’t really a convenient pass to or from Starfall.  In fact, it may be longer and more arduous to go through the mountains to the Pass, then it would be to go to North through the Mountains straight into the Reach.  There isn’t any reason to assume that Ned found her in the tower, unless we assume that Ned’s dreams are limited to scenes that only took place in close geographic and temporal proximity.  

[Brad Stark]

2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

There does appear to be an air of inevibility to their encounter.  Both sides seemed prepared to encounter each other and both sides seemed fairly resigned to the fact that this was to be a battle to the death.

But if the tower was merely a meeting place for a duel, why was it said that Rhaegar named it the tower of joy?  

Arthur may have wanted such a duel.  With the war lost, he may have felt irrelevant, would rather die than serve Robert, feared retribution, or simply thought death was more honorable.  He may even had reasons to want Ned and company dead.

However I can't see Ned wanting or agreeing to such a duel.  He respected, if not outright admired, Arthur.  Ned had a lot to live for, his side won, and he was only in Dorne looking for his sister.  Why would he risk death, and ask his most trusted friends to die, to fight a duel that he could walk away from?

BC likes to use the Gunfight at the O.K Corral as a metaphor, but that doesn't fit at all.  No one really knows what happened, but there didn't seem to be any agreement to "meet here at high noon" or any preplanning of the fight.  After a long set of escalating encounters between the lawmen and the cowboys, the lawmen either outright opened fire or the cowboys did when the lawmen asked them to surrender their arms.

It doesn't seem there was any escalating set of encounters between Ned and Arthur, and neither side seemed to have any interest either breaking or enforcing Dornish law - all parties were visitors with no real interest in the local area.

[Brad Stark]

2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

As Feather point out, the Prince’s Pass isn’t really a convenient pass to or from Starfall.  In fact, it may be longer and more arduous to go through the mountains to the Pass, then it would be to go to North through the Mountains straight into the Reach.  There isn’t any reason to assume that Ned found her in the tower, unless we assume that Ned’s dreams are limited to scenes that only took place in close geographic and temporal proximity.  

Given GRRM's hint about fever dreams, I'd argue Ned's dream is actually a reason against believing Lyanna was actually in the tower.  The problem I have, is if Lyanna isn't at the tower, why would anyone else be?  

[Janneyc1]

10 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

Given GRRM's hint about fever dreams, I'd argue Ned's dream is actually a reason against believing Lyanna was actually in the tower.  The problem I have, is if Lyanna isn't at the tower, why would anyone else be?  

Let's take it a step further, Who told Ned about the ToJ? That information alone would clear up a lot of this. Stannis might actually be able to provide some info on the subject.