Who's "they" ?

[corbon]

1 hour ago, FictionIsntReal said:

You can imagine all sorts of nonsense at odds with the text, which says more about you than it does about the text.

That you can take a joke that was not used as an argument and turn it into a personal insult is enough to show the value of your discourse.

45 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Catelyn hears 2 different, and probably-incompatible stories

- FIRST, that Ned had sired a bastard with a girl chance met on campaign.

She learned that. I'm not sure that you can call that an actual rumour that she heard. It is implicit in any news that Ned has a bastard, since he didn't have one when he married her and then left on campaign.

 

[Mister Smikes]

16 minutes ago, corbon said:

She learned that. I'm not sure that you can call that an actual rumour that she heard. It is implicit in any news that Ned has a bastard, since he didn't have one when he married her and then left on campaign.

No, it is not implicit, in the fact that she learned he had a bastard, that the bastard had been sired on campaign.  The conflicting story of Jon being sired at Harrenhal proves that.  At the time of their marriage, Ned could have had a bastard that either he did not know about yet, or had not told Catelyn about yet.  

I'm not arguing the text here can't be wrong or a red herring, but I don't think you can just dismiss it as meaningless either.

[corbon]

14 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

No, it is not implicit, in the fact that she learned he had a bastard, that the bastard had been sired on campaign. 

Are you suggesting that there is another way to get a bastard than by siring it on a girl? 

14 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

The conflicting story of Jon being sired at Harrenhal proves that. 

There is no such story. No one anywhere suggests Jon was sired at Harrenhal Tourney. He's much to young for that and Cat knows it.
Now some people within story suggest that Ned may have had a relationship with Ashara Dayne at Tourney, but thats a whole different thing from siring Jon way back then.

When Cat brought Robb to WInterfell, Jon was already there and Robb was considered the elder by all. No one questions this. Not even Cat. Therefore, Jon must have been sired after Ned left Cat's marriage bed where he had just sired Robb.

Thats at least 6 months, probably a year or more after Harrenhal. 

14 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

At the time of their marriage, Ned could have had a bastard that either he did not know about yet, or had not told Catelyn about yet.  

But that bastard could not have been Jon. Baby Jon at Winterfell was young enough for Robb to plausibly be older. And so Cat thinks. 
Robb is older, therefore it is Cat's belief that Jon was sired after Ned left her bed. 

Don't forget, the woman thinking these things is the Cat of 14-15 years later. She's already processed some knowledge (the comparative ages of Jon and Robb) into her consciousness and her thoughts and memories of things outside her personal experience are partially defined by this knowledge.

14 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I'm not arguing the text here can't be wrong or a red herring, but I don't think you can just dismiss it as meaningless either.

I'm not dismissing it at all. I'm saying it doesn't imply what you claimed it did. It fits in with literally anything she heard about Ned having a new bastard. 

[Mister Smikes]

4 hours ago, corbon said:

Are you suggesting that there is another way to get a bastard than by siring it on a girl? 

No.  I'm suggesting there are other ways to get a bastard than by siring them on campaign.

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There is no such story. No one anywhere suggests Jon was sired at Harrenhal Tourney.

I disagree.   I think there is only one Old Winterfell Story about N+A=J.  We get a piece of it in Catelyn's chapter in AGOT, and another piece of it from Harwin in Arya's chapter.   The part we get in Catelyn's chapter is obviously incomplete, since the printed part makes no mention of Jon, and so by itself would not explain Cat's interest or Ned's reaction.  However Cat's interest and Ned's reaction indicate the story is connected to Jon's parentage.  And the part we get from Harwin is that they met and fell in love at the Tourney, kissed and maybe more than kissed, and that there was no dishonor in it because Ned was not betrothed to Catelyn yet.

4 hours ago, corbon said:

When Cat brought Robb to WInterfell, Jon was already there and Robb was considered the elder by all. No one questions this.

And yet for some reason Maester Luwyn feels the need to tell people that bastards mature faster than trueborn children.

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Not even Cat.

Cat asks Ned about the Old Winterfell story in connection with Jon's parentage.

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Therefore, Jon must have been sired after Ned left Cat's marriage bed where he had just sired Robb.

Lord Godric's story to Davos about [Ned + Fisherman's Daughter = Jon Snow] claims that Jon was sired before Ned reached Cat's marriage bed.

So even if you refuse to put together the separated pieces of the Old Winterfell Story, it is still not true that nobody thought that Jon was older than Robb.

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Thats at least 6 months, probably a year or more after Harrenhal. 

Well then, thank goodness for Maester Luwyn and his adages about bastards maturing faster.  In any event, it seems the servants of Winterfell did not buy it, given that their whispers of a tryst at Harrenhal were somehow connected to the issue of Jon's parentage.

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Baby Jon at Winterfell was young enough for Robb to plausibly be older. And so Cat thinks. 

The servants seem to have had their doubts, and apparently so did Cat.

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Robb is older, therefore it is Cat's belief that Jon was sired after Ned left her bed.

Cat's belief, as first relayed in her chapter in AGOT, was that she learned of it in the first year of her marriage, not necessarily that he was sired in the first year of her marriage.  She does, however, believe he was sired on campaign.

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Don't forget, the woman thinking these things is the Cat of 14-15 years later.

And still, after all that time, she wanted nothing to do with Jon.  It's not like he was kept in a crib in her bedroom.

[StarksInTheNorth]

I’m ignoring the rest to go back to the weather in Braavos conversation to point out that Arya and Sam are there during the autumn/winter while Dany was there while winter turned to spring. I’ve been to London in March and in May and it wasn’t all that cloudy. Notably a family friend did have a potted citrus tree she kept on her porch from May on (oranges, not lemons).

So I don’t think it’s too far off to say that she had a lemon tree in Braavos. Pretty sure Willam Darry died when she was 5-6, so by that point they’d be well into spring and maybe even summer. She likely wouldn’t remember anything from the first 2-3 years, so the lemon tree could’ve been put outside afterwards.

id think this makes more sense because Occam’s Razor and stick to my original comments on “they” being the Kingsguard or Howland and the wetnurse. 

[Mister Smikes]

2 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

I’m ignoring the rest to go back to the weather in Braavos conversation to point out that Arya and Sam are there during the autumn/winter while Dany was there while winter turned to spring. I’ve been to London in March and in May and it wasn’t all that cloudy.  

Notably a family friend did have a potted citrus tree she kept on her porch from May on (oranges, not lemons).

So I don’t think it’s too far off to say that she had a lemon tree in Braavos. Pretty sure Willam Darry died when she was 5-6, so by that point they’d be well into spring and maybe even summer. She likely wouldn’t remember anything from the first 2-3 years, so the lemon tree could’ve been put outside afterwards.

id think this makes more sense because Occam’s Razor and stick to my original comments on “they” being the Kingsguard or Howland and the wetnurse. 

If London isn't all that cloudy (and it really isn't), that only proves it is nothing like Braavos.  That's why people in this thread are reduced to arguing against the author, and claiming that the description of Braavosi weather is exaggerated.

Medieval London did not have motor cars or electric lights.  Another thing they did not have was potted citrus plants, grown indoors by hobbyists using sunlamps, and placed outdoors during sunny days or sunny months.  You would not have been able to grow lemon trees in medieval London.  The technology did not exist.

Even if you could grow real world lemon trees in London without modern tech (you can't) and even if Braavos was no more cloudy and frozen than London (it isn't), GRRM is still the boss of his world and the Westerosi lemon trees in it.  If he says Westerosi lemon trees should not (normally) grow in Braavos, then what he says goes.  

The text gives many indications that Westerosi lemon trees don't grow in Braavos nor even anywhere much further north than Dorne.  Even if this were not obvious, GRRM has confirmed, in an email to a fan, that the  lemon tree in Braavos is a deliberate climate discrepancy, and is a clue pointing to something spoilerish.

Time to stop arguing against the author, and telling him he's wrong.  The lemon tree is in the wrong climate, should not (at least normally) grow in Braavos, and that clue points to something spoilerish and significant.  If you don't like the theories other people come up with, create your own theory instead.   But stop arguing that the author is wrong. 

I wonder if the text contains a single reference to a potted plant of any kind.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 10/19/2021 at 4:01 PM, Mister Smikes said:

Catelyn hears 2 different, and probably-incompatible stories

- FIRST, that Ned had sired a bastard with a girl chance met on campaign.

We don't hear about how she heard that, and it's followed up by her rationalization. She doesn't think about how Ashara must have been the woman he met on campaign, or if that story conflicted with the unspecified earlier one. In that light, it could be her interpolation based on Jon's age & what Ned was up to during that time period (and I suppose also not hearing an identity for the mother).

On 10/19/2021 at 4:52 PM, corbon said:

That you can take a joke that was not used as an argument

It directly followed this, which was something you were arguing:

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Robert can come away thinking Ned did, and thats fine. Ned has closed the conversation without actually saying anything. The rest is on Robert's own back.

You did specify it as just for fun and not something you actually believed happened, but your reason was that Ned isn't that subtle. But the actual reason not to believe that, or the theory you actually believe in which Ned didn't say Wylla was Jon's mother in the first conversation, is because Robert said Ned told him.

On 10/19/2021 at 5:59 PM, corbon said:

Don't forget, the woman thinking these things is the Cat of 14-15 years later.

She is, but it's laid out to indicate what she was thinking BEFORE she found Jon at Winterfell vs after (or at least what she now remembers herself as having thought).

On 10/19/2021 at 9:54 PM, Mister Smikes said:

Well then, thank goodness for Maester Luwyn and his adages about bastards maturing faster.

The theory that Ned & Ashara's relationship began at the tourney does not mean Jon was conceived during it.

[Mister Smikes]

12 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

We don't hear about how she heard that, and it's followed up by her rationalization.

The text says what it says.  There are no omniscient POVs, and one can always rationalize the text away. 

12 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

She doesn't think about how Ashara must have been the woman he met on campaign, or if that story conflicted with the unspecified earlier one.

The "met on campaign" story seems separate from the Ashara Dayne story.  Though I suppose you could, with a little effort, try to combine them. 

12 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

In that light, it could be her interpolation based on Jon's age & what Ned was up to during that time period (and I suppose also not hearing an identity for the mother).

My policy, until proven otherwise, will be to assume Harwin's story and the story Cat heard are at bottom the same story.  If I assume (unnecessarily) that they are in conflict, I not only violate Occham's razor, but end up with less evidence to work with.  I don't like discarding evidence without good reason.  I'd rather assume that if GRRM wrote something down, he probably  expects me to pay attention.

12 minutes ago, FictionIsntReal said:

The theory that Ned & Ashara's relationship began at the tourney does not mean Jon was conceived during it.

Then you must postulate other encounters besides the one we have heard of; and disregard Harwin's observation that there was no dishonor in the relationship because Ned wasn't betrothed to Cat yet.

[Ran]

Alright, that's enough for now. Folks need to calm down.