What is the point of R+L=J?

[CamiloRP]

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

I don’t think that there is enough real estate left in the books for Jon’s story arc to veer in the direction of the Iron Throne.  

GRRM has used five books to create a story arc for Jon involving a conflict of his Oath to the Night’s watch and his desire for Winterfell.

To suddenly veer Jon in a different direction now would be sloppy storytelling.

My guess is that if Rhaegar is Jon’s father the only true significance would be some type of magical bloodline.

tbh I don't think there's enough real estate left in the books and period. GRRM said he had a "three war structure" planned, first the WOT5K, then Danny's conquest and then the war with The Other. WOT5K was three books and Danny's conquest has already two books of setup, and the story keeps growing, it would be weird to start with the longer war and then go into shorter and shorter wars (talking about page count)

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 minute ago, CamiloRP said:

WOT5K was three books and Danny's conquest has already two books of setup, and the story keeps growing, it would be weird to start with the longer war and then go into shorter and shorter wars (talking about page count)

Also I don't think Aegon existed in the early drafts. His main narrative purpose is to be a good King and give Westeros reason to hate Dany when she usurps him.

[alienarea]

Just now, Alyn Oakenfist said:

To act as a story. R+L=J is clearly a thing, the only question is why? What narrative purpose does it serve?

It's a spin on how King Arthur was conceived (another fictitious fantasy story). If you want to be successful, copy what has been successful before and add some new flavor. That's how the entertainment industry works.

[Frey family reunion]

Just now, CamiloRP said:

tbh I don't think there's enough real estate left in the books and period. GRRM said he had a "three war structure" planned, first the WOT5K, then Danny's conquest and then the war with The Other. WOT5K was three books and Danny's conquest has already two books of setup, and the story keeps growing, it would be weird to start with the longer war and then go into shorter and shorter wars (talking about page count)

We all saw firsthand how ackward it was when the HBO show merged Jon and Dany's storylines.  Jon and Dany seemed to be almost teleporting back and forth from the North and the South.  And Jon as "Aegon Targaryen", please.

The best explanation I've heard is that the show combined Jon Snow and Young Griff while also combining Dany and Val.  If so, then my best guess is that Dany's story arc culminates with her desire for the Iron Throne while Jon's story arc culminates in his desire for Winterfell.  

The Others come into play in Jon's story arc while Dany's story arc may in fact position her as the magical invader in the south.

And the realm dies in equal measure in both fire (down south) and Ice (up north).

[CamiloRP]

1 minute ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Also I don't think Aegon existed in the early drafts. His main narrative purpose is to be a good King and give Westeros reason to hate Dany when she usurps him.

I don't know, Aegon gives me severe Paul Atrides vibes.

Also I doubt Dany will be "evil" having the only two women in power being mad would be a pretty weird decision, specially since the main ignorant argument against women in positions of power has been that they are "too emotional"

[CamiloRP]

1 minute ago, Frey family reunion said:

We all saw firsthand how ackward it was when the HBO show merged Jon and Dany's storylines.  Jon and Dany seemed to be almost teleporting back and forth from the North and the South.  And Jon as "Aegon Targaryen", please.

The best explanation I've heard is that the show combined Jon Snow and Young Griff while also combining Dany and Val.  If so, then my best guess is that Dany's story arc culminates with her desire for the Iron Throne while Jon's story arc culminates in his desire for Winterfell.  

The Others come into play in Jon's story arc while Dany's story arc may in fact position her as the magical invader in the south.

And the realm dies in equal measure in both fire (down south) and Ice (up north).

ohhhhhh that'd actually be cool, a good emphasis on the Frost poem too. Nice catch, I like it.

[Nathan Stark]

10 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

tbh I don't think there's enough real estate left in the books and period. GRRM said he had a "three war structure" planned, first the WOT5K, then Danny's conquest and then the war with The Other. WOT5K was three books and Danny's conquest has already two books of setup, and the story keeps growing, it would be weird to start with the longer war and then go into shorter and shorter wars (talking about page count)

I think the war with the Other has been going in the background ever since the prologue in AGOT. We've only seen them and the white walkers on the page a handful of times, such as in Mormont's tower and the Fist of the First Men, but there is also a lot of offscreen action going on with Hardhome. Think of the letter Jon recieves from Cotter Pyke about "dead things" in the water and on land. There are also indirect references, such as Mance's statement that other wildling kings went south for conquest, but he is heading south with his tail between his legs. He'd only do that to escape the Others. So while the war may reach it's crescendo in the later story, it has been going on all this time.

[Frey family reunion]

9 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

ohhhhhh that'd actually be cool, a good emphasis on the Frost poem too. Nice catch, I like it.

It’s also basically a retelling of the Norse Ragnarok myth.

[CamiloRP]

1 minute ago, Nathan Stark said:

I think the war with the Other has been going in the background ever since the prologue in AGOT. We've only seen them and the white walkers on the page a handful of times, such as in Mormont's tower and the Fist of the First Men, but there is also a lot of offscreen action going on with Hardhome. Think of the letter Jon recieves from Cotter Pyke about "dead things" in the water and on land. There are also indirect references, such as Mance's statement that other wildling kings went south for conquest, but he is heading south with his tail between his legs. He'd only do that to escape the Others. So while the war may reach it's crescendo in the later story, it has been going on all this time.

Fair enough, and the same point can be made for Dany's conquest, that has bene in the background since the third chapter of AGOT, tho still, TWOT5K had two books of actual waring plus some extra in late AGOT, so the latter wars should have at least that much "screentime"

[Alyn Oakenfist]

19 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

Also I doubt Dany will be "evil" having the only two women in power being mad would be a pretty weird decision, specially since the main ignorant argument against women in positions of power has been that they are "too emotional"

You misunderstand. Dany will be a very good hearted monarch. But she will start out on the wrong foot, being seen as a kinslayer and an usurper and her applying her usual absolutism (which btw is a far better system then feudalism) will result in her being very unpopular. I don't think she'll go mad or evil, maybe a bit ruthless, but she will be perceived as evil.

[TedBear]

The third head of the dragon. I don't know why he would be a legitimate son, I don't think he will enter the game of thrones and I would have no reason to make him legitimate if he is not the king in the end, repeating the same story of Aegon would be quite boring.

 

 

[Ser Leftwich]

4 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So by following the age old principle of Checkov's gun or in this case Checkov's bastard, it stands to reason that R+L=J will serve some narrative purpose. What is that, besides giving him a claim to the throne?

To stick with the way many plot points are revealed, it is not the "what" of what happened, but the "why" it happened. We readers need to know the what the "what" is before the "why" can be questioned/turned on its head. Things understood to be the "truth" to the general populous in the books are often wildly dependent on POV and the "why" behind the actions done.

Let's compare this to Jaime killing Aerys. When the "what" of this is introduced to readers, it is laid out as pretty straight-forward: Jaime murdered his king. When we get more, we get the "why," Jaime's reasoning behind the action. It is not just straight-forward. 

R+L=J has to come to be 'hanging on the wall' for characters and is only sort of hanging on the wall for the audience. We don't necessarily have a "truth" to be questioned/turned on its head yet. It will come down a lot to who knows the "whats" and the "whys."

On top of that, there will be what it means personally (in the heads/feelings) to individuals, likely Jon, Bran, and Dany:

To Jon, it may be about the whys of the lies Ned told and how that will hurt Jon.

To Dany, it may be about why Rhaegar maybe wasn't the paragon that he was thought to be and how that reflects on her/Targs in general.

To Bran, it might be about the frustration of trying to deal with both the the 'mystical' and the 'game of thrones.' Why would anyone believe what he sees through the weirwoods?

There will be lots of important details in the "whats" and the "whys," and different aspects of those will be more significant to different characters. That is the whole point of these books: the reasons that people make choices. See Maester Aemon and to Jon talking in the rookery in AGoT Jon VIII and Jaime talking about the contradictory vows to different people.

(I don't think it will be a grand unified theory explaining everything and solving everything.)

[Megorova]

17 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Certainly the Targaryen lineage was historically "magical".  They were able to create telepathic bonds with dragons, and perhaps their presence even was responsible for the hatching of dragon eggs.  But there was certainly nothing magical about their bloodlines since Viserys II and his Lysenian wife became the progenitors of the current Targaryen line.  

Larra Rogare was a cat-skinchanger, same as Arya is. Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys is the same person. Shiera Seastar is also a cat-skinchanger, same as her mother was. She posessed a shadow-cat that attacked Mance Rayder near the Shadow Tower, then she impersonated a wildling healer, and cured Mance, and in the process of that influenced him to leave Night's Watch and to go on a mission to unite all wilding tribes, which he did just in time when the Others returned, exactly how Shiera planned it to happen.

Egg's brother Daeron had a gift of foresight, he predicted Baelor's death, and that Dunk will be a cause of it. It seems that Rhaegar also had dragondreams, they inspired his songs. He went to ruins of Summerhall, had prophetic dreams there, and then wrote songs about what he saw.

18 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

We haven't been told of any previous Stark wargs that I'm aware of.  So historically there wasn't anything magical about the Stark lineage.

I think that in the Stark family tree there's a gap in which their House was united with House Targaryen, not once but twice.

Cregan Stark + Alysanne Blackwood = Mariah Stark + Blackwood husband = Melissa Blackwood + Aegon IV Targaryen = (Bloodraven, Gwenys,) Mya Rivers + Blackwood husband = Melantha Blackwood + Willam Stark (Ned and Lyanna's great grandfather).

Falena Stokeworth + Aegon IV Targaryen = Jeyne Lothston + Aegon IV Targaryen = the Bastard of Harrenhal/first Lord Whent/Catelyn Tully's great great grandfather.

If my assumption is correct then the current generation of Starks has Targaryen blood on both sides, from their mothers and their fathers - Ned (from Melantha Blackwood, Aegon's granddaughter) and Cat (from Aegon IV), Lyanna and Rhaegar (whose great grandmother, Betha Blackwood, was either Melantha's sister or first cousin, and also Mya River's descendant).

Also it seems likely that Starks had multiple infusions of Blackwood blood. I think that all four daughters of Cregan Stark and Alysanne Blackwood eventually reconnected their bloodlines with Stark family tree. Mariah Stark thru her granddaughter, Melantha Blackwood (wife of Willam Stark); her sister Alys married with a Karstark, and their daughter was Alys Karstark (wife of Brandon Stark, Willam's paternal grandfather); their sister Sarra married with a member of House Royce, and their daughter was Lorra Royce (wife of Beron Stark, and Willam's mother); Raya married with a member of House Flint, and Arya Flint was their descendant (Arya Flint was Ned's and Lyanna's maternal grandmother).

To Ned and Lyanna three of Cregan Stark's half-Blackwood daughters (Mariah, Alys, and Lorra) were their paternal 4-times-great grandmothers, and his fourth daughter, Raya, was their maternal 3-times-great grandmother.

 

Aegon IV's mother, Larra Rogare, was a cat-skinchanger, so is his daughter, Shiera Seastar; and his son, Bloodraven, is a greenseer. Larra Rogare and Sereney of Lys is the same person, so Shiera Seastar is not only Aegon's daughter, she is also his sister, because she is a product of incest between a mother and a son. I'm sure that Larra Rogare's mother was Johanna Swann, so it's likely that Larra, Shiera, Bloodraven, Mya Rivers and her Stark and Targaryen descendants got their skinchanging abilities from blood of House Swann. It's likely that Swanns are descendants of Garth Greenhand, and thus they are able to use magic.

[Mithras]

Well, it seems to have no point at all. I am waiting for GRRM to make his point, if he manages to write those damn books.