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Heresy 235 The Winter Snow


Black Crow

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19 hours ago, LynnS said:

There is the odd tale of the fisherman's daughter which places Ned in the general vicinity of the Quiet Isle at the beginning of Robert's Rebellion.  On the surface, he is using the cover of a storm to move incognito on his way through the Vale, on his way back to the North via the Fingers and Three Sisters.  I wonder what else he was doing in the area..

The Davos chapter in Sisterton have some quotes that in isolation might be hints. Davos lied about how he ended there; was smuggler Ned  in a similar situation (following orders and betrayed)?

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"If it is White Harbor that you want, why are you in Sisterton? What brought you here?"

A king's command and a friend's betrayal, Davos might have said. Instead he answered, "Storms."

Was this the first Rhaegar that lost his wife and went searching around The Bite and White Harbor?:

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One sat just where you're sitting now. Rhaegar, he named himself. I almost laughed right in his face. He'd lost his wife, he said, but he meant to get himself a new one in White Harbor

 

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On 6/20/2021 at 6:30 AM, Black Crow said:

Some interesting thoughts here and, present company excepted, I think too much of the argument is driven by the need to support entrenched preconceptions rather than looking at the evidence clearly and impartially.

I agree with this sentence wholeheartedly. Re-examining the evidence is more interesting than rehashing the old entrenched preconceptions, one of which is the tower of joy scene in Ned's fever dream as being a complete factual event when the author said:

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You'll need to wait for future books to find out more about the tower of joy and what happened there, I fear.

I might mention, though, that Ned's account, which you refer to, was in the context of a dream... and a fever dream at that. Our dreams are not always literal.

 

We are introduced to Ned's fever dream after he is injured in a confrontation with Jaime and his men, when Ned and his men exit Chataya's brothel. The details of this attack show up in his fever dream, most notably his last lucid vision of the Red Keep walls turning red with blood before passing out. It seems obvious to me that something about this attack triggered the old dream.

13 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Which is why I brought this example up.  The idea of a "bed of blood" or "bloody bed" doesn't just imply child birth.  In fact in this world, it might be almost as common that it corresponds with a child's death.  And sometimes the mother's as well.  

I realize that the birthing bed is also a "bed of blood", but when Ned approached Maegor's Holdfast to see Robert dying in his bed of blood, the details he noticed caused Ned to have flashbacks about Lyanna:

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII

The Red Keep was dark and still as Cayn and Tomard escorted him across the inner bailey. The moon hung low over the walls, ripening toward full. On the ramparts, a guardsman in a gold cloak walked his rounds.

The royal apartments were in Maegor's Holdfast, a massive square fortress that nestled in the heart of the Red Keep behind walls twelve feet thick and a dry moat lined with iron spikes, a castle-within-a-castle. Ser Boros Blount guarded the far end of the bridge, white steel armor ghostly in the moonlight. Within, Ned passed two other knights of the Kingsguard; Ser Preston Greenfield stood at the bottom of the steps, and Ser Barristan Selmy waited at the door of the king's bedchamber. Three men in white cloaks, he thought, remembering, and a strange chill went through him. Ser Barristan's face was as pale as his armor. Ned had only to look at him to know that something was dreadfully wrong. The royal steward opened the door. "Lord Eddard Stark, the Hand of the King," he announced.

"Bring him here," Robert's voice called, strangely thick.

Fires blazed in the twin hearths at either end of the bedchamber, filling the room with a sullen red glare. The heat within was suffocating. Robert lay across the canopied bed. At the bedside hovered Grand Maester Pycelle, while Lord Renly paced restlessly before the shuttered windows. Servants moved back and forth, feeding logs to the fire and boiling wine. Cersei Lannister sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband. Her hair was tousled, as if from sleep, but there was nothing sleepy in her eyes. They followed Ned as Tomard and Cayn helped him cross the room. He seemed to move very slowly, as if he were still dreaming.

The king still wore his boots. Ned could see dried mud and blades of grass clinging to the leather where Robert's feet stuck out beneath the blanket that covered him. A green doublet lay on the floor, slashed open and discarded, the cloth crusted with red-brown stains. The room smelled of smoke and blood and death.

"Ned," the king whispered when he saw him. His face was pale as milk. "Come … closer."

His men brought him close. Ned steadied himself with a hand on the bedpost. He had only to look down at Robert to know how bad it was. "What …?" he began, his throat clenched.

"A boar." Lord Renly was still in his hunting greens, his cloak spattered with blood.

A boar slashed open Robert's abdomen, but I suspect that it is also a parallel reoccurrence of how Lyanna died. I've often put forward the idea that Tywin assembled a group of men to impersonate Rhaegar and his men. I think Ser Sumner Crakehall led this group, because the Crakehall family sigil is a brindled boar.

Birthing children is a bloody mess, but I wouldn't discount the idea that Lyanna died of slashing wounds to her abdomen just like Robert. A wound from a sword would spatter blood if the person wielding the weapon swings the bloodstained object back before inflicting another blow. Additional blood spatter would come when a major artery is severed and when blood is mixed with air and exhaled through the nose and mouth. This type of wound would account for the blood spattered gown that Theon saw in his dream: 

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The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna

Why did Theon say the "slim, sad girl" could "only be Lyanna". Yes he noted the pale blue rose crown, but "spattered with gore" seems to clinch the identification. "Gore" isn't a word used to describe childbirth. I'm assuming her gown was white because she was stripped down to her shift. Her outer dress would have been removed in order to treat the wound just as Robert's "green doublet" was removed and lay on the floor discarded.

 

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4 hours ago, Tucu said:

"If it is White Harbor that you want, why are you in Sisterton? What brought you here?"

A king's command and a friend's betrayal, Davos might have said. Instead he answered, "Storms."

Are the king and the friend the same person?

I keep coming back to this essay and this line in Jojen and Meera's oath:

"We swear it by fire and ice."  Does this refer to a bloodline?

A Dragonfly Among the Reeds - Is Howland Reed the Grandson of Duncan the Small? - General (ASoIaF) - A Forum of Ice and Fire - A Song of Ice and Fire & Game of Thrones (westeros.org)

I can't help thinking that awarding the crown of roses to Lyanna is a reference to "Jenny of Oldstones, with flowers in her hair".

I find it easier to believe that Lyanna fell in love with the Dragonfly among the Reeds and the woman that Rhaegar fell in love with at Harrenhall was Ashara Dayne rather than Lyanna.

This:

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean."

"I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers."

 

In another context, this is the groom taking the hand of his bride from the one who gives it away.

It also makes sense to me that Jon is paired with Ghost who belongs to the old gods. The Crannogmen are closer to the old god gods and it seems that Howland's offspring also belong to the old gods..  

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10 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Why did Theon say the "slim, sad girl" could "only be Lyanna". Yes he noted the pale blue rose crown, but "spattered with gore" seems to clinch the identification. "Gore" isn't a word used to describe childbirth. I'm assuming her gown was white because she was stripped down to her shift. Her outer dress would have been removed in order to treat the wound just as Robert's "green doublet" was removed and lay on the floor discarded.

I'm also thinking that the white gown has a symbolic meaning.  If she was hidden at the Quiet Isle, it would make sense that she was disguised as a Septa.

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31 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I'm also thinking that the white gown has a symbolic meaning.  If she was hidden at the Quiet Isle, it would make sense that she was disguised as a Septa.

I'm leaning towards Rhaella being disguised as a septa. We are told in the text that Aerys made sure Rhaella slept with two septa's to insure any children she bore were his.

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Just now, Melifeather said:

I'm leaning towards Rhaella being disguised as a septa. We are told in the text that Aerys made sure Rhaella slept with two septa's to insure any children she bore were his.

It's a running theme.  We see it with Septa Lemore as well.

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12 minutes ago, LynnS said:

It's a running theme.  We see it with Septa Lemore as well.

That's who I was implying. I think Septa Lemore is grandma Rhaella.

But I also want to point out that the manner of dress during medieval times was to wear a white or linen shift under the dressier outer clothes.

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9 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

That's who I was implying. I think Septa Lemore is grandma Rhaella.

But I also want to point out that the manner of dress during medieval times was to wear a white or linen shift under the dressier outer clothes.

I haven't given Rhaella much thought.  As far as the dress; this also a dream.

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On 6/21/2021 at 2:04 AM, alienarea said:

Like Lyanna birthing a living dragon who killed the kingsguard and most of Ned's men until Howlan Reed killed it with dragonglass?

I wouldn't rule out the possibility that she gave birth to the winged serpent that Summer sees above Winterfell 15 years later. (Or died with it still inside her and it "hatched" in the crypts??) Who knows? It's not that uncommon for Targaryens to have these dragon-babies, and I'm pretty sure that several non-Targaryen women had them too (with Targ fathers). There's no way of knowing what sort of abomination might come forth if the dragon is combined with the wolf. Maybe Rhaegar's seed grew inside her into something terrible that chewed its way out (hence spattered gore dress). Or that they cut out of her. Or that was born normally but killed her in the process. 

I kind of like the idea that she made Ned promise to cut out the baby after she was dead. And that therefore Jon, like Ghost, was born from a dead mother. 

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