How did Lyanna manage to face the 3 squires?

[Alyn Oakenfist]

So a thing that's bugging me, as we know at the tourney of Harrenhal, Lyanna, disguised as a mystery knight fought and unhorsed the 3 squires that had assaulted Howland. But like how did she face all them 3? Did she rig the draw, or was it just plot convenience?

[Alexis-something-Rose]

The KotLT faced knights, not squires. And George is introducing a 15 year old girl jouster in TWoW.

[broken one]

meh, nevermind

[Mourning Star]

1 hour ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So a thing that's bugging me, as we know at the tourney of Harrenhal, Lyanna, disguised as a mystery knight fought and unhorsed the 3 squires that had assaulted Howland. But like how did she face all them 3? Did she rig the draw, or was it just plot convenience?

Probably, like with the tourney at Ashford, the mystery knight could choose who to challenge? 

[CamiloRP]

1 hour ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So a thing that's bugging me, as we know at the tourney of Harrenhal, Lyanna, disguised as a mystery knight fought and unhorsed the 3 squires that had assaulted Howland. But like how did she face all them 3? Did she rig the draw, or was it just plot convenience?

They challenged them

 

Quote

"Perhaps they did. The mystery knight dipped his lance before the king and rode to the end of the lists, where the five champions had their pavilions. You know the three he challenged."

ASOS 23 - Bran II

[Megorova]

Any participant/challenger can chose as his opponent any other participant/champion, whoever he wants to fight against. This is how it's done - The Hedge Knight:

"The five champions had raised their pavilions at the north end of the lists with the river behind them. The smallest two were orange, and the shields hung outside their doors displayed the white sun-an chevron. Those would be Lord Ashford’s Sons Androw and Robert, brothers to the fair maid. Dunk had never heard other knights speak of their prowess, which meant they would likely be the first to fall. Beside the orange pavilions stood one of deep-dyed green, much larger. The golden rose of Highgarden flapped above it, and the saffie device was emblazoned on the great green shield outside the door.

“That’s Leo Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden,”...

"The fourth pavilion was sewn together from diamond-shaped pieces of cloth, alternating red and white. Dunk did not know the colors, but Egg said they belonged to a knight from the Vale of Arryn named Ser Humfrey Hardyng. “He won a great melee at Maidenpool last year, ser, and overthrew Ser Donnel of Duskendale and the Lords Arryn and Royce in the lists.”

The last pavilion was Prince Valarr’s."

"Dunk could hear the murmur of excitement in the crowd as the challengers appeared one by one at the south end of the lists. Heralds boomed out the name of each knight in turn. They paused before the viewing stand to dip their lances in salute to Lord Ashford, Prince Baelor, and the fair maid, then circled to the north end of the field to select their opponents. The Grey Lion of Casterly Rock struck the shield of Lord Tyrell, while his golden-haired heir Ser Tybolt Lannister challenged Lord Ashford’s eldest son. Lord Tully of Riverrun tapped the diamond-patterned shield of Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Abelar Hightower knocked upon Valarr’s, and the younger Ashford was called out by Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the knight they called the Laughing Storm. The challengers trotted back to the south end of the lists to await their foes"

"Tybolt Lannister and Androw Ashford rode against each other thrice more before Ser Androw finally lost shield, seat, and match all at once. The younger Ashford lasted even longer, breaking no less than nine lances against Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm."

"Ser Tybolt Lannister and the Laughing Storm would now take their places among the champions, replacing the men they had defeated."

If the challenger wins then he becomes a new champion, and then other participants challenge him.

The original five champions at Harrenhal were Walter Whent's four sons and his brother - Kingsguard Oswell Whent. Prior appearance of the Mystery Knight/Lyanna, at least three of them were defeated and then replaced by the knights from Houses Haigh, Blount, and Frey. Those three became the new champions, and then Lyanna challenged all three of them. When she defeated the first one and removed him from the lists, she replaced him as a new champion. Then she challenged one of the other champions, and after defeating him, challenged and defeated the third one. Champions also can challenge each other. Because in the end there supposed to remain only one winner.

Three of the original champions/Whents were defeated by Haigh, Blount and Frey. Oswell Whent was defeated by Rhaegar. The fifth Whent was defeated by Yohn Royce, Brandon Stark, Arthur Dayne or Barristan Selmy.

Then Lyanna fought and defeated Haigh, Blount and Frey. Rhaegar at that time fought and won against whoever defeated the fifth Whent (Yohn Royce, Brandon Stark, or Arthur Dayne), and then he fought with the remaining two out of those three. 

On the next day Lyanna wasn't participating, so Rhaegar was the only remaining champion left, and he was challenged by Barristan Selmy and defeated him and became the winner of Tournament.

Somewhere between all that Rhaegar also fought against Kingsguard Lewyn Martell, who either was one of the new champions or one of the challengers, because Rhaegar defeated four Kingsguards - Arthur, Barristan, Oswell Whent, thus Lewyn Martell was the fourth one.

[LynnS]

4 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

The KotLT faced knights, not squires. And George is introducing a 15 year old girl jouster in TWoW.

Wha?  Where did you find this?

[Mourning Star]

16 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Wha?  Where did you find this?

Arianne's Sample Chapter.

Spoiler

Elia Sand, Lady Lance:

"Are you half horse, child?" Valena asked, laughing, in the yard. "Princess, did you bring a stable girl?"
"I'm Elia," the girl announced. "Lady Lance."
Whoever hung that name on her has much to answer for. Like as not it had been Prince Oberyn, though, and the Red Viper had never answered to anyone but himself.

 

[frenin]

I find more hard to believe the she scattered three squires with a tourney sword bit.

 

[Canon Claude]

1 hour ago, frenin said:

I find more hard to believe the she scattered three squires with a tourney sword bit.

 

She was the daughter of Lord Rickard Stark. I highly doubt three squires are going to do her much harm. And I'm not saying that because they'd recognise her, I'm saying that because she literally announces who she is before attacking them.

[frenin]

49 minutes ago, Canon Claude said:

She was the daughter of Lord Rickard Stark. I highly doubt three squires are going to do her much harm. And I'm not saying that because they'd recognise her, I'm saying that because she literally announces who she is before attacking them.

She says that's her father's bannerman, they don't know who Howland is, they just know he's from the neck, they don't who Lyanna is, just that she's northene... And you have that tourney sword ad scattering them all, which is there to imply there was some fencing there.

[James Steller]

1 hour ago, frenin said:

She says that's her father's bannerman, they don't know who Howland is, they just know he's from the neck, they don't who Lyanna is, just that she's northene... And you have that tourney sword ad scattering them all, which is there to imply there was some fencing there.

It doesn’t take much brains to figure out who a crannogman’s liege Lord is, and presumably she’s well dressed with a direwolf somewhere on her body. Who’s going to want to harm a teen girl who’s clearly noble born, let alone the daughter of Lord Stark? 

[frenin]

43 minutes ago, James Steller said:

It doesn’t take much brains to figure out who a crannogman’s liege Lord is, and presumably she’s well dressed with a direwolf somewhere on her body. Who’s going to want to harm a teen girl who’s clearly noble born, let alone the daughter of Lord Stark? 

This is feudal structure, that Lord Stark is the top dog of the North doesn't mean that the cragnoman's can't have 4 lieges before getting to him. Especially when coming to a bunch of kids.

But if she was identified right away as Stark, it's rather easy to see how she got away with it. My bad.

[James Steller]

8 minutes ago, frenin said:

This is feudal structure, that Lord Stark is the top dog of the North doesn't mean that the cragnoman's can't have 4 lieges before getting to him. Especially when coming to a bunch of kids.

But if she was identified right away as Stark, it's rather easy to see how she got away with it. My bad.

No worries.

Now that I think about it, maybe there is a rule where only a member of a noble house’s family can wear their sigil on their clothing (excluding banners of course). It would explain how often the characters brand themselves with their sigils. Best to show the commoners who you’re messing with before you actually say anything.

[corbon]

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Any participant/challenger can chose as his opponent any other participant/champion, whoever he wants to fight against. This is how it's done - The Hedge Knight:

"The five champions had raised their pavilions at the north end of the lists with the river behind them. The smallest two were orange, and the shields hung outside their doors displayed the white sun-an chevron. Those would be Lord Ashford’s Sons Androw and Robert, brothers to the fair maid. Dunk had never heard other knights speak of their prowess, which meant they would likely be the first to fall. Beside the orange pavilions stood one of deep-dyed green, much larger. The golden rose of Highgarden flapped above it, and the saffie device was emblazoned on the great green shield outside the door.

“That’s Leo Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden,”...

"The fourth pavilion was sewn together from diamond-shaped pieces of cloth, alternating red and white. Dunk did not know the colors, but Egg said they belonged to a knight from the Vale of Arryn named Ser Humfrey Hardyng. “He won a great melee at Maidenpool last year, ser, and overthrew Ser Donnel of Duskendale and the Lords Arryn and Royce in the lists.”

The last pavilion was Prince Valarr’s."

"Dunk could hear the murmur of excitement in the crowd as the challengers appeared one by one at the south end of the lists. Heralds boomed out the name of each knight in turn. They paused before the viewing stand to dip their lances in salute to Lord Ashford, Prince Baelor, and the fair maid, then circled to the north end of the field to select their opponents. The Grey Lion of Casterly Rock struck the shield of Lord Tyrell, while his golden-haired heir Ser Tybolt Lannister challenged Lord Ashford’s eldest son. Lord Tully of Riverrun tapped the diamond-patterned shield of Ser Humfrey Hardyng, Ser Abelar Hightower knocked upon Valarr’s, and the younger Ashford was called out by Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the knight they called the Laughing Storm. The challengers trotted back to the south end of the lists to await their foes"

"Tybolt Lannister and Androw Ashford rode against each other thrice more before Ser Androw finally lost shield, seat, and match all at once. The younger Ashford lasted even longer, breaking no less than nine lances against Ser Lyonel Baratheon, the Laughing Storm."

"Ser Tybolt Lannister and the Laughing Storm would now take their places among the champions, replacing the men they had defeated."

If the challenger wins then he becomes a new champion, and then other participants challenge him.

The original five champions at Harrenhal were Walter Whent's four sons and his brother - Kingsguard Oswell Whent. Prior appearance of the Mystery Knight/Lyanna, at least three of them were defeated and then replaced by the knights from Houses Haigh, Blount, and Frey. Those three became the new champions, and then Lyanna challenged all three of them.

 

Up to here, this is very good. Although it should be pointed out that tourney's can have different structures and we only assume that the Harrenhal Tourney followed a very similar structure to the Ashford one because the details we have from Harrenhal fit the Ashford organisational descriptions very well.

We should also think about the logistics a little here.
Each bout should take maybe 15-20 minutes including challenging, etc. Sometimes a bit shorter, sometimes (9 lances broken before a result?) maybe a little longer.
Lets say 20 minutes. 
If thats 1 bout at a time, and 6-8 hours a day, thats only 1824 bouts per day - 90-120 for the whole tournament, only about 95-125 knights participating in the whole of westeros!
Thats hardly the greatest spectacle and tourney of its age! There's certainly no room for mystery knights or minor players. You are down to the top 20 or 25 or so from each region...
However, there are 5 champions, so potentially 5 simultaneous bouts - it doesn't take much more effort to prepare 5 sets of 'lanes' than 1.
That could give us around 500-600 potential participants. That seems a more reasonable number.

Even if you double the times taken, champions are still going to have 10+ 'rounds' per day they need to face potential challengers in. They may not get challenged every round but I think its fair to say they must be expecting more than 4-5 bouts in a single day.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

When she defeated the first one and removed him from the lists, she replaced him as a new champion. Then she challenged one of the other champions, and after defeating him, challenged and defeated the third one.

Actually she probably challenged all three at once. The quote @CamiloRP provided (Ashford) seems to indicate that (the challengers ride forward and tap the shields, easy to tap three shields at this time) and it fits better than one after the other because she challenged them all at the end of the day and if it were sequential (meaning challenge-bout-challenge-bout-challenge-bout) rather than at once (meaning 3 simultaneous challenges followed by 3 sequential bouts) then there would be time for other challenges including from fresh challengers on her. But there weren't.

Its also more dramatic this way. 
Both for us and for the crowd. GRRM likes drama.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Champions also can challenge each other. Because in the end there supposed to remain only one winner.

Indeed. Though it seems likely that they, by form (expected conduct), rarely do so until the not-champions are finished challenging. Part of the value of this format is to allow many bouts to happen with some rest time for the champions (who don't necessarily get challenged in every round) and a variety of matches. If they all fight each other at the start you could quickly get down to 1 champion left having to face every challenger and getting no rest and drastically reducing the overall 'flow' of bouts and ruining the timing, as well as drastically reducing the actual number of potential challenges/bouts overall. The 'spectacle' would be dramatically reduced.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Three of the original champions/Whents were defeated by Haigh, Blount and Frey.

 

Possibly. Just as likely, if not more so, they defeated other knights who had previously defeated one of the (Whent) champions.
The Blount Knight won his place late on the first day. So there had been almost a full day of jousting with champions potentially being replaced already before he rode.
The other two both won during the second morning. So more than a full day for them. All three "survived" (meaning either no one challenged them at all - very unlikely - or they won some more bouts) until very late on the second day when the KotLT challenged all three.
 

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Oswell Whent was defeated by Rhaegar.

Maybe, though probably not until the last day, or close to it. Rhaegar doesn't have all that many bouts recorded. Its also suggested (though how much that is worth is uncertain) that he had no interest in the tourney (until after Aerys ordered him to find the KotLT at the end of the second day of jousting, and he succeeded (2nd eve or 3rd day/eve) and heard Lyanna's story would be my guess) so probably didn't 'enter' early, very likely not until the last day.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

The fifth Whent was defeated by Yohn Royce, Brandon Stark, Arthur Dayne or Barristan Selmy.

The fifth Whent could have been beaten by anybody on any day. 

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Then Lyanna fought and defeated Haigh, Blount and Frey.

That happened several days before - late on the second day, with five days of jousting planned. 
And its very unlikely that the jousting didn't last all 5 planned days. The actions of tKotLT in reducing the number of "champions" from 5 to 3 (2 actually since she disappeared without staying to be challenged)) would have messed up the scheduled planning enormously and they would have needed more time rather than less to account for the expected number of challengers.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

Rhaegar at that time fought and won against whoever defeated the fifth Whent (Yohn Royce, Brandon Stark, or Arthur Dayne), and then he fought with the remaining two out of those three. 

This is the last day, not the third. And who defeated who is not certain at all.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

On the next day [the third] Lyanna wasn't participating,

meaning that instead of 5 down to 3 champions they were down to 2. For 3 full days worth of expected bouts.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Megorova said:

so Rhaegar was the only remaining champion left, and he was challenged by Barristan Selmy and defeated him and became the winner of Tournament.

Far more likely that was the end of the 5th day with Selmy and Rhaegar being the final two champions. Both or either of them could have become champion by challenging a champion at any time up to and including the last day. 

Rhaegar defeated 2 unnamed KG (from Martell, Whent, Darry and Hightower - I don't believe we have any evidence as to which of them it was) . Obviously if Whent was one, thats who he challenged. But its also possible that Whent was beaten by someone else first and so Rhaegar never fought him.
Rhaegar challenged one of the 2KG, Yohn Royce, Brandon Stark or Arthur Dayne, and the others all challenged him (but lost). Seems to me that he most likely challenged the unknown KG and the rest challenged him on the last day.
Barristan and he were the final bout so they must have been the last two 'champions' when the challenges (or time) ran out (remember the KotLT antics left only two remaining 'champions' for the last 3 days), so faced each other off in the final tilt.