Heresy 240: Ten Heretical Years

[Tucu]

51 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I don't see how it mirrors Sansa as knew her escape from KL was coming and she prepared for it. Of course LF lied to her about where 'home' was.  Lyanna was either abducted or went willingly, we don't know yet.

My point is that GRRM might be using the current Starks to give us hints regarding Lyanna's wereabouts.

With Sansa we have a she-wolf running away from an unwanted marriage, escaping with a knight and being smuggled to The Fingers. Here is where Sansa starts turning into stone (Alayne Stone)

With Lyanna we have a she-wolf that maybe didn't want to marry Trouserless Bob; she either escaped or was kidnapped. Then we have a location with a smuggler's cave, a tumbledown tower (that might be a reference to the "tower long fallen" in Ned's dream) and a weirwood described as a maid dressed in white (like Lyanna in Theon's dream).  And we have Ned smuggling a pregnant woman from The Fingers to Sisterton.

Clearly nothing definitive here, but I think these are points to remember for when we get TWOW..

[LynnS]

6 minutes ago, Tucu said:

With Lyanna we have a she-wolf that maybe didn't want to marry Trouserless Bob;

Ned does make a point of saying just how irresistible Robert was to maidens in his youth.  He also says it was her impulsive wolf-blood that brought her to her death.  So if she was at the Eyrie subjected to the full force of Robert's charm offensive... hormones, alcohol and poor judgement, etc and voila.    I'm not so sure she was running away from Robert, rather than travelling to Riverrun. 

As far as John not having the Baratheon look;  I doubt that all sixteen bastards looked like Robert and that's probably the reason the unknown bastards can't make a claim on House Baratheon.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

Then we have a location with a smuggler's cave, a tumbledown tower (that might be a reference to the "tower long fallen" in Ned's dream) and a weirwood described as a maid dressed in white (like Lyanna in Theon's dream).  And we have Ned smuggling a pregnant woman from The Fingers to Sisterton.

 

The weirwood could also describe Sansa with her pale skin and red hair.  She also notes that the God's wood in the Vale doesn't have deep enough soil for a WW to thrive.  She is not really thriving at the Vale either, although she tries to make the best of it.  As for tumbled down towers, GRRM reminded us that Ned's dream was not necessarily based in fact. 

When did Ned smuggle a pregnant woman anywhere?  

[Tucu]

8 hours ago, LongRider said:

When did Ned smuggle a pregnant woman anywhere?  

The fisherman's daughter

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"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gulltown stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

 

[LynnS]

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A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

"This child king commands the wealth of Casterly Rock and the power of Highgarden. He has the Boltons and the Freys." Lord Godric rubbed his chin. "Still … in this world only winter is certain. Ned Stark told my father that, here in this very hall."

"Ned Stark was here?"

"At the dawn of Robert's Rebellion. The Mad King had sent to the Eyrie for Stark's head, but Jon Arryn sent him back defiance. Gulltown stayed loyal to the throne, though. To get home and call his banners, Stark had to cross the mountains to the Fingers and find a fisherman to carry him across the Bite. A storm caught them on the way. The fisherman drowned, but his daughter got Stark to the Sisters before the boat went down. They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true … but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.' "

 

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost.

Ned Stark reached out his hand to grasp the flowery crown, but beneath the pale blue petals the thorns lay hidden. He felt them clawing at his skin, sharp and cruel, saw the slow trickle of blood run down his fingers, and woke, trembling, in the dark.

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

 

I'm not sure what to make of the story.  It's well known after the fact that Ned had a bastard named Jon Snow by an unknown woman.  So I wonder if this tale has grown in the telling.  Instead of being paid a bag of silver for transporting Ned; she is paid for having Ned's child in her belly. It could be a tale that is confused with facts and hearsay.  But it certainly is suspicious.   

Also interesting in that exchange is Ned musing about winning the war and presumably what would be gained by it. It was a gamble.

Ned also dreams of reaching for the crown which could refer to the marriage alliance with Robert only to pay a price that was too steep.  He is left with blood on his hands.

The last line seems to confirm that there were winter roses in the room with Lyanna when she died and not regular roses.  Once again, this narrows down the time of year she died and perhaps the area or region where the hellibore was blooming.

We know it was growing in the region around Harrenhal, so potentially the same general area or latitude.  it's a perennial, so it blooms the same time every year.

[LynnS]

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In the Victorian language of flowers hellebore has an interesting dual meaning. It primarily refers to a scandal, which fits well with the plant’s dangerous history and links to both witchcraft and insanity. But, hellebore has another meaning that offers a positive spin on any situation.

Hellebore can mean hope as well. After all, this deadly plant blossoms from beneath the snow. It blooms in dark winter days and reminds us all that spring is on the way. Hope fits the hellebore plant perfectly. Like so many of us, this uniquely beautiful plant has a lot of regrets in its past.

But maybe that’s why hellebore continues to have a home in our gardens. We won’t be using it to curse our neighbors or poison a town. Instead, we use it to find hope again in the darkness. Watching hellebore blossom in the snow, we feel that within each of us lives “an invincible summer..no matter how hard the world pushes against [us], within [us all] there’s something stronger—something better, pushing right back.”

 

All You Ever Wanted to Know About the Magical Hellebore Plant - Garden and Happy

[LynnS]

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While ancient herbalists occasionally used hellebore to heal, its primary role was more sinister. Basically, it was most often used as a poison. Its unlucky victims eventually died of cardiac arrest after nausea, vomiting, tongue and throat swelling, and a slowed heart rate.

This flower tends to be burning and acrid in its interactions with the human body. As a result, careless handling can cause skin irritations and ulcers. It’s best to handle hellebore with gloves and keep this plant out of the reach of children and pets.

Quite awful to give someone a crown of winter roses.  I don't think Lyanna carried it around with her.

Selmy didn't understand the significance of the message.

[LongRider]

So, Ned was the one that was smuggled, not a woman known to be pregnant at the time.  Sometime after that she apparently gives birth and Jon has another origin story.  So, let's see; fisherman's daughter, Walda the wet nurse, and Ashara Dayne have been either mentioned or inferred to be Jon's mother.  Lyanna as mother is kept secret if true.  I wonder if we have actually met Jon's mother in the story yet?  

[asongofheresy]

On 12/26/2021 at 5:48 AM, Yaya said:

oh & even more of my thoughts for you all:

" "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers.""

you know what i thought when i first ready this all those years ago? 
Lyanna was in love with a bastard from the Reach (fond of flowers) and that was why she was (reportedly) in the Harrenhal area when the (supposed) abduction occured. 
also, this could have been a part of Rickard Stark's 'southron ambitions'. 
IF  Lyanna was pregnant & died birthing (which I also don't believe), my money is on that the baby was a "Flower" child

 

Like Walys Flowers? 

[LynnS]

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A Clash of Kings - Jon III

"Aye, and long before them came the Horned Lord and the brother kings Gendel and Gorne, and in ancient days Joramun, who blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. Each man of them broke his strength on the Wall, or was broken by the power of Winterfell on the far side . . . but the Night's Watch is only a shadow of what we were, and who remains to oppose the wildlings besides us? The Lord of Winterfell is dead, and his heir has marched his strength south to fight the Lannisters. The wildlings may never again have such a chance as this. I knew Mance Rayder, Jon. He is an oathbreaker, yes . . . but he has eyes to see, and no man has ever dared to name him faintheart."

 

Awakening the Sleeping Giant - TV Tropes

[LynnS]

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A Game of Thrones - Bran III

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Sealed Evil in a Can - TV Tropes

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Long ago, An Ancient People faced a terrible evil. Using various methods, they bound the evil into a prison from which they thought it could never escape.

It did.

Sealed Evil in a Can, as the title suggests, is a way to suddenly introduce a villain, especially one that is legendary and powerful. It also explains why the villain hasn't done anything up to that point: It escaped very, very recently.

 

 

[Black Crow]

11 hours ago, LynnS said:

Sealed Evil in a Can - TV Tropes

 

Certainly fits with GRRM's admiration for The Wheel of Time saga and at the same time allows for the Musgrave Ritual to play out beneath Winterfell

[LynnS]

21 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Certainly fits with GRRM's admiration for The Wheel of Time saga and at the same time allows for the Musgrave Ritual to play out beneath Winterfell

I want Jon to hurry up and get down there.  I want to see what's locked away.  Wonder when that will happen.

[Sly Wren]

On 12/27/2021 at 6:34 AM, LynnS said:

All You Ever Wanted to Know About the Magical Hellebore Plant - Garden and Happy

So--basically Lyanna's blue roses are "Bitterblooms?"

And thus--a lot like Arya's "poison kisses?"

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse.

Then it turned out the purple flowers were called poison kisses, and Arya got a rash on her arms. Sansa would have thought that might have taught her a lesson, but Arya laughed about it, and the next day she rubbed mud all over her arms like some ignorant bog woman just because her friend Mycah told her it would stop the itching. Sansa I: Game.

 

GRRM really likes this trope.

 

 

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Sly Wren said:

Then it turned out the purple flowers were called poison kisses, and Arya got a rash on her arms

Poison kisses!  Why does this bring the faceless men to mind?  I still wonder if the medusa in the GoHH dream is Arya with purple serpents in her hair rather than Sansa.

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A Dance with Dragons - The Blind Girl

Poisons and potions were for the afternoons. She had smell and touch and taste to help her, but touch and taste could be perilous when grinding poisons, and with some of the waif's more toxic concoctions even smell was less than safe. Burned pinky tips and blistered lips became familiar to her, and once she made herself so sick she could not keep down any food for days.

 

George R. R. Martin – Bitterblooms Audiobook – Audiobooks (Free) (staraudiobook.com)

[Black Crow]

Ultimately of course this puts a huge dent in R+L=J.

The theory of course runs that Rhaegar, who had never met Lyanna but somehow identified her as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, deposited a crown of Winter Roses in her lap as a declaration of love and a coded signal to elope together.

Now we know what he planted on her was Hellebore - and poisonous. This still fits perfectly with a coded signal to warn off the Northern conspirators, but its not a love story.

[Black Crow]

8 hours ago, Sly Wren said:

So--basically Lyanna's blue roses are "Bitterblooms?"

...

GRRM really likes this trope.

And Bitterblooms are also about illusions...

[Tucu]

58 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

And Bitterblooms are also about illusions...

The link between hellebore and the Greek seer Melampus is curious but probably unintentional. The myth is that Dionysus (a horned god of fertility, wine and vegetation) cursed the daughters of a Greek king driving them mad; they were cured by Melampus with a ritual involving black hellebore flowers.

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Ultimately of course this puts a huge dent in R+L=J.

The theory of course runs that Rhaegar, who had never met Lyanna but somehow identified her as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, deposited a crown of Winter Roses in her lap as a declaration of love and a coded signal to elope together.

Now we know what he planted on her was Hellebore - and poisonous. This still fits perfectly with a coded signal to warn off the Northern conspirators, but its not a love story.

It also puts a question mark beside the tower of joy.  Ned identifies the scent of winter roses in the room where Lyanna died.  She has a black rose in her hand, another variation of the hellebore.  So I doubt the place was the ToJ or Dorne.  It seems more likely that Martin is pointing to the general region closer to Harrenhall since this is the only area we can place them from the books.. 

 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

The link between hellebore and the Greek seer Melampus is curious but probably unintentional. The myth is that Dionysus (a horned god of fertility, wine and vegetation) cursed the daughters of a Greek king driving them mad; they were cured by Melampus with a ritual involving black hellebore flowers.

It's interesting that the black hellebore has a connection to Dionysus, the horned god and that Lyanna has a black rose in her hand when she dies.

I'm starting to think that Robert Baratheon may be Jon's father after all.  In spite of the book of lineages and obstructions that we are given to direct the reader elsewhere.  I don't think all of Robert's bastards looked like Robert and that's why the missing bastards are unidentified.  Jon Snow-Storm has a certain appeal.

I doubt very much that Lyanna was left at Harrenhall considering how the tourney ended.  I thinks it's more likely that she went with Ned and Robert back to the Eyrie where she would be safest.  The only opportunity to grab her would be when she travels to Riverrun for Brandon's wedding.  She may have been travelling with him with a stop at the Crossroads Inn while Brandon left the party for a time.  This may be where Rhaegar fell upon her.

It's also possible that she escaped with the help of that wild card, Howland Reed.  I like the idea that she was hidden on the Quiet Isle disguised as a Septa and the room she died in was Elder Brother's cave.