If Ned+Ashara= Jon, was Jon unwanted in Dorne?

[kissdbyfire]

5 minutes ago, corbon said:

At least 6 by any timeline at all, and more like 12-15.

Harrenhal is at least 3 months before the war starts (closer to 6 months or a years works better) and Robb isn't even conceived until at least three months into the war (and thats really squeezing the timeline, but GRRM does appear to have been a bit impossibly rough and ready with the early war chronology).

This. And there’s no way in 7 hells anyone, and especially Cat, would believe Jon is younger than Robb if the age difference between the two is 6 months or more. No. Way. 

[Melifeather]

5 minutes ago, corbon said:

At least 6 by any timeline at all, and more like 12-15.

Harrenhal is at least 3 months before the war starts (closer to 6 months or a years works better) and Robb isn't even conceived until at least three months into the war (and thats really squeezing the timeline, but GRRM does appear to have been a bit impossibly rough and ready with the early war chronology).

Lord Borrell didn't see anything.

The Fisherman's daughter was from the Fingers, not the Sisters. And Godric never mentions meeting anyone other than Ned Stark. 
Its only a rumour he's heard - the nameless 'they' who say it - that Ned left the woman with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly.
Since she wasn't from the Sisters and had no reason to stay there its doubtful if anyone from the Sisters actually saw her again either - pregnant or not.

Anyone taking the Fisherman's Daughter story as anything more than unfounded gossip by the ignorant... 

 

 

I think the timeline is debatable, and IMO the tourney occurred near the end of the the Year of the False Spring which lasted all of two months before winter returned with a fury the following January. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the Rebellion officially began the end of January or beginning of February. There is already an existing thread for the timeline where I laid out my reasoning. I‘ll look for a link so maybe we can avoid beating that dead horse. People have very strong opinions regarding the timeline and I think it would be fruitless to revisit here. 
 

If Ashara is also Wylla and the Fisherman’s Daughter she would have been only 2-3 months along, so it’s possible that there was no physical evidence , but Lord Borrell is from Sisterton in the Bite and is passing on local gossip for sure.

[Melifeather]

9 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

This. And there’s no way in 7 hells anyone, and especially Cat, would believe Jon is younger than Robb if the age difference between the two is 6 months or more. No. Way. 

That’s your prerogative, but there are three things that make me believe Jon was significantly older, but didn’t necessarily look older:

1) Jon’s physical description as being graceful and slender while Robb is described as muscular.

2) Monster’s description as being smaller than Aemon along with Jon’s acknowledgement that Monster was older, but that nobody seemed to notice.

3) Jon was better at everything than Robb, but he chalked it up to Maester Aemon’s saying that bastards grow up faster.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

59 minutes ago, corbon said:

I repeat, if GRRM is using sloe-eyed to indicate literal purple eyes rather than dark and exotic, its virtually a unique usage.

GRRM used sloe-eyed to describe only one character in the story and that's Taena Merryweather (Cersei III, AFfC 12), a sultry black-eyed beauty (Sansa I, ASoS 6)

[Melifeather]

I had forgotten that I hosted a whole doggone thread about the Rebellion timeline: 

 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

The two other Daynes that we get eye descriptions for:

"Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple."

Darkstar "His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and angry."

 

[kissdbyfire]

10 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

That’s your prerogative, but there are three things that make me believe Jon was significantly older, but didn’t necessarily look older:

1) Jon’s physical description as being graceful and slender while Robb is described as muscular.

2) Monster’s description as being smaller than Aemon along with Jon’s acknowledgement that Monster was older, but that nobody seemed to notice.

I don’t see it. Smaller/bigger =/= slender/muscular. 

10 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

3) Jon was better at everything than Robb, but he chalked it up to Maester Aemon’s saying that bastards grow up faster.

AGoT, Jon I

”Robb is a stronger lance than I am,  but I’m the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse as well as anyone in the castle.”

[Melifeather]

I need to revise my earlier post regarding Ned Dayne. He is too young to have been conceived near the end of the Rebellion, so there are a couple of possibilities for his parentage. One interesting possibility would be if Ashara was his mother, but that he doesn’t know that the wetnurse named Wylla is actually his real mother. We know Ned’s father is dead. We know Arthur is dead too as well as his older brother, so what if the Daynes faced a situation very much like the Bastard O’Winterfell story and didn’t have a male heir? Similar to how Lord Stark’s daughter and child hid in the crypts, perhaps Lord Dayne’s daughter will also be found to be alive?

[Melifeather]

2 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I don’t see it. Smaller/bigger =/= slender/muscular. 

AGoT, Jon I

”Robb is a stronger lance than I am,  but I’m the better sword, and Hullen says I sit a horse as well as anyone in the castle.”

Yes, Robb is a stronger lance, because he is more muscular. When it comes to sword skills and horsemanship - things that don’t necessarily require strength - Jon is better than Robb.

Here’s a description of Joffrey the first time Jon saw him. I believe Jon was right around 14:

Quote

He was twelve, younger than Jon or Robb, but taller than either,

Joffrey is taller than either Jon or Robb even though he’s younger. Whats really interesting is that it says Jon OR Robb, which implies Jon is older than Robb. If they were the same age why not say Jon AND Robb? 

When Jon and Robb played together as children, each would try to claim to be the Lord of Winterfell before the other. 

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne."

That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell."

I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken.

 

I think this passage really highlights Catelyn’s fears that Jon may challenge Robb for his inheritance. She wanted to avoid legitimizing Jon.

[corbon]

 

1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The two other Daynes that we get eye descriptions for:

"Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple."

Darkstar "His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and angry."

 

Thats much better for your case.
Sloe-eyed still means dark, not purple, but but analogy to Edrick and Darkstar, Ashara's eyes may be a very dark purple that is not recognisable as purple mostly (which incidentally, helps the case for her being Lemore - that one 'irritant' for most people to that theory is Lemore's eyes are not described and should be if they are purple, but if she appears just dark eyed then then issue goes away).

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

I think the timeline is debatable, and IMO the tourney occurred near the end of the the Year of the False Spring which lasted all of two months before winter returned with a fury the following January. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that the Rebellion officially began the end of January or beginning of February. There is already an existing thread for the timeline where I laid out my reasoning. I‘ll look for a link so maybe we can avoid beating that dead horse. People have very strong opinions regarding the timeline and I think it would be fruitless to revisit here. 

Thats the leeway I gave you already. 2 months before january, january for events to happen with the war starting at the end, then Robb isn't conceived for at least three months with the battles and travel that need to happen before Ned marries Catelyn.

Personally I'm on the side of Harrenhal being 6-12 months before Robert's Rebellion. As you say, its debatable. But your own timeline at one end of the debate puts Jon a minimum of at least 6 months older than Robb if he was conceived at Harrenhal.

And that is not possible with the data we have. Nobody remotely competent  who spends significant time with two babies could possibly be convinced that a 9 month old is younger than a 3 month old. Catelyn, and her staff at Winterfell, are not that stupid about babies.

Quote

If Ashara is also Wylla and the Fisherman’s Daughter she would have been only 2-3 months along, so it’s possible that there was no physical evidence , but Lord Borrell is from Sisterton in the Bite and is passing on local gossip for sure.

Indeed. He is passing on local gossip. I was responding to your statement that Borrel saw the pregnant woman. Which would make it gossip based on known facts. As best we can tell the only known fact associated with the Fisherman's Daughter story is that Ned did indeed pass through Sisterton on his way from the Vale to Winterfell, and therefore used ships for much of the voyage.

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

I need to revise my earlier post regarding Ned Dayne. He is too young to have been conceived near the end of the Rebellion, so there are a couple of possibilities for his parentage. One interesting possibility would be if Ashara was his mother, but that he doesn’t know that the wetnurse named Wylla is actually his real mother. We know Ned’s father is dead. We know Arthur is dead too as well as his older brother, so what if the Daynes faced a situation very much like the Bastard O’Winterfell story and didn’t have a male heir? Similar to how Lord Stark’s daughter and child hid in the crypts, perhaps Lord Dayne’s daughter will also be found to be alive?

Why is Ned Dayne's parentage in doubt?
Just so you can make a parallel?

1 hour ago, Melifeather said:

Yes, Robb is a stronger lance, because he is more muscular. When it comes to sword skills and horsemanship - things that don’t necessarily require strength - Jon is better than Robb.

Err, no. Swordsmanship requires strength more than jousting does - at least, strength is a significant if not dominant component of almost every sword fight in the series. Jousting, by contrast, is notably the province of agility and horsemanship. 75% horsemanship we are told by in-world experts and we consistently see less strong people beating very strong people in jousts. Less so in sword fights, at least where both users have similar training levels.
Its actually an anomaly in this world that Jon thinks he's a better horseman than Robb but Robb is a better jouster. I think its an indication that they are both very close to each other (in most things), not one obviously better than the other.

Quote

Here’s a description of Joffrey the first time Jon saw him. I believe Jon was right around 14:

Joffrey is taller than either Jon or Robb even though he’s younger. Whats really interesting is that it says Jon OR Robb, which implies Jon is older than Robb. If they were the same age why not say Jon AND Robb?

There is no such implication in the language. 
Its Jon and Robb because this is Jon's pov. Jon and Robb are separated by size/shape, and most particularly here, status and location (which Jon is acutely aware on in this scene). Pairing them with an and would be odd in this context.

Worse, an 'and' would be confusing as it could be taken to men Jon and Robb combined (ie one on top of the other), plus the or is required to work with the 'either' later in the same sentence.

Quote

When Jon and Robb played together as children, each would try to claim to be the Lord of Winterfell before the other.

I think this passage really highlights Catelyn’s fears that Jon may challenge Robb for his inheritance. She wanted to avoid legitimizing Jon.

Of course she did. Her primary purpose in life in this society, as a noblewoman is to ensure her children maintain their wealth and power. If Jon gets it her line doesn't. Jon being legitimised is a strong step in the direction enabling that - both now, for the reason's Robb wants, and for the future, for the possibility that Jon, or his heirs, or a powerful and ambitious lord using his heirs try to usurp her line. As a bastard that possibility is infinitesimally small. As a legitimised son of Ned Stark, a similar age to Robb, that possibility is very much more real.
This is not an argument for Jon being older than Robb.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

2 hours ago, corbon said:

The 'original' Vashti was a Persian Queen, an area where the women (sometimes men too) are famous for their dark, exotic eyes - not their purple eyes. I'll be quite surprised if there is a purple eyed Vashti in that novel, not at all sruprised is there is a character with dark, almond eyes, or very similar.

Here is the full text of Vashti (1867).

Mrs. Gerome is the main character and she is described thusly: very pale white skin, with black hair gone silver, and blue-purple eyes:

Quote

Beneath that faultless forehead burned unusually large eyes, deep as mountain tarns, and of that pure bluish gray that tolerates no hint of green or yellow rays.  The dilated pupils intensified the steel color, and faint violet lines ran out from the iris to meet the central shadows,

The term sloe-eyed is used for the orphan child Muriel, who might be Mrs. Gerome's grandchild?  This book is impossible to just skim through.  But the orphan is called "sloe-eyed and peony-faced"--peonies are pink and white, so I think she is fair-skinned, not olive-skinned.

Does anyone have access to the OED online? I am curious what it says, but I don't have access to it.

George loves obscure references, so if even 1/100 uses of "sloe-eyed" indicated purple eyes, that would be good enough for me.

[corbon]

13 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Here is the full text of Vashti (1867).

Mrs. Gerome is the main character and she is described thusly: very pale white skin, with black hair gone silver, and blue-purple eyes:

The term sloe-eyed is used for the orphan child Muriel, who might be Mrs. Gerome's grandchild?  This book is impossible to just skim through.  But the orphan is called "sloe-eyed and peony-faced"--peonies are pink and white, so I think she is fair-skinned, not olive-skinned.

Does anyone have access to the OED online? I am curious what it says, but I don't have access to it.

George loves obscure references, so if even 1/100 uses of "sloe-eyed" indicated purple eyes, that would be good enough for me.

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" How old is your ward, Miss Manton ? " " About your age, — though she looks much more childish." "Pretty, of course?" "Why 'of course'?" " Simply because in novels they are always painted as pretty as Persephone ; and the only wards I ever knew happen to be fictitious characters." " Novels are by no means infallible mirrors of nature, and few wards are as attractive as my black-eyed pet. Muriel will be very handsome, I hope, when she is grown; but now she impresses me as merely sweet, piquant, and pretty."

Muriel has black eyes.

On pg80 Mrs Gerome thinks to herself that she is only 23 (yesterday).

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How long — how long before that dreamless slumber will fall upon my heavy lids, — weary with waiting ? Only twenty-three yesterday ! My God, if I should live to be an old woman! The very thought threatens in sanity! Ten — twenty — possibly thirty years ahead of me.

I don't think the little girl Muriel is her grand-daughter.

Its hard to be clear though on relationships etc. I can only search one word at a time and its horribly victorian - much to dense to skim through as you say and get an understanding.

I did find this

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I had never before been his guest, and here, at his house, on the second day of my sojourn, I met his favorite nephew, Maurice Carlyle." Mrs. Gerome uttered the name through firmly set teeth, and the blue cords on her forehead tangled terribly. Clenching her fingers, she drew a long breath, and continued, — At that time, he was by far the most fascinating, and certainly the handsomest man I have ever met, and when I -recall the beauty of his face, the grace of his manner, the noble symmetry of his figure, and the sparkling vivacity of his conversation, I do not wonder that from the first hour of our acquaintance he charmed me. I was but a child, a proud, impulsive young thing, full of romance, full of wild dreams of manly chivalry and feminine constancy and devotion; and Maurice Carlyle seemed the perfect incarnation of all my glowing ideals of knightly excellence and heroism. He was thirty, — I not yet sixteen; he poor and fastidious, — I generous and trusting, and possessed of one of the largest estates on the continent. He had spent much of his life abroad, and was as polished as any courtier who ever graced St. Cloud or St. James; I an impetuous young simpleton, who knew nothing of the world, save those tantalizing glimpses snatched from behind the bars of a boarding-school. Here, examine these portraits, while the light still lingers, at that period. They were painted a fortnight after I met him."

She opened a velvet case, and laid before her companion two oval ivory miniatures, richly set with large pearls. Dr. Grey took them both in his hand, and, by the dull, lurid glow that tipped a ridge of clouds lying along the west ern horizon, he saw two pictures. One, a remarkably handsome man, with brilliant black eyes and regular features, and a cast of countenance that forcibly reminded him of the likenesses of Edgar A. Poe, while the expression denoted more of chicane than chivalry in his character. The other, a fresh, sweet, girlish face, eloquent with innocence and purity, with clear, gray eyes, overhung by jetty lashes, and overarched by black brows, while a mass of dark hair was heaped in short curls on her forehead and temples, and fell in long ringlets over her neck. Dr. Grey looked at Mrs. Gerome, and now at the portrait, but the resemblance could nowhere be traced, save in the delicate yet haughty arch of the eyebrows, and the dainty moulding of the faultless nose.

Gerome is showing Muriel's guardian two portraits of a much younger version of herself (16ish) and a man with black eyes she fell for. Gerome is grey eyed.

It appears that Gerome may be Muriel's mother, but the daughter has the father's eyes. The 23-16 age also appears to roughly fit.

 

So, here again, sloe eyed means black eyed.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

4 minutes ago, corbon said:

Muriel has black eyes.

Probably a purple so dark it seemed black. 

"black as a Dornish plum"

"The boy's face turned black as a plum."

"Young Griff had blue eyes, but where the father's eyes were pale, the son's were dark. By lamplight they turned black, and in the light of dusk they seemed purple."

Egg's eyes "In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple."

"He had blue eyes, Dunk saw, very dark, almost purple."

"Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight."

"I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair" (black amethysts)

"Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple."

Darkstar "His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and angry."

Arbor wine described as "the color a purple so dark that it looked almost black "

"The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the color of an old bruise, then faded to black."

 

George seems to like describing deep purple items as being dark, black, or almost black. 

 

"Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black," 

 

[corbon]

36 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Probably a purple so dark it seemed black. 

"black as a Dornish plum"

"The boy's face turned black as a plum."

"Young Griff had blue eyes, but where the father's eyes were pale, the son's were dark. By lamplight they turned black, and in the light of dusk they seemed purple."

Egg's eyes "In the dimness of the lamplit cellar they looked black, but in better light their true color could be seen: deep and dark and purple."

"He had blue eyes, Dunk saw, very dark, almost purple."

"Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight."

"I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair" (black amethysts)

"Ned had big blue eyes, so dark that they looked almost purple."

Darkstar "His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple. Dark purple. Dark and angry."

Arbor wine described as "the color a purple so dark that it looked almost black "

"The cloudless sky turned a deep purple, the color of an old bruise, then faded to black."

 

George seems to like describing deep purple items as being dark, black, or almost black. 

 

"Jon's eyes were a grey so dark they seemed almost black," 

 

The description given for both Muriel and her presumed father, is explicitly black-eyed. And every other sloe-eyed reference pretty much anywhere, including ASoIaF (thanks @Alexis-something-Rose), refers to black/dark eyes rather than purple ones.

If you decide black/dark eyes = purple eyes, go for it. Not gonna convince anyone as a clue though. 

However, as I said from the start, the sloe-reference could be an indirect reference to purple, even if not directly meaning purple colour.
 

[Melifeather]

Sloe berries are purplish-black. The berries are used to make slow-gin which is also deep purplish-red: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_spinosa

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloe_gin

[Melifeather]

4 hours ago, corbon said:

And that is not possible with the data we have. Nobody remotely competent  who spends significant time with two babies could possibly be convinced that a 9 month old is younger than a 3 month old. Catelyn, and her staff at Winterfell, are not that stupid about babies.

True story, my firstborn weighed 20lbs at three months of age, and she still weighed 20lbs when she turned one year even though she was quite a bit taller. My point is that it can be difficult to gauge an infant’s age by just observing their size. Developmental abilities are helpful, but even then there are no hard-fast rules. Some babies can crawl at 7 months while others at that same age can’t yet sit up on their own. Some 9 month olds can walk while some others are well past a year before they can do it. There is enough ambiguity to make a wide range in age between Jon and Robb to work. And I’m sure Catelyn wanted nothing to do with baby Jon.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

In the Middle English dictionary, sloe fruits are being called black sloes, and described as black plums. 

blak slo

Interesting to note that in Middle English "sloe" means "something of little value" and Gion in gaelic means "an insignificant person" or "a small potato"

 

And the variety that grows in the US is called Black Sloe, and I actually have one of these that I thought was a blueberry bush until I ate one of the fruits. 

black sloe

[corbon]

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

True story, my firstborn weighed 20lbs at three months of age, and she still weighed 20lbs when she turned one year even though she was quite a bit taller. My point is that it can be difficult to gauge an infant’s age by just observing their size.

True story, we aren't talking about size (relative or absolute) here.

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Developmental abilities are helpful, but even then there are no hard-fast rules. Some babies can crawl at 7 months while others at that same age can’t yet sit up on their own. Some 9 month olds can walk while some others are well past a year before they can do it. There is enough ambiguity to make a wide range in age between Jon and Robb to work.

While there is ambiguity, there is not that much. There is no way a 9 month old could be thought of as younger than a 3 month old unless it suffers from significant impairment. Which Jon does not.

2 hours ago, Melifeather said:

And I’m sure Catelyn wanted nothing to do with baby Jon.

So am I. I'm also sure she had little choice. Ned prayed to his gods to let them grow up close as brothers with only love between them. And we saw that they did indeed grow up close as brothers. 
 

[Melifeather]

6 hours ago, corbon said:

True story, we aren't talking about size (relative or absolute) here.

Why are you unnecessarily sarcastic? We were discussing size. You asserted that anybody that spent a lot of time with infants would recognize a three month old versus a nine month old and I was disputing that. Joffrey was noted to be taller than either Jon or Robb even though he was two years younger.

6 hours ago, corbon said:

While there is ambiguity, there is not that much. There is no way a 9 month old could be thought of as younger than a 3 month old unless it suffers from significant impairment. Which Jon does not.

This is simply, just not true. There is a wide range in development that is considered "normal". Doctors have elaborate charts that they refer to when they measure a child during check-ups. They often tell the parents what percentile their child falls under.

 

[kissdbyfire]

27 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Why are you unnecessarily sarcastic? We were discussing size. You asserted that anybody that spent a lot of time with infants would recognize a three month old versus a nine month old and I was disputing that. Joffrey was noted to be taller than either Jon or Robb even though he was two years younger.

A  13 yr old being taller than a 15 yr old is completely different than a 9 mo baby being passed off as a 3 mo old.