Why would Barristan Selmy need to be pardoned?

[Megorova]

18 minutes ago, Walda said:

Do we know if GRRM confirmed Darry was slain, or if it is just inferred by nobody seeing Jon Darry since then?

No one ever asked GRRM about this, thus he didn't confirmed, which means absolutely nothing, it doesn't mean that Jon Darry isn't dead, just because it wasn't described in detail in the main series how did that guy died.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

42 minutes ago, Megorova said:

No one ever asked GRRM about this, thus he didn't confirmed, which means absolutely nothing, it doesn't mean that Jon Darry isn't dead, just because it wasn't described in detail in the main series how did that guy died.

Many people are using Game of Thrones Season 8 logic, if they cut away before he died then it means he definitely survived the 100 wights/mast falling/drowning/dragon fire.

[Walda]

True, but TWoIaF specifies he was slain, 
in the battle on the Trident.

It is one of the rare instances TWoIaF tells us something contemporaneous we could not have worked out from reading the books published so far. (I mean, of things that happened in the lifetime of our point of veiw characters. There was plenty of new Targaryen history material in TWoIaF.)

We know Lewyn was slain by Lyn Corbray, with Lady Forlorn, and we know Jon Darry has an entry in the White Book where Ser Barristan gives an account of his death. We know he is regarded as dead, because the Kingsguard serve for life and he is not on it. But not specifying where or when or who witnessed it leaves a gap in the narrative, where Jon Darry can escape and alert his brothers at the Tower of Joy before Eddard arrives. Where he can don Rhaegar's armor and be felled by Robert, the other participants in the battle too distracted by rubies and their own wounds to feel any urgent need to verify the corpse which was, after all, wearing Rhaegar's armour.

The World of Ice and Fire is kind of slippery as a source because (unlike the main books) GRRM reserves his right to change the "facts" in it to suit the future story. Elio and Linda are supurb close readers, across the detail and I think, not so wedded to their own theories that they ignore inconvenient details or bend them to rule out other interpretations (I've noticed a bit of this sort of thing on the wiki).

If there is nowhere in the main story where it says how and where Jon Darry died, I want to know if Jon Darry's death was imputed by Elio and Linda, or if they were given that info by GRRM. Because, of course, it could be relevant to the J=R+L thing (or whatever really happened with Rhaegar and Lyanna)

 

[Reekazoid]

Say what you want about Robert Baratheon in other areas of his life, but when it came to these types of political gestures the man had great instincts.  Pardoning Barristan is a shrewd move that lets Selmy save face and eases his integration into a Kingsguard made up primarily of people that would have been his enemies during the rebellion.

A pardon acknowledges that Selmy was a Targaryen loyalist, and thus an enemy of the new King.  This lets Selmy's peers that were also Targaryen loyalists interact with him without being able to say he was a turncloak.  Turncloaks don't need pardon from the side they switched to, but Selmy was no turncloak.

 

Likewise, Barristan's peers who supported Robert can't say "he's a traitor and a loyalist, we want nothing to do with him!" because he is now pardoned, and the king himself has forgiven any previous treachery and wiped that slate clean going forward.

An oath of fealty alone would have been enough, but this gesture helps Barristan out socially.

[Megorova]

25 minutes ago, Walda said:

We know he is regarded as dead, because the Kingsguard serve for life and he is not on it. But not specifying where or when or who witnessed it leaves a gap in the narrative, where Jon Darry can escape and alert his brothers at the Tower of Joy before Eddard arrives. Where he can don Rhaegar's armor and be felled by Robert, the other participants in the battle too distracted by rubies and their own wounds to feel any urgent need to verify the corpse which was, after all, wearing Rhaegar's armour.

And people here say that MY theories are ridiculous.

GRRM confirmed that when Rhaegar was killed by Robert, he whispered Lyanna's name.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Rhaegar_Targaryen#Robert.27s_Rebellion

"While Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, soldiers of both armies scrabbled in the water to search for the rubies. The location was named the ruby ford thereafter. Rhaegar died with Lyanna Stark's name on his lips.^[27]"

Reference 27 is from here - "A World of Ice and Fire, sometimes titled George R. R. Martin's A World of Ice and Fire — A Game of Thrones Guide,^[1] is a companion guide available as a mobile app for iOS and Android."

And this in ACOK, Dany IV:

"

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name.^[13]

—Daenerys Targaryen's vision in the House of the Undying

"

That guy in Rhaegar's armor was Rhaegar, not someone else. So just stop, Ok?

[Walda]

@Megorova, again, TWoIaF specifies that the name was Lyanna, but in the books it is

Quote

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name

(ACoK Ch 48 Daenerys IV)

TWoIaF is composed on the conceit that it was a history of the Seven Kingdoms compiled by Maester Yandel for the edification of King Robert (then Joffrey, then Tommen), and had been repeatedly bowdlerised to suit the King it was presently dedicated to. 

The story of Rhaegar Targaryen is one of the most massaged in the book.  We are told this as if Maester Yandel was standing beside him, quill and parchment in hand, craning to hear his last words and recording them with infallible accuracy. 

For all we really know, he could have said "Tansy" 

The app is at best semi-canon and at worst deliberate misdirection.

It is just such a slippery source.