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R + L = J or N + A = J


Brandon Ice-Eyes

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Did I a accidentally click on the crackpot theories thread? :eek:

R+L=J. Accept it now, accept it later, don’t accept it ever and burn your ASoIaF books. It’s no skin off my nose. :P

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20 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

It’s no skin off my nose. 

Is that a Jeyne joke?

21 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Did I a accidentally click on the crackpot theories thread? :eek:

R+L=J. Accept it now, accept it later, don’t accept it ever and burn your ASoIaF books

Honestly at this point everybody probably agrees that R+L=J. It was the accepted theory for a long time and GRRM confirmed it in every way short of saying out loud that Rhaegar and Lyanna are Jon's parents. As for the crackpot theories, well if a normal and rational discussion is pointless, given that everybody agrees on the answer, might as well meme it.

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I don’t know to be honest, feels too much like a Mary Sue for GRRM to make Jon born of ice and fire and raised from the dead to fulfill an ancient prophecy that makes him the ‘chosen one.’
You’re probably right though but I’m not sure wether George will spin the prophecy as he has made it very clear that prophecy’s are dangerous.

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This historical parallel..
Wylla Fenn + Brandon Stark = Lon Snow  

Would seem to suggest this one is relevant. 
Wylla + Brandon Stark = Jon Snow  

With the possibility that if Wylla isn't her true name, that she could be either Lyanna or Ashara.  

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4 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Is that a Jeyne joke?

That’s awful! :lol:

4 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Honestly at this point everybody probably agrees that R+L=J. It was the accepted theory for a long time and GRRM confirmed it in every way short of saying out loud that Rhaegar and Lyanna are Jon's parents. As for the crackpot theories, well if a normal and rational discussion is pointless, given that everybody agrees on the answer, might as well meme it.

Yeah, you’d think, right? Astonishingly enough though, that’s not the case. There are many, many people who don’t believe in R+L=J. Some find it too obvious, some want to be the special snowflake who figured it all out, some hate Jon and/or the Starks and can’t bear the thought that Jon has some Targ blood in him. There are other lines of thought as well... And all of them are gonna have to make peace w/ the fact that Rhaegar and Lyanna are Jon’s parents. 

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6 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yeah, you’d think, right? Astonishingly enough though, that’s not the case. There are many, many people who don’t believe in R+L=J. Some find it too obvious, some want to be the special snowflake who figured it all out, some hate Jon and/or the Starks and can’t bear the thought that Jon has some Targ blood in him. There are other lines of thought as well... And all of them are gonna have to make peace w/ the fact that Rhaegar and Lyanna are Jon’s parents. 

Well given the truly weird theories out there, is it really surprising that not all people accept a theory, that while clearly 100% true, is not yet canon in the books? Just look at how many people are actually Euron or Bloodraven.

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4 hours ago, Missing Benjen said:

R + L = J

Sure it is ovious now after all these years but for me it is the only one with good and convincing clues.

And I’d say it’s not really that obvious. It may be for people who go to an online discussion forum to talk obsessively about a work of literature. But we’re the minority. Most people don’t do that, and as far as I can tell, based on rl friends who have read the books, most people don’t pick up on it. I have something between 10 - 15 friends who have read all the books, and not a single one picked up on it. And they in turn have friends who also didn’t. So I really think that saying it’s too obvious is a huge overstatement. 

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4 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

I didn't get it either lol Is that a saying? "Why should I care?"

No skin off my nose? Yeah, means to me, it makes no difference whatsoever what you/others believe or don’t believe. 

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6 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

And I’d say it’s not really that obvious. It may be for people who go to an online discussion forum to talk obsessively about a work of literature. But we’re the minority. Most people don’t do that, and as far as I can tell, based on rl friends who have read the books, most people don’t pick up on it. I have something between 10 - 15 friends who have read all the books, and not a single one picked up on it. And they in turn have friends who also didn’t. So I really think that saying it’s too obvious is a huge overstatement. 

Well that's the thing about great twists, you can't see them coming the first time reading, but seem inevitable when re-reading. It's easy to do shock values based twists, even 2 lobotomized brain dead amoebas can do it, but a great twist must combine the shock value with the feeling of it being inevitable when looking back.

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19 hours ago, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

R + L = J or N + A = J

So which one do you subscribe to?

R + L = J (Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon)

or

N + A = J ( Ned + Ashara = Jon)

 

Make sure to state your reasons why! :thumbsup:

R+L =J
The reasons are too numerous to bother with. Not necessarily proven conclusively, but overwhelming volume and variation of evidence.

NOT N+A = Jon
1. All the relatively limited 'evidence' suggesting this pairing turns out to be fundamentally flawed, without exception. 
2. Ned never ever thinks about Ashara. His thoughts around bastards, promises and the like, always turn to Lyanna.
3. Ned + Ashara has no reason at all for failing as a pairing, or for keeping it a mystery. There is no reason for Ned to hide it from Catelyn or anyone else and poison his marriage and family life, there is no danger to Jon, no reason to not tell him or anyone else anyone freely and at least let him grow up knowing his origins.
4. There's no future payoff for N+A in terms of the story moving forward.
5. N+A=J has timeline complications. Jon was conceived within a few months either side of Ned's marriage to Catelyn - definitely after the rebellion started at the very least. While Ashara cannot be positively ruled out as visiting Ned and the rebel army during the war, there ought to be some clues given to us if she did. It would be an unusual and extremely noteworthy thing for Elia's former handmaid and Arthur Dayne's sister to be visiting the rebel army and sleep with one of its generals.
6. Barristan's evidence (and he's the only one we've heard anything about her from who was actually around her at significant times, and more, playing close attention to her as he was crushing on her secretly) is actively un-Ned for Ashara. Barristan clearly holds Ned in high regard, clearly crushes on Ashara, clearly believes Ashara to have been disgraced - and looked to Stark - and to have died in despair after losing her honour and her bastard child. Ned Stark being responsible  for her fate is incompatible with Barristan's respect for him.
Plus, you have the mud-man/fire-man musing that Barristan thinks all young girls are the same - Ashara is one of just two young girls we know he has relevant experience around, so she must be included in his thinking of "all" young girls. And Ned is the quintessential mud man, the opposite of a fire man, almost exactly matching the qualities Dany names in Quentyn that define mud man, and the qualities Barristan thinks of defining it.  
7. Robert, Ned's best friend, closest companion and the man who knew him best back in that time, doesn't consider the possibility that Ned+ Ashara was a thing.
8. N+A doesn't match Ned's character. Not now, and from the evidence of others (mostly Robert), not then.

N+A does serve one useful purpose. It helps inform the rest of us about the level of analytical competence of its proponents.

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14 hours ago, Brandon Ice-Eyes said:

feels too much like a Mary Sue for GRRM to make Jon born of ice and fire and raised from the dead to fulfill an ancient prophecy that makes him the ‘chosen one.’

That's not what a Mary Sue is, but I get your point - it is a bit of a cliché. Only, the single difference between a cliché and a hero archetype is the quality of writing. I fully trust that GRRM is able to pull it in a satisfactory way.

Besides, the fact that Jon is set up like that doesn't mean there cannot be a clever deconstruction of the usual hero trope.

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