Heresy 219 and a whisper of Winter

[St Daga]

20 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

But have you ever crossed any mountains with a baby in one arm and your dead sister in the other?

Well, of course this is one of the things that makes RLJ or at least several versions of it fall flat on it's face. Not practical at all! Most likely, the Neddard didn't make this journey with either a baby or a corpse! 

 

20 hours ago, JNR said:

Until about an hour ago I would have agreed with you.  Certainly I've said things in this thread that support this.

But I now know I was completely wrong.  I know Lyanna did not die at either Starfall or the TOJ.

That's the last thing I'm ever going to say about the TOJ on this site until TWOW comes out.  Sorry for all my "Lyanna died at Starfall" stuff, which I hereby disavow.

So deliciously vague! Any way, I am curious to hear your thoughts when and if TWOW ever comes out. I will say I have long thought that Lyanna died in the north, most likely at Winterfell, and she was either in the Broken Tower or First Keep, OR in the Glass Gardens. There is something about the glass gardens, and the specific's of the yellow and green glass in it (we discussed this several Heresy's back but I can't remember which one) that makes me think that the black color of Lyanna's (hands or roses) is based on an environmental color, so the glass gardens might be this filter. A red light of a brothel is another option, and one that is also possible, since Ned is a bit sensitive about his ladies being associated with brothels. He nearly kllled LF the first day he met him, Ned was so riled up. Anyway, cheers to your new thoughts! 

 

3 hours ago, alienarea said:

A little bit unrelated: do we know from a SSM or interview whether Howland Reed is still alive as of ADwD?

We know he survived the ToJ as Ned rode away with him, and he must have fathered Meera and Jorjen after the rebellion.

But Ned's dream with his friends as wraiths made me think whether he died in-between? As one of Ned's closest friends one would expect a word or two after Ned's execution, or the Red Wedding, or ...

The wraith idea is a bit unusual isn't it. That the three kingsguard are clear in the dream but all of Ned's companions are wraiths. I have seen theories that indicate this could mean that all of Ned's companions are now dead while the three kingsgard still are alive. Maybe, I suppose. But if Howland is dead, then who do Meera and Jojen think Howland, is? Someone is living at Greywater Watch and calling himself Howland Reed and telling oddly detailed stories from Harrenhal.

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6) How old is Howland Reed?

He'd be in his thirties.

 

This SSM is vague. He'd be, could indicate he would be if he was alive, or it's just how GRRM phrased Howlands current age. 

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I just got back from a book signing with GRRM. Wow! It was relatively small, no reading, so my brother, two friends and I had the opportunity to stand around and pick the Great One's brain for nearly forty minutes. He was wonderfully accomodating and I was very pleased that he -exceeded- my expectations...

We will meet Howland Reed, but not in the next book... he(Howland) knows just to much about the central mystery of the book...

 

This is from an SSM that is paraphrased information that GRRM must have said in verbal discussion, so I guess with any paraphrasing, we need to take it with some salt, but it does seem to indicate that Howland is alive.

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I have a question, since Robb actually legitimized Jon and named him his heir for Winterfell and the North before the Red Wedding (granted no one knows about this and is still alive or free, the Greatjon knows as does Edmure, but Idont see them getting out of the Twins any time soon and Catelyn would probably die before telling anyone) does this make Jon's rejection of Stannis' offer moot?

Edmure and the Greatjon are prisoners, true... but you are forgetting the envoys that Robb sent to Howland Reed... Galbart Glover, Maege Mormont, Jason Mallister... they are all alive and free.

As to what is and is not moot... the key point is, only a =king= can legitimize a bastard......

 

This SSM seems to indicate that GRRM is talking about Howland as if he is a person who was able to at least receive the envoy that Robb sent, which would indicate he is alive I guess.

Hope some of those help. 

Now, since I like to spin tinfoil and crack pot's with my hard headedness, I do think it's possible that Howland could have died and someone else has assumed his identity and is living in Greywater Watch and raising Meera and Jojen. As to Meera and Jojen's ages, I think Meera is around Jon and Robb's age, which could indicate that she was conceived during the rebellion, or just before it, I suppose. Did Howland have time to get married and plant a seed between Harrenhal and the rebellion? Apparently Ned did, so Howland might have had time, too! Or Meera isn't Howland's child but he is raising her as his child. But if she doesn't have crannog blood, and she is certainly small enough to be a crannongman, then she has picked up their skills of hunting and tracking and fighting with ease, it seems.

 

[Brad Stark]

53 minutes ago, LynnS said:

- Ned said Lyanna deserved better than a butcher 

Is this the passage you refer to?  This is not Lyanna...

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“Where is the direwolf?” Cersei Lannister asked when her husband was gone. Beside her, Prince Joffrey was smiling. “The beast is chained up outside the gatehouse, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan Selmy answered reluctantly. “Send for Ilyn Payne.” “No,” Ned said. “Jory, take the girls back to their rooms and bring me Ice.” The words tasted of bile in his throat, but he forced them out. “If it must be done, I will do it.” Cersei Lannister regarded him suspiciously. “You, Stark? Is this some trick? Why would you do such a thing?” They were all staring at him, but it was Sansa’s look that cut. “She is of the north. She deserves better than a butcher.” He left the room with his eyes burning and his daughter’s wails echoing in his ears, and found the direwolf pup where they chained her . Ned sat beside her for a while. “Lady,” he said, tasting the name. He had never paid much attention to the names the children had picked, but looking at her now, he knew that Sansa had chosen well. She was the smallest of the litter , the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick grey fur. Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. 

 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

Is this the passage you refer to?  This is not Lyanna...

 

Yes.  In his mind is he also thinking of Lyanna?

[Brad Stark]

11 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Yes.  In his mind is he also thinking of Lyanna?

I suppose he could be thinking of anything, but I can't find any reason to believe decapitating his daughter's pet reminds him of his sister.  The nearest mention of Lyanna is 13 pages in either direction. 

The first mention of Lyanna after, however is somewhat interesting:

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He remembered Rhaegar’s infant son, the red ruin of his skull, and the way the king had turned away, as he had turned
away in Darry’s audience hall not so long ago. He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once.

The obvious J=R+L interpretation is that she was pleading with Ned to promise he'd keep Rhaegar's son a secret from Robert.  If that's true, we have the obvious difference that Ned listened to his sister's pleas and ignored his daughter's.  But I wonder if anyone has a more heretical explanation for this passage.

[Black Crow]

On 3/22/2019 at 6:42 PM, Frey family reunion said:

But have you ever crossed any mountains with a baby in one arm and your dead sister in the other?

No... but I have done it on foot and in the dark while carrying enough ammunition to get through the better part of the 30 Years War 

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, St Daga said:

Well, of course this is one of the things that makes RLJ or at least several versions of it fall flat on it's face. Not practical at all! Most likely, the Neddard didn't make this journey with either a baby or a corpse! 

The problem I find with these arguments is that in the end the tower is irrelevant to R+L=J

We miserable heretics seem agreed that the two "episodes" in Lord Eddard's dream are connected but probably did not occur in the same place at the same time. However, while the full significance of both has still to be figured out/revealed. Lyanna's dying somewhere other than in that wretched tower does not invalidate the R+L=J theory, but rather a rigid insistence that she did die there in the face of the logic and the clues suggesting otherwise does tend to weaken and even discredit the proposition.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

I suppose he could be thinking of anything, but I can't find any reason to believe decapitating his daughter's pet reminds him of his sister.  The nearest mention of Lyanna is 13 pages in either direction. 

The first mention of Lyanna after, however is somewhat interesting:

The obvious J=R+L interpretation is that she was pleading with Ned to promise he'd keep Rhaegar's son a secret from Robert.  If that's true, we have the obvious difference that Ned listened to his sister's pleas and ignored his daughter's.  But I wonder if anyone has a more heretical explanation for this passage.

Yes, i think there is a subtext here in that memories and wounds are churned up when he thinks of Sansa pleading.  So I wonder who Ned is actually thinking about when he says that she deserved better than a butcher.  He insists that Lady's bones are sent north where they belong and so to me this means that Lyanna died in the South.  Which is of course relative to Winterfell, everything is South.  lol  And I question who is the butcher if we are not talking about Lady but Lyanna.  Was a butcher the only person available to tend to her or is Ned referring to someone's character?  Is Robert the butcher in the sense that he looked away and didn't denounce the killing of Rheagar's children.  The killing of children is a big issue for Ned and the reason that he had a falling out with Robert.  Perhaps Ned's comment that Lady deserved better than a butcher really implies that Lyanna deserved better than Robert.  

[alienarea]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Yes, i think there is a subtext here in that memories and wounds are churned up when he thinks of Sansa pleading.  So I wonder who Ned is actually thinking about when he says that she deserved better than a butcher.  He insists that Lady's bones are sent north where they belong and so to me this means that Lyanna died in the South.  Which is of course relative to Winterfell, everything is South.  lol  And I question who is the butcher if we are not talking about Lady but Lyanna.  Was a butcher the only person available to tend to her or is Ned referring to someone's character?  Is Robert the butcher in the sense that he looked away and didn't denounce the killing of Rheagar's children.  The killing of children is a big issue for Ned and the reason that he had a falling out with Robert.  Perhaps Ned's comment that Lady deserved better than a butcher really implies that Lyanna deserved better than Robert.  

In case theres is a connection ...

A bad or unskilled doctor is called a butcher where I live (in another tongue).

And we know that birthing Targaryens often has complications, plus Lyanna was young and it was most likely the first time she gave birth.

So maybe giving birth caused complications, and the doctor available wasn't skilled, and she died because of this.

 

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, alienarea said:

In case theres is a connection ...

A bad or unskilled doctor is called a butcher where I live (in another tongue).

And we know that birthing Targaryens often has complications, plus Lyanna was young and it was most likely the first time she gave birth.

So maybe giving birth caused complications, and the doctor available wasn't skilled, and she died because of this.

 

Yes, this is why I think she died at the Quiet Isle.  They didn't have a skilled physician there until Elder Brother arrived.  Because the brothers take a vow of silence; her presence there would have been kept a secret.

[SirArthur]

 

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Yes, this is why I think she died at the Quiet Isle.  They didn't have a skilled physician there until Elder Brother arrived.  Because the brothers take a vow of silence; her presence there would have been kept a secret.

The brow of the hill was crowned by a low wall of unmortared stone, encircling a cluster of large buildings; the windmill, its sails creaking as they turned, the cloisters where the brothers slept and the common hall where they took their meals, a wooden sept for prayer and meditation. The sept had windows of leaded glass, wide doors carved with likenesses of the Mother and the Father, and a seven-sided steeple with a walk on top. Behind it was a vegetable garden where some older brothers were pulling weeds. Brother Narbert led the visitors around a chestnut tree to a wooden door set in the side of the hill.

 

A wooden sept with leaded glass ? We have speculated about colored windows before and I always thought Lyanna died in a sept. But a wooden one with glass ? 

[LynnS]

5 hours ago, SirArthur said:

 

The brow of the hill was crowned by a low wall of unmortared stone, encircling a cluster of large buildings; the windmill, its sails creaking as they turned, the cloisters where the brothers slept and the common hall where they took their meals, a wooden sept for prayer and meditation. The sept had windows of leaded glass, wide doors carved with likenesses of the Mother and the Father, and a seven-sided steeple with a walk on top. Behind it was a vegetable garden where some older brothers were pulling weeds. Brother Narbert led the visitors around a chestnut tree to a wooden door set in the side of the hill.

 

A wooden sept with leaded glass ? We have speculated about colored windows before and I always thought Lyanna died in a sept. But a wooden one with glass ? 

Well, Elder Brother lives in a cave with a wooden door.   Lyanna's body could have been prepared and sent to Winterfell without that much difficulty. 

[JNR]

On 3/22/2019 at 2:22 PM, Feather Crystal said:

There's no harm in changing your opinion on a specific topic. I do it all the time!

But there is harm in misleading people when I know I was wrong.  Best simply to admit it.  I don't want to waste anybody's time.

There is a very similar situation re the app.   A frequently-cited passage in it is just utterly wrong, and could not have come from GRRM, and there is no logical explanation for it, either. 

An apology should have been made long before now by the app's author, but we've never seen one, so people have continued to waste hours of their lives thinking and theorizing on that faulty basis.

In time they are going to realize this and some of them are not going to be happy, especially since they spent money on the app. They did this because they trusted that its information was accurate and helpful in figuring out puzzles, and if they ask for a refund when TWOW is out, they should get one, IMO.

[Brad Stark]

Being on this forum is a waste of time.  That is the point of the forum - we have a lot of time before Winds of Winter, if it ever is released at all, so we need something to waste time.  We are all attached to our own pet theories, and some of the book material is going to contradict them - and we will have even more contradiction with the semicannon, less-than-semicannon-official material (the app, the show, etc) and other people's pet theories, as well as those latter things contradicting book material.  Even in cannon, we have contradictions around a horse's gender, people's eye color and the width of a women's hips.

So please continue to waste my time as I am making ever effort to waste yours, hopefully with some entertainment, or at least satiating our thirst for more ASOIAF material.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, JNR said:

But there is harm in misleading people when I know I was wrong.  Best simply to admit it.  I don't want to waste anybody's time.

 

Oh, I change my mind ten times a day.  Nobody is holding it against you.  What you think about it is still a mystery to me even though you've changed your mind.  LOL

[St Daga]

On 3/23/2019 at 1:23 PM, Black Crow said:

The problem I find with these arguments is that in the end the tower is irrelevant to R+L=J

We miserable heretics seem agreed that the two "episodes" in Lord Eddard's dream are connected but probably did not occur in the same place at the same time. However, while the full significance of both has still to be figured out/revealed. Lyanna's dying somewhere other than in that wretched tower does not invalidate the R+L=J theory, but rather a rigid insistence that she did die there in the face of the logic and the clues suggesting otherwise does tend to weaken and even discredit the proposition.

I don't think the tower of joy is irrelevant as a concept in the story at all in relation to the "idea of R+L=J. You might not buy it, but there are enough connections there to at least pursue the idea, although I might agree that the exact formula of R+L=J is a stretch, which is why I mentioned that involving RLJ "at least several versions" fall flat, not the concept of RLJ completely, or even just RL, whether that is R+L or R&L.

As a matter of fact, one can look at the story as one connection that ties to another, and one can't deny that the tower of joy is absolutely associated with Rhaegar, since Ned tells us that it is Rhaegar's name for the place that plays such a major part of Ned's thoughts, and those thoughts tie to "that dream" which involves a "tower long fallen". And the tower of joy is associated with eight cairns, the numbers seven versus three, and to tie it to Ned's dream, the tower in the dream he just had, which he also notes is associated to "that dream", and the fact that only Ned and Howland lived to ride away. "That dream" certainly seems to implicate the dream that Ned had in regards to his fever in the very same chapter.

I also can't deny the characters of Rhaegar and Lyanna are forever intertwined based on the concept that Rhaegar kidnapped Lyanna (whether he really of did not), and that Rhaegar gave Lyanna a rose crown at some point in the past (which it seems like he certainly did as there were multiple witnesses to this deed at Harrenhal). The roses also ties to Ned's dream that involves a tower long fallen (which might not be the tower of joy at all, but some type tower), although not in the form of a crown in Ned's dream. It's a bit of a circle of related concepts. Just as the tower long fallen is associated with the three white cloaks and Lyanna in a bed of blood. The three kingsguard and Dawn are associated with Ned's grey wraiths and horses made of mist. 

Now, the argument to take J out of the idea of Rhaegar AND Lyanna, the tower of joy, the rose crown, the bloody bed, the seven v three, eight cairns, etc, I can see. But of course, I don't claim that J fit's at all with R or J or R+J or R&J BUT many people do, which is what I was getting at to start with. As a matter of fact, both Ned's thoughts on the tower long fallen that he associates with three white cloaks AND Lyanna's bed of blood is actually associated with a "storm of rose petals, blue as the eyes of death". If we need to associate a child to these concepts, I personally think of Dany when I think of storms, not Jon at all. 

ETA: And having said all of that, I don't favor R+L=J as an answer, nor do I really think on many R+L options in the child lottery in  this story but I can see how it comes up, with the process of linking connections.

[SirArthur]

4 minutes ago, St Daga said:

I don't think the tower of joy is irrelevant as a concept in the story at all in relation to the "idea of R+L=J. You might not buy it, but there are enough connections there to at least pursue the idea, although I might agree that the exact formula of R+L=J is a stretch, which is why I mentioned that involving RLJ "at least several versions" fall flat, not the concept of RLJ completely, or even just RL, whether that is R+L or R&L.

The RLJ lovestory, that has overwritten and whiped out the simple idea of RLJ, needs the TOJ for the love narrative they try to find. Their story needs a place dedicated to the love and the tower of joy is the first, best match. 

[Mullocose]

 

9 hours ago, JNR said:

But there is harm in misleading people when I know I was wrong.  Best simply to admit it.  I don't want to waste anybody's time.

There is a very similar situation re the app.   A frequently-cited passage in it is just utterly wrong, and could not have come from GRRM, and there is no logical explanation for it, either. 

 An apology should have been made long before now by the app's author, but we've never seen one, so people have continued to waste hours of their lives thinking and theorizing on that faulty basis.

 In time they are going to realize this and some of them are not going to be happy, especially since they spent money on the app. They did this because they trusted that its information was accurate and helpful in figuring out puzzles, and if they ask for a refund when TWOW is out, they should get one, IMO.

Changing your mind is cool...

Baiting & then not giving anymore information = NOT COOL!!!

[Mullocose]

Lyanna's hands were black because she was a Wight.

Jon was 'Born with the Dead', a concept that is introduced in the first chapter.

[Mullocose]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

But there is harm in misleading people when I know I was wrong.  Best simply to admit it.  I don't want to waste anybody's time.

There is a very similar situation re the app.   A frequently-cited passage in it is just utterly wrong, and could not have come from GRRM, and there is no logical explanation for it, either. 

 An apology should have been made long before now by the app's author, but we've never seen one, so people have continued to waste hours of their lives thinking and theorizing on that faulty basis.

 In time they are going to realize this and some of them are not going to be happy, especially since they spent money on the app. They did this because they trusted that its information was accurate and helpful in figuring out puzzles, and if they ask for a refund when TWOW is out, they should get one, IMO.

Can you point us toward this 'frequently cited passage' from the app? 

[Melifeather]

Is her palm black, or are the pedals black? I vote flower pedals.

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Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.