Heresy 224 Whitey Snow and the Winter Hill Gang

[Melifeather]

Even if the old gods or "just" George were responsible for gifting the direwolves to Ned's children, there must be some purpose. I refer again to the parallel with the Lady of the Lake and her presentation of Excalibur to Arthur to defeat Mordred. Excalibur itself was not a magical sword, but rather Arthur was chosen, because of his prowess as a warrior. Likewise, while the direwolves themselves don't possess magical powers, the Starks are the guardians of the north.

The direwolves enable the Starks to communicate with each other telepathically in dreams and to see through the eyes of their respective direwolves. The direwolves are a tool like Excalibur was a tool, and the old gods presented the direwolves to Ned's children, because they are the chosen family to defend the realm from the growing threat coming from the north. 

[Black Crow]

20 hours ago, JNR said:

It's a better idea than Bloodraven; still, I notice that after Lady was killed, early in AGOT, Sansa was never sent a replacement.

The ostensible sender doesn't seem to have been very committed to the Stark kids actually having them.  This makes me suspect the sender is only GRRM.

Once again I don't think that we're so very far apart on this one, although I wouldn't get too hung up on GRRM's assertion that the whole story springs from the picture coming into his mind of the figures in mediaeval clothes grouped around the dead direwolf in the summer snow. I've no reason to doubt him, on the contrary, its a great inspiration.

But

At no time has he ever claimed to have written that scene ab initio. He's a professional writer. In realising that scene he has to start asking why its happening and where its going - for his own purposes even if they aren't to be revealed to the readers

Therefore when we get to the book as written and presented to an admiring public the prologue which precedes the scene in the snow features a guy called Gared, who we only learn in a much later chapter was the unnamed deserter executed in the first one. It also figures that pack of mysterious hostiles who only we as readers know behave like wolves and correspond in number to the equally mysterious pups.

GRRM is setting this up just as he's setting up the rest of the mystery of Winterfell, the sword named Ice, the words and the crypts. None of these aspects of the Musgrave Ritual feature in the 1993 synopsis, but they are all present very early in that first book.

In literary terms the question is when, if ever, is the puzzle going to be revealed, but having come so far without it, this is surely something for the end or very close to the end rather than an active plot line. The unravelling may begin as I've suggested with Jon's death and the journey that follows, but I don't believe and will strongly argue against a puppetmaster, whether Bran "Kurz" Blackwood or any other individual, is actively managing this.

Rather I see the direwolves [and possibly the walkers who may have spawned them] as a time bomb, sent by the Old Gods which exploded in the woods and set things going, but the children of Winterfell are not actively controlled - although Bran Stark may or may not be a different matter.

[LynnS]

It's interesting to ponder how GRRM constructed GoT.  Starting with the dead wolf in the snow which shows up in Bran I.   There is a lot of information in GoT early on.  So whether or not GRRM had put some thought into how the direwolf shows up south of the wall when they haven't been seen for 200 years, is difficult to determine.  But I think he must have thought about it.  I don't think it's really important to me, unless GRRM has set us up for some kind of surprise.  We do have the God's Eye and the mysterious green men south of the Wall as well.

[Black Crow]

25 minutes ago, LynnS said:

  So whether or not GRRM had put some thought into how the direwolf shows up south of the wall when they haven't been seen for 200 years, is difficult to determine.  But I think he must have thought about it.  

Well that's interesting enough in itself. GRRM starts off with with the dead direwolf and deliberately complicates it by emphasising how big it is and how direwolves haven't been seen for so long. Its all very well to argue that the Wolfswood is a big place and that direwolves could yet be living there unseen, but its GRRM himself, right from the beginning, who introduces the idea that the appearance of one is a strange and interesting event.

[JNR]

22 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

This is why I suggested some sort of deal, such as the Children sending a wolf to each descendant of the Warg King,  They aren't committed to the Starks at all, just honoring the deal. 

If so, they haven't been honoring it for hundreds of years prior to chapter one of AGOT.  

The impossibility of genetic manipulation also applies to the CotF as much as it does to Bloodraven.  So far from being able to arrange whatever children they want in other species, such as direwolves, they have never even been able to stop their own population from dying out, or create greenseers they needed.

21 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

Even if the old gods or "just" George were responsible for gifting the direwolves to Ned's children, there must be some purpose. I refer again to the parallel with the Lady of the Lake and her presentation of Excalibur to Arthur to defeat Mordred.

The difference there is that GRRM started quite simply, with an out-of-nowhere concept in his head of direwolf pups being found in summer snows, and wrote it out... whereas English mythology (the Matter of Britain) goes back thousands of years and has gradually changed and been shaped by dozens of generations as well as  specific writers to suit their needs or to match public interest.

There's nothing wrong with starting with a random concept like that (Larry McMurtry once wrote a long novel based on nothing but an image of a woman eating a chocolate bar). 

But there's really no good way to explain that random image in this case.  Much as there's no way to explain various other things we're told in AGOT, such as the concept that for thousands of years the Andals were never able to invade the North by sea.   (Never mind the fact that that's exactly what they did to the South, never mind the sparse population of the North and the huge coastline; the Andals just couldn't get it done.)

 

[JNR]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

At no time has he ever claimed to have written that scene ab initio. He's a professional writer. In realising that scene he has to start asking why its happening and where its going - for his own purposes even if they aren't to be revealed to the readers

That's true of the North generally ("Why is this a place where it snows in summer?"). 

But it isn't true of the direwolf pups for the obvious reason he's told us:

Quote

 

George R.R. Martin:It was 1991. I was actually writing another novel. I was writing a science fiction novel that I had been intending to write for some time. And just one day, the first chapter of "Game of Thrones" came to me, the scene where they find the direwolf pups in a-- in the summer snows.

Anderson Cooper: That was the first scene that you wrote?

George R.R. Martin: That was the first scene that I wrote. Yeah. That scene came to me. And I wrote it in, like, three days. It just poured out of me.

 

So it seems quite plain that he did indeed say that he wrote that scene based on no initial logic.  He just had a visual he subsequently tried to explain.

And as far as explanations for them go, there is really no force we've been shown so far in the text that could account for the perfect parallel with the Stark kids except dumb luck.  Expecting that is like expecting an explanation as to how the Andals never invaded the North; if the canon is ever finished, I think we'll turn the last page and never get a whiff of a plausible solution to either problem.

[JNR]

52 minutes ago, LynnS said:

So whether or not GRRM had put some thought into how the direwolf shows up south of the wall when they haven't been seen for 200 years, is difficult to determine.  But I think he must have thought about it.

I'm sure.  However, you can put yourself in his shoes.

Suppose this was the seminal image in your head that led you to create ASOIAF: direwolves in the summer snows.

You've writte much or all of AGOT and you like those wolves; you like what they add to your story.

After thinking about it, you still really have no explanation, in-world, for how it is that the pups perfectly align with the Stark kids in number and sex and fine details like Ghost's extraordinary appearance and behavior in context with Jon's extraordinary presence among the Stark kids.

What do you do, in his shoes, in this scenario?  Delete the direwolves, or keep the direwolves?

[LynnS]

2 minutes ago, JNR said:

I'm sure.  However, you can put yourself in his shoes.

Suppose this was the seminal image in your head that led you to create ASOIAF: direwolves in the summer snows.

You've writte much or all of AGOT and you like those wolves; you like what they add to your story.

After thinking about it, you still really have no explanation, in-world, for how it is that the pups perfectly align with the Stark kids in number and sex and fine details like Ghost's extraordinary appearance and behavior in context with Jon's extraordinary presence among the Stark kids.

What do you do, in his shoes, in this scenario?  Delete the direwolves, or keep the direwolves? 

Sorry JNR, I really don't have a clue.  I'm more of a reader rather than a writer.  LOL.   As far as 'gardening'; I've been constructing one since May and my approach is mostly logical and trial by error.  I've constructed my own Wall using plumb lines and 30 pound stone.  All the while thinking about drainage.  But that came after I purchased 10 flats of petunias on impulse because they were aesthetically pleasing and only cost $10.99 for 32 plants.  That was my direwolf moment in the snow.  Then I had to think about the implications and come up with some kind of garden.  I'm still working on the frigging garden. 

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

George R.R. Martin: It was 1991. I was actually writing another novel. I was writing a science fiction novel that I had been intending to write for some time. And just one day, the first chapter of "Game of Thrones" came to me, the scene where they find the direwolf pups in a-- in the summer snows.

Anderson Cooper: That was the first scene that you wrote?

George R.R. Martin: That was the first scene that I wrote. Yeah. That scene came to me. And I wrote it in, like, three days. It just poured out of me.

I've no doubt that it did pour out of him in three days, but equally I've no doubt that he went back to it later, once he had an idea as to where it was going and why, tidied up the wording here and there and added more detail tying it into the rest of the book, including the prologue.

[Melifeather]

I kinda agree with JNR in that we may never know how the direwolves came to be or why they match up with the Stark kids, but I also agree with Black Crow that GRRM does know where they came from and why - I'm just not sure he's inclined to share those details. The magic in the books has limited explanations like there's power in king's blood or only death can pay for life. I even accept that my wheel of time or time loop theory may never be referred to or explained, but I do expect confirmation of it's existence by way of revelations or predictions coming true such as what really happened to Lyanna and Ashara, and what may happen to Jon Snow or Sansa.

In our world the aurora borealis seem magical and even though I understand what causes them, a lot of people don't and they also don't care to know. They simply enjoy them and accept them as part of our normal world. The direwolves are "normal" in Westeros. People know they existed in the past and that the Starks kept them as pets, so nobody is going to wonder why the Starks have them again now. They simply do and its accepted.

IMO it seems the Wall is tied to the irregular seasons as well as the historical time loops, and I think whatever was done, was done in order to defeat the Others. Since the Starks ended up on the south side of the Wall and traditionally have had direwolves in the past, I just don't see a connection between the white walkers and the direwolves. I do see a parallel though, but just as Sam is a parallel to Ned they simply are not the same person. Sam is presented with similar circumstances that Ned faced. He saves Gilly and her son from her father, because Craster wanted to sacrifice her son and expose him to the cold. Ned saved Ashara when she came to him as the Fisherman's Daughter. Was there a threat to her unborn son too? I think so. I think when Aerys executed Rickard and Brandon she fled for fear that her pregnancy would be noticed and that Aerys would deduce that her unborn child was a Stark bastard and sacrifice it to the flames.

Sam's killing of the white walker was a parallel to Ned's killing of Lady, but that does not mean that the white walker was also Lady. They weren't even the same sex (I'm assuming the white walkers are all male). They're simply parallels.

[JNR]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

equally I've no doubt that he went back to it later, once he had an idea as to where it was going and why, tidied up the wording here and there and added more detail tying it into the rest of the book, including the prologue

Oh, I have no doubt about that too.  We know, factually, that he wrote the prologue quite some time after he wrote the kids-get-direwolves chapter.  And we also know he made changes to the initial chapters he gave Ralph, such as changing Dany's dragon eggs into a wedding present from Mopatis.

So it's possible GRRM could have made changes so as to explain the perfect pups/Starks alignment.   I'm just saying at the moment, I don't think we've even heard of any force in the ASOIAF world up to that job. 

And if such a force existed, it's hard to see why it wouldn't have been used again... such as to replace Lady when she was killed.   For five books now, Sansa has been the only one of the Stark kids to be wandering around with no living direwolf (Robb and Grey Wind having been killed at the same time, and Arya still bound to Nymeria).

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The direwolves are "normal" in Westeros. People know they existed in the past and that the Starks kept them as pets, so nobody is going to wonder why the Starks have them again now. They simply do and its accepted.

Sure, but what they think, and what we think, are night and day different because we have more and better info than they do. 

For instance, we have the huge advantage of knowing their world is fiction written by a man who likes well-designed puzzles.  They don't, so they don't feel any urge to solve puzzles they don't realize exist. They don't spend any time wondering who Jon Snow's parents are, either, but we... needless to say... do.  

And while I normally advocate for the premise that GRRM thought through his puzzles rather carefully, in this particular case I think he's all but admitted in interviews that he just went with his initial inspiration. 

Hopefully we'll find out.  But if there's any theory that unites most fans these days, it's that we probably won't get the last book of ASOIAF.

 

[Brad Stark]

22 hours ago, JNR said:

If so, they haven't been honoring it for hundreds of years prior to chapter one of AGOT.  

This is a good question.   Something changed, magic is back in the world and all that came with it, Direwolves, Dragons and Others.   But the Others either never went away or were gone for thousands of years, Bloodraven has been around over a hundred, Dragons died out only just before Bloodraven was born and are back, and if Leaf is believed, the Children have been dwindling but were as much around the past century as they are now.  The trees have eyes again. 

I don't think we can connect the Direwolves to the Starks with Dany hatching her dragons.   So what changed?

[Black Crow]

18 hours ago, JNR said:

Oh, I have no doubt about that too.  We know, factually, that he wrote the prologue quite some time after he wrote the kids-get-direwolves chapter.  And we also know he made changes to the initial chapters he gave Ralph, such as changing Dany's dragon eggs into a wedding present from Mopatis.

So it's possible GRRM could have made changes so as to explain the perfect pups/Starks alignment.   I'm just saying at the moment, I don't think we've even heard of any force in the ASOIAF world up to that job. 

And if such a force existed, it's hard to see why it wouldn't have been used again... such as to replace Lady when she was killed.   For five books now, Sansa has been the only one of the Stark kids to be wandering around with no living direwolf (Robb and Grey Wind having been killed at the same time, and Arya still bound to Nymeria).

Sure, but what they think, and what we think, are night and day different because we have more and better info than they do. 

For instance, we have the huge advantage of knowing their world is fiction written by a man who likes well-designed puzzles.  They don't, so they don't feel any urge to solve puzzles they don't realize exist. They don't spend any time wondering who Jon Snow's parents are, either, but we... needless to say... do.  

And while I normally advocate for the premise that GRRM thought through his puzzles rather carefully, in this particular case I think he's all but admitted in interviews that he just went with his initial inspiration. 

Hopefully we'll find out.  But if there's any theory that unites most fans these days, it's that we probably won't get the last book of ASOIAF.

 

Again coming back to that initial chapter which he dashed off in three days, its intriguing that none of the Winterfell mysteries feature in the 1993 synopsis and nor of course is there a hint of the celebrated "central mystery," yet the question of the direwolves and where they came from, and everything else about Winterfell springs from that scene. Its entirely possible that GRRM didn't know what he was going to do with it when he sketched out the synopsis, but I'm sure that he's thought about it since and even as early as AGoT he was tying the scene, through Gared and other clues, into his own Musgrave Ritual.

Not everything has to be explained of course and I won't be surprised if in the end we have to settle for "the Old Gods" sending the wolves to the right children at the right times, rather than anything more detailed, but notwithstanding, this story is primarily about the Starks and Winterfell. 

I've said before and will argue again that far from being the "central mystery", the R+L=J business is nothing of the sort, but rather from GRRM's viewpoint a very convenient red herring fostered by his own fan-base which was very effectively drawing attention away from the real mysteries central to realising a dream of spring.

[LynnS]

Since there is a bit of a break in the conversation; I want to bring up something that might be germaine to the subject of how GRRM constructs his garden and what he knows or doesn't know when he introduces something.  Here is the first appearance of Lightbringer but previous to that a description of Stannis when he meets Catelyn and Renly:
 

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III

As he neared, she saw that Stannis wore a crown of red gold with points fashioned in the shape of flames. His belt was studded with garnets and yellow topaz, and a great square-cut ruby was set in the hilt of the sword he wore. Otherwise his dress was plain: studded leather jerkin over quilted doublet, worn boots, breeches of brown roughspun. The device on his sun-yellow banner showed a red heart surrounded by a blaze of orange fire. The crowned stag was there, yes . . . shrunken and enclosed within the heart. Even more curious was his standard bearer—a woman, garbed all in reds, face shadowed within the deep hood of her scarlet cloak. A red priestess, Catelyn thought, wondering. The sect was numerous and powerful in the Free Cities and the distant east, but there were few in the Seven Kingdoms.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III

"Enough!" Stannis roared. "I will not be mocked to my face, do you hear me? I will not!" He yanked his longsword from its scabbard. The steel gleamed strangely bright in the wan sunlight, now red, now yellow, now blazing white. The air around it seemed to shimmer, as if from heat.

Catelyn's horse whinnied and backed away a step, but Brienne moved between the brothers, her own blade in hand. "Put up your steel!" she shouted at Stannis.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III

Stannis pointed his shining sword at his brother. "I am not without mercy," thundered he who was notoriously without mercy. "Nor do I wish to sully Lightbringer with a brother's blood. For the sake of the mother who bore us both, I will give you this night to rethink your folly, Renly. Strike your banners and come to me before dawn, and I will grant you Storm's End and your old seat on the council and even name you my heir until a son is born to me. Otherwise, I shall destroy you."

A Clash of Kings - Catelyn III

"We shall see, brother." Some of the light seemed to go out of the world when Stannis slid his sword back into its scabbard. "Come the dawn, we shall see."

We don't really get clued into Melisandre using rubies for glamours until we learn about Mance and his slaved ruby.  This is the same description of the sword that we get from Samwell, although a ruby isn't mentioned:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Samwell V

"You want to see Lightbringer? A blind man?"

"Sam shall be my eyes."

The king frowned. "Everyone else has seen the thing, why not a blind man?" His swordbelt and scabbard hung from a peg near the hearth. He took the belt down and drew the longsword out. Steel scraped against wood and leather, and radiance filled the solar; shimmering, shifting, a dance of gold and orange and red light, all the bright colors of fire.

This is clearly the same sword that Catelyn had seen but we are not meant to notice a ruby except in that one passage.  I think GRRM had worked out the slaved-ruby glamour trick long before we learn about slaved-rubies and glamours.

Or is it a case of GRRM having an image of the sword in his mind and working it out later?

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, LynnS said:

Since there is a bit of a break in the conversation; I want to bring up something that might be germaine to the subject of how GRRM constructs his garden and what he knows or doesn't know when he introduces something.  Here is the first appearance of Lightbringer but previous to that a description of Stannis when he meets Catelyn and Renly:
 

We don't really get clued into Melisandre using rubies for glamours until we learn about Mance and his slaved ruby.  This is the same description of the sword that we get from Samwell, although a ruby isn't mentioned:

This is clearly the same sword that Catelyn had seen but we are not meant to notice a ruby except in that one passage.  I think GRRM had worked out the slaved-ruby glamour trick long before we learn about slaved-rubies and glamours.

Or is it a case of GRRM having an image of the sword in his mind and working it out later?

I think it goes with the direwolves. First comes the visualisation of the scene and its purpose/consequences, then he gradually fills in the details in order to make it work. 

In this case I think that at first the rubies were simply part of the red theme, but the rest was worked out later, just as Gared and the pack of Walkers came later.

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

11 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I think it goes with the direwolves. First comes the visualisation of the scene and its purpose/consequences, then he gradually fills in the details in order to make it work. 

In this case I think that at first the rubies were simply part of the red theme, but the rest was worked out later, just as Gared and the pack of Walkers came later.

Which fits perfectly with GRRM being a gardener. 

[Melifeather]

13 hours ago, LynnS said:

Since there is a bit of a break in the conversation; I want to bring up something that might be germaine to the subject of how GRRM constructs his garden and what he knows or doesn't know when he introduces something.  Here is the first appearance of Lightbringer but previous to that a description of Stannis when he meets Catelyn and Renly:
 

We don't really get clued into Melisandre using rubies for glamours until we learn about Mance and his slaved ruby.  This is the same description of the sword that we get from Samwell, although a ruby isn't mentioned:

This is clearly the same sword that Catelyn had seen but we are not meant to notice a ruby except in that one passage.  I think GRRM had worked out the slaved-ruby glamour trick long before we learn about slaved-rubies and glamours.

Or is it a case of GRRM having an image of the sword in his mind and working it out later?

I think the red rubies were deliberate. GRRM often reveals his mysteries in sets of three. You've listed four instances, but three of them are from the same chapter, so the Catelyn chapter was to bring our attention to it, the Sam chapter brings it up again and I believe Maester Aemon later points out that the sword gave off no heat. Lastly, the instance with Mance looking like Rattleshirt spells it out for us that rubies are used in glamours. Once we understand that rubies are connected to something false, we're meant to question Rhaegar's armor with the sigil made of rubies. I'm not saying Rhaegar wasn't killed at the Trident, but I am saying it's a clue that his armor was involved with something false.

[Lord Aegon The Compromiser]

There's as much proof Rhaegar died on the Trident as there is that RLJ is true...ZERO.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

15 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think GRRM had worked out the slaved-ruby glamour trick long before we learn about slaved-rubies and glamours.

Or is it a case of GRRM having an image of the sword in his mind and working it out later?

I expect GRRM was very deliberate in his use and description of Melisandre's glamors, and knew what he was doing from early on. 

Not sure rubies themselves are particularly important (as opposed to other stones or objects).  If somebody asked me why Melisandre needed rubies to work her magic... I'd say it's probably because they're red, and they match her red costume.  Also, they impress people.  (Subtle pun intended.)

Anyway.  Anyone ever thought that maybe Melisandre was Qartheen? I think maybe she is (or was, once). And maybe Stannis' turn as Azor Ahai tells us something about the history and nature of Qarth.

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I think the red rubies were deliberate. GRRM often reveals his mysteries in sets of three. You've listed four instances, but three of them are from the same chapter, so the Catelyn chapter was to bring our attention to it, the Sam chapter brings it up again and I believe Maester Aemon later points out that the sword gave off no heat. Lastly, the instance with Mance looking like Rattleshirt spells it out for us that rubies are used in glamours. Once we understand that rubies are connected to something false, we're meant to question Rhaegar's armor with the sigil made of rubies. I'm not saying Rhaegar wasn't killed at the Trident, but I am saying it's a clue that his armor was involved with something false.

Well, if rubies are intended to be tied to glamours, then perhaps the imagery of the Ruby Ford is also in some way altered. Ned seems to have a memory of Rhaegar's body in the Trident, but perhaps that image is false?

Quote

They had come together at the ford of the Trident while the battle crashed around them, Robert with his warhammer and his great antlered helm, the Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. The waters of the Trident ran red around the hooves of their destriers as they circled and clashed, again and again, until at last a crushing blow from Robert's hammer stove in the dragon and the chest beneath it. When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor. AGOT-Eddard I

 

Quote

 

Yet when the jousting began, the day belonged to Rhaegar Targaryen. The crown prince wore the armor he would die in: gleaming black plate with the three-headed dragon of his House wrought in rubies on the breast. A plume of scarlet silk streamed behind him when he rode, and it seemed no lance could touch him. Brandon fell to him, and Bronze Yohn Royce, and even the splendid Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning.

 

Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost. AGOT-Eddard XV

 

I'm not sure how the rubies work in the story or if it ties to a glamour or not, but the rubies in Rhaegar's armor play a role in Ned's first and last POV.  Maybe we will find that Rhaegar wasn't in his armor either time, but if so, who was in Rhaegar's armor? As @Feather Crystal points out, there are times when armor is used to fool or disguise (and a disguise is a type of glamour) who really is in the armor, such as how the the story has evolved that Renly's Ghost beat Stannis at the Blackwater when we know it was Garlan Tyrelll wearing a dead man's armor that changed the course of the battle. We also have the idea of King Cleon I of Astapor, an actual dead man placed in his own armor in an attempt to rally troops.

This fires off a bunch of questions in my mind. Could one of these examples apply to Rhaegar? Or is what happened with Rhaegar's armor a jumbled mix of Renly/Garlan and Cleon's stories? If Rhaegar wasn't in his own armor on the Trident, perhaps he wasn't in it at Harrenhal either? IF that is the case, then who actually gave Lyanna that rose crown? And were was Rhaegar? Or maybe one applies to Rhaegar at Harrenhal and other story applies to Rhaegar on the Trident? I'm not sure about Harrenhal, but by the time of the Trident, is it possible that Rhaegar was already dead but someone was using his armor to attempt to rally the troops? Some one battled Robert, so there is no way to think that Cleon's story plays out at either Harrenhal or the Trident. Yet we have Jaime clearly remembering Rhaegar riding away from the Red Keep before the battle, so Rhaegar must have been alive at that time, but perhaps dead by the battle and someone else took his place in the armor? LIke usual, I ask myself so many questions, I am more confused then when I started!!!

Perhaps it's as simple as Rhaegar believing he couldn't be beaten while he was in his armor, such as the day at Harrenhal, but finding out at the Trident, that no such protection or power existed within the armor, and Rhaegar really did die that day on the banks of the Ruby Ford.