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Poll: Is Lemore Actually Ashara?


Platypus Rex

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4 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

No problem here whatsoever.  GRRM said "in his 30s".  That potentially includes late thirties, as well as early 30s.   The difference is, in HR's case additional evidence narrows it down to "late 30s".  In Ashara's case, you have nothing, so you're grasping at non-sequiturs like this one.

Fine.
You can keep the arbitrary choice of 33 as her age, which makes her 13 or 14 at Harrenhal hanging out with the 20-23 year olds (Brandon, Connington and Oberyn) and intimidating the 18 yr old Ned. And gives frail and sickly 24ish yr old Elia a 12-13 year old 'companion'.
I'll stick with the arbitrary 37-39 as her age which makes her 18-20ish at Harrenhal and gives Elia someone a little more useful and companionable as a companion

Both fit. Equally well is up for each person to decide as they see fit.

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5 minutes ago, corbon said:

You can keep the arbitrary choice of 33 as her age, which makes her 13 or 14 at Harrenhal hanging out with the 20-23 year olds (Brandon, Connington and Oberyn) and intimidating the 18 yr old Ned. And gives frail and sickly 24ish yr old Elia a 12-13 year old 'companion'.

I made no arbitrary choice.  I don't know how old she was.  And obviously neither do you.  

If GRRM later tells me she was only 13 or 14, at Harrenhall, I will have no trouble accepting it.  In case you had not noticed, there is plenty of precedence for this sort of thing in the GRRM-verse.  And if I later learn she was older, I will have no problem accepting that either.

I am not the least bit impressed by your attempt to drum up sarcasm about a 24 year old woman having a 13 year old companion.

5 minutes ago, corbon said:


I'll stick with the arbitrary 37-39 as her age which makes her 18-20ish at Harrenhal and gives Elia someone a little more useful and companionable as a companion

Both fit. Equally well is up for each person to decide as they see fit.

If you want to distinguish fact from theory, which is what you claimed to be doing, perhaps you should stick with "in her 30s".  That's what we actually know.  If you just want to speculate, be as arbitrary as you like.

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On 3/30/2019 at 3:25 PM, Springwatch said:

He does fit in with the word-play layer (bellicosity; having the belly for a fight (Sandor & others); Battle of the Bells....)

belua is latin for "beast, especially of large size, monster, brute"

Lemures is latin for "ghost," lemure = lemore, Ashara is supposed to be dead, she is a ghost, and she had haunting violet eyes, ghosts haunt.  That is why Lemore needs to hide, she is supposed to be dead.  Little Valyrian lemurs have purple eyes and lemur comes from the latin lemures because they are ghostly.  Asha twice calls herself a "shy maid" which she uses ironically and Ashara is on the Shy Maid.  Ashara was also sexually aggressive. 

In Meera's telling of the Mystery Knight "The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench."  Ashara was a maid and Ned was shy, and they were alleged to have fallen in love and maybe had an affair.  

Septa Lemore is Ashara

The semitic goddess Asheara is "she who treads on the sea" so I don't think Ashara drowned.

 

"The poleboats that plied the rivers of Dorne were often brightly painted and exquisitely carved, but not this maid. Her paintwork was a muddy greyish brown, mottled and flaking; her big curved tiller, plain and unadorned. She looks like dirt, he thought, but no doubt that's the point."

Tyrion brings up beautiful brightly painted Dornish boats to contrast with this shabby, plain and unadorned Shy Maid, that is trying to go unnoticed.  Its a metaphor for Ashara back in the day vs current Ashara.

ETA; and lemore sounds like le mort, the dead

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I don't think Lemore = Ashara purely because I'd find it a bit of a cheap shot. The failure of Tyrion to mention her eye colour when he took note of everything else about her - and there was almost a very long passage where he took note of Young Griff's strange eye colour - would have opened the door for more legitimate speculation on whether she's Ashara as well as on whether she is possibly a Hightower or simply f!Aegon's true mother.

tl;dr - No, I don't this Lemore is Ashara.

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No, Lemore is not Ashara, for the reasons mentioned by others no doubt. I think she's Tyene's mother (with painted hair), one of the Viper's infiltrants, who will vouch for Aegon to Arianne and thus Prince Doran.

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

No, Lemore is not Ashara, for the reasons mentioned by others no doubt. I think she's Tyene's mother (with painted hair), one of the Viper's infiltrants, who will vouch for Aegon to Arianne and thus Prince Doran.

This sounds very intriguing. I'm sorry I haven't across this before in case you have discussed this in the past. Would this mean the Viper learnt of Illyrio's plot and infiltrated it (with Illyrio unaware of Lemore's connection to the Viper), while Doran was completely unaware of the whole plot?

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3 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

This sounds very intriguing. I'm sorry I haven't across this before in case you have discussed this in the past. Would this mean the Viper learnt of Illyrio's plot and infiltrated it (with Illyrio unaware of Lemore's connection to the Viper), while Doran was completely unaware of the whole plot?

The sole issue with her as the Viper's infiltrant is that Oberyn seems convinced in aSoS that Aegon is dead. Nevertheless here was my initial idea.

Timeline wise: Oberyn arranged for the marriage pact between Arianne and Viserys in Braavos. After Dany and Viserys got kicked out of Dorne, they lived in Tyrosh for a while. And Doran intended to send her to Tyrosh, but Mellario threatened with suicide, and so those plans were put aside. Clearly, Doran does not know about Aegon.

JonCon was contacted after being in exile already for 5 years. Initially only JonCon and Myles knew and a tale was spread about his disgrace with the GC and his death from drinking at Lys. However, once he returns with Aegon, almost everyone seems to know he's alive and everybody of the high command knows about Aegon. So, after JonCon left, Myles entrusted some other men with the truth. After all JonCon could use the GC as a recruiting pool for Ser Duck and the halfmaester. And if several people know, someone talks, to the right person who might value the information.

Oberyn fought in several sellsword companies in Essos, even formed his own company, and he's portrayed as someone with a vast network of connections as well as able to retain loyalties from surprising people, including Mance's eldest son, despite the fact that Oberyn was the one who mangled Willas' leg. So, I think Oberyn had "friends in Essos", with the golden company, and someone informed him. Oberyn though would have had reasons to be suspicious of this rumor, if Varys was involved. He did not necessarily believe that JonCon's ward was indeed Aegon, which is why he did not inform Doran of this. If it wasn't true, then he would have only burdened Doran with it, who was holding up several balls in the air with the marriage pact, while keeping that secret. 

So, Oberyn kept it a secret, but could also not ignore the slight chance that JonCon's ward was indeed his nephew. He could not risk sending anyone from Dorne without raising suspicion. So, he organized a trip to visit Tyene's mother, the fallen septa who for a while lived in Dorne (and seems to have liked it), but once news was out that she had broken her vows, she was shamed into going home in the Reach. It does sound that she was a devout woman, so she had a calling, but would have been unable to practice it in Westeros AND being reminded of shame at home is no life either, especially if she liked the more carefree life in Dorne anyway. Arianne remembers visiting Tyene's mother in the Reach, and from her memory they sound young enough (12-13, which would fit the timeline). To Doran, Tyene and Arianne it would have appeared to have no other goal than a pleasant family visit. But Oberyn had a purpose - he asked her to try and join JonCon's group, via Varys or Myles, laying it out to her that in that way she could still be a septa, without the shame, and with more freedom, to take care of this boy, and find out whether this was truly Aegon.

And that's what she did. Circumstances made it hard for her to contact him. She needed to win JonCon's trust, and since he never had any confirmation of Tyene's mother for years, Oberyn never ended up believing it himself and still wanted justice for the murder of Aegon along with that of Elia and her daughter.

The alternative is that Oberyn never learned of it, and the visit was just a visit, but Varys sought her out, and she dyes her hair just as a precaution. They all pretty much hide their identity on that bark.

Regardless on whether Varys recruited her on his own or Oberyn had her infiltrate without Varys and Illyrio knowing who she was, she is the ideal fit for Arianne imo. Arianne has met several other characters on her voyage to Aegon, none of which have a personal connection to satisfy her doubts. Neither JonCon or even Aegon himself could do this, but Tyene's mother can. Because of the visit a decade before, Arianne will recognize her, even with dyed hair. She met her when she was old enough to remember her after, and she and Tyene were always very close (of an age). Arianne would trust Tyene's mother, more than she would Ashara Dayne (whom she never seems to have met nor remembers). And Tyene's mother and Arianne would have a mutual person to mourn - Oberyn. So, Tyene's mother is the ideal person to assure Arianne of Aegon's identity. If Tyene's mother says "He's the real deal," then Arianne will believe her without question, send a raven to Doran, and the alliance will be forged.

A hypothetical case can be made that Ashara may have more political weight with Doran, but it's Arianne who will need to be convinced, not Doran. And there is nothing in Arianne's chapters that leads me to believe that Ashara's opinion will convince Arianne any better than Halfmaester Haldon, aka she would not.

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